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I am alright with the idea of Diplomacy Edicts under the expanded rules:
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/kingdom-building/edicts# TOC-Diplomatic-Edicts
Such things involve the travel of an individual to the kingdom in question and that person's Diplomacy will control. There will be potential additions or subtractions to the DC of the check based upon political dynamics that the PC's may or may not be aware of.
I am updating the travel and movement rulings to simplify things as updated on the Campaign tab:
OK, Movement is getting unnecessarily complicated. I'm going to propose some simple house rules that will trump what I said in the earlier post.
I propose we go with adjusted overland travel rules based on Miles per Day. Since we need to travel in 12 mile hexes We will adjust the table appropriately. A person walking travels 12 miles per day (+4 mile bonus over raw.
Adjustment: Vehicles/mounts under 20 Miles per day move 12 Miles per day or one hex; Vehicles/mounts between 20 and 30 miles per day move 24 miles per day or two hexes. Vehicles Mounts Between 30 miles per day and 40 miles per day move 36 miles per day or three hexes.
This movement is adjusted by terrain and roads as appropriate, however left over travel (fractions) are lost:
Water Rules:
1) Floating: All rivers flow from north to south as determined by the origin and destination. The destination will be flowing into another river or larger body of water south of the origin. If the origin and destination are in the same horizontal hex line, then the river flows from west to east.
2) Canals do not allow for floating, they do not have flow like rivers, but require towing or pulling to move.
Based on this, to explore three hexes it would take:
Day 1: Travel into a hex (12 miles) stop.
Day 2: Explore first Hex.
Day 3: Travel into next hex (12 miles) stop.
Day 4: Explore second Hex.
Day 5: Travel into next hex (12 miles) stop.
Day 6: Explore third Hex.
Awesome stuff Bill!
Lets go with Zone of Truth then.Discern lies is 4th level, which means a caster level of 7, so one use per day would be adding 11,200 gp for a total of 17,350 gp. Crafting cost of 8,675 gp. That's almost three times the cost, and puts it out of my budget.
I'm OK with that in general. Spells needed would be Discern Lies and See Invisibility so you have to account for those spells being cast as well.
Hey Patrick, want to get on the same page here. The spells I was listing costs for are for 1/day uses per the magic item creation rules(i.e. the mask would give +5 to sense motive, and allow see invis and zone of truth to be cast once per day at the CL). The spells needed to create a magic item do not have an impact on the items cost in the way that spells the item can duplicate do. So did you mean Zone of Truth as the former, or to impact the price? Or are you making a ruling that is different than the rules in the book, and want to up the price without giving the spell use power? (not an issue as the rules in the book are meant to be subject to DM checks and balances)
I don't have an issue with the general cost of the item you described.
The idea is that if Discern Lies as opposed to Zone of Truth increased the cost, we can use Discern Lies to bring the cost back to normal.
I do think that you need to have access to the appropriate spells, so you need a character involved with the creation to cast the appropriate spells, or pay someone to do it.
Anastasia has both Zone of Truth and Discern Lies
So I thought I'd write a bit about tactics from Vissannica's perspective. This is out of character writing, but has to do with how I play Vissannica specifically as well. In short, it's why Vissannica dropped and did not immediately charge the Cyclops. Because of how Pathfinder handles attacks of opportunity, reach, and full round actions, it's smarter for Vissannica to make the Cyclops come to her. If she charges it, it gets an attack of opportunity, then she gets a single attack, then it gets a full round attack before she gets her full round attack. If it charges her, it gets a single attack, then she takes a five foot step and gets a full round attack, likely killing it.
Also, it's possible Carissa drops it with a scorching ray before it even closes, since the leopard will delay it another round, and we get to avoid a guaranteed 20 to hit altogether.
That said, on the macro level, it's perhaps smarter for her to charge it, take the attack of opportunity with her 7 images, and then let Cringer and Z come in behind her and finish it off. But they might not do that, or they might miss, or it might get lucky and crit her like Z, or etc.
