@Artemis/Abaos - sorry for your loss - I hope you are bearing up ok.
@DM - Nice demographic breakdowns for Brevoy and the musing-level breakdown of elves'...levels.
I thought Akiros was a caster?!? Who was summoning things and pinging about here snd there - was that Nugrah? Was he originally in the cell with Akiros? (that cell/dungeon fight scene was quite confusing for me...)
Confusement Re: the basement fight is entirely my fault - the invisible fellow teleporting about and summoning things was Falgrim Sneeg, who lived in the basement and was a warden of sorts, keeping the prisoners (Jen and Nugrah) from escaping.
Abaos: I wish you and yours all the best.
GM: I like the demographics! I’ll post some more detailed thoughts soon, but for the moment a big stamp of approval
Sneeg. Yep, sorry, my memory fail. Awn even said hello to him at swordpoint at one... point.
Unrelatedly, a while ago I drew up some class and level demographics for the nation of Brevoy in an email to Undrell. If anyone finds this sort of thing interesting, here it is:
** spoiler omitted **...
So, some more substantial thoughts on this.
One of my big problems with Pathfinder is that a single high level character makes everyone else pointless. Armies don't matter. Most threats just aren't there. I mean, lets say that an army of 10,000 soldiers was raised. Most hastily conscripted. Talking lvls 1-3.
In front of them is a single level 15 wizard.
Who is going to win? The wizard, of course. The 10,000 soldiers will be able to run away if they are lucky.
So with lvl15 wizards existing, how could there be any wars? How could there be any large scale threats? Hell, in a different campaign I'm in, a party of lvl10 adventurers sees a group of giants and races forward to get the kills.
But now? A major country has a single lvl10 wizard. He can cast cloudkill up to 3 times if his Intelligence is really high. He can change the course of a battle, but he won't win it by himself.
Likewise, real world tactics don't completely go out the window. In a high magic setting, nobody would ever make a shield wall, or use spears. A single fireball would kill everyone. But now? Only 56 people are powerful enough to cast that. For the majority of conflicts, it will be between people with NPC classes, or within the lower level range.
And finally, I like this because it makes the most common dangers a real danger. The average orc is CR1/3. Having +5 to hit with 2d4+4 damage (and an 18-20 crit range) makes them *very* dangerous. But with AC13 and HP6 they are at the same time manageable. They're a foe which, in large hordes, can sweep away kingdoms. They're a foe, which in large hordes, would require the attention of the handful of people powerful enough to turn them back.
----
So yeah. Long story short, this is the kind of power level that I imagined the world to be in. And it's good to be in a campaign where this is the case.
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Just hitting off of what Iorskan was saying, it reminds me a lot of the first couple of books from Steven Erricson, where all the mages of the two armies fought to keep each other from incinerating the actual soldiers, while the soldiers killed people. That's just how I've always imagined these sorts of things going.
Also, the I love the idea of most everyone being much, much smaller level, because that's the normal world I picture, even in a high- magic setting. Anyone over lvl 5, aka enough to dent a sizable portion of an army (again, 20 CR 1/3 orcs vs lvl 5 Guthruc and Iorskan, and I'm betting the two), is probably known and charted extensively. They'd have to be- it's Golarion's version of "how many ICBM's does Russia have?" Diviner wizards would be at a premium; no wonder Daggermark's Assassins Guild is so well and thriving; anytime a country had a character leveled up significantly higher than their neighbors, the other country have to assassinate that character just to keep from being overrun. It even explains the idea of adventuring; countries probably fund adventurers just to see if they'll live long enough to make a dent in geopolitical affairs.
Anyways, that's my musings. Loved the breakdown, DM!
Well, wizards are pretty notoriously neutral, aren't they? Discworld even spoofed that with "Unseen University", where the wizards are basically kept from affecting real world affairs through tenure, steady salaries, and comfortable research environments. Of course, that doesn't stop them from assassinating each other for staff positions...
Now imagine the political effect we're going to cause as we level up, eventually getting to levels heard of only in legends. And our kingdom will have 6 people of that power level, possibly more.
No wonder we get attacked by so many threats as we grow. We're the biggest power influx ever to cross these parts.
And a power influx of mostly nonhumans who traditionally can’t be trusted
Imagine if you would a lvl12 Guthruc. An orc General with an army of monstrous humanoids. How would that news be greeted even by the swordlords?
I wouldn’t be surprised if Brevoy itself eventually is behind our woes
Anyone over lvl 5, aka enough to dent a sizable portion of an army (again, 20 CR 1/3 orcs vs lvl 5 Guthruc and Iorskan, and I'm betting the two), is probably known and charted extensively. They'd have to be- it's Golarion's version of "how many ICBM's does Russia have?" Diviner wizards would be at a premium; no wonder Daggermark's Assassins Guild is so well and thriving; anytime a country had a character leveled up significantly higher than their neighbors, the other country have to assassinate that character just to keep from being overrun. It even explains the idea of adventuring; countries probably fund adventurers just to see if they'll live long enough to make a dent in geopolitical affairs.
I suppose once you guys start playing on the national stage, you'll want to build up a spy/diviner network of your own, keep tabs on the high level characters in neighboring nations!
Intrigue! What's the consensus opinion on it's inclusion? On the one hand, play-by-post offers the perfect avenue for truly convoluted schemes. On the other hand, play-by-post is slow, and it's possible that everyone'll forget foreshadowing long before there's a payoff.
Well, wizards are pretty notoriously neutral, aren't they? Discworld even spoofed that with "Unseen University", where the wizards are basically kept from affecting real world affairs through tenure, steady salaries, and comfortable research environments. Of course, that doesn't stop them from assassinating each other for staff positions...
In a non-satirical work, though, you'd think that the governments, rather than trying to prevent wizards from affecting real world events, would be investing a significant chunk of their budget in training the next generation of spellcasters. There'd probably be a system in place, where if you show talent the crown will pay for your magical education so long as you join the military for a number of years after it's all done and learned.
Now imagine the political effect we're going to cause as we level up, eventually getting to levels heard of only in legends. And our kingdom will have 6 people of that power level, possibly more.
No wonder we get attacked by so many threats as we grow. We're the biggest power influx ever to cross these parts.
Speaking of leveling up! The AP takes the PCs to level 18. Not an unimpressive number, by any count. But, in the interest of running the best Kingmaker I can, I've incorporated a lot of advice from the boards, tied the plots of some of the books together better, tied PC backstories into the plot whenever that was convenient or expedient, came up with stuff myself because when bored I worldbuild, etcetera. I plan to cut out some things from the APs that don't look exciting, but I'm still probably adding more than I'm taking away. There are two ways I could handle this - one, I could level the party slowly, and hit level eighteen near the end of the final book. Or, two, I can level the party up whenever I think they earned it and/or I get bored of the level you're at, and we hit level twenty when we hit level twenty. It just seems like a bit of a shame, to get so close to the level cap and stop just shy of it, eh?
But that's waaay down the road. Hardly worth planning for. Still, some of you have expressed the intention to multiclass - if you'd otherwise be capstone-less, we'll build one ourselves, or borrow one from another class.
Completely unrelated! What do people think about vital strike and arcane blast? Rules legal? Not? On the one hand, arcane blast sucks without it. On the other hand, it's worth picking up with it, especially for a 3/4s BABer or (gods forbid) a monster with spell like abilities; is this a tactic that you'd be OK with seeing in the campaign world? Asking for a friend.
I'm ok with Vital Strike and arcane blast.
That other stuff: wotevs. I'm happy with how the game is running!
I like leveling when the story calls for it.
“And that’s the boss fight gone! You’re *so* close to leveling. Maybe those goblins two rooms back?” That sucks. Plus story leveling let’s the GM have more control of the story’s pacing.
Intrigue! What's the consensus opinion on it's inclusion? On the one hand, play-by-post offers the perfect avenue for truly convoluted schemes. On the other hand, play-by-post is slow, and it's possible that everyone'll forget foreshadowing long before there's a payoff.
I'm generally a fan of that kind of stuff, but the PBP format is so slow that we'll all likely die of old age before it pays off. Should probably keep the long-term payoff stuff to a minimum, and if something is about to pay-off, maybe throw in some shorter-term foreshadowing to remind us about it...
