DM Barcas - Kingmaker: New Beginnings (Inactive)

Game Master Isaac Duplechain

800 XP from 2nd level spells huzzah!

Sorry for the slight absence, flu got ahead of me again. Hopefully I can kick it this weekend!

Taxfest is 8 days away, on the 15th of Gozran.

Here are the spells that Oleg has picked up.

Arcane
1d100 ⇒ 57 Magic Missile
1d100 ⇒ 67 Protection from Chaos
1d100 ⇒ 8 Cause Fear
1d100 ⇒ 53 Mage Armor
1d100 ⇒ 34 Erase
1d100 ⇒ 86 Silent Image

Divine
1d100 ⇒ 76 Protection from Evil
1d100 ⇒ 91 Shillelagh
1d100 ⇒ 27 Detect Chaos
1d100 ⇒ 47 Entangle
1d100 ⇒ 40 Disguise Self
1d100 ⇒ 77 Produce Flame
1d100 ⇒ 8 Calm Animals
1d100 ⇒ 4 Bless

Might have to get Taisper's help to cast it, since it is only on the inquisitor list.

That should work out. So Zander will pay 465 gp and Verik will pay 460 and I'll pay you back. It'll be fun to have Taisper join in. It'll be like the whole party is chipping in to make Zander a three day late birthday present :)

Awesome luck on the scrolls!

Oh, where is the random-table that you use?

The Gamesastery Guide I would imagine. Though I would like to see one updated to include APG stuff on the boards or something.

Groovy, I'll RP asking Taisper for a hand.

I love swagger-Verik!

Let the innuendo reach crescendo!

But Tandlara doesn't have Craft Ring... ;)

swagger-Verik definitely rules, that was pretty hilarious. I just had a total mental picture of him walking out with his belly all sucked in and his teeth lens flaring and everything. Verik needs a Cloak of Charisma.

I think its probably half placebo, if Verik had an effect on permanently his essential Verikness would reassert itself, lol.

Yup. My favourite bit about it was that it was Hammy and over-confident, Verik got a boost of personality and swagger, but he doesn't know how to be smooth, regardless of Diplomacy or Charisma, he's just not cool. And we love him for it! Everyone can relate!

Suggestions on Wonderous Item craftings:

That wasn't cool? ;) But I modeled it on a half Verik half Joe from friends hybrid!

Also in case it isn't clear Verik like Jhod about as much as stepping in something unpleasant. But of course he has to try to be civil, etc.

Berrin: I was tempted by the manacles for Kressle, but I just could not justify sending such an expensive item away. They might still be worth while for taking along with us in case we need to capture and interrogate some bandit, but I'm not sure who would pay for them. Happy to make if someone pays, but not a priority for Verik.

I love Muleback cords, but I am not sure who would use them, nobody seems to need them unless Taisper wants to start wearing heavier armors?

Since Abadar's Truth telling has been okayed, I think that will be generally preferable to the candle - and I don't like expensive expendable items as a rule.

Verik has plenty to do so I am not too worried about things to craft, I think we are petty low on coin to in general now.

I think the Muleback cords are more useful just for carrying loot, but we have 6 horses that can do a pretty good job of that so I'm not too concerned. If we did get any items like that I'd suggest we split the cost among the party with everyone chipping in 1/6 of the price. That said though, none of those items particularly speak to me.

On an unrelated note, I finally got around to watching some of that Death Note anime that Jemini (i think) recommended earlier in this thread. It is good times so far and definitely gives an example of a worst-case scenario for Taisper.

Perhaps it would be worthwhile for Jemini to put ranks in perform (string) and aim for a Lyre of Building?

@Zander: glad you like :)

I disagree the muleback cords let my str 7 summoner - in LPF - wear a chainshirt and carrya heavy shield and actually be able to carry other items, for him they are easily worth their price. Enable him to get a +4 to AC. For the right characters they are invaluable, I just don't think that applies to anyone in our group - since Tandlara cannot wear armor.

We might be a while away from worrying about Lyre's of Building, lol.

What? I thought we'd already discussed it:

• Explore rest of West
  
• Slay Stag Lord
  
• Befriend level 9+ wizard
  
• ...
  
• Profit!
  

Hehe. I'm all for delay, only for the reasoning that Tandlara is patient to a fault. Can't we wait a decade or two for the Stag Lord to grow older and weaker, by the sounds of it his men are only barely held under his order? :p

We are sure to get bored by then, and I think Verik could pull of antlers! Besides we need money and stealing from bandits is practically a public service!

Things are nuts in Houston right now. It's full moon level of crazy without a full moon. The NCAA Final Four is being played here this weekend, and the city is packed. We have been wall-to-wall busy all day.

