there you see, that's why you don't always trust my memory

Next step is for folks to post in OOC their reason for heading to Saltmarsh.  It doesn't need to be the real reason you're telling the DM, just what you're going to tell folks you meet on the road.  Hopefully you'll come up with a reason to spot a young cleric of Atroa on an important quest to save her village.

Perhaps you once rode through this nameless forgotten village and bought an apple from her farm stand.  She remembers you because you were the girl dwarf with a beard.

Perhaps you just "happen" to look exactly like the wanted posters for Dirk Faloy, self proclaimed forest pirate, and you keep pointing out that the poster says he only has three fingers on his right hand!

Perhaps you forgot your waterskin (adding to character sheet now) and waited in the shade by the road begging for a drink from passersby.  Upon hearing that you're both going to Saltmarsh, you decide to walk together.

Perhaps you ignored that vagabond without a waterskin beside the road but he now seems to be following you with another.  Is that Dirk Faloy!

Perhaps you're a traveling illusionist on to another show.  You and your assistant, a bumbling mage friend from magic school, hope to drum up excitement for the upcoming show (another tavern show, really?  Can't we get in with a local lord or something?) with some local exploit.  Now all you need is a crew of rough necks to do the heavy lifting, you add some pyrotechnics, throw in a beautiful assistant (not the mage friend, make a note to find an actual girl and not that one with the beard!), and you're on your way to fame and fortune!  You just need to find the right angle.

Ardoon,

With rolls as you made, you could be a Paladin, Druid or Ranger without problem :) or of course a Magic user/Illusionist.

You could also be a Monk but they are very hard to play at low levels and are only rewarding at very high levels as far as I remember.

I kind of like the idea of being a travelling illusionist and I have an idea for it that I am sort of excited about. Though if you guys want me to be another class to better help the team or me then I am open to the possibility!

Also on a side note I feel like I got really lucky with the rolls. I was practicing the rolls earlier before I did it on Rpol and I got like two totals of 4 and my highest was a 10.

No problem,

Play whatever you feel would be the most fun for you :)

In reply to Ardoon (msg # 37):

yah the group is pretty well balanced honestly

At the moment, I'm going to be a devout half orc archer..
This message was last edited by the player at 15:12, Thu 05 Oct 2017.

Could I please request that you not be a half-orc? Dwarves have a long history of animosity toward orc-kind of all sorts, and I would really prefer not to be at bared teeth with a fellow party member.

Have a DMG in front of me for saves

Cleric
PPD 10
PP 13
RSW 14
BW 16
Sp 15

Fighter
PPD 14
PP 15
RSW 16
BW 17
Sp 17

Magic User
PPD 14
PP 13
RSW 11
BW 15
Sp 12

Thief
PPD 13
PP 12
RSW 14
BW 16
Sp 15

In reply to Kelra (msg # 42):

Thanks that's darn handy

Agreed. Thanks; I can now update my character sheet.

I find it funny that the PHB says something along the lines of "fighters don't get spells, but their weapons and armor make up for it, and they generally have good saving throws." And then their saving throws are the worst of the four classes. :)

Speaking of the DMG, DM, in the Attributes section it says, "the player character is above average -at least in some respects - and has superior potential. Furthermore, it is usually essential to the character's survival to be exceptional (with a rating of 15 or above) in no fewer than two ability characteristics." So, does that mean that those of us without two 15's or better can reroll our stats? :)

In reply to Tolantra (msg # 44):




This probably just means that at one point someone thought it should be the first way, then later they, or someone else, decided it shouldn't be that way, and they forgot to change the first part




In practical terms, it feels more like a warning that you shouldn't expect characters with less than two 15s surviving for long...

I think fighters start the worse with Saving throws but improve them the fastest (every other level) and thus get the best ST at the end. At least this is how it is in 2nd edition which I am more versed at. Magic User get a better starting save but improve it once every 5th level so their improvement is rather slow.

The whole spread of abilities in AD&D is ridiculous, you start to get bonuses only from around 15 (or penalties from around 7).

The game is suppose to be for exceptional characters but no rolling method support it, make me wonder why they didn't follow BRB example and just rolled 2d6+6 or even 3d6 (take the highest 2) +6.

The whole level restriction for non human is also totally bogus and make one wonder why bother playing a non human. I mean if you didn't want them in the game fine don't include them but if you do don't make them such a lose cause.

