All For One

In a previous article I’ve touched on using a theme in your game when creating your party. The article went on to talk about two broader themes, the classical elements and Arabian nights. Today I’d like to talk about one of the other ideas I touched on but didn’t expand upon. It doesn’t happen often although I’ve done it myself one or two times, the “all one class” party.

As much as I do love the idea of the all one class party, it does pose its own difficulties. The first thing you need to overcome is the similarity of powers granted to each of the base classes. Some classes—like rogues with their rogue talents, wizards with their school specialties, and sorcerers with their bloodlines—allow for differentiation in the characters you can build at their base. Even those difference don’t always allow for a good enough spread of skills to make a group viable.

Depending on how strict you want to go with the all one class party, you could allow for some small amount of multiclassing. The combinations are pretty endless if you go this route. For many players this may seem like a substantial loss of power. Pathfinder in particular has made sticking out the full twenty levels of a base class very appealing. If you’re like me, however, a good character can outweigh the lure of power, as long as you don’t go too far and completely gimp your party.

Old school D&D introduced kits, and this helped make your character a special member of its class. 3.x D&D took this idea a bit further and brought in prestige classes, letting players branch off into specific directions for their characters. Now Pathfinder has taken the idea and added archetypes to the mix, allowing you to stay the full twenty levels in one class; although they do retain prestige classes allowing for more variations. All of these options allow you to customize your characters even further while still staying true to the same class rule.

Now that we’ve laid out how we might go about creating an all one class party I think I want to talk about of my all-time favorite ideas for a single class group: the all paladin party. For some reason the idea of holy warriors of different gods getting together interests me greatly, each going about their holy duty in their individual way. But how can you keep all the characters unique and with their own niche in the party? For this example I will stick to some of the more popular deities for Pathfinder, for those not well-versed in all their deities and those who don’t use the system.

Eris Handler

Voice of Shelyn Goddess of art, beauty, love, and music

 

Eris is a lover and a fighter. Blessed with both the gift for song and a silver tongue Eris wasn’t always a choir boy. His childhood was a life of grifting one the streets of Magnimar, one of the many street urchins in the city of monuments. After one petty theft too many he finally found he couldn’t talk his way out of being sentenced the hells. Luckily for him, his mark didn’t want to see a child good to jail.

Eris was taken in by a holy warrior for the church of Shelyn. After years by the side of his mentor, he was finally accepted into the ranks of the church and trained to become a paladin like the old man. Now he travels around Varisia bring the word of Shelyn to those who need beauty in their lives.

I’m picturing Eris as a Paladin/Bard a nice little synergy with the charisma stat for both class’ abilities. His early life abilities may make him seem unpaladinly at times. Who ever heard of a paladin that could pick a lock or palm a key?

Noran Wex

Wing of Apsu god of good dragons, leadership, and peace

 

The tales in Noran’s family always spoke of his great-great grandmother having a dalliance with a man who turned out to be a golden dragon. Although none of his forebearers ever manifested any dragon-like features or powers, the stories still drove young Noran. When he was of age he pledged himself to the church of Apsu so he could lead others into the battle against evil and bring peace to the land. Maybe it was Apsu himself or maybe it was his great-great grandmother’s dalliance but Noran eventually did manifest the abilities of a gold dragon.

For this I’m seeing Noran as a Paladin/Sorcerer (Dragon Bloodline) using his smite with his dragon-like powers. Again charisma fuels both class’ powers so we’ve got some synergy. If you want to take the theme further you could even go dragon discipline as you weren’t going to be getting to 9th level sorcerer spells anyway. Probably the most stereotypically paladin in personality of the bunch, looking to do good at every turn and admonishing those who don’t

Jalreeha Vishaharanti

Fist of Irori god of history, knowledge, self-perfection

 

Many of the men in Jalreeha’s family felt the call to Irori and went into the monasteries to perfect their body using martial arts. But it was Jalreeha, the eldest daughter, who felt the true calling of the ascended god; and not just  for the perfection of her body but also for the perfection of her spirit. Her father, however, was furious as he promised his daughter to the son of a noble family. The increase in the family’s stature was more important to him than his daughter. With sadness Jalreeha left home for faraway lands where she could expand her knowledge of things, adding a well-tuned mined to her already holy spirit and trained body. 

I see Jalreeha as a paladin of Irori (called the enlightened paladin on the d20pfsrd) which will replace some paladin abilities with some monk abilities. As much as I’d like to go full on multiclass monk/paladin I can’t deny needing to have at least six out of eight stats at decent levels to function well is just too much. I also picture her as the least worldly of the group learning about her new surroundings as they travel.

Branack Thunderstone

Itinerant of Lorris charity, the disadvantaged, and volunteering

 

Branack was an odd dwarf; he heard the calling of a deity not of the dwarven pantheon early on. The Empyreal Lord Lorris spoke to the young dwarf about charity and aid. These lessons also made him quite a bit more outgoing than most dwarves are used to. Rather than being taught the ways of paladinhood in a church, Branack learned by doing. He left his mountain home and wandered the world seeking to aid those in need. He left with but two things: a suit of armor and an odd weapon his father always kept stowed away, a pistol.

Branack will be a paladin and a gunslinger with the mysterious stranger archetype. Mysterious stranger will make gunslinger abilities work on charisma instead of wisdom. Yes, dwarves take a negative to charisma, but who cares? As for the type of character, imagine one of the samurai from The Seven Samurai. Or maybe more accurately one of the gunslingers from its American remake, The Magnificent Seven.

Have you ever played a party with all one class? If so which class? If you were going to play in a party with all one classes which would be your favorite? For our all paladin party what kind of character would you make?

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Way of the Gun: Itinerant Gunslinger's of Lorris

 It’s Saturday and it's time to talk about a god. For those of you who haven’t been a part of my explorations into the religions of Golarion, here’s how it works:

Imagine, if you will, you're making a character for a group. Your only instruction is that you must be a worshiper of a specific god. You do not need to be a divine casting class, although you can be, but the party’s purpose is working toward the goals of this specific divine being. I'd like not just a race/class combo, but a little bit about why the character would choose to dedicate themselves to this particular deity. Feel free to make up secret or not-so-secret orders within the church, or even sects outside of the church that you think might be interesting. With only this one piece of information that must be true, let your imagination go wild with the rest.

Today's god

Lorris, Neutral Good Empyreal Lord of charity, the disadvantaged, and volunteering.

Lorris’s Pathfinder Wiki page

Lorris’s Archives of Nethys Entry

The idea for this came from a group of characters that got put out as a test to see what we would build; four gunslingers who multiclass into something else. It got me thinking about what four gunslingers would be doing hanging out together? That spawned the idea for a Magnificent Seven style troupe, which of course is really just a retelling of Seven Samurai.

With the idea flourishing in my mind, I did something I don’t usually do in these Saturday explorations and worked my way backwards--A band of travelling gunslingers who end up in towns when they are needed most. I wanted to give them a connection that was more than just four random characters thrown together, a greater meeting as it were, and that’s when I found Lorris. A god of charity, of helping the disadvantaged. Sadly there are no Golarion gods with firearms as their favored weapon, but such is life.

Now that I’m actually writing this, I like to think of them as more of an A-Team. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the… I admit this is where I have a problem with names, but you get the point.

There are legends on Golarion. Legends of massively destructive monsters, of deities wielding world-eclipsing power, and even of mortal men who seek to make the world a better place than the one they found. One such legend speaks of four men who walked out of the wastes of Numeria. Four men who travel the badlands to the bread basket of Brevory and through the chaos of the River Kingdoms. Four men whose sole goal in life is to help those who cannot help themselves.

The legend speaks of the leader of the group--a quick witted human with golden blonde hair and blue eyes that sparkle as if staring at the reflection of the sun on a crystal clear lake. It is said he has a flare for the dramatic and a mind that can run circles around even the greatest scholars. Some say he chose the life of a lawman wherever he was from, but was disillusioned by the corruption. Other tales say he was framed for some crime or another and fled. With a pistol in one hand and a rapier in the other, This man leads his troupe from the front, never backing down in the face of evil or oppression.

“Off we go lads, ol’ Vesta never met a target she didn’t like. Don’t want to live forever, do ya?”

(Human Investigator Steel Hound/Sleuth 2/Gunslinger (Mysterious Stranger) 1/Swashbuckler (Picaroon) 1/ investigator X)

Following this mythical leader into battle is a savage beast. Although his pronounced tusks and ridge brow give away his orcish ancestry, his ruddy and weather skin tone speak to his origins among the Numerian tribes. They say he is an outcast from one of the tribes that shunned technology. In the heat of battle during a giant raid he found a deformed and broken firearm in a pile of junk and used it to win the day. With no prior training he intuitively slapped together some scraps and forced the weapon to work, almost as if through the strength of his own determined will.

Although he loses himself in the heat of the moment, those who claim to have met the quartet say he is a gentle soul. He seems to take a particular shine to children, with practically a childlike demeanor of his own. But never forget that he is a savage killer, even if he has calms between outbursts.

“Ghuran put this um.. um this here. And that um.. whatever that is there. See and now lightning stick make big boom all the time.”

(Half-Orc Gunslinger (Gun Scavenger) 9/Barbarian (Savage Technologist) 11)

If the tales of the wild rages of the half-orc are to be believed, then so too must the tales of the stoic dwarf. Whereas many gunslingers, especially those who use a pistol, try their best to keep mobile, the dwarf lumbers through the battlefield in a full set of plate armor. Rumor says that he was a mercenary for many years, using his gun to make money from whoever paid the highest with no question or qualms. These days, like the others, he carries with him a holy symbol of the Empyreal Lord Lorris.

He never speaks of whatever change occurred--or anything really for that matter. Now, however, his gun has been imbued with holy might. Some say they have seen him smite a foul undead behemoth from 20 paces. Others say they’ve witnessed the stoic dwarf heal the injured with but a touch of his hands. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that he has changed his ways, and his righteousness grants him some divine ability.

“...” (His gun does the talking for him)

(Dwarf Gunslinger (Gun Tank) 5/Paladin (Holy Gun) 15)

The last and possibly least (in size that is) member of the drifters is a gnome with wild eyes and a shock of red hair that looks like a roaring blaze when it blows in the wind. As is true of many of his people, the small scion of the first world is always inquisitive. Much like his half-orc compatriot his gun seems to be thrown together from whatever various oddments he could find. What people mistake as slapdash are the gnome’s ingenious experimentations. Even beyond his mechanical prowess, the wild-eyed gunslinger adds potent magical capabilities to his firearms.

“Magic is technology, technology is magic. Trust me, this is going to work wonders... But maybe you should stand back over there just in case.”

(Gnome Wizard (Spellslinger) 5/Gunslinger (Experimental Gunsmith) 5/Eldritch Knight 10)

When a small village is beset by bandits and there is no one else to turn to, the four unnamed gunslingers might just come over the horizon. Then you will know Lorris sees your plight and looks upon your town with favor.

And now that you’ve seen my followers of Lorris, who are yours? What character would you make that is devoted to the Savior Hound?