Post by johannhowitzer on Jul 7, 2007 1:41:56 GMT
SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE
An Elite Quest for the Crown
PARTY NOW CLOSED, NO MORE RECRUITMENTS
Greetings. I have been on HG for quite some time, although I tend to make new characters every week or so and still only have a single immortal and have never been to the Hells. I've been very interested in a Hardcore party for months now, but no one in my family plays and I really don't have many close friends on the servers... BlueIceDragon, Deepscout, and Teaweasel would probably be those I know best.
That said, since I can't seem to find players willing to form a FIXED party using Hardcore-ish rules, I decided to post an initial proposition for a fixed party in this planning subforum, and see who bites!
---OBJECTIVE---
We seek Immortality. The goal of the party, and thus of each of its members, will be to achieve a successful Immortal run and obtain the Immortal tag. After that point, you will be free to do with your character as you see fit.
---LEADERSHIP---
I will be managing this party, serving as a sort of moderator and party leader, to reduce confusion and help provide a center of authority for times when there might be a disagreement. Do not worry, I am a very reasonable individual and will not act as a dictator or assert my own agenda over those of others... I will merely serve as a sort of "chairman of the board" for the purposes of maintaining order and direction in the party.
---MEMBERSHIP---
The Soldiers of Fortune will require a minimum of THREE members, including myself, up to and including a maximum of FIVE members. Once the party reaches the quorum of three, I will be posting a deadline, after which the party will be LOCKED even if it has not reached five members; after that point all members will create their characters and begin the quest for immortality, and no more recruitments will be made.
---SCHEDULING---
Characters built as a part of Soldiers of Fortune may NOT play outside of group scheduled time; this is part of why I am limiting the party to five members - getting five people to play for two hours all at the same time can be challenging. I am requesting that only players with fairly open schedules sign up, to reduce this somewhat... if you are working two full-time jobs, your character will fall so far behind that it will no longer be able to party with the rest of us. I will be the sole judge of who may or may not party based on availability, sorry but we must try to avoid scheduling hassles as much as possible.
All sessions will be short (1-2 hours, perhaps 3 or even 4 if needed for later runs), and will be scheduled in advance based on the schedules of each person in the group. Between sessions, I will be announcing a timeframe for the next session, and asking people to post their known schedules within that timeframe. Hopefully most of the time everyone will be able to converge on a single playing time; if not, the short durations will help greatly, as those who fall behind can catch up a little on later sessions due to increased experience for lower-level party members.
---RULES---
1) Loot and gold circulation must be kept to characters belonging to this party. This means that bank chests and gold storage may never be used, and no character may barter with a non-SoF character, either using the Barter radial command or by dropping items on the ground.
2) Dead allies may be raised back to life, but anyone who fugues will be considered beyond the aid of magic, and thus expelled from Soldiers of Fortune. If you don't like this rule, you don't need to sign up; I will be observing it myself, and will pass "chairmanship" of the party on to someone else should I fugue.
3) The Soldiers of Fortune may not ask for outside help of any kind, be it buffs, resurrection, despawning, help destroying mobs, or anything else. If you die and non-party people are in the area, you must SHOUT that you do not wish to be raised, as you are playing a hardcore game. If an invisible PC sneaks up to you without warning and raises you before you are able to object, it will not be held against you, but you must do everything in your power to prevent outside help.
There, that was simple. Also, every character created as a part of Soldiers of Fortune must have [Soldiers of Fortune] inserted at the END of their character's name. This will ensure easy detection of anyone not in the party, and after a time this particular hardcore party may become known on the servers... the name tag may then help us avoid outside help.
There, I have laid out the format of the quest; now to lay out the format of the party itself! As a hardcore group, we will of course want to be well-balanced from the start, with each player covering a specific role in order to survive in a variety of circumstances. We don't want all casters, as Drow tanks would probably wipe the floor with us; and we don't want all tanks either, or we'll be shallow in the buff department and have no area of effect spells.
I would advise all the Soldiers of Fortune to pump their CON score a little more than normal, even at the cost of a little caster DC or tanker AB. You'll want to be able to survive, even if it takes a little longer to beat things up! This doesn't mean making a Sorcerer with only 12 starting CHA, but it does mean that the 6 points necessary to raise CHA from 16 to 18 might not be worth it. Tanks can get away with this a little more, as their attacks are not limited in quantity each day.
