As the Pathfinders approach the village of Nesting Swallow in the Tian nation of Shokuro, they find it besieged by a gang of tengu bandits. Before their contact in the village will aid them in restoring the Iroran relic that brought them hundreds of miles to the isolated town, the PCs must repulse the attackers, using every ounce of tactical mettle and military strategy they possess to train the villagers, augment their defenses, and ultimately face off against the bandits' charge.
The reports coming in from the outlying farms is very disconcerting and Elian informs his comrades and the village leaders about the pushed up time table. He continues to examine any more information on the movements of the bandits in an attempt to determine which direction from which the bandits will likely attack. He also hopes for a report concerning the strength of the bandit force...
HP 66/66; Channels 10/10 (7d6+1; Will DC22); Reroll @+4 1/1; Cleric-9. AC 21 (24 with SoF; DR 5/magic);Fort +8; Ref +4; Will +11; +4 vs pain); Resist fire/10; Init +0; Perc +15 sheet
Chaul supports the building efforts.
aid:1d20 + 1 ⇒ (18) + 1 = 19
HP 66/66; Channels 10/10 (7d6+1; Will DC22); Reroll @+4 1/1; Cleric-9. AC 21 (24 with SoF; DR 5/magic);Fort +8; Ref +4; Will +11; +4 vs pain); Resist fire/10; Init +0; Perc +15 sheet
Nobody then, that was an untrained roll for the barricades.
Male Dwarf Fighter 2 | AC 21 T 11/12 unarmored FF 21 | Max HP 20 | F +5 R +2 W +2 | Init +0 | Perc +3
Gorn will work as hard as he can to assist the villagers with the barricades. Once he works a day, he will rest early, and be up before dawn to watch for the impending attackers.
HP 66/66; Channels 10/10 (7d6+1; Will DC22); Reroll @+4 1/1; Cleric-9. AC 21 (24 with SoF; DR 5/magic);Fort +8; Ref +4; Will +11; +4 vs pain); Resist fire/10; Init +0; Perc +15 sheet
One of the things Chaul want to arrange during the day is some type of tent or designated house in which wounded villagers can be brought to rest and recuperate. Given his ability to channel and thus heal a lot of villagers at the same time, getting the wounded together should help maximise his healing abilities.
It is not just arranging for the place, but making sure that everyone knows that during a lull in the battle, any injured should go there for succor. He'll seek out the town elders to help pass along the word.
Of course if the scenario doesn't allow for channelled mass healing, then this may not be relevant...
Human Wizard 5 / Arcane Savant 3 | HP 58/58 | AC 16; Tch 11; FF 15 | F +6; R +5; W +8 | CMB +2; CMD 13 | Speed 30 ft | Init +5 | mwk Quarterstaff: +3 (1d6-1) | Perc +13
Seems like a good idea, Chaul, though it also seems like it may be too far away from the villagers to be as useful. What about having Chaul behind the melee group (which may include our own melee fighters) and heal the injured as we go? Even if there are unconscious villagers, he would get them back in action, and I'm guessing our own group will need the healing.
Elian can also help assist with healing. Granted it's only CLW spells, but I can drop 4 of them to help keep our melee in the game. Also, Elian will be using his Coat of Many Stars ability just as the attack commences.
The only relevant skill checks on the barricades right now are Knowledge (engineering) and Profession (woodcutter), neither of which can be done untrained.
Also, I lied. I am a dirty filthy liar and I am ashamed... please forgive me! Yesterday's reports indicate the bandits are coming on Day 6. Let me know if that changes your plans, please.
Human Wizard 5 / Arcane Savant 3 | HP 58/58 | AC 16; Tch 11; FF 15 | F +6; R +5; W +8 | CMB +2; CMD 13 | Speed 30 ft | Init +5 | mwk Quarterstaff: +3 (1d6-1) | Perc +13
Do we have time to flood the fields now? It seems like a combination of archers + barricades + flooded fields would be the best use of villagers while we hold the front line.
Flooding takes a full 2 days of work to accomplish. In order to flood the fields, 20 villagers are required. Increasing this number does not reduce the time requirement; damming the stream and flooding the ditches is work where only so many hands are of use at one time.
It can only take place after the harvest is completed, which it has yet to be. So, no, by your estimated time frame, you do not have time to flood the fields.
