I think we were planning to hit hex 1-6 before heading back. Additionally, it might be a good idea for us to double back to where we first found the Scythe Trees and look for a lair.
I thought the encounter made a lot of sense. They are intelligent creatures and trying to hunt us down was logical. Admittedly, I might feel differently about it if we had a TPK but as it is the session was fun. Having a +15 Stealth as a Huge size creature is a bit stunning, but is part of what makes them unique.
Anyways, good show and looking forward to the next session.
Hey Patrick,
What would you price for a magic item that grants a +5 competence bonus to the fly skill, or any skill for that matter?
RAW it would be bonus squared * 100gp, or 2500 gp retail, half that if crafted. i.e. ring of swimming, ring of climbing, cloak of elvenkind, boots of elvenkind.
They have CLs of 2, 5, 5, and 5 respectively.
I think that pricing it as a Ring of Swimming is fine. I would also point out that you can include a skill bonus in a circlet of intelligence.
Jason, Vissannica asks Dox to make a cloak of resistance and a belt of flying (+5 competence bonus to fly skill) per above.
We are on a quest to kill the tree like creature that we encountered before. We buffed up and summoned a pony to bring out the “Character Eater”. The creature kills the pony immediately with an attack of opportunity. The fight commences. The creature tries to bite Zorthalus and misses. Carissa pops a Flaming Sphere for 12 points of damage. Vissannica deals 57 points of damage with a double attack. Z swings and hits doing 20 points of damage felling the creature. Unfortunately, it regenerates and came back alive, but we were able to quickly destroy it.
We begin to explore hex 6-8 as the night ends.
Are we waiting on any addition input from the GM regarding the Gregori situation?
Hey all,
Patrick and I were chatting tonight, and I asked him about Vissannica's role as Spymaster, and how that would impact her ability to do things like gather information about Grigori or other matters. Gather information is typically a diplomacy check, not something Vissannica is good at. She does have a high stat in intelligence, which is one of the Spymaster's key attributes, but Patrick didn't want to give that weight towards gathering information, because that would be unfair to players who put points into charisma and diplomacy.
We both acknowledged the rules are very light on a lot of the kingdom building stuff, and Patrick said that we the players would need to spend more time exploring our roles if we wanted to gain more abilities there. For instance, Patrick suggested we could leverage the abilities of NPCs if we engaged them more, perhaps even dedicating a session to roleplay within our cities. I acknowledged we have appointed a number of NPCs to our government, yet haven't really leveraged their abilities beyond avoiding penalties and giving bonuses to kingdom turns.
He suggested Vissannica might recruit a servant who has diplomacy skills to gather information on her behalf. I asked if, assuming I only used that servant on behalf of the kingdom and not to go adventuring or such, if I could pay for a servant or staff using BP. He said he was open to the idea, and that all the characters might be able to build out a support staff for their various roles using BP(i.e. Zorthalus might one day want to put money into a Hellknight trainer to build out his guard, or something like that, Anastasia might want a full staff of courtiers, a valet, and footmen with various talents, or perhaps a group of acolytes, Dox might want a team patrolling specific parts of our lands with skills or animal companions specific to the terrain, etc).
Our economy is pretty healthy, and I like the idea of building out a group of "hirelings" as Vissannica's informants, loyal to the nation and paid from the treasury. 1 BP = 2000 GP, which is a lot of money for even skilled hirelings. If we each spent 1 BP every so often, we could probably afford some fairly skilled help fulfilling our kingdom duties while we are out exploring and claiming new territory.
Sounds fun to me, so I thought I'd put it out there and see what people think.
The Hireling rules provide a good basis for what Bannigan proposes, that could be useable. That said, I'll admit to being a bit ambivalent about this idea, in part perhaps because Anastasia is the Charisma/Face PC, but also because of the Leadership Feat as well as some hard-to-change limitations in the Kingdom building rules.
Charisma is the only stat that has no universal implications for PC's if it is not a main stat. Intelligence effects skills, Dex for Initiative, Reflex Saves, etc. If you can simply hire folks to make your skill-based Charisma checks it at least partially nullifies the need for the stat, making it more tempting to just dump it. Hiring folks with communal funds, such as BP, makes it even more tempting because it isn't a personal resource.
The one problem with hirelings is loyalty; they tend to care only to the extent you're the highest bidder. That to me is where the Leadership Feat comes in. In many respects the entourage of assistants that Bannigan references would seem to best come from a band of loyal followers that Leadership would provide. Of course having a low Charisma makes Leadership less rewarding, but again that helps make it a worthwhile stat to folks who aren't sorcerers, paladins or clerics.
I think we can all agree that the Kingdom building rules have limits, and the mechanics for the various Kingdom leadership roles is no exception. The vacancy penalties are too extreme, the roles seem arbitrary at times, etc. A big oversimplification in my mind is the entirety of the impact of the role being reflected in a bonus (or penalty) to one of the 3 key Kingdom traits: Stability, Loyalty and Economy. In the case of the Spymaster, all of the archetypal things we'd think would go into that role gets summed up in a +X to Economy (or Stability, but we've set it to Economy for a long time). Ideally the roles would have more characteristics than that: such as the Marshall being able to root out threats in the far reaches of the Kingdom, or the Warden in how laws are enforced. But alas the rules don't provide for that and as a back-up we need to use our imaginations to explain why our Leadership roles have the statistical impacts they do. With Vissannica as Spymaster, I've always thought of that as a bit more of an Commerce-focus Stazi rather than a Little Finger or Thaler (for you fellow Witcher fans). Vissannica gives us a big bonus to our Economy by ensuring the Supply chains run right and by getting in front of anything that would hamper our trade or economic expansion. She may not actually have clandestine assets with a pulse on the mood and tenor in our towns. For us, Svetlana in the Counselor role (or even Anastasia herself) may be more that person, but I'd see this as they way the roles can flex depending what PC or NPC is in them, which ability score is leveraged and what key Kingdom stat is affected.
All that said, I'd have no issue with any/all PC's utilizing hirelings to round out the scope of the Kingdom roles we have. But my preference would for this to be an out-of-pocket expense rather than a BP expenditure. As an alternative, we could say we withdraw a flat number of BP (say 5 for a round number) which is allocated to each PC, and those PC's that choose to do so use that cash for hirelings.
I guess I saw the difference between leadership feat cohorts and followers and kingdom funded hirelings as who their loyalty is to. If Anastasia has a group of followers using the leadership feat, they are loyal to her first, Rasdovia second. She can put them to use for personal goals, not just kingdom goals. I get how those two might be close to identical in her case, though. :P
That being said, the points made about charisma as a stat are all fair and well taken, particularly given the relative charismas of our two characters, and I'm certainly content with Vissannica being a more commerce(or stability) focused spymaster. I definitely don't need to be rolling gather information checks.
I can honestly say that if there is an option where we withdraw cash from the treasury for personal use, hirelings would not be top of Vissannica's list.
Knowing Ana would not look to confront Gregori "blind" by having no info or detail on him, I do not think it is meta-gaming that the party; based on level, knowledge and background would be aware of the strengths of various "Face" type characters.
Bard is ultimate face, sorcerer has high charisma along with Paladin, rogues have a lot of skills and (as we are well aware with Ana) clerics can be persuasive with the right build.
Part of some early investigation should be trying to determine what we are dealing with.
-Is he martial, arcane or divine
-Attempts to detect and discern alignment
-Using detect magic to see if he is using spells or magic items to aid his endeavors. Glibness can is powerful boon and I would not want to see Ana walk into that during a debate or speech contest.
