I find myself feeling dread at what is to come.
We're up to 4715AR. Kingdom Turns have been stumbling blocks for us so far, but I really need a couple of years to pass; we're fast reaching points where this should be a young country, rather than a foothold colony. I'd like to do 10 turns AT LEAST.[1]
Does anyone have any ideas how to do this more quickly, or at least to avoid stumbling blocks happening?
[1] We're about midway through book 2. I was planning to use about half of it. There is still exploration to do, though. Minions?
Well, since it normally seems to happen this way anyway, I could just make most of the decisions on what to build etc, and send them to you for summary. What's everyone think of that?
You could just ad hoc/handwave it and tell us the end results of our efforts by using "the narrator" as a passive voice.
I can't see any real reason to use the mechanics. A group of mythic spell casters are going to blow the lid off the progress chart anyway.
For instance, Grey could use kingdom funds to make Lyres of Building and raise dozen or so undead with ranks in Perform. They would never have to stop playing those lyres. The lyres would pay for themselves in labor within about three months.
Just imagine what 3500 workers worth of labor working tirelessly round the clock could do in a few years. Throw in Terror and Horror and Forsten for the heavy lifting, and there's pretty much no civic construction project we couldn't undertake.
Who wants to build a couple of Pyramids? How about 100 foot tall statues of each of the Runelords? A school and a library in every town?
The sky's the limit.
Maybe I could summon some creatures to help.
Yeah, Lyres and stuff are pretty good.
I've said before though that a building comprises (in my head, at least) 4 types of costs:
* Furnishings & tools
* Raw Materials
* Labor to build it
* People to run it
There are some 'buildings' with different breakdowns: walls and roads, for example.
I'm happy for Lyre & summoned temporary labour to wipe off labour cost entirely, even with one 'forever lyre'.
It could also be used to get raw materials if they're there (so, for instance, getting wood in a forest... till the trees are gone... and sod is forever.)
You could summon/create raw material as well, I bet.
That'll still leave operation and furnishing categories to go.
Could you build a pyramid (near a quarry?) Sure: there is no operation cost and no furnishing, so go crazy. Hundred foot statue? You'd probably need someone with some craft and engineering to make it stand up and look okay, but yeah.
Library? No: you could build a building for the library. Maybe even make an argument for shelves. But the major cost component of a Library is the books. In Pathfinder Books seem to start at about 5sp/page.
Sure, there are probably spells or items that'd get you around some of this. I'm happy to adjudicate it on a case by case basis. If you can find/build a gem of thought-storing and all the Runelords empty their heads into it I would probably ignore the furnishings & operation cost of a Library.
I like the idea of monuments and stuff being free, by the way. If this is the new Thassilon why shouldn't you do cheap stuff like carve the heads of the Runelords into some nearby mountain? But you still need commoners to run the farm, and the smithy, and the...
Winning the hearts and minds of the people should be doable.
Why don't we start an intensive kobold breeding program?
They're small and weak but in great numbers they can work wonders.
I am not sure that's something I can do but what would you think of summoning a janni and trying to negociate some extraplanar recruiting ? azers maybe or a mercane. You know something that would say "hey there is a conjurer in town" :D
Yeah, you could use a Janni to get things brought across. That gets round Planar Binding's one task restriction.
In general creatures much more powerful than a human are going to want a better pay scale.
I'd be prepared to accept that they could also give a better reward.
An Azer is pretty much going to be the same as a human smith.
An Axiomite (with +18 craft) would cost more to get, but produce more/better items. Theoretically they'd cost more to run, as well, but as that's offset by the selling prices of items it wouldn't impact you.
Therefore a Smith defined as Axiomites would cost more to buy, but produce more per turn (probably a 'double smithy') I would think.
A deal with a Mercane is very clever, and would let you set up a much better trade route, albeit one only interested in magical items. Which, given all of you can craft, could payoff big-time.
I'm not sold.
