Ego, if you do not feel obligated to invite an alternate I have a friend who I think would love to play a bard in our group. He is very reliable, a good role player, and darn good tactically. Just say the word and I will have him contact you.
:)
A cleric would be better lol
Have him write up a character and drop it into the recruitment thread so i can take a look over it. I don't think we need a sixth player but inviting another player cannot hurt.
Sorry to see Phiona go but i think i saw it coming, good luck in your future games.
I have spoken with him and he is interested. He had offered a bard, woodsy cleric, or druid. Unless I hear otherwise I will tell him to play the one he would enjoy the most.
Aye, whatever he prefers. I'll take a look over it in the recruitment thread and we'll see how his character looks.
In the mean time on with the questioning!
Thumbscrews anyone?
I have charm person and interogation but cant use them until I rest. Until then we have to use diplomacy. We should find out their procedures for missing patrols too.
Hardly seems needed. We're getting answers.
DM, should I be rolling Sense Motive on any of this. Sergei is looking for lies.
Or you can roll or just assume a Take 10, if you'd prefer.
As far as killing the captives, he'd rather not. As long as they talk, we want to encourage that. The question of course, is what can we do with them. It basically comes down to:
1) Kill them.
2) Let them go.
We can't really leave them here as prisoners. There are no authorities to turn them over to. It's not safe to take them with us exploring.
We could apply some of the medieval punishments: cut a hand off or something. I'm not sure I really want to go down that route. (That's me, not Sergei.)
By the way, we should make sure to question the other 2 as well, to make sure they confirm his story.
As I said earlier, I'm going to be away most of next week, probably without internet access.
I'll be away as well, but I should have internet at least in the evenings.
If there are as many men in the bandit camps as we are hearing, we may need at least the header to have a chance to take them. 8-12, right?
I say we swear them to us, and if they betray us we show then no mercy.
I have been toying with the idea of some brand or mark we could put on them to show they were sworn men. Ideas?
So instead of encountering 8-12 it would be 12-16 when they turn kn us. I think this is a terrible idea.
Sergei, i'll assume your taking ten for sense motive. This guy is not even attempting to mislead you as far as you can tell, thought you get the picture he is being overly helpful, perhaps his numbers or information is off somewhere as he made it up to be able to supply an answer to a question.
I think its a hard conundrum we are in Dom.
'Surrender and tell us everything you know or we kill you. Now that we have everything you know? we kill you.'
If there is no chance at all then we will need to move to torture in the future if charm person etc fails.
Thats something I am not down with.
Clemancy has ALWAYS existed with the rule of law. Law must come to the stolen lands but so can clemency.
We can secure them - its just two guys. we can leave them bound for long periods of time. Humane? no... but better than death.
This is Kingmaker. At some point we basically become lords, right? Time to start building a kingdom one convert at a time. If we can come up with an oath that is good for both us and these bandits then I think there is a good chance they will swear it.
I am thinking we give them their freedom in exchange to give up crime forever and offer them an open gate. If they take the gate we could mark them some way (a small brand below the left eye?), meaning that they are reformed bandits. But we also give them a choice to join our cause to bring prosperity to these lands. If they will swear to us we arm them and they become our men. Yes, they might turn on us, but if they do we show them no mercy at all. A few will. I think most will not. The secret is to be better than this beast lord they follow now.
While i admire your ideals in reintegrating bandits into normal society i must say that even as a gm i agree with Domi's opinion on taking them into combat with you against their former allies is a very high risk method. I'm not saying it would be impossible to win some or even all of them over with diplomacy but it wouldn't be instant and chances are some would turn back if they saw the opportunity.
Putting them to work or branding and releasing to their own devices may be a better plan, i'd go with a forearm brand rather than a facial one.
Well, I would not advocate sending men against their old friends or leaders. Rome was the master of this, conquering an area, enlisting the locals in their army, and then sending them off to a foreign area to fight.
If we had arcane mark that would be perfect? Anyone?
Seems that no one plays a regular wizard anymore... lol
Romans also dealt with criminals harshly. They conscripted the regular locals to fight for them. Had bandits stood up against their senators and envoys shile they travelldd they would jave been slaughtered. Its flat out recklessness to try and arm them and take them along. I would agree to branding. But I agree that it should be the face. Strong message and immediately recognisable. An arm can be lost but a hesd cannot.
An extremely painful and somewhat deadly method of doing things though, if you brand peoples faces you will get a reputation for cruelty. It might even seem worse than a clean death to some warriors.