Looking at the updated hex map, and I notice we still haven't fully explored our north western quadrant, and there are some landmark's and beasts we haven't dealt with up there.
Hearing the description of the tower we are headed to, it sounds like it might once again be above our power level to deal with, and I'm wondering if we are venturing south too quickly again?
I'm not proposing we turn back, just next time we go exploring, we may want to consider finishing the north and west before venturing south, unless the troll and lizardfolk rumors start to get more serious.
We definitely have more we could explore to the west (north and south). Up until our recent expansion founded Axius, those areas felt rather remote and unlikely to become part of Rasdovia. They would also have taken a significant amount of travel to get to. Now with roads most of the way through the forest, the northwestern part becomes much more accessible and relevant to our Kingdom. Anastasia would be all for that being our next foray...ideally bypassing all swamp hexes.....
I don't want to get overconfident, but our victories over the Scythe Trees and the Tendriculous have made me a bit less concerned about our ability to handle the regional threats. Luck can always go poorly, and we collectively prep/buff enough that unexpected encounters are not our forte, but 5th level seemed to turn the corner for this group. At risk of overplaying our hand, I'm feeling like we are reasonably able to handle everything up to our writ line.
From a guidance perspective, the module assumes you were 4th level to begin and are 6th level as you finish and advance to 7th at the end of the adventure.
An idea for initial scouting of the island: Depending on its size, a fly over by an invisible Vissannica might be worthwhile. She can move 120 ft per round, so in 2-3 minutes could cover a circumference of ~2400-3600 feet. She has up to 5 minutes per day.
All the boards I checked indicated a natural one is not a failure nor a 20 an auto success on skill checks.
Appears only the skill UMD discusses a natural one under the try again heading noting if you roll a natural one and that still fails then you cant try again for a day.
I thought we reviewed this before and confirmed once your pluses exceed the DC you did not need to roll anymore. Did not want to hold up play to look it up during game but hoping you can double check this during down time.
Below you will find proposed house rules for the Kingmaker Campaign. Please comment if you have objections or further suggestions:
Kingmaker Campaign Throne House Rules
Books Available: Core Rule Book, APG, Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Magic, Ultimate Campaign (Partial), Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea World Guide.
Classes banned: Summoner, Ninja, Samurai, Scarred-Witchdoctor archtype, Gunslinger and all gun related classes, archtypes. feats, etc.
Point buy: 15 point buy.
Alignment Restrictions: Not allowed: NE, CE. Not recommended: CN with an anarchist view. You will be working together to build a kingdom, keep that in mind.
Mortal Ability Scores: Ability scores for player characters are capped at 24 including all adjustments. This means that anything that would take a PC’s score above 24 is deemed not to stack. Negative adjustments can be added to Hero Lab as needed to calculate this.
Multiclassing: Three levels in a row must be taken in any class for the first three levels of that class. Exceptions may be made for dips taken to qualify for a prestige class.
Armor: The following armors are not available for players: Chain Shirt, Breastplate, and Full Plate. Certain NPC classes may have access to armor the PC’s cannot use and I will not be adjusting NPC stat blocks, meaning that NPC’s may receive a small advantage. Chain Shirts found will be converted to Studded Leather, Breastplate will be converted to chain mail, and full plate will be converted to half-plate. These conversions also apply to other rules for class or feat qualifications, etc.
Counterspell: You may attempt to identify and counterspell as an immediate action. If you do so, then the corresponding action on your next turn is forfeit. You may counterspell spell-like abilities.
Magic Item Creation: The caster level to craft a magic item is a requirement to craft an item. This means that you normally may not craft a pearl of power until 17th level. Attempting to overcome this requirement costs adds five plus twice the difference between your level and the level requirement of the spell to the DC of creation. Thus, if you tried to create a pearl of power while 10th level, it would result in a +19 to the DC of the item creation. Accelerated crafting is allowed for the normal +5 to DC. Further, the time it takes to create an item will be reduced by an additional 1 hour for every point by which you exceed the spellcraft check to create the item. The minimum amount of time it takes to craft an item is 1 hour. You may not take 10 in attempting to create magic items. The roll to create an item is done at the beginning of the creation process then the time is calculated whether the creation roll was successful or not.
Magic Item Sales: The economy of a settlement can only absorb expensive magic items at a certain rate. A community generally cannot purchase items valued at more than the base value of magic items that are available in that community. (See Table: Available Magic Items in the Settlements section). Likewise, the economy of a settlement generally cannot absorb more than three times the base item value that is available for sale at that settlement in a given month. Side quests may be needed to acquire or sell items outside of these guidelines.
Spellbooks: Spellbooks have unlimited pages.
Encumbrance: Coins have weight and must be accounted for as encumbrance, unless stored in a bank or hideout. Likewise characters will be expected to abide strictly by encumbrance, including for treasure sheet. There will need to be an entry as to who is carrying what on the treasure sheet as well.
Channel Energy: Channeling energy uses d8’s not d6’s.
Healing spells: Healing spells that are cast rather than invoked via magic item or other means use 1d4+4 instead of 1d8.
Rogue Sneak Attack: Rogue sneak attack does d8’s instead of d6’s in damage. This does not apply to any class but Rogue.
Rogue Combat Trick: The Rogue Combat Trick talent can be selected as many times as the player wishes.
Falling Damage: The number of d6’s of falling damage double for every 10’ you fall. Landing in water at least 10’ deep negates falling damage. Other soft landings may reduce damage in the GM’s discretion.
10’ = 1d6
20’ = 2d6
30’ = 4d6
40’ = 8d6
50’ = 16d6…
Archery: Point Blank Master and Many Shot do not exist as feats or class features.
Crossbows: Crossbows ignore four points of Armor Bonus or Natural Armor Bonus.
Spell Penetration: The bonuses for the Spell Penetration Feats are doubled.
Weapon Focus and Specialization: These feats apply to categories of weapons as listed under Weapon Training in the Fighter class.
Swimming: For every 10 pounds of armor or gear a character his carrying, they receive a -5 to their swim check. A corpse or unconscious body does not count towards this weight, but the gear or armor on said body does.
Drowning: Any character can hold her breath for a number of rounds equal to HALF her Constitution score. If a character takes a standard or full-round action, the remaining duration that the character can hold her breath is reduced by 1 round. After this period of time, the character must make a DC 12 Constitution check every round in order to continue holding her breath. Each round, the DC increases by 3.
When the character finally fails her Constitution check, she begins to drown. The round after failing the check, she falls unconscious (0 hp). In the following round, she drops to –1 hit points and is dying. In the third round, she drowns (dies).
Unconscious characters must begin drowning immediately upon being submerged (or upon becoming unconscious if the character was conscious when submerged). The round after being submerged, she immediately drops to –1 (or loses 1 additional hit point, if her total is below –1). On the following round, she drowns (dies).
It is possible to drown in substances other than water, such as sand, quicksand, fine dust, and silos full of grain.
Natural 1: A natural 1 on a combat attack roll is always a miss. A natural 1 on an unopposed skill check confers a -10 adjustment on the skill but does not signify automatic failure. A natural 1 on a saving throw or opposed skill check is simply treated as a 1 and calculated normally.
Natural 20: A natural 20 on a combat attack roll always hits and is a critical threat. A natural 20 on a saving throw or unopposed skill check always succeeds. A natural 20 on an opposed skill check is simply treated as a 20 and calculated normally.
Healing Spells: Standard house rule applies.
