Sorry I've been out for the early part of this week. I had a mild case of food poisoning, but it was a busy week at work, so I got backlogged. I'll fill-in the slides later on Thursday.
Regarding the conversation in the thread so far.
1. 8 must go. 10 should be a buffer state to the lesser lands to the south. Depending on how advanced clockwork mechanisms are, a naval conflict with 6 could be problematic. Given our proximity to the mainland, it is worth considering what exploratory parties could do for us there.
2. Being morally-flexible, Alvero is mainly worried with the economic stability of the realm, not who the country must upset to achieve it. He has an acute understanding of leverage via scarcity, and it is his believe material might - as well as political - revolve around a society's ability to feed and function from day to day.
3. The above being said, he is a mage. One of the resources in the area he's interested in putting a net over is gems, for they are necessary components for a number of spells. While the idea of a land of archmages is lofty, magicians do have a tendency to become concerned about their status amongst one another and start infighting. Neutering them by leveraging their material components keeps firefights to mere embers.
4. Despite being a mathematician myself, I must agree sacred geometry as a feat is BS. The others I've not heard great things about.
5. Alvero will be taking item creation feats as he levels, I imagine. The question is mainly which sorts of these it would be. He has scribe scroll, though craft wand/wondrous item come to mind.
Speaking as a front-liner, arms and armor comes to mind! And if you have both that and wonderous, you can take craft construct, which certainly could give us an advantage over the other nations if we had a constructor, after all they come in lots of sizes and shapes!
Well, looks like the lucky folk of the Vault are the first to get a look at WHAT exists in their Kingdom!
I've added some slides with these on them, but what you "own" in your Kingdom is being added to this spreadsheet!
Scanning this table- I see two "mostly" and a "mechanically", so give everything another check and get those switched to "yes" when you have a chance!
One character each at the other two tables are still in process, so we are getting very near to the starting pistol shot here!
So close... I can almost taste it!
Aiming for Wednesday evening kick off (I was hoping to be ready tonight, but I am down from this vaccine); if everyone can please wrap up characters by then!
I am exceedingly excited! I've been trying to brush up on my kingdom building rules!
I was ill. I am ready to start. What remains to be done is some background fluff and backstory. Not a showstopper, especially since she's likely an outsider to her community despite fighting for it.
And we are off!
I know we just started, but I'm really really happy with the characterization so far. I just hope I can measure up!
For the record, I wrote that before GM posted but had trouble posting...but it still seems fine.
While she wouldn't try to get in the spotlight in such a situation, sitting in the corner watching stuff unfold is not a great introduction sequence :)
Alvero, do you have share memory? It's a second level wizard spell, if not I'll spend some of my leftover money to get it added to your spellbook.
Hey all, posting will be slow for a while; I work in the tourism and hospitality industry in a city where St. Pat's is 1000% everything, apologies as we go into this next week
No worries!
Hey all, posting will be slow for a while; I work in the tourism and hospitality industry in a city where St. Pat's is 1000% everything, apologies as we go into this next week
I demand a rainbow be saved for me!
To be more concise:
There are 3 tribal territories, and they only got reunited under 1 King 10 years ago.
My suggestion is to move to the tribal territory that causes border friction right now, then forcibly make the local leader submit - whether with a duel to the death, replacing him with someone ambitious, or intimidation.
If we can get one region to submit, chances are the two others realize they are in trouble. The overking will probably not give up, but the second territory may, through some skillful negotiation.
The rebels and trouble-makers, also from those regions, will probably rally to their king, who may not have the strength to attack us, but also not the logistical means to keep his force fully mobilized long. We can lay a trap for him, seemingly leaving a key position understaffed in preparation of an offense - only to encircle him when he makes a move.
There's small scale politics, small-scale combat, large scale politics, and large scale combat...a bit of everything, while most of the region will be spared the horrors of war, if we can end it with one decisive battle(and honestly, it's an easy way to get rid of a lot of expected troublemakers 'adhering to the old ways' rather than embracing the Vault - so one bloody battle probably works out fine for us in the long term, for integration and assimilation purposes - plus as a warning for potential re-offenders.)
