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So are you guys familiar with the Faction rules/mechanics? I would like to know before hand if I need to type up a wall of text.
The factions I was looking at would come from the Faction Guide. If there is one that catches your eye in particular, from this source or elsewhere, let me know. Right now, there will be an opportunity to join the Pathfinders or an alternative faction that I think would like to have you as a member.
Just brushed up a bit.
Aldous would most likely be interested in the Arcanimirium or the PF Society.
Haven't read it before
I'm okay with the new initiative system. But I also didn't mind the old system.
I don't have that faction book. Is the system the same as in the PFS guide? Is there any faction that goes well with Gunder's outer space background? Or one that could have been the cult he joined in Kaer Maga?
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It is pretty much the same system in the PFS guide, Gunder. The use of Total Prestige Points (aka TP or Fame) & Current Prestige Points. And yes, there is a faction that I think works very well with Gunder's background.
Here's the breakdown from the Faction Guide. It's pretty much cut & paste. If you play PFS, then you know all of this already. I will present the opportunities to join a faction in the near future, but I thought it would be best to discuss it ahead of time. I'll do a long post here in a bit on the Gameplay, but I'm a bit worn down at the moment.
PCs improve their standing within their faction by succeeding in missions relating to or coming from a faction. In a given adventure, or even in between adventures, you should think about the factions the characters in the party have chosen to represent. Their factions might ask them to assassinate a crime lord, protect an innocent merchant caught in a crossfire, save a kidnapped child, hand off an important letter, foil an assassination, recover a specific stolen relic, or locate a letter of marque. Whatever the mission, a positive outcome earns the character a Prestige Award (PA).
As a character’s prestige increases, her faction rewards her excellent service with ever-increasing boons. In this section, you’ll find an expanded system of rules that describes the kinds of rewards and privileges a character can access as her Total Prestige Award (TPA) increases and how she can use her Prestige Award for a variety of benefits that reflect her faction’s willingness to assist her in times of need.
Governments and religious, political, mercantile, or cultural organizations may vary a great deal when it comes to dealing with factions and their activities. Some factions, like the Mendev Crusaders and the Hellknights of Cheliax, are blatantly public in their actions and their efforts to recruit others to their cause. Others are subtler in their plots and operate in the shadows; even where their presence is known, local leaders often turn a blind eye to their existence and activities as long as they don’t make trouble. The more secretive factions often look down on those who act openly, but every faction must weigh the value of a public presence and reputation versus the ability to operate without interference. Factions have alliances and rivalries to be sure, but they usually avoid open conf lict with their rivals in the interest of keeping the favor of local governments that allow them to operate freely in their territory.
A character’s Prestige Award (PA) is an abstract way to track his growing renown and reputation within a faction.
Total and Current Prestige Award
Just as a character has a maximum hit point value when fully healed and a current hit point value when injured, that character has a Total Prestige Award (TPA) and a Current Prestige Award (CPA). TPA represents the character’s overall reputation within a faction. CPA represents how much inf luence the character currently has within that faction in terms of favors owed to him and his ability to influence others and make use of the faction’s resources.
Characters may spend CPA to acquire goods or services (see Spending Prestige Award), which means that a character’s CPA is usually less than his TPA, just as an adventuring character’s current hit points are usually less than his total hit points. CPA can never be higher than TPA.
Characters earn prestige for performing missions for a faction or otherwise advancing the faction’s goals. For example, a character allied with the Eagle Knights gains prestige with that faction for breaking up a slaving ring, while a Razmiri cultist gains prestige for converting unbelievers to the faith and sending tithes back to Razmiran. At your discretion, a character may earn prestige for an adventure even if it’s not part of an “official” mission for a faction—a 7th-level paladin who’s freed many slaves probably has earned prestige with the Eagle Knights even if she’s never taken orders from a member of that faction.
When a character’s Prestige Award increases, her TPA and CPA increase by the same value. For example, Jothalia has 5 TPA and 2 CPA with the Eagle Knight faction; if she completes a mission for them and her PA increases by 2, she now has 7 TPA and 4 CPA.
Not every adventure or encounter needs to relate to a faction mission, nor does every faction have an interest in every possible adventure, but as a general rule you should strive to provide equal opportunity for PCs of all factions to earn prestige. If you cannot find a place within a given adventure for the interests of a particular PC’s faction, make a point of integrating opportunities later on for that PC to achieve some faction goals.
The ability to earn prestige should be routine, but it need not be automatic. If a PC fails at her appointed tasks or passes up opportunities to further her factions’ goals, she does not earn prestige simply because her player showed up to play. By choosing to play using a faction, a player is agreeing to “play along” with faction goals in order to obtain faction rewards. If the PC does not fulfill her obligations as a member of the faction, she should not expect to rise in the faction’s esteem.