Below you will find proposed house rules for the Kingmaker Campaign. Please comment if you have objections or further suggestions:
Since you are inviting comment..
In regards to how the natural 1 house rule impacts flight, it is significant that hover in combat pretty much has a 5% rate of failure. Even faerie dragons, air elementals, and sprites would fail on a 1. This would be similar for taking a turn at more than a 45 degree angle(also DC15), and even air elementals and many other native flyers would have a 5% fail rate at moving less than half speed in combat(DC 10).
It's also unclear in the fly skill what the penalty of failure is...falling? Moving >= half your movement speed against your will? With attacks of opportunity and the new falling rules, that could be a death sentence...(though Vissannica has permanent feather fall)
https://www.paizo.com/threads/rzs2q5xm?Failed-Fly-check-to-hover-what-happe ns
It's also unclear when you make a check to hover. At the end of your turn? What if you took a full round action? Then you do a move action?
I'm not sure the impact of this on fly was something I had considered when the rules were first published, but it's hard to predict all the impacts of rule tweaking.
I'm not sure what the extra impact of rolling a 1 does for the game, in general. It adds more random chance of failure for otherwise routine tasks in combat. Is that an improvement? Is there too little chance in the game? I'm not sure I see it that way...
So that's my, albeit biased given my character's build, two cents.
As for playing Dox, every direction given to the lion "should" require a handle animal check. I stopped being concerned once the pluses were above the DC. I will have to check and see if a minus 10 on a 1 would bring that back into play.
Dox: I'm not worried about it with Dox's handle animal unless we are in a very odd situation where you're asking Cringer to do something extraordinary via "push" like walk through a wall of fire or something.
Vissanica: 1 is not failure, it gives an additional -10 so it isn't as bad as that. Flying as a skill assumes you are always moving at least 1/2 of your movement rate, and turning appropriately. If you fail to hover, you have to move and would provoke attacks of opportunity as needed, or you would fall.
As your fly skill gets better, you can stop worrying about a lot of the checks. Once you have a +24 (with adjustments)you can hover without checking. (Natural 1-10=-9 and -9+24=15. Once you have a 29 you can do all listed maneuvers.
For air elementals and others, this wouldn't be a problem with their fly skills and (perfect)rating/size bonuses.
To steal from one of the posts:
If you made no fly check at all to try and hover, you would have to move the min. forward speed.
If you attempt to hover and succeed, you hover.
If you attempt to hover and fail, it's the same as not having tried to hover at all. Thus, you move forward or fall.
It's an optional check. You do not need to hover in order to fly. The penalty for failing it is...having to fly the normal way.
Vissanica: If you fail to hover, you have to move and would provoke attacks of opportunity as needed, or you would fall.
Does taking a 5 foot step mean moving at less than half speed, and is therefore only a DC 10 check? If so, this would simply mean I need to take a 5 foot step each turn to avoid the check, as I have a +16 fly.
Can you make a second check to move at less than half speed or turn at greater than 45 degrees, if you fail to hover?
How do you decide whether you move or fall?
Does falling provoke attacks of opportunity? Typically not: https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2tmdd?Does-falling-provoke-attacks-of-opportun ity
How does falling impact your action economy(i.e. it typically is not an action to fall unwillingly), and when does it happen in the round? At the beginning of your turn or end?
More rare:
What if you cannot move due to enemies or walls surrounding you?
What if you can only move upwards?
What if an enemy is below you, and you fall on top of them? How does feather fall fit into this(Vissannica has feather fall permanently, but others will not)?
As your fly skill gets better, you can stop worrying about a lot of the checks. Once you have a +24 (with adjustments)you can hover without checking. (Natural 1-10=-9 and -9+24=15. Once you have a 29 you can do all listed maneuvers.
Understood. I'll be able to be safe to hover around 8th level with a ring of improved flying.
For air elementals and others, this wouldn't be a problem with their fly skills and (perfect)rating/size bonuses.
RAW, monster stat blocks include all bonuses. A small air elementals +17 to fly includes it's perfect rating and size modifier. Are you meaning to change this, or are you reading it differently? https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/55213/reading-the-racial-modifier-t o-skills-in-a-monsters-stat-block
To steal from one of the posts:
If you made no fly check at all to try and hover, you would have to move the min. forward speed.
If you attempt to hover and succeed, you hover.
If you attempt to hover and fail, it's the same as not having tried to hover at all. Thus, you move forward or fall.It's an optional check. You do not need to hover in order to fly. The penalty for failing it is...having to fly the normal way.
When is the hover check made? At the beginning of the turn?
If it gets forgotten, that means it failed?
Well, we are getting very granular now, more granular than I think the rules intend/describe, so here is how I am ruling on these issues so that we are clear moving forward:
Q: Does taking a 5 foot step mean moving at less than half speed, and is therefore only a DC 10 check? If so, this would simply mean I need to take a 5 foot step each turn to avoid the check, as I have a +16 fly.
A: No. 5' steps are not movement. You would need to be hovering to execute a 5' step as this occurs outside of normal movement. There is no additional check to make a 5' step while hovering. If you fail to hover, you cannot take a 5' step. In contrast, you may move only 5' and continue flying if you make a DC 10 fly check, but it takes a move action to move that 5' and the movement provokes attacks of opportunity as normal.
Q: Can you make a second check to move at less than half speed or turn at greater than 45 degrees, if you fail to hover?
A: Yes, if you fail to hover your round proceeds as if you did not try to hover, so you can make other normal flight movements that do not include hovering. Assuming you will be taking a move action and a standard action, you may take them in any order you choose.
Q: How do you decide whether you move or fall?
A: Falling means you stop flying, then you hit the ground and take damage and are prone. You have to move or hover to fly. So if you fail your hover check, your choice is to hit the ground and take damage, or take a move action to continue flying. It is almost never better to fall than to move, and you may always choose to descend straight down.
Q: Does falling provoke attacks of opportunity?
A: No. Falling is not movement. Exception: Feather fall, see below.
Q: How does falling impact your action economy(i.e. it typically is not an action to fall unwillingly), and when does it happen in the round? At the beginning of your turn or end?
A: If you are flying and your round begins, you must decide whether you will hover or move to maintain your flight. If you choose to hover and fail, then you have to move or stop flying. You must take a move action and move at least 5' (with a DC 10 fly check) or at least half your movement without a fly check to stay aloft without hovering. This is normal movement and would invoke attacks of opportunity. If you stop flying you fall, take damage, and end up prone on the ground. At that time you would still have all of your actions remaining.
More rare:
Q: What if you cannot move due to enemies or walls surrounding you?
A: You can always move by descending at any angle, including straight down. If you truly cannot move and fail to hover, you stop flying and fall.
Q: What if you can only move upwards?
A: You cannot move straight upwards (unless you have naturally perfect flight, see below), so you can descend or stop flying and fall.
Q: What if an enemy is below you, and you fall on top of them?
A: We are not creating a new attack type where you intentionally fall upon people. If you fall and an enemy is below you, you will pass by them and hit the ground taking damage. Realistic? Maybe not, but that's my ruling. Note: You could charge while descending and cover a lot of ground, but it is still controlled movement, not falling.
Q: How does feather fall fit into this(Vissannica has feather fall permanently, but others will not)?
If you are feather falling, you fall slowly enough (60') that it does count as movement for the purpose of taking actions (Falling up to 60' is one action, falling up to 120' is two actions, falling more takes more than one round). Feather falling does not allow for any actions other than free actions and does not provoke attacks of opportunity. This same ruling applies during the floating period that occurs upon expiration of the fly spell.
