ALFA - User contributions [en]

Monastic Order

2018-12-02T10:41:36Z

Rumple c:

== Monastic Order and Allowed Multiclassing ==

*Long Death (evil): assassin, blackguard, fighter.

*Old Order (usually neutral, sometimes good, rarely evil): rogue, sorcerer, shadowdancer (monk levels must be higher than total of all other class levels).

Hin Fist (neutral or good): fighter, rogue, paladin.
*[[Arvoreen]]
*[[Cyrrollalee]]
*[[Sheela]]
*[[Urogalan]]
*[[Yondalla]]

Shining Hand (neutral): wizard (if monk level exceeds
wizard level).
*[[Azuth]]

Order of the Iron Gauntlet (evil): assassin, fighter. A small sect within the Zhentarim, these monks train in stealth and assassination. Currently they are few in number but their leader has been recruiting widely.
*[[Bane]]

Zealots of the Written Word (good): cleric. These monks accompany clerics of Deneir on quests, assist in moneymaking
efforts for the church, and are as fond of recording information as any devout worshiper of Deneir.
*[[Deneir]]

Disciples of the Changeless Face (neutral): fighter. This stoic and spartan order is obsessed with preserving the
knowledge of how things are (from laws to traditions to manners of speech) so that change can be detected and countered (which often involves beating into a pulp someone who disagrees).
*[[Grumbar]]

Broken Ones (good): clerics, divine champions.
*[[Ilmater]]

Disciples of St. Sollars (Monks of the Yellow Rose) (good):
ranger, shadowdancer.
*[[Ilmater]]

Disciples of the Phoenix (good): cleric. This order (and the other two orders of Kossuthan monks) is very insular
and has a rigid tradition of study and fighting style, as well as behavioral taboos. They are the most likely to espouse the purifying and redeeming aspects of their deity’s element.
*[[Kossuth]]

*Brothers and Sisters of the Pure Flame (neutral): cleric. These monks seek a balance between the purifying aspect
and the destructive aspect of Kossuth’s flame, and are the mediators of the three orders. Most of them learn Ignan
to better communicate with fire elementals.
*[[Kossuth]]

*Disciples of the Salamander (evil): cleric. Some of these monks rival a Talosian fanatic’s love of destructive fire,
but most see it as a necessary tool for renewal in the world. Many of them bear brands of magical symbols on
their bodies and decorate themselves with fiery tattoos.
*[[Kossuth]]

Sun Soul (good or neutral): any one other class (as long as
monk is the highest class level).
*[[Lathander]]
*[[Selûne]]
*[[Sune]]

Disciples of the White Rod (evil): cleric. Monks of Loviatar prefer using their bare hands to inflict pain rather
than using weapons. When forced to use weapons, they prefer nunchaku with white-bleached leather wrappings on the hilts.
*[[Loviatar]]

Runeclaws (evil): cleric. Because in many orc tribes females are not allowed to touch weapons, unarmed
combat has become a means for female worshipers of Luthic to defend themselves against raiders from other tribes. Some female orcs that are too old for childbirth (particularly older wives of the chief) become runeclaws to prove they are still useful to the tribe.
*[[Luthic]]

Children of the Passive Voice (neutral): none. These monks serve as guardians to libraries and abbeys, and
sometimes are sent to find lost stores of knowledge.
*[[Oghma]]

Dark Moon (evil): sorcerer (monk and sorcerer level must
be within two levels of each other).
*[[Shar]]

Serpent Guards (evil): assassin, divine champion, fighter, rogue. These fanatics guard temples, serve as minions to
dragons, hunt dragonslayers, and assassinate those who pry too closely into the activities of the church. They are active in Unther and have been known to attack Mulhorandi soldiers.
*[[Tiamat]]

Long Death (evil): assassin, blackguard, fighter.
*[[Velsharoon]]

Brotherhood of the Scarlet Scourge (evil): cleric. Monks of this strange orc order bleach their hands white and
grow their nails very long. Before combat they dip their nails in a powder made of blood infected with the red ache, which
lets them infect their opponents.
*[[Yurtrus]]

2015-01-06T22:04:43Z

Rumple c:

Writing ACR Quests/The Challenge

2015-01-06T22:03:53Z

Rumple c:

2015-01-06T21:46:57Z

Writing ACR Quests

2015-01-06T21:32:19Z

Rumple c:

[[Category:Technical Manuals]]
Static quests are a common strategy to provide less-complex and less-rewarding entertainment for players while there are no DMs online. Ideally, these quests should facilitate role playing by presenting players with a goal that they can pursue for some period of time.

This tutorial will try not to assume and pre-existing knowledge, but will also attempt to link away to other pages to provide definitions that more-proficient users are likely to find cumbersome or extraneous, with this page providing the broadest outline, and links which can be used to view greater detail on the individual parts.

== Quest Basics ==
Writing a quest generally begins by defining your task. Take a moment to write, as a paragraph or so, what you want characters to have to do in this quest. It can be vague or open-ended, but projects are vulnerable to scope creep if they don't have a goal when they begin.

Once this is done, it comes time to divide your quest into its requisite parts:
* '''The Hook''': represents the introduction of the quest to the players involved; something is done to inform the PCs that they have a task to accomplish.
* '''The Challenge''': represents the actions that the players have to take to consider the quest done.
* '''The Turnin''': represents how the players are rewarded for completing the chosen task.

