Jade Regent

Game Master Will Cooper

My turn for some blatant self promotion ;-)

Finalists for Valhalla Calling are up and you might recognize one of the names. Hint, he has the same initials as Marduzi :)

Niiiiice Dude! Congrats!

Well done!

@Iralynash: all of those items are available in Sandpoint

@Kelistria: either perform (oratory) or (sing) would work. Base DC is 10 to come up with something you're not ashamed of, then it gets better from there. If you roll well enough I might come up with some lyrics for you :)

Am I up to date with questions? Does anyone else have queries about shopping or travel preparations?

Oh, and happy new year! I think you've all caught up with me by now, it's been Jan 1st for about 23 hours here in NZ.

How much does everyone get with the adjustments?

Happy New Year!

Will - for that other chest (the one from the cave), do you want us to play out selling it or treat it as a no gold item?

Gratz, ML. And a Joyous New Year to all.

Regarding the loot split: If I'm not off on my calculations Kelistra taking the shortsword reduces the pot by 1155 gold or 128 gold each. Also Kelistra owes the party 846 from future loot.

Looks like Keli didn't get much from that performance.

I may have mentioned this in passing, but I'm leaving for Disney World tomorrow and won't be home until January 12. I should have net access, but don't know how much time I'll have for posting. Will, feel free to NPC Kelistra if I don't respond quickly enough.

That sounds right. I'll do another update once we deal with the crystals and the last chest. That should catch us up.

Brief expectation setting on a couple of issues, to hopefully mitigate possible frustration.

Posting schedule
I'm on vacation in Australia from 8 Jan to 18 Jan, and I expect to have very limited access to the forums - ipads and surfing just don't mix! So my posting will be more sporadic than normal over this time period. Let's use it to finalize everything in Sandpoint and get underway with the caravan. Before I leave on Tuesday I'll make sure you have all the information you need to get ready.

NPC relationships
The rules around relationship scores and romance etc with the key NPCs are designed to take place over a good chunk of the whole AP. We are currently about half way through book 1. The relationship rules reward long term sustained engagement with an NPC. I'm very happy to support and reward those, but you should have the expectation that significant relationships will take until at least book 3 to develop fully.

Oh, and credit to this blogger for the duel poem.

According to the players guide, the gm will inform you of one insult or gift category relevant to the NPC whom you have a campaign trait with, so I'd like to know one gift category for Shalelu please.

Thanks GM Will. I expected as much, but I wanted to set the precedent of my dogged, but respectful, continued pursuit of Ameiko throughout.

What are the properties of the reforged Bastard Sword? Or, would you rather have me seek that out in game?

Thanks for the heads-up Will. We'll adapt our pace to yours. Enjoy the vacation!

According to the players guide, the gm will inform you of one insult or gift category relevant to the NPC whom you have a campaign trait with, so I'd like to know one gift category for Shalelu please.

I'm hoping that Koya will like the map on the fan. It's not much, but she follows Desna (I think) and she might be appreciative of such things. That's why I want it.

@Ruhk: you feel that Shalelu would particularly appreciate gifts of survival equipment - a new hunting knife, fine wire for snares, tindersticks, camping gear. Her gear is serviceable but she might like something new.

@Malcolm: I'll cover it in character

@Dax: the glassmakers are happy with a copy of the map, so the fan should be available

Right - Tomorrow will be full of packing, and then I fly early to spend time snorkelling and generally being a beach bum. So, here's your homework for the next few days until I can pick things up again.

1 - complete personal purchases in Sandpoint and update character sheets accordingly.

2 - design the caravan, buy appropriate wagons, and agree jobs for the road in accordance with the player's guide rules.

3 - each of you send me a private message with a wish list of up to three magic items that your character would like. Each item should cost no more than 5000 gp. Note - I'm not going to give you these items, but I want some inspiration when I start placing loot in the next section of the adventure, and I want to make sure items are useful rather than heading straight for resale.

After my holiday we'll set off for Brinewall, uncover more of the legacy of the Kaijatsu family, and face the wrath of a dark hearted tengu demon!