Notable: Witches with the flight hex have feather fall at will. This is not permanent feather fall. It takes 1 immediate action to invoke, just like the feather fall spell. If you are sleeping, paralyzed, dying, or otherwise incapacitated and unable to take an immediate action to invoke the supernatural ability, you cannot invoke feather fall.
Not really a question: I'll be able to be safe to hover around 8th level with a ring of improved flying.
Not really an answer: Don't forget the bonus to fly that the fly spell gives you.
Other ruling/house rule: Creatures with a natural fly speed and a Perfect designation can hover automatically and can fly straight up. (See: Hummingbirds, air elementals, etc.).
I appreciate the clarifications.
The house rule that makes this new ruling not apply to many of our foes who have an equivalent fly skill is regrettable, as this seems like a late nerf specifically to most PC fliers. I would feel a lot better about this if I knew it was going to be universally applied.
The house rule that makes feather fall mean you can take no other actions that round is also pretty painful, when RAW it is an immediate action. Given that you can take no other actions except free actions, it is effectively now a full round action when cast at the start of your turn? I'm not sure what the rule about it being a move action even matters, if there are, now, no actions other than free actions allowed while feather falling. It also makes anyone feather falling a long distance essentially a sitting duck, effectively incapacitated for the entire journey. I think this house rule needs a second look, as it really makes feather fall a much weaker power, when it really only has a narrow use. I would suggest applying the levitate rules to actions taken while feather falling, and allow the full range of actions. Falling should simply happen slower, and not take any actions.
It's hard not to notice that the house rule exceptions create exceptions for Dox's handle animal(the only other PC seriously impacted by this natural 1 house rule) and non-PCs(natural and perfect fliers), and while there are additional house rules making feather fall weaker, weakening Vissannica's build further, which is very flight oriented, having put a hex, 5 skill points, and a crafted magic item into it.
The house rule that falling is much more damaging already makes flying more dangerous, and this is just adding more danger to most PC flight.
I appreciate the clarifications.
The house rule that makes this new ruling not apply to many of our foes who have an equivalent fly skill is regrettable, as this seems like a late nerf specifically to most PC fliers. I would feel a lot better about this if I knew it was going to be universally applied.
The house rule that makes feather fall mean you can take no other actions that round is also pretty painful, when RAW it is an immediate action. Given that you can take no other actions except free actions, it is effectively now a full round action when cast at the start of your turn? I'm not sure what the rule about it being a move action even matters, if there are, now, no actions other than free actions allowed while feather falling. It also makes anyone feather falling a long distance essentially a sitting duck, effectively incapacitated for the entire journey. I think this house rule needs a second look, as it really makes feather fall a much weaker power, when it really only has a narrow use. I would suggest applying the levitate rules to actions taken while feather falling, and allow the full range of actions. Falling should simply happen slower, and not take any actions.
It's hard not to notice that the house rule exceptions create exceptions for Dox's handle animal(the only other PC seriously impacted by this natural 1 house rule) and non-PCs(natural and perfect fliers), and while there are additional house rules making feather fall weaker, weakening Vissannica's build further, which is very flight oriented, having put a hex, 5 skill points, and a crafted magic item into it.
The house rule that falling is much more damaging already makes flying more dangerous, and this is just adding more danger to most PC flight.
My view of the rules as written is that flying isn't intended to be easy and is supposed to have an element of maneuvering difficulty to it. The rules are clunky and don't fit within the combat model very well at all. The rules make melee fighting difficult to say the least, especially if you plan to use full attack actions. I believe that is intended from both a rules and realism standpoint. The natural one means -10 house rule is a common house rule and I don't feel that the influence it has on flying is overly harsh. At this level the PC's would be at best novice fliers and the fact that they cannot do the more difficult maneuvers without effort isn't unbalancing or unfair.
A few points:
1) The house rule involving a natural 1 was implemented at the beginning of the campaign, as was the falling rule. I don't see these as nerfs to anything, they are house rules that were there from the beginning.
2) The exception for Handle Animal isn't much of an exception in that it doesn't apply to anything but what the animal is already trained to do, which we have never really checked for in any case. When "Pushing" or training, he has to make a check. To be rolling every round for simple commands that the animal has been trained in would be frustrating and tedious and have limited impact since the animal would react naturally in most cases and have a similar effect.
3) I also don't believe Feather Fall was nerfed. Feather fall still does what it is designed to do perfectly well, prevent you from dying from falling. The Feather Fall ruling is to prevent the rule abuse that was about to begin because using the Fly skill/spell to descend 60' is just worse than feather falling because you have to take move actions to descend but no actions to feather fall 60' down. That would be absurd and inappropriate considering one is a first level spell and another is a third level spell. The casting time is still immediate, which would shift your initiative to that point, and then you fall. The multiple rounds of falling is clearly contemplated by the spell.
If you want, we can make an alternate ruling that feather fall forces you to take two move actions to descend straight down at 60' under the rules of the fly spell, but then you'll be subject to attacks of opportunity. That would be appropriate considering the spell level difference, especially considering the power of an immediate action spell casting for Feather Fall.
The fly hex is plenty powerful regardless.
4) Regarding Perfect (not all natural) fliers, a PC with the fly spell is not an equivalent flier (maneuverability good), which is the point. I looked at a number of perfect fliers and it was clear that they all have enough "+" to fly to be able to hover uninhibited, and it would be a poor side-effect of my natural 1 house rule to eliminate that.
5) I will correct something above. You can fly straight up, it is a DC 20 check to do so by rule. If you fail that check you resort to the standard 45 degree ascent angle. So eventually you can fly as well as a perfect flier, it just takes time and effort - which is appropriate.
The reason this feels like a late nerf is because the rulings about handle animal and natural perfect flyers being immune to the natural 1 one rule is new, as is the enforcement of the rule.
I'm not really wanting to screw Dox, but more wanting to point out that selective enforcement of house rules is not fun. If we are going to punt on a rule because it feels arduous, let's punt on it for everyone.
Handle animal requires a DC 10 check to get someone to do something they've been trained in, DC12 if the creature is injured. With the house rule, Dox would fail this on a one. I think the reason we haven't been making this check, is because the house rule is new and didn't come up until last session.
Re: Natural perfect fliers:
The skill point plus is equivalent, so it's a subjective decision you are making to draw a difference. Vissannica is not simply a PC with the fly spell, she is a PC with fly as a supernatural ability, full skill ranks in the fly skill, and a magic item that makes her better at flying on top of that, which, mathematically and the only way the game, RAW, measures fly skill, is pretty much equivalent to a natural flyer with perfect manueverability. She's better than a flyer with wings, as they have additional vulnerabilities detailed in the fly skill, plus she has feather fall at will, so should be in even better shape when things go wrong. When I brought up the fact that this house rule would make perfect fliers like air elementals fail at hover, it was to demonstrate that Vissannica is, according to rules, as good of a flier or better than native, perfect fliers, and that the idea of her not being able to hover seemed odd, not so that they would be excluded.
Re: Feather Fall. Feather fall is not in danger of being better than fly. It is, and is intended to be, situationally better. Many first level spells are situationally better than 3rd level spells. Feather fall does not allow any movement except a slowed fall, so that's a huge difference between a first level spell and third level spell. Feather fall, unlike fly, ends as soon as you land. Feather fall, unlike fly, is useless 99% of the time. Yes, having both fly and feather fall should be better than having just fly, potentially much better. Feather fall is really good when you fall. You would think someone who can fly with a +16 fly skill and feather fall at will would be in good shape to hover, or if she failed to hover, would not be in such bad shape as she would magically and gently lower to the ground at 60' round, which is ~7 miles per hour, the speed of a fast walk.