All prestige classes and regular classes are fair game, but I am banning the use of quasiclasses, for several reasons. First, they are fairly specialized, and some might be downright useless in some scenarios; the Bloodfire Mage, as we all know, has a hard time doing damage to fire-immune creatures. Second, quasiclasses suffer from a severe lack of power before they attain quasi status. Theurges work well as partybuffers, but they have no real spell power until late 20s or even 30s. Quasiclasses in general are a good idea for those who are building with legendary levels in mind, but we will be building for levels 1-40, and will thus want to maximize playability within those levels. I may make exceptions to this rule if people can convince me that a particular quasiclass taken the right way can contribute all the way through to the final run.
Because we want a balanced party, those to join last will probably be restricted to certain roles. If you really would rather not play a tank, don't wait to sign up, or you may get stuck playing one! As our number of members is fairly flexible, I will not pre-assign stuff like, "we must have X number of casters," but I will here offer some suggestions of builds that will be very able to make a meaningful contribution, grouped by type.
---SUGGESTED TANK BUILDS---
CON-based Dwarven Defender: Always a good choice, very survivable and can deal good damage depending on secondary classes.
Tanking Monk: Probably would want to be WIS-based to provide some nice Stunning Fists, but any non-STR-based Monk build should be able to act as a good tank and deal fair amounts of damage.
Battle Cleric: Not a type of build often seen on HG, but with LLs out of the equation and partybuffing so necessary, the Battle Cleric is a viable choice. Thankfully, enough casting power can be retained with the presence of Divine Power to also chuck a few Implosions when needed.
Smiter Paladin/Blackguard: An exemplary undead-killing machine, valuable simply for covering that possible weakness, but the build should be balanced to provide strength all the way through. My recent Paladin build, the Arm of Jormungandr, gains too much of its power too late to be seriously considered without being re-scaled for playability at 1-40. I would go with Paladin over Blackguard personally, but the latter is still an option if you must.
Standard Fighter/WM, Barbarian Rager: More damage is better, right? You bet. Just don't get carried away and ignore defenses... unlike normal HG parties, you can't be sure you'll be able to reach immortality unless you plan to avoid fuguing completely!
---SUGGESTED CASTER BUILDS---
Spellslinger/singer Bard: We'll definitely want a Bard in the party, and I may actually jump right into that role, as I've been wanting to play one for some time. DEX and CON are staples, and it's not worth it to take over 16 CHA (before subrace).
Pale Master: Unlike the Bloodfire Mage, the Pale Master becomes very specialized while still remaining useful and very playable at early levels. Great synergy with the Bard, of course.
Caster Cleric: Implosion, Word of Faith, and at lower levels Prayer and Bless. Earthquakes are nice too, though breaking loot will be MUCH more of a consideration!
Standard Arcane Caster: I would advise using Wizard for versatility reasons, unless you really know which spells you want. If you know what you're doing as a Sorcerer, you may want to use that class for its casting flexibility and extra spells.
Caster Druid: No worries about custom epics, for ANY caster class in fact, since you won't be obtaining them within the scope of this party, so don't worry too much about Shunt. Nothing else really needs to be said, except take Animal Empathy for sure.
---AUXILIARY CLASS SUGGESTIONS---
Not every build fits neatly under the Tank or Caster headings, and here are some suggestions for good "other" classes to use in this kind of party.
Combat Bard: Not a popular choice on HG these days, like battle clerics, but having the ability to both sing and fight will make you many friends. Due to arcane spell failure, I recommend basing the build on DEX so you get the most AC possible in robes.
Arcane Archer: A huge gold hog, and as we won't be finding any terribly nice quivers, this class is not going to be quite as uber as it is normally. However, I recommend basing it on the Rogue class for sneak attacks, the added damage will be a big help, and if we get an AA we will almost certainly head to the Gnoll Fort for the dung arrows. Just don't expect to be able to spring for Elemental Arrows like you normally would.
Assassin/Rogue: We will want someone with rogue skills for sure, and it's completely up to you if you want to go the Assassin route for Dev Crit. You better know what you're doing if you do, though, otherwise you may end up not helping a lot in battles.