That's a great demonstration by Kesten! And I like the vivid images that Tandlara's description evokes with her crafting circle.

Good luck with Houston

Thinking I'll have Verik sign his work with a little golden V followed by a simple golden key, on the inside, or back so it only shows if you remove the item and scrutinize it carefully. Let me know if anyone objects to that.

Just to be clear strictly speaking he was meant to start yesterday, but the RP did not quite get fit in, so he is technically doing an accelerated crafting - increasing the DC by 5 to halve the time. I figure this makes it a very intense exhausting process.

This process can be accelerated to 4 hours of work per 1,000 gp in the item's base price (or fraction thereof) by increasing the DC to create the item by +5.

Obviously I am pulling all the flavor stuff out of my proverbial, but quartz seems to be a common spell component, and seemed more likely to be in stock at Oleg's than diamond or ruby. Gold and blood as magical conductors just makes sense to me. *shrugs* Anyway I figure once everything is done he will stitch the headband back up so you cannot see any of the components.

Allllriight. After a busy weekend I'm back aaaand I'm no longer mentoring someone this week so I should be able to pick up the posting slack quite a bit. Thankfully it looks like there's been a lot of other stuff going on.

Tee hee, Taisper and Berrin is dresses!

Tee hee, Taisper and Berrin is dresses!

Dude that was hilarious! :-D Only thing; you totally should have spelled 'judge' with a capital J.

New avatar alert. Also, great posts Verik and Taisper :)

And just when we thought Taisper was going to settle down with the probable-widow and her kid!

And hey, here's a new Portrait I made.

The new look Zander might not be as people-shy, and start going from ranged-combatant to melee combatant. New spin on "in your face".

I'm still pretty much all about archery, but I'll swing the greatsword occasionally, sure.

So moving the OOC discussion back to this thread: I swear I picked up something weird a while ago, but shrugged it off. Now you've got me combing through your old posts! Heh.

Also, I like how despite it being the equivalent of April 7th in game, Zander got his birthday present on his actual birthday in real time (and mine as well for the record)

Happy birthday!!! :D

I like the new look Zander, good work! The new avatar is a cool way to show character development!

I'm going to have to check Jemini's posts as well.

I'm still plotting something for Zander, though it will take a while to come to fruition.

We'll see :)

And happy birthday Zander! :D - the new avatar looks great; I particularly like how you can imagine (when looking at the avatar) that the face is "glued" on.

Thanks :)

I'm pretty happy with the avatar as well and am really excited to learn about all of these new developments that everyone has planned for me, heh.

Right now Zander is really happy to finally have a face people can look at. From my perspective I can see this from two different perspectives; the first being that the headband is basically just another "mask" to hide Zander's face from the world and even though most people won't see it that way and I doubt Zander will acknowledge it, he's still just hiding. The second (more positive) outlook that I think is probably going to be the more prominent one for Zander and it sounds like for the rest of the party is that the headband is showing the "true" Zander that the burns have been masking this whole time. Kind of interesting to think about.

And its kinda one of those situations where Charisma becomes sorta weird since many characters base low charismas on being ugly or deformed what happens when they are illusionarily handsome. Not important, and I don't think it really applies to Zander who I think is withdrawn because of his scars effect on him rather than because of their effect on others.

I only loosely associate Charisma with attractiveness - for me it is primarily a measure of self-confidence. The ability to experience the here-and-now and project the self into reality.

Personally I use a slightly convoluted equation to calculate attractiveness as a derived statistic:

• Take the average of the two best physical stats (round down)
  
• Take the smaller of Charisma and the average calculated in the prior step and calculate 2/3rd of it
  
• Add 1/3rd of the other value; round down if necessary
  

For example Jemini:

1. (14 + 14) / 2 = 14
2. 14 < 20
3. Attractiveness = 14 * 2/3 + 20 * 1/3 = 16

By that measure the beauty of the characters would be:

13 Berrin
16 Jemini
13 Taisper
12 Tandlara
13 Verik
10 Zander

I know there are any number of other ways one could use to calculate beauty - but I'm quite happy with the result. It's quite hard to make a character that is genuinely super hot; and it's also pretty hard to make a character that is horribly unattractive.

Naturally a player can say their character is vastly more unattractive than the numbers suggest - or more attractive - but as a rule the numbers work out pretty fine. Even Verik is a bit more handsome a man than he suspected. Must be his suave nature. ;)

I haven't really wanted to mention it as I don't want to sound like I'm asking for an exception to the rules, but it would make sense for Zander's charisma to go up a bit as the result of the hiding of his scars. I'm thinking if anything it would just get a +1 boost to bring him to a 8 instead of a 7, but that would translate well in game as an 8 still reflects his withdrawn nature but isn't as huge of a downside to his dealings with others as scars. Since it is just an illusion the bonus would only apply on people who fail their will save when he tries to interact with them, but if he ever gets healed for real, I could see making the bonus permanent.