So Vissannica, with her 24 intelligence and studies as a battle mage and tactician will often use terrain and tactics to make less intelligent enemies come to her, minimize risk, and maximize resources.
I also wanted to comment on my height ruling.
There are obvious weaknesses with the 5' cube functionality when we consider the Pathfinder game in the three dimensional space. However, think of it this way. An average adult human male is about 2.5' wide at the shoulders and 1' wide front to back. That requires a full 5'x5' of horizontal space to be able to move for combat. Basically this would allow them to position themselves in a square and spread their arms, swing weapons, dodge, etc. within their square.
It is very rare that the taller races don't extend more than 5' up. This does not even consider the movement of arms and weapons above them. Realistically, while fighting weapons are swung overhead, jumping may occurr, etc. I, myself. with a 3' sword swung overhead would reach well over 11'. Hana would be be over 8'.
African Lions stand 4' at the shoulder. Dox sitting would be about 3' higher than that with his head. Raising his hand would reach around 9-10' With a 3' sword would be around 12-13'. I know Dox doesn't fight, but you can't occupy the same 5' square as an ally whether you are armed or not. Cringer certaily rears up when he fights. I'm not slamming Dox into an 8' ceiling when he does that, though it would likely happen.
It isn't whether you can squeeze through the area, it is whether that area is needed to supply the full freedom of movement needed for combat.
It also breaks the rules to allow multiple creatures to gang up on a single creature by going vertical. With two flying PC's in a 10x10 corridor would be able to have four attack one instead of two attack one. Fly is powerful enough without that.
So here is my ruling:
You may not occupy the square directly above another medium or larger creature in combat. For purposes of spacing, Medium creatures are deemed to occupy their space and the 5' space above them, however they also only threaten the 5' space above them. This is not true for small creatures. For each size category above medium, this extends only 5' vertically above their size category (10'+5' for large, 15'+5' for huge.
A mounted person shares the space of their mount, so a medium rider on a large creature counts as a large creature. A small rider on a medium creature counts as a medium creature.
If a person is forced to stop in an area where they are occupying the square above a creature then they are not shunted but gain the squeezed condition and are considered to be in difficult terrain. They cannot choose to do this.
Of course, allies can freely pass through the squares occupied by their allies, they simply cannot choose to stop and occupy the square.
An interesting FAQ entry:
What exactly do I identify when I’m using Spellcraft to identify a spell? Is it the components, since spell-like abilities, for instance, don’t have any? If I can only identify components, would that mean that I can’t take an attack of opportunity against someone using a spell-like ability (or spell with no verbal, somatic, or material components) or ready an action to shoot an arrow to disrupt a spell-like ability? If there’s something else, how do I know what it is?
"Although this isn’t directly stated in the Core Rulebook, many elements of the game system work assuming that all spells have their own manifestations, regardless of whether or not they also produce an obvious visual effect, like fireball. You can see some examples to give you ideas of how to describe a spell’s manifestation in various pieces of art from Pathfinder products, but ultimately, the choice is up to your group, or perhaps even to the aesthetics of an individual spellcaster, to decide the exact details. Whatever the case, these manifestations are obviously magic of some kind, even to the uninitiated; this prevents spellcasters that use spell-like abilities, psychic magic, and the like from running completely amok against non-spellcasters in a non-combat situation. Special abilities exist (and more are likely to appear in Ultimate Intrigue) that specifically facilitate a spellcaster using chicanery to misdirect people from those manifestations and allow them to go unnoticed, but they will always provide an onlooker some sort of chance to detect the ruse."
Thoughts on this? I'm envisioning Dr. Strange visuals and sounds as you focus your magical energies.
