[Discussion] The Nameless discussion thread

[oslecamo]

I'd love to see Residuum in action, but it's apparently not ready yet... anything else you like works.

Can I just get a definitive yes/no on whether shaping formulae counts as spellcasting where the choker is concerned? I figured it is but just wanted to confirm.

Osle, as the creator of said choker, would you like to weigh in on this?  The class doesn't say anything about things like invocations, maneuvers, etc. either.

That was a question I was faced with when desiging the choker. The answer I came up with was indeed that it should only be denied to spells and psionics (which are just as powerful as spells). Maneuvers and invocations were left out of the restriction in purpose. And since formulae seem suposed to be on the power level of maneuvers, I would say it should be ok to allow a choker to use them with his extra action.

[sirpercival]

That was actually my inclination as well.  Double formulae or maneuvers is significantly less broken-making than double spells.

[VennDygrem]

That was actually my inclination as well.  Double formulae or maneuvers is significantly less broken-making than double spells.

OK then all that's left to do is decide which spellshaper to go with and build the character.

[ShadowViper]

=/=?      At level 8, he'd be a 8th level caster, -2 CL for not worshiping The Dark God would make him a 6th level caster. So that's possibly a loss of 2d, 2 minutes, 2 rounds, 2 hours, etc

Edit: Which raises the question(third time now  ) which Yuan-ti Deity does this settng use? Standard D&D one?

Edit 2: Already have a planned Red Lotus member in the party?

=/= is "does not equal".  He'd be an 8th-level caster with a CL of 6. Yes, -2d, -2 levels for duration, etc... but still access to the correct level of spells and the right number of spell slots.

Aye, I understand.

The only homebrew deity is the Dark God.  Any other deities (racial deities, etc.) are standard.

And maybe not... I was just suggesting a possible way to connect a Yuan-Ti and a Firre Eladrin.

Also liking the idea of a Human Cleric of the Dark Lord. Would be alot more simple than the Yuan-ti, so not sure. Need a bit more information and such first.

Seems one of the gaps is a Divine Caster.

Edit: Also, wouldn't a large snake creature be uhhh.....rather obvious...?   

Human Cleric would certainly be easier from a backstory perspective.  But again, I don't want to stifle your creativity... so we can make a YT work if that's what you want to play.

And as for obviousness, that's what Deceivingly Innocent Form or Alternate Form are for.

Aye, but not sure if I'd want to take those feats. Considering I'm playing something simular in another of your campaigns heh.

If I were to do the YT I honestly wouldn't bother with those feats. If needing to hide he could easily pose as a familar with his viper forms.

It seems that sponsorship isn't as great as I thought. (As I understand it) It is only temporary and you pretty much lose "everything," the only benefit really being that if your selected domains are shared with The Dark God, you get to cast those spells at full strength/caster level. So there's another monkey wrench. It just seems that perhaps a Yuan-Ti Abomination Cleric isn't really going to work out for this campaign. I'd still like to make it work, I'm just not really sure if it'll be that great. Starting off he'd be pretty much a grappler, and we already have(I believe) two meleers.

So thinking more "realistically," might go ahead with a Human Cleric of The Dark God.

Need a bit more in-put though before any final decisions are made, if the Yuan-Ti Cleric can be made to work, awesome. If not, no big deal.

The way "sponsorship" works is that you essentially change your deity to the Dark God.  You don't lose anything except access to domains which aren't on the DG's list.  But if you want to go back to worshipping your original deity, you have to atone.

Thought it said you also lose "off-domain" spells? Wouldn't those be all other spells or "normal" spells?

Aye, most of them RP. The thing is really starting off he'd be a grappler pretty much. It wouldn't be until 8th that'd he'd beable to cast divine spells. And from what I see, a divine caster is a current gap in the party.

While I'd very much like to see if we can make the Yuan-Ti Abomination Cleric work, I think for time-saving-sake, I'm going to go ahead and work on a Human Cleric of the Dark Lord.

While it's established that PBPs are slow and we may never get out of 6th level, what's the highest possible level for this campaign?

Highest possible level is 20th.  This is going to be a pretty brutal game, so expect a lot of experience.  Should help offset the slowness of the medium.

I really like the idea of an entire Yuan-Ti Cult attemtping to corrupt the Red Lotus from within via an all YT Red Lotus Cell. So that's probably the background I'd go with, with the Yuan-Ti following the standard YT deity(either asking for sponsorship temporarily or not, what are your thoughts? Right now you know the setting the best so how would you see something like this playing out?).

But there's still the matter of him not being a divine caster until level 8 and pretty much being a grappler until then.

I'm just not sure at this point, a lot of "what-ifs" or "maybes" still hanging in the air.

[sirpercival]

Thought it said you also lose "off-domain" spells? Wouldn't those be all other spells or "normal" spells?

No, what I meant by that is spells from off-domains.  Domains which aren't on the DG list.  Normal cleric spells are fine.

