GM Dak - War for the Crown 1

Game Master Dakcenturi

For everyone's reference, the base value of the market in Oppara is 25600gp, so unless we all plan on pooling our wealth to buy a sphere of annihilation we should be fine purchasing whatever we want.

Let's just by a bag of holding type 1 for the group, along with two wands of CLW. We can always upgrade to a bigger one later.

So, that would be:

58929.5 GP - 2500 GP - 1500 GP = 54929.5 / 5 = 10,985.9 GP per person.

Add 75 gp to it (half of our starting 150), and we've got 11,060.9 GP per person.

Thanks Eregos! I'll use that for Valeria.

Who's the group's strongman that will carry the bag?

I believe it would be me - I have 16 Strength, which I think is better than everyone else's, and I'll be putting all stat boosts in Strength going forward. I just wanted to even out my odd Dexterity score - plus it will help me boost my AC until I get Heavy Training.

Incidentally, while I'm not done gearing myself out yet, I have boosted my AC from 19 to 25, and I'm getting my preferred equipment.

I also no longer suffer armor check penalties on Acrobatics, Escape Artist, or Stealth checks, cause the Vigilante strikes from the shadows, a ghost until his appearance strikes fear into the hearts of the villains he hunts.

At least, I will once I get Startling Appearance.

Wow that actually qualifies as a tank at this level. As in you can expect normal enemies to miss you the majority of the time. Combined with your good spread of saves, you're going to be pretty hard to take down.

GM how do you feel on ioun stones? I like to invest in some of the cheap ones for how efficient they are (small skill bonuses, initiative bonuses, etc.) but I have had some players/GMs express their disapproval of intentionally buying flawed/cracked ioun stones as cheese.

I'll keep using the wand of CLW that has 39 charges left and Sveng can use the new wand. That doubles our healing capacity.

I'm pretty busy this week and I'll only update Valeria if GM Dak is planning to start Book 2 this week and/or has settled the matter of the additional PC joining us (i.e. class, party role, etc... as it might affect how I level up Valeria)

I believe it seems we purchased two additional wands. Let's make sure to mark where the reserve one is located.

Here are some items I'm currently looking at.
Gloves of Reconnaissance
Deathwatch Eyes
Slipper of Spider Climbing

Those items all tend to be more "dungeon crawl" oriented, but can be used in subterfuge as well. Seeing into rooms and being able to scale buildings seems valuable, and deathwatch can help to identify creatures (especially if they're trying to trick us about their true nature) and has bonus for style points.

There's also a headband of wisdom, although I've been buffing up with owl's wisdom and that has been serving me fine, plus Sveng would appreciate as many mental buffs as he can get so I may just save up for a beefier headband.

Although also I have some base "number boosting" items like magic armor and a cloak of resistance that I suppose I should peruse as well.

I don't have any issues with ioun stones.

As for starting book 2, there is a little bit of closure to do on this book, but yes we need to figure out what is going on with the party. As Sveng noted, Hargus is pretty beefy now so it is up to you all if you really want to bring in a sixth (though I also don't think we have heard back from Sydney yet either).

So, you all let me know your thoughts on that. I have a pool of people to potentially pull from if we do and I can check on interest there first before we go looking elsewhere, but it really depends on whether you all feel you need another.

Confirmed for book 2:
Hargus
Sveng
Piri
Valeria

My thoughts: reach out to Sydney to confirm if he's still in, and yes, recruit another player regardless whether Sydney is in or not... either a warpriest or swashbuckler or fighter. Sveng can buff up such a front-liner with many cleric spells. Valeria's inspire courage is mostly only used on Hargus and Piri at this time. We need another pointy stick swinger to take advantage of inspire courage. Between Hargus, Sveng and Valeria we should be ok for skills. Since we are using Background Skills, the swash or ftr you'll recruit will have two extra maxed skills that might prove useful shore up the skills front.

