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I personally am not discomfited by the presence of slavery in scenarios, because I'm aware that this is a roleplay exercise. Obviously, in the real world, slavery (and we're usually referring to the slave trade of Africans by Europeans and Americans, when we refer to it, or the flesh trafficking going on today) is a horrible, horrible thing.
Yet, historically, slavery has been enacted for many different reasons. As our slave girl herself said, she was sold off into slavery to cover her debts-- she wasn't hit on the head and kidnapped off the street. While I personally may consider this a barbaric practice that I am glad we have moved on from in civilized countries, debt-slavery was considered a perfectly acceptable and legal practice for much of human history, and I am fine with embracing, in roleplay, the fact that a lawful neutral Chelaxian sees nothing wrong with that practice.
Personally, I find it far more problematic, if we want to bring questions of real world morality into our RP, that the average Pathfinder Society character flat-out kills dozens, if not hundreds, of sentient humanoids over the course of their PFS career, and that this is usually considered quite laudable as long as the 'other guys started it' or 'well, they were evil' or 'they just got in our way'.
Buuuuut that is why real-world, 21st-century morality/ethics and pseudo-historical-setting RPGs don't always mesh terribly well. Pathfinder in particular is sort an odd setting, because the Pathfinder canon has explicitly negated some of the historical biases and prejudice that existed in the "real" medieval world-- for instance, women are largely considered the total equal of men, in Golarion, when the historical record of Earth shows that the concept of "equality between the genders" is a very recent development in most Earth cultures. Similarly, Golarion has things like a general acceptance of LGBTQ people, and a general downplaying of race- and nationality-based xenophobias, when the general demonization of 'the other' has always been a part of human culture, and has only recently been perceived to be an ethically s*@$ty thing to do.
I'm not saying they're wrong to do that, either, because, as a woman myself, I don't really want to play in a world where women are second-class citizens. BUT it does mean that when Golarion is so relatively 'enlightened' and in keeping with 21st-century moral positions on SOME issues, it does make it jarring when other parts of it feature things like institutionalized slavery, because it begs the question of to what extent are you expected to champion 21st-century ethics if you are playing a "good" character, and to what extent are you supposed to go 'well, that's part of the setting, so my character would have to be okay with it'.
/Sorry, my overly long two cents on the topic of morality in Pathfinder
editing to add on And for the record, I don't think Mahjub is being portrayed as 'nice' or 'fun'. I think he's being portrayed as a kind of weaselly, scummy slave trader-- he may not be doing anything illegal, but he's definitely trying to weasel out of the 'right' thing to do, and make as much profit as possible. Which... I'm fine with. It's a realistic take on someone who profits off the trade in other living human beings, yet isn't a stereotypical cardboard cutout of a child-eating monster, either.
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For most scenarios, I never really see our characters as 'the good guys'. In fact, with the extraordinary amount of political espionage, criminal activity, grave robbing and flat out murdering we end up doing, I'm surprised we don't all ring as Chaotic Evil. The only reason why we don't... is really because the alternative is normally worse.
As far as the 'other' goes... I think that we end up seeing a lot of that in Pathfinder lore. When is the last time a group of goblins were allowed into a city without being stereotyped, denied public services, kicked out the city, or even killed. Intelligent undead need not be baby eating monsters, but most people treat them as such. True, in both of these groups, the significant majority majority of them would like to absolutely kill the more 'civilized' peoples... but to be honest, that is exactly what we want to do to them.
If you noticed a ghoul on the street before it noticed you, and you had the means, you would kill it. Likewise that ghoul would kill you given the same chance.
The surface world would probably LOVE to exterminate the drow... the drow would also do the same to the surface world. In PFS, the good guys have sent weapons of mass destruction into the worldwound!
The nation of Geb is Lawful Evil... but they have no interest in harming the rest of the world and are opposed to fighting wars, even though it is a nation of undead! Likewise, we just comitted all sorts of evil actions against a perfectly law abiding citizen... who if we were to scan him with detect evil, would probably ring. (Condoning the ownership of slaves due to its legality is LN... owning said slaves is generally agreed upon to be evil.)
All in all, what was I trying to say? I forgot. Morality and ethics don't go hand in hand? We are all bad people? You should expect the Chelaxian Inquisition?
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I'm not even talking about the othering of 'monsters' though in Golarion, as in, actual monstrous species like ghouls, who are.... well, they are flesh-eating creatures who probably cannot be interacted with in any civilized fashion, barring very exceptional circumstances. I'm talking about the idea that if you had your character being a prick to the half-orc in the group just because the half-orc was a half-orc, you would likely be intentionally playing that as bigoted behavior. We accept and understand, as players, that it is 'wrong' to discriminate against a character based on their orc heritage, or tiefling heritage, or, hell, their nationality (Taldan/Cheliax, hehehehe), and if we choose to have our characters do that, we know that when we play them doing so, we are having them embrace a certain nationalistic jingoism, for the sake of RP, that we ourselves do not think is truly 'right'.
Yet, historically, that sort of demonizing of anyone who was from a different country than yours was TOTALLY considered okay. Let alone if you could have someone who was literally the child/descendant of a by-definition-evil creature, like an orc or a devil/demon.
But yeah, the average Pathfinder may well be the protagonist of their story, but that doesn't mean their behavior is ethical by any means.
I do disagree slightly on whether owning slaves would automatically make you detect as evil. Like, by that standard, Thomas Jefferson would detect as evil, and Ben Franklin (even if he later came to believe in abolition), and our Lady Silviana, etc, etc. They are/were people participating in an act that their society deems a normal, common, and necessary part of their economy. Classical Athens (or so Wiki tells me) had anywhere from 2/5ths to 4/5ths of the population as slaves, Rome had 35% of the population as slaves-- are we saying that every slaveholder in those cultures was an 'evil' person in the alignment-specific sense of the term?
....huge tangent there, lol. I think what it boils down to, of course, is that, again, real world morality and RPG ethics are poor perfect matches for one another. ;)
(Besides, Mahdi would only detect as evil if he has 5 or more HD. ;) )
If you want to discuss in character to reach a final decision of the Docks or Lady Darchana next that's fine, or we can settle it here before moving forward. Since there seems to be mixed decision I'd like to make sure everyone has a chance to weigh in. It looks like
Docks: 2
Lady D: 1
Uncommitted: 1
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Okay, we know Mahjub was meeting the pirate captain in the morning, and the ship is not yet docked (needing an escort).
Depending on what the harbor master's plans are for the docking time, I guess that will decide our actions. Its either:
1) They are docking tonight and we can use the dark to help us.
2) They are docking early morning (still might be dark), but we get a chance to rest and I could switch out my spells for something better matching a boarding party action.
I say we go to the dock master with the writ from Lady Darchana and see what they have to say.
I just want to be sure we make a solid plan once we have the details from the dock master. I would rather try and take the ship quickly and quietly than to go in stomping everything (though I have little doubts about our ability to stomp). I'm just kind of intrigued by the idea of possibly doing an entire adventure without any combat; it seems like we have a group that can pull it off. Could be a fun 'hard mode'.
I would like to give a try to that Malus.
Kyra can't do any good on an stealthy mission, her noisy steps will probably be heard even before embarking.
We might try to fool them and convince them to dock the ship during the night.
For example, we can say we are Mahjub emissaries, that he is highly interested into buying the whole slave pack. Mahjub has discovered some pirates know about the valuable cargo and will assault the ship during the night. We can point a couple of ships protecting the harbor from escape. We can say Mahjub sends a pilot allowed to dock the ship tonight and finish the deal so the rival pirates will not have anything to loot.
With a bit of luck the general alert and chaos we can cause maybe we are able to move freely through the ship, make them nervous and reveal clues, and with a bit of luck even be allowed to calmly surrender and dock the ship.
Sounds crazy and full of holes to me but can be fun.
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Sorry for my lack of response there for a few days, guys. Probably won't be much better the next three, either-- we are running a local con, and I'm GMing Legacy of the Stonelords, among other things, so I've been busy with prep and with family stuff. Will try to keep up, but it looks like everyone else has things well in hand too. :)
I'm fine with attempting the sneak, buuuuut, from past experience with 'your rowboat sneaks up on the big ship, now what' scenarios, it's pretty hard to get a whole party stealthily onto a ship, especially with Kyras and their AC checks in the mix. ;) Climbing alone, shudder.
Yes, only way to face it is me going there with diplomacy and talk to them, getting a distraction for the others to explore stealthily.
That would mean to split the group though, which we all know is never a good idea.
For my part, I am open to take the risk though, it can be fun even if ending badly for me.
That would be cool, but will require to buy a level 5 scroll, succeed against a caster level 9 check, and then you need having seen the ship at least once and still only have 75% of teleporting success.
All-in-all not an easy doing.
Dimension Door can somehow help with the climbing and final approach.
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Hee, yeah, no teleportin' here. Sorry. :P
If we seriously want to try the stealth route, we may want to buy a scroll of silence, stick silence up on an object that we then carry while boarding. That might let us get onboard the ship, though the spellcasters among us have to then, you know, contend with silence.
That would only last 18 seconds :/
Problem is passing all the party Ozy.
The splitting non-stealthy ones to try fool the pirates is the other way I think we can get the stealthy.
