Varden: the rules actually assume the same thing you are assuming. A unit of BP is mostly in the form of labor and materials.
In feudal kingdoms most taxes are owed in the form of labor or goods anyways. For more advanced economies we could be taxing things in coin but then paying for all these things, so the money goes in and then out again.
Some Future Ideas:
I've been looking at the map, thinking about where we should expand.
From a military standpoint Qazag would think that securing the mountain pass to the south is a priority, since the mountains divide the continent into two parts.
So I imagine that after claiming all the hexes adjacent to the capital we will start claiming things to the south.
I envision the first 10 hexes we will claim will be the ones I have outlined in red. Note that there are a lot of mountains in this area, but it is worth mentioning that all these mountain hexes are either on the coast or on a river, which means that fisheries can be built there. Inland mountains without rivers will be less valuable.
Once we have those hexes we could start a second settlement at X (hex J-4). At this point our kingdom size will be 11 (12 once the second settlement is built) and this bumps us up into the next category; we can build more improvements per turn and claim 2 hexes per turn. So we want to get to that kingdom size quickly.
After that I envision that we would spread west and site Y (hex G-3) would be our third city. After that we could spread south from Y or east towards Z (which is another good city spot).
How does that sound?
Month Three
Opening Treasury Balance: 23
Rural:
1 BP Claim Hex
4 BP Farm
3 BP Road-Capital Hex
Town:
12 BP Granary (+1 LOY, +1 STA, stores food)
For the claimed hex this turn perhaps we will go for the hill hex to the south, hill hexes are handy.
Closing Treasury Balance: 3
I was picking up a little more support for the Granary over the mill. There's plenty of basic and fancy buildings for us to get to but I think we're off to a good start, keep expanding slowly and steadily.
Month Three
It's Month Four. Month Three we only had 3 BP and built 1 road with it.
Opening Treasury Balance: 23
Actually this should be 17 BP. See posts above, but here's a recap:
End of Month 3 Edict Phase: 0 BP
Month 3 Income Phase: +17 BP taxes. +1 BP Mine. Total now 18.
Month 4 Upkeep Phase: -1 BP Consumption. Total now 17 BP.
So we can't afford a granary yet but we can afford a mill. A mill gives +1 ECO, +1 STA.
Note we still get a 1 BP discount on construction for the Lyre of Building.
Our size goes up by 1 but the farm we are building reduces consumption by 2 so next upkeep we will have no consumption.
Woohoo! We're Consumption neutral!
Next turn we go for a Granary, I think. This turn a Mill.
Do we have any Unrest?
EDIT: We good with where I put the Mill?
Alright I guess I am getting muddled up, used to doing this round a table so to speak. A mill isn't a bad option if we can't do the granary.
With the discount from the Lyre we will be spending 13 BP, so we will have 4 left. So if we want to send out explorers we can still afford them. But do we want to?
I would love to know more about what is to the southwest, but we have lots of space to expand into right now. So it can probably wait if we want to build more things next turn. Like a granary.
Woohoo! We're Consumption neutral!
Next turn we go for a Granary, I think. This turn a Mill.
Do we have any Unrest?
EDIT: We good with where I put the Mill?
Once we get into negative consumption you can also think about adding more holidays. It's worth it to keep building farms for that reason.
We have no unrest. Actually, we haven't done the stability check for Month 4 yet, so that will probably net us an extra BP.
The mill is fine... we will probably build a second one next to it when the city is bigger.
Placing bonus economy.
I was thinking over the month basically keep the cap of what Samuel can sell in non BP ways equal to the settlement's purchase limit. Though half the time this will just be in exchange for favours etc. If we get more settlements etc then he has more places to sell goods. Eventually we will hit a ceiling on how much he can supply for various reason, big boy countries do end up with more than one person making magic items after all.
Iplard is currently a small town so it's purchase limit would be 5,000gp currently. Since he can only sell magic items at half cost that's like ten low end magic items or one slightly more significant one over the course of the month. Samuel has hedge magician so he can actually turn a small profit at this. At the current rate it would be 500gp, he would talk to Kurhat about getting a loan from the treasury/raw materials for making the items (as he doesn't have the loose cash himself). Half of the profit going back into the treasury should keep people happy.
So every month Samuel gains 250gp personally and the treasury gains 250gp at the current size of the settlement and Samuel's abilities. After a while Samuel should have enough to start thinking about improving his headband of charisma or just buying build points and him commissioning a hospital to be built so most of the money he makes will improve the Kingdom and benefit the party though he may selfishly get a belt of constitution... because disease. He might grant people rewards for good service and upgrade their gear over time but getting stat boosting items from a +2 to a +4 is a lot of money so wont happen too often but it would still be nice and it works in the rich benevolent ruler angle.
The purchase limit for the town is actually based on the buildings we build when using Kingdom Building rules, not the standard size of town rules. The only building we have contributing to the purchase limit currently is the Pier, which provides +1000 to the limit. So, our purchase limit is 1000.
Promotion Edict stays the same.
Aww newts. So only 100gp profit, 50gp for the treasury and 50gp for Samuel.
As long as no one objects I guess it's reasonably good bang for your buck.
As long as no one objects I guess it's reasonably good bang for your buck.
Samuel: All the promotion edict does is improve stability and our stability is pretty good right now; even if we lose 4 points of stability or have 4 unrest we still only fail a Stability Check on a natural 1.
I'd rather wait until we have the spare farmland that can support such an edict without paying any BP for it before we do it. The edict doesn't really help us right now.
What we really need to boost right now is Loyalty (and Economy for more money).
New Hex: My preference would be to claim the one directly south of Iplard but it doesn't make a lot of difference if we claim the other hill.
Well that's an objection for now!
Also just so you all know. I am still here! I'm reading a following along. I just sadly either lack input or what I would have said has been said.
Agreed, I'm going to PM Evin's player, still waiting on him for Vadren's meeting.
Edit: He's had no posts since June 28th but I've PMed him.
Tsiala seems to have disappeared from the boards as well.
Dengorin will happily take over the duties of High Priest of the good of the colony.
I thought I'd seen Tsiala's player post in another thread. I could be wrong though.
So um... What do we do then?
I think we're waiting to hear from the GM?
It seems the GM as disappeared. His last post was the one in this thread, and that was 2 weeks ago.
It happens sometimes. I'm not very optimistic about his return.
So do we try for anew GM? Or just keep going on? Or what?
Lets give him a bit more time hut perhaps we could roll on the events table as inspiration for something to RP about for the time being. We've still got a good few enthusiastic players.
I'd be tempted to take over as GM myself, but I have a fair bit on my plate right now. And if I did a game like this I'd probably want to start from scratch. Since this is not based on published material, finding a new GM will be tricky.
I hope everything gets better Eragar!
Though with that what do you all wish to do?
We could redo characters based on these ones if Qazag has something in mind whether it be a new homebrew workd or Inner Sea or another setting. The essence of the characters could be retained but characters rebuilt to suit a bit more.
And sorry to here Eragar.
An idea is forming in my mind...
However, I think I would be inclined to run it more as a more standard adventure. It would be an adaptation of an old adventure.
Can everyone sound off? Who is still around and wants to carry on?
I will go with the group consensus. I know that RL can be troublesome at times and I hope all goes well for you Eragar :)
I am, I imagine we wont be doing the Kingdom building elements necessarily? Should we start thinking about leveling up or down the characters?
No, what I am thinking would still have Kingdom building elements as the basis for the mission the players are sent on. But if I am doing that I would rather have the players be the ones doing the exploring and so on.
3rd level is probably about right though. Might need to revisit the build rules, but the character concepts don't need to change.
The overall concept would be very similar to what is currently in the thread; the players are selected to lead a mission to found a colony. As with the existing game, the colonists will arrive by sea and the new colony will be in the tropics.
