Into the Stolen Lands (Kingmaker Book 1) (Inactive)

Game Master Chainmail

This is the discussion thread to put out of character discussion and other things that are not appropriate for the game thread. Other games I have played in occasional "fans" drop in to comment about the game. If that happens here it would be a first for me.

So who exactly fits the definition of a fan ? :)

Ok, I've thought about this too long and have now started to waffle....

My character Kunala will be the bastard son of lord Lebeda and a previous student at the prestigious Aldori Academy of Restov’. His AP trait is Sword Scion and at sixth level he will take at least one level in Aldori swordlord. Which means he will need the Feats: Dazzling Display, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Aldori dueling sword), Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus (Aldori dueling sword). and the Skills: Acrobatics 3 ranks, Intimidate 5 ranks, Knowledge (nobility) 3 ranks, Sense Motive 3 ranks. I'll also want to take diplomacy and perception

Where I'm waffling, I was planning on making Kunala a Swashbuckler Archetype: Rostland Bravo but I've never played a swashbuckler before. Whereas the last time I played Kunala in Kingmaker he was a bard. But, I've also played him as a Ranger: dandy in a different game. The two classes are similar enough that it won't change his fluff at all, but they are a little different. Has anyone played a swashbuckler? Are the 'deeds' reasonably functional?

I'll post the two builds here, It looks like we have at least one bard, possibly two and a couple of religious folks. Any opinions here? I'm not sure which build would be better, or synergize with the others. I'm assuming the Dandy 'class traits' Favorite nation will function of, but the 'Rumor Empathy will be about useless.

Tribute, any opinions here?

I haven't played a swashbuckler really, (there was one time I did some crazy multi-classing and took a dip to get some benefits, but I don't think I made it past the first combat in that game, that or the game failed then. I can't remember which. Anywhoooo) but I have seen them played. The deeds are pretty good from what I have seen. Parry and Riposte is one of those that I think is really useful in combat, but again, I haven't played the class, so this is just based on what I've seen others do.

The obvious differences:
the Bravo has more 'free' feats at first level making the path to 'Aldori swordsman' easier and allowing extra advantages like toughness and power attack.
The 'Dandy' has higher saving throws and skills, but the early feats will be spent on the prestige class requirements.

I've no idea how well the 'class traits' will effect further on in the game...

I'm afraid that most of the sweet ranger class traits are lost with the 'Dandy' and will be fairly useless.

And with a bard, how needed are the extra skills?

If the Dandy is more urban than wilderness focused, it'll take a while before any of those really come into play, and even then, Kingmaker as written is more of a exploration of the wilds adventure than an urban adventure. I'd recommend going with something else in that case. Swashbuckler, from what I remember of the class when I last read it, is geared more for derring-do and the kinds of escapades you'd see in an Errol Flynn movie. Those abilities are always useful, and I don't think there's anything that wouldn't be useable in the wilds. As for extra skills, those are always useful. A bard loaded up with knowledge and survival skills would be an interesting choice and be very useful in this AP.

If you're looking for advice, I'd say go with the swashbuckler or the bard. A straight ranger would be far more useful than the dandy from what it sounds like.

Thanks for the feedback Adam!

I thought about a straight ranger, but the 'communication' skills aren't there for the 'Aldori swordlord.' Even though I'd played Kunala as a bard I want to stick with one of the two full BAB classes. But it doesn't feel like the dandy class traits will have much value down the road.

I'm leaning towards the original choice of 'Bravo' but I wanted to open it up for discussion. Mostly because I haven't played the 'swashbuckler' and with a fifteen point buy the charisma is just low enough that I don't know how helpful the 'deeds' will be. I figure at 4th level he'll bump Charisma, then start bumping dexterity.

Any other thoughts?

For my input I'd go Rostland Bravo - has lots of fluff flavour (which I'm always drawn to in an archetype).

I've not played a swashbuckler, but the panache looks a fun (if situational) mechanic. I've played Gunslingeresque characters who used deeds and they are useful for key combats or making an impression on foes by augmenting your attacks.

