Dendarial the Ken Hunter |
I am good with that. But, in case you were wondering about my thinking: A bow is made harder to pull by adding stiffeners - extra pieces glued in along the spine of the bow. By simply shaving these stiffeners back you could tune the strength to what you need. You would need a bowyer to do this of course.
If we sell this retail is 600, so we get 300. If I buy the masterwork +1 strength bow it will cost me 500. That is a delta of 200 for going down a point of strength. Perhaps it could be traded?
Dendarial the Ken Hunter |
That is totally a DM call. Den can carry the bow until he can find a place to sell/exchange it. I recall that it is +2 to use the bow that is 1 strength point too strong for him but its +1 to from being masterwork.
Dendarial the Ken Hunter |
So lets get to exploring. Who has ideas? We now know that there is a potion brewer out there somewhere. Want to go find him? Besides the bandit camp, and the general charter to explore, do we have any other business out there?
Jack Daniels |
Exploration rules:
One thing is traveling through a hex, which takes certain time depending on the party's speed.
Another is exploring a hex (per your charter), where you detail and map and uncover every nook and cranny for later development, etc. That usually takes 1+ days.
So when you choose a hex, let me know what you're doing: traveling through or exploring. Thanks!
Olo Dudley |
I propose we take two days to explore the nearest hex or two, then come back to rest and re-group in preparation for the bandit's counter-attak. Personally I am more curious about the wooded areas.
Also... can a Halfling ride a horse? This thought has never occurred to me before. I supposed if a human can ride an elephant, or a human child can ride a horse, there should be no problem. But on a human saddle? Perhaps I just have to adjust the stirrups and bridle. What say you, GM?
Dendarial the Ken Hunter |
What we cannot do is hand around the trading post waiting for bandits to attack. I do not think they will come any time soon, but am not sure. We have cut their force nearly in half. It will take three days for their away team to be missed. Another day or two for them to grow worried enough to send out scouts. I do not think they will abandon their other activities, whatever they may be, and set out in force to attack the trading post, when they do not even know the post was involved in the loss of their men. From their vantage point its more likely that something happened along the way or the way back. They have had no trouble from Oleg in the past and would not immediately suspect it this time.
Also, is it a three day journey from the post back to the bandit camp? If so, it would be 6 days at the soonest that they could be back at the the trading post.
Grimath Hammerswrath |
I'm all for coming up with a rough estimate for when the bandits could be at the outpost and being back before then. We should have time to fully explore a hex, or two at most, and then head back for a day or two until it seems clear that there isn't going to be an immediate retaliation, or the retaliation happens.
Olo Dudley |
Alright Den - points well made. I think you are right, three days until Happs should have returned and it would take them three more days to get to the post, IF they decided to go straight there. We have at least 6 days to explore, if we leave tomorrow.
Also a good point - we must bring down their numbers. I say we explore in the direction of their camp - perhaps we can take some of them down as we go, or find common trails they might have used. Den's tracking skills vs. humans will certainly be well used here!
After a few days of this, we go back to the post.
Grimath Hammerswrath |
Of the current characters, I think Beatrice, Laris and Rorgrym have the best fleshed-out characters. Agrona is probably next after them. My first choices would be Beatrice and Laris, I'm not sure whether I'd prefer Agrona or Rorgrym, both could be interesting characters from Grimath's perspective, the former likely clashing strongly with Grimath and the latter being a fairly non-traditional dwarf.
I'm not a big fan of Tik-Tik, as the background is really generic for such a far-out race choice, as you could basically replace pseudo-dragon with any other race in the backstory.
Dendarial the Ken Hunter |
Here are my thought on the candidates:
Before I review I have the following preferences in general.
First I like Wizards better than sorcerers. The small increase in number of spells per day that sorcerers get does not make up for the lack of knowledge skills. We have others that can be face characters. We need knowledge skills. For the same reason I like witches and alchemists better than sorcerers too.
Second, I like clerics better than oracles, unless you consider a life oracle. The ability to channel is just to good to have to do without if we do not have to. And I do not like duel cursed oracles. This is just too much cheese in my opinion.
Third, I like good alignments over non-good. LN can work fine but too many CNs and you are herding cats.
Avernus Mildari -I bet he would be fun to have around. I do not know what his revelations are. What am I missing? He has a spell, Haze of Dreams. Where is this from? I fear spirit does not really fit and I have already mentioned I do not like duel cursed. I would not allow it in my game. It seems unbalanced.
Azten - promising a wizard but nothing yet.
Beatrice the Witch - Hey, an Int based witch with the healing hex. Yes please. This character would be good to have around. Good skills. Good spell selection. "Good" Alignment. :)
Rorgrym Khazhugar- A good combat cleric. I do not like the charisma 10, which means he will never have selective channel, but at least he can channel. And he can fight. Not a bad build. I think his hit points are wrong. 24 at first level?
Titian Stagson - A pretty good sorcerer build. I am not a fan of the Intimidate rules, but I have to admit they can be effective. He does not have the knowledge skills I'd like to see in our arcane caster. His spells are pretty good, but he had no spell that does damage. Not even an acid splash or ray of frost.
Agrona Rivertusk- I like the idea, but when you go Con based caster suddenly you give up all your int skills. She is tough and would be good in a fight, but she is not a good candidate for a lone arcane caster. Still she is likely better than most sorcerers.
Tik-Tik- No. I would prefer the players stick to allowed races.