I'd say the response nicely encapsulates it. Regardless of whether a particular spell or spell-like ability has a specific V/S/M component to it, it is clear the person casts a spell. How exactly it is clear is up to the flavor the caster would like to have. For example, Carissa's may involve sharp visual effects whereas I've always imagined Anastasia's being much more subtle, more "felt" than anything else. Regardless, anyone observing either caster can tell they are casting a spell. Spellcraft allows you to know which specific spell is cast, but otherwise isn't relevant to the rest of the poster's question.
A more interesting question in this regard is Supernatural abilities. I would say these also have some sort of "sign" to them, but are obviously not interruptible. But I could see an argument saying Supernatural abilities don't produce such observable effects.
I'd say the response nicely encapsulates it. Regardless of whether a particular spell or spell-like ability has a specific V/S/M component to it, it is clear the person casts a spell. How exactly it is clear is up to the flavor the caster would like to have. For example, Carissa's may involve sharp visual effects whereas I've always imagined Anastasia's being much more subtle, more "felt" than anything else. Regardless, anyone observing either caster can tell they are casting a spell. Spellcraft allows you to know which specific spell is cast, but otherwise isn't relevant to the rest of the poster's question.
A more interesting question in this regard is Supernatural abilities. I would say these also have some sort of "sign" to them, but are obviously not interruptible. But I could see an argument saying Supernatural abilities don't produce such observable effects.
I believe that unless there is a description of an effect or activity associated with it, Supernatural abilities would not be overtly apparent. You cannot Spellcraft supernatural abilities to identify the effect and they have no analog otherwise. There has been some debate but this thread really outlined the arguments well.
That said many supernatural abilities are apparent, and if someone has to make a saving throw they will know something happened but may not be able to pinpoint the source. This could also support innocent people being suspected of witchcraft when bad thing happen. If there is no overt action, you can blame people merely by presence.
https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/48115/what-does-a-witch-do-when-hex ing-someone
Go Bill! All caught up on the storyline!
Experimenting with images, let me know what you think.
Couple of things I wanted to touch base on:
1) We have finished book Three of Six of the Adventure Path and defeated the dreaded Cyclops Lich Vordekai. Nate's points about the difficulty of the combat were well-founded and we are reaching the power level where such combats can be very "swingy" with one or two key roles making the difference. Right now the party is built on pouring on damage quicker than the monster can respond. That is a good strategy, but monsters are increasing in power and danger level to respond to that.
2) We are at a "break" in the story-line where there is time to develop the kingdom from a role-playing standpoint if we wish. The kingdom is of a suitable size so I don't think we need to do many kingdom building sessions, but it is a time where many years could potentially pass from an RP standpoint. For example, we can age the heir to maturity, re-evaluate the ruling council and functions, establish the Helknight Citadel and build out how they interact with law-enforcement, army, etc. What is Carissa's role in the expanding kingdom? The relationship with certain neighboring kingdoms/cities are part of the plot line for the next adventures, so I would prefer this focus internally. Also, this is optional... if people wish we can jump right ahead to the next adventure.
3) Roll20: Roll20 seems to have improved their audio and visual chat functionality. Is everyone using a device that has webcam and microphone? Would we like to activate these features rather than logging into both Google Hangouts and Roll20? I can walk people through the settings if so.
4) Regarding the probably too-lengthy discussion about Diplomacy, I wanted to clarify how I deal with these issues. Anastasia is better at diplomacy and expressing herself than any of us. That is why she says she gets her large bonus. Nate points that diplomacy at the target like a gun and pulls the trigger. What I need to pull the trigger is for a message to be expressed so that I can look at the creature hearing and determine the adjustments to the DC.
That said, there is both a broad difference and a fine line between intimidation and diplomacy. The way I look at it is if there are threats involved it is intimidate, otherwise it is likely diplomacy. Moving forward I will try to distinguish the base message given in simple form to determine diplomacy vs. intimidate. Any additional "color" given will shift the DC appropriately.
Bannigan, those spells are very cool. Nice to bring in some non-combat magic to enrich the RP of the campaign.
