Discussion thread!
Alright, so, this is going to be a little bit different from most Kingmaker campaigns, and you're starting out with full knowledge that the Swordlords intend to sponsor a new fiefdom in the Greenbelt if you can deal with the brewing bandit problem there. Also, the campaign is starting a bit later in the year than 'normal', which means the bandits have had some time to consolidate, so things will be a bit different. You might still head to Oleg's Trading Post first if you like, but that's not a necessity if you'd rather get straight to exploring. I'll have a map and a gameplay thread up by Monday.
Hello all! I'm looking forward to using you as meat-shields adventuring with you.
Aris is a Forlorn elf who's been in Restov for a short time, only fifteen years. She'd been working for some of the Swordlords, researching the history of both the Aldori themselves and the region they live in, and she was given a charter due to her knowledge of the region, as well as her writing skills and dabbling in cartography. She's tall and skinny, and wears her green-tinted blonde hair held back with a tiara of supposedly-elvish make.
As far as her party role goes, at the moment she's geared toward being a control mage, but I can retool her as a blaster if we decide we need the damage instead. She's a bit of a knowledge-monkey, which hopefully won't conflict with Alexis's skill set too much. She's also bringing a number of books with her on her journey, including a couple she hopes will be useful. She would serve well as Magister, Spymaster, or Treasurer when we get to kingdom-building.
Looking forward to it
Alexis is from a minor noble family that has recently came upon trouble with the loss of Alexis father so she hopes to make her family name known again.
She's is used to having to keep order among chaos and enjoys it, making her the perfect quartermaster to keep track of all the supplies they will have to manage.
Her Party role: She's not great at combat and she'd much prefer diplomacy but she can fight if needed, She has standard bard buffs, some healing spells, Gear maintenance spells, and craft wondrous item for when we get the time/supplies.
Hi everybody!
Faun is treesinger druid and the Medic for the expedition. On the hunt for her family's ancestral home and chances to grow her bond with Ornmeil'lon, her sapling treant companion, she'll serve as the party's spiritual guide and healer. And Ornmeil'lon can provide some decent melee. :)
First, Astor has a second horse that is equipped with a pack saddle (which could easily be swapped for a riding saddle!) if someone is in need of a mount, or carrying capacity! :)
Astor was once from Restov, but at the age of 11 (eleven years ago) his family was shipped off to Mendev to weaken Orlovsky's position. As a direct result he grew up during the slow fatigue of the fourth crusade, but only participated in the latter portions. He's continued to work as a soldier and lept at the opportunity to create new supply lines for Mendev, and possibly western Brevoy, but won't balk at trade for everyone else as well (he just has priorities!). He wears articulated full plate, with a helmet, as well as a crimson cloak that marks him as a follower of Iomedae and a member of House Bastion (as little gravitas as the name now carries).
For party role, first and foremost, he has been trained as cavalry, focusing on powerful attacks against foes. He'll have to balance the need for taking out strong enemies in the rear with guarding the front, luckily his commander training will allow him to occasionally share a teamwork feat (his only current one allows allies with the feat to intercept charges for one another). Having spent time in the worldwound crusades, he knows that defense is not always the best option, though. He is capable of backup healing by sacrificing some of his offenses or defenses as it becomes necessary (or when it is better to heal someone without using our wands :)) As he seems to be our primary frontline (and indeed he should be with the guard trait!), I'll continue to focus on him being a wall for everyone else. :) He's definitely most interested in General as a kingdom role.
As an aside to our druid: Can plant companions wear armor?
Technically yes, but Ornmeil'lon can never take Proficiency feats, so it would cut into his attack bonus.
Not being proficient just means you apply ACP to everything so if you wanted you could buy him armor like leather or rosewood ( or leafarmor if you've got the money ) and he'd get a few free points of ac with no penalty.
Also I'm not very experience in kingmaker I've only been in one game and the DM vanished before we even fought the bandits so if we go to the trading post or not I'll leave to the others.
Yep, that was my reading too. I'm taking advantage of it by using Silken Ceremonial Armor, since it has 0% Arcane Spell Failure chance and no ACP. It's not much help, but every little bit, right?