I really like the idea of an entire Yuan-Ti Cult attemtping to corrupt the Red Lotus from within via an all YT Red Lotus Cell. So that's probably the background I'd go with, with the Yuan-Ti following the standard YT deity(either asking for sponsorship temporarily or not, what are your thoughts? Right now you know the setting the best so how would you see something like this playing out?).

But there's still the matter of him not being a divine caster until level 8 and pretty much being a grappler until then.

I'm just not sure at this point, a lot of "what-ifs" or "maybes" still hanging in the air.

Yeah, basically it just comes down to the question of what you want to play.

[ShadowViper]

Pretty much what I'm asking is in-character-wise. How would the Yuan-ti(plural) go about doing this? Would they take temporary sponsorship from The Dark God, or would they grin and bear it, continuing to worship their Deity even with the loss of spell power/effectiveness as they attempt to corrupt and overthrow the Imperium. Pretty much what would the Yuan-Ti operating proceedure be in this situation. I guess simpliest question would be: What are my Yuan-ti's orders and how is he directed to go about carrying them out?

Aslo how would the city react to a YT Abomination slithering down the street, on his way to buy supplies(for example)? Guessing this isn't a big problem since Demons are allowed in the city, but always good not to make assumptions. 

Most of my questions are more setting specfic fluff and logistics, to get a better idea of how to play such a character.

[sirpercival]

Pretty much what I'm asking is in-character-wise. How would the Yuan-ti(plural) go about doing this? Would they take temporary sponsorship from The Dark God, or would the grin and bear it, continuing to worship their Deity even with the loss of spell power/effectiveness. Pretty much what would the Yuan-Ti operating proceedure be in this situation.

Oh, okay. Right.  Well, first of all I'm sure not all of them would be clerics.  For those that were, it seems less likely to me that they would worship their deity in secret, with all that entails -- much better to do something else and then revert at the moment of greatest betrayal to others.  Given that, there are two ways they could go about it:

1) Worship an ideal, to get around the whole thing.

2) Do what you said and worship the DG in name only, getting the spells.  This seems very likely; the DG doesn't care about your innermost secret thoughts, as long as you aren't a member of his clergy.  As long as you pay him lip service, he has more important things to do.  Lots and lots of people pay him lip service.  Then once he is overthrown (in the long-term goals of the YT), you can supplant him with the YT deity.

Aslo how would the city react to a YT Abomination slithering down the street, on his way to buy supplies(for example)? Guessing this isn't a big problem since Demons are allowed in the city, but always good not to make assumptions. 

Most of my questions are more setting specfic fluff and logistics, to get a better idea of how to play such a character.

Well, they'd probably be freaked to shit, but if you had citizenship there isn't much they could do about it.  Since they start off looking mostly human, shouldn't be hard to get citizenship. 

[ShadowViper]

Aye really like the idea of the Yuan-ti using the spells granted by the Dark God to overthrow the Dark God. Can easily see them still worshiping their Deity with their right hands while offering lip service and requesting spells from the Dark God with their left hands.

Thinking he'd probably have grown up within the Red Lotus Cell, being a member all his life, growing up within the small Yuan-ti Community and advancing until current day, he's a 6HD Abomination about to enter the Arcana Games.

The only remaining possible problem I now see is no current divine caster in the party. As a level six Yuan-Ti Abomination is a Grappler/BFCer by the looks of it.

[VennDygrem]

Well, what exactly does having a divine caster in the group get us? Buffs? To my knowledge, the anchorite does that. Heals? Anchorite. BFC? We've got that covered. Rants or sermons about this ideal or that? Well, we've got a scholar to talk our ears off.

[ShadowViper]

Olse, I noticed Yuan-ti don't get Hide as a class skill, why is that?

[Nanshork]

I guess that means you want me to play an Anchorite.   

[VennDygrem]

You said you were going to play one before getting infatuated with the Elemental Adept.

[Nanshork]

You said you were going to play one before getting infatuated with the Elemental Adept.

Technically I'm infatuated with the Dragonheart Adept but we don't need one of those.   

[oslecamo]

Olse, I noticed Yuan-ti don't get Hide as a class skill, why is that?

Because I did that monster's skill lists while playing on my DS Dunno what you're talking about, the Yuan-Ti has Hide as a class skill right there.

[ShadowViper]

 

[ShadowViper]

For the purposes of the Yuan-Ti Cultist Prestige Class, does the Yuan-Ti's Monster Class' SLAs count as "Psionic"

Psionic Focus (Su): At 4th level, a yuan-ti cultist’s psionic ability becomes more focused. He adds +2 to the DC for all saving throws against his innate psionic powers.

His innate psionic powers being the SLAs.

The Yuan-Ti Cultist is on Page 98 of Savage Species.

Also, would the Yuan-Ti Racial Levels also count as cleric levels for the purposes of the abilities/powers granted by the Yuan-Ti Cultist class.