Vissannica tries to hover and somehow fails, she senses she will begin to fall and immediately she casts feather fall as a supernatural effect(which would otherwise potentially require her to cast defensively). She then starts descending at a fast walk pace, the magic doing all the work, requiring no effort, concentration, or direction. Why would she not be able to act at this point? She has used no actions but an immediate action, and taken no voluntary movement. RAW, she would have a full round action.
The flight hex might be plenty powerful, but so is handle animal and so is natural fly and perfect maneuverability. Only one is getting nerfed.
Quick Detour to another topic...…
@DM: Would you be willing to provide some specific guidance regarding the correct balance of adventuring and Kingdom turns?
I think I can speak for the group in saying we want to keep the proportions of the two in line with what the adventure path had in mind. Likewise, I don't mind breaking the 4th wall on this a bit to make sure we do so.
From a player perspective, what has made most sense is to think of it in month-to-month terms. By that I mean we need to spend a minimum of 7 days a month engaged in our Leadership roles or we risk our roles being considered vacant for the next Kingdom Building turn. The 7 days is a minimum, and I/we have really aimed to be in our roles more like 15 days. No real reason why other than a desire to not short-shrift the leadership roles. 15 days spent in our leadership roles would leave 15 days for adventuring, which I would say is roughly the length of our forays out of the capitol.
It is out of this logic that we players have gotten into the pattern of doing one Kingdom turn, followed by one adventuring foray, rinse, repeat. This 1-to-1 ratio makes sense conceptually, fits the time pattern and is congruent with our PC's collective desire to explore our entire writ and subdue any threats there as quickly as possible. We would want to do it quickly both to know what our expansion options are (what hexes to claim, where to build, etc.) as well to identify and eliminate anything that might harm the kingdom.
All that said, you've indicated that we seem to be doing too much adventuring for the pace of the AP. If 1-to-1 (Kingdom Building to Adventure Forey) is out of balance. What is the right ratio? 2-to-1, 3-to-1? We can do whatever but I'd recommend giving us some specific guidance if the AP is calling for us doing something very different than what logically we would do.
OK, back to your regularly scheduled rules debate........
I think I have the Army built our properly. Once I added Ultimate Campaign to Herolabs it worked fine.
I had to make some kludges to account for the mounted Lions. I used worgs as mounts and then did the proper adjustments up for Lions.
Something we need to consider is what fighter feats to give them. I am not familiar enough with the rules yet to understand if this will be a factor. Also, skills are unlimited which seems weird. I assume they should have at least some riding skills.
Happy so share my .por if others want to play around with it.
The reason this feels like a late nerf is because the rulings about handle animal and natural perfect flyers being immune to the natural 1 one rule is new, as is the enforcement of the rule.
I'm not really wanting to screw Dox, but more wanting to point out that selective enforcement of house rules is not fun. If we are going to punt on a rule because it feels arduous, let's punt on it for everyone.
Handle animal requires a DC 10 check to get someone to do something they've been trained in, DC12 if the creature is injured. With the house rule, Dox would fail this on a one. I think the reason we haven't been making this check, is because the house rule is new and didn't come up until last session.
Re: Natural perfect fliers:
The skill point plus is equivalent, so it's a subjective decision you are making to draw a difference. Vissannica is not simply a PC with the fly spell, she is a PC with fly as a supernatural ability, full skill ranks in the fly skill, and a magic item that makes her better at flying on top of that, which, mathematically and the only way the game, RAW, measures fly skill, is pretty much equivalent to a natural flyer with perfect manueverability. She's better than a flyer with wings, as they have additional vulnerabilities detailed in the fly skill, plus she has feather fall at will, so should be in even better shape when things go wrong. When I brought up the fact that this house rule would make perfect fliers like air elementals fail at hover, it was to demonstrate that Vissannica is, according to rules, as good of a flier or better than native, perfect fliers, and that the idea of her not being able to hover seemed odd, not so that they would be excluded.Re: Feather Fall. Feather fall is not in danger of being better than fly. It is, and is intended to be, situationally better. Many first level spells are situationally better than 3rd level spells. Feather fall does not allow any movement except a slowed fall, so that's a huge difference between a first level spell and...
I'm pretty close to saying that I have ruled and that is that. But a bit more so that my thought process is clear:
1) From a house rule perspective, I'm much closer to making a 1 a total fail than eliminating the house rule. The idea of never being able to fail at something seems silly to me. I almost made the same ruling for natural twenties as always having a chance to succeed seems silly as well, but the 1-in-20 chance to be heroic seems fitting.
2) Jason and I have spoken at length about handle animal and he understands that the animal is technically an NPC and there will be times that I say an animal can't/won't do that. The excluding of handle animal checks has much more to do with my sanity/gameflow/etc. than any fairness argument. Considering the cost of failure is that the animal would tactically attack the nearest threat and is often doing that anyhow, I'm not seeing a viable fairness issue anyhow.
3) As to fact that I have given a marginal advantage to Perfect fliers, I think that both realism (no PC will ever be as comfortable flying as an air elemental) and impact (they aren't that common and even then we're talking a 5% that in certain situations there might be a problem for the weakest of the perfect fliers) this is simply not a big deal.
4) I believe that the move requirements of fly are meant to be significant within the action economy and balance the power of breaking out of the standard 2D map. Flight is already destabilizing to rule-set that is built around two dimensions. Rule interpretations in favor of empowering flight would only make it worse. This isn't a PC power vs. Monster Power thing, it is a trying to keep track of a million things in combat within a limited rule-set thing. (Example of things that won't be happening in my campaign: I'm flying while carrying a boulder, I 5'step up diagonal and am directly over my opponent, I drop the boulder as a free action that does 3d6 points of damage and still have my full set of actions available!)
5) Under my rulings above, as a non-winged flier, your character is really never in danger of falling. If you could fall, you could fly straight down and thus not be falling.
6) To that end - we won't be weaponizing feather fall. Trying to use feather fall to increase a character's action economy or really using the spell to do anything but prevent damage from falling isn't happening in this campaign. I don't believe it is contemplated in the text or spirit of the spell. If you don't like the mechanism of the ruling above, the desire is to prevent what I view as rules exploits related to the spell. If a different ruling mechanism seems more palatable, I'm open to it as long as it doesn't serve to weaponize the spell.
(Note: I believe that casting feather fall, as an immediate action, never invokes attacks of opportunity. Standard action or longer spells invoke attacks of opportunity, swift and immediate actions do not ever provoke).
Quick Detour to another topic...…
@DM: Would you be willing to provide some specific guidance regarding the correct balance of adventuring and Kingdom turns?
I think I can speak for the group in saying we want to keep the proportions of the two in line with what the adventure path had in mind. Likewise, I don't mind breaking the 4th wall on this a bit to make sure we do so.
From a player perspective, what has made most sense is to think of it in month-to-month terms. By that I mean we need to spend a minimum of 7 days a month engaged in our Leadership roles or we risk our roles being considered vacant for the next Kingdom Building turn. The 7 days is a minimum, and I/we have really aimed to be in our roles more like 15 days. No real reason why other than a desire to not short-shrift the leadership roles. 15 days spent in our leadership roles would leave 15 days for adventuring, which I would say is roughly the length of our forays out of the capitol.
