pennywit's page

These are all fun plans. You might want to check out stuff by Redcelt and Dudemeister on the 1e forum, especially RedCelt's Game of Thrones in Brevoy.

There's a package on Roll20 that's supposed to be available toward the end of the month.

Just out of curiosity, are there any nods to the things Kingmaker GMs developed over the years to go with the game? Chapter 2 of the CRPG seemed to take a lot of inspiration from Dudemeister's Monster Kingdom.

Yeah, our Kingmaker has gotten that complicated. And it's been a blast.

If your Kingmaker campaign doesn't get complicated, you aren't doing it right.

Here's the description:

This magical instrument is usually made of gold and inlaid with numerous gems. If the proper chords are struck, a single use of this lyre negates any attacks made against inanimate construction (walls, roof, floor, and so on) within 300 feet. This includes the effects of a horn of blasting, a disintegrate spell, or an attack from a ram or similar siege weapon. The lyre can be used in this way once per day, with the protection lasting for 30 minutes.

The lyre is also useful with respect to building. Once a week, its strings can be strummed so as to produce chords that magically construct buildings, mines, tunnels, ditches, etc. The effect produced in 30 minutes of playing is equal to the work of 100 humans laboring for 3 days. Each hour after the first, a character playing the lyre must make a DC 18 Perform (string instruments) check. If it fails, she must stop and cannot play the lyre again for this purpose until a week has passed

First, I would rule that the first paragraph is prospective protection, not retrospective rebuilding.

Second, I'm not going to do a bunch of checks for playing the lyre. Instead, I'm going to make a ruling that playing the lyre substitutes for a certain number of BP or Plunder used to build per week. Note (in general) that the lyre doesn't supply building materials. It just uses what's available. So the PCs are still going to have to order building materials and have them transported to a remote, creepy island. So I'd probably rule that the lyre can substitute for, say, the greater of either 5 points of Plunder/BP or 1/2 the cost of a particular project, whichever is lower. I would also likely limit the lyre to one project per week.

Third, The lyre magically build things, but it does not provide expertise in any sort of engineering or architect. So I would require that the PC playing the lyre, in addition to having a Perform skill of a certain level (say, at least 10 ranks), would also need to make a Knowledge (engineering) or Craft (architecture) roll to put things together.

Anybody know whether there will be data packages for Hero Lab Online and Roll20?

My only advice for tournaments is to give the other players scripts to play the other competitors. Otherwise, it's boring to watch someone do the entire archery part with the DM rolling 5 other competitors.

I did this with my players, and it was great fun. I remembr the boasting contest in particular. I swapped out one of the boasts for the lady (can't remember who) who was Drelev's lover. I think it was Quintessa Maray. The player really hammed it up as he told a story about how these really mean people from another kingdom completely ruined the man who was the love of her life ...

So, I'm trying to think of a backup character for Skull & Shackles, We just beat book 2 (I think..) and our party is currently a Oracle, A Gunslinger, My Kineticist (That i'm considering swapping from due to reasons..) And a Fighter.

But I have no idea what kind of character i'd want to play if I do swap from the Kineticist (Or if the Kineticist dies) so I wanted to come here and ask, What classes work well with this adventure path, And what classes dont work so well? I know the gunslinger would have had trouble with the dungeon we just beat, But the gunslingers player couldn't make it to the two sessions it took us to beat the dungeon.

You might want to take something that gives you an edge with siege weapons, like, say, the ballista or catapults that are no doubt on your ship.

If you want to do something that is cool and memorable, consider a magus (iron-ring striker).

Keep in mind that by doing this you're effectively changing the CR of the creature.

If I roll "dragon" on a random enounter table, I'm going to run the dragon with minimal embellishments. But if the dragon a special critter -- named, a legendary dragon, or similar, I want to trick it out a little more and throw in something that's a little unpredictable. "Adult Red Dragon" won't get changed too much. But "Antargapazon the Tyrant of Flame and Shadow" needs to be something special.