HP 66/66; Channels 10/10 (7d6+1; Will DC22); Reroll @+4 1/1; Cleric-9. AC 21 (24 with SoF; DR 5/magic);Fort +8; Ref +4; Will +11; +4 vs pain); Resist fire/10; Init +0; Perc +15 sheet
So, with two days expected time left...
We already have one group to ten trained melee villagers
We have a half trained missile team
We have little progress on the fortifications
We have 2/3 of the crops in.
Day 4
20 folk in the fields (given)
10 folk missile training
20 folk melee training (day 1/2)
With a view on day 5 to ...(barring unexpected results)
If the fields get finished, then the twenty from the fields can do fortifications on day 5 - otherwise they stay in the fields.
If the missile team finishes training, they can do fortifications on day 5, otherwise they stay missile training.
The two groups of melee trainees continue to train for melee day 5.
--
That would hopefully leave us with (at the end of day 5)
1 untrained group of villagers
1 unit of missile troops
3 units of melee troops
Some fortifications
All the crops in.
An aid station would be fine for the story, mechanically it won't change anything except drain your channels. Also, there's no centralized building, nobody in town is rich enough to own a tent, so there's no tent unless one of you has one (hahahahaha), and nobody owns any beds or cots, either. So you'll have to fashion something up to make the wounded comfortable, if that's the route you're going. Cushions and straw bedding are the furniture of choice in the poor rural areas here.
Okay, it looks like we (kinda) have a plan. You only have two characters with a +1 BAB, so you can't have an archery unit being trained and two combat units being trained, unfortunately, since that would take three PC's with +1 BAB's, one of who would have to be proficient with crossbows (the archery trainer).
Since it seems like the next best idea is getting the fortifications as close to being done as possible, I'll toss the extra 10 at the fortifications. If that's not what you want, let me know and I'll change it.
In the early pre-dawn of the fourth day, the villagers stream out to their daily tasks, yet again. Twenty head back into the farms to finish the harvest as the group of archers head into the courtyard to finish their lessons. Another group join them across the courtyard to start their own lessons with their improvised weapons of pitchforks and spears. Stragglers can be seen crawling over the barricades throughout the day, but still, not much progress is made on the barricades.
At the end of the day, there is some cheer, though. The harvest is finally finished, and Dagat beams in pride at her new batch of archers, sure that they'll do fine in the coming raid. Their stock of ammunition could surely use some work, however...
The news from the countryside has dried up, again, and no word of the bandits comes in, leaving one to wonder when the raid will truly come.
Dagat and her 10 archers can now spend an additional day to make ammunition for the archers, making an untrained Craft (bows) check as she teaches them the invaluable skill of fletching. Or not. Maybe they can be thrown at the barricades with everyone else. Your call!
Mechanics spoilers!:
The harvest is finally finished, yay! Can I be honest? If you didn't pull everyone off of the harvest after the first day, or if I didn't blow Thael's roll on Day 3 (doesn't matter that he blew it on Day 4 himself, the villagers were more than able to cover the remainder without any assistance by this point), the harvest would've been done on Day 2 or 3, hehe. Each PC counted as 5 villagers, and Thael counted as 10 with a successful check against a DC 15.
Which is weird, because PC's don't count as villagers anywhere else. The closest is the Scouting, but it's not the same. I'll cover that when it's no longer relevant, as well!
At this point, your options are:
Archery Training - 10 villagers only; Craft some ammunition for the raid
Combat Training - 10 villager increments; can now train up to two units, but only one if also crafting ammunition for Archery Training
Constructing the Barricades - 10 villager increments;
Flooding the Fields - 20 villagers only; takes a full 2 days
Posting Scouts - 5 villager increments
We'll start Day 5 on Saturday unless everyone agrees on a plan before then.
[ HP 12/12 | AC 17/14/13, CMD 16, Fort +3, Ref +6, Will +2 | Init +4; Perception +6 ]
Dagat would really recommend ammunition. The new archers would be no good if they had nothing to shoot. I'd also recommend 10 combat training and the remaining 30 at the barricades.
Male Dwarf Fighter 2 | AC 21 T 11/12 unarmored FF 21 | Max HP 20 | F +5 R +2 W +2 | Init +0 | Perc +3
Gorn's suggestion:
10 making arrows with Dagat.
10 training with Gorn
10 scouts with Elian
20 at the barricades, with all the other PC's helping there.
HP 66/66; Channels 10/10 (7d6+1; Will DC22); Reroll @+4 1/1; Cleric-9. AC 21 (24 with SoF; DR 5/magic);Fort +8; Ref +4; Will +11; +4 vs pain); Resist fire/10; Init +0; Perc +15 sheet
Do we need to have a +1 BAB to make ammunition?
If not, then (just on the off chance we have the day wrong) putting two groups of villagers into melee training would be possibly helpful.
HP 66/66; Channels 10/10 (7d6+1; Will DC22); Reroll @+4 1/1; Cleric-9. AC 21 (24 with SoF; DR 5/magic);Fort +8; Ref +4; Will +11; +4 vs pain); Resist fire/10; Init +0; Perc +15 sheet
I'm all for Gorns plan then. Though do we still need scouts?
The fifth day rolls in and the villagers stream out to their tasks, yet again. No villagers head into the fields this bleak morning, however.
The courtyard soon fills with the noises of combat as the dwarf leads his students in mock drills pitting them against themselves. Across the way, the ranger quietly explains to a confused group of villagers how to attach crow feathers to a block of wood to ensure better bolts.
At the barricades, even more villagers are thrown at the problem, hoping that will solve the issue, but the issue still seems titan in comparison. At the end of the day, the barricades are still left mostly unfinished. The spearmen head home, tired but clapping each other on the shoulders. The crossbowmen head home, happy to have finally finished their training, but utterly confused by that last day.
The reports coming in from the countryside about the bandits whereabouts are sketchy, overall, especially with nobody to receive them. It seems the spymaster decided to take the day off and hasn't been seen by anyone.
Unfortunately, you had to use the village's base perception check today (since I haven't seen Elian post since the previous day), which isn't high enough to hit the DC without more villagers scouting and consecutive days scouting.
The sixth day begins and everyone gets into position, ready for the raid, sure of the information given them by the absent Elian.
Hours go by as the sun slowly rises into the sky. The sun, baking the fields around you, seems much hotter today than usual. As the hours roll along, the villagers start muttering amongst themselves, casting glances at your group. Lunchtime comes and goes, and still there is no sign of any bandit raid.
Small groups, perhaps the PC's themselves, ready to escape the glare of the villagers, extricate themselves from the not even half finished barricades to search for bandit signs. For hours the forests around the village are searched, but still nothing shows up. Finally, as evening wears on, everyone heads back home in much sourer moods than before. And still unsure as to when the bandits will attack...
Day 7 will start on Wednesday! You have:
No idea when the raid will start
2/4 combat trained units
1/1 archery trained unit
Harvested but unflooded fields
Barricades nearly 1/3 of the way finished
Finally started to put scouts out, but perhaps too late
HP 66/66; Channels 10/10 (7d6+1; Will DC22); Reroll @+4 1/1; Cleric-9. AC 21 (24 with SoF; DR 5/magic);Fort +8; Ref +4; Will +11; +4 vs pain); Resist fire/10; Init +0; Perc +15 sheet
Chaul does have a +5 bonus in perception, so if the Ranger is on strike for a day, there is no reason for him not to coordinate the reports for day five. Especially as he is not able to contribute to any of the other areas. It seems odd to have him just twiddle his thumbs for the day. For day 6, why would we have everyone sit idle in town rather than training or at the least working of fortifications. They would be posed for action if the bandits did come?
HP 66/66; Channels 10/10 (7d6+1; Will DC22); Reroll @+4 1/1; Cleric-9. AC 21 (24 with SoF; DR 5/magic);Fort +8; Ref +4; Will +11; +4 vs pain); Resist fire/10; Init +0; Perc +15 sheet
The villagers move out into the pre-dawn light again, a week of toil under the PCs guidance behind them. A fraction head into the courtyards to train under the sturdy dwarf while another fraction head out into the woods beyond, hoping to catch sign of bandit activity beyond.
The majority of the men and women set about the barricades silently. It is a task more suited for a group of this size, but the time needed is short, much too short. And these men and women know it. Slowly, however, the barricades start coming together, blocks here, pits there. It wouldn't stop a proper army, but maybe a wayward band of bandits might be slowed momentarily by them. Maybe.
The sun sets on the sounds of hammering and sawing, battle cries and shouts. Soon, everyone heads back home for a well-earned rest and the comfort of their family. Except for you, who just have each other and a cold stone floor.
HP 66/66; Channels 10/10 (7d6+1; Will DC22); Reroll @+4 1/1; Cleric-9. AC 21 (24 with SoF; DR 5/magic);Fort +8; Ref +4; Will +11; +4 vs pain); Resist fire/10; Init +0; Perc +15 sheet
[ HP 12/12 | AC 17/14/13, CMD 16, Fort +3, Ref +6, Will +2 | Init +4; Perception +6 ]
Don't worry, cold stone floor. Dagat is here for you. Oh, and cool with repeating the actions. I'm not sure how good the archers are now though, so I might go train some close-combat or send the archers to help barricade construction.
Barricades are not close to completion. And Elian's group thought they might have heard something? But in the end it turned out to just be Elian snoozing. They missed the DC. Again.
Archers are all trained up. You haven't seen them since you tried to teach them how to attach crow feathers to a cat's shin bone to make bolts or whatever it was you were out there teaching them on Day 5. They've been relegated to barricade duty, and hating every second of it.
The day is filled with the sounds of combat training and carpentry, yet again. When the evening comes. The barricades have still not been completed, but another squad of villagers has been trained to completion. There still is no word from the outlying countryside on when the raid will occur. Surely it won't be for another few days.
The next day brings an unnatural calm with it. As the villagers arise to accept their instructions from you on where you want them assigned for the day, shouts and screams come from the fields past outside the village as stray families run to the shelter of the village. It seems as if the raid has finally found you!
At dawn, riders are spotted in the hills, and by midmorning the entire force circles Nesting Swallow in preparation for alunching a raid across the southern fields. The flooded creek halts the riders, however, and they fall back, giving the village time to take up positions along the unfinished barricades and prepare for assault from the only directions left open. Je Tsun suggests you take up position on the northern barricades overwatching the main road into the village, but advises that the choice of where to setup is ultimately yours. A handful of spearmen and archers detach themselves from the rest and follow you into position while the majority of the other defenders guard the other barricade access points.
The planning phase is over, yay! You guys were able to accrue... lemme see, here... carry the one... 5 Defense Points!
Okay, so you're probably wondering what the hell defense points are. You gained them by preparing the defenses of Nesting Swallow. The first use of defense points isn't very tangible and effects behind the scenes stuff. There is a second, more direct use of Defense Points that the PCs directly benefit from. From now until the end of the adventure, each PC gains a pool of points equal
to 1/2 the total Defense Points earned, or 2, in this case.
Defense Points:
At any time, a PC may choose to spend a number of these points as an immediate action. They can be added to any single attack or damage roll, ability or skill check, saving throw, or can be used to grant the PC a dodge bonus to his AC (this'll be a little finicky in a PbP format. Basically, if you want to use it for a dodge bonus to your AC, declare it when it's your turn. If you get attacked, the point gets added. If you don't get attacked, you save the point). Points used only apply to a single roll, and do not otherwise last until the PC’s next action. More than 1 point may be spent on a roll, with a maximum equal to the character level of the PC. A player must decide to use his Defense Points in this way when he announces his action and before he makes the roll the bonus will apply to. Once spent, points from this pool cannot be replenished.
Now, for those interested, some behind the scenes things.
Combat Training Spoilers:
Not much to say about this one. You guys only had two people with a +1 BAB, so were really limited. Intimidate checks, though, would have increased the amount of defense points, because intimidated villagers are more reliable villagers. Obviously.
Intimidating all 40 fully trained combat squads gives the most defense points out of any other preparation.
Archer Training Spoiler:
Again, not much to say here since you guys nearly finished everything except failing the craft check at the end for the bonus defense point. Again, the limiting factor here was the +1 BAB limitation
Barricades Spoilers:
It takes six days for 30 villagers to finish the barricades, which is why it never seemed like you got close to finishing them. The scenario makes it even rougher by increasing the time if you allocate less than 30: "Likewise, fewer villagers assigned increases the time by 2 days for every 10 villagers fewer than 30 working on it." Which is silly so I didn't do that. You guys still needed at least three more days to complete them, though.
Flooding the Fields Spoilers:
Nothing to say here, we never got around to flooding them!
Posting Scouts Spoilers:
I was surprised you didn't post scouts much, much sooner. Each set of 5 villagers gave a +1 bonus to the perception roll to figure out when the raid was coming. So, like Chaul alluded to earlier, anytime you allocated scouts, it's pretty much an auto-aid to whoever's rolling the perception check. Also, and here's the kicker, each consecutive day there's scouts posted, you get a +1 bonus on the perception roll. So if you had posted 10 scouts on day 1, and kept just the minimum of 10 out there until day 8? That would have been a +9 to Elian's perception roll on day 8.