It's going to take a little while to pull this together so I'm not going to post any kinds of rules or anything yet. It's also going to take a fair bit of work so I will also predict that the posting rate will need to be only ~3 posts per week on average.
I'd be down for it, if you're up to running it. Dengorin may need some reworking to make him a bit less of a stay-at-home priest, but otherwise I think I'll be good.
Same. Abalia mainly has stay at home spells.
Sounds like a plan.
Sounds just fine to me.
Okay, guys. Let's get things rolling.
I'm not going to post much about the game world yet. But you can assume that your characters will be sent by the ruler of a nation that is a fairly vanilla fantasy realm. It is dominated by humans but has plenty of halflings and elves and gnomes, and some dwarves also. It is in a warm temperate climate and while it has a settled and well-populated core it also has lots of wilderness, mostly forests and hills and a few mountains. Other than some evil humanoids and monsters in the wilds it is basically at peace with most of its neighbours.
If your character is not going to be from this country there are plenty of other nations they could be from. There is a fairly typical "elven kingdom" and "dwarven kingdom." There are also a lot of human nations that for the most part are vaguely based on medieval nations from Earth. So if you would prefer that your character came from "Germany" or "Egypt" or "Norway" or "Greece" or something the world can accommodate that.
So Your First Assignment:
Your characters will already be an adventuring party. So I would like to you to come up with ideas as to how you came together.
I also want to assume that you have completed an adventure that has brought you fame and the attention of the local ruler. You get to decide what this adventure was, so we have a bit of background that is in common to all of you. The main Caveat will be that the adventure would still have to be suitable for 1st and 2nd level characters, and you have basically just made 3rd level.
I will be allowing you to generate NPCs to come along so this adventure could involve a rescue of some type, and some of the people you rescued have chosen to join your expedition.
Your Second Assignment:
You will also need to revisit your character concepts since you will be more involved in combat and exploration. I'm not going to get into build rules just yet but you should have an idea of where your character will be going and what abilities he should have. But a few notes:
We're going to take our time here because there are a lot of things I will need to prepare. So no hurry.
Regarding the second assignment: Bolt Ace Gunslinger okay? I'm sticking with the cleric of Abadar, but I'd like get a little better with a crossbow.
For the first assignment, I like the idea of a rescue of some kind. Perhaps we were traveling to "insert generic village here" when we were attacked by bandits. After fighting them off, we arrived at the village only to discover that the bandit leaders had taken a dozen youths (15-20 range) for some unknown purpose. We're offered a reward by the beleaguered and undermanned garrison to locate the bandits and try and rescue the kidnapped youths. We find the bandit camp and manage to disperse them and rescue the kidnappees.
More detail might be needed, but that's the gist.
I don't have a problem with with the bolt ace archetype per se. For the party's primary divine caster though, you should think carefully about diluting your casting abilities with other class levels. But I'd rather not get into mechanics right now and just have people think about the overall concept.
The concept behind your hypothetical adventure is fine, though if the people you are rescuing are "youths" they might not be old enough to join your expedition.
I'll probably be keeping Samuel as a full bard though will be reworking him for something a bit more swashbuckly but I always take plenty of cure spells so on the hit point side that should make things easier for our cleric friend!
We could go into the Spheres of Power spellcasting, where one sphere pick can solve all the clerical problems...with the exception of death until later levels. It's way more cooler than normal pathfinder stuff and I could turn my dwarf into a gold loving dragon with a few choice picks. Everyone wins!
Sorry, not willing to run Spheres of Power. I don't have time to learn a whole new magic system on top of all the other work I will be doing for this game.
I went with 15-20 because Pathfinder ages have that being an adult for the game. We can go older if people prefer. Heck, some of the villagers could be so grateful they decided to travel with us, bringing their families.
I wasn't thinking a huge amount of bolt ace, just a small dip to maybe make using a crossbow more effective. There are traits to help with the caster level loss. I love the idea that Abadar's favored weapon is the crossbow, and his priests should be good with it, but it really isn't the most effective weapon without sufficient investment.
