In reply to Lord Psynister (msg # 5):

Dang Lord P-be safe!

Let's rank out what everyone whats to play. List your top three concepts in order of fav so that we can arrive at a conclusion about what everyone whats to play-does that sound fair?

No worries on the Guild type, I can create something more mercenary that broadens the scope a bit of your relatively newly formed guild.

Quick question are there any restrictions on race, class or so on?

I think most games end up following the mercenary concept already, which is why I was looking more thieves' guild. Mercenaries and urban adventure don't mesh quite the same.

Seeing what the others are considering, I'm going to rework one of mine a bit. I think I'm going to pursue the healer role, but we have a lot of nice damage builds proposed, so I'm going to ease off of the frontline fighting healer a bit and dip more into spells and skills. I'll be back with a priority list after I've done that rework.

looks like we have a lot of good concepts.

To answer an above question



For my self I like a good story. Keep the world real. Make us a part of a bigger whole and not just the small focus. Repeat NPCs are a boon in a game like this. More so if they are fleshed out with some background. Not saying all NPCs need to be this way, but ones we deal with a good bit. As far as larger world. New traders from far off lands and news work great to build a wider scope without having to build a huge amount of the world.

Anyways I hope that helps.








So my thought here is that as a fledgling guild we will be looking to take on contracts (basically sets us as Mercs.) But the end goal of these contracts should be to gain influence.
To me that means we may trade favors as much as coin for jobs. All jobs should fall under the Guild name and credit is clearly made to the guild and not the member/s that carried it out.
We'll also need to consider the types of jobs our guild will want to take on. Do we only do law abiding jobs, or do we take any job no matter what it entails? Just somthing for us to consider.

Also Acquisitions INC I think would be a huge addition to this style of game.



Okay. So Mine in order and a bit of added detail.

1: Custom Linage Elf. Echo Knight with Arcane Trickster multiclass. My plan with this build is to utilize the Double Scimitar and Revenant Blade feat. That mean taking two weapon fighting and The character will be played more along the lines of an Assassin. The main goal being sudden first strikes (and hopefully death) from hiding.

2: Fariy. My initial thought was going Circle of the Shepherd for this one. I'm not overly sure how well the concept would fit in with a Thieves Guild though. Thus I've actually shifted on this character and want to do a Cleric of the Trickery Domain. I feel this would fit in the game better and offer some interesting Role Play opportunities. With this build I'd focus more on being a support character rather than front line.

3: Half Elf Soul Knife. I'm considering a couple of level dips for this build. So this one I think could be a bit of fun. I want to play him as a con artist and less combat focused. Actually He will have an avoidance of violence in general. Thus appearing to be unarmed. I'd focus on more Cha based skills than the stealth skills.

Note: Reading this through before posting it may come off vague, please let me know.



An absolutely fair point, a thieves guild is fine with me so long as it includes an appropriate amount of thuggery and other crime that doesn't limit us to pickpocketing and heists (though some of that is nice too).

Given the interest of other players in cleric and/or a healer type character I'll take that off my list. I really think we should have at least one trickery cleric in a thieves guild as the flavour and utility is just too good to pass up.

Assuming someone else is playing a cleric, my preferences would be a Custom Lineage Human or Variant Human:
1) Conquest Paladin. I'd go dexterity based with light armour and pick up stealth proficiency either through a background or a v-human skill.
I see this character as "the muscle", mostly using intimidation and force as their tools rather than social finesse. they're more likely to smash and grab than crack the safe.

2) Undead Warlock. Resident creep and scary person. I'd probably go with Vecna (or similar) as a patron and be more interested in gathering knowledge than coin.

3) Obligatory sneaky thief type if we don't already have one. Probably a Gloom Stalker Ranger or Arcane Trickster Rogue.



I think this is the right idea and I absolutely think if we're leaning towards thieves guild that we would take unlawful jobs as well but maybe not take official credit. Unless we want to go full Robin Hood, I think we're not the good guys.

I'm also a fan of the Acq Inc stuff. Given the game is not currently rated Mature or Adult we'll probably not be going too dark so this sort of light-hearted content or bureaucratic style villainy could be quite fun.

I did some rebuilding on mine characters.

1) V Human (Fey Touched) Circle of Stars Druid. Skill proficiency is still low, but ability scores moved around making him much more versatile on the skills front. He will be a support character with damage potential when necessary. He has plenty of healing and can help with ingress/egress with spells like Pass w/o Trace, Fog Cloud, Entangling Roots, and Silvery Barbs. Since he's a druid, he can shake up the spell selection every day, based on the job.

2) Kobold Draconic Sorcerer. He likes to light things on fire. And when I say "things", I'm talking about his enemies. He has high damage, low versatility due to the limited spell selection, but the things he does do, he does well. Send him out to make a hit. Send him to burn down a competitor's warehouse, to destroy evidence, or just as a high profile distraction. You need buildings on fire to make an escape? How many, and can he stay and watch?

3) Cust Lineage (Telekinetic) Valor Bard. Skills-focused, high Int/Cha. Poor damage output, but good buffs/debuffs for combat, and high versatility.

When I made the LFD post to start with, aiming for a thieves' guild concept, I assumed the unlawfulness was fully implied. If we were only doing lawful stuff, we wouldn't be thieves in the first place. I think by doing unlawful stuff we A) get to stick to the primarily urban setting, B) get to have our version of recurring villains essentially be the law enforcement and/or political leaders of the town (not to mention rival guilds), C) get to become far more invested in the NPCs and locations within the city itself. You don't just offer protection to the warehouse district because you want the coin, you do it because that's where Little Jimmy's grandfather lives, where Fat Tony works with the guy who forges documents for us, and because Slick Riddik's shop is there and that's the primary front for our smuggling operations.