For exmaple

(snippet) Sticks to Snakes (Sp): At 2nd level, a yuan-ti cultist
gains the ability to transform inert pieces of wood, such as arrows, torches,
or staffs, into snakes. Once per day, he can transform 1d4 sticks + 1 per class level (including cleric levels) within medium range (100 feet + 10 feet/level).
Reposted in more "concise" post

Also more of a question for Olse, as a Yuan-Ti cleric, why are domains so restricted?

Looking around I found a listing of Domains for Merrshaulk in LG_Deities(from Wizards) which can be downloaded from this wiki page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrshaulk

Chaos, Destruction, Domination* (CD), Evil, Mind* (CD), Plant, Tyranny* (CW)

Question reposted in more "concise" post

It seems optimization wise, ideals might be the best way to go for a Yuan-Ti Abomination Cleric/Yuan-Ti Cultist. What are some ideal examples that would closely follow along with Merrshaulk's dogma. Could use some suggestions/examples. Still don't feel right with a ideal cleric though, imo clerics should be worships deities.

It's just more and more seeming as though this campaign setting might not be the best one to attempt this character concept in. So might just go ahead with a Human Cleric, still not sure. Need to find a good time for rapid question & answer to get this really going I think. Doubtful overthinking, pay no attention.

[oslecamo]

Remember that Savage species was written between 3.0 and 3.5. The 3.0 Yuan-Ti indeed had most of its abilities listed as psionics, but the 3.5 yuan-ti had them listed as regular SLAs and Su stuff.

As for domain restrictions, that's what their MM entry says about yuan-ti clerics.

[ShadowViper]

Aye but the obvious intention of those Prestige class features is to build off their SLAs or "innate psionics"

It just seems like this Yuan-Ti concept is way more trouble than it's worth with a ton of stuff needing to be hammered out, worked out, work-arounds found, etc. More doubtful overthinking. 

[VennDygrem]

Does it need to be a yuan-ti abomination, then? How many levels were you sinking into it? Could you just deal with less to start?

[ShadowViper]

It doesn't, but it is kind of a concept I've been wanting to do for awhile.

Yuan-Ti Abomination Cleric/Yuan-Ti Cultist. So if we can make it work, that would be agreat. But no big deal if we can't. It just looks like it might not be a good fit for this campaign setting.

While he could always follow an ideal(which seems it would be the easiest work around) I'm having trouble visualizing that in my head. First time I'd be attempting an "Ideal Cleric" and I'm also of the opinion that clerics should worship deities.

It just really seems like with this campaign setting, if you want to play a cleric other than that of the Dark God, you're pretty much shit out of luck. Which is fine, I like this campaign setting. Just making this concept work on a satisfactory level is going to be more difficult.

Another stand-by to still have a Yuan-Ti would simply be enter Sniper at level 8, but then I feel like I'm "wasting" the cleric racial benefit. Sniper would work great too, especially since he wouldn't be that vulnerable in the event of being engaged in melee: Bite>Coil(Grapple)>Acid Release.

These recent questions are more character planning and how things would work when he gets to such and such level.

I think for now I'll work on building him as a level 6 Abomintion(Which I don't see really changing depending on class selection).

Heh I guess really, if I'm going to play a Yuan-Ti I want to play a full blown "complete" Yuan-Ti. Adomination Cleric/Yuan-Ti Cultist completely devoted to Merrshaulk. Balls to the wall, go big or go home type deal. In other words, I'd rather not have a half-ass Yuan-ti.

Not to mention I'd also be playing him as Chaotic Evil(though party friendly), likely his cruelty, evil, destruction, torturious intents, etc focused outside the party at convenient targets and targets who become convenient due to planning, etc.

SirP is there a way we could instant message?

Edit: I still really like the idea of using the Dark God's power to overthrow the Dark God, so I think I'll stick with sponsorship. As for domains, while the racial class domains are only Chaos, Destruction, Evil & Plant, what about Evil and Domination for my character's two domains? Domination is on Merrshaulk's list as of the Living Greyhawk Deites(2005 I believe) "expansion" free Wizards PDF.

Heh and sorry for the rambling, just trying to get things sorted mostly. 

Edit 2: Bah just more fully read over the Yuan-Ti Cultist(been awhile heh) and noticed that it's HD is d4, so not really sure if I'll be going into Cultist. Would a Yuan-Ti Cultist even fit with the world/setting? If no Cultist then levels will look like Yuan-Ti 7/Cleric 13. With Cultist: Yuan-Ti 7/Cleric 1/Cultist 10/Cleric 2. While cool, I'm having doubt about Cultist being the best idea due not only to the low HD but the skill pre-reqs as well(but it'd be awesome RPing turning people into Tainted Ones/Broodguards). Sorry about the rambling, hope I'm not being too annoying. I just always like to have as complete an idea as possible of how the character fits into the world and how the world affects/shapes the character.

Outloud brainstorming and doubtful overthinking. Keep or delete?