I've never used Spheres of Power, but I looked over it a bit. If we go that route, I might need some help getting everything figured out.
Anyone else have ideas for our beginner adventure?
I have always found it funny how ineffective the crossbow is in games, when it is a holy terror of a weapon in reality.
Ah drats! Well, I'll leave a lesson for those that are ever interested. It's a way funner way of casting magic and I highly encourage spheres of power as a spell casting system.
If I wanted to be a ranger, I would want to be the shapeshifting kind. But that's third party and taboo! I'll leave a link anyway, just to throw it out there as an alternative, spell-less ranger. Skin-Changer Ranger Class
It's ineffective in Pathfinder, at least. In Morrowind, it was my baby! So good at everything.
Thankfully, I don't need to be any class over the other, as profession merchant can be picked up by any class. This allowed me to pick up classes that helped me make the character concept I had in mind.
It's not really magic, it's more like picking up abilities. Like the kineticist doesn't throw fireballs, he has fire abilities and a fire blast. When you pick up a sphere of choice, you get the base ability (or abilities). That counts as 1 talent. Each class gets a bonus +2 talents at level 1. So that's 2 base spheres, or 1 base sphere and 1 talent. For instance, you want to be a blaster at level 1. So you take up the Destruction Sphere. That's 1 of your starting talents and you get the Destructive Blast ability for free with the sphere purchase. And you want to do some chain lightning at level 1 because it's cool, so you pick up the Chain Blast (shape) talent. You might have more talents to spend depending on your class.
Depending on your class, you may get more or less talents overall. The Incanter, or wizardy class, starts with 2 and the +2 for level 1. They also have a bonus feat that can be spent to get another talent or a metamagic feat. The Incanter has full 1-20 caster level progression. The Mageknight, however, maxes out at 10 caster level at 20th level, because he's a Low Caster. So as a Low Caster, you want abilities that don't necessarily rely on caster level to be nice. Mid Caster can go either way. When you take the Destruction Sphere, you'll notice a chart that references your caster level and the damage scaling. At max level, our low caster is blasting for 5d6, while our high caster is blasting for 10d6 and has a better save. But our low caster is in heavy armor and front-lining or something.
Speaking of Metamagic, each character has a spell pool. I'm pretty sure all abilities of Sphere casting require concentration and you can spend points to maintain effects without doing so, unless you're out. Pool points are your class level + your casting stat bonus. Pool points can also be spent on neat things like our Destruction sphere's spend a point and get 1d6 damage per caster level (minimum of 2d6) at level 1. That's per ability used, so after 5 rounds of blasting for 2d6, you've spent 5 points. Metamagic works in a way that you spend the points equal to the modification number. So a Quickened sphere effect costs you 4 points and can be done at level 1. Likely once-twice a day, as you won't have more than 10 points at level 1.
At level 1, characters also gain a casting tradition. This is how you cast your sphere powers. These are optional and grant you bonus spell pool points per drawback that they come with. Some are worth more and it will tell you. I picked up Blood Magic on my last character as his casting tradition. Through the Extended spell casting drawback, all abilities were full-round actions. I had verbal components, couldn't wear armor, and used 1 HP per ability that didn't return until I rested like kineticist burn. In return, I got little caster level buffs when near death, could fatigue myself for a small caster level buff, and used my Con modifier as my casting stat. Not a bad trade off, but I couldn't move and cast.
There's caster traditions for Lycanthropes, bards, Chi stuff, just about anything. It's much more interesting than saying, "I'm a divine caster. I'm an arcane caster. We cast spells in the same fashion. Yay." Of course, there's psychic casting, and nobody uses wordcasting. You shut down the main two in the same fashion. Stick a sock in their mouth and their not casting verbal spells. Stick a sock in a Lycanthrope's mouth and prepare to get clawed to death as he doesn't use verbal components at all. Or somatic components. Or emotional components. He will still shapeshift and wreck your face because you didn't do your homework!
And don't even think about getting traits/items/feats to increase your caster level. Those are highly discouraged in Spheres play to be allowed. Just saying.