Speaking of leveling up! The AP takes the PCs to level 18. Not an unimpressive number, by any count. But, in the interest of running the best Kingmaker I can, I've incorporated a lot of advice from the boards, tied the plots of some of the books together better, tied PC backstories into the plot whenever that was convenient or expedient, came up with stuff myself because when bored I worldbuild, etcetera. I plan to cut out some things from the APs that don't look exciting, but I'm still probably adding more than I'm taking away. There are two ways I could handle this - one, I could level the party slowly, and hit level eighteen near the end of the final book. Or, two, I can level the party up whenever I think they earned it and/or I get bored of the level you're at, and we hit level twenty when we hit level twenty. It just seems like a bit of a shame, to get so close to the level cap and stop just shy of it, eh?
I'd love to hit level 20 in a game. Never happened before. As for when we level up, I'm kinda of two minds about that. On one hand, I generally prefer milestone-based leveling. On the other hand, sandbox games don't really have story milestones like other games, and the way we're playing we'll likely hit milestones out of order (or get TPKed trying). I also think we'll level significantly faster (at least in the near-term) if we use strict XP-based leveling (again, unless we get TPKed trying), both because we're not doing stuff in the intended order and because our GM has a habit of rebuilding NPC and encounters to be much more challenging that the AP intended.
Completely unrelated! What do people think about vital strike and arcane blast? Rules legal? Not? On the one hand, arcane blast sucks without it. On the other hand, it's worth picking up with it, especially for a 3/4s BABer or (gods forbid) a monster with spell like abilities; is this a tactic that you'd be OK with seeing in the campaign world? Asking for a friend.
Pretty sure that RAW and RAI are that vital strike can't be used with arcane blast. Vital strike says "when you use the attack action" and vital strike is a standard action, not an "attack". Also, I don't think SLAs could be used for arcane blast... they certainly shouldn't qualify you for the CL10 prerequisite.
That said, it doesn't look like it would be game-breaking to let it work in some form. At CL10, Scorching Ray would let you do two 4d6 rays (maxing out at three rays next level). Sacrificing the same level-2 spell for Arcane Blast would give you a single 4d6 ray. Vital Strike would make it 8d6, and that wouldn't go up at later levels like the spell itself. That sounds almost exactly like what Vital strike is meant for, but it's actually more powerful because the fighters that Vital Strike is meant for tend to get less of their damage from the dice and more from static bonuses, which are not multiplied by vital strike. Notice that it very explicitly does NOT multiply precision damage like a rogue's sneak attack, which follows a closer progression.
At higher levels, there are rays like Hellfire Ray and Elemental Assessor. Both are 6th level spells (minimum CL11). Elemental Assessor will do 12d6 damage minimum (24d6 maximum over several rounds, depending on a d4 roll) regardless of caster level, and Hellfire Ray will do 11d6 at CL11, increasing to 30d6 at CL15 and 45d6 at CL19. Swapping either for Arcane Blast would give you 8d6, upped to 16d6 by Vital strike. In these cases, Vital Strike can make your highest-level spells do more damage than they normally would, and that's not how Vital Strike is supposed to work.
Then there's Greater Vital Strike. A fighter able to use it should have 4 attacks, and should have huge static bonuses, so it's doing significantly less damage than if he were able to hit with all 4, while using it with Arcane Blast could more than double some spells' damage output.
If I could offer a compromise, what if Vital Strike made Arcane Blast do 1.5x and Greater Vital Strike made it 2x? That's still probably a little overpowered for what those feats are supposed to do, but given that someone investing in those spells probably can't do anything else with them (and a full caster would NEVER qualify for the latter feat anyway) I think it's reasonably balanced.
I'm generally a fan of that kind of stuff, but the PBP format is so slow that we'll all likely die of old age before it pays off. Should probably keep the long-term payoff stuff to a minimum, and if something is about to pay-off, maybe throw in some shorter-term foreshadowing to remind us about it...
Sounds like a plan.