One way to so it is for both of those baronies to send emissaries to the PCs. Varnhold might send a physical emissary to visit and be nice, while Drelev might send Imeckus Stroon to teleport right into the players' throne room in a show of power.

My group had a pretty good time. They were there trying to gather information on Endymion Arronax. They'd gotten opera tickets from the Hell Harbor guard after bringing in a bunch of imp corpses for the bounty. The whole thing was hilarious. Among other things:

* A pirate insulted the PCs' ship, so the captain invited her outside to settle things. Which led to a really interesting little street fight.

* The ghoul pirate captain interacted with one of the players -- saying things like, "This opera, this performance, exists for one night. It is evanescent, quite like mortality." Creeped out the player, so the player taunted him back and rolled really high on his Bluff roll ... leading the ghoul captain to try to sneak attack him, but for the ghoul to get kicked out of the opera. The player is still proud of himself for this.

* The players seemed to get a kick out of the twisted version of their earlier adventures on stage. Some of the player banter was to die for.

That's an error in the tactics, looks like to me. And yeah, it's also part of the reason we dropped the whole Tactics section from stat blocks in 2nd edition and instead included those suggestions in a more narrative way in the encounter text. It helps to encourage GMs to adjust an NPC's strategies as works best for their table without implying that if they change what we print in an actual stat block they're "doing something wrong."

I don't know if you followed my team's merry adventures, but we did a mythic Kingmaker that went way, way, way, way off the rails. The final battle with mythic Wriggles turned into one of the epic fights of the campaign.

But thanks for the Wriggling Man. He was evocative and the players still remember him.

I confuse with The Wriggling Man's stategic.

Before Combat The Wriggling Man casts mind blank every day, and activates his ring of invisibility as soon .......

Ok, this part I understand....

The Wriggling Man keeps in motion, flying around the room invisibly as a move action after each time he casts an attack spell on the PCs each round so that it’s difficult to track his position.

this is the part that i don't understand.
the invisibly from a Ring of invisibility is continuous or break when attacks?

I'll be honest, I usually dump the "tactics" session of the stat block when I play and I go with what seems a good use of the character's abilities consistent with their temperament.

It went well; thanks for the suggestions all.

Mostly for comedy purposes, I decided the opera would retell one of the party's earlier adventures (Plunder & Peril) from the twisted perspective of the players' antagonist. The players seemed to enjoy it, although at the end one player was muttering something about wanting to talk to the writer ....

You can take it, but you will have to use intimidate for the check. Scare to Death is not a Demoralize check.

Now, THAT makes sense to me. Thank you.

Versatile Performance wrote:

You can use your proficiency rank in Performance to meet the requirements of skill feats that require a particular rank in Deception, Diplomacy, or Intimidation.

Thank you. I was wondering about that.

Of course. And now, I want to play this character somewhere and deploy Scare to Death with ... a knock-knock joke.

I'm doing some theorycrafting and such in HeroLab Online right now, jsut to get a sense of what can be done with Patfhinder 2e. Right now, I'm playing with a high-level bard. The bard has Performance at Legendary. Thanks to Versatile Performance, he can use his Perform skill to Make an Impression or Demoralize an opponent.

According to HeroLab, this combination makes the bard eligible for the Scare to Death feat. Scare to Death requires Legendary Intimidation.

...

Versatile Performance can't allow this bard to take Scare to Death. Can it??

The remaining beans then were summarily dumped over the side of a tower (they had identified the item enough to know if you dump all the beans out, they simply explode). And, now I have a nasty high-level mummy caster who animated a few bodies and left his tiny cage. He doesn't like forests. Maybe he'll find Vorkdakai...

Good luck wrapping up that plot.

Nice. I am also thinking of:

A representative from Harrigan's crew, there to have a conversation with Arronax

A ghoul pirate captain (of my own design) who has been off screen for most of the AP and is there to enjoy the oper.