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Okay... I'll buy a few scrolls of invisibility.
And yeah, I don't think we should run into too many problems. Oz, as a Lion Blade, has yet to be caught out of stealth,. (Except that time I rolled a 1 when I was trying to sneak around a blind lady... but to be fair he wasn't a Lion Blade yet XD) That's what the potions are for, "My eyes are playing tricks on me..."
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Kyra: I'm just joking around about just getting Dimensional Slide, in my opinion the best Arcanist ability.
I like your idea about us being sent to protect them and broker a deal. It covers us all coming on board and the financial aspect could distract them. Let's just be careful to not have to fight an entire ship of pirates at once.
I also like the idea of Ozzy 'splitting' off to see what he can find out or obtain. With +35 stealth, I'm not worried about him being in danger.
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Yeah, I mean, sending Oz in as solo scout is absolutely fine, HE doesn't need buffs. :P It's only if we're trying to get the REST of us on the ship as well, unnoticed.
I say, send Oz aboard first (assuming he's cool with going solo), then he's hiding, in a great position to back us up once Kyra announces our presence and explains why we're here, etc. If things go south at that point, we already have a man on board who can buy us time/draw attacks while the rest of us climb, etc.
That said, remember that this may involve Bluff rather than Diplomacy, Kyra, depending on how far from our true intentions we try and get with our excuse for being there. Pretty sure Kyra's bluff skill is nowhere near as good as her Diplo. ;)
That's true, my +2 to bluff will not make the deal unless being very lucky. I don't know if anyone else can go with the bluffing.
Even Iason can do a better on that, even more with an eagle's splendor buff.
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I'm totally fine with going alone. I'll buy one scroll of spider climb which Iason can cast on me, one of invisibility which I can cast on myself as it's on the bard spell list, see what I can find, get into position in case combat breaks out. (oh, let's not forget to zap me with my wand of mage armor before I make the climb. I'll likely only fail stealth on a one... but as I noted above I rolled a 1 against a blind lady before. Good to be prepared with nigh unhittable AC)
But before all that... did my 23 on sense motive tell me that this halfling might be willing to take a bribe? It's all about measuring your mark you see.
Does anyone mind splitting the cost of at least one of the scrolls? Each one is 150 GP so that would be 25 GP per person rather than full price for one.
Kyra only has 32gp, I guess it is legal I spend it, so ok.
Maybe we also want that 0-level spell, message or something similar to maintain certain level of communication.
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Arcanist is so awesome, my next character will be one.
Besides that i have no idea why you are talking about stealth and dimension door.
For freeing the other slaves or entering the boat?
I think we just hide ourselves on the boat with the pilot and then enter the other boat, if necessary taking it by force.
When i´m right about the ships graveyard, the foreign ships are waiting outside there, because maneuvering it is too dangerous.
Then a boat from Absalom comes, with a pilot, who will maneuver the foreign ship through the graveyard. Of course there is another pilot on the boat that brings the pilot.
Sorry for the short notice but I'll have limited availability this weekend.
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Sorry for not managing to post much/at all these last few days. Our local convention (which was debuting this year!) turned out to be a huge success, which was great; I had a lot of fun and got to try out the Malifaux RPG. PFS-wise, I ran two games, including being one of the GMs for Legacy of the Stonelords. I also had my first perma-death of a PFS character, a level 2 ranger who got critted when he had 2 HP left. So some highs and lows all around. Anyway, I am rather braindead right now, but I will definitely jump back into the game tomorrow, and apologies if I held anything up.
(Also, apologies if you read this msg multiple times due to being in multiple games with me.)
I did the overseer job at Gen Con this year and Mike Shel is a friend of mine. Getting a behind the scenes look at it while it was being written was pretty amazing. Needless to say the striking resemblance between Krighten Shaine and myself has absolutely nothing to do with anything! :D
There is a pic here. :)
Needless to say the striking resemblance between Krighten Shaine and myself has absolutely nothing to do with anything! :D
On the contrary, Kreighton Shaine's uncanny resemblance to a certain hirsute former venture officer did play a significant role in his selection.
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That IS a certain resemblance. :P
Yeah, I got to play it at Pacificon a month or so ago, so it was nice and fresh in my head to run it (although, of course, my party took a different route). Intense but fun. I know when I played it we used... I think the final count was 125 charges of CLW. At a tier 3-4 table. Yeahhh.
My table of 1-2s had nowhere near that rough a time, but the poor level 1 fighter did earn the nickname Yo-Yo for how often he was down and then up, down and then up....
Koemi - that's fine. We'll assume right before the half-orc spotted you. Are you casting from the scroll (CL 1, duration 1 min) or using one of your spells/day (CL 3, duration 3 min)?