Mr. Cassius

Mr. Cassius (Gaius Aurelius "Spartacus" Cassius)
Gnome Warlock (Fey Pact) 2
Str 13, Con 11, Dex 12, Int 16, Wis 8, Cha 19.

Speed 5. Initiative +2 (+4 with Scipio)
HP 28 (Bloodied 14), Healing surges 6 (7 hp)
AC 17, Fort 12, Ref 15, Will 16.

Feats: Ritual Caster, Soldier of the Faith
Skills: Arcana +11, Athletics +1, Bluff +10, Diplomacy +10, Stealth +10, Streetwise +5, Thievery +7
Languages: Common, Elven Perception: Low-light vision
Equipment: 2 healing potions, Adventurer’s kit, ritual book, notebooks, pens & waterproof ink, 50 gp.
Rituals: Amanuensis, Comprehend Language, Fastidiousness, Secret Page, Seek Rumor

Racial Abilities
• Reactive Stealth: You can make a Stealth check with any cover or concealment.
• Master Trickster: Use Ghost Sound as a minor action encounter power.
• Trickster’s Cunning: +5 bonus to save against illusions.
• Fey Origin: You are considered fey for effects related to origin.

Class Features
• Warlock’s Curse: Minor action. Once per turn you can curse the nearest enemy you can see. If you damage a cursed enemy, deal +1d6 damage, once per round.
• Misty Step (Pact Boon): When a cursed enemy is reduced to 0 hp, you can teleport 3 squares as a free action.
• Prime Shot: +1 to ranged attack rolls if no allies are nearer the target than you.
• Shadow Walk: On your turn, if you move at least 3 squares away from where you started, gain concealment until the end of your next turn.

At-Will Powers
• Eldritch Blast: Ranged 10 (basic attack). +7 vs. Reflex. 1d10+5 damage.
• Eyebite: Ranged 10. +6 vs. Will. 1d6+5 psychic damage, & you are invisible to the target until the start of your next turn.

Encounter powers:
• Divine Challenge: Minor action. Mark one creature in close burst 5. If it makes an attack that doesn’t include you as a target, it has a -2 penalty to attack, & takes 7 radiant damage. The mark ends if you don’t attack the target or end your turn adjacent to it.
• Witchfire: Ranged 10. +6 vs. Reflex. 2d6+5 fire damage, & target takes a -5 penalty to attack rolls until the end of your next turn.
• Otherwind Stride: Close burst 1. +6 vs. Fortitude. 1d8+5 damage, and target is immobilized until the end of your next turn. Effect: You teleport 8 squares.

Utility Encounter Powers
• Ethereal Stride: Move. Teleport 3 squares, & +2 to all defenses until end of next turn.
• Fade Away: Immediate reaction (you take damage). You are invisible until you attack or until the end of your next turn.
• Ghost Sound: Minor action. Ranged 10. Effect is the same as the wizard cantrip.

Daily powers:
• Crown of Stars: Ranged 10. +6 vs. Reflex. 2d12+5 radiant damage, & if target is bloodied, it is blinded until the end of your next turn.
Sustain Minor: Ranged 10. +6 vs. Will. 4 radiant damage.

Magic Items:
• Rod of Corruption +1 (lvl 3): Whenever your pact boon is triggered, instead of taking its normal benefit you can Curse each enemy within 5 squares of the original target.
• Eagle Eye Goggles (lvl 2): Gain a +1 item bonus to ranged basic attacks.
• Sylvan Leather Armor +1 (lvl 3)

Here are the rituals that Mr. Cassius knows. I've focused on rituals that help Gaius' party role as faceman and sneaky bastard.

Amanuensis
You touch the writing, tracing each character or glyph with a gently glowing crystal. As you do so, the words you flicker into existence onto the specially prepared parchment before solidifying into a near-perfect copy.

Level: 1 (FRPG)
Category: Creation Component Cost: 10 gp
Time: 10 minutes Market Price: 20 gp
Duration: Permanent Key Skill: Arcana (no check)

You capture the writing from one source (a book, scroll, or tablet) and cause it to appear onto a special prepared paper, parchment, book, or some other similar item. This ritual copies up to 250 words of text, enough to fill one page with text. A copied illustration counts as a number of words proportional to the amount of the page the illustration requires.

This ritual can be used to copy a ritual scroll, even if you have not mastered the ritual on the original scroll. Creating a ritual scroll in this manner takes twice as long as creating a ritual book but has the same cost (in addition to the component cost of this ritual).


Comprehend Language
As you finish the ritual, the guttural language of the creatures before you clarifies into something you understand.

Level: 1 (PH I)
Category: Exploration Component Cost: 10 gp
Time: 10 minutes Market Price: 50 gp
Duration: 24 hours Key Skill: Arcana

When beginning the ritual, choose a language you have heard or a piece of writing you have seen within the past 24 hours. Using this ritual on a language you have heard allows you to understand it when spoken for the next 24 hours and, if your Arcana check result is 35 or higher, to speak
the language fluently for the duration.

Using this ritual on a language you have seen as a piece of writing allows you to read the language for the next 24 hours and, if your Arcana check result is 35 or higher, to write the language in its native script or in any other script you know for the duration.

Using this ritual on a language you have both heard and seen as a piece of writing within the past 24 hours allows you to understand it in both forms for the next 24 hours, and an Arcana check result of 35 or higher allows you to speak and write the language.


Fastidiousness
You are clean, and you would like to remain so, even while digging through aboleth slime for lost treasures.