I think in this specific gameplay experiment, it also depends on GM a bit. I suppose if there is an option for interaction between the realms, we want to stay 'relatively' close in the timeline between the tables.
Likely, also level-wise we don't a gap that makes interaction meaningless.So if we deal with this personally, and 2 other realms resolve it by dispatching some NPC, we may fall behind timewise but earn more XP - which could be problematic.
(Imagine we deal with every issue ourselves, the others only with what must be done - they are now months ahead in the time frame, when our overlevelled selfs suddenly decide to stage a coup against them months earlier.)
So while I may have a preference on these matters, for this to work better, I'd let GM decide on when things require our personal touch and when we can safely leave it to underlings - so that the tables see about the same amount of action and work within a somewhat stable time framework :)
Yeah, this is going to take some figuring out on my part- the three tables are at three different parts of their first “initial problems” sets.
I haven’t announced how we are doing leveling and XP yet because I’m still toying with it- I think I am tending towards something more fixed than the old “how much xp of monsters did you slay” model.
Note to self: When we inevitably become absurdly wealthy attach a ring gate to the back of my armor, and give the other gate to whoever's a healer.
For the record these, and many Nictari have a newly created Regional Trait:
Heart of Nictari: You fight with the fierceness and individuality of the Nictari tribe, learning their wild ways from an early age. You gain a +1 trait bonus to will saves and attacks with weapons of the spears group.
Howdy, y'all, hell week is over, but today another of my grandparents died which makes three in six months. Will be catching up in these next few days. Thank you for your patience
My empathy, Maurice.
On a related note, been going through something similar with my last remaining grandparent recently; my grandmother had broken her hip, and I'd moved to her apartment temporarily to help her with daily living until my aunt could assist. I don't receive alerts for the game's posts, but I did get a private message from our Storm Crow and an email from that which reminded me to post. I should have recalled on my own devices, but I had no computer at her apartment, and it wasn't at the forefront of my mind with the developments. My apologies.
That said, let's show these rogue negotiators how we do diplomacy!
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Good news, y'all! I am still here
The bad news, is that I lost my cell phone on the airplane on the way to my grandfather's funeral, and have been unable to log into any of my accounts until now. But I am back! I am very sorry to all that I missed the ENTIRE month of March. I am still ready and willing to return if you will still have me; thank you AGAIN for your patience and understanding.
And how would I be able to function without my one of my high priests and spymaster? Very happy to have you back, and I'm sorry to hear about your phone.
Welcome back, Spymaster. How did your voyage to Daercia go? Is it true their king is an imbecile?
Maurice, as said, I used nonlethal damage on this last one so he's out but not dead (yet).
Flavorwise, could probably splash him awake with some 'Create Water(Grym) TM'.
If you want to do your Spymaster-Thingie and use that impressive Intimidate to interrogate the guy, we may learn if another surprise is waiting for us at the negotiation-site.
So- in my eternal quest to make interesting and interactive combat scenarios, I’ve decided to incorporate two of the very few good things from 5th edition to those of my games which are still in early stages including this one.
Those are- lair and legendary actions.
For anyone who hasn’t dabbled in fifth Ed, these are special actions that some enemies get in order to counteract the dreadful action economy that makes what should be “challenging” enemies end up missing twice before dying without having to make them so much higher cr than the party that they become unkillable or tpk machines.
Lair actions happen only when you are fighting an enemy in their “lair” or home- hence the name. They happen on initiative 20 always, one per round.
Legendary actions are actions powerful foes can take throughout the round (jumping in to take them after any action)- they usually have several options and 3 actions worth to take per round, with some actions taking two or all three of those.
These are in addition to existing AOOs and reactions that I might craft onto monsters other ways.
I just wanted to let everyone know so whenever I spring this on you in combat the first time you aren’t surprised, confused, and angered.
That is all fine and good, but begs the question:
Both Lair and legendary actions are for our enemies - that seems...one-sided.
Will we get any kind of mechanism to compensate?
Don't get me wrong, i understand it is a balance element to you, but if it simply empowers the enemy, then depending on their options we may be in more trouble than if they had just been higher CR - as I assume the options they have to be varied enough to keep us on our toes, but also potentially cause significant trouble if they work as counter to our approach.
