DM Jesse's Kingmaker PbP (Inactive)

Game Master Jesse Heinig

Perfect timing and welcome back!

Yes, welcome back! :)

Indeed.

Yup!

I'll post tomorrow afternoon most likely. But here is what she is doing if you want to move the game along. She'll be 40 feet away from the bandit, above it him and tries to move in quietly to use a color spray on him.

Sorry about not being able to post today, just still a bit slow since Thanksgiving. So please bear with me. :)

Potions are still in the swag bag. Carinna has shield. Who is taking the heals. I'm thinking the two going into melee, so Carinna and Telmarni.

I can take one, but it just does not matter too much, since healing in combat generally is not optimal. It is generally better to take another swing at the BG than retreat and drink a potion of CLW, just to be hit again.

I know. But having it on hand for those moments you can't take a swing for some reason is good. Or they could go to non-melee like Korinne or Veleska. We will be relying on them for healing later.

I've also got a healing kit, which isn't best, but will prevent death.

So many clustered bandits...
*heavy breaths* if Carinna had a color spray spell.

Anyone have Sleep? It would actually be really effective right now. Minutes per level and they must waste a standard to wake them.

The Slumber hex. That's also a minute per use, but it's one at a time.

Alas, no Sleep spell for Korinne but whenever we start she's planning to Grease up some of the inner camp (and hopefully cause some ruckus with their campfire if any of it is still burning) and then follow up with Color Spray - although she's going to have to get in closer for that and/or wait for some of the bandits to move closer to her.

She'd open with Color Spray but that's only a 15' cone so she'd wake them up trying to get that close :(

There are always coals left in a camp fire unless the doused it, unlikely, that should ignite grease no problem. A good opener if you want. We didn't establish a signal so I think most of us will wait on one.

Oh, wait... I have it.

I've also got Hypnotism. And Obscuring Mist. While we're not in combat. The real question is, what's the goal of our attack? Kill the bandits? Convert them? Take out Kressle and save the rest?

I think that is for after the fight. We have no means of communicating such thoughts just yet and people spread out for some reason. I think Carinna and Korinne are neglecting the darkness here. If they don't stick by Cassandra or Telmarni then they won't get any heads up for an attack and we are likely stuck waiting for someone to make the first move. I don't think Cassandra would strike first. Anyone feel their character should get this party started?

*shrug* I'll move Korinne back closer to Cassandra then. She'd probably get things started if no one else does, but the range on her spells is fairly short so she may just have to wait until one of the others does.

I'll do it. We'll need light anyway.

I have a busy couple days here but I'm hoping to update you all tonight! Just wanted to keep you in the loop.

Sounds good DM, thanks for keeping us updated!

Sorry for the super-late post, I was literally in meetings all day!

I saw that same post on the pfsrd I believe. I never planned to pick up any handle animal ranks because I figured, with drawback, she'd never get the chance. An intelligent, wolf companion that could just take orders would be the work around. Lupine common was going aid in that by allowing my companion to understand what is being said better. The companion would only know Lupine common but could get the jist of common if using simple phrases. But since that has been proven to not work as some on the forums suggested, I will have to put a few ranks in there. I think I will leave them empty for now and see how you interpret the orders int the future. Eventually building ranks slowly as Cassandra becomes annoyed by her companions lack of understanding and learns how to train an animal for the first time.

I think that's a good direction for character development, both for Cassie and for her companion, as they learn to understand each other and her wolf becomes smarter over time. Plus, I can have wolf-shenanigans for fun. ;)

Also, just to be clear, I'm not interested in "screwing" players for using their class features. It just means, work within the limits of your companion's abilities!

Oh I know. I expected this. I have limited myself intentionally because I knew it would be fun and was far more interesting. It won't happen until level 5 (taking a level of Stalker at 3 to get Alacrity and help with movement). A long way off for this campaign usually but I hope we make it there and beyond.

I'm sure we'll get there sooner than you think. KM includes significant rewards for completing quests and exploring. Now that you've dealt with the immediate threat of bandits near Oleg's, you should have time to do a lot of exploring in the area around the trading post. That will net you a bunch of exploration xp. Also, you will sometimes complete quests without knowing it at the time -- you'll see what I mean soon. You get xp for those, too. So, combat xp does play a role in KM advancement, but you guys will probably get on a roll shortly that will kick you up to level 2 relatively quickly.

It might be a good idea to have a plan of where you want to explore first, and set up a few hexes of exploration -- it's entirely possible that you could have several days amounting to "did a lot of exploring and mapping, encountered no monsters, earned 500 xp each."

Maybe do what I have read in another KM PBP. Have a hex map where we can draw a line through hexes we plan to explore. Where it can also show which hexes we cleared out as well. What do you think DM?

Or perhaps a google drive doc we have access to and can mark on our own.

When you mean lack of understanding, do you mean regarding Cassandra's nature as a skinwalker or something else, like a point of view? Not upset or anything; genuinely curious :)

Lack of understanding meaning something similar to what the DM mentioned in the ooc post. Trying to tell the the companion to do something complicated and either failing or causing more problems. While smart enough to talk at Int 3 a wolf will see the world differently and conceptualize things differently. Cassandra will have to learn how the wolf sees the world in order to accurately give direction.

Ohhh, right...my brain misfired and I misunderstood you; I thought you were talking about us as companions plural, hehe. But talking about the animal companion makes a lot more sense :)

Do not know if you are a reader, but the book Royal Assassin, the second of the Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb, the main character has a wolf companion with whom he can communicate... in this book they constantly talk with each other and the wolf has a pretty interesting 'wolfy' way of thinking.