Daham promises a human cleric of Abadar. I'd like to see this but its not ready.
Ace - He mentioned a gunslinger, which I would prefer not to have, ever. But he provided nothing to review.
Laris D'Vagne - Hmm. No ability to channel and a lot of focus on combat in both stats and spells. But she will never be great at combat with her stats. She is sort of half way. I am not familiar with Legalistic curse. Seems like a weak curse. Where is this from? And then there is Rich parents. Was this allowed?
Summary - I'd love to see Daham cleric, but I guess he missed the cut off. And I thought we might get a transmuter wizard, but he had not yet shown. Based on what has actually been submitted I would choose Rorgrym Khazhugar for our cleric and Beatrice the Witch for our arcane.
Olo Dudley |
Morning! Passed out last night after work, had no time for forums... coming at you from my work commute. I would also reccomend Beatrice and Rorgrym. I appreciated their backgrounds the most and I think they would make an interesting dynamic and best fit for the group. Beatrice's healing hex could round out Rorgryms healing ability, and i think Grim could use his support on the front line.
glad we got some good apps! thanks JD!
Dendarial the Ken Hunter |
Hmm. I have to say I like the new Rorgrym less than the old. His strength went down and I believe his con went up. Plus he has toughness. So he is tough but less able to fight, while still lacking the ability to channel and exclude enemies. Meh.
Borden is a good build. I would have managed a 14 charisma if I were him, but maybe that is where his level 4 point will go. (its his only odd stat). Decent skills, and a lot of them for a cleric - 5 at first level. But he need to get a point into Heal soon. I like his domains (Travel and Nobility - Rorgrym had travel as well). He can have a good AC and do some front line standing but will not be much of a fighter. Still he is more of a "cleric" than Rorgrym in my opinion. I like both, but with the changes to Rorgrym will have to choose Borden as my favored.
Edit: I just went and looked at aliases and posting history for each player. Neither are bad, but I think I can see that Borden is a consistent poster easier than Rorgrym (both may be, I can just see it easier from my scan for Borden). Also It seems I am in two other games with the player of Borden. I was not aware of that until now. One has been a long running game where he is a good and regular poster.
Grimath Hammerswrath |
I'm not so worried about the optimization of the characters. It doesn't take much to keep a group up after fights, especially when we'll have some half-healers, and things like having skill in heal do very little in the long run.
That said, Borden is a great analogue to Damrak, and Den being willing to vouch for him because they're in games together is definitely a big plus. I'm ok with either.
Olo Dudley |
Borden's backstory is more tailored to our campaign, which I like. I also like the correlation to Damrak's character which is kind of neat. I think it also makes sense that we have at least one human in the party, after loosing 3. I agree that Den vouching for him helps a lot.
Would be happy with either him or Rorgrym, but after reading Borden I think I lean towards him more.
Thanks again for including us JD. Good luck deciding.
Beatrice the Witch |
I was initially thinking Beatrice's family convinced her to stay, causing her to miss the first charter. However, she traveled to Oleg's trading post perhaps out of curiosity/word of them being there or, just by chance, being from the area ... Maybe Borden and Beatrice encountered each other some miles before reaching the trade post and as newly met strangers arrive together, depending on what we're thinking about borden's arrival ...? Just to throw somethin' out there ...
Olo Dudley |
It seems natural that Beatrice may be acquainted with Oleg and Lana. I buy her reasoning and the connection to the NPC's could be interesting and fun.
Damrak was basically on assignment from the church of Abadar, right? Perhaps Borden is following similar instructions. I very much like his divine calling to the task. Maybe he explained this to the church and they sent him to follow up with Damrak?
I could see that they met up on the road and finished the last leg of their trip to the trading post together. They both seem like cordial characters who might welcome the travel companion.
Just some ideas to throw in the pot…
Beatrice the Witch |
There could be a connection there with Den. Perhaps there is more of a connection via her mother and grandfather who are full elves. However I imagined her family, prior to her birth, having been in the Rostland plains region for sometime and northern Brevoy before that. That, with the survivalist and tight-knit-ness of her family group's current lifestyle, somewhat isolated and generally unaffiliated ... I'm not sure how close of a connection she/ her family would have to elves in Kyonin anymore. There still could be something there. Her human father was a cleric of Desna, but that was via her kellish roots. She very much represents for the common folk of Brevoy/Rostland. "Freedom to the people" Kinda gal. I see more of a connection with the tradepost, or Oleg himself somehow, at least for purposes of intro to the group.
Borden |
I am ready to go and agree that a connection with Denmak through the church sounds workable. Though his goal of heading to the Stolen Lands is just as personal as it is religious.
Olo Dudley |
So, if we are going to split up total treasure found in GP between the 5 of us (as Den suggested in the game thread) we can each add a total of 26 GP (130 total, divided by 5). Let me know if anyone else disagrees. Otherwise I think everyone can go ahead and add that.
Borden and Beatrice, feel free to check out the gear we lifted off the bandits, incase you want to grab any of it. You may want a backup weapon or something like that. Otherwise, I think we are planning on selling some of it soon, possibly to Oleg…
As far as tracking future treasure - who created this log? I believe it was Athenasius… but maybe I'm wrong. If it was him, I'm willing to track future treasure if it helps. I can create us a new log.
Game wise… unless folks want to RP more, I think we can go ahead and advance to the next morning to head out exploring (unless the GM has other plans for us of course). Whaddya say?