Dark hearted Tengu demon? Aw, how cute, I'm sure he is just misunderstood.

As for Caravan feat, I would vote for either efficient consumption or Scavenger.

Ruhk would serve well as a scout I think, so that shouldn't be a problem.

As for the caravan, how about buying a horse span for it to increase travel, and a fortune teller wagon for Koya?

After reading the rules, I believe that a Fortune Teleer Wagon is actually part of the initial Caravan.

I also vote for efficient consumption as the feat.

Malcolm would sewrve as a Hero/Guard.

I would also be agreeable to the Horse Span as an additional purchase.

Did anyone redo the money? What's the last count?

Hmmm, I missed that bit about what wagons we already had, that's good.
In that case I'd say to get either a second supply wagon or covered wagon instead and use the remaining money to buy supplies.
If we go with the horse span we have enough space for all travelers so an additional supply wagon might be best.

Of course, adding one more wagon will require an additional driver, can anyone in the group take that role or should we hire someone else to do it?

As for the three points, I think for now offense is the least interesting of the four, so I'd spend one point on each of the other three.

Rommin can serve as a guard, a guide or a scout.

I like Efficient Consumption or Lucky Caravan for the feat.

So, we need space for 14 travelers. Adding a covered wagon would indeed get us the capacity we need as far as travelers goes.

I'll vote Efficient Consumption or Lucky Caravan too.

Marduzi is most likely a Scout. He could be a Driver, but it would be a little off taking the cavalier off his mount. Guard would work too. I can add a rank to Knowledge (Geography) later if Rommin doesn't take the Guide role.

I'll get the current gold up tomorrow.

Here is a start to the Caravan Tracking Sheet. Needless to say, it is not complete and nothing is set in stone yet.

Everyone, please take a look, make comments, corrections, make preferences known, etc. I just wanted to put this up to keep the caravan discussion moving.

Nicely done Rommin! I certainly have no objections, nor did I see anything that needed correscted at first blush. Thanks!

Put Halvor down for Spellcaster (Healer)

Yeah, looks good and good catch on Smoke. I have nothing for you right now.

Ruhk does not yet know he is a spellcaster, he would really prefer the role of scout assuming Marduzi or Iralynash are willing to let him have it since there is no need for more than three.

Ruhk does not yet know he is a spellcaster, he would really prefer the role of scout assuming Marduzi or Iralynash are willing to let him have it since there is no need for more than three.

After a few more people have time to give input, I'll post the caravan sheet again with updates, including this. I agree that scout would be good for Ruhk, especially given his, shall we say, relationship goals? :)

And at first I was thinking we wouldn't need a healer assigned unless we actually had sick or injured folks, but then I thought there are probably consequences to not having a healer full time, so I'll be glad to make that update as well.

Anyone have any thoughts for a name for the caravan?

If any of you are interested in an Evil PbP at Level 4, please check out Blood Knives and jump in the Discussion Thread. We recently lost some players and are looking to move forwarded with a very interesting game thus far.

I'm back from my journey. I'll look over the relationship and caravan rules in the players' guide.

Whatever is decided is fine by me.

Thanks everyone for the input.

A couple of notes:
If our scouts bonus goes towards offsetting consumption, we start with enough food to go 13 days. We do have 755 gp left in the budget, but we don’t have room to carry more. We need to make sure we address that if potential supply points are going to apart by two weeks or more.

When any of us hit third level, our caravan becomes third level and gets another feat. I’m thinking we may want to consider additional wagons. It will cost us more for an additional driver, but we can carry more provisions (giving us a longer range) and more trade goods to help take in more funds.

Of course, this is my first pass at the caravan rules, so if I missed anything I’m sure it will become apparent before too long… :)

Since the caravan has a travel rate of 32 miles per day, we can cover 416 miles before we run out of food if we travel straight and level with no delays. We've been told the Brinewall is 500 miles away, so we wind up three days short of our goal if there isn't a settlement on the way. Of course I don't know much about Brinewall at this time, so who knows what we'll find there.

