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 Post subject: Etzara's Robes
PostPosted: Thu Oct 03, 2013 10:41 pm 

Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 6:45 pm
Posts: 639
My Gnome is, or rather claims to be, Etzara. I'd like to recreate the old 3.0 Etzara robes from the codex using existing current rules. So, I picked up some exceptional robes in HP 4. Now I wish to make them into magixal armor using runes. There are a couple of ways I see to do this.

Option #1:
Spell Rune with Vestments of the Lady as the Tier I spell attuned to the rune. Downside only usable one combat per day. Not certain that a Priestess of Larissa would craft such a rune for this PC.

Option #2:
Spell Rune with Arcane Sheild as the spell attuned to the rune. Higher AR. Useable against one attack / day. Not certain this is legal however.

Option #3:
Perseverance Rune. Not armor but increases surviability in similar manner. Constant Effect.

Any thoughts on best choices?

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But rather than wed,
She drowned him instead,
Now he is a Yaricite toosey!


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 Post subject: Re: Etzara's Robes
PostPosted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 7:35 am 
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For those who are not familiar with the 'old robes' what were the rules?

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 Post subject: Re: Etzara's Robes
PostPosted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 2:00 pm 

Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 6:45 pm
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The old Etzara are detailed in the D20 crunch rules in the Codex of Arcanis between the Warriors of the Eternal Flame, and the Weapons of Arcanis.

Ehtzara use fetishes to power several spells. The Robes are but one of these fetishes. In 3.0 land the Ehtzara Robes provided protection as an improved version of the DnD Mage Armor Spell. +1 per three levels deflection bonus to AC, with a +1 Armor Bonus against incorporeal and extra-planer. Other major fetishes include the Spirit Rattle which provided a banishment effect, and the Bone Fetish which served as a scare spell. Additionally, there where fetishes that worked much like current runes to raise ability stats.

FYI: Oozejumper's "Pet Head" is a combination Spirit Rattle, and Bone fetish or at least is supposed to be. Which is why I use it as a Wand in the current game rules set.

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Eric Hughes

There once was a gnome called Oozy,
Who kissed a Yaricite floozy.
But rather than wed,
She drowned him instead,
Now he is a Yaricite toosey!


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 Post subject: Re: Etzara's Robes
PostPosted: Wed Oct 09, 2013 9:22 am 

Joined: Fri Sep 27, 2013 8:36 am
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Eric, it seems that you are bound and determined to make up your own things and assign names to them from the old campaign.

you may have not realized that PCI tends to remake items that they think are important, I'm pretty sure the Ehtzara are pretty important and have been recreated and most of their accoutrements.

more importantly there is no current path or background that would let you be an ehtzara, there is probably a reason for this, probably the kinds of people that become ehtzara are the kind of people that dont become heroes.

and the suggestion that I keep making to you in various forms:

why don't you play the game that exists, instead of jumping outside the game constantly and asking for new rules, where rules don't exist?

the kinds of rules that you seem to be constantly pushing for are not conducive to organized play, this isn't a chicken farming game or a charioteering game or a game where PCs can be ehtzara (at least not right now)

those are the kinds of things that can and should come up in a home game, where the Chronicler can create appropriate threats for the kind of game you want to play. I encourage you to join us in the shared campaign and play the same game that we are playing, with the rules that already exist.

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 Post subject: Re: Etzara's Robes
PostPosted: Wed Oct 09, 2013 12:14 pm 

Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 6:45 pm
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SamhainIA wrote:
Eric, it seems that you are bound and determined to make up your own things and assign names to them from the old campaign.


IF "Re-skinning" existing rules to fit a certain RP flavor expressed in the codex is cheating. Then yes. I am guilty. But the rules -as written- seam to explicitly support this sort of re-skinning. See page 327 Core Book under "Stat Monkey Says", where Pedro specifically supports re-skinning of the spell "Call Upon my Ancestors" wherein the specific appearance of the shades weapons can be re-flavored if the underlying game mechanics are not changed. Also recall page 42 of Bestiary Volume I "Re-skinning existing foes". Off the top of my head, this also occurs in "Relevance" encounter II, where skeletons are created out of non-native humanoids. I'm sure that if given sufficient time I can find other examples where existing rules are "Re-skinned" to change flavor without changing mechanics.