Trade is great when there are things out there in the world that you don't have easy access to, or if there are paticular goods that you can make really easily that have high value to the rest of the world.
I don't think there's anything the rest of the world has that we can't make ourselves (at half price, even) and I don' think there's anything we can produce that the rest of the world wants that badly.
Anything that would catch the world's interest is probably not something we want to be trading away anyway.
I'm fine with bringing Outsiders into our kingdom as workers or partners, but I'm kind of in the "isolationist" approach to trade. We are a young kingdom. Bringing in outside trade organizations would be just asking to be exploited as soon as they find out we have an abundance of silver under the hills.
Heh, see this is where things get a bit esoteric for me, I'm more of a nuts and bolts guy, than this home-brew type stuff. In other words, nothing to contribute to the current discussion except an observation that while the rules may allow you to create nearly anything in the books, the setting and some common sense/logic says that much like we don't know every spell, we probably don't know how to make every magic item :p
Spell knowledge is DC 15+ the level of the spell. The DCs top out at 24. With my +18 Knowledge Arcana, I absolutely do know of every spell out there (barring some strange uniquely researched ones I suppose).
Mythic Crafting Mastery allows me to craft non-mythic magic items as though I had all the relevant crafting feats. If they are Wondrous Items I do it at twice the normal speed.
Legion is a Valet Familiar, which allows it to use all my relevant crafting feats and skills at my ranks. If it's helping me it doubles my crafting progress and adds Aid Another bonuses to my Craft checks. or it can just craft for me while I do other things.
That means that I make Wonderous Items at a basic rate of 4,000 gp a day.
Ignoring a spell prerequisite for a magic item adds +5 to the crafting DC, which is barely a speed bump for me (I have a +22 bonus to crafting most items as long as I'm making them out of bone. Adding Crafters Fortune to that, and I can take ten for a 37, which is good enough to make nearly any item in the book)
So, according to the rules themselves, I can make pretty much anything we can possibly want. The only thing that is a limiting factor is money. Even more so than raising undead, crafting stuff is what my character is built to do.
Here's an example of the screwy crafting stuff Grey can do-
Outfitting an army
Craft a scroll of Polymorph Any Object (DC 28 craft base check, +5 because I don't know the spell, +5 because I'm not high enough level to cast it, total craft DC 38. I need to roll an 11 or better).
That scroll costs me 3,000 gp, which Legion cranks out without assistance in 24 hours of crafting (3 days of normal crafting time, condensed because as a Construct he doesn't have to stop).
While Legion is working on the Polymoph scroll, Grey makes a few scrolls of Fabricate. They cost 1125 gp a piece. Grey can make 2-3 a day. He's slowed down by the need to rest.)
We use that scroll of Polymorph Any Object to permanently change 1,500 cubic feet of stone (which is nearly a 25x25x25 foot block) into the same volume of steel.
Six seconds later, Grey uses the scroll of Fabricate to turn 2.5 cubic feet of that steel block (about 2,250 pounds of metal) into roughly 500 sets of masterwork weapons and armor (one DC 25 crafting check during the casting of the spell will do this)
With one day of prep time I can outfit a 1500 person army for less than the cost of three sets of Full Plate armor.
But we don't have an army?
Turns out, the Craft Construct feat lets me make Medium sized Animated Objects for a base price of 2,250 gp each. They are generally a CR 3, can be made in whatever form I want and and can be equipped normally. Legion can build about three a day.
You know what are actually objects?
Traps.
Who crafts traps at a +22? This guy.
So, how about we some self-resetting proximity traps that cast Blistering Invective?
That costs 3,000 each.
So what do we have now?
A bunch of animated CR3 Constructs wearing masterwork Platemail, swinging masterwork great swords that (as a free action every round) swear and curse so hard that everything they don't like catches fire.
Imagine fighting ten of them. That's 10d10 fire damage every round just for being nearby.
What else could we do?
How about traps that cast targeted Stone Call every round. Now make them Diminutive and flying.