Level: 1 (Dragon 366)
Category: Warding Component Cost: 10 gp
Time: 10 minutes Market Price: 50 gp
Duration: 24 hours Key Skill: Arcana (no check)

You or a creature within 2 squares of you is warded against becoming dirty. No matter what the target does, touches, walks through, or experiences, the target’s person, clothes, and carried possessions are not soiled. If the target is in any way soiled when the ritual is completed, that filth is immediately shed. Attacks or other effects that involve dirtying the character work as normal but leave no lasting waste or residue.


Secret Page
You laugh through your broken teeth. The duke’s impersonator might have found your journal, but he’ll never see what you wrote there.

Level: 1 (PH I)
Category: Warding Component Cost: 10 gp
Time: 10 minutes Market Price: 50 gp
Duration: Permanent Key Skill: Arcana

You ward writings so others cannot read them. Use of this ritual protects one page (maximum 250 words). You make the page appear not to exist, causing anyone other than you to ignore it; the page’s presence is blocked from a reader’s mind. You can choose instead to obscure the page with false writings, which you produce before performing the ritual. Other readers see the false text rather than the real text.

When you perform the ritual, make an Arcana check, with a +5 bonus. The result is the DC for a Perception check to notice the concealed writing (readers use passive Perception unless they are specifically looking for concealed text).


Seek Rumor
Noises fade away, replaced by the whispers of alleyways and clamor of taverns. Through the jumble of words, you hear a few choice phrases related to your purpose, and you feel a tug toward their source.

Level: 2 (FRPG)
Category: Divination Component Cost: 20 gp
Time: 30 minutes Market Price: 50 gp
Duration: Instantaneous Key Skill: Arcana

You sit in meditation and let rumor drift into your mind, blown in on the wind of the community consciousness. Your Arcana check for this ritual counts as a Streetwise check for gathering information. Treat the Streetwise DC as 5 higher. You learn only information you could pick up by a normal use of the Streetwise skill.

Appearance
Mr. Cassius is fairly tall for a gnome, and fit, typically dressed in a dark grey frock coat with a patterned vest and white linen shirt. He wears small violet-tinted granny glasses over, and keeps his dark brown hair trimmed sharply.

Mr. Cassius' style:



Mr. Cassius' rod of corruption, which he keeps in a low-slung hip holster.

I added Mr. Cassius' third level encounter power, but I haven't worked out his magic items yet.

Next level, would you allow me to take the Implement Expertise feat from PHII? It gives a +1 bonus to hit when wielding one kind of implement. Constantly missing is annoying.

Korm'akhan wrote:

I added Mr. Cassius' third level encounter power, but I haven't worked out his magic items yet.

Okay. The (somewhat) quicker way to do it is to retain the 2nd lvl and 3rd lvl items you already had when he was 2nd lvl, and just swap the 1st lvl item for a 4th lvl one. Plus spend the extra cash you get.

Quote :

Next level, would you allow me to take the Implement Expertise feat from PHII? It gives a +1 bonus to hit when wielding one kind of implement. Constantly missing is annoying.

Okay. I don't care for the feat actually, since it seems a no-brainer for anyone using an implement, but since this is mostly a test run of the system for this group, go ahead.

And you know that no bonus can help you and your rolling, right?

Admin wrote:

Okay. I don't care for the feat actually, since it seems a no-brainer for anyone using an implement, but since this is mostly a test run of the system for this group, go ahead.

Judging from new info from people who have the PHII, it's even more of a no brainer: it gives +1 to attacks, which increases to +2 at level 15, and +3 at level 25. That's so absurdly powerful that it's led many people to believe that the feat's actually a "patch" to a problem with the math of the game, in which defenses begin to outstrip attack bonuses at higher levels.

Quote :

And you know that no bonus can help you and your rolling, right?

I know. That doesn't stop me from raging against the dying of the dice.

Korm'akhan wrote:

Judging from new info from people who have the PHII, it's even more of a no brainer: it gives +1 to attacks, which increases to +2 at level 15, and +3 at level 25. That's so absurdly powerful that it's led many people to believe that the feat's actually a "patch" to a problem with the math of the game, in which defenses begin to outstrip attack bonuses at higher levels.

I'd heard something of the kind. That might actually make it more acceptable, if everyone's expected to take it, but then I might just give it to everyone for free at a certain point.

Quote :

I know. That doesn't stop me from raging against the dying of the dice.

True. Hope must live on. Or something.

Admin wrote:

I'd heard something of the kind. That might actually make it more acceptable, if everyone's expected to take it, but then I might just give it to everyone for free at a certain point.

That seems to be the consensus of the opinionated people on the internet. (Isn't self selection fun... GAH, I need to stop working on my dissertation, research methodology is starting to even affect my gaming!)

A common house rule (again, on the internets) seems to be: everyone gets +1 to hit at 5th, 15, & 25th level. That way it's fair for characters who need to use weapons as well as implements, and characters who routinely use multiple kinds of weapons.

Korm'akhan wrote:

That seems to be the consensus of the opinionated people on the internet. (Isn't self selection fun... GAH, I need to stop working on my dissertation, research methodology is starting to even affect my gaming!)

Quote :

A common house rule (again, on the internets) seems to be: everyone gets +1 to hit at 5th, 15, & 25th level. That way it's fair for characters who need to use weapons as well as implements, and characters who routinely use multiple kinds of weapons.

That seems pretty reasonable. I'll discuss it with the Port campaign group and probably apply it there.