Similar to the wounds subsystem, where it's a slippery slope for the players as the penalties begin to stack up, while for mooks it's just a downhill ride into a faster demise. Despite functioning mechanically identical, it is not 'equal' for both sides.
There would be systems in place for the player as well, namely Stamina and regular Hero Points(e.g. one game I'm in replenishes 1 every wednesday), that could serve to balance the addition of additional enemy options.
As said, I am not certain that is needed, but fighting a powerful foe in their territory would add both a Initiative 20 lair action as well as up to 3 legendary actions, in addition to whatever they and their mooks do normally. I could see that cause significant trouble unless their impact is neglectable(in which case the implementation would be a questionable decision itself.) - so adding more flexibility to react to that would seem desirable. Hence, I am respectfully asking you to consider adding something to both sides of the scale.
I mean- I think we all have seen the way games go when running published material where there is never a challenge, no question of players ever being at risk, and the biggest question is who will get the best shot in during the round and a half that combat lasts-
I’ve been DMing for 25 years now, and in pathfinder 1 specifically for almost a decade- so trust me that I am not tuning these actions to kill players (since starting play by post I’ve only actually killed a single character, and that quite recently based on an insane crit).
These won’t be in during these first encounters (already have that fully planned and statted), but I think you’ll see what it looks like shortly after that- and it’s especially designed for situations where there are no “mooks”- so that you don’t have to find an excuse for the big dumb beast to have underlings just to drag it to a third round before the players win without a scratch.
I'll trust your judgement, then.
My worry was simply that to some extent, in boss fights there is some extent of rocket-tag potential, which leads to the potentially fast kill times.
So logically, to avoid the fast kill, the players ability to do so will be diminished or handicapped by these additional actions. I understand that concept - if we still manage to murder the guy in one round his extra actions didn't do much.
But at the same time, many bosses also tend to be heavy hitters, so if the combat drags on over several rounds, and the boss is unrestrained, he may eliminate(read: down) those presenting the greatest threats to him. Say, the 2 guys that can actually hit his AC. Which places the remainder of the party in a difficult spot because suddenly they would need several rounds to down him even without the extra abilities - and even longer with them, while the boss still is badass and takes names.
That's just to put my worries in writing. But I'm totally open to seeing how you planned this, as said, it was not meant as criticism, simply wanted to share my thoughts on the matter. But I'll trust your judgement and will be cautiously curious.
Having seen our group's potential, I'm not overly worried about rocket tag, as we don't quite yet have a ton of rockets. Addanc doesn't even have power attack yet, and will continue to fight with a shield even once he does. Our debuff game however, seems on point. We've got a force multiplier in Grym, a debuffer in Maurice, and a wizard.
Also, @Alvero, do you have share memory? If not, I'd be happy to spend some of my leftover cash to buy you a scroll of it so you can transcribe it.
FYI, I'm traveling this weakened will probably not have a full update until late SUnday.
I believe that the plan was to prepare the corpses for burial and bring them to court with us. I'll delay any post about torture until Alvero confirms/denies having Share Memory.
Do we have a CLW wand? Could we have retroactively pooled together for one?
I went ahead and checked, Alvero does not have Share Memory, also no one has a CLW wand, Addanc and I are the only two still with cash. So, if possible, I'd like to have retroactively purchased a half used CLW wand (if the DM will allow), or if Addanc will agree, split the cost for a full one with him.
Curing is an important instrument of torture.
Yes you can have retroactively gotten a CLW wand either half or full whichever you decide.
Yes, sorry I meant to say knowledge local but it slipped me mind, and now I’ve written myself into a corner where I have to come up with several (at least) of the tribes clans and septs for the Nictari- games always take you places you didn’t anticipate!
Couple of questions for future levels, no rush, just some thoughts I'd like to get out there! 4th level grants Addanc spells. Personally, I was hoping to avoid having spells at all, and would love to swap them out for something the DM deems appropriate, if such an indulgence would be allowed. If not, I totally get it, and that's perfectly fine!
At 5th level the anti-paladin boon is super strange compared to the paladin one. I know it's cool to consort with devils and such, but I'd really prefer the generic paladin mount, horses are cool to ride on, especially when you're in imