Madness in Kintargo (Inactive)

Game Master Profession Smith 6 ranks

Ha! Well I'm going to make use of both boons. And I choose for him to be from Kintargo. :)

Had a crappy day yesterday and didn't get much done. I'm planning on looking over Caldariel's character sheet in greater detail this weekend; I've already got an idea or two as to how I may integrate him into the party.

Did anyone ever call dibs on that buckler the guy was wearing? I definitely be down for that if no one else wants.

I'm good with that. Melee isn't really my primary thing anyway.

500 platinum crowns = 125 platinum each.

Unless someone else needs it I'd like to take the +1 shadow studded leather (and sell my own +1 studded leather) and the masterwork thieves’ tools (an upgrade from my regular thieves' tools).

The slippers of spider climbing are still up for grabs.

Will also be picking up:
Efficient quiver 1800
4 potions Darkvision 1200

Are we reducing the shares' cash payout to players that claim magic items?

I don't know if that's what was being done before I joined, but the way I figure is to claim what's useful, cash, and anything that gets sold gets split. Party members having gear that makes them more effective keeps everybody alive.

Grumbaki, I love it. Vigilantism as a public health response. :)

Arani, more thoughts on the loot thing later.

On an unrelated note!

Happy Birthday Dom!

In game news, I've been in a funk--mental, emotional, physical, spiritual. I've tried to look at Caldariel multiple times but have no focus. In addition to the game stuff, I've let some real life issues slide as well.

I'm trying to get caught up this weekend (and actually have gotten a decent start on things already). I'll try to get a game post up today or tomorrow and work with Grunbaki to try to work his PC into the story (that'll likely be Monday, but possibly tomorrow).

Thanks for bearing with me.

Take the time you need. It's been a rough year and a half for pretty much everybody.

Did we each have an amount to spend at this point?

Did we each have an amount to spend at this point?

Here's the treasure you guys got from Wex: +1 shadow studded leather, +1 buckler, dagger, slippers of spider climbing, potions of shield of faith +2 (2), masterwork thieves’ tools, and 112 gp. Plus the 500 pp down payment for turning in the intelligent kukri.

I'm pretty sure that's what's been collected since the last split.

I'm recharging my batteries still. New plan is to get a post in later today or tomorrow and have Caldariel ready to join on Monday.

K, that's what I thought. Since it seems like most of what we got is going to be used by one person or another then nothing really to spend at this time.

You've have 125 platinum =1250g
slippers of spider climbing are still up for grabs.
The proceeds from selling my original armor (516g) can be thrown into the pot as well.

Just wanted to thank folks again for bearing with me and giving me a few days off (well, several days, actually). I'm in a better place mentally. There might be a speedbump in my way next week (potential heat wave), but if I can sleep decently that may not be a problem.

Everybody needs a little me time sometimes.

Totally agree. Taking time for oneself is important

I’m traveling this week. Have my phone so can post, but maps will be hard.

I thought I had put it here, maybe it was done OOC in the game play thread. My item was:
wand of Sure Casting (50/50)

Swiped my share of cash.

OK, finally finished (mostly) reviewing Caldariel's character. Now I'm trying to whip up a quick encounter/side quest to introduce him into the party. Hoping to restart the game for real by Monday...or Wednesday.

I'm away with my family until Saturday-ish. MCan probably get some posts in at night, like I'm doing now.

Update scheduled for later today, once I'm officially awake and have double-checked the statblocks of your future foes.

Cal, I gotta say, I'm not liking the parallels I'm seeing here. :)

This coming Wednesday through Sunday my posting will be extremely slow to non-existent as I will be at Gencon in Indy and then two weeks after that for the same days it will be slow again for Origins in Ohio. I may be able to sneak some posts in but I wouldn't count on it.

Gonna be spending all weekend moving a bunch of stuff and won't be available until Monday.

Baby boy was born last night. I’m still here and will post, but won’t be near computer for awhile. Maps will be tough

Congratulations!

I hope you didn't name him Barzillai.

Congratulations!!

Sorry, I've hit another rough stretch. I'm hoping/planning to get a post up tomorrow.

So I'm looking through things and see that I have jotted down on my char sheet :

1 mwk heavy mace
1 mwk hand crossbow
12 mwk bucklers
10 sets manacles
1 set mwk manacles
1 silver unholy symbol (Asmodeus)
11 bronze Thrune pendants (30 gp)
liquor (250 gp)
loose coinage from bad guys (175 gp)
4 bags of gold coins (500 gp in each)
wand of alarm (40 charges)
goggles of minute seeing

Which I'm pretty sure was what was left after the rescue in the square, but I don't think it was ever dispensed/liquidated. Leora had already left so we weren't still using the loot sheet, and until this moment it doesn't look like this was ever posted in the OOC thread (it does appear in the game thread)

Hmm, thinking this through, the one with the most pretext for getting through to Marquel is an NPC (I was thinking Sabrina could make some manner of sical call). Anyone got any bright ideas?

My way would be rooftops and windows but that just how I roll.

I’m here. Just have bad writers block for this scene/scenario.

OK, the adventure's assumed method of delivering the message to Marquel is via one of the figurines of wondrous power (silver raven) found long ago beneath the Fair Fortune livery in a previous campaign. I assumed Dom likely still had one, but according to THIS POST, the distribution of the silver raven figurines was as follows: 1 went to Rexus, so he could communicate in an emergency with the other Silver Ravens when they were out on a mission; 1 went to Jessibel (who gave it to her grandmother to contact her in an emergency); 1 went to Lydia and is currently at Songbird Hall; 1 went to Davina (and I'm assuming she kept it to be able to stay in touch with the Silver Ravens); 1 went to Kiri and is presumably still in her 'nest;' and the last one Leora carried with her in case the SRs needed to send an urgent message while out on an adventure. (This seems kind of risky to me going forward as the Silver Ravens' fame spreads; nothing would scream "REBEL!" to a Thrune loyalist more than finding someone carrying an actual silver raven on their person.)

Most of these characters were run by people who have left the game or had old characters converted to NPCs (Jessibel and Kiri). So...right now you guys have a grand total of 1 of 6 silver raven figurines relatively easily accessible for use (Rexus's).

I'm hesitant to bring all the figurines back into play, but I figure I should at least bring back the one Leora was toting around. Kiri is still part of the rebellion (as an NPC addition to the Fushi Sisters team), so that figurine would be easy enough to bring back into play if enough players want to. (I sort of picture it currently being used by all the rebellion teams to communicate and coordinate on their weekly rebellion activities...but that's just me.)

I also have no idea how much any of you players would want to have one of the figurines. I'm playing in multiple Hell's Rebels games (along with GMing this one) and have rarely seen one of the items used. I figure I should bring Leora's back into play at least; Kiri's should be easy enough for the current Silver Ravens to recover if you feel it's needed.

So...how many of your characters are absolutely dying to own a figurine of wondrous power (silver raven)?

I believe Arani's loot list is from my "Against the CCG/Rescue Korva Fushi" side adventure when the rebellion event called for one of the teams to become disabled during a mission.

And Arani's rooftops and windows route isn't well-suited for the Greens, where each estate is fairly large and separated from others by walls. You could climb to the roof of the Aulorian manor and then lower yourself down to a window, but leaping from rooftop to rooftop would be exceedingly difficult.

@Dom: Yeah, I was hesitant to use an NPC as the main hook here, but at the same time have a weakness for using in-game history and connections as payoffs, no matter how small. And GM Paladin (way back in 2016, IIRC) put it in the game's backstory that Jessibel and Sabrina knew Marquel, and that Sabrina was closer to him, so...I couldn't help but use that angle.

Might as well ask this now as well....

I usually float the idea of taking a small hiatus for the end-of-year holidays (12/24 through 1/1). I should be around and be able to post, but I know things can get busy and/or hectic.

So, does anyone want/need a break or should we try to keep chugging forward?

I can do either.

T'chazzar could maybe use a silver raven but I'm just as likely to forget.

I'm good with whatever works for everyone. I'll be around.

I'm good wih what ever as well.

Falina could find it useful a times. If nothing else she'll send mushy notes to Sabrinah, and maybe Jessi just to mess with her.

Hehe, one of these days I really need to sink some points into bluff, disguise, and perform acting. Just wish I got more points per level than I currently do.

One of my issues with pathfinder is how few skill points there are to go around. The problem, I think, is that diplomacy, bluff, intimidate and sense motive means 4 skill points to be good at talking with others. It leaves so few left for anything else

Yeah, I perosnally thin they should be one thing, like socialize or something, and just ahve bonuses/penalties to them for specific subtypes.

That being said I understand why they are seperate things, because you can be superb at one or two but absolutely awful at the others.

Diplomacy/bluff/intimidate should be combined into Influence.

This is an interesting game design problem, because of how the skill system's built to have skills assigned to/"keyed off of" different abilities.

When you merge Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate into one skill, you cut three Charisma-based skills to one. This doesn't leave a lot to do if you want to build a character around a high Charisma with the presumption that you'll use it for many things (Disguise, Handle Animal, and Performance, all of which are background skills if you use that system—which is shorthand for "we don't think this will come up enough to count as a real skill").

Contrast with playing a fully-featured rogue, who is looking at doing Stealth, Acrobatics, Disable Device, Climb, Perception, maybe some Sleight of Hand, perhaps some Escape Artist. Or an Intelligence-themed character, who has a multitude of Knowledge skills to pick up, plus perhaps Linguistics and Spellcraft, maybe a Craft skill as well.

Cutting down three social skills to one means that now it's very easy to make any character an excellent socialite without really cutting into their other abilities, so you aren't making trade-offs. This also means that characters primed to be social movers—like bards—are suddenly less useful, because anyone in the party can do all of the social business for the cost of one skill. You don't have to make any choices about "I want to be good at this but to do it I have to sacrifice that."

It's noteworthy that in 5e D&D, with its trimmed-down skill list, there are still three separate skills for Deception, Intimidation, and Persuasion. (And Performance, of course, but nobody cares about that.) Having these be separate buckets was important enough to the design to keep it even when they were merging other skills (Athletics = Climb + Swim; Arcana = Knowledge (arcana) + Spellcraft). A process that started in 4e!

Interestingly, most video games do merge these skills together. The Kingmaker game adaptation lumps everything into Persuasion. This is because modern video game RPGs have compact skill lists so that the developers don't need to code multiple outcomes for twenty-six different possible skills that might be useful, or come up with ways for all of the skills to have utility (back when we were making the original Fallout we had a document to track which skills were used where, so we could track "this skill is underused and we need to put in more places to use it or players who take it will feel like they aren't getting good value out of it").

Anyway repair guy just finished fixing the sink so I think I'm done for now.

I could see that, though I would still have the issue of one skill for all just because most people can't do them all with equal proficiency.

Likely a better solution would be to group skills by type, so knowledge skills, social skills, etc, and each level you had x number of points to put into each category with maybe generic points equal to your int mod to distribute where you wanted them at. That way you could get around the issue of not having enough skill points but still limit them.

One thing that can be done is this: Influence is one skill. All are 1/2 Cha mod, and 1/2 another stat. Wisdom for diplomacy, intelligence for bluff and strength for intimidate. Practically speaking it means that even when trained, you’ll have different modifiers, so it at least feels different. This would mean that traits like emphatic diplomat would need to be changed, but that isn’t a big deal.

For diplomacy, it is because really being diplomatic includes having the empathy to actually connect with people. Hence a wisdom component.

For bluff, it can include being intelligence enough to know how to trick people and to keep your lies trait. Hence an intelligence component.

And intimidate? Pretty self explanatory. Being physically imposing helps in being scary. Hence a strength component.

Edit: I really like Falina’s idea on having skill points by type. And from there high intelligence could go into any type, but at least a PC can have something in each group.

I thought it was good too, that way a given class can have more or less points for each ategory depending on their focus, wizard would have extra knowledge points, sorcerers would have average knowledge and social points, etc. There would never be a class that would get enough points in a category to take all of the skills in it without using int bonus points.

I'm going to give Dom (and anyone else) until tomorrow to add a post regarding getting the message and reply to and from Marquel...and maybe some ideas about dealing with the potential guard dog(s).

No word yet from Dom. I hope we haven't lost our main melee fighter.