Like Adam touched on swashbuckler has decent skill picks also - which give you the opportunity to branch into social/leadership skills if necessary as the game develops. With a 15 point build we'll all be on a slow development build - which makes this all the more interesting.

Would be an interesting one to see in action - given the heavy emphasis on flair and flashy combat style.

Speaking of archetypes - am mulling the Oathkeeper archetype for my Abadarian Inquisitor.

Now I know that Knowledge (Nature) is potent boon in KM during the exploration phases etc. However love the idea of our group sealing potential alliances (be they trade, political or truces etc) with the witness and oversight of my inquisitor.

Could make her a potent figure down the line - and Oathkeeper is such a flavoursome title lol.

Interested to hear what all and sundry reckon :)

Okay, here's Erme's partner in crime, er I mean finance, Amelia Coin. We're still ironing out the details of our background and I still need to work out her stats. I think I'm going to stick with a straight Oracle. I just need to figure a good mystery for her.

Just checking, are we doing the normal 2 traits for free, one of them has to be a campaign trait, or is it 1 campaign trait and take a drawback to get a second.

Let's allow three total traits including one trait from the campaign traits if a drawback is selected. Two traits and no drawback is an option. If your low charisma dwarf wants to be condescending, definitely not a problem--just role play your drawback. Additional traits feat once per character is also allowed. Five should be enough. Rich parents allowed (someone may want to zen archer)....

Sounds like two, one of them being for the AP with a third for a well-played drawback.

Ah, got it. Thanks!

Okay, first pass at the stats. Amelia is going to be a buffer and healer that stays weeeeell out of combat. I see her as also being the walking encyclopedia and party face.

I think I'm going to swap out the revelation, but this is pretty much what I have in mind.

Amelia is looking nice. Robert, the dandy is an interesting option., especially for the nation building flavor. The favored enemy will be interesting as I would think it applies to those who think of themselves as river kingdomers. I would easily ensure it is worthwhile.
I created a NPC for a home brew that was a memorable hobbit swashbuckler. The bravado, overconfidence and extreme sense of fashion seemed funnier coming from a little guy.
But it is hard to make the martial guy responsible for skills. Adam, My two cents is a high charisma character should always consider UMD as a skill. Always like to use that useful witch scroll you find when there is no witch. The UMD trait is IMHO more useful than arcane dabbler, although detect magic is the best cantrip ever!

Just to clarify, we are not using background skills, right?

No background skills at this time. I am highly considering 1 for nonrogues and 2 for rogues per level.

And Erme is looking nice, and if Kn Naure is missed, that seems a good use of the Know the Land trait +1 survival +1 kn nature make one a class skill. Oathkeeper looks very flavorful.

Talk about a divine mandate with evidence of bringing law and order to the land, but way less scary than a fianolic pact.

No background skills at this time. I am highly considering 1 for nonrogues and 2 for rogues per level.

hmmmm, watching to see which way you go, with the requirements for 'Aldori swordlord' those skills become gold...

edit: If I do go with the ranger archetype, would it be ok to add a second archetype 'trapper' so he could deal with traps and I wouldn't need to mess with spells? It should fit ok with the back story seeing his stepdad is a ranger.

Done see campaign tab.

4 skills for a martial prestige class owww!! I see the value of the rogue path.

And 2 archetypes that don’t conflict is fine.

A PbP fan is someone who follows a game they are not in and cares enough to post in the discussion thread.

And 2 archetypes that don’t conflict is fine.

So, yeah, I would say Knowledge skills are thoroughly covered, and I expect our Aldori-in-training will cover Intimidate . . ..

Wilderness skills? Full Disable Device? Muscle? Arcane? Nothing's required, but those are all obvious holes in our capabilities.

Your right about the intimidation, wanted diplomacy too, but it doesn't look like I need to.

If Kunala goes 'Dandy/Trapper' he can cover disable device and survival/track, but oddly enough not knowledge (nature) does that make the ranger class more attractive than the 'swashbuckler' class?