Yea for casters it's pretty great I did similar with a kensia i was trying to make Plus its only like 10g or something but it'd work for casters and should work for Ornmeil I think
There is a particularly cute creature called the leaf leshy which wears 'armor' made of leaves that is effectively masterwork padded armor and grants it a +1 armor bonus with no penalties, aside from a +8 maximum Dex bonus, which doesn't apply to them.
Also, as a sidenote, what I am going to try doing with the map is reorienting it to actually show north/south correctly, and it will be a full map, rather than just 'the area you're currently expected to explore', with the area described by your charter marked out.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you lack proficiency in a type of armor your ACP applies to attack rolls.
Yes, that is correct. However, there are several types of armor that don't have an ACP: leather, padded, mithral chain shirts, etc. When wearing those armors, you take no penalty for not being proficient.
Oh, duh. I see what I was missing. Sorry for the confusion.
That's quite alright. I've been known to miss stuff like that on occasion too.
That, and everyone starts somewhere. God knows, the first time I saw 'Max Dex Bonus' I thought that was a bonus to your dex mod for wearing that armor type. :|
Also, Astor would most likely approach any sort of civilization he could find here first, given the choice. He'll trust the Cartographer to know which way to head, though. :)
Since we are starting out knowing we will get the kingdom do we know our roles beforehand? I may need to pick up some smaller items
That's fine. You're still in Restov until I get the gameplay thread up, and you can buy all sorts of things there.
Faun is probably best-suited for High Priest or Marshal, but she could also develop into a Councilor or Warden. Possibly even the secondary ruler.
Been having a slight case of the bleghs, but I want to get this started, so I'm going to put up a temporary map in a short bit that will be far less awesome than the final map I've been working on but didn't manage to finish yesterday and don't have the energy for today. So please bear in mind that the map isn't what's going to be in use for the whole campaign, just the first week or so.
Once that's up, I'll post the Gameplay thread and we can get started. Expect that to be in about 3-4 hours after I get off work for the day.
Sorry to hear about your bleghs, Mackenzie. I'm excited for this game, though!
Okay, temporary map is up. It shows what little is known of the region, which is why the area encompassed by Brevoy is well-defined with rivers, but you'll need to chart out the flow of the rivers to get a better map. Mostly you know simple things like that the Tors of Levenies are a mountain range, the Narlmarches are a huge forest, etc.
If Faun would like to ride on Astor's extra horse, feel free to take the liberty with your post. :) Easy to swap pack saddle to riding saddle, and then add some saddle bags, after all. :)
Going to wait for others to make rolls/introductions before continuing.
Faun has a horse, but thanks. :) I took the Pioneer trait from the Kingmaker Player's Guide.
Post coming shortly.
Ah! I did not take notice of that in my quick look through people's capabilities! Does make me wonder about giving the horse to the siege-treant... :p I'm not even sure it could ride, though :p But it is an option, if we want to maintain our overland movement. :)
Ornmeil'lon can sit, but I'm sure he's heavy. :)
I envision him as a tireless tree man, running alongside our horses.
Alrighty! :) Lots of carrying capacity amongst the unladen horse and the treeman it is! No complaints here.
GM, does it make sense that Faun would know Oleg? According to her backstory, Faun has been traveling the borderlands for some time. She might have stopped at Oleg's for supplies.
He set up shop last year, and would have had the place in livable condition just in time for the onset of winter, so he's not been there long, but still a 50/50 chance, and you might even have known him from before he started up the trading post, as he has lived there on the border all his life, though he only married Svetlana the same week he received the charter to convert the old fort into a trading post. If you want to know him from either before or after, I'll leave that up to you... though maybe he should have appeared in your ten minute background? =P
Hmm, I can't find any data on weights for treant saplings, and when I tried to derive their weight from full-sized treants, I discovered that the average weight for a treant is only 10% of the weight of a hardwood tree of the exact same size. Using that 10% multiplier gives us a weight of around 200 lbs for a 6' tall, 1' diameter treant sapling, or about 30 lbs for a 5' tall, 6" diameter treant sapling. (Hurrah for the square-cube law!)