The rate at which characters’ prestige increases varies depending on the whether you use Fast, Medium, or Slow advancement (Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook 30), but on average, characters should be able to increase their PA by 3 to 5 points per experience level, whether acquired by completing several small missions or tasks or one more difficult or significant task. Over the course of a long campaign like a Pathfinder Adventure Path, characters might expect to increase their PA by 40 or more points, especially if the campaign is tightly linked to the factions players choose.
If you want to expand how you use prestige in a game, you could also use the characters’ PA to replace or supplement standard treasure awards. In a campaign where looting the dead or robbing tombs is frowned upon, you could use PA to help fill the gap in character resources that would normally be satisfied by pillage and plunder.
Prestige should be seen as an enticement rather than an instrument to punish PCs, but a character can lose prestige for betraying faction secrets to outsiders, causing the death of a faction member, stealing from or lying to their faction brethren, befriending or allying with members of opposed factions, and so on. A typical penalty would be the loss of 1–3 CPA. In extreme situations, however, a character might incur such a negative reputation within his faction that his CPA and TPA decrease by 5 or even 10 points for a major transgression, possibly resulting in loss of rank and privileges within the faction. This does not force characters to forfeit boons already acquired, but it may prevent them from obtaining any new boons or benefits for which they no longer qualify at their lowered TPA, and they must work to get back in the good graces of their peers.
A character’s Total Prestige Award represents her trustworthiness and status within their faction. The simplest representation of this prestige is that for every 10 points of her Total Prestige Award, she gains a +1 bonus on Diplomacy checks with members of that faction.
In addition, she may learn certain feats or spells or be able to purchase unique magical items or other goods that are restricted to those whose TPA reaches a certain benchmark. Her faction contacts can allow her to buy or sell goods whose value exceeds the normal gp limit of the local area or that might be of questionable legality. Finally, depending on the organization, a character’s TPA might afford her certain titles and incidental privileges.
Many factions have close associations and alliances with other groups, and earning prestige in her faction can allow a character to enjoy some of the benefits of membership and prestige within allied factions as well. Each faction entry describes whether that faction is allied with any others. When dealing with members of an allied faction, a character may treat her TPA as if it were half its actual amount, including the related bonus on Diplomacy checks with, and buying and selling goods through, the allied faction; she can also spend CPA to obtain boons from an allied faction, though the costs are increased by 1.
Just as factions have allies, so too do they have enemies. The very same prestige that can make a PC famous within her faction and among allies can make her infamous in the eyes of opposing factions, and avoiding attracting unwanted attention from her faction’s enemies or those friendly to them is one reason that some characters keep their faction allegiances secret. If a character’s faction allegiance is known, the initial attitude of an NPC of the opposing faction is treated as one step worse than normal (for example, Indifferent becomes Unfriendly, Unfriendly becomes Hostile), and for every 10 points of the character’s TPA, she takes a –1 penalty on Diplomacy checks to influence that NPC. If the NPC’s faction opposes more than one of the PC’s factions, only the faction with which the PC has the highest TPA counts.
A character’s CPA total ref lects the goodwill, political capital, and personal favors she has built up through service to the organization. While a character’s TPA can provide certain titles and privileges, most tangible benefits of faction membership are acquired when a character spends his CPA on temporary boons, favors, aid, spellcasting, or other services (see the Appendix). Regardless of whatever honorific titles a character has earned through his Total Prestige Award, the cost for obtaining boons remains the same—an exalted Vision of the Fifteenth Step of the Church of Razmir must spend 1 CPA to have a remove curse or dispel magic spell cast on his behalf, just like a new initiate.
Once a character’s CPA is spent, it is spent permanently; it is not recovered automatically like lost hit points or ability score damage.
The character can, of course, earn more PA, which adds to both her TPA and her CPA, but spent points are gone. Characters may not spend CPA during combat, and for the sake of simplicity you may limit characters to spending CPA once per gaming session (this keeps players from saving up their PA in large amounts and spending it all at once, making an adventure too easy). It is possible for a player to spend his character’s PA even if the PC is dead; in essence, this represents the PC having made prior arrangements with his faction to perform certain actions on his behalf, such as recovering his dead body and returning it to a specific location or having it raised. You can add to the services presented in this book or create your own factions. The monetary equivalent of 1 point of PA is approximately 375 gp, though characters should normally only be able to spend PA on services, not physical goods.