How about animated backpacks that stow and retrieve gear for whoever is wearing them and automatically cast Cure Moderate Wounds every round.
How about we skip all the complicated stuff and just make some power armor?
Isn't all this expensive?
Remember that part where 4,125 worth of scrolls created 750,000 gp worth of equipment? Let's assume we can sell some of it somewhere. :)
I'm kinda with Forsten. I'm more of a simple player. You guys can do great things by chaining together advanced and complicated abilities, so I'm going to bow out of most of this discussion.
Honestly, I'm not planning on doing this crazy stuff. I've been very conservative in gameplay so far, with good reason.
I'm just demonstrating what is possible, strictly using the rules.
What Grey is actually going to do with the kingdom turn is build an advanced agriculture system and well built homes for as many people as possible.
My focus: get the people to love us and have as many offspring as possible.
Fteeing up the 'rabble' generally leads to a decrease in population growth (per Malthus) but with some social engineering and creative fertility drugs/magic/rituals we can get new generations going post haste.
How many BP do we have?
Merry Christmas to those who celebrate. Happy Wednesday to those who don't!
Indeed! Merry Christmas/Wednesday to all!
Ironically I seem to have stalled on working out how not to stall.
I'd like to 5-10 turns, at a year a turn.
* opens an eye *
Merry Christmas... see you tomorrow, I'm too tired :o
* closes his eye *
I'm lost. Isn't it Thursday?
So.. what will the DM give us for Christmas ?
Hey guys,
I bought a house just before Christmas, and stuff has gone a bit wrong. Currently trying to sort it out, but it is eating into my time.
I still have bits and pieces of time, so I think I'm still good, but I don't seem to be able to get the block of time I need for a run up at the Kingdom Turn.
Would people be okay if we put the Kingdom on hold? We can retroactively do it when things settle down.
Otherwise I might need to put the game on pause till things settle down.
As for Christmas: well, belated it might be, but a SHINY NEW LEVEL for all of you!
So: Who is still here?
ayup. Sorry to hear about your house troubles, I can only imagine how stressful that must be.
So... a mythic tier as well? or just level 8.
Still here. Sorry to hear about your troubles but glad to see you here.
I'm fine with putting the Kingdom on hold and retroactively doint it later.
Thanks guys.
I was thinking a Mythic Tier, but was worrying about Monte Haul.
On the other hand, it's for Christmas :)
Mythic Tier as well.
heh, I had to look that term up :p So Level 8, Mythic 3. Awesome.
I bought a house last year and it was terrible, but I got a new house out of it! What mythic spell can I anoy you with now...
Beautiful view off the back porch: I'm tempted to post it. Unfortunately the house is starting to fall apart, so I think we'll have to knock it down and rebuild.
We expected that, but then the real estate agent didn't tell the tenants who were there that we were happy for them to stay another year... so we have an empty house we're paying a mortage on, and either need to move in or get the entire planning process done in record time.
Woot! That's a big level up.
I'll have the numbers sorted out in the next couple days.
Alright guys, I'm sorry it is not better, but I really wanted to get something started this week.
Sorry, too much procrastination on my part. I'll update my sheet tomorrow (choices made but I didn't manage to actually write them ... I'm ashamed)
Edit : dam... now the new posts in gameplay just appeared. I know I'm tired but I should have seen those before.. I can't tell how sorry I am.
Hey I just did my level up today so don't beat yourself up too much.
Just now... don't feel bad.
There's a couple of small between scenes I had. I figured they'd be a good way to get back in to things.
New spells are : Phantom chariot and Hydraulic torrent (with mythic version)
Mythic ability : Beyond morality
Mythic feat : Mythic augment summoning
Focused study bonus feat : Skill focus Diplomacy
Sorry guys,
Saw this had gone inactive, and I guess I'm calling it. I kept thinking I'd be able to get this to work, but circumstances have conspired so it's not. Hopefully if I can get a permanent job in a few months things might get better - but I thought that months ago as well. :(