@Sveng: I'd hold off on the item selection until the heroes receive the debrief for their next mission, as it might help with the decision.

A side effect of actually being able to afford medium armor, a boosted Dex bonus, and the Taldan Duelist feat giving an extra +1 AC when I fight with a falcata and buckler.

I also get a +2 bonus to Acrobatics, but that doesn't affect AC.

From a skill standpoint, I think we all get 6 + Int mod skill points per level. We are very good on skills.

I agree with Valeria that we need to make sure Sydney is still in. I do think we should recruit someone else who can take the front line, regardless - unless we fight in a lot of bottlenecks, a group of two or three melee enemies will be able to just move around me out of my reach and go for the squishies in back while another occupies me. Being able to create a defensive line would be good for the group's survival.

I can take the other wand. I have a pretty good UMD score.

Sorry everyone - I got behind due to work, and then this was a very chatty game, so it took me a bit to catch up.

I am good to continue. I am not sure Sydney is proving to be very useful yet, but I knew it would be a few levels before he got rolling. Wizards are a fairly uncommon choice for me, so I am having a bit more trouble getting into the swing of things, but I think I would like to persevere and see if I can make it work for me. Plus we seem to have most else covered...

Let me see what level 4 brings before I settle. I will work on that today.

As far as equipment goes, I see we sold everything except:
Figurine of Wondrous Power (Silver Raven)
Dignity's Barb Relic
Envoy Ring Relic (I believe Sydney is wearing this)

I have a few items I had held on to, and am wondering if those were in the "sold" pile, and if so, can I buy back at 50% (ie. just keep in lieu of gold?)

Pearl of Power (1st level)
scroll of dispel magic, a scroll of invisibility, a scroll of mirror image, and a scroll of mount
wand of shocking grasp
potions of delay poison (2)
and I think a spellbook.

I need to sort out equipment and spells today, so just confirming what I have to work with.

Don't worry about usefulness Sydney, wizards are always an investment, and once you have some more levels under your belt you will quickly be the reality shaper you were meant to be. As for now, make liberal use of scrolls.

Yeah buy at 50% using your own loot share: that way it makes no difference to the others! :)

If we can do that, then I bought back the amulet of natural armor +1 I was wearing for 50% cost.

Still need to spend the rest of my cash.

So, I went back and double checked the loot and somehow I think Valeria's numbers were off as I came out to a total of 30027.7 which comes out to 6005.54 per person which is much more in line with what the WBL should be. (The above doesn't include the two artifacts or the silver raven statue you noted you were keeping). I think what may have happened is Vel didn't account for a good portion of items selling at half price and just added the total of everything up maybe?

That would make more sense, yes.

What did those two artifacts do again?

None of you are aware of the full extent of their power yet but you know at least what they can do now:

Ring: The ring grants its wearer a +2 competence bonus on Diplomacy, Linguistics, and Perform checks. Once per day, the wearer can speak a command word to transform her appearance and clothing, as per disguise self. The appearance of her clothing automatically matches the customs of the dominant culture around her, typically that of the local nobility or ruling class. Her physical features don’t match those of the local people, but features that would make her stand out diminish, such as elf ears in a settlement where no elves live. This lasts up to 24 hours, but can be dismissed at any time. The caster level of any spell effect generated by the ring is 1 + 2 per triumph attained.

First Triumph: The ring can be activated to cast charm person (DC = 15 + 1 per additional triumph attained) and comprehend languages each once per day.

Crossbow: The crossbow gives its wielder a touch of the luck that bore the general to great victories. Anyone firing Dignity’s Barb reduces any miss chance from concealment by 5%.

First Triumph: Dignity’s Barb is a +1 darkwood light crossbow and reduces miss chances from concealment by 10%. In addition, once per day when the weapon threatens a critical hit, the wielder can roll twice to confirm the critical hit and take the better result.

Hi GM Dak,

Here's the spreadsheet with all the money I could find in that book - I definitely divided the items by 2 for sale (see the equations in the left column) so let me know where I went wrong! :)

As for the ring, I'd like to keep using it as it's a shoe-in for a bard, if that's ok with the group.

I don't mind the crossbow either mind you, but if someone wants it that's fine as I'm not going to do a lot of attack actions (mostly healing, buffing and spellcasting)

I wouldn't say no to a better ranged option than my 4 daggers, but it's also clearly a secondary weapon for me, to be used if I can't reach enemies.

Of course, I have a Draconic bloodrager/Dragon Disciple in a Giantslayer game who ended up with the magic longbow as loot because no one else wanted it, so it's not the first time I've gotten a magic item that ends up getting used as a backup.

I certainly have no interest in the crossbow.

The ring is interesting, but I have a hat of disguise already and Valeria would get more mileage out of it, so I agree it should go to her.

Let me know when the math is figured out, I haven't spent any time at all double checking any numbers so I have no idea what's right or not.

Alright here are where I see errors:

Theft Mission - You guys didn't grab everything only the request items so that 1600 should be null.
You can't sell the aid badges as Martella will want those back.
The servant area should only be 50gp (two potions at base 50gp, so -100).
The archive only be 262.5 for the scrolls.
Martella keeps the chatterbox so -150.
Sycophants weren't looted so -594.
C14 you guys returned the items there so -3597.5.
E3. E6. E8. E9 you skipped -2000,-450,-445,-1005.

There were a couple of things I missed though that you caught. So with the above in mind you are at 45050.5/5 = 9010.1.

I would highly recommend, in the future, someone take responsibility for updating the loot sheet. I usually do this in games I play in, but between doing it for the games I play in, in addition to how many games I GM I can't keep up with all of it :). If you want to use a different loot sheet then what I have, feel free to make one and send me a link and I will link it instead.

I think it's faster to do it like we did here: compile everything at the end. You can either do it yourself or have me do it again and then I send it to you to parse through like you did here. I honestly don't have the time to go through 10+ pages of discussion posts and 28+ pages of gameplay, and I wouldn't want to inflict that on the GM either.

In another campaign I'm in that you also GM, we are doing the loot as we go using a loot sheet, and I must say that it is excruciating to maintain, and a constant pain to balance who gets how many gold pieces every time loot is uncovered.

Happy to help, but I won't keep track as we go... so someone else can perhaps step up and do it if that's the way you want it.

Val, I'm happy you're doing it, and do it however you like. I thank you for your efforts.

While I can use the crossbow instead of my shortbow, I had intended to use our money to purchase some enchantment on my current shortbow. Could I please have some input from my fellow party members as to advice here? Also, somewhere in the back of my mind I think that a shortbow is faster? Is faster something that's important to my character? I'm really only a martial pest, not really a big damage dealer.

Hmm, I think my post from earlier was eaten.

I'm happy to grab the loot as we go. I don't find it terribly difficult to keep a list of whatever crap we grab, having the list is most of the legwork, and just like household chores it's easier to do it in bits and pieces as it needs to be done rather than putting it off until it has to be done.

Piri, what precisely would you like your character to be doing? Are you just wanting "how to be more deadly in combat" advice? Because if that's the route, then I highly suggest grabbing either a rapier or shortsword and either fencing grace or slashing grace to get dex to damage, because investigators are designed to be secondary melee characters (since their studied strike only works in melee). You can buff yourself up with extracts and maybe even grab the mutagen ability from an investigator talent. I also highly recommend potion glutton so you can buff yourself as a swift action. Quick study is helpful at later levels. You'll eventually be able to buff yourself with an extract as a swift action, move to close distance, study as a free action, and attack all in the same turn.

Anyways, that's my 2 cents on how to make investigators dangerous in combat.

Don't take potion glutton! he's trying again to rope you into the worship of an evil god!!!! :)

PS: happy to have Sveng take care of the loot... it took me at least two hours to put that together on a late night... :P

Bah, I usually use the PFSRD for reference and all of their "lore specific prerequisites" are often snipped out.

Still don't understand how one website doesn't have to care about copyright while the other does.

But hey, not a bad goddess! Lots of death to be done, and that's what you want right? :)

@Sveng: archives of nethys is the official site for Paizo content... as of a few months ago...

@Piri: if your goal is to become an archer instead, I'd go for a simple ranger, or if you want more tricks, a cleric of Erastil instead... something like this: (click on the name under spoiler to see a level 1 version... the stats under spoiler are for the level 6 version...)

Hinterlander gets you Favored Enemy like a ranger...

That new amount actually is even easier for me than the previous amount - I don't have to change any of my previous purchases, and now I don't have an extra 1,000 gp lying around to try and figure out what to buy. Thank you!

Piri, Sveng's first question is the important question - what do you want your role to be in combat? The investigator is designed for a rogue-like role where you act as a secondary melee combatant with studied combat and studied strike.

However, nothing stops you from being a fully functional archer. A Dex-based mutagen is just as effective for you as a finesse-based melee combatant, your extracts provide boosts, and archery is a strong combat style. If you pick up Rapid Shot, Manyshot, and Clustered Shots, your damage will pick up quite a bit, as will getting a wand of gravity bow.

At this point, you have committed two feats to an Archery Style - Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot. You could switch to a Dex-based melee style, beginning with level 5 (there's a quick way and a long way), or continue with archery. We can give you advice either way.

Purchases:
Gloves of Reconnaissance (2000gp)
Mind Sentinel Medallion (3500gp)
Cloak of Resistance +1 (1000gp)
Cracked Dusty Rose Prism (500gp)
Cracked Dark Blue Rhomboid (400gp)
Cracked Mossy Disk (200gp)
Cracked Mulberry Pentacle (400gp)
Scroll of Dispel Magic x2 (750gp)
Scroll of Bestow Curse (375gp)
Scroll of Daylight (375gp)
Scroll of Blindness/Deafness (375gp)

Puts me at about -9 gold, selling some alchemical items to make up for the difference.

GM, for your reference, my initiative has increased by 1 and the mind sentinel medallion may have some interesting effects if somebody goes after Sveng mentally.

Spend so far: 1180. I will work on gear next. And it sounds like I am giving up the ring, but that's ok. I am already decent at those skills, and don't generally have much interest in disguise.

My interest was not to be a melee character. I planned on archery to be my main martial contribution. I read that this was a more skill heavy whatdoyoucallit? adventure path? I forget. Anyway, I never have been much into skills and I figured someone else would be high charisma and I could use int for bluff and intimidate. Also, can be an effective lie detector with skill bonuses. I only have the archery because I am delicate.

Alright, with loot sorted for the most part and people finishing up their levels I went ahead and moved us onto finishing out the book. I am looking at some options for a 6th and have a few PMs out to people that have expressed interest in the past or I think might be a good fit. If I don't hear back by next week I will throw up a recruitment post. Will look to kick off the next book early next week so please work on finalizing everything for your characters and be sure to update your status line under your name with updated character stats.

My interest was not to be a melee character. I planned on archery to be my main martial contribution. I read that this was a more skill heavy whatdoyoucallit? adventure path? I forget. Anyway, I never have been much into skills and I figured someone else would be high charisma and I could use int for bluff and intimidate. Also, can be an effective lie detector with skill bonuses. I only have the archery because I am delicate.

Okay, great. In that case, I suggest that you focus on picking up archery feats as we go, starting with Rapid Shot at level 5 and Manyshot once you have a base attack bonus of +6. From there, get Clustered Shots to deal with DR. That will allow you to be competent and effective enough at archery to still contribute when we do have combats, while allowing you to focus more on your skills. Regardless, I would make increasing Dexterity your priority, since just because this is a more skill heavy adventure path, that doesn't mean there's no combat. It is Pathfinder, after all.

