The Salvation of Erivale Players Guide

In The Salvation of Erivale, players will face many different foes, visit many towns, and face daunting challenges. No matter how specialized your character, this adventure will offer you many times to shine. A diverse group will be a strength in this campaign. It is also recommended that you visit some of the other pages on this wiki to get a feel for Erivale, the land in which this quest takes place.

What follows is some information that should aid you as you develop your character.

Character Creation
Player characters for The Salvation of Erivale should be created in accordance with Pathfinder rules and the following guidelines.
 * Ability Scores should be determined using the Epic Fantasy point-buy system. The nature of this quest calls not for strong adventurers, but truly great ones. So your total point buy should add up to 25.
 * Alignments should be chosen from Neutral, Good, and Lawful. Chaotic and/or Evil characters are discouraged due to the premise of the quest, which calls for characters at least not opposed to lawful/good motivations. Chaotic or Evil are of course allowed if there is justifiable motivation for why they would be going along with a lawful/good mission.
 * Players who wish to choose a race other than Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Halfling, or Human, are asked to first consult the GM. Custom races probably aren't a problem, but monstrous ones probably are.
 * Players will begin play with 1 Hero Point, the maximum wealth for their class, and two traits.

House Rules
The following, and only the following, "house" rules will be applied to play by the GM.
 * At each new level, players will roll their hit die as normal to determine how many additional hit points they gain, but take the better of either the roll or half of the maximum possible roll. For example, if a character rolls a d8 as their hit die, and their roll is a 5, they gain 5 hit points. However, if they roll a 3 or below, they gain 4 hit points. Constitution and favored class bonuses still apply as normal.
 * Occassionally, when a character must divide by 1/2, the remainder of the quotient is lost by a general rule of rounding down. In this quest, however, a player may round up when the appropriate ability score is an odd number. For example, when weidling a weapon two-handed, you add 1-1/2 times your strength bonus to your damage. If your Strength is 16, giving a bonus of 3, you would add 1.5*3 = 4.5 to your damage roll. But since you cannot do half a point of damage in this game, you only add 4 to the damage roll. If, however, your Strength is 17, still giving a bonus of 3, you may round that 4.5 up to 5 intead. Likewise, if you are a Wizard and you cast Chain Lightning, but the opponent makes a successful Reflex save, you must divide the damage in half. If you have an even numbered ability score for Intelligence (a Wizards spell modifier) you round down, but if you have an odd numbered score, you round up.
 * If applicable, Spellcasters recieve bonus 0-level spells if their ability modifier is high enough. An ability score of 10-17 grants one additional spell. 18-25 grants two additional spells. 26-33 grants three additional spells. 34-41 grants four additional spells. And 42+ grants five additional spells.
 * Crafting regular items as well as magic items will work slightly differently in this game. It will be assumed that any crafting is done in down time during the campaign. That is, you will not need to identify when exactly you are crafting. Players may make one crafting check at the end of each day. When crafting rnon-magic items, progress is made in gold pieces, rather than silver pieces. If the player spends the day devoted to crafting, whether it be for magic or regular items, they may make up to 8 checks following these rules. Other than the modifications made here, the rules for crafting work as they are described in the PRD.
 * Players can gain weapon proficiency by practicing with that weapon. For every hour a character spends practicing, players can make a practice check by rolling a d20 and adding their Strength bonus if practicing with a melee weapon or their Dexterity bonus if practicing with a ranged weapon. Whips and Chains add the Dexterity bonus. If the check exceeds a DC of 15, the roll plus the bonus is added to a cumulative total. If the check does not exceed 15, the player adds 5 to the cumulative total. Once the cumulative total surpasses the total required for proficiency, the player becomes proficient in the use of that weapon. For simple weapons, this total is 100. For martial weapons the total is 150. And for exotic weapons the total is 200.
 * The Salvation of Erivale is designed to take characters from level 1 to 20 in a somewhat precise fashion. For this reason, players who are absent for a session will still gain the experience earned by the group. Further, the experience awarded for encounters may vary from what is normally assigned for specific CRs. And in leiu of bonus experience, the GM may award ability scores, bonus feats, skill ranks, or other bonuses to players throughout play.

Background
All of the characters will begin play in the city of Roth Koria. Players are free to determine their own background, but each player should determine how they came to befriend the other members of the group. Reading up on the history, geography, and culture of Erivale may be useful in this process. The adventure starts with all of the characters having decided to form a team and submit themselves as candidates for a post offered by King Basitor, the monarch of Delmoria. Basitor has called for a team of fighters, spellcasters, and other adventurers to take on some of Erivale's most dangerous criminals. On the day our adventure begins, Basitor is hosting an "open house" of sorts to find this team.

The Known Universe
Many characters, such as fighters, rangers, sorcerers, and wizards must make some initial choices (weapon training, favored enemy, spells, etc.) when creating their characters that can be all too easy to end up regretting. Keep in mind the following when making those decisions.

Enemies
Erivale was initially inhabited by druids, but eventually colonized by a wizard and those seeking riches in the many gold mines of West Oria. For this reason, Erivale is lush with creatures who are capable of powerful magic, and monstrous beasts created by the ancient druids. There are few giants such a ogres in the region, but many villages have been known to be terrorized by Orcs and Goblins. Dragons, animals, and dangerous plants are not uncommon either.

Hearing many of the rumors about eccentric criminals, you can guess that most of the people the King has in mind are Humans or Elves, as are their compatriots.

While everyone in Erivale has heard of The Zombie King, most have only recently come to think of him as a serious threat. Your impression is that while zombies, skeletons, and other undead creatures will likely be a threat to all in Erivale in the near future, this threat is not immediate, and certainly not part of what you suspect your mission will be, at least for now.