It didn't help that Elian couldn't roll a 15+ to save his life, too, though. Three successful perception checks would have told you the exact day the raid was happening on and gave the second most defense points out of any other preparation (other than the combat training all 40 villagers and intimidating all 40 of them). It's probably the easiest one to get the most defense points from, though.
Taking 10 and you:
No one took 10. Weird. Thael could have taken 10 on all his knowledge checks and showed that field who's boss. Dagat would have still failed her craft check since she took a -2 for not having the proper tools. Elian's DC was pretty high, though if scouts had been posted at the beginning, after 3 days he could have aced the perception rolls with take 10's. Just thought it a bit odd, is all
Go ahead and pick an access spot on the map and place yourselves where you'd like to defend it. Unless you'd like to defend the courtyard and to hell with the outer defenses, in which case I like your gumption! We'll start the raid on Wednesday.
[ HP 12/12 | AC 17/14/13, CMD 16, Fort +3, Ref +6, Will +2 | Init +4; Perception +6 ]
Interesting! We might not have did as well as we could have, but let's kick bandit butt anyway.
Dagat will stay behind the northern barricades of the main road, shooting bandits with a vengeance. It would be even more awesome if she was doing it on top of a house for higher ground, but that might be a tad too exposed for her tastes.
Am I using my own arrows here, though? I have about 50 arrows with me and while that means about 50 turns of consecutive shooting (roughly 5 minutes of Dagat fury), Dagat's effectiveness would drop after she runs out, if this raid lasts that long. Also, a bunch of the remaining are specialty arrows where I would like to use only Common ones. I don't mind in either case, but I'd like to know beforehand so I don't get surprised if I run out of arrows mid-raid!
Oh, and I don't think it was clarified, but are all the bandits tengu? Because I have a nifty favored enemy against humans which I'm not sure to apply when the time comes.
HP 66/66; Channels 10/10 (7d6+1; Will DC22); Reroll @+4 1/1; Cleric-9. AC 21 (24 with SoF; DR 5/magic);Fort +8; Ref +4; Will +11; +4 vs pain); Resist fire/10; Init +0; Perc +15 sheet
The whole building defences thing feels like we're playing a game but without the rule book. Still, we have +2 each to add to stuff, which is nice. That is just how some scenarios work, quite a few seem to have custom sub-systems built into them
Chaul will join the northern barricades. Plan is to use his sling, and then when the injuries start to come, move over to channeling.
Male Dwarf Fighter 2 | AC 21 T 11/12 unarmored FF 21 | Max HP 20 | F +5 R +2 W +2 | Init +0 | Perc +3
I moved Gorn to the west wall, as its the furthest point from the rest of the village, and would seem weaker. With 30 villagers trained, we should be good to have a force of 5 on each wall with spears, and then 10 'runners' to shore up defenses. I really think that we're more likely to see bandits from the north and west, rather than south and east (thank you river). Gorn will be doing a bit of running into combat anyways.
Okay, seems like I didn't make myself clear, then!
You guys will, as a group, defend one of the incoming lanes. Which one you want to defend is up to you, but you need to do it as a group. Which means, if someone's up north, everyone's up north. If someone's on the west, everyone's on the west. Je Tsun advised the northern barricades, but it was just advice. You are free to decide where to go. As a group. All of you. Together.
Troop setup is over. The villagers will be setting up in the spots you don't set up in. You have a handful of spearmen and archers with you is all. Everyone else will be guarding the other barricades that you're not covering.
You only have your arrows. I'll be the grown ass woman huddled up in the corner sobbing uncontrollably if this takes 50 combat rounds.
[best Billy Crystal impersonation]Have fun defending the village![/best Billy Crystal impersonation]
Taking 10... I should have done that! The dice roller at Paizo seriously dislikes me. If it was a plastic die set, I'd have melted it by now lol! Also, very interesting mechanics for this battle setup.
Elian will take up position along the nearby hut, keeping him out of line of sight for any bandit archers, but close enough to strike at any that make it through the front line. As soon as the battle kicks off he will conjure up his armor like coat of starry radiance...
I'll keep my spells for healing. I can cast CLW 4 times and then I'm out!