Shifter Ability Mage: Only veterans need apply, since intimate knowledge of their inner workings is necessary to make the abilities effective. That said, if we can get a shifter, it will save us a lot of pain and adapt to many, many situations.
Ranger: I really have no suggestions, there are several ways to play this class and it's up to you. Archer-style is good, as is both STR-based and DEX-based for dual-wielding. For your favored enemies, I suggest undead, dragons, drow (or whatever they fall under), and anything else you think would be helpful. Does anyone know the racial types of the creatures on the Immortal run?
There you go, some food for thought as you consider signing up. I am going to REQUIRE a Bard and a character with Rogue skills, one with at least one level of Rogue; those two builds are nearly unavoidable for the benefits they offer. They also have great synergy between each other - Bardsong helps Rogue skills, and Curse Song can help Dev Crit land if our Rogue chooses to become an Assassin. I will probably play the bard, unless I can think of something better to play. Paladin's looking mighty tempting (ironically!).
Lastly, this thread will serve as the official thread for Soldiers of Fortune. Please do NOT post here once the deadline is reached, unless you are a member, this will help us avoid clutter and form our sessions more efficiently. If you are interested in taking part in this venture, and are confident that you will be available enough to avoid being a scheduling burden, please PM me or post in this thread with your current availability and preferred build.
Thanks go to Funky and his amazing team for creating this, the greatest of all NWN modules, and thanks to you all for bearing with me in this absurdly long post! I anticipate some fun times ahead, and new friendships forged. To all those who sign up too late or feel the Soldiers of Fortune are not for them, I wish you happy hunting on HG, and I apologize for getting any hopes up if you thought this was something other than it is.
(Also, to the moderators, I apologize profusely if this thread is inappropriate in any way, or if the forming of such a tightly-knit clique is viewed as anathema to HG's purpose. I only mean to promote the highest level of enjoyment possible, and I do not mean to seem to be excluding anyone or to otherwise hurt HG's reputation or the quality of the HG experience; HG has been my NWN home for a long time, and it will remain the only NWN server I play on for much longer!)
An Elite Quest for the Crown
PARTY NOW CLOSED, NO MORE RECRUITMENTS
Greetings. I have been on HG for quite some time, although I tend to make new characters every week or so and still only have a single immortal and have never been to the Hells. I've been very interested in a Hardcore party for months now, but no one in my family plays and I really don't have many close friends on the servers... BlueIceDragon, Deepscout, and Teaweasel would probably be those I know best.
That said, since I can't seem to find players willing to form a FIXED party using Hardcore-ish rules, I decided to post an initial proposition for a fixed party in this planning subforum, and see who bites!
---OBJECTIVE---
We seek Immortality. The goal of the party, and thus of each of its members, will be to achieve a successful Immortal run and obtain the Immortal tag. After that point, you will be free to do with your character as you see fit.
---LEADERSHIP---
I will be managing this party, serving as a sort of moderator and party leader, to reduce confusion and help provide a center of authority for times when there might be a disagreement. Do not worry, I am a very reasonable individual and will not act as a dictator or assert my own agenda over those of others... I will merely serve as a sort of "chairman of the board" for the purposes of maintaining order and direction in the party.
---MEMBERSHIP---
The Soldiers of Fortune will require a minimum of THREE members, including myself, up to and including a maximum of FIVE members. Once the party reaches the quorum of three, I will be posting a deadline, after which the party will be LOCKED even if it has not reached five members; after that point all members will create their characters and begin the quest for immortality, and no more recruitments will be made.
---SCHEDULING---
Characters built as a part of Soldiers of Fortune may NOT play outside of group scheduled time; this is part of why I am limiting the party to five members - getting five people to play for two hours all at the same time can be challenging. I am requesting that only players with fairly open schedules sign up, to reduce this somewhat... if you are working two full-time jobs, your character will fall so far behind that it will no longer be able to party with the rest of us. I will be the sole judge of who may or may not party based on availability, sorry but we must try to avoid scheduling hassles as much as possible.