I think the credit always goes to the guild, from the start. We'll have reputations within the guild, but to the outside world we're not individuals, we're Shadows.

so going through the classes we listed and I think this would be our ideal set up

Rosslington your Conquest Paladin (1st option)
Lord Psynister your Druid (1st option)
And for my self The Con Man (3rd option)

I feel this would give us the muscle we need. A healer that can double down as a spy and do some of the stealth we need. A party face that can back up the druid with the stealth.

What I see as second best would be

Rosslington your Undead Warlock (2nd option)
Lord Psynister your Telekinetic Valor Bard (3rd Option)
And my self The Elf eco knight/ arcane trickster (1st option)

With this set up we would have some magical might (all 3 characters). Party faces in both the warlock and bard. We would double down on muscle (bard and my trickster knight). And we would still have someone who can do all the harder stealth stuff.

In reply to HEarlPendelfield (msg # 8):

No restrictions.

Are Strixhaven backgrounds available? I wouldn't mind having more than just 2 cantrips.

In reply to Lord Psynister (msg # 15):

I have a dislike of Strixhaven but I think that allowing the backgrounds found within would be fair. Additionally, I do not have any of the Acquisition INC material so it would be unlikely for us to see their inclusion here.

Apologies.

I don't care for Strixhaven either, I would take it purely for the extra spells.

I'm going to lock in the Stars Druid for mine. I feel pretty cheesy doing a race with a feat while using a background with a feat though, so I'm going to swap to a half-elf for my race.

Attempting this from my phone, so I will be brief.

Looking at the following in order of preference.

1) Half-Drow Artificer(Armorer subclass)
2) Drow Rogue (Phantom subclass)
3) Hill Dwarf Grave Cleric

What do you guys think.

Yeah, I feel the same way. It does feel bad that the backgrounds can be very mechanically powerful compared to most others but don't really fit with a lot of character concepts. The powergamer in me really wants to take Lorehold Student but it doesn't feel right. I do wonder if WOTC'll be trying to balance that out with reworks of the older backgrounds in the updated sourcebooks they intend to put out in the next few years.



As Psyn has locked in Star Druid I'm happy to lock in Conquest Paladin.
As said before I'd go with a dexterity build and will also have high charisma, going with the Criminal background so that I will have access to both stealth and thieves' tools. I'm likely to pick up Telekinetic with my racial feat in order to shove people around the battlefield or in front of oncoming carts, this'll also go nicely with my fear effects at later levels.

Sand, I actually think your Echo Knight/Arcane trickster would work really well here as well,  but if you prefer your Con Man idea you should go with that.


I like the Grave Cleric as a full caster that compliments the party best so far and I'll feel better about not going Lorehold Student knowing you'll be able to stick next to me with Spirit Guardians later on.
That being said, all of these will work great so you should play the one you are most interested in.

My druid's Cha is currently sitting at a 13. I could swap his Int/Cha in order to be a face if we're lacking that, but lots of skills are tied to Int. I don't mind doing it, I'm just throwing that out there.

I'm slightly in favor of the echo knight over the soul knife, but I think either one would work just fine. When we're together, Pass w/o Trace gives us enough of a Stealth buff to make up for characters not being specifically built for such. When it comes to individual work, of course, that goes out the window.

I'll have a 16 or likely 18 charisma at character creation (I'll actually do the build when we're decided) as well as proficiency in a couple of charisma skills so can easily be a 'face'.

A 13 Cha for you is probably plenty.

Edit: Here's what I've got as a draft
https://drive.google.com/file/...hOG/view?usp=sharing

For the common Item I'm tossing up between the Horn of Silent Alarm and a Clockwork Amulet.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:59, Sun 06 Feb 2022.

 Yeah 13 cha for you will def be enough.

I plan to go with the Con Man. Rouge 3/Bard x Thinking Whispers Bard will be a nice combo for this. I'll be maxed out for Cha on this build and have all the social skills. I'll go Half Elf and pick up the Charlatan background.




I think any and all of these would go nicely with what we have. So pick the one you like the most.

All fine choices. I have a slight preference for the Artificer simply because it has easy access to some magic items like Bag of Holding that could come in handy for jobs. It's also unique compared to the other selections, we don't have anyone doing arcane or an Int-based class otherwise.

Both of the others are nice too, different strengths for different situations. I haven't gotten to play a Phantom yet, but they look cool. Clerics are one of my top 3 classes, and their spells are awesome, so I'll never dissuade someone from playing one.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:37, Sun 06 Feb 2022.

If we have any further questions please feel free to PM to be directly on posting them here. I would like to start creating characters and working out character quirks, questions that happen during creation.

Let's begin with everyone posting their character's name, lineage, and class so that I may get everyone added.

Remember we will begin at level 3, max hit points, and 3 points of inspiration.

Nickname: Shim
Race: Half-Elf
Class: Druid 3, Circle of Stars
This message was last edited by the player at 20:35, Sun 06 Feb 2022.

Name: Dysmia
Lineage: Human (Custom Lineage)
Class: Paladin (Conquest)

Ok so been playing around a bit with my concept and have it all figured out. Changing up the race slightly to add a bit more of fun RP.

Name: Avex
Race: Changling
Class: Soul Knife Rouge

Okay think I will stick with my first choice.

Name: Adragon
Race: Half-Drow
Class: Artificer

As we finish up with our Session Zero and begin making characters. Please let me know when you are finished so that I can set your languages and review your trinket

Okay, I think Adragon is pretty much finished.