A middle aged goblin who has taken a interest in the PCs. The PC caption is an oversized goblin getting respect from the longhanks, so this fellow is there to curry favor with the PCs.

Two members of the PC crew there on a date.

I like adding Bedu Banjo, although I think I would go with one of his lieutenants instead.

Also leaning toward Longboard.

Would like to get one more who might be a potential ally to the PCs.

So, my players are in the middle of Tempest Rising. They've dutifully pursued leads on the Chelish spy ring, but things have taken a ... weird ... turn, partly from player agency and partly because I put out some potential hooks.

The upshot is that rather than find Corlan and prevent the assassination, the players decided to find out why the heck there were dashes beside Endymion Arronax's name. As a GM, I firmly believe that the world moves on with or without the PCs, so Corlan got himself assassinated, and Hell Harbor guards have a msytery.

Meanwhile, the players decided to get the attention of guards (and perhaps Arronax) by killing a bunch of imps and turning them in for a bounty. (Said bounty is detailed in Isles of the Shackles). After a street battle with some INCREDIBLY annoying imps (including one imp who used his Suggestion SLA to force the party alchemist to inventory a banana cart for three rounds), the party hauled their corpses to the guards. In turn, a guard investigator named Inspector Hiram Goldpicker did a nice little dance of checks with the PC captain. The end result was that Hiram gave up a little bit of information about Corlan's murder, and the PCs shared a little bit of their information about investigating the spy ring. The PCs are going to get Sandara to use Speak With Dead on Corlan's corpse ... and Hiram gave them the guards' opera tickets.

The players want to use the opera to get close to Endymion and figure out what his deal is. They went out and bought their fancy duds, and they're headed into the opera.

The opera will be next weekend. And, quite frankly, I'm at a loss as to what to do. I've already decided to structure it loosely around the Ultimate Intrigue rules, with five "social round" opportunities: pre-show reception, Act I, intermission, Act II, and post-show reception.

Aside from that ... I've got really hazy ideas. I could use some help here, particularly on the following questions:

Who's at the opera and what do they want? Both Longbeard and Endymion are in attendance. Who else might be there?

What opera is being performed? Themes, anything!! I'm actually thinking about an operatic version of the players' exploits back in Plunder and Peril, but told from Varossa Lanteri's point of view. (They let her go, BTW. She's since become this NPC who pops up occasionally. It's really fun for me as a GM because the players expect trouble whenever she's there.)

What hijinks and side plots should be available?

On this, I have no idea.

So ... any thoughts would be appreciated because I'm sort of regretting writing myself into "Pirates' Night at the Opera."

Does this mean Paizo will discontinue its practice of providing content, etc. for Roll20 users?

Just to jump in here. I admit I have not followed the complaints and the allegations very closely. But I hope that Paizo workers realize a union is not going to magically solve all of their issues with Paizo management.

How "big" can the setting for an adventure be before it's no longer "setting neutral" and thus not eligible for the Pathfinder Infinite program?

I'm thinking of a set of 2-3 adventures that would incorporate dungeons, a couple communities/cities, and a wilderness are area or three.

My players are almost to the end of the spy ring, so the Free Captain's Regatta is ahead.

I've looked it over, and I'm not fond of how it goes. In particular, I don't like the fact that it automatically comes down to final bit of race between the players and Harrigan, and that even if the players lose, they still "win" because of the plot.

So I'm looking to redo this a bit. A couple of guiding principles:

The storylines converge. The PCs at this point have a number of allies, rivals, friends, and enemies. I want several, if not all, of the captains from those ships (including a ghoul pirate who has a beef with the PCs) to be opponents in the Regatta.

The players must work to win. I don't want them to loose the Captain's Regatta. But at the same time, they should have to work for their victory -- make skill rolls work together with their crew, etc.