Also you may be gaining an archer paladin, is everyone good with us replacing Phiona and happy with the character as presented?
I am good with a pally. It will influence how we handle captive bandits though. :)
I think it will just gridlock us further in out debate lol should be interesting.
hehe
Being a worshiper of Erastil, Silva is old fashioned. He would prefer living the easy life with a family to adventuring. Unfortunately, evil in the world keeps this "simple life" from being attainable by most. Due to this fact, he hates evil and will do everything in his power to end it's influence in the world. He is not lawful stupid though and believes non-evil people who have made bad decisions need to be punished, but can ultimately be forgiven if they change. He is driven by the holy mission of preparing the Stolen Lands for settling. Bandits are an enemy to this cause. The group has been given an order to end banditry. He would have no problem with others using intimidation including slapping as a means to an end (finding a bandit camp to destroy). He would be against torture (branding, cutting off fingers) and lying (if you tell us we will let you live), but would execute the prisoner if the group decided it was best (though he would prefer to turn them over to the authorities when it is feasible). This is due to the fact the group has a written directive to act as "marshals" by legitimate authority figures.
With that said, I do not plan on playing him as the judge of his companions. Instead, he is a good guy who genuinely cares for others and enjoys simple pleasures (ie. good food and drink/hunting). He prefers leading by example over preaching and is willing to listen to differing opinions without forcing his beliefs on others. He understands Erastil has chosen to place him in this particular group of adventurers for a reason and will do his best to be a team player.
That sounds like a fair description of a paladins personal moral code, however he will not be arriving until the day after you finish your interrogation. So if you want to be mean you better be quick!
Jk, i think it will add an interesting angle to the moral dilemma you have all been facing though.
My only other option I could reasonably agree to woild be to send word for the sword lords to have prisoners picked up by some sort of patrol. Or use the pits out back and keep them imprisoned.
You mean the latrines?
Yeah lol or make them dig new ones. It would be really useful to have a fortified prison. We can use funds collected to compensate Oleg for feeding them and maybe hire some locals for guards. Pits deep enough to need ladders. I still vote hang them tho.
I like that Dom!
I changed a couple of things on my character and added some gear after reading through the game play and discussion pages. I now have a +5 survival check to assist 'Catfoot' in the wilderness. I am looking forward to playing with you guys on Monday. I am also interested in seeing how you guys decide to handle the prisoners.
I'm currently working on updating the map and giving you a verbal description of the bandit camp, yesterday was a little busy with baby and dystopian wars(i won at gaming and lost at nappies) but i'll have them done by the time most of you guys wake up. Just waiting for my gf to have a bit of a lay in before i get woking on the map.
Theres not really anywhere inside the walls you could make a pit to contain your prisoners, your best bet might be outside the walls but no matter where you decide to dig its going to be hard going due to the slowly thawing ground.
Your best bet might be to put your prisoners to work digging their own prison pit.
Does anyone have any more questions or do you want to move on?
I would like to question all three prisoners, but am not too interested in role playing it out. I am in meetings all day today but will try to post more questions and discussions with the leader tonight.
If you want to just question the leader thats fine, the other bandits will respond with similar information. They are not being misleading since they genuinely want to live.
If you just get all your questions together for the leader we can get that done and hand wave the other two.
I think we can move one table and bench to build a 15x20 pit if we wanted too.
Oleg isn't going to let you dig up his home so you can turn it into a minimum security prison. At best you might be allowed to house them in the stables.
However without a significant investment in chains and guards i can't imagine anyone would be happy to have a prison directly next to, never mind inside, their home and business.
If you are intent on imprisoning the bandits then you will need to put a little more planning into it than a shallow hole unless you go with the rope first.
Don't forget however Oleg's first comment on your arrival, "You don't look like the guards we were promised..."
That's it, I'm hanging everyone lol!
I know its unpopular, and Egan will go with the group's decision, but he wants to extract an oath to bind them to stop their banditry and, after some reasonable amount of time, go free.
What if we got them to agree to work for Oleg for a week or two and then they had their freedom, minus their weapons and armor, of course. I am still in favor of marking them some way to show they were caught as bandits once and their next offense is death.
Egan will approach Oleg with this idea. Will he feet them for a week or two for their hard labor and promise to give up banditry?
Pick the movie :)
I could see Oleg going for that as long as they were guarded, however Oleg favours hanging so you'd be better to approach Svetlana.
