Talk:Germain's Character Sheet (Pathfinder)

No Professional Build

If I were to drop profession, I would focus on the Ranger/Bard side of Germain. That would give me a solid skill point total, boost my combat and arcane magic skills quite a bit, but still keep the feel of a street smart and politically cunning sheriff archtype. I could also go Rogue, but I think Germain is more of a support player than DPS, which is why I think bard is the better match. I think the Urban Ranger archtype is a strong match for where I was going with Germain, though. Because of his exposer and influence with Big Politics in Wydmoor, I would look towards the Master Spymaster or Noble Scion prestige classes if I were to go with one. I do think this is a moderate shift from what Germain used to be--he's probably going to have more combat skills, he'll be a proper spellcaster, and a lot more bardic music abilities. He probably will lose some of the extra skills I got in the conversion, but I expect he'll be pretty close to original Germain WRT skills. What do we think? --Msallen

Feat Discussion

Master of the Ledger

I would like to make a homebrew version of this, based on my own thoughts, the old Al-Quadim mercantile system, and our discussions on talk page. Change the cap by an order of magnitude OR make the cap dependent on (character level/city size). However, I would rather see at least the token chance of loss. I suggest our old friend the d4. Something like 1=lose 25% of investment, 2=no significant gain, 3-4=maybe +15 or +20 percent, depending on what the mathomancers decide is reasonable. Or even nested d4s! The loss is like 1d4+1x10% and the gain is like 1d6x5% or, again, whatever the mathomancers suggest. I want there to be some risk, but with the overall trajectory being upward. I would also think it would be investment per "settlement" instead of "market", which is still a fuzzy term, but far less so. -gm

I'm cool with that, although for the record I was more interested in the flavor and the skill buffs than the actual financial part of the feat. If it was just a more powerful gold engine without the skill stuff, I probably wouldn't take it. --Msallen

Here is a bit of a goofy take on Germain for pathfinder. The skills stayed relatively the same (except for major hits to diplomacy from the sync nerf), with a minor bump to knowledges, and a major bump to new skills: appraise, profession (laywer), and stealth. Saves took a hit, although it seems like that's in keeping with the system, and combat took a small boost from the addition of more ranger levels. He's definitely got a couple of more weird abilities now, the most interesting from a character perspective being the "master of the ledger" feat at level 11. He's definitely more of a professional laywer/lawman with this feat, the urban ranger skills (favored terrain and track), and the investigation professional development skill. What do you think? --Msallen

Master of the ledger is definitely weird. 100gp investments? What is his investment, a hundred pairs of shoes? -Slitherrr

Well, the root profession is Laywer, so I think "investments" could be pretty broad. He's definitely not going to be running a law firm because that is an absurd anacronism, but business law has been a pretty big part of the SW campaign (Aarasti's collapse, the Kathkallan investigation, LE's arcane mark weirdness, funding the Templar church, etc). I'd think this would represent an ability to invest in a variety of businesses to capitalize on favorable political climate, protect his holdings through legal channels, and on the more shady side, weaken competing businesses by pushing legislation or selectively enforcing laws. Something like Johnny Behan from the beginning of Tombstone--a lawman who is invested in local businesses and using his political clout to secure their success. --Msallen

When I say, "Weird," I actually just mean in the context of the system. It actually fits Germain. I was leaning more towards the fact that 100gp is a paltry amount. I mean, average 12.5 free gp a month (barring catastrophe, and assuming you can visit the market every month) isn't NOTHING, but it's not a whole lot. -Slitherrr

Ooo. Yeah, the 100gp cap is probably the weird part. With that cap, you'd average 12.5gp per month through investments, and would make a minumum of 32gp per month using your profession directly. At any level where you can swing 6 skill ranks, the cash is hardly worth it from either use of profession. Anyways, I liked it for the skill buffs and flavor. --Msallen

And it doesn't even compound--the feat explicitly says that you may only invest up to 100 gp per market, and that each visit earns you 25% of gp (not "increases the investment by"). Feasibly there could be several markets in a small area, say four markets in a large city, and maybe five surrounding villages with a market each that are all roughly a day away from city and each other. That still takes up a full week of the month in traveling to make 112.5 gp. I guess the real lesson is that it's tough to be anyone but a hero chosen by Fate to have all kinds of cool dungeons to loot :P -Slitherrr

I was thinking about this more, and I think it really depends on lifestyle upkeep costs for the game. These used to be in the DMG for earlier editions, but I'm not sure they are still around. I did find some links for homebrew versions here and here. Both these guys put upper middle class at 50-100gp per month, so with that math, you could spend one week a month maintaining a high-quality life and have 3 weeks leftover for other stuff. It's not very useful in Jones's campaigns since 1 year in meatspace is about 1 week in game, but for campaigns with more downtime, that income doesn't seem to out of line. In any case, it's also 100gp one time cost to get a stack of skill bonuses when you are out and about in your city, which is pretty good even without the nominal income. --Msallen

I think ideally it'd be a function of the population of the city where you are investing. You can make more in a town of 30,000 than you can the farmers market in a hamlet of 300. -gm

Right, and the feat waves at that from afar by talking about multiple markets in a town, although it doesn't really get into the fact that number of markets is a terrible measure, being a single market in a capital city might have ten times more people than the entire town that contains a market somewhere else. In any case, it looks like we're agreed that it's kind of a head-scratching rule for the feat. -Slitherrr

Voice of the Sibyl

Re: voice of the sibyl... do we like that feat? It's a little odd and looks like its very much a regional feat, but I took it since it was in the pdsrd. Do we approve of that one? Without it, I'd be a good bit shy of non-PF diplomacy levels, although I expected that due to the syn nerf. --Msallen

This campaign really doesn't take advantage of the brokenness of Diplomacy as its displayed in the rules, so I don't see why we should really have a problem with it. +9 is a lot, but you need a 30-rank investment to get all of that--otherwise, it's just slightly better than the +6 skill focus gives. -Slitherrr

Misc

Correction: I compared skills apples to apples, and they are, on the whole, better in pathfinder. The wheelhouse skills are about the same, but I was able to add perception to that list, and I also flushed out the skill list a good bit with great support skills like heal, support, knowledge (dungeoneering), profession (lawyer), and stealth at solid bonuses. --Msallen

Yeah skills in PF seem to be a solid gain in general. -Slitherrr

Tweaking:

• Combat Expertise got a much-deserved nerf, and now defensive fighting/total defense is probably just as good for Germain. Do you still threaten/flank when you use total defense? I read through the combat section and it looks like you do, but it seems odd. Regardless, if I drop this feat, it free's up a slot.
  • Lots of stuff was nerfed, and nerfed does not mean gone or broken. This is not an opportunity to rebuild from scratch. Conversions are supposed to be as close as possible - you have to keep any feat. I feel zero badness about this, since everyone is picking up at least one Feat anyway. -gm
    • I'm cool with that. I tried to be pretty faithful level-to-level except for the ranger/professional swap. You ok with that change? --Msallen
• Rhetorical Flourish seems more germain-ish than Careful Speaker