There must be a chance for the players to lose. I don't like the ending where the players get handed the victory even if they lose the Race. I want there to be a genuine chance the players will lose the race, and thus lose out on their opportunity to get the Isle of Empty Eyes. The reason for this is that if there's no chance the players will lose, then I don't really feel like they've earned their ending.

Those are the metagame/design aspects of this for me.

Some players will realize it's a signal immediately. And some players will go, "Why did they explode a fireball in the air and not hurt anyone?"

Once the PCs have completely overwhelmed the opposing ship, and it looks like all is lost for the opposing ship ... a mage there sends a fireball high into the air, where it explodes without hurting anyone.

(Two round interval)

A fireball explodes in the air, from a few miles away ....

I'm a pretty dedicated 1E player/GM, and I'm still getting my money's worth from first edition. Still, I like a lot of what I've seen so far when playing with and theorycrafting 2E characters. There's a very good merging of story and system that I'm discovery as I play with HeroLab.

The other day, I conceptualized a sorcerer with a dragon ancestor. And then I thought, "What if the ancestor shows up to pester the sorcerer for not doing things the way the dragon would like?" And ... the second level Summoner Dedication does that perfectly. Suddenly, there's a dragon spirit following around giving you all sorts of unwanted advice.

Is this going to be available on Roll20 at all?

Kingmaker ..... IN SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!!

In addition to kingdom events where people are looking for it, I think it becomes an excellent plot element during War of the River Kings. The players are off at war with Irovetti ... when suddenly word comes from back home that armies frost giants from Iobaria are invading their lands!!!

If frost giants are moving, then Sjohvor will want to know why. When he finds out they're after an evil artifact that could be used against him, Sjohvor and his allies will not doubt chase after the frost giants.

It's also possible that factions from Mivon, Gralton, and Brevoy will also take an interest in the artifact. Which means that a whole bunch of different people are going to descend on the players' kingdom and create headaches for them at the worst possible moment. These rampaging armies are certainly going to create unrest, and they will likely carve off pieces of the players' kingdom as their own bases of operation if the players don't come back and stop them.

All of this should happen at the most narratively inconvenient time for them.

This opens up a military and diplomatic mess -- as even ostensibly "good" people are likely to demand the kingdom supply them with BP to maintain the armies they've sent to safeguard the eye and fight off frost giants and Sjohvor.

How compatible will this be with Roll20? I've had varying degrees of success with existing map products.

When I ran Kingmaker, I found that dungeon crawls did not fit well with the game, thematically speaking. By the end of the second module, the kingdom was well-off enough that it didn't really make sense for players to go into dungeons or to hexplore. They hired people to do that for them.

Rather, I found that new plotlines were essential to making the game run. And there were some sweet ones along the way. Some thoughts:

• Consider reading up on the stories behind each of the individual encounters, or turning the encounters into mini-adventures on their own. Enforce the stories, make them part of the game.

• The module Realm of the Fellnight Queen has a strong plotline, a dungeonish crawl in the BBEG's castle, and a very memorable BBEG who can tie back in to the Kingmaker BBEG.

• Consider revamping standalone encounters to make them into challenges where the PCs don't wait for things to come kill them. (See the Spring Feast and Hargulka's Monster Kingdom on this board for these ideas).

• If you must have a dungeon crawl, dress it up as something like elite infiltration that only the PCs can accomplish. Perhaps their spymaster and his people failed on a mission.

One worth throwing at the player (if you can manage it) is for Imeckus Stroon and Pavetta Stroon to very obviously be opportunists who seem to be trying to get their hooks into everyone. If you emphasize her puppy, your players will remember her.

I would consider foreshadowing them, but doing it sideways.

How about having Imeckus Stroon, Quintessa Maray, and Pavetta Stroon all present at a gathering with the patron?