Regarding the Kingdom progression, I'm not a big fan of advancing the timeline by a substantial amount without any more Kingdom building turns. That really breaks verisimilitude for me: how is it that we built up the Kingdom we did in a few years yet do nothing the next 20? Recognizing that our current writ limits the direction we can expand in some directions without causing a war, we would still at least build out the remainder of our writ and continue to expand the cities. If some version of this can't happen, either because our Kingdom would then be too big/powerful to balance out the remaining storyline or because folks just hate doing Kingdom Building (again, I'd take care that myself if wanted), then I'd recommend we do not advance the timeline.
As for Roll20, I haven't felt there are any problems with our current set-up, but we can switch if the majority desires. I will say that I don't get a lot out of having video (doesn't help with not accidently talking over people) but I know others do.
As for Diplomacy and Intimidate, Anastasia is pretty good at both, so I'm not too concerned. Reading both skills again, the Core Rule book does not make me think that the designers had a big role in mind for Intimidate past scaring the crap out of someone briefly. Anastasia isn't above doing this, but I think that is very different than subtly reminding people that you are powerful, and a much better friend than enemy to have. In most circumstances, Anastasia is using her "face" skills to improve the Friendliness level of whomever we are talking to, or persuading people to see things her way. Both of these definitions are right out of the CRB description of Diplomacy. She isn't going to beg other people to like her/us, and feels that respect is the best avenue for good relations, but the overarching goal will almost always be what the Diplomacy skill is designed to do.
One of the reasons I would like to switch is to try and incorporate background audio into the game. Roll20 has a fair amount of fan-created background sounds that can add to the game. Also some sound effects for spells, battles and such that might be fun.
People can choose to broadcast video or not, but the audio is the key and if we do audio over the Roll20 we can have background sounds.
Regarding Kingdom progression - I'm fine with not advancing the timeline.
But the change that was discussed last session where we need to stop and do kingdom building every time we hit a month in game time has me concerned, particularly as we begin to explore further and further from our capital.
The idea that we will need to stop exploring or moving forward on the plot of the adventure path to build a kingdom that is already at the appropriate level for the adventure path is not exciting to me. Is there a way around this?
There was the idea that exploration could be done by people other than us, but then we learned that they can't actually explore things because they can't clear monsters. Could there be a solution where they run away from tough monsters and report which squares have particularly nasty dangers, and can clear out the empty squares? Then perhaps we could speed up the exploration? Could we throw BP at this somehow?
I'm not against the kingdom building as it relates to the adventure path and grows the kingdom alongside our characters, but putting the plot on hold to do a bunch of kingdom building as required by the time expense of the exploration of empty hexes is not really going to hold my attention.
Another option would be crafting two pairs of boots of teleportation with party funds(not cheap, but would take care of a lot of travel)
I thought about this as well.
I think we are to the point where we may wish to simply de-couple kingdom building and time.
Kingdom building can happen as it makes sense in the story line rather than be tied to a calendar.
Think about building a castle or a cathedral... those are decade long endeavors. At the begining, growth is very fast and every turn is crucal... but it does make sense that as things hit a certain maturity growth will slow down.
Also, Carissa should be able to take teleport at 10th, no?
Anastasia has Word of Recall now too, she'll need to get back to New Westcrown to set it up. That won't get us back to where we were adventuring but helps with one-way travel back home.
There is a varying level of interest in Kingdom Building in the group, and Bannigan and I may be on opposite ends. But I disagree with the Cathedral analogy for slowing Kingdom Building down, much of what happens would do so organically and not just on the turn it develops. Inns, Breweries, etc. are built relatively quickly. Likewise, we've made a great Kingdom by being thoughtful and diligent, if that gives us a competitive advantage over other PC's at a similar point in the AP, then so be it.