We have room for two more travelers, which we may want to use for hiring two cooks. That would reduce our consumption by two units per day to 19 (13 if all scouts are hunting.) That increases the caravan's range by two days at the cost of 20 gp per month. That calculation assumes that the cooks consume a unit each per day. They aren't called out as not using caravan stores like the scouts. If the intention is that the cooks reduce consumption by 2 units each without consuming a unit themselves, our consumption would fall by 4 per day to 15 (11) and the caravan's range would be 18 days.

Looking at the map of Varisia on the pathfinder wiki, it looks like there are at least four points of civilization between Sandpoint (in the lower left hand corner of the map) and Brinewall (in the upper left hand corner of the map). So we should be good with our current configuration, I think. It does seem like a pretty minimal bonus to have a cook in exchange for one provision less a day. Frankly I would have expected a morale or resolve bonus; traveling while eating prepared, seasoned food is much more enjoyable than rations.

And thanks for helping crunch the numbers on it. I look forward to having you check things again before we go over the Crown of the World; I'd hate to be responsible for getting us stuck at the top of the world with nothing to eat but our dying horses... :)

I don't know about that, As Dolorous Edd says "Yum, nothing beats a cup of hot horse blood on a cold morning, I like mine with a sprinkle of cinnamon".

Nice work guys. Really appreciate you diving into those rules. Definitely happy to help check things for that later trip. It might make for some good black humor if we wind up eating the horses, but I'd rather make it safely :)

Hey guys.
Unfortunatly due to unforseen circumstances I will have to drop out of this game. Wish you guys the best of luck and a great journey. I will keep lurking around to follow your adventures in Tian Xia.
Peace.
-Merc K

Sorry to see ya go...good luck out there.

Yeah, good luck Iralynash. We'll miss ya.

I'm back after a great vacation, now need to readjust to normal working life!

Glad to see the caravan is largely complete.

Sorry to see you go, Iralynash.

Expect an update in the game thread in the next couple of days.

Cool! Welcome back and glad to hear you had a great time. Good luck in tomorrow's big reveal!

Hopefully no one minds if I now make some command decisions about our caravan.

Starting feat=lucky caravan (reroll)

Starting caravan has fortune teller, covered wagon, supply wagon

Our caravan can hold 10 people, so we buy two more covered wagon for 500gp.

Our cargo capacity is now 26. We can take 22 people total.

Sandru’s caravan starts with six travelers—Sandru,
Koya, Ameiko, Shalelu, and two Varisian brothers named
Bevelek and Vankor (additional drivers for the caravan,
with Sandru himself serving as the third driver).

We hire 5 traders at 10gp each
We hire 2 cooks at 10gp each
We hire 2 wainwrights at 10gp each
We buy a ballista for 500gp
10 trade goods for 100gp
4 repair kits for 100gp
6 sets of stores 30gp

Put one point in mobility, offense and defense each.
We have 180 gp left, enough to pay our workers twice if necessary.

Caravan roll 1d20 ⇒ 7

I don't mind, but you may want to take look at this prior post

Thanks everyone for the input.

A couple of notes:
If our scouts bonus goes towards offsetting consumption, we start with enough food to go 13 days. We do have 755 gp left in the budget, but we don’t have room to carry more. We need to make sure we address that if potential supply points are going to apart by two weeks or more.

When any of us hit third level, our caravan becomes third level and gets another feat. I’m thinking we may want to consider additional wagons. It will cost us more for an additional driver, but we can carry more provisions (giving us a longer range) and more trade goods to help take in more funds.

Of course, this is my first pass at the caravan rules, so if I missed anything I’m sure it will become apparent before too long… :)
** spoiler omitted **...

Sorry, ignore the last post.

Suggest modify roster to have five trade goods and 5 people that can trade.

If I'm not mistaken, roster assignments can be updated every twenty-four hours. Thus, we can hold off on designating traders until we get to a trade post.

Sorry for the slow progress everyone, work and family life is taking turns to kick my butt. I'll get back on top of this as soon as I can - hopefully tomorrow.

No worries Will. We'll be ready when you are.

No worries here, real life can throw a curve ball.