The fact that he does not appear disfigured will likely have a baring on how people treat and react to him. Its probably better to think of his charisma as having been treated as a 5 before due to his disfigurment and rising to a 7 now in game terms. Its odd like I said, but its a bit much to expect to get a stat boost from a magic item that doesn't give it. For the same reason that making yourself look like Jemini does not give you a 20 charisma I guess, lol.

Different question, I've been asking around for feedback on a proposal to tie a new mechanic to Charisma. I'd like to hear from you guys as well :)

The idea is not actually eliminating dump-stats. But to even out the dump-stats distribution. Charisma shouldn't be the likeliest of dump-stats.

You can increase your charisma to 8 at level 4 as Zander becomes more used to being himself and overcomes some of his reservedness.

I don't think you can or should really calculate hotness, what if someone was a thing for dwarves, then that dwarf gets a +5, etc. Attrctiveness doesn't have a real metric in real life apart from some highly correlated traits, and even then they don't account for other subtle little things. So its a needless mechanic, being attractive is a character choice, and its GM adjucation how NPCs take to you, and you can get little bonuses from the charming trait if the GM rules your found attractive.

You can increase your charisma to 8 at level 4 as Zander becomes more used to being himself and overcomes some of his reservedness.

Heh, no.

Like I said, I'm not too worried about it.

With the Headband, Jemini would have a +15 Disguise check. If it is ruled that Taisper could use Touch of Law on her, that would be an automatic 26!

With the Headband, Jemini would have a +15 Disguise check. If it is ruled that Taisper could use Touch of Law on her, that would be an automatic 26!

Plus having Jemini disguised as Kressle would completely weird Taisper right the heck out, which'd make for some fun RP. :-D

Just checked if either oracle or paladin have "disguise" as a class skill. Apparently not... :p

Ah, sorry for not posting for a few days. On the bright side I should not have to work again this year, on the other I've just worked pretty much 72 hours straight and will be sleeping for sometime before I can manage a coherent post...

But I'm still here, sorry for not giving advance warning everything has been very hectic and urgent - I sorta do consulting work for my old British Army job now and then and they still have no bothered to train anyone to do what I used to do - 7 years later - so they just wait until the shit hits the fan and have to pay me a lovely large pile of money.

Well, the Paizo site was down for a bit over the weekend anyway, so I don't know how much you missed. Still getting everything caught up myself, ATM.

Did...did you say "not work again this year?" Damn. That'd be worth a 72-hour work binge, I'd say.

I hope you're doing well, Verik! Waiting on a critical Perception roll from the only man who can make it.

Failed the perception check, but am using Locate Object - since I pretty much have to.

I figure that a galloping horse does 250ft per round, so that's 7500ft. over 3 minutes with an extra 1000ft. for the 480ft. radius of the spell. So 8460ft with 480ft. off to each side scanned. Of course that does not account for gradient, etc., so probably less than that.

I did look at the perception box, but honestly I am not sure what else I would use the spell to search for, silver, or diamonds, but gold seems the obvious winner here. By my reading it seems like it is not stopped by normal rock, etc., but lead is specifically called out as stopping it. And as I say in the OOC, Align Weapon Lawful is so situational as to be useless so I am virtually obliged to prepare Locate Object as my domain spell.

Workwise I am in a very nice position because I used to do a very specific job for the Royal Signals - as a Systems Engineering Technician - and they have not replaced me. However they still use some of the tech that I had managed to repair and maintain even though it was hopelessly outdated, they just have nobody who can fix it... The fact that it is used for counter terrorism - not really but sort of - and they legally are required to have it working means I have them over a bit of a barrel. Cannot be much more specific than that, even though its really not terribly interesting at all.

Still having a worried general screaming at you for three days is not much fun.

And as for not work again, well I'm trying to write a book, well edit, while doing an online degree. Came back from the U.S recently after getting divorced and the job market is terrible and I've got a decent amount of savings so I figured I would take a while to be self indulgent, lol.

Hey :) - I just wanted to let everybody know that South Africa is celebrating National Cleavage Day (yes, seriously). As such it is Jerall and my civic and patriotic duty to encourage cleavage ogling. We moved to do so by posting two new class options:

Crimson Coquette (Jerall's bard archetype)
Oracle of Lust (my submission, complete with curse)

Please have fun and enjoy this auspicious day! Comments here or on tenletter are welcome! :)