Thanks! Looking at my original notes, barebones and I could've done more. A buddy sold off a bunch of his old Pathfinder stuff, so have looked through the Shoanti and like what I see. Will probably keep it centaurs (the monster vs. man thing) and if the PCs want the trust and help of the centaurs, they're going to have to do a lot more than simply a Kankerata run. After all, the "Simbani" have had a pretty negative experience for many years with Varnhold.

Currently working on a Rushlight Festival (no invasion) for lower levels a year or two after the kingdom is going and Pitax takes notice. A chance for Irovetti to size up his neighbors, and perhaps even plant the idea of independence from being a barony of Brevoy.

A couple ideas from my campaign:

* For the centaurs, I encouraged all of my players to involve themselves with the diplomacy. The party face spent time in negotiations. The druid shared survival tips, the wizard provided magic lessons, and the barbarian challenged the centaur warriors to various feats of strength. I had the players roll skill checks for each of these, although I played out some of the feats of strength.

* For the Rushlight Tournament, I had players "guest star" as NPCs for each tourney event, and I added a pretty significant diplomacy element based on the rules from Ultimate Intrigue.

Didn't find them. I made them. Made a Quent map off an online generator. Beachcomber and Slipcove I stitched together in Roll20.

pennywit wrote:

Toward the end of my campaign, I tried to zoom out the lens a little bit. The players were no longer handling the minutiae of building houses in Varnhold. Instead, they were grappling with fey who wanted to ruin the kingdom they built, making sure the civil war in Brevoy did not encroach on their lands, and managing the relationships in their immediate court to prevent civil war AND to keep the ruler's consort (one Casper Irovetti) from undermining the duchess's diplomatic work.

I think that over the years you've repeatedly demonstrated that this AP (probably every AP) can be improved by not feeling the need to strictly stick to what's been published and adding (or taking away) as makes sense for your group always benefits play.

"over the years." I spent six years running Kingmaker. And yeah, every AP can be improved with a little bit of creative GMing. My players are currently in the third module of S&S. We've had a couple memorable homebrew adventures, including one where the players took out a slaving ring called the Fast Friends.

Which was a mistake, IMO. Is there an option in Wrath of the Righteous to play without the mythic rules? (there may be, I dunno, but I'm guessing not since you'd have to redo all the monster stats) If you're going to do a domain management AP, do a domain management AP. If people aren't into it they can wait for the next one.

Making the rulership part optional just means that the players' kingdom can't really interact with the published scenarios. Which in this case resulted in a complete lack of diplomacy and a lack of warfare until it's irrelevant (as the PCs are a group of walking nukes by WotRK).

Toward the end of my campaign, I tried to zoom out the lens a little bit. The players were no longer handling the minutiae of building houses in Varnhold. Instead, they were grappling with fey who wanted to ruin the kingdom they built, making sure the civil war in Brevoy did not encroach on their lands, and managing the relationships in their immediate court to prevent civil war AND to keep the ruler's consort (one Casper Irovetti) from undermining the duchess's diplomatic work.

I've been playing with kingdom management off and on since I ran the game.

The problem with the kingdom-building rules, IMO, is the granularity. I found that my players would get into extended discussions about whether to build a library or a temple in a settlement. That was fine when you had one three settlements. Not so fine when you have around 10-15 settlements across the kingdom.

I plan to run Kingmaker again in the future. If I do, I think I am going to encourage players to take charge of regions and run each region as its own kingdom. As things expand in succeeding, players would have the opportunity to take over other regions for themselves, either as additions to their existing kingdoms, or by assigning those regions to an NPC ruler, which I would then allow individual players to manage on a day-to-day basis.

If I do this, I would waive vacancy penalties for the various kingdom roles ... but I would also keep in place bonuses if a council spot is filled. So unless players take the Leadership feat, there would very much be a race to get good talent (i.e., exceptional NPCs) in those roles.

Part of the challenge here would be for the players to decide whether their kingdoms should present united fronts against the threats that come their way or go their own way.