I'd love to hit level 20 in a game. Never happened before. As for when we level up, I'm kinda of two minds about that. On one hand, I generally prefer milestone-based leveling. On the other hand, sandbox games don't really have story milestones like other games, and the way we're playing we'll likely hit milestones out of order (or get TPKed trying). I also think we'll level significantly faster (at least in the near-term) if we use strict XP-based leveling (again, unless we get TPKed trying), both because we're not doing stuff in the intended order and because our GM has a habit of rebuilding NPC and encounters to be much more challenging that the AP intended.
I agree with you Re: XP vs. levelstone leveling. I rebuild encounters for two reasons, the first, Kingmaker's pretty nova-ey, when there's seldom more than one encounter a day resource-slogging-CR-equal-to-APL-encounters don't look particularly sexy. The second reason is, encounter-design is fun. The most entertaining part of DMing is putting the PCs and players in a variety of situations and seeing how they react, whether it be socially or on the field of battle.
If the players are fighting more challenging encounters, though, they should level up faster. I've no idea how high a level the PCs'll hit, though "at least eighteen" sounds like a good guess. If we go past twenty, we'll start adding mythic tiers whenever you'd otherwise level up. If you're going down in the history books anyway, let's see to it that you aren't forgotten until the Gap, eh?
Re: Arcane Blast: Coolio!
The Planᵀᴹ as I understand it: party + Akiros and Auchs go and knock on the cannibals door like polite neighbors. Akiros and Auchs have earplugs in, as well as everyone who specifies that they have earplugs in. Ozzy casts message[i] on everyone beforehand, so that she can hear everything anyone says for the next 40 minutes, and everyone can hear her. She'll relay information between those with earplugs and those without, hopefully without [i]too many WIS 6 misunderstandings.
We good to proceed?
As far as I understand the plan, we are.
Sounds right to me.
Awn will be wearing earplugs. What?
Awesome.
Something to note - I've spoken with Guthruc and Iorskan about Armor as DR, and we'll be going back to regular Armor as AC. Iorskan's swapping his first level feat out for a reflavored light armor proficiency, as is reflected in his stats. Guthruc'll be editing his profile to reflect this change shortly.
EDIT
Oh, and Anura'll be coming along too, earplugs in. He's got enough hitdice to help, if hostilities break out, so.
Whoever has the best negotiating skills can keep their earplugs out and Jen can cast Protection from Evil on them. She'll read their minds and communicate their thoughts to the negotiator via Ozzy's message thing.
Sound good?
What?
I'm sorry the necrosiation spills are hoovering, but I think Awn has his earplugs in, so he can't hear you.
Anyway, I think the best diplomat should negotiate with them, with earbuds out. I think that's Abaos. Then you can listen to their thoughts.
I haven't moved anyone's characters, but it's worth noting that Jen wasn't/isn't actually in range of detect thoughts - I'm assuming/assumed that the party moved forward to get within range of that spell. Put your characters where you want them to be - Surpex's intent is to leave at least ten feet between him and anyone else, he wouldn't have/won't approach closer than that.
I didn't move because the doc is currently view only.
Gotcha!
I didn't move because the doc is currently view only.
Shoot! Should be fixed.
Hmm, if it doesn't work this time Jen might try to boost her spell DC with a reservoir point for the next round? Does that work if the spell's already been cast?
I don't believe so, the wording of the ability says "whenever she casts an arcanist spell", and the spell's already been cast.
Jen's over by Central Skull Man (CSM) now. I'm assuming that's Surpex.
Arcane reservoir: Alright, that's what I thought, but it doesn't hurt to ask...
Akiros and Auchs will move forward with her, in case of trouble.
Nobody knows anything except what Jen relays to Ozzy magically, so the arcanist might want to mutter some choice words under her breath.
Of course, in a couple of hours the charm will wear off and Guthruc will realize he's been mind controlled. The savvier party members probably realized what happened already.
And Guthruc will have no regrets. He will just think he needs to get stronger for next time
What are we trying to get from the satyrs? They're not threatening us and we could leave if we wanted to. Although, they do represent a potential future threat so I guess we could also take them out here.
I was thinking: allies against boggards, trading magic items, learning their secrets, exploring their tree. Or, you know, Guthruc/Iorskan food if it comes to that.
At this stage I think they are a distinct threat, and Awn is disposed to eliminate the cannibal on general grounds that perhaps eating people is bad when one might be tge people being eaten. He's quite fond of the cat though.