So I'm still waffling between the ranger build (which has more skills including disable device and survival) and swashbuckler, but the conversation about 'Family backgrounds' prompted me to go back and find the info I used to initially build Kunala. I had wanted to make sure the details were right for the game of Kingmaker I had applied to, so I established some facts from the Wiki:
4710 King Noleski Surtova of Brevoy sends explorers and settlers to establish a kingdom in the Stolen Lands to the south. (This should be us)

Lander Lebeda Born ca. 4700 AR became Lord of House Lebeda of Brevoy once he came of age, succeeding his mother Sarrona as family regent

Lander's older sister Elanna Lebeda (Neutral good) ran the house until Lander came of age. She lives in New Stetven, in the family home there.

Mother is Dame Sarrona (neutral) family castle, Silverhall looks over Lake Reykal and is where the family maintains its power. The castle is accurately named, as is the river, the woods and the towns.

In Kunala's back story as a child he lived in New Stetven until Elanna wanted to live there, then he and his mother and brother moved to a 'Lodge' I made up. I fabricated 'Lord Lebeda' dying when Llander was ten making his mother regent. coincieded the old lords death with the king sending the 'explorers and settlers.' Assuming that up until the 'old lords' death the family was paying for his schooling, and Kunala used the kings edict to 'get out of town' becuase he knew the instability an older 'bastard child' might cause and assumed someone in the family may want him dead.

That was the premise for the backstory for a (near) solo run through the AP, If I need to change it to fit this game I'm happy to do that. Also if it would help for Kunala to be 'aware' of his cousins, that would also be doable.

As I said, still thinking about the particulars on his crunch, but I've attacked the fluff to his page.

There's two things that I need to hammer out. First is how Emre and Amelia would learn that Selenus is their father. I'm not sure about Emre's background, but if I had to guess it's broadly similar to Amelia's. My thinking was that Amelia's mother would have mentioned the name when leaving Amelia with the church of Abadar. I guess the same could be said for Emre.

Second, how long have Emre and Amelia been in Brevoy? Have we been their long enough to get to know Kunala, Drektan, and the Lebeda family? If not, whom have we met, and what are their impressions of us? Should we play out the first meeting? I'm trying to figure out how Emre and Amelia are viewed by the family and get an impression of what they are like so I can figure out how Amelia would view them in return.

Oh and GM, do you want us to give any input on who else we'd like to join us? I was thinking about compiling a list of submissions just to see who we could be playing with.

Saw the note to come look over here. Never occured to me that posting was going over here already . . ..

With a solid Dex (pretty much expected) and Combat Reflexes, Opportune Parry and Riposte can be HUGE, pretty much for the life of the character.

Spend 1 Panache and 1 AoO to roll an opposed attack roll against the incoming attack. Win and they miss, regardless of your AC. If you still have any Panache, then you can also counter-attack (riposte) at NO FURTHER COST.

Derring-Do is an exploding bonus die to several physical skills.

Later deeds include things like free damage per attack, kip-up, and lots and lots more as long as you have positive panache.

The Deeds can be AMAZING, but you have to pay attention and play them.

Swashbuckler is an extremely capable combatant class. It makes a solid social class as well, since the normal Swashbuckler can use Charisma instead of Intelligence to qualify for combat feats as well as to set the panache limit . . ..

If you want to focus on the social side of things, Noble Fencer trades the oft-ignored Dodging Panache for a Derring-Do style deed that applies to social skills! It won't stack with Rostland Bravo, though, as both replace Superior Feint. <shrug>

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I would assume Kunala expects the family will have additional bastards, but, honestly, from how the two women are written up, I don't think they will know either of us, or us them. We could easily have met, but given that you were mostly avoiding the Lord's home, probably not often nor at great length.

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As I read various sites, I thought I saw that Lander is supposed to be 15 as we head into the wilderness. ALMOST old enough.

Given what I've seen of the backgrounds, I would think the two of you are on site by chance, unless you are trying to find a connection into the family?

Kunala could have been offered the chance to tackle this immediate task as a way to help him disappear, and Drektan could have been assigned to assist him for much the same reason.