PCs may not pool their earned prestige to obtain items or services, or for any other purpose, even if they are members of the same faction. As a general rule, PA is designed to be spent by characters on themselves; PA costs increase by 1 when the benefit is to other characters instead of to the member of the faction. However, PCs in a home game are ultimately free to spend their PA as they see fit. A character’s ability to spend PA is dependent on his being in contact with other members of his faction, and unless noted otherwise, most factions tend to have agents, contacts, or headquarters in settlements that are at least the size of a large city. To reflect the difficulty of contacting a faction agent in a smaller settlement, PA costs increase by 5 in communities smaller than 5,000 people. This change, of course, can vary by organization; for the Green Faith, for example, the opposite is true—PA costs increase by 5 in communities larger than 5,000.
Just wondering if we are taking a break until the next game.
I could see Bria as a Pathfinder. I don't have the book, nor am I likely to buy it any time soon so I really can not comment about any other faction possibilities.
Get well soon, Nebten!
Indeed, feel better!
Drink from the fountain, Neb!
Here are the items that have been found..
Ring of Swimming
390 gp
Necklace 160 gp
Wand of Magic Missle 3rd level 22 charges (Aldous)
Bracers of Armor +1
Horn of Fog
Spell book (Aldous)
+1 Longsword
Bag of Holding 1
+1 Bashing large steel shield
Elemental gem(water)
5 Kassen's boons
Any suggestions on who gets what and what should be sold? Bag of Holding would be good for loot.
Horn can probably be sold, IMO. Also the longsword.
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Keep the following in mind:
Kassen is a Hamlet. If you wish to buy goods and provisions in Kassen, you will have no trouble finding most standard gear, so long as its value is 500 gp or less (including most armor and masterwork weapons). Magic items, however, are a bit harder to come buy. There is a 75% chance of finding any magic item with a value of 500 gp or less, generally limiting the town to 2nd-level potions and 3rd-level scrolls. These items can be purchased from Holgast and Father Prasst.
A merchant cannot afford to spend more then 1000 gp on any one item. So if you sold the +1 longsword, you'd only get 1000 gp. And don't come crying to me if you fight another shadow and you don't have any magic weapons =v)
Well we can give it to Bria
Anyway, Here are my level up stuffs
HP +5
Acrobatics +1
Disable Device +1
Perception +1
Stealth +1
Know-Engineering +1
Use Magic Device +1
Appraise +1
Craft-Armor +1
Craft-Weapons +1
Craft-Sculpture +1
Diplomacy +1
Bluff +1
Feat: Dodge
Sneak attack to +2d6
Trap Sense +1(Ac saving throws vs traps)
Thought we got 1/2+2 Con. Must have forgotten.
Bria embiggens to level 3
+1 hp favoured class bonus
so 5 HP.
+1 Perception
+1 Swim
Feat: Cleave
Gunder voices a strong interest in the Ring of Swimming, due to bad experiences when trying to not drown he had recently.
He also wouldn't mind taking the Elemental Gem and the Horn of Fog.
He also buys a small Morningstar (8gp) from the blacksmith - after making sure he is not disturbing him and Bria with anything.
Tell me more about this shield. Is it light, heavy or tower?
HP
Diplomacy +10 (+1 rank)
Linguistics +10 (+1 rank)
Knowledge (Arcana) +9
Knowledge (Local) +9
Knowledge (Planes) +8 (+1 rank)
Knowledge (Religion) +8 (+1 rank)
Perception +6 (+8 with Dragon w/in 5’) (+1 rank)
Spellcraft +10 (+1 rank)
+1 Reflex, +1 Fort
Spells Learned: See Invisibility, Web
Feat: Craft Wondrous Item
Pared down my equipment to the bare essentials (20 regular arrows, 10 blunt arrows, knife, backpack, belt pouch, spell component pouch, spellbooks) so I believe I should be under light encumbrance still.
Would Bria (or some other strong person) carry my 50' of rope, lantern, and waterskin? With Garuneh around, water is less of a concern, but it never hurts to be prepared, right?
We should also buy LOTS of food and stick it in that bag of holding. Starvation sucks!
Do we have a coin-value obtained?
Aldous would LOVE to scribe a few scrolls, perhaps acquiring a couple of 2nd level spells if available.
(High % is good)
Invisibility Scroll
Scorching Ray
Resist Energy
I'd suggest keeping the sword for Bria, at least for now. The horn and elemental gem are also great utility items, and the bag of holding is a definite keeper. Would its weight hinder Liz? If not, she should probably carry that.
So much thread action! I'll level up today and whatnot. Been sick and writing music (not a good combo)
But you could have created such ill beats, G!