If I'm not mistaken, two of the three members who are vocal agree with hanging. Sergei is camping but said he didn't want to hang them if unnecessary and then pointed out that we have no way of holding them. Phiona is gone so she is a non factor, and Alagor has been UA since the fight. I would say it seems to be that the three of us need to make a final decision right? We can't wait the whole week for Sergei to make this decision. PS Silva has not arrived yet either... I think that taking a criminals word who just threatened to kill us the first chance they get, is completely ridiculous. You have what you hold and we can't hold them...
In this one case I think its gonna have to be that then. We are NOT letting them go.
Can we make it humane? Hit them with a sleep hex first the just cut their heads off?
Id say have Oleg name them as robbers officially for "X" amount of times amd give them either the sword in the collar bone like the Romans supposedly did or hang them and shew their horses out from underneath them like the Texas Rangers did. Not pretty but fairly quick and realistic to the "time."
I can use my spells on them after I rest. Unfortunately I dont have the sleep hex just the spell.
Well i think its gone on long enough and you need to decide what your going to do with them. As long as you are aware of the ramifications of your decicion then i'm happy with either outcome.
The bandits are in the stables, so not within earshot. Your all in the common room of the main house.
Now we have a paladin in the party i just wanted to take a moment to say that i'm not an alignment nazi, the only things that i would hold as breaking the alignment code is anything truely evil in the eyes of Erastil in the case of Silva.
I don't normally enforce alignment change for player actions and i don't think hanging these bandits is an evil action, its down to the characters own moral code.
It boils down to the issue the US faces with capital punishment. Their are good people for and against it. If Silva detected evil and the bandits were neutral, he would have a harder time supporting hanging them.
I would point out that any human who is a fair challenge fora level 1 party and not a cleric would detect as neutral no matter what.
Bingo!
DM Ego is right on this. Detect Evil isnt likely to work.
Look - I am against this in principal. I'd REALLY like to imprision them and pardon them later.
I think Svetlana is correct about her 'rights' over another nations laws. I can feel her dismay over the changing situation. But you cant have a nation without laws and you have what you hold is no basis for a system of government.
Welcome to the start of what could be potentially Lawful Evil my friends :)
That said? We CAN build in mercy and pardons and paroles and so on later, including Habeaus Corpus, trial by a jury of peers and so on... but we are with no support and a mandate to raise a kingdom and kill bandits.
We gotta use what we got now and build for a better tomorrow.
Pity these guys have to die - really is. But it has to happen or else everything else becomes much much harder.
Do we build a prison pit? waste time and resources
Do we guard them? waste of a PC as the NPCs cant / wont do it
We let them go? The results of that will make it hard for everyone AND may result in innocent deaths if there is a reprisal strike when we are not around to defend the homestead.
Is Alagor gone? has anyone received word on him? If he is and the DM chooses not to replace him I may take a lvl in either cleric or ranger to help balance that loss.
Bingo!
DM Ego is right on this. Detect Evil isnt likely to work.
Look - I am against this in principal. I'd REALLY like to imprision them and pardon them later.
I think Svetlana is correct about her 'rights' over another nations laws. I can feel her dismay over the changing situation. But you cant have a nation without laws and you have what you hold is no basis for a system of government.
Welcome to the start of what could be potentially Lawful Evil my friends :)
That said? We CAN build in mercy and pardons and paroles and so on later, including Habeaus Corpus, trial by a jury of peers and so on... but we are with no support and a mandate to raise a kingdom and kill bandits.
We gotta use what we got now and build for a better tomorrow.
Pity these guys have to die - really is. But it has to happen or else everything else becomes much much harder.
Do we build a prison pit? waste time and resources
Do we guard them? waste of a PC as the NPCs cant / wont do it
We let them go? The results of that will make it hard for everyone AND may result in innocent deaths if there is a reprisal strike when we are not around to defend the homestead.
I'm actually a criminal justice major and believe in proper law and due process IRL too. But in this scenario we are to coin a phrase in "Indian country" and we have to what needs to be done.
Also I am playing the role. Dom could be on the cusp of a seriously dark path. Right now however he is convinced that this is not only the right course of action but the BEST course of action. It just happens to coincide with his plan for revenge on the big 'ol jerk who one shotted him lol
Ranger would be cool and sorta fit.
I really feel sad when ppl make commitments to play pbp and then cant even take 5 mins to say 'back in two weeks' or 'I don't like the game, sorry I am out'.
That said, looks like hes been totally gone from the boards for 2 weeks so hoping he is ok.
Its summer vacation time in Europe, right?