Hey, question: does Detect Thoughts work on unconscious or sleeping beings? Are they allowed Will saves?
They count as willing, so no, they don’t get saves. But I doubt their surface thoughts would be very coherent?
True, but it could be an... interesting experiment, to try putting someone under enchanted sleep and whisper subliminal suggestions to them to influence their dream-thoughts while reading their mind. Though, it's likely someone's already done the experiment and a spell-caster would know how it pans out.
I thought that was a movie with Leonardo Dicaprio and Cillian Murphy and ...oh wait, I haven't dreamed that yet.
I was looking at the weight of an ogre, and it seemed oddly small, espescially as Guthruc weighs 2008 lbs after the enlarge person, while they only weigh 650 lbs.
After doing the math (assuming ogres have about the same volume as the average 5'5" human multiplied by 8), Ogres have 555 kg/m^3. As a comparison, humans (and water) have about 950 kg/m^3, and a rubber ducky is 110 kg/m^3.
We probabaly didn't even need to fly Auchs accross the river, he couldve been our boat!
Though, it's likely someone's already done the experiment and a spell-caster would know how it pans out.
Not necessarily; Golarion's got a severe case of schizotechitis, but printing presses aren't widespread and science is young. I imagine that if wizards were more keen on sharing what they learn with each other, there'd be more high level wizards in the world. Which is a long-winded way of saying, give me a Kn. Arcana check to see if you've ever read of such an experiment.
We probabaly didn't even need to fly Auchs accross the river, he couldve been our boat!
Should we assume that ogres are a fair bit heavier than they're listed as being? Or else that they're made of styrofoam? xD
Styrofogres!
Jen doesn't recall ever agreeing to teach Guthruc Abyssal, but it seems that the orc has reached an accords with himself...
"Uh" she manages to get out, and then, "You... really... don't want to meet, or talk to, or interact with a demon of any sort, they're... really nasty creatures." Her face shifts for a moment to an expression of disgust as she thinks on the demon an Academy instructor once summoned and the foulness of her distant ancestor's conception."Although,' she says, quickly, her tone shifting back to one of timidness, "I can teach you if you really want to, of course, I was never saying I couldn't...
Jen has in fact agreed to teach Guthruc Abyssal already.
O_o I guess I forgot, somehow?
I guess Jen was too busy thinking of the bloodied Orc hand on her shoulder and the demons of her past (pun intended).
Yup, probably one of those moments where you just blabber on without having a clue as to what you're saying...
Oh yeah, I think Jen spoke some Orcish around Guthruc previously, so maybe we're even on memory lapses.
I really hope we're not dropping out one by one... Ozzy hasn't said anything in a while.
Still here, I'm just super busy. I have to hand in the manuscript for my new book to the publisher on Monday, so don't expect a lot of RP from me before that.
At what point do y'all think we should start worrying about Abaos? I know their going through loss, but I dont know how long is too long in that regard...
EDIT:
not trying to rush anyone though.
Ah, okay, I was just a bit worried that something had befallen you.
Perhaps, for instance, you'd succumbed to (as @DM_Scholar once said to me) "death by vehicular mishap or marauding . . . marauders." Writing a book is pretty cool though.
There's not much we can do for Abaos, I think. I mean, to use a tautology, he'll come back when he comes back, and we'll just have to hope he's bearing up alright in the mean time.
I'm in a place with poor net-service, but should be back in a little over a day...
Sorry for not getting the map updated. :[
The computer I have the Kingmaker-relevant words and pictures saved on is a different one than then the one I use day-to-day (and is also worse at computing than an abacus), which often leads to delays, particularly when I need to advance the map. This particular delay was, I suppose, the straw that spurred the camel to action; I'll be sticking all that kingmakery goodness on a flashdrive and putting it on a computer that works.
I’m having technical difficulties, and am hecka busy besides, Ozzy’s getting a manuscript handed in (congratulations, by the way! I forgot to say that in my last post), Bright Awn’s in a place with poor net-service, and Iorskan might be unable to post these next few days on account of a coast guard thing.
Let’s reconvene, say, Wednesday?
Sounds good to me.