The players at my table do enjoy delving into those numbers and have the tools to manage their kingdoms.

Name: Forsythia "Thia" Black

Title: Magister
Race: Half-Elf
Class: Witch 7
Adventure: Between RRR and TVV
Location: Near the Temple of the Elk
Catalyst: Lucky shot with x4 crit multiplier
** spoiler omitted **...

when I ran Kingmaker, the party barbarian, after getting nearly sliced in half by a redcap, went out and bought himself a Buffering Cap. That thing saved his life so many times ...

The Pathfinders also have the potential to be one of the biggest banks on Golarion. With their lodges all over the place, they could carry certain valuables to and from anywhere. And that presence means that letters of credit (not to mention other bearer instruments) drawn on the Pathfinder Society's assets could no doubt be used as currency nearly anywhere in the civilized world.

Good evening. I'm trying to pull together maps of the ports that my players will visit during this AP. I've put together decent maps of Beachcomber, Quent, and Slipcove, but I was wondering if anybody has a decent map of Drenchport or some of the other towns. IN particular -- Drenchport has a lot of houses built of shipwrecks and driftwood. Has anybody used something that is Roll20 friendly?

In my campaign, the Stolen Lands were a restive area that the Swordlords of Restov wanted pacified one way or the other. The charter nominally mentioned that everything was under the authority of Noleski Surtova. that was something of a legal fiction.

But as the players grew more powerful and their kingdom gained influence, Noleski used that bit of the charter to try to assert control over the kingdom and turn them into allies. This led to a fairly tangled plotline where the players (who really wanted to steer clear of Brevic politics) eventually negotiated their complete independence from he Dragonscale Throne but also took an official stance of neutrality when things in Brevoy went south.

If you run it, I think that the Battle of Naglimund in Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn provides a template. The fey armies should be completely terrifying for your average soldier, and it falls to the PCs and other kingdom leaders to rally the troops.

My group -- a mythic group -- killed her before they were supposed to, so we had a coda instead.

I find the notion of the final mano a mano battle a little unsatisfying. I think there could be an interesting alternate ending where after the first couple blooms (which would have been test runs) she sends actual armies to conquer and hold important places of power in the kingdom. The PCs then need to call on their armies and their allies in a final push to take down Nyrissa and her forces, possibly with Nyrissa teleporting from one batle site to the other and PCs having to follow.

I think there's a little room for GM handwaving and customizing here. What if he players (for whatever reason) broke the magic that kept him in the room when they opened it? So now, he's free ... so he immediately dimension door past the PCs and runs for it? Then he can go hide in Sandpoint and become an adversary that they have to track and kill ... and tracking him can be a chore.

I'm doing Skull & Shackles now, and I can never get the maps to line up perfectly with the Roll20 grid. I finally went with a different solution ... I just turn off the Roll20 grid when I import a Paizo map and I tell my players "These squares are five feet." They can usually figure it out from there.

Has anybody done anything with Aashaq the Annihilator? I found her stats in Dragons Unleashed along with her treasure hoard. Tentatively, I thought it might be interesting if she and Kerdak Bonefist had some kind of deal going to keep the Shackles pirates divided ... or if she manipulated everything leading to the Chelaxian invasion so that the pirates remain divided. Tentatively, I might buff her stats (if needed) when the PCs are right at the end of the campaign so that they have a choice: Reach an accommodation with her, or else unite as many pirate lords as they can to bring her down once and for all.

I've figured out his motivation -- basically a high-level arcanist who buys his way into the Regatta so that he can prove his conjured boat and crew are superior to anything pirates can come up with. Looking to Kaiba (as played in YuGiOh: The Abridged Series) for inspiration.

One of my competing captains, I think, is going to be a rich arcanist who bribed a pirate lord to sponsor him. He will use Summon Boat and Skeleton Crew to make his ship go. My only reason for this competing captain is that I find those spells fun and flavorful.