Well, if you ever want a new perspective on things, you could just ask.

But no one ever wants to talk to the bird.

(Posting erratic at the moment b/c work schedule has gone completely insane; I'm at the office at nearly 5 AM, trying to keep up with everything.)

Firstly I'd like to congratulate you GM! It is quite amazing the job you are putting to give life to these bandits, since the Kingmaker AP is more like "kill the bandits without a question".

At the moment, I'm thinking of:

Spared:
Sareah
Cobb
Old Vance

Executed:
Watran
Kressle - even before our interrogation she has little chance, and Old Vance is right, if she is sparred we would be in constant danger.

Wow, that's a lot of awesome characterization of the conscious bandits; I might need some time to think of a good Korinne response to some of this. And really, Old Vance is right - this is where high falutin' ideals of mercy and redemption clash with cold hard reality.

Must think on this, hehe.

Same. I am thinking of running Kingmaker for RL friends and will definitely be pulling from this game for NPC's. Might tweek them a little though. I read in the free pdf river kingdom's guide about how most of those living in the River Kingdoms were once slaves or are decedents of them. The second most important law of the Six River Freedoms is slavery is an abomination. Might through more slave stories in. But one suggestion I have read to better the game is develop NPC's. You are doing that quite well.

Will post later when I have time. Helping move my grandmother today and tomorrow.

I agree with Carinna with the situation. And we need to remember, we are the "Law" here. And with the names... They do get harder to... Execute bandits that are un-repentant. But it does make this story more interesting!

After such a speech Valeska's roll was just cruelty by the dicebot gods.

Wow, nice posts guys! I think Carinna and Valeska have pretty much said everything that Korinne would say regarding trying to talk some of these guys around. Once we get the situation a little more sorted on who lives, who gets executed, whether or not any of the spared stay at the river or come back to the trading post with us, Kor will probably start asking for more information about the area and other potential bandits threats :)

Hum... Guys what do you think of keeping entirely ooc posts just in the discussion tab?

I'm not trying to be a jerk, I'm only suggesting this because sometimes is quite frustrating when you see a new post in the campaign tab and it is actually nothing (like Cassandra's last post).

Cass, please, take it as just a request/suggestion, ok?

That's fine. It's just, in my experience, sometimes people read the thread but can't post. So they save it for later. Then forget and don't post. And it's usually when they check again and see a new post that they remember "Oh yeah. I need to post." Then again, this might only be me that does this. My mind never sits still, bouncing from one thought to another.

But I can just as easily do that here. I don't think I have ever had that frustration but I can understand where you are coming from. If nothing else we can divvy the loot while we wait.

Cassandra would like a dagger and the music box because the music is pretty.

However you wanna handle the split is fine with me. Typically I include OOC stuff if it's a relevant note to the dialog at hand, but if something is just commentary on the situation (like "Kressle was a level 2 ranger with favored enemy: humans! Good thing you dropped her with a single crit!") then I leave it in this thread.

So, just to be clear, you're planning to execute the three gladiators, Kressle, and the accused arsonist, but take the rest back with you and hope nothing goes awry?

I think thats the plan. But I don't know about the others.

Hum... I'm thinking about executing the gladiators, kressle and the arsonist and try to convince the rest to behave and stay in the camp while we explore!

Cassandra wouldn't kill them without letting them speak. Was waiting for Vance. If he agrees we could lead the 5 back possibly. Or if vance is proven correct about them then maybe kill them. Lets see what they say first.

-Posted with Wayfinder

Is Vance currently tied up, or are you giving him some leeway? (Obvs. no weapons right now.)

Lets release all but the pyro when we offer the deal.

-Posted with Wayfinder

I agree with Carinna, but with leading them back to Oleg's. We can't leave an old man, two kids(somewhat), and two grown men alone in the woods. I got the feeling that at least the kids and Hatch would do well at Oleg's.

Larik and Vance, we would have to see if they are willing to give up banditry. Though by what Vance has been saying, Larik can get frustrated to a high degree, and Vance himself seems to think that death is better than working with us due to his own age. Larik, seems like he is willing to work with us if it helps his case, and won't willing betray us for no reason.

With the others, by what we learned so far, Kressle, she will do her best to kill us, and anyone else that does not side with her. So she will have to go. Too dangerous. Then we have Watran, a fire loving guy that might "accidently" start a fire at Oleg's just because, but with no ill will. We can't risk damage to the fort, so it will be a quick end for him. Next is Zaed. Possible Con artist, liar and follower of Kressle. While we don't seem to know much about him, he seems to admire Kressle and would be trouble if we try to take him back since he would lie, and would want to, possibly take revenge for Kressle. Now we got those three muscle heads. They were described as gladiators and would do anything to have their freedom in a most violent way. Definitely should be put down before any harm comes to us or the people we have now sworn to protect.

And I don't think anyone else checked to see if that old wagon can even be used. I don't have Knowledge Engineering or anything similar to figure out even if that wagon can be salvaged. We haven't asked if any of them might know how to salvage it so we can only make one trip back.

And of course don't forget that we can't just take whoever we take back to Oleg's and just leave them there without some sort of other guard or force to keep an eye on them. Heck, Oleg might not allow it even with the backup from Restov.

I'm all for giving the currently unconscious guys (and Kressle) the opportunity to speak for themselves before we decide one way or the other, but based on what we've been told so far it does sound like we'll likely need to execute her, the gladiators if they're as nasty as they sound, the firebug, and Kressle's lackey.