In reply to Bren (msg # 46):



Ah ha!



I guess either it was supposed to be hard with a hard curve, or else they expected you to roll up characters until you got "a good one" and kept that?

"The whole level restriction for non human is also totally bogus and make one wonder why bother playing a non human. I mean if you didn't want them in the game fine don't include them but if you do don't make them such a lose cause."

They seemed to think nonhumans were really overpowered, I guess, and were trying to balance it...

Anyway, I am agreeing with you...

Typically I let the dice fall where they may, with mulligans happening only if the average of your stats is less than 10.



Play a non-human character for the demi-human benefits, infared vision, special little quirks, etc. It's also there to give incentive to play humans, without the level caps everyone would be demi-humans because the benefits are greater than no benefits for being a human. Besides, multi-classing is kind of encouraged for demi-humans, especially if they hit the level cap for the class. That said, you'll only hit a max of level 3-4 in TSSoSM; if we continue into a full campaign after the module then I'll consider raising level limitations.

That's okay; I was mostly being facetious. :)

I think I'm mostly done with the character, mechanics-wise. I need some help on languages, though. As a dwarf, I speak, Common, Dwarven, and Lawful Good by default. My Int is 10. Does that mean I get to pick 2 additional languages of my choice? And do you have any advice on picking languages?

Speaking of rerolling, what level will replacement characters start out at?

It's always nice to have some incentive to keep your current character alive when you know you're restarting at first level.

Also an advantage to die early if you want to reroll your stats and hope for something better without too much experience loss.

That just means that's the max number of languages you can learn in addition to your starting languages, but yes. Also dwarves speak: Dwarven, gnome, goblin, kobold, and orcish (and alignment languages + common). Quite a few languages.



Level 1

In reply to Tolantra (msg # 49):

Oh, hey, yeah, I forgot-- my character speaks Neutral Good as well as Common. Awesome. When I was a kid I liked the idea of alignment languages. To hell with you, logic! Alignment languages are awesome!

Here's an interesting link I found about this... be sure to read the comments (if you care about the concept of alignment languages at all, which you might not).

https://rpg.stackexchange.com/...-alignment-languages
This message was last edited by the player at 20:11, Thu 05 Oct 2017.

DM: Wow. That's a lot of languages. I'm honestly not really sure what else I would want to pick with my two additional ones.

Istvan: That's an interesting link. Thanks for sharing. I've always thought alignment languages were incredibly stupid, but hearing that they were meant to be more along the lines of religious languages like Latin or Hebrew makes a lot of sense. It reminds me of Shogun, where the westerner and the Japanese Christian have to speak in Latin, because the enemy officer escorting them speaks the "common" European language they were using (it's been so long since I read that book that I can't remember if that was Portugese, English, or some other language).

In reply to Tolantra (msg # 53):

I think you and I should be friends, Tolantra. Good insights.

So my understanding is that we'll start as soon as we figure out how we might recognize one another from somewhere.  Whether alone or in pairs, we're all headed for Saltmarsh.

Kelra is headed to Saltmarsh on behalf of her village to ask a friendly alchemist if he might have a plant tonic to cure their blighted village tree.

Unless folks want to come up with their own proposals, we could just adopt and expand my earlier examples from msg#35.

So pick your portrait, fill in your character Description, and just put out a proposal of how we might know one another.  Was it the most recent Springfest where we happened to all compete in the same pie eating contest?

Bram Bramble is a poor beggar and a hermit that limp his way to the Saltmarsh, he would love company as his body is frail and sickly.

In reply to Kelra (msg # 55):



Holy cow I forgot about that.

Istvan Vanoson is the (third) bastard son of a pirate captain, who taught him the basics of fighting and gave him a bag of gold coins when he turned 18, most of which he's spent by now. He's come to the area seeking his fortune...

When he met a cleric on the road, he stuck near the cleric... he's always interested in clerics... he has a recurring nightmare about the undead, so clerics are always good people to know, in Istvan's opinion...

Casual acquaintances are fine, you don't have to be on a first name basis with each other; if that proves too difficult we'll just start and perhaps you meet each other on the road to Saltmarsh.

Actually that's not the worst idea. 7 connections are rather difficult to establish, so if you want a backstory tie to each other feel free but I'm going to post the starter. We're missing one character sheet but we have enough to start and if they don't finish up today they can just already be in the town.
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:32, Thu 05 Oct 2017.