It is out of this logic that we players have gotten into the pattern of doing one Kingdom turn, followed by one adventuring foray, rinse, repeat. This 1-to-1 ratio makes sense conceptually, fits the time pattern and is congruent with our PC's collective desire to explore our entire writ and subdue any threats there as quickly as possible. We would want to do it quickly both to know what our expansion options are (what hexes to claim, where to build, etc.) as well to identify and eliminate anything that might harm the kingdom.
All that said, you've indicated that we seem to be doing too much adventuring for the pace of the AP. If 1-to-1 (Kingdom Building to Adventure Forey) is out of balance. What is the right ratio? 2-to-1, 3-to-1? We can do whatever but I'd recommend giving us some specific guidance if the AP is calling for us doing something very different than what logically we would do.
OK, back to your regularly scheduled rules debate........
The adventure keys off of both PC actions in adventuring (you kill the Stag Lord) or kingdom events (you have claimed X number of hexes. or built X building triggering an event).
All adventure paths have character level advancement built in, to the point that experience barely needs to be kept track of.
This adventure path also keys off of kingdom advancement.
The spoiler below shows the expectations through level 10.
You are in the final third of the second adventure. The third adventure is designed to begin with you at 7th level and expects that you have a kingdom of at least 40 hexes claimed and corresponding development. You will then grow that kingdom and adventure until you have about 75-80 hexes and reach 10th level as you complete the third adventure. The fourth adventure begins with the PC's at 10th level with 80 hexes in their Kingdom.
I added the original house rules and other key rulings to the Campaign Info tab.
Continuing the discussion with the GM regarding the right balance of Adventuring and Kingdom Building. I'm putting it in a Spoiler just so those who don't want the "behind the curtain" info can avoid.
Looking ahead, we'll need to grow an additional 40 Hexes over 3 levels to be in line for the start of 4th adventure in the AP. After we reach a size 50 Kingdom we can scoop up 4 Hexes a turn, meaning that over those 3 character levels (7th-10th) we'll need to complete about 12 Kingdom Building turns. That comes to about 4 Kingdom Building turns per character level. Again, would seem to be that a good 1-to-1 balance of adventuring forays and kingdom building turns would do the trick.
Vissannica level up crunch:
Another 2nd level spell(Frigid Touch usually) and another cantrip, plus two more spells in her spellbook(Web and Blur).
A +1 to her BAB, and power attack went from -1/+2 to +2/+4, for a net of +2 to damage.
Another point in her Arcane Pool, which is up to 7.
She took a rank in Craft(boneworking). Mostly turning kills into ritual Azmodean implements, and some of her elven blood becoming manifest, if twisted.
The big thing this level is another Hex Arcana. She took Arcane Accuracy which allows her to spend an Arcane Pool point to add her Int modifier to her attack roll for one round as a swift action. That's a +5 to hit at this point.
Anastasia Level Up: this was a pretty tame level actually. The next two (7th=4th Lv spells including Blessing of Fervor and 8th=Leadership Feat) will be much more significant. No Feats, no extra spell levels. Her BAB went up...but honestly if Anastasia's BAB comes into play its probably already a TPK. Maybe the most significant thing this level is Inspiring Command (gives +2 to AC/Attack/Skill Checks) now counts for 3 allies. So Z, Viss and Cringer can all get it at once.
Zorthalius Level Up:
Z gets his first rank in Hellknight. He gets Aura of Law that is similar to the Paladin Aura of Evil. Detect Chaos at will. Smite Chaos once per day.
Hey all,
I'm very much enjoying the role playing aspects of the Kingdom Building/Sandbox part of the game. It's really cool to be building characters, impacting the larger world, and building a kingdom. Very fun, and very rich for character development and role play.
That said, the actual live Kingdom Building turns aren't something I look forward to, and I'm wondering if anyone else feels the same.
As the kingdom grows, and we have more options with what we do in a given turn, decisions are getting more complex, and repeated decision making by committee(we are looking at something like up to 3 hexes,5 improvements, and 5 buildings per turn, plus a myriad of other tweaks or decisions, all that have to weighed against a treasury that is now being outpaced) is often slow despite Nate's willingness to MC and mastermind the process(Thank you Nate!) and his efforts to keep it moving forward while giving people time to give input.
Sometimes I find myself wanting to stay mostly silent and just give assent, rather than have a back and forth conversation about which hex to put a road in, because I'd rather be out hunting trolls, etc.
When we started the campaign, there was the idea, and even a request for a commitment, that the kingdom building would be completed mostly via the forums between sessions, once we got the hang of the rules.
Here's an excerpt from Patrick's email sounding this out back in Jan 2018:
" am attaching the .pdf as well so that we can think about whether this campaign looks like what we want to do. Because it WILL take a larger commitment from some of the Players. I have spoken to Jason and he is up for checking e-mails and doing the offline stuff, despite his Luddite tendencies. I need to know everyone will be willing to do Downtime and some campaign building between sessions for this to work.
...
It will [take] communication between players and downtime mechanics on a schedule between sessions to allow me time to prep for the next session already knowing what characters are doing in downtime. This means that I will want downtime/offline done by noon on Saturdays so that I can incorporate the effects by the next session. I will also be pushing out some house rules for discussion.
If we decide this is too much and aren't up for something new, I have another Adventure Path that I am up for DMing. It is the pre-quel to the one we are currently doing. "
Would it be possible for us to give using the forum for kingdom building turns another go, now that we are all familiar with the rules? Perhaps deadlines to chime in? Perhaps give Anastasia as the ruler the ability to move things along if there is silence?(this doesn't seem that different than the current sitch, only offline)
If not, perhaps the idea of making decisions and moving things forward via downtime was never going to work, despite best intentions. But I'm a little worried that as the kingdom grows, kingdom building is going to get more and more complex, and likely more time consuming.
If we can't make offline work, I'd like to suggest that we should be more strategic about when we do kingdom building turns. I think we should only do them at the start of the session, when people are fresh and it's not so late. Patrick often doesn't need to be online to get Kingdom building turns started, and lately there is sometimes quorum before Patrick is ready to get rolling, anyways.
Anyways, happy to hear others' thoughts. :)
Bannigan,
Thanks for bringing this up. My overall impression was that people were enjoying the kingdom building time - and I would encourage everyone to voice their opinion here on the forums.
I was hoping when designing the campaign that kingdom building and roleplay of kingdom activities would primarily occur within the forums to leave the hard adventuring to the sessions. I may be at fault for driving it more to the sessions by forcing the chronology of the week of every month being given to governing. One of the reasons I do that is so that "Event" based plot development can occur, but also I was trying to balance the two different phases of the campaign to make sure one didn't overly outpace the other.
Bannigan is also right that the kingdom building is getting more complex and will continue to do so as time moves on.
If there is a willingness to put the kingdom building and roleplay in the forums where originally intended, and that the pace of building matches well with campaign advancement... I would be willing to de-couple the timeliness of kingdom and adventuring.
By this I mean that if we are in a dungeon for several sessions, we can be doing kingdom turns in the background on the forums and not take up session time - just assuming that everyone will survive and get back to the capital eventually.
If we have an "exploration session" and are exploring maps in a way that takes weeks or months, we don't have to stop and do the kingdom building session every time a month passes... we can assume what is being done online will catch up eventually.
The caveat is that some Events phase activities will not align fully, but we can work that out both in session or in the foums as it fits. (How many times might a penalty for not hunting trolls happen vs. getting clues about next steps.)