That's a fair point, although because you're adding your own twists to the AP, I wasn't sure if Oleg would actually become a part of it.
I'll just assume that Faun doesn't know him.
He exists, but saying much more would be spoilers.
Is there a key for the map?
I can draw up a key if you really need one, but...
Kamelands are hills (hills come in grassy and non grassy variety)
Tors of Levenies are mountains
Narlmarches are heavy evergreen forest
The forest south of Mivon is heavy deciduous forest
The Hooktongue Slough is a swamp
Oleg's Trading Post is located in a grassy plain
The green hexes with no icons on them are cultivated farmlands
There's a few regions of hilly forests in eastern Brevoy
The red cities, such as New Stetven, are capitals
The black cities, such as Restov, are regular cities
Nivikta's Crossing is a village
Fort Serenko and Oleg's Trading Post are forts, whereas Stoneclimb is a fortress
The Feasting Hall of Cayden Cailean is a large temple and major landmark
Did I miss anything?
That works I figured most of them but the red had me confused capitals make sense thanks.
What program do you use for that, by the way?
That's just Hexographer. Took me about half an hour to slap together, whereas I've been spending more hours than I want to think about working on my handcrafted map over in Inkscape.
Hexographer is honestly neat enough for me to be happy with for my campaigns, I think... when I do get around to making world maps. Thanks :)
The hex map is cool enough. :) I can't wait to see the real thing!
Astor's vote is for whatever gets us to doing at least one of our jobs faster. Normally, he'd be all for safety, but they have a very specific job set out for them, and daylight is burning, so to speak. So, most likely the three day version, where we immediately meet the wilds head-on.
Do we want to go ahead and put some people in charge of specific things? I'm at a loss for what sorts of smoothing we can do just now, but Astor would certainly trust Aris to suggest how we travel. She is the one with the maps, after all. :)
It's actually kind of funny, but you're more likely to find Elven ruins from 10,000 years ago than Taldan ruins from 300 years ago simply because the elves who lived in the area built with magically reinforced stone, whereas the Taldans used mundane wood.
Neat :p. Astor's vote for where to set up headquarters is one of those :p
Erhm. Aris doesn't want to make decisions for the others. She just wants to make sure they make the best ones they can with the most information she can provide. That being said, the three day plan sounds good to her.
Ah. I more meant for streamlining things. We have four members and that can lead to ties. I was thinking out of character, maybe you could be the tiebreaker in such an event... Or could be the decider on this type of topic (which route or hex to explore) when the DM called for a decks on. :) I think I may also be getting too in-character with the whole efficiency thing here... hmm...
:p. Either way, it's up to you, really! Your character has power-of-the-map in the same way Alexis probably has power-of-the-purse. I'm not sure what Astor or Faun have power of, though. Death and life? :p
Also, if you missed it, is there anything on your character sheets that you don't want Alexis to track?
Nope, my items are currently public information.
Cool website, Aris. I'm a big fan of using other languages in my PbP games and this keeps me from having to try and pass Gaelic as Elven.
Dang, you lot are really active. Far more so than the other campaign I'm running. Not used to so many gameplay posts in a 24-hour period! I might have to rethink turning in early like I did last night and actually stay up and get a second post up each day. And also, I love what you're doing with the languages, and will have to try doing the same thing now.
To address a question asked of me privately, you may always take 10 when circumstances allow it (not rushed, not in combat, etc) however you can never achieve a 'spectacular' result, regardless of your modifier, whereas a high enough modifier can achieve that with a poor roll, and a low modifier is always guaranteed a 'spectacular' result on a natural 20, even if the result isn't high enough to achieve the best result. Note that 'spectacular' means your check results in something extra, such as information not on the chart for a knowledge check, or determining not just the translation of a document with Linguistics, but also the dialect or that the writer was left-handed or something else which might prove relevant.
Made a rough draft of a Supply List Still needs a lot of work but I should have everyones gear on there, if you'd double check it'd help me out.
Faunlara and Aris what kind of horses do you have?
Also should i leave items location as the person who owns the horse its on or the horse itself?