Purchases:
Cloak of resistance +1 (500*)
Ring of protection +1 (1000*)
Mithral shirt (1100)
Darkwood buckler (203)
MW rapier (160*)
Headband of Alluring Charisma (4000)
=6,963gp

*Sold at 1/2 price to Val instead of selling for 1/2 to merchant.

Val, I'm not going to use the crossbow so it should be considered sold or you can have it.

Purchases:
Pearl of power (500 buyback)
Cloak of Resistance +1 (500 buyback)
Rod of Extend (3000) 3x per day to double duration
Rod of Giant Summoning (3000) 3x per day to add Giant simple template

@GM - This last one I had not seen before, and while it is Paizo, I wanted to check to make sure you are ok with it.

In addition, Sydney will scribe the following scrolls:

Darkvision (75)
Knock (75)
See Invisibility (75)

Obscurring mist (12.5)
Detect secret doors (12.5)

Detect Poison x2 (6.25)
Read Magic x2 (6.25)

=7275 gp

Val, I'm not going to use the crossbow so it should be considered sold or you can have it.

I suggests we don't sell any of the relics we find in this campaign... even though it could mean a PC could have two on their person at some point. Anyone can pretty much shoot a crossbow, too, so we can pass it around as it gets more powerful.

Yes let's definitely not get rid of the powerful campaign-specific magic item. And Piri at this level a crossbow is essentially just as good as any other bow, it's only when you have a BaB over 5 and a bunch of archery feats that you will need to be firing multiple times a round (or if you want a composite bow to add your strength rating to damage, but your strength is only 12 so that's not super important).

yeah, Investigators are limited to shortbows so longbow is out and I have seen crossbows, in some posts but I think there may be a limitation on hand crossbows only.

Sold for 50% shortbow, studded leather. Purchased:
Studded leather +1 1175
Shortbow + 1 2330
effecient quiver 1800
ring of protection + 1 2000
arrows:
blunt 20 2gp
silver angel quill arrowhead 20 200gp
Adamantine quill arrowhead 20 200gp
total 7707, I will carry 30 regular arrows in the quiver and 10 of each of the others.

@GM Dak: in the days leading to the Princess meeting Valeria will research the two relics using libraries in Oppara. Could you please provide the lore/history behind the items? Thank you!

Sveng Level 5

???

Valeria Level 4

HP: 6 (1/2 HD +1) + 1 Con = 6
BAB: +1
Saves: +1 Reflex, +1 Will
Favored Class: Bard
Ability Score Increase: +1 Cha

Skill Ranks: 6 + 2 Int + 1 Human + 1 FCB +2 Background = 12
Diplomacy +1
Disguise +1
Knowledge (dungeoneering) +1
Knowledge (engineering) +1 (Background)
Knowledge (geography) +1 (Background)
Knowledge (history) +1
Knowledge (nature) +1
Knowledge (nobility) +1
Perform Sing +1
Perform Dance +1
Spellcraft +1
Use Magic Device +1

Class Features: none (2nd level spells)

Sveng wrote:

Sveng Level 5

???

Just realized I had a typo, Sveng is now level 4, not 5, and his leveling was done appropriately for that.

I thought you squeezed a bonus adventure during "Sveng's Fantastic Weekend"
:)

So the few people I have PMed from the previous recruitment said they were no longer interested for various reasons. As such, I am likely going to have to re-open recruitment. If anyone knows of someone that may be a good fit and is interested feel free to have them PM me. Otherwise, I will open a recruitment thread tomorrow.

I've asked a certain player I'm GMing at another table. If informed him we need a tank. Will let you know ASAP...

Any word? I have someone else who PMed me that I am getting more info from so will see how that goes.

That player is overextended as is and does not wish to take on more games.