The issue of exploration by someone other than the PC's is an interesting one. If we could have a "scout team" that could simply ascertain which hexes have nothing of note in them and which do, that would maybe help. Anastasia's chain leadership could be thing here potentially.
Unrelated: I haven't had time to look into it thoroughly, but I'm probably wrong about Olegsburg's distance to New Stetvan. It does look to be equidistant from Olegsburg to Restov. Also, Patrick, what are the names of the Mayor and Smith from Varnhold....need that to build out Anastasia's followers.
I'm open for creativity, and my idea was that we didn't have to force a turn per month not that we would do a turn ever two years. It was to not force you to return all the time. Also, your kingdom is already thriving and quite powerful... Nate has pointed out that it is of a respectable size and growing. Especially with the addition of Varnhold, we are not in a place where kingdom being too small is a concern.
The issue with a "scout team" is actually "exploring" a hex involves encountering any creatures in that hex. The "exploring" is a central part of the adventure path, completing quests, finding the next piece of the adventure puzzle, etc. We would end up having to role-play out encounters with NPC's the explorers find (like the Centaurs) and they would have to at least enter caves and such to determine what is in them (and potentially be killed by inhospitable ancient cyclopes liches).
I'm not against the idea, but if we're going to have a B Team of explorers and actually have to play out encounters, that doesn't really save us time.
Likewise, with the powerful magics you have now I'm not sure we can't solution this pretty well. Especially if Carrissa takes Teleport. Before, the explorers were more useful because they could come back and report terrain and you could intelligently select which hexes to explore. Today you could overland flight and teleport around to determine how accurate Narthropple's map is.
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All that said, my goal is to make this fun and not burdensome. If we want to simply "hand-wave" exploration a little bit and hire professional adventurers for a BP cost to scout out and explore all the "empty" hexes over time... I'm not against that. Then the "A Team" could focus in on hexes that seem to be of interest. This could include things like the Linnorm Skeleton even though it doesn't have combat, and things like the Mammoths where combat is optional. We'll just assume they can "recognize the potential threats" of something like Vordekai's lair compared to a naturally occurring cave as part of the hand-waving. This may alleviate some of the non-enjoyment of kingdom building that some people have as well. Mechanically, this could involve Nate and I getting together in separate sessions and just filling in the map and forwarding results to the group for Troy to update the main map.
Mayor: Hayleigh Denalar
Smith: "Small" John Umberhold (Hint: he isn't small, but his dad even bigger.)
Few thoughts:
*Could we consider using BP's to craft 2 Pairs of Boots of Teleportation, as Bannigan suggested? This is a way to harness our success at Kingdom Building to aid the Kingdom, because being regularly present there does just that. Troy is not having Carissa take Teleport at this level, and given the limited number of spells a Sorcerer gets, might not do so for a while.
*I think it would be helpful to de-couple exploration from actual Kingdom Building, which is better defined as following the steps starting with a Stability Check through Event Phase as outlined in Ultimate Campaign. Exploration itself doesn't seem to be part of the problem, and the more I think about the less I like "A" and "B" exploratory teams. Patrick's line of reasoning is pretty convincing here. I'd recommend we leave exploration as it is, though if it were possible to have a scout team that simply ID'd the terrain in each hex and whether or not there is anything interesting to further investigate in it, that would be OK too.
*Part of the reason I like the actual Kingdom Building (as defined above) is that I don't draw a distinction between it and the story arc/"plot" of the AP. The growth of the Kingdom IS part of the plot. I'd agree with Bannigan that jam-stopping at certain points in exploration to do a Kingdom Building round can be a bit forced. The reason we came to the conclusion to do Kingdom Building turns right on the month is because of the JV Leadership team having to deal with events. Notably, Boots of Teleportation would stop this from being an issue, as Bannigan suggested. Regardless, I'm fine with not doing Kingdom Building turns right on the month, but I do want to keep doing them, preferably one for each month that passes.