ESPECIALLY with bastards, blood relation doesn't mean you know each other!

Huh, I thought it was pretty much implied that Emre and Amelia were seeking out House Lebeda to seek some backing for their claim on the undeveloped lands belonging to Selenus. We were both taking to the Pioneer trait, learning the skill we choose on the way up to Brevoy.

I missed that somehow along the way, I guess.

But, if you were seeking out House Lebeda, you probably weren't looking for other bastards.

Increases the odds you've met Drek's parents significantly, since they live with the ruling family members. Still not a solid indication of direct interaction, though.

Back from a business trip, highlight was a day in NYC at the end. Although fun, I am glad I live in a small town. Spending $17 for a good martini is also not fun.

The discussion so far shows plenty of story hooks I can use if I want to go "off book" a bit. You will be in the northern part of the riverlands to where Brevoy is desperately trying to keep revenue flowing.

hustonj hit the head on the best of swashbuckler. charisma for a swashbuckler becomes IMHO not even a secondary stat as we know you need INT to get the class skills for Aldori Sword Lord. But you need a 12CHA to get one panache, and it can be refilled. If you do a daring deed the GM can give you a panache award (using acrobatics to invoke a potential AoO is the easiest example I can give) you can be awarded a panache point if under your maximum. Also in our home group the swasbuckler would be asking for the +2 cloak of charisma hand me down when the bard upgraded his to +4.

And that's part of why I prefer the Inspired Blade archetype. It gets you panache for your Int as well as your Cha, so you can pump Int for skills and still increase your panache.

Inspired Blade is restricted to all the Swashbuckler shtuff working ONLY with rapiers, though. So, not what you want Kunala to be.

But you CAN play a Swashbuckler with a Cha of 5. The Panache rules say the minimum # of Panache points from your Cha is 1. As the class is clearly intended to be more social, I don't think I've ever seen anybody do it.

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And if you don't want to keep all the required skills maxed, but just meet the qualifications, there are 14 skill ranks required, so a 10 Int human could meet those requirements in 5 levels, still qualifying for Aldori Swordlord at level 6. You're not really doing anything else skill wise, but it is doable.

Wow, didn't catch the minimum 1 panache. I find it sad that the basic fighter is still not played very frequently. Even with archetypes, I do not see many created on these boards. I have always loved paladins if I go martial, but as soon as pathfinder made many of the weaknesses of arcane spellcasters go away, they just made my favorite class (wizard) so much more appealing.

Well, cruft created to sell books killed the Fighter.

The Fighter's main strength is supposed to be versatility. Other classes can do better at Race-to-Zero (simple damage output), battlefield control, being a wall, or whatever. Thing is, either they are really good at the one thing, or they can swap what they are good at through different spell preparation.

The fighter was created to be able to swap between those roles every round. The class was supposed to excel by being what the group needed on the battlefield at the moment.

But every time WotC (and then Paizo) went to sell another book, they created more Combat feats that were more and more specific, even going so far as to remove capabilities from existing feats by claiming the new feats were required to do specific things.

If you look JUST at Pathfinder, in 20 levels as a human fighter, when the Core Rulebook was published, the character could learn and use roughly 1/3 of the available Combat feats. Not everything, but a wide variety of capabilities. Today there are 63 combat feats starting with the letter "A". A level 20 human fighter has 22 feat slots. So, we went from a fighter being able to take roughly 1/3 of all the combat feats to being able to take roughly 1/3 of the combat feats starting with the letter "A".

Edit: Maybe it was roughly 1/5th? Not going back and counting again. Been a while since I did that, though. /edit

As the system expanded, the punishment for being a generalist has become more oppressive.

Heck, in my opinion a straight fighter can't take all of the feats appropriate to being an Aldori specialist at this point, even if STAYING straight fighter and not using the archetype or a prestige class.

And, of course, at the same time these feats were being published and added to the system, so were more powerful and more VERSATILE (instead of restrictive) spells. Fighters were limited and restricted each time, while spell caster were expanded.