Now I know that you are in Iowa and have not had a chance to review my PC's builds. But if you would like to, I would be quite happy to post any of my PC's build to the forum so that you may audit my use of the existing rules.

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Eric Hughes

There once was a gnome called Oozy,
Who kissed a Yaricite floozy.
But rather than wed,
She drowned him instead,
Now he is a Yaricite toosey!


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 Post subject: Re: Etzara's Robes
PostPosted: Wed Oct 09, 2013 2:28 pm 

Joined: Fri Sep 27, 2013 8:36 am
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I find it interesting that you are bringing up the word "cheating".

The first point is with you calling your self an Ehtzara, as far I have seen there is no path, nor background that you would take to grant you membership into this highly secretive order of shamans.

Furthermore, two of the re-skinning examples you mentioned are specifically for the chronicler and not the player, and "Call upon my ancestors" is that wide open to being changed as the talent is written. Taking one thing and calling it something else is fine, as long as that something else doesn't have a significant meaning, A logical extreme of that is "OH, I'm taking the knight path, but I want to be a dolphin guard, So I'm going to say its THE dolphin guard path" A correct use of this is to say" I Cast Fireball" instead of elemental bolt. if you just arbitrarily change the names of the things you are or are doing , the people you are gaming with should have difficulty gaming with you/incorporating your character into the shared story , because you are then playing a different game than they are.

the second point I am taking issue with is cobbling together disparate rules ( that is rules that apply to something other than what you are trying to apply them to ) and saying "I have a ruling that this works so I'm going to do this, and you the chronicler can't stop me" you are usually missing some basic thing that prevents this from being effective, like the fact the rules dont cover the sales of chickens, or Fetishes aren't part of the ARPG game, and magic items in general have a MUCH decreased presence on purpose.


To address your original question:

Option 1 is a deity specific spell, We should probably get Pedro to errata the spell rune to not to apply to deity specific spells or restrict them to followers of the deity (addressing this in another thread)

Option 2 Arcane Shield is a unique spell, thus not eligible to be put in a spell rune

option 3 sure why not +10 stamina is fine

how about a rune of Defense? +1 avoidance seems to be what you want?

why robes? the old Ehtzara Spirit Robes were Greater Masterwork Leather armor +1 that were then enhanced by fetishes (in the form of class features for leveling up)

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 Post subject: Re: Etzara's Robes
PostPosted: Wed Oct 09, 2013 2:51 pm 

Joined: Fri Sep 27, 2013 8:36 am
Posts: 1554
Quote:
Now I know that you are in Iowa and have not had a chance to review my PC's builds. But if you would like to, I would be quite happy to post any of my PC's build to the forum so that you may audit my use of the existing rules.


Well, I looked over your character(the Charioteer) at origins if you recall, and while the technicality of your character was questionable, the execution was very problematic, to the point I was very frustrated as a GM, that you weren't bothering to play the same game as everyone else, and I felt it was detracting from the game. It Really Bothered Me then, and has continued to bother me. The most basic point of combat is to hit bad guys and do damage to them, if you want a game that's all about swinging from chandeliers and blinding the bad guys, I'd look into Two Fisted Tales or Indiana Jones, instead of trying to impose that game on 6 other people.

I really struggled with the difference between a "build" and a "character" when I first started into shared campaign play, I played a really generic cleric for a long time, until I fell into a group that had a flamboyant elf swashbuckler ( Laverene Swiftblade ), and still then that character was defined by what he didn't like, instead of what he was like. Don't get me wrong, Builds are difficult and important, but they aren't all of what your character is.

My take on Ehtzara is that they are interesting, but they aren't Heroes, at best they are shaman in dedication to some nature spirit that are looking out for the good of their land or tribe, at worst they are part of a cult bent on destroying things and worship an infernal hyena queen.

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Oswald val'Inares V, The Seeker of the Val'Inares
Harvester Lord of the Eastern Fields of Iowa


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 Post subject: Re: Etzara's Robes
PostPosted: Wed Oct 09, 2013 3:19 pm 

Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 6:45 pm
Posts: 639
SamhainIA wrote:
Quote:
Now I know that you are in Iowa and have not had a chance to review my PC's builds. But if you would like to, I would be quite happy to post any of my PC's build to the forum so that you may audit my use of the existing rules.