*I get that our Kingdom is of a size with where the AP says it should be, and I get that the size may in some way be related to how competitively balanced our Kingdom is/will be versus future threats. But frankly I'd be fine with us being more powerful than the AP says we should be versus those threats as a reward for us building such a gosh darn awesome Kingdom. Being rigorously challenged is not a prerequisite for fun in my book. Not looking to be like 20th Lv PC's versus 2 Kobolds, but if our Kingdom is more adept against the coming enemy than most are, so be it.
I'm not allowing the purchase of magic items with BP. Sorry, I understand the reasoning is but the characters are already doing just fine on the wealth track. That said, characters are free to use wealth to purchase such boots.
I'm enjoying the kingdom building as well, and am fine with the kingdom growing bigger than the guidelines in the game.
My "hand waving" proposal is this: You use exploration edicts to explore hexes. I will allow the explorers fully explore basic hexes (with nothing notable there) and identify interesting/dangerous hexes but NOT explore them. The PC's are then given maps of the hexes that seem to have interesting/dangerous within them and travel straight there without bothering with the non-essential hexes.
With that, you will still need to travel and may end up away from home during turns with Akiros and crew filling in. However, you don't need to range nearly as much and it should speed up the game a bit.
Thoughts?
Works for me, regarding the Exploration part of things. Kingdom building doesn't need to happen on the month, but keeps going on a monthly basis, fit in where it nests best with exploration/encounters.
Boots of Teleportation are 49K each (24.5K crafted), but is more than I'm willing to devote from PC treasure at the issue. A scroll of it as an emergency plan isn't bad, and we'll have Word of Recall to help in part soon too, though she can't get the whole party back.
I'm not sure we've addressed the issue that we are facing. 4 JV turns with event phases. What happens if an event makes Anastasia or others want to return? We can't go back in time...
Bump
The Hellknight Order founded by Zorthalus
Order of the Torch - an offshoot of the Order of the Pyre that instead takes the purging flame into the field to burn away the untamed wilderness and seeks the destruction of the chaotic Fey that cloud the mind of civilized people and prevent the growth of civilization.
Key purpose: Destruction of the Fey and taming of wilderness.
New Discipline (Order of the Torch Only):
Purge Glamer - All Illusion (glamer) effects within a 30' radius of the Hellknight, except those created by the the Hellknight or his allies, are subject to a Dispel Magic effect that uses the Hellknight's character level as the caster level. Additionally, the ten foot area around the Hellknight will be subject to a Defoliate spell when this power is initiated.
Reckoning:
Members of the Order of the Torch typically carry torches and a mean to light them. As they focus on expelling unwanted thoughts from their minds, Hellknights of the Torch hold their hands and forearms within the flames of the torch.
Burn yourself over an open flame. Once per day as an immediate action, you can gain fire resistance 10 for 10 minutes. This does not stack with resist energy or any other abilities that provide fire resistance and overlaps with protection from energy.
Boons:
1) Fey Enmity: Channeling his hatred of the Fey, the Hellknight gains a +1 bonus on Intimidate, Knowledge, Perception, Sense Motive, and Survival checks against creatures of the fey subtype. Likewise, the Hellknight gets a +1 bonus on weapon attack and damage rolls against fey creatures.
2: Immolation (Sp) You can channel your wrath into power that can scorch your foes. Once per day, you can cast delayed blast fireball using your character level as your caster level.
3: Sever from Wild Magic (Su) You can tear any fey creature from its attachments to the First World and access to wild magics. Once per day as a standard action, you can target any few within 100 feet. If your target fails a Will saving throw (DC = 10 + 1/2 your Hit Dice + your Charisma bonus), it loses access to any arcane spellcasting and all the supernatural and spell-like abilities possesses for a number of rounds equal to half your character level. When a creature under the effects of this ability tries to use an ability to which it no longer has access, instead of using its magical abilities, it feels only a profound, black emptiness, as if its deity no longer existed.