The path we were on was clearly visible if you paid attention to 3.0 and 3.5. There was nothing surprising about what has happened how, or why.

Added my one Background Skill Rank. Linguistics. Took Varsian for now. Hallit and Skald are both obvious choices as also being common in Brevoy. Varisisan Sign is just USEFUL if others take it.

I once house ruled fighters as being 1.5 bab (+2 at odd levels /+1even) so they started iteratives at level 4. I discussed this on these boards and was told that was exactly what fighters didn’t need. I just wanted them to be the best fighters in a world of specialization. With this house rule at high levels no one has said “wow, you are now more powerful than our wizard”

Another problem with the explosion of feats is that it limits creativity at the table. You want to do something cool and flavorful with your character? Oops, can't do it because you don't have the right feats.

Fighters are a great class, and with certain characters I wind up multiclassing into the baseline fighter for a few levels to get Armor Training 1, which I feel is better than most would give it credit for. I don't often play them now because I like having some spells handy.

But the issues with power creep and fighters just getting plain outclassed is a design problem with games like Pathfinder and D&D. I think the only way to really fix it is to either make fighters really good at what they do, which is what the +1.5 BAB gets at, or make it so that spellcasters have a chance at failing whenever they cast a spell and failing has some real consequences. Beyond that, keeping things lighter would definitely help. Less feats, less archetypes, and more versatility, especially when it comes to the things that are the fighter's bread and butter. Another option would he to have fighter archetypes add to the class instead of limiting it.

Finally, GMs can allow their fighters a little more leeway when it comes to feats of physical prowess. Fighters are supposed to be a physical class, so let them have certain advantages when it comes skill and ability checks involving strength, dexterity, and constitution.

Just my two cents, anyway.

I've been reading along with the conversations, great stuff!

hustonj thanks for the information on 'swashbuckler,' it really helps. I'm at the point now where I may wait to see what the eventual line up looks like. If we get folks that are covering skills I'll go with Swashbuckler. If Kunala becomes only character that may potentially have disable device or survival I'll go with the ranger archetype.

As for fighters, I loved crafting fighters until I was playing a fighter in a game where the party also included a barbarian. During combat the barbarian jokingly commented about how much more damage he could do while raging, and I was like 'but I can do this all day long;' reminding him he was limited to x amount of rage rounds. The only problem is we'd hit three or four combat challenges, the casters would blow their 'good spells' and the rager would wear himself out. So, they would be ready to go back to 'rest;' wouldn't matter what time of day, or how long the'd been at it. Spells gone they were done...

Maybe if the game was run with a need for urgency and resting early would cause bad things to happen?

I tend to play rangers and slayers if I want to be a switch hitter, and barbarians or bloodragers if I want to be the heavy hitter. Lately I've been experimenting with different cavalier archetypes, especially if I want a mount or heavy armor.

The five minute adventuring day is definitely a thing, and I think it comes from not really giving the world some life and danger, not just pushing the adventure with a sense of urgency. I've been in games where the party was pushed to the limit by a clever GM and good encounters, but that takes a clever GM with a good grasp of the game.

I don't GM all that often, but some things that I would try to get around that and let classes like the fighter shine is by making the world dangerous and having things happen off screen as it were that affect the PCs. Just because you have a camp doesn't mean that you don't have to worry about the dangers of the wilds. Wild animals could come looking to see what's going on because they are curious and hungry. Maybe you set up in a boar's favored resting place and it's mad about the intrusion. Monsters from the dungeon could come out and ambush the party. Wandering aberrations recently loosed from that wizard's tower the party's been ignoring and the kobolds getting out of hand raiding their camp while they sleep are also options. When the party is close enough to a town to retreat there, maybe that fighter that they insulted has some buddies and they decide to do a little B&E before proceeding to some A&B while the party is trying to get some R&R. Then on top of that you can have consequences for the party not pushing forward. The goblins set up an ambush in an area that's been cleared, the monsters are buffed out the wazoo by the evil shaman or wizard, and the dead corpses are now zombies because the party didn't kill the necromancer are all options in this case.