Of course, that assumes that people want to use the forums to kingdom build. If we want to do that, I would propose that each phase that requires a decision is given a day for feedbakc (Claim hexes one day, improve terrain next day, improve cities next day, etc.) That way people have time to weigh in if they are interested but we won't stall out either.
So IF the group wants to take Bannigan's proposal, that is my proposal on how to make it work.
That said, this is supposed to be fun and not work and others are really enjoying the in-session kingdom building that should be considered as well.
Patrick actually made the point I was going to bring up, which is that Kingdome Building does not always fall at the end of a 2-hour Tuesday evening session. If we can “semi”decouple them from the adventure play that would make this idea much more palatable.
That said, I am very much in support of pushing the KB sessions to the forums. I particularly like the idea of making each phase a day of the week. I think that will drive more forum participation or at least forum checking. It would give time to check rules and balance options as I am often alt-tabbing between google docs and pdf files to try and figure out the potential pluses and minuses and missing some of the conversation. On a completely selfish note, if I miss my Friday morning “professional blogging” window on my work outlook calendar there will not be any hero point for me that week. So having a reason to check the forums more often will most likely drive more role playing posts from me.
I think if we are going to move in this direction we will need to identify how we will make decisions online with screen shots and google docs. It may require some “htmling.”
Hey folks, sorry for the late response, just getting back into Internet-Land…..
I’ll start off my 2 cents on this by saying I really enjoy the Kingdom Building aspect of the game, and would nominally count myself in the “ain’t broke, don’t fix” side of this issue. That said, trying to figure out which 5 buildings to put in what towns at 10:49pm EST isn’t much fun. So I’m all for other viable (note the operative word there, foreshadowing alert) ways of doing the Kingdom Building aspect of the game to better enhance everyone’s fun.
So, the Contrarian part of my thoughts: trying to get Kingdom Building done on the forums in a collaborative, back-and-forth fashion is unlikely to work because, despite incentives and prodding, we players as a group (not talking at the DM here, he does fine) don’t reliably use the forums. Not casting aspersions here, and if I were I’d have to throw myself squarely under the bus as well. We all have preferences, circumstances and priorities, and the reality is that the forums just don’t factor in too often for most of us. Take the current situation as an example: last Friday afternoon Bannigan posted this rather significant change idea regarding Kingdom building, asking for input and a discussion. On Sunday Bill texted to let everyone know about Bannigan’s post. Patrick chimed in on Monday to offer input, he’s the GM. Then Bill posts on Tuesday and after that, it’s crickets. It’s now just about a full week since Bannigan originally posted and less than half the party has provided input. This pattern just continues our track record from the beginning of this campaign whereby, despite an overt reward (a hero point) no one reliably posts on the forums except Bannigan. Again, no condemnation, just facts. And I say this as a guy who has played PbP D&D games and had high hopes for the forums coming into this campaign.
In addition to just not using the forums much as players, another problem is that the forums even at their optimal don’t do a great job when you are doing back-and-forth decision making. It’s like trying to solve a complicated problem over email versus just calling the person. So while doing Kingdom Building live in-session takes away from the adventure, it still likely makes it all go faster.
I would also prefer we don’t overly temporally de-link the Kingdom Building with the adventuring. A little bit is probably OK, but too much spoils the verisimilitude. There are also practical implications, including the fact that we often claim and build on hexes we have very recently explored via adventure.
I could get behind two changes to our current way of doing things. The simplest would be for Patrick to gauge if Kingdom Building would likely need to occur that session, and front-load it to the beginning as others have suggested. This would have our minds at their freshest and do the least harm to realism.
The second idea builds off a suggested Bannigan made in his initial post on Kingdom Building. In a nutshell: everybody make suggestions and I’ll do it. As I said I really like the Kingdom Building and am OK to take this on. At the end of each session, Patrick would let us know if we need to do Kingdom Building. If we do, we quickly roll the Stability and Taxes checks before signing off for the night. Everyone will then have a couple of days (say ‘till Thursday evening) to get me their preferred hexes to claim, hex improvements to build and town improvements to add. I then have until, say, Sunday to get our Kingdom Building actions back to Patrick and the players. This way, if folks have input to Kingdom Building they can and if not, not. I would be the final arbiter of what is built, but Anastasia is the Queen and most of the time folks go along with my suggestions anyways. And if there is something you really, really want (or don’t) I can obviously factor that in. I would still need Troy to input stuff into the spreadsheet, but otherwise Kingdom Building would be a “contribute as you want” affair.
My apologies for the lateness in joining in the discussion, even with the prompt by Bill. I had the best of intensions to do so earlier. That being said, I am in the same boat as Bannigan. I'm definitely more into the typical D&D path of characters engaging in a situation as opposed to working on logistics of kingdom building. However, I am also a bit intrigued with the kingdom building process. A huge thank you to Nate for the willingness to shoulder the KB actions. I'm willing to try to login to the forum's more often, but find that I'm 'squirreling' with other things happening around me on any given evening. I would be happy to continue to input the stuff on the spreadsheet however it is developed.
Bill and Bannigan,
Just wanted to say awesome posts... Great background development!
The question came up about Leadership as that feat will likely be available for characters who manage to survive to 7th Level.
My views:
1) Cohorts are NPC's who are "attracted" to the character. This means they will be generated by me, though I would appreciate guidance about the general type of Cohorts you are looking to attract. Soldier, spy, healer, mage, scholar, seer, priest, etc. If you would like to see if a known, existing NPC would make a good cohort, that can be discussed and developed as well. Special/magic beast cohorts are not out of the question either.
2) I would prefer Cohorts not adventure with the party. The party's power level is definitely not deficient and combat is already complex enough. If there is a strong desire for a Cohort to adventure, just understand they will be independent NPC's, making their own decisions and will take a share of the treasure. They do not take a share of experience, however will continue to gain levels commensurate with yours even without adventuring.
3) There is no third thing.
4) Followers will also be NPC's developed by me, but will be substantially less defined. These should add flavor to the campaign as much as if not more than provide routine utility. Again, let me know what sorts of followers you are seeking.
5) For calculating Leadership Scores:
Leadership Reputation: Party members are of Great Reknown. No other adjustments.
The Leader... has a stronghold. No other adjustments.
Note: Charisma Modifier should not include temporary modifiers.
I made a post in response to Vissanica's excellent post to set the stage for our session.
If you choose to speak with the Duke after receiving, but before reading the scrolls you do so without the knowledge of the scrolls.
Otherwise the next session can begin with the Duke leaving the Party and retinue to read and discuss.
Lions and Consorts and Generals, oh my!
Well I have lots of e-mails and fun posts, so I guess people are enjoying this stage of the game. I am as well, I think last session drove a lot of creative thought as well.
To get everyone on the same page I wanted to comment here and refer back to my August 8th posting above.
For how we will generate such PC's I'm going to default to raw as seen here:
For Cohorts we will use a Heroic Array of stats. Some modification will be allowed for specialized classes (Melee NPC Paladin Swap Dex and Charisma) but this is what we are looking at to build around.
That said, if there is an NPC whom your character has a strong relationship with who you would like to become a Cohort, that is a possibility as well, and we can simply advance the existing NPC up to the appropriate level.
For followers we will use Basic Array stats and, unless there is an exceptional reason, will be somewhat random as to class and trend towards NPC classes as well (Adept, Aristocrat, Warrior, etc.) I would consider an exceptional reason to a specific use of followers such as forming an armed guard, a spy network, a school/university faculty group, etc. Such groups might tend to have more PC classes for higher level followers, though lower level followers would likely be NPC classes.