All sessions will be short (1-2 hours, perhaps 3 or even 4 if needed for later runs), and will be scheduled in advance based on the schedules of each person in the group. Between sessions, I will be announcing a timeframe for the next session, and asking people to post their known schedules within that timeframe. Hopefully most of the time everyone will be able to converge on a single playing time; if not, the short durations will help greatly, as those who fall behind can catch up a little on later sessions due to increased experience for lower-level party members.
---RULES---
1) Loot and gold circulation must be kept to characters belonging to this party. This means that bank chests and gold storage may never be used, and no character may barter with a non-SoF character, either using the Barter radial command or by dropping items on the ground.
2) Dead allies may be raised back to life, but anyone who fugues will be considered beyond the aid of magic, and thus expelled from Soldiers of Fortune. If you don't like this rule, you don't need to sign up; I will be observing it myself, and will pass "chairmanship" of the party on to someone else should I fugue.
3) The Soldiers of Fortune may not ask for outside help of any kind, be it buffs, resurrection, despawning, help destroying mobs, or anything else. If you die and non-party people are in the area, you must SHOUT that you do not wish to be raised, as you are playing a hardcore game. If an invisible PC sneaks up to you without warning and raises you before you are able to object, it will not be held against you, but you must do everything in your power to prevent outside help.
There, that was simple. Also, every character created as a part of Soldiers of Fortune must have [Soldiers of Fortune] inserted at the END of their character's name. This will ensure easy detection of anyone not in the party, and after a time this particular hardcore party may become known on the servers... the name tag may then help us avoid outside help.
There, I have laid out the format of the quest; now to lay out the format of the party itself! As a hardcore group, we will of course want to be well-balanced from the start, with each player covering a specific role in order to survive in a variety of circumstances. We don't want all casters, as Drow tanks would probably wipe the floor with us; and we don't want all tanks either, or we'll be shallow in the buff department and have no area of effect spells.
I would advise all the Soldiers of Fortune to pump their CON score a little more than normal, even at the cost of a little caster DC or tanker AB. You'll want to be able to survive, even if it takes a little longer to beat things up! This doesn't mean making a Sorcerer with only 12 starting CHA, but it does mean that the 6 points necessary to raise CHA from 16 to 18 might not be worth it. Tanks can get away with this a little more, as their attacks are not limited in quantity each day.
All prestige classes and regular classes are fair game, but I am banning the use of quasiclasses, for several reasons. First, they are fairly specialized, and some might be downright useless in some scenarios; the Bloodfire Mage, as we all know, has a hard time doing damage to fire-immune creatures. Second, quasiclasses suffer from a severe lack of power before they attain quasi status. Theurges work well as partybuffers, but they have no real spell power until late 20s or even 30s. Quasiclasses in general are a good idea for those who are building with legendary levels in mind, but we will be building for levels 1-40, and will thus want to maximize playability within those levels. I may make exceptions to this rule if people can convince me that a particular quasiclass taken the right way can contribute all the way through to the final run.
Because we want a balanced party, those to join last will probably be restricted to certain roles. If you really would rather not play a tank, don't wait to sign up, or you may get stuck playing one! As our number of members is fairly flexible, I will not pre-assign stuff like, "we must have X number of casters," but I will here offer some suggestions of builds that will be very able to make a meaningful contribution, grouped by type.
---SUGGESTED TANK BUILDS---
CON-based Dwarven Defender: Always a good choice, very survivable and can deal good damage depending on secondary classes.
Tanking Monk: Probably would want to be WIS-based to provide some nice Stunning Fists, but any non-STR-based Monk build should be able to act as a good tank and deal fair amounts of damage.
Battle Cleric: Not a type of build often seen on HG, but with LLs out of the equation and partybuffing so necessary, the Battle Cleric is a viable choice. Thankfully, enough casting power can be retained with the presence of Divine Power to also chuck a few Implosions when needed.
Smiter Paladin/Blackguard: An exemplary undead-killing machine, valuable simply for covering that possible weakness, but the build should be balanced to provide strength all the way through. My recent Paladin build, the Arm of Jormungandr, gains too much of its power too late to be seriously considered without being re-scaled for playability at 1-40. I would go with Paladin over Blackguard personally, but the latter is still an option if you must.