Well, I looked over your character(the Charioteer) at origins if you recall, and while the technicality of your character was questionable, the execution was very problematic, to the point I was very frustrated as a GM, that you weren't bothering to play the same game as everyone else, and I felt it was detracting from the game. It Really Bothered Me then, and has continued to bother me. The most basic point of combat is to hit bad guys and do damage to them, if you want a game that's all about swinging from chandeliers and blinding the bad guys, I'd look into Two Fisted Tales or Indiana Jones, instead of trying to impose that game on 6 other people.

I really struggled with the difference between a "build" and a "character" when I first started into shared campaign play, I played a really generic cleric for a long time, until I fell into a group that had a flamboyant elf swashbuckler ( Laverene Swiftblade ), and still then that character was defined by what he didn't like, instead of what he was like. Don't get me wrong, Builds are difficult and important, but they aren't all of what your character is.

My take on Ehtzara is that they are interesting, but they aren't Heroes, at best they are shaman in dedication to some nature spirit that are looking out for the good of their land or tribe, at worst they are part of a cult bent on destroying things and worship an infernal hyena queen.



Why thank you Josh! I mean that very sincerely. Seriously I do. Now that I have a better understanding of what your experiences are as a GM I have a better understanding of where you are coming from. Lets set the Chariot PC aside for a while, discuss my Gnome Ehtzara want-to-be.

Perhaps it is a misunderstanding on my part. But throughout the Crusade Arc, Ehtzara seam to be everywhere. While the Cult of the Jackal is only specifically mentioned a few times. In the old game, as I remember, and as I read the codex. All Cult of the Jackal where Ehtzara, but not all Ehtzara where Cult of the Jackal. I've always taken Ehtzara to just be a tribal Shaman from the Hinterlands that lives on the edge of society. A elemental nature worshiper that hangs around with the undead and tends to scare people. But there are other shamans on Onara that are not from the hinterlands.

So to be clear, Oozejumper was designed to be a creepy gnome shaman that lives on the edge of society that chose the side of the Crusaders when his home was over run by infernals because his adoptive father (my old 1st campaign pc) was more friendly to Milandir than to the Ying Hir. If calling himself Ehtzara is culturally inappropriate to that concept, then clearly you have a point.

As for my use of Fate Points to "jump around" and "blind" the enemy at your table at Origins... I did so out of frustration, as in that particular encounter I had no weapons in my kit that could directly harm the clockworks. That PC uses a sling, with has a high Damage Per Tick, but low damage per hit, and I just wasn't getting through their AR. Had the clockworks been "large" instead of huge I would have used by Bola's to entangle them. But since you upped the size of them mobs my bola was worthless. Also due remember I was tier 1.5 at a tier 2.1 table so I was way behind the power curve in that encounter. But you are right in hindsight, that action was a little too cinematic. I apologize.

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Eric Hughes

There once was a gnome called Oozy,
Who kissed a Yaricite floozy.
But rather than wed,
She drowned him instead,
Now he is a Yaricite toosey!


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 Post subject: Re: Etzara's Robes
PostPosted: Wed Oct 09, 2013 3:51 pm 

Joined: Fri Sep 27, 2013 8:36 am
Posts: 1554
Quote:
To become an Ehtzara, the character must seek another Ehtzara or a powerful spirit in the wilderness of the Hinterlands, swearing utter devotion and fealty to their new master and take the title of supplicant. At this point, all they own belongs to their master, and they are equal in
social rank to a slave ...


From MoA (3.5) pg 97, under special requirements

Seems like a pretty significant thing to just declare your character to have done

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Oswald val'Inares V, The Seeker of the Val'Inares
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 Post subject: Re: Etzara's Robes
PostPosted: Wed Oct 09, 2013 4:25 pm 

Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 6:45 pm
Posts: 639
Yep. So are sarishian oaths.

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Eric Hughes

There once was a gnome called Oozy,
Who kissed a Yaricite floozy.
But rather than wed,
She drowned him instead,
Now he is a Yaricite toosey!


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