GM Cody's Kingmaker (Inactive)

Game Master Codanous

Well that would be cool for down the road, certainly true. I'm not familiar with Cunning Caster, though Ultimate Intrigue has a Conceal Spell feat I believe that gives some mechanical benefit to those kind of situations - I haven't read too much Ultimate Intrigue though I need to at some point for my Zeitgeist game when the PC's get higher.

From a character standpoint, Kas won't be using charm/compulsion spells too much unless it can save lives, sticking to Diplomacy (and diplomacy-enhancing spells) where we are trying to sway non-enemies. I can see him using Charm Person the next day or two with these bandit captives in a one-on-one interrogation situation, so that we can better determine who is redeemable and who isn't, that sort of thing.

Sounds like a plan! :-)

I much prefer Cunning Caster to Conceal Spell, even with its stiff penalties.

Conceal spell requires you to still be doing something, such as talking or singing to cover up verbal components. The asme is not true of Cunning Caster. Hama could sit still and quiet and still cast a spell with little to no outward signs of what she was actually doing.

Darn. Edit timer ran out on me.

Anywho, Cunning Caster says the following:

Whereas Conceal Spell says the following:

Both feats work similarly to accomplish the same thing (casting discreetly) in different ways. The chief differences I've observed are as follows:

• With CC, you can look like you're doing nothing at all; CS requires you to conceal the casting behind overt actions (what good is covering your verbal components/audible manifestations by singing, when you're trying to use invisibility to stealth?)
  
• CS's DCs can only increase with skill ranks whereas CC's DC accounts for the total sum of you skill modifier
  
• CS increases casting time, CC does not
  
• CS requires you to max out multiple skills; CC does not
  

CS has some great early game potential, but I think CC has greater late-game potential, especially when combined with things that can remove some of its penalties, such as Eschew Materials, Silent Spell, and Still Spell.

Who has the best CMB for tying up the prisoners?

Guess we're disarming them and tossing them in the shed for interrogation.

Sorry for the delay, I worked late last night and then had early meetings all morning.

A little about me, I'm a marketing manager Lone Wolf Harley-Davidson, a top 10 Harley-Davidson for New Bike Sales(#7) in the United States, and with the end of the year we've been having numerous budget meetings, event coordinating meetings and so on and on just trying to get ready to kick ass and make 2017 an even better year and hopefully break into that top 5 category.

I'm working up a post now for the gameplay.

Cool job. I almost bought a lot of HD stock a few years back. Wish I had. The company has done well. Not to discount what you do but the brand pretty much sells itself. Of course that may be in part to what you do.

I am an engineer and work for NASA (as a contractor, not a direct government employee) but went back and got an MBA as well from a top 40 MBA school. I clarify because, unfortunately, there are a lot of fly-by-night MBA programs and not all MBAs are equal. Plus I own part of the company I work for and do business development and capture for new work. So I do know a little about marketing, but its never been my main job.

My marketing classes always seemed too intangible for me. No right answer and even a best answer was debatable. I'll stick to engineering. :)

I'm a graphic designer and web developer. Though I do some freelance work (including some photography), I primarily use my skills on behalf of a medical software company in the orthotics and prosthetics industry as my day job.

If you guys want a map made, a character portrait modified, or a coat of arms designed, I'm your guy.

We got loot!

Now who wants to track it?

And how do we want to divide it?

IC Beorn is generous and would only try to claim something that both he really needed and that no one else could use.

OOC I don't care what system we adopt as long as we adopt something. Only one system makes logical sense to me but I seldom convince people to use it. lol.

Yeah I can add a spreadsheet at the top and fill it in with loot and people can add their name next to the items claimed sort of thing.

I don't really mind what you guys choose, in my home groups we tend to have a secretary that writes everything down that isn't claimed and then sells that stuff.

Okay threw this together really quick since I'm at work.

Items

I'm accustomed to much simpler methods. Everybody claims what they want. The rest gets sold and the profits split between the party.

If more than one person lays claim to the same item(s), there's a roll off or some other simple tie breaker to see who gets any one item.

Determining the value of items and selling them back to the party or some such is fair, but by golly it's a lot of work too!

Nice list.

I think Alchemist fires cost 20 and so would be sold for 10.

Having the horses war trained is great. Is Oleg interest in buying horses in general. Is there a limit for what he might buy?

If Beorn gets a war trained horse he will give his current mount to the party. My experience with this AP is that horses can be used up pretty quickly. It would not be a bad idea to keep them all.

It should be pretty easy to count and divvy up the gold by party member as we go.

But I much prefer people just taking what they need/want and if two people want the same thing they work it out like adults.

He'd rather sell them, he can't really afford to keep so many horses around, his stables aren't that big and he likes being able to accommodate travelers.

I'm accustomed to much simpler methods. Everybody claims what they want. The rest gets sold and the profits split between the party.

If more than one person lays claim to the same item(s), there's a roll off or some other simple tie breaker to see who gets any one item.

Determining the value of items and selling them back to the party or some such is fair, but by golly it's a lot of work too!

I'm used to more of this system in my tabletop games, but I'm certainly fine with Skorn's spreadsheet method as well. As long as I don't have to come up with the tracking mechanism :)

Now later on with Kingdom tracking and kingdom turns? Hey I'm all in for that! But the loot tracking not so much.

Should we continue on with an interrogation scene, or are we all comfortable with the information given so far?

On a side note, I regret not having detect magic...

I can give a bit more to Saniana here in a second but I've given ya guys most, these bandits were pretty low in the food chain.

Saniana, I'm not so sure horses know how to count.

Here's hoping you get something useful out of them.

Kas would like to question each bandit alone and in turn, using Diplomacy to see what he can coax out of them, with a focus on what they were before they turned to banditry. That doesn't have to play out in-scene though if you want to pass the time along there GM.

EDIT: Kasimyr's aim here, GM Cody, is less about information gathering for the other bandits out there, and more for possibilities of redemption or forced circumstances in any of these men, as that's important to him.

Yeah, I'll try and type of some backstories for them tonight.

Redemption: 1d3 ⇒ 1 only one of them though do you think is truly redeemable.

I'll type his backstory up tonight for ya.

Woops, I was trying to get in my posts in before heading out last night, and missed the part where Hama claims the stag skull amulet. So my post shows I'm holding it and asking Beorn and Saniana, but obviously whatever comes from that it's going back to Hama per the loot sheet.

Yeah, I'll try and type of some backstories for them tonight.

[dice=Redemption] 1d3 only one of them though do you think is truly redeemable.

I'll type his backstory up tonight for ya.

It saddens me a little that their redemption chance is not connected with anything we might say or do. But thinking about it, that is likely human nature.

Yeah, I was basing the dice roll on how convincing Kas' arguments and ability to seek redemption were.

But sometimes redemption is more chaotic.

So for now if its ok Beorn will carry the composite strength bow. Its a symbol of his god plus if he needs a bow the extra range and damage will be nice.

Also if time a allows he can still war train the horses that are not war trained. This will increase the sale price a little.

The story of Wacko James

Well each of you guys get 601 experience for that first fight by the way. I forgot to award that earlier. This'll be my first adventure using experience.

In regards to XP, are we using the slow, medium or fast track?

Shrugging and mumbling to himself, "Must've been a heard, hmph,"

A what now?

ah yes, tracks. We'll say fast but as this is my first time using the experience track if it turns out to be too fast maybe we'll switch to medium.

Must've been a typo, not even sure what I was thinking though. It was an unintelligible mumble. . . obviously :P

Hmm. I'd like to RP some before we take off for the bandit camp and to explore along the way. I figure we have days before those in the camp would react to they party being late to return. We have to deal with the bandits and our relationship to them, do gear upgrades where possible, explore, maybe fine useful things, and eventually get to this camp. I had hoped to take the one repentant bandit under my wing too. Are we sure we are ready to already be there?

So if the party members want to go right to the action, hey that's cool to kickstart the adventure and get some story (and XP) under our belt. But I will say I too was thrown a little off at the scene change going right to the Thorn Ford Bandit camp (did we just come 6-8 hours and 2 hexes on the Notes & NPC's map?). Not a big deal and as a PbP player I can typically adjust to a scene change and how my PC settles into it. At some point though I can see we may need more downtime scenes to transition or get to know our PC's better.

Yeah, still getting the hang of it, sorry about that guys. I'll keep it slow after this.

Definitely gave me a bit of whiplash as well, that should have been a sign of something wrong.

Just added another line to my gameplay post to reference Beorn, as that post hit right when I was doing mine up.

EDIT: Jeez...too many posts that I'm missing as I was typing up mine. Going to edit mine again under the window to reflect that Saniana already got some perception going.

EDIT to the EDIT: Just read it again and realized Beorn's talk about fighting mounted was meant for 'flextime' past talk and not at the edge of the bandit camp. So, editing again to work in his question about casters and take out the horse business.

Think I'm going to charm the guard. Will post it later tonight when I have more time.

I believe in you! the odds are really in your favor!

Which bandit was it that had the amulet? I'm considering saying that, that's who I'm disguised as. Also do I get any circumstance bonuses to the disguise for it being dark (or perhaps a penalty to an observers check to see through it)?

Happs had the amulet, it might be a little hard to pose as happs, but the dark would give ya a bonus.

Guess I'll just be a generic bandit then.

EDIT:

I can just imagine a hilarious-looking Hama standing behind the bandit, making various animated gestures to the party to "knock him out if it comes to that" while she introduces everyone to him.

Feel free to make up your own fake names, but remember, it's gotta be something your character would hate, and something Hama would find hilarious.

Introducing the gnome as "Hilda Hideskinner, infamous poacher extraordinaire," might be one possible example of what I mean.

Could be fun. :D

I was pressed for time my last few posts, so I skipped reading all the discussion posts until now. I was going to go out for a PFS game in the city, but we are getting snow and police are recommending folks stay off the roads. I'm in Richmond, VA metro area. I grew up in Indiana and so a few inches of light fluffy snow would not usually keep me in, but in Virginia, people don't really know how to handle any snow and some just try to drive as they normally do and end up in crashes or in the ditch. So I'm staying home.

If I didn't mention it earlier, I'm a college teacher. I teach physics mostly, sometimes math. But I have a PhD in Religion and Social Ethics, so that's one reason I tend to have religious characters and I love clerics. I have a 2nd level cleric in PFS games who is a lot like Kas. His name is Father Emil and he's based on Garrison Keiller's Norwegian bachelor farmer from his Lake Woebegone stories on Prairie Home Companion. He's a cleric of Erastil and is in his late forties. He would have been a good character for this campaign as one of his traits was "Blackthorn Rancher" which is from one of the River Kingdoms near this area. His weapons are a shovel, scythe, and blacksmith's hammer (using the "Rough and Ready" trait that lets him use profession tools as weapons with no improvised weapon penalties). He's also good with animals and has a folksy sort of charm.

Regarding loot, I'm okay with claim what you can use, share the rest after its been sold. Saniana will probably invest mostly in wands and scrolls. She also wants a handy haversack, so she can carry more stuff. Weapons and armor won't be that high a priority. I like to have magic users get scrolls of useful spells that are hard to predict when they will be needed. That way, the prepared spells can be the ones most useful in combat and the other spells can be used as the need arises. Low level scrolls don't cost much.

Fast track XP is okay. The APs are usually pretty specific about when characters should reach new levels. So in the AP I'm GMing, I just keep rough track of XP and announce a new level when it seems appropriate for advancing the plot. We've got 5 PCs while the APs are usually planned out assuming 4, but that need not make a big difference in when we level up.

Sorry if I wasn't clear before, I was intending for Hama to make the introductions herself, so that you don't end up having to make Bluff checks that you might not succeed at.

I just wanted to be inclusive and give everyone a chance to add an additional bit of imaginative fun to the scene.

but in how her emboldened presence seems to draw everyone else along with her, like moths to the flame.

"But what’s this long face about, Mr. Starbuck; wilt thou not chase the white whale? Art not game for Moby Dick?"

Sorry, am I being too pushy? I wasn't sure if you were alluding to a potential out of game problem there or not. Don't hesitate to let me know if anything I do rubs you the wrong way. I'm all about communication and getting things worked out.

Kasimyr "Kas Crimson" Varias wrote:

but in how her emboldened presence seems to draw everyone else along with her, like moths to the flame.

"But what’s this long face about, Mr. Starbuck; wilt thou not chase the white whale? Art not game for Moby Dick?"

Sorry, am I being too pushy? I wasn't sure if you were alluding to a potential out of game problem there or not. Don't hesitate to let me know if anything I do rubs you the wrong way. I'm all about communication and getting things worked out.

Nah Ravingdork, that's strictly PC in-game thoughts there concerning Kas. With Hama coming in as the conscripted driver and supplies bearer of the expedition (and not yet revealing her true talents), the events of Hama's strong vehemence towards bandits, her snake "friend" and now the ease by which she just lured a bandit sentry off to give away the camp's secrets would raise said eyebrows.

From Kasimyr's perspective right at this point: either Hama is much higher up in the bandit food chain than what she hinted at (even though Kas believes her vehemence at the bandits was heartfelt and legitimate), or she has other powers that she's not who she appears to be. She's taking STRONG initiative to go after these bandits and now run this ruse, which again stresses to Kas that Hama is not who she initially appears to be (i.e. not a 1st level commoner or expert).

So this is what he's reacting to in my narrative, though it's setup for RP for later, after however this goes with the bandit camp.

One thing that I'll go ahead and mention in terms of the story and in-game RP side of the house, is that I'm not opposed to a bit of drama and character conflict in-game. Especially early on - we've just dropped five strangers with a tenuous charter into a life-and-death situation, for themselves and at least two/six others. I can already see potential conflicts in how Beorn is trying to reconcile strong sacred principles with reality, not to mention Hama and a whole oxcart-load of baggage (with a couple of secrets mixed in), with other characters trying to figure all of this out. Kas himself is designed to be a very amiable and easy-going character despite his holy "mandate" as a divine agent of Shelyn, but he too has areas where he'll compromise and where he won't.

So all in all, this could spell some early divisions and strife within the party, that they're going to have to work out over time as they travel and save each other's lives periodically. Some of this is going to morph into what each PC's role is for a fledgling land later. I'm also a fan of strong in-game friendships and personal ties...but obviously it's got to evolve through time and experiences if it's not going to feel cheesy and forced.

Of course, all this means that the PLAYERS need to be really understanding of what's going on with the characters, and make sure any character conflict is understood and has parameters that are accepted. As you said Ravindork, good communication and working any miscues out are key here.

The other note from my (player) perspective is that there need to be the non-action RP scenes to allow that to play out from time to time. Otherwise, (a) too much happens with flextime "in the past" postings that get wonky when trying to also deal with current scenes, or (b) the character motivations and essences have to be implied and shelved, leading to shallow "action only" characters.

So that's my 2 cp for the morning :)

Sorry if I wasn't clear before, I was intending for Hama to make the introductions herself, so that you don't end up having to make Bluff checks that you might not succeed at.

I just wanted to be inclusive and give everyone a chance to add an additional bit of imaginative fun to the scene.

Kasimyr "Kas Crimson" Varias wrote:

but in how her emboldened presence seems to draw everyone else along with her, like moths to the flame.

"But what’s this long face about, Mr. Starbuck; wilt thou not chase the white whale? Art not game for Moby Dick?"

Sorry, am I being too pushy? I wasn't sure if you were alluding to a potential out of game problem there or not. Don't hesitate to let me know if anything I do rubs you the wrong way. I'm all about communication and getting things worked out.

I think the game is going great. I suspect that Hama and Beorn will have to continue to clash for a while at least, and make concessions for each other as well or it might not work out between them. Did you see how Beorn swallowed his feelings on the subject and is playing along? :)

Long term Beorn will work on pushing Hama towards a good alignment. Not sure how you feel about that but expect it.

Vorduvai brings up some good points. Just to be clear, I am wholly opposed to anything remotely PvP. I've done it before. It wasn't fun. All it takes is one little misunderstanding in that kind of environment to make everything completely unravel.

Hama might have disagreements with other characters from time to time (she is quite a personality after all), but she will never take offensive action of any kind against another PC (at least, not without said player's explicit permission).

This is not necessarily in keeping with the character (who is neutral, and not in a nice way), but it matters to me enough that I will make up some in-game excuse for why she took non-violent action A over violent action B in regards to another PC.

In the end, please know that I'm always trying to create opportunities for fun, interaction, and roleplay; not trying to limit them.

EDIT: I'm going over to a friend's house to help paint soon, followed by our own roleplaying game in the evening, so I may not be in a position to get many more posts in today. Feel free to continue on with the "interrogation" without me. Just don't try to put yourself in a position where you might need to make a Bluff check you might not succeed at. (He only needs to sound the alarm once for us to be undone.)

I also won't be able to post until this evening.

Wow. Anyone know why the forums were down nearly all Sunday. It was driving me nuts!

Also, what were some of the bandit's answers to our questions?

yeah sorry, I tried to get a post up quickly amid the crazy downage.

I'll pop in and answer some more questions.

What do you guys think? Should we continue the charade and try and join the bandit club?

It's high risk, but if we pull it off, it would be much easier to capture/kill the bandits in their sleep than otherwise. We might also get more info on this "Stag Lord" fellow if we play a long for a little while.

If you want to knock this guy out and try to take the others unawares, I'm totally down with that too, though Hama isn't much of a fighter at the moment. Nevertheless, there doesn't appear to be nearly as many as I thought there would be, so I'm confident we could do it, especially if we take down the leader quickly like last time. Still, I worry about those others out hunting. Should we wait for them to come back so we know we can get them all, or should we takes these guys now, and try to lure the others into an ambush upon their return somehow?

GM Cody, are there any other watchmen, or is this Nick fellow it?

This Nick fellow is it, this encounter gets progressively harder as the AP advances, so heading to it straight away before having done anything else makes it far easier.

Bjorn will go along with anything that gets him close ti the boss then he is calling her out. He is not up for joining up and certainly not up for spending the night a a bandit. His holy symbol is clearly out on his chest too, in case anyone notices it. .

It's all well and good to be a noble paladin who doesn't like subterfuge and the like. Just don't do anything you'll end up regretting, like calling an enemy out when the party doesn't have the upper hand.

So that's one vote for straight-forward assault? That's fine with me, but if we can get a surprise round out of it, let's get a surprise round out of it.

Clebsch73, maybe you could start us off with that entangle spell? If you can overlay the area in such a way as to get all of the bandits around the fire, as well as the fire itself, maybe they will all simply burn. That may end the fight before it starts. If not, it still may get us off to a good start.

I'm gonna give some time. Paizo was pretty wonky today.

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