The problem with all of these is that it places a lot of work on the GM and requires that they keep track of more than just what is right in front of the party. I think that's one reason a lot of GMs let the party get away with the 5-minute adventuring day.

Hmmm, just noticed that 'Greatwall' is just the other side of the border from the woods Kunala grew up in.

Tribute, I'm trying to wrap Kunala's history back to the group. Are the dates' I listed close enough to what your using? Are we being 'sent' in 4710 and was Lander Lebeda Born ca. 4700 AR? If so, are you ok with Lander's father dying this year and when hearing about his fathers death Kunala leaving school, going home to say goodbye to his mother, then heading down river to 'Greatwall'?

Slowly getting my crunch nailed down, which in turn is producing plenty of wee notes to self for the background story.

I'm a big fan of Fighters - first PBP character here on the boards was a Ulfen Fighter (who I'm still playing a version of in a Reign of Winter game). Agree 100% that they can be left lagging as power levels increase.

However the abundance of feats means they can be a great baseline from a creative crunch point of view which you can intertwine into background fluff and story development.

We start 15 pharast 4710 — early spring.

I've got equipment bought, just need to update Amelia's profile.

Can't find much history on Lander's father except he died and Surtova took over, so his fate in is in your hands :-)

And, I think it may be quite apparent that the Kingmaker sandbox and outdoor adventures can lead to short adventuring days. Fighters did great when other classes had depleteable resources. Early D&D where magic-users had one first level spell, and you could have rolled a 1d10 badly and got affect normal fires for your offensive spell, mages depleted quickly.

The addition of cantrips and orisons was a great day for casters and the beginning of early level power gap fighters had greatly diminishing. Having played lots of 1d4 hp mages in the day, I would say get me to level 3 and I will start to pull my weight, get me to level 5 and I will start paying some back.

Am I the only one confused by the player choosing an archetype designed for a horror campaign?

For clarity, I'm neither for it nor against it. I'm confused by it.

Am I the only one confused by the player choosing an archetype designed for a horror campaign?

For clarity, I'm neither for it nor against it. I'm confused by it.

Your mean Karina Zayatevya? I hadn't thought about it being for a horror campaign. I figured she wanted an edge focusing on wisdom and saw me asking about survival and disable device, figured she could cover one of the two.

Her backstory reads like life hasn't been easy. Not sure officially tortured. But decent tie in to one of the 'noble' families.

Added the Amelia's surname to Erme as they are both orphans, so makes sense to be given the name by the Abadarian orphanage/workhouses

Mostly just like the idea of the "Coin Sisters"... sound like protagonists in a Revisionist Western :)

Oh, the Coin Sisters does have a nice ring to it. Glad you liked it. I'm probably more proud of coming up with that name for orphans raised by Abadarians than I should be. It was originally something that I came up with for an NPC related to a character I was playing.

Re: Karina's Archetype
I think it was picked more for the flavor of going up hard and fast after the disappearance of her mother. Like RH said, her backstory makes it pretty clear she didn't have a happy childhood.

Okay, I've updated Amelia's stats to have gear and a faithful steed, Plumbum. I've also updated her backstory to include some details about how Emre and Amelia learned that they were the illegitimate daughters of Selenus Lebeda and how they wound up in Greatwall. I've also included a sweet thing that Emre and Amelia did for each other when they joined the Church of Abadar as full-fledged bankers.

Emre, hope the engraving isn't too sappy.

Engraving is brilliant - love the whole passage actually, great background.

I've mirrored your format and finished Emre's personality - hopefully provided a nice counterpoint to Amelia :) Massively helped me also fashion who this woman is and shape her "voice" for when the game commences - so kudos to you.

Plan to continue that approach with her full Background, the relations material too.

You also inspired her horses name (which I'm crediting Amelia in naming)

Dapplesauce! Oh my, that is great! I laughed when I read it, and I can see Amelia being that silly. To be honest, I just picked the latin name for lead because I was too lazy to look up one for gold or mercury. Plumbum does sound like a silly horse name, though.

Can't wait to read through what you wrote. I'm sure it's great.