As to what Nate created as an NPC idea to bring in as a potential member of the Council, I would say that they will work with the Heroic Array stats as well. However, I do think we want to encourage the use of encountered NPC's as a part of the Adventure Path arc - so this should really be used to backfill PC's with replacements during travel then to replace existing Council Members. Also, these NPC's are not cohorts or followers, they are NPC's who have their own agenda, so building in specific allegiances to specific PC's will be downplayed.
That said a Cohort as a Council member would be encouraged and may be a reason to retire an established NPC, due to the close relation to the PC and application of the Feat.
Now to the idea of Evil Aslan as the General of our kingdom...
I am not adverse to the idea but I do think it is something that will require more than a simple scroll. (Also, I think that you need to include the Material Components for Awaken in the cost of the scroll.)
Awaken and Intelligent Creatures
Examining the Spell and the additional commentary under Intelligent Animals, it is pretty clear that Awakening an Animal gives the animal a personality, but that personality is not based on the Caster. So the animal created may be a Chaotic Good scholarly personality as easily as a Lawful Evil general type. However, the intelligent Animal section specifically talks about taking the animal as a Cohort... So, if you want Evil Aslan as the general of your armies, awakening a Lion and selecting the Lion as a Cohort will do the trick. I'll throw in some stat bonuses as compared to a normal lion as well, similar to the difference between a Basic and Heroic Array if you decide to go down this path, but someone will need to take the Leadership feat for it to be feasible. We could also theoretically build out classes for Evil Aslan under the rules created for giving classes to monsters to bring it up to the appropriate level.
Hopefully this, and the prior post of August 8th, provides some more clarity in advance of our conversation tomorrow.
I posted Zoya's background without the reference to any specific allegiance to Vissannica, as she is not taking the leadership feat.
Hmmm....a few anticipatory questions...…
1) Does the Awakened Lion have to be a cohort? Anastasia is unlikely to have a Lion cohort and I don't think anyone else is planning on taking Leadership.
2) Is there any flexibility on the application of the Basic/Heroic stat array? Really a 2-part concern here:
A) The Heroic stat array is...not so Heroic. I'm thinking of this particularly as it relates to Cohorts and Leadership Council folks. Can we consider a 15 point buy instead?
B) Some Followers also could use (and would likely have) a more diversified stat array. I'm thinking of a Court Sage with a 13 Intelligence. It would see to me that some followers would be arranged differently than the stat array.
3) Does the idea of using NPC's we find for Leadership position take into consideration that our group is likely a bit more negatively pre-disposed than most parties would be in this AP to the indigenous inhabitants? We're really not looking to place a lot of fey and other local non-humans into key posts. I was hoping we could incorporate followers gained from Leadership to address this problem.
I used the heroic stat array in Herolabs for Zoya. When you add racial modifiers, you can get a 17, plus if they are 4th level you get a +1 attribute bonus, so you could get an 18.
Hadn't thought of that. Agreed, if NPC's get to add Racial Bonuses and level adjustments then that takes care of most of point 2A. Would still like some flexibility on how the stats are arrayed. For example, a "Face" rogue should get to make Cha the 15 and shuffle the rest around.
Hey all,
I wanted to comment on a few things based on conversation so we have an ongoing record of rulings/plans to look back on as time goes by.
Lions and Consorts and Generals, oh my!
For how we will generate such NPC's I'm going to default to raw as seen here:
For Cohorts we will use a Heroic Array of stats. Some modification will be allowed for specialized classes (Melee NPC Paladin Swap Dex and Charisma) but this is what we are looking at to build around.
That said, if there is an NPC whom your character has a strong relationship with who you would like to become a Cohort, that is a possibility as well, and we can simply advance the existing NPC up to the appropriate level.
For followers we will use Basic Array stats and, unless there is an exceptional reason, will be somewhat random as to class and trend towards NPC classes as well (Adept, Aristocrat, Warrior, etc.) I would consider an exceptional reason to a specific use of followers such as forming an armed guard, a spy network, a school/university faculty group, etc. Such groups might tend to have more PC classes for higher level followers, though lower level followers would likely be NPC classes.
A few things to adjust:
1) Players may design their Co-Horts and Followers. Please post Stat Blocks as opposed to .por's in the forums, along with backgrounds.
2) For followers 3rd level or higher, the first follower of that level may have a Heroic Array, all subsequent followers at that level will have a Basic Array. Heroic followers may have PC classes, Basic Array followers should have NPC classes.
3) All of these followers should be designed with gear based on the NPC Gear table and proportioned as indicated in the table. For spellcasting classes- wands, staves, rods, etc. may count as "weapons" or for the purposes of allocating funds. Followers do not advance in level or equipment value, however Cohorts may gain equipment value as the chart progresses and may save up over levels. They should, however, have fully allocated their gold upon creation.
4) For NPC's built outside of the Leadership feat for color/Replacement Council positions, they should follow the rules for Elite Array followers but I am going to cap their highest ability score at 16, including adjustments, and these NPC's should be at least 4 levels below the Party's current level.
Now that we have the rules set regarding Cohorts, Followers and Leadership, wanted to get everyone's take on replacing the Treasurer, Diplomat and Councilor positions. Anastasia is very happy with Auchs staying as Enforcer and Jhod as High Priest, so unless there are any strong opinions otherwise we can count them as staying. With the Awakened Lion General approved, and PC's in the rest of the spots (and Akiros moving up to Consort), I think we're otherwise set.
Anastasia will get Leadership next level, at what point in time she could get someone new into these three positions who would likely be more able. In character she would like to do this to find folks who are more in line with an advancing, maturing Kingdom. The three in those positions (Oleg, Kesten and Svetlana) were more chosen out of desperation and some took the jobs more grudgingly. Each of the three is a little different, let us know your thoughts on each.
Kesten: Anastasia strongly wants to remove him. She blames him for the surprise visit by the Duke, a big faux paus in her mind. Additionally, she knows others can be better at the job (just +2 in key stat) and Kesten didn't really want it to begin with.
Oleg: Anastasia feels that the burgeoning Kingdom has grown past Oleg's skill set. He did a workman-like job, and she isn't upset with him, but knows others could do better (again, just +2 in key stat). Oleg was fine to become Treasurer, but he'd very likely be happier running things back in Olegsburg as a mayor.
Svetlana: This is likely the most interesting of the three. Anastasia likes Svetlana personally but would prefer to release her to be back in Olegsburg with her husband. Svetlana appears to really enjoy the job though and might want to stay, even if it meant being separated from Oleg (this may have already been happening, we were never clear if Oleg spends most of his time in Olegsburg like Jhod does in Axius). Anastasia feels Svetlana has done well as Councilor but may be getting out of her depth with the size and scope of the Kingdom. And again, like the first two Anastasia knows someone else could bring more natural ability to the job (+2 in key stat like the others).
I'd like to see Svetlana leveled up to 4th or 5th, and say that she used some of her salary to pay for Dox crafting her a headband in her best stat (wis or cha?) So that she stays relevant.
So tied 1-1 so far on Svetlana. What say the rest of you?
For sake of discussion, Bannigan can you clarify the reasons you vote to keep? Thinking both from player and PC POV. Is Vissannica speaking up on behalf of Svetlana staying? If so, why? The idea to have Dox craft her a headband may take care of the stat piece, but the same could be said of Oleg and Kesten. Just wondering if there is a reason beyond status quo, and if that is Bannigan's opinion or what Vissannica would want. Given that Svetlana is a commoner I would think Vissannica would be fine to move on to someone with a noble lineage.