[/rimshot]
Ring of Swimming (Gunder)
390 gp
Necklace 160 gp
Wand of Magic Missle 3rd level 22 charges (Aldous)
Bracers of Armor +1 (Aldous)
Horn of Fog
Spell book (Aldous)
+1 Longsword (Bria)
Bag of Holding 1 (Liz)
+1 Bashing large steel shield (Bria)
Elemental gem(water)
5 Kassen's boons
550 GP in coins and selling the necklace= 550/5=110 gp each.
KInda iffy myself ont he Horn of Fog. Grants concealment but we are blind as well!
I'll take the bracers of armor, if no one minds.
My AC could use a little assistance, after all
Fog Horn and Obscuring Mist have the same issue, despite everyone crowing about how awesome they are. They are good for Stormborn Sorcerers and folks with Goz Masks.
Aldous...ugh...did you just cast Hideous Pun?
No doubt we can sell it at a bigger city.
Yup, a horrible pun, indeed.
Garuneh is building into a summoner druid--he would like to take the Elemental Gem.
I could have sworn we got Bracers as well in the Godsmouth. Neb, if we did, can we sell them?
so, an extra 500 bucks, I mean GP--too bad they can't be smooshed with the others to make Bracers +2, Aldous.
I've leveled up. Got this and that skillwise and stuff.
Ring of Swimming (Gunder)
390 gp
Necklace 160 gp
Wand of Magic Missle 3rd level 22 charges (Aldous)
Bracers of Armor +1 (Aldous)
Horn of Fog
Spell book (Aldous)
+1 Longsword (Bria)
Bag of Holding 1 (Liz)
+1 Bashing large steel shield (Bria)
Elemental gem(water) (Garuneh)
5 Kassen's boons
550 GP in coins and selling the necklace= 550/5=110 gp each.
Plus another 500 gp/5, yeah? 210 each! Maybe I can upgrade some armor.
I bought a sling and some marbles for 1 sp. Magic STTOOOOONNNNNE
Sorry, Gunder, I didn't see that you wanted the Elemental Gem. I think anyone could use it--Augment Summoning doesn't work on non-spell summons, does it?
Nope. Aug Summoning only applies to personally cast summon x spells.
So only the Horn of Fog is left. We can sell it if we hit a bigger city.
Tip for the future, while keeping items found in the party 'Just in case' seems to be a good idea, a lot of the stuff can be sold for cash and thus we can get stuff we have an eye on. No sense keeping a dart +1 when we cna just cash it in.
Level 3 stuff:
New Feat: Extra Revelation
New Revelations: Cloak of Darkness, Many Forms
New Spell: Burning Disarm
Skill ranks (4): Stealth, Knowledge Arcana, Knowledge Planes, Knowledge Religion
Favored Class Bonus will go into hit points.
200 more gp for everyone.
A note on armor (hopefully the last for a while):
The armor bonus from Gunder's new Cloak of Darkness ability doesn't stack with the armor bonus from actual armor, as far as I can tell. Gunder will continue to carry his old chainmail around in his backpack for a while, but unless explicitly stated otherwise he will not be wearing it anymore.
Shopping:
Gunder sells his old shield (+1.5gp)
I forgot to track how many torches he had left, but I am pretty sure he was running low on his supply. So lets just say he ran out of torches and now he is buying 6 new torches (0.3gp).
He also buys food for a month: 30 rations (15gp).
So he should have 214.05+410+1.5-0.3-15-8= 602.25gp now.
Concerning the gem:
Garuneh, you can have it if you want.
Bought:
Mule (8 gp)
Harness (2 gp)
Pack saddle (5 gp)
4 Days rations (2 gp)
Club (Free)
We can pass it back and forth!
So, I have enough cash to get a Darkwood Buckler. It ain't easy having a low STR! I have to hand my scimitar to Bria in the Bag of Holding. Maybe we should put a bunch of things in there.
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Character Concerns
Aldous: The spellbook weight is no calculated into your encumbrance. Adding it in puts you at 32 lbs. Also remember you need to record the spells from the discovered spellbook into your own spell book before they can be used for daily memorization.
Bria: Your hit points should be at 26. I have no idea where 37 is coming from. 16 hps from one level is quite amazing.
Gunder: Encumbered but your good
Garuneh: My calculations show you overspending skill points for the number of Hps you have. What did you take for favorite classes for each level, hp or skill? I am thinking you put in a 6 instead of a 5 in HL and that maybe throwing things off
Liz: Bag of Holding weighs 15 lbs. Carrying that will encumber you.
That was... interesting. Hero Labs glitched on that. I've lowered it down to what it should be.
I'm going to have to look into Muleback Cords or something. I can keep it on the mule perhaps.
I took skills as the favored class bonus---I can check when I am home on Monday.