== Example ==
Take, as the simplest example, a courier quest:
* [[Writing ACR Quests/The Hook | The Hook]]: When the players present to whoever is offering courier work.
* [[Writing ACR Quests/The Challenge | The Challenge]]: The travel to and from the recipient of the package.
* [[Writing ACR Quests/The Turnin | The Turnin]]: Speaking to the employer for payment.

However, these quests can be infinitely recursive. Take, for example, a quest to catch a bothersome and powerful criminal entrenched in a city:
* Players seek work for the city, and are provided with a series of lower-risk tasks, which uncover something far bigger and more siniser afoot:
** Primary Hook: Evidence speaks of bad guys who need busting up.
*** Players recover low value contraband from the bad neighborhood
**** Hook: Present to Commanding Officer
**** Challenge: Fight or intimidate street thugs to give up the goods
**** Turnin: Bring the contraband back to the C.O.
*** Players carry a message to a guardsman on duty
**** Hook: Present to C.O.
**** Challenge: Find guardsman and present message
***** Hook: Guard has gone missing! Bloody hell!
***** Challenge: Skulk through the sewers to follow the guardsman's still-warm trail
***** Turnin: Find unconscious guardsman and revive. Present message
**** Turnin: Return to C.O.
*** Players Seek Investigation
**** Hook: Present to C.O.
**** Challenge: Return to the missing guardsman's trail to investigate circumstances. Find evidence of organization
**** Turnin: Bring evidence back to C.O.
** Primary Challenge: Bust up some Bad Guys
*** Players find guardsmen who may have seen activity
**** Hook: Talk to three guardsman to be directed to the most-troubled parts
**** Challenge: Speak to all of the guards in the troubled area to get hints into the sorts of criminal activities done.
**** Turnin: Return to C.O.
*** Players bust up three operations:
**** Operaton 1: Street dealer
***** Challenge: find out where a dealer of whatever bad stuff (above) is working. Track and capture him.
***** Turnin: Bad guy -> Jail
**** Operation 2: Ships
***** Challenge: correctly identify and search a ship full of whatever the bad stuff is.
***** Turnin: Bad stuff -> C.O.
**** Operation 3: Storage
***** Challenge: find the avenues being used to move the bad stuff around the city.
***** Turnin: Bring information back to C.O.
*** Information gained from three operations directs to a likely location for a center of bad stuff in the city. Players bust in and bust things up, probably dealing with heavy resistance and hazardous settings.
** Primary Turnin: Return to the C.O. and get money or a promotion or something.

== Recap ==
And there is demonstration there that you can have quests within quests within quests: using one's quest's completion as prerequisite to the advancement of another arc-like quest, or how you can have sequences of checks or actions (potentially unrelated actions) be required to progress the quest to its next step: and those quests can themselves be complex, if the circumstances require. Ultimately, though, it does need to be boiled down into nests or sequences of simple things before it can be built.

== Advanced skill challenges ==
But why stop there Zelknolf goes on to show us how to create even more dynamic quests.

[[Writing ACR Quests/More Challenges | Advanced Challenges]]

Writing ACR Quests/The Turnin

2015-01-06T21:26:00Z

Rumple c:

Writing ACR Quests/The Turnin

2015-01-06T21:25:25Z

Rumple c: Created page with "== The Turnin == Fortunately, here, we're in relatively-simple territory. The thing we're going to do here is going to look almost exactly like a quest turn-in. First thing i..."

== The Turnin ==

Fortunately, here, we're in relatively-simple territory. The thing we're going to do here is going to look almost exactly like a quest turn-in. First thing is going to be to get the NPC prompting about the task that has been given to the PC.

But! Something important here, there are two states in which the NPC will ask the same thing.

That is:
*Step 0: The PC hasn't heard of the job
*Step 1: The PC has been told to talk to the mercenary
*Step 2: The PC has talked to the mercenary, and has information to report
*Step 3: The PC has reported back to the inn keeper with information from the mercenary.

In the red steps, the NPC would ask "Hey, did you learn anything from the mercenary?" (after all, she doesn't know if you've had any luck; that's why she hired you!)

So to do that, we're going to add two lines to our condition tab for the NPC's introduction:

[[File:conversation_bools_1.png]]

And then, inside of that node, the PC's response to talk about what they've learned only has one line (for step 2; the one where they have something to report -- we don't have to account for any other step, because we've filtered everything down to PCs on steps 1 or 2 at this point).

[[File:conversation_bools_2.png]]

Now, if this was a simpler quest; a one-step skill challenge, we also set an action to set quest state to 3 when reporting in, fork over a little gold and XP, and call it done. But we've got much more in mind here, so we're going to keep going. The NPC offers more work, and gives the PCs an opportunity to accept or decline. So, if the PC accepts, we need to advance to step 3

[[File:conversation_bools_3.png]]

File:Conversation bools 3.png

2015-01-06T21:22:28Z

Rumple c: Rumple c uploaded a new version of "File:Conversation bools 3.png"

File:Conversation bools 2.png

2015-01-06T21:22:12Z

Rumple c: Rumple c uploaded a new version of "File:Conversation bools 2.png"

Writing ACR Quests/The Challenge

2015-01-06T21:16:47Z

2015-01-06T20:50:47Z

Rumple c: Created page with "Category:Technical Manuals This guide is written by our own Zelknolf, [http://www.alandfaraway.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=223&t=51054 on the forums]. Fi..."

File:Tooling skillcheck 3.png

2015-01-06T20:49:26Z

Rumple c: