Hollow's Last Hope (Inactive)

Game Master nilesr

I think installing him as an NPC is a good idea, plus trying to find a replacement.

Indeed.

The odds are that I'm stalking you, Hecktor. Look out the window... On second thought, don't. I don't have my pants on yet.

If you're wondering what that's about, it's that me and Hecktor just ran into each other in a different thread.

Darn I'll miss Percy. I agree with the idea of having him set up shop in town and becoming an NPC, then getting a replacement with some healing power because poor Lucanor's abilities in same are limited and his rolls are for #$#$. ;)

Hey all your GM plays in 3 of my games and told me you had a character opening.

I am definatally interested. Sounds like you need a healer? I'm leaning towards Druid. Let me read the gameplay thread and see how I may fit in.

With your approval of course.

Dave, I'll work with you on an interesting way to involve any character you make into the narrative with as much verisimilitude as possible. OFC I'd like the guys to weigh in with their opinions on race/class and potential backstory.

Druid would work. We don't really need someone to try to play as a full-time healer or anything, we just need more damage mitigation and buffing, with the occasional someone to put us back together after the fight when things go sour. When I made my list of classes that I thought would serve us best, I completely forgot about druids. I'm more used to seeing the wildshaping, animal companion flanking, melee type than the casting and support type. But I think a caster druid would make for a great addition to our group.

If you do end up going druid, it would be extremely easy to fit you into the story. Especially where we're at right now.

My opinion...
make someone who can heal for the love of god please!!!!!
*Cough*
I'm sorry, that just broke out of me. I see you are already considering one and a druid would be most welcome. We've got at least one Erastil worshiper who I'm sure would welcome you with open arms.

I intend to buy several wands of CLW at the earliest opportunity. Secondary to that is items to help my role as battlefield control / party face.

No problem, looking forward to your involvement and entrance Dave.

I'm thinking of doing a dwarven Druid. I'll throw up a concept soon.

Druid sounds good to me, and shall be easy to work in, especially a Dwarven Druid who could probably be investigating the monastery when we head there.

I agree, the party is on the lookout for a cleric of Torag or any Dwarf really since we found a hymnal plus a minor magic ring of historical significance.

Edit: can somebody please double check my sums for the party funds if we sell that stuff? Thanks!

Hey Michael, we're on the same team again. ;)

All of the following math is done under the assumption of a 5-way split. Sorry Dave.

Apologies in advance for the length of this, but please read the entire thing.

Ok, since we're getting our downtime, we really need to discuss the loot. Silas has started this by putting up a list of stuff that he thinks should be sold over in the gameplay thread, and I have to say I disagree with it on a few items.

Silas, I didn't check your math, but one of us seems to be off. Were you adding in the cash we found during our adventure or just adding up item prices? If you were just doing the prices, did you take into account that selling only gets you 1/2 price back? Also, you forgot the third Urgathoan holy symbol.

Here's my list of items and what I think we should do with them.

As for the other items I removed from Silas's list, here's why.

Potion of Barkskin(150gp sold) - A handy item to have for anyone. +2 AC for 30 minutes. Best for squishies, but good for anyone. Standard buffing fare, and something that we don't have regular access to at the moment.

Potion of Bull's Strength(150gp sold) - Again, handy to have but really only for melee. +4 Str for 3 minutes. That's +2 to hit and to damage on every attack. Standard buffing fare.

Chainmail, Masterwork(150gp sold) - Myself or Hecktor can make very easy use of this. If Hecktor doesn't want it, then I'll take it. It pays for itself.

Ring of Torag(600gp sold) - I'm taking this, and the hymnal, to the Five Kings Mountains to get us some help from the dwarves. They may end up getting sold there anyways, but I figure the church of Torag might be willing to do us a few favors if they get them back.

Total lost if not sold:1050gp, or 210gp per person. It's a fairly decent chunk of change, but if the potions aren't used we can always sell them later.

Items that I'm unsure what we're using them for:

Quick Runner's Shirt(500gp sold) - It's useful, but I don't know exactly how useful. Would be good for closing the gap in combat quickly, but that's about it. My suggestion would be to sell it.

Cap of Light(450gp sold) - I assume this is replacing that wand.

Gloves of Reconnaissance(1000gp sold) - I assume Silas will be making use of these. They seem like they'd come in handy for his type of disguise and spying work.

Mithril Battleaxe(1503gp sold) - The only real advantage that having this thing made of mithril gives us is that mithril doesn't get the -1 damage penalty that silver weapons have. I suggest we sell it.

Varisian headband - We need to figure out what it does first. It would be awesome if it was a headband of charisma. Silas, spellcraft checks need to be done on this. DC is probably going to be in the high teens, low 20's unless it's something really powerful.

Adamantine Sickle(1503gp sold) - I assume Hecktor will use this to go along with his scythe.

If we sell the items I suggest: An extra 2003gp for the party bank. That means an extra 400gp, 6sp per person.

If we do things the way I've marked and suggested, the party bank will total out to: 5945gp, 7sp. Subtract the wand of CLW and it's 5195gp, 7sp. Which equals... 1039gp, 1sp, 4cp per person. This includes all the cash that we found during our adventure.

If we don't sell the Mithril Battleaxe and the Quick Runner's Shirt the bank will total out to: 3942gp, 5sp. Subtract the CLW and it's 3192gp, 7sp. Which is 638gp, 5sp, 4cp per person.

Everyone that's currently part of the party needs to weigh in on this. If you want anything that's part of any list here, say so. If you disagree with anything, say so. Even if you agree with everything said, make a post saying it. I don't want there to be any uncertainty in what's done with the loot.

I'm with this suggestion. I've got a few bits and pieces I'd like to pick up.

I was using the spreadsheet link I sent around earlier and yes things where (supposed) to be sold at 1/2 price.

Anyway quick runners shirt is kind of a must have for mid level melee since its pounce 1/day. Not such a big deal at lv3 granted.

We could sell the sickle, perhaps to Shavaros since according to him its special.

Don't forget the party found some cash too, although it's not very much.

Hey Michael, we're on the same team again. ;)

Seems that way, but since when are you a bartender?

Regarding the potions, I'm all for using them rather than selling, but somebody please claim them. It's been a while and I thought nobody wanted them...

Also what do we do with the Gavel's loot? We could sell it all (regardless of what it is) and re-invest in the town? Seems like plan A from what we talked about earlier.

What exactly would do with the money? Rebuild all the broken houses? Pensions for the widows? Arm the sheriff?

My final totals included the cash that we found. Somewhere along the way one of us has screwed up the math a bit. I wouldn't be surprised if it was me. Just the other day I screwed up calculating a stat array and came up with a 19-point array being a 16-point. And that's just simple single-digit arithmetic.

As for the quick runner's shirt, I hadn't really thought of it that way. I was just thinking "how often would I use this?" and the answer, for me at least, was "not often enough to justify buying it." But I guess buying is different from free.

We could see if Shavaros would be willing to trade for the sickle, I agree. Maybe we could talk him into doing something at-cost for us, so we'd basically be selling it for its full value. For instance, if he could make us a Heaband of Alluring Charisma +2 at cost, it would only cost us 500gp out of pocket. Or, for nothing out of pocket we could get 3 sets of +1 Bracers of Armor.

Michael will claim that potion of Bull's Strength. He doesn't really have a need for the Barkskin right now, so we can sell it if no one else wants to claim it.

I also just realized that there are 4 contenders for the masterwork chainmail and not just me and Hecktor. Gared and Lucanor can use medium armors as well. So if anyone wants it, speak up. Otherwise, I'm taking it, and it will probably end up forming the basis of my armor from here to the end of the game. Personally, I think Lucanor might benefit the most from it. He'd lose some speed from switching to a medium armor, but he'd be gaining +3 AC without losing any of his Dex bonus. The biggest hit would be to his armor check penalty. And, if he takes the Quick Runner's Shirt it could help alleviate the pain from speed loss.

For the loot from Kreed, depending on what that headband is I could say either keep it or sell it. I already mentioned the mithril battleaxe in my original post with the suggestion of selling it, and I didn't even take the gold bars into account since I had assumed we'd give them away based on what we'd discussed earlier. That axe will sell for a decent amount, which could either be used to buy us some fancy stuff, or less selfishly to rebuild the town.

I plan on trying to get the most out of that ring and the hymnal and hope that maybe, just maybe, they can be used to get the dwarves to help us rebuild the monastery and expand it on the cheap. I might make promises to keep the original temple open to worshipers, but I don't see that as a problem.

For rebuilding the town, here's how I think we should do it.

Use Kreed's gold to subsidize the repairs. 350gp buys a trained hireling's service for over 3 years. So we set up what amounts to the New Deal for Falcon's Hollow. We pay people to repair their own homes. It's a logging town, so we pay the lumberjacks(preferably the Free Jacks) to harvest and mill the lumber, then we pay the other folks to use that lumber to repair the buildings. At 3sp/day, say we hire 30 lumberjacks for a week. That's 63gp gone and enough lumber to fix the town(hopefully). Then we hire 10 carpenters and 20 laborers to repair stuff. Let's say that takes a month. So there's another 252gp. We're at 315gp spent.

That leaves us with 35gp.

We then spend that 25gp on a set of leather armor, two light maces, and 50 crossbow bolts. Buy them in town so that the money stays local. Give those to the sheriff. Combined with the stuff we give him that we've already got, that means he gets equipped with 2 sets of leather armor, 1 set of studded leather armor, a handaxe, two light maces, two light crossbows, and 50 bolts to split between them. It may not seem like much, but they didn't seem to have much to begin with.

If we sell that mithril axe and decide not to keep that money, then we've got a HUGE chunk of change to do even more with. But this was just to point out an idea on how to go about fixing the town in an effective, but cheap, manner using just the gold bars.

I like the idea of employing craftsmen, especially on long term projects. 350gp is really kind of a lot of money in real world terms, and a little goes a long way.

I think we should pay off any debts the widows of the deputies may have too, and provide for a modest pension, perhaps 100gp lump sum each?

I just looked at the campaign tab, and Falcon's Hollow has a population of 1400, so my numbers are going to be WAY off if that's actually the case. So far the town has been playing like it's much smaller than that though, so maybe we can get away with it using my "pulled out the bum" numbers.

If we do that, we're most definitely going to have to sell that axe. Which is fine by me. If we sell it, we'll be looking at a total of 1800gp to use to rebuild the town.

So then we equip the sheriff better. We pick what gear depending on if the deputies are warriors or experts and how many there are, but I figure we could put around 250-400gp total into gear. Really get a small town guard going.

Then, since 3sp/day is the minimum wage for a trained laborer, we up the wage to 6sp-1gp/day. Make it worth their time and maybe get some more effort out of them since not only are they being paid to fix their own homes, but they're being paid a wage that does more than just allow them to survive. So then we're looking at(assuming my earlier numbers work) 132-210gp for a week of the lumberjacks, and 504-840gp for the month of carpenters. So that's 636-1050gp for the rebuilding effort.

And that's 886-1450 spent so far, out of 1800. So that would leave us with 914-350gp left over, depending on how expensive we went before. And we could use that remaining amount to help the widows in some way, shape or form.

That seems fine by me, but what does everyone else think?

Does the town need a palisade fence? I'm hoping we can prevent a war with the Fae, but attacks like those undead were made easier by the lack of defenses. Might be too expensive?

A couple of notes on the magic items

Quick Runner's Shirt , Gared could make use of this to move and use his cleave ability once per day. And as Silas mentioned, it lets melee types pounce which is very nice.

Pauldrons of the Serpent, a front line fighter should be wearing these +2 CMD to grapple....don't say I didn't warn you.

Mithril/Silver weapons...lots of things have DR/Silver....lots.

Adamantine sickle...ignores hardness, which is HUGE when fighting constructs or animated objects (Remember the Cauldron) also it makes sundering so much easier. Also, yeah Sharvaros Vade told you guys not to sell it.

You guys are doing too much math. I'll do some more research into the Downtime rules from Ultimate Campaign. Its a much more abstract and easier to understand system than figuring out actual GP value of a hireling for 1 year.

Silas, the town has a palisade....it was opened from within and the militiaman watching the gate killed.

Silas, the town has a palisade....it was opened from within and the militiaman watching the gate killed.

The plot thickens!

You guys are doing too much math.

The more people we get talking about what to do with the loot, the better we are.

_

The sickle has good properties, which is why I originally assumed Hecktor would keep it. Plus it seems to fit in well with his particular choice of weapon flavors. But at the same time I'm not averse to trading it off for something that may see more frequent and immediate use.

The Quick Runner's Shirt I've kind of conceded on and agree with Silas that it could be more useful than I initially gave it credit for.

The Pauldrons, now that I see that they help against trip as well, seem more valuable, but they're not indispensable. I could still see selling them.

As for the Mithril axe, we could buy a silvered axe for much less, and the only appreciable difference would be the -1 to damage that silver piercing/slashing weapons get and mithril ones don't. And with what that axe sells for, we could equip everyone in the party with a silvered weapon of their choice(Most expensive silver weapon? 280gp, or just under 1/5 the sale price of the axe). And still have money left over to equip everyone with a cold iron weapon(Cold Iron Morningstar, 16gp each), which would let us defeat 2 types of DR. So it could easily come down to "one person with a silver weapon that does full slashing damage" versus "everyone with a silver and a cold iron weapon." Even if the silver weapons do -1 damage, we'd still be ahead in a fight vs DR/Silver due to the action economy of 5-6 guys swinging vs just one. Plus, that weapon came from Thuldrin Kreed, so it's more reason to sell it.

We don't have to use the cash to rebuild the town, but when trying to start a revolt it tends to help if you have the people on your side.

GM Niles wrote:

You guys are doing too much math.

As for the Mithril axe, we could buy a silvered axe for much less, and the only appreciable difference would be the -1 to damage that silver piercing/slashing weapons get and mithril ones don't. And with what that axe sells for, we could equip everyone in the party with a silvered weapon of their choice(Most expensive silver weapon? 280gp, or just under 1/5 the sale price of the axe). And still have money left over to equip everyone with a cold iron weapon(Cold Iron Morningstar, 16gp each), which would let us defeat 2 types of DR. So it could easily come down to "one person with a silver weapon that does full slashing damage" versus "everyone with a silver and a cold iron weapon." Even if the silver weapons do -1 damage, we'd still be ahead in a fight vs DR/Silver due to the action economy of 5-6 guys swinging vs just one. Plus, that weapon came from Thuldrin Kreed, so it's more reason to sell it.

We don't have to use the cash to rebuild the town, but when trying to start a revolt it tends to help if you have the people on your side.

I didn't think of it that way....good call.

Lets use the downtime rules for rebuilding the town. You can convert GP to other more abstract things such as Labor, Influence and Goods. This will allow you to build things or rebuild things as it were.

Downtime Rules

I'm quite happy to have others do the bookkeeping and math.

Oddly, the only thing that I see Lucanor grumbling about is this:
(Un)Holy Symbol, Silver (Uragthoa) x3(37.5gp).
He'd want that thing blessed, broken, melted down, even if it reduced the value. Heck, you could take the loss out of his share. He's already feeling that selling evil items of just 'minor' evil is putting him in the bad graces with his goddess, you can imagine how he feels about objects of specific worship to the pale goddess of undeath

Sure we can do that.

Sickle would be nice, if no objection i'll safekeep it.

Michael, i wasn't the bartender monk remember? I'm the ranger.

I'm fine with using the Downtime rules for earning capital. Makes things a whole lot easier to keep track of when it comes to rebuilding the town, rebuilding the monastery, and all that stuff.

You're the ranger? Could have swore I saw you tending bar...(yes, I know you're the ranger. It was a joke because of the avatar.)

Sorry rough weekend for me.

Male Dwarf Druid. Boar as a pet. I will have the druid focus on casting buffs and support.

What is the best way to do healing with a Druid? Use about half my slots for healing spells or is there a feat that will let me spontaneously cast healing maybe?

I'm trying to get the gamethread read ASAP.

My advice is that if you are going to be primarily a caster then eschew the pet in favor of the domain. Also, using spell slots for cure spells is kinda counter productive mostly, its better to avoid getting hit by buffing or by doing more damage.

Also, I'll allow you access to the Healing domain and associated subdomains since you want to heal.

I agree, actual in combat healing is kind of weak in DnD. There are some forms that don't suck (Shield other, oracle life link, paladin self healing, heal spell), but they either arrive really late or are not a druid...

Druids get some really good battlefield control, that would help a lot. Between you and my bard the enemy will have a bad time :)

Don't worry about trying to do healing in combat. Worry about buffs and battlefield control to end fights faster and keep us from getting smacked around as much. Healing during combat should really be an emergencies-only thing. We just need to be able to be put back together quicker. As it is, we're needing a lot of time sitting down and doing nothing while trying to patch ourselves up.

But, as a full caster, the druid is excellent at battlefield control. Summon spells are the caster druid's bread and butter. The Augment Summoning feat makes them all the better by giving everything you summon +4 Str and +4 Con. So they get +2 to hit, +2 damage, and +2hp per HD. Even the low summons can get nasty like that. And each summon not only deals damage, but they take hits meant for us as well as providing more flanking opportunities.

My suggestion for how to handle healing would be this - Stop the enemy from hitting us in the first place. Use summoned monsters to take the beating if you can. Otherwise, buffs and area denial.

Also, never, ever, ever use a slot to prepare Summon Nature's Ally spells. You can cast those spontaneously. So instead, prepare some other spell.

And, since I previewed before posting this and saw that I'd been ninja'd a bit, I'll also agree that you should drop the pet if you're going to be playing as a caster. I'm particularly fond of the Caves sub-domain from the Advanced Player's Guide. Create Pit, Spike Pit, and Hungry Pit are all really good battlefield control spells that druids don't normally get, and as Domain spells they don't eat up useful spell slots. And since we're at level 3, you'd be getting Create Pit right away. Open a 10-ft pit right underneath the feet of a group of enemies, watch them fail their saves, fall in, fall prone(!), and then have to climb out all while provoking AoOs. Do not confuse the Caves sub-domain from the APG with the Druid-Only Cave domain from Ultimate Magic. Despite their very similar, and easily confused, names, they are wildly different from each other.

Edit: I recommend reading these two guides. Both of them tend to say similar things, but one only has info from the Core Rulebook, while the other has info from all the books.
Treantmonk's guide(Core Book only)
Peterrco's guide(All books)

Incidentally inspire courage works with summoned monsters as long as they understand the bard...

Cool I don't really like pets anyway.

Please know this will be my first Pahtfinder druid and my first heavy caster period.

If that's the case, I would most definitely recommend reading those two guides I linked. There's a lot of semi-redundant data between them, and the second one is hardly organized compared to the first, but they're very informative.

Oh, and you'll still have pets. They'll just be around for a few rounds at a time instead of always there. And you won't have to worry about being dramatically less useful if they end up dead.

Wow thanks for the links that's a big help.

Pretty sure you can also make a blaster druid, although the party is not exactly lacking for damage with 3 full bab classes.

Look over this guy all. I made him with the help of the above guide.

I like the idea of a Dwarf in the Earth domain anyway so I am very happy with that.

If you coach me on what spells to memorize I think we will do just fine.

My gear is the most basic of basic stuff at the moment as I do not know what gear I will have. I did the 20pt Buy and 2 traits as outlined in the Recruitment thread.

I have a personality in mind but I don't want to describe it as it always goes in a different direction than I planned.

I would see him being of course more in favor of the local Fey than the loggers but logging does have its place.

You have 3000GP to equip your character with, no single item can be more than 1500GP.

Have you decided on why Baldur is coming to Falcons Hollow?

A couple of options

Michael is making a trip to the 5 Kings Mountains soon, he will bring some Dwarven items that the party found in Droskar's Crucible, an ancient monastery that had a terrible fate. Baldur could come seeking lore from the Monastery.

Alternatively, Baldur could be a member of the Greenfire Circle, a Circle of Druids that opposes the Lumber Consortium and works to prevent their depredations of the natural order.

Long term Silas plans to try and purswade the locals to plant trees as well as log them. Should be possible for fae and humans coexist. I doubt this will be an easy thing to achieve...

I like the idea of being part of the Greenfire Circle. And of course he would be interested in the dwarven monastery so he volunteered to take the trip.

I (Baldur) also like the idea of logging trees responsibly. I do not think that even a Druid has to be all or nothing.

From the above Guide that I was linked to.

Under the description of the dragonhide Special material an option is given to make a dragonhide Breastplate. This is the apex medium armour, and as dragonhide armour costs twice as much as normal masterwork armour, would cost you 700gp, but is ready for enchantment immediately, and the benefits of this armour over hide armour make it worth the price.

Would that be OK with you Niles?

700 for Green Dragonhide Breastplate?
750 for a Wand of cure light wounds.

I don't even know what else I would need to buy lol.

A wand of lesser restoration may also be worth purchasing.

Wearing Green Dragon skin is cool....as long as you don't run into any green dragons who recognize the skin.....

My advice, use some of that cash to buy scrolls of spells that are useful but not all the time useful so you always have a copy handy if you need it.

Sheriff Baleson has ties to the Circle, he was married to a druidess once. Perhaps Baldur came when the Circle heard he was injured?

As a side note, how are we coming with purchases and loot distributation?

Also, downtime rolls and whatnot are we familiar enough yet to do any of that?

Lucanor you have 15 days in which to roll for influence gathering if thats what you want to do. Just one roll is necessary, and you may take 10.
Hecktor you would have 8 days
Silas, no days, you did a ton of traveling
Gared, 5 days
Michael no days, your gonna do a ton of traveling

Niles did you see my roll to identify the headband?

Edit: I don't think we've figured out what we're going to sell, but it seems not that much is the answer. I do agree with Michael's plan to sell the axe and buy us silver / cold iron stuff. I'm, not sure now what the plan is regarding fixing the town other than we want to do something.