Standard Fighter/WM, Barbarian Rager: More damage is better, right? You bet. Just don't get carried away and ignore defenses... unlike normal HG parties, you can't be sure you'll be able to reach immortality unless you plan to avoid fuguing completely!
---SUGGESTED CASTER BUILDS---
Spellslinger/singer Bard: We'll definitely want a Bard in the party, and I may actually jump right into that role, as I've been wanting to play one for some time. DEX and CON are staples, and it's not worth it to take over 16 CHA (before subrace).
Pale Master: Unlike the Bloodfire Mage, the Pale Master becomes very specialized while still remaining useful and very playable at early levels. Great synergy with the Bard, of course.
Caster Cleric: Implosion, Word of Faith, and at lower levels Prayer and Bless. Earthquakes are nice too, though breaking loot will be MUCH more of a consideration!
Standard Arcane Caster: I would advise using Wizard for versatility reasons, unless you really know which spells you want. If you know what you're doing as a Sorcerer, you may want to use that class for its casting flexibility and extra spells.
Caster Druid: No worries about custom epics, for ANY caster class in fact, since you won't be obtaining them within the scope of this party, so don't worry too much about Shunt. Nothing else really needs to be said, except take Animal Empathy for sure.
---AUXILIARY CLASS SUGGESTIONS---
Not every build fits neatly under the Tank or Caster headings, and here are some suggestions for good "other" classes to use in this kind of party.
Combat Bard: Not a popular choice on HG these days, like battle clerics, but having the ability to both sing and fight will make you many friends. Due to arcane spell failure, I recommend basing the build on DEX so you get the most AC possible in robes.
Arcane Archer: A huge gold hog, and as we won't be finding any terribly nice quivers, this class is not going to be quite as uber as it is normally. However, I recommend basing it on the Rogue class for sneak attacks, the added damage will be a big help, and if we get an AA we will almost certainly head to the Gnoll Fort for the dung arrows. Just don't expect to be able to spring for Elemental Arrows like you normally would.
Assassin/Rogue: We will want someone with rogue skills for sure, and it's completely up to you if you want to go the Assassin route for Dev Crit. You better know what you're doing if you do, though, otherwise you may end up not helping a lot in battles.
Shifter Ability Mage: Only veterans need apply, since intimate knowledge of their inner workings is necessary to make the abilities effective. That said, if we can get a shifter, it will save us a lot of pain and adapt to many, many situations.
Ranger: I really have no suggestions, there are several ways to play this class and it's up to you. Archer-style is good, as is both STR-based and DEX-based for dual-wielding. For your favored enemies, I suggest undead, dragons, drow (or whatever they fall under), and anything else you think would be helpful. Does anyone know the racial types of the creatures on the Immortal run?
There you go, some food for thought as you consider signing up. I am going to REQUIRE a Bard and a character with Rogue skills, one with at least one level of Rogue; those two builds are nearly unavoidable for the benefits they offer. They also have great synergy between each other - Bardsong helps Rogue skills, and Curse Song can help Dev Crit land if our Rogue chooses to become an Assassin. I will probably play the bard, unless I can think of something better to play. Paladin's looking mighty tempting (ironically!).
Lastly, this thread will serve as the official thread for Soldiers of Fortune. Please do NOT post here once the deadline is reached, unless you are a member, this will help us avoid clutter and form our sessions more efficiently. If you are interested in taking part in this venture, and are confident that you will be available enough to avoid being a scheduling burden, please PM me or post in this thread with your current availability and preferred build.
Thanks go to Funky and his amazing team for creating this, the greatest of all NWN modules, and thanks to you all for bearing with me in this absurdly long post! I anticipate some fun times ahead, and new friendships forged. To all those who sign up too late or feel the Soldiers of Fortune are not for them, I wish you happy hunting on HG, and I apologize for getting any hopes up if you thought this was something other than it is.
(Also, to the moderators, I apologize profusely if this thread is inappropriate in any way, or if the forming of such a tightly-knit clique is viewed as anathema to HG's purpose. I only mean to promote the highest level of enjoyment possible, and I do not mean to seem to be excluding anyone or to otherwise hurt HG's reputation or the quality of the HG experience; HG has been my NWN home for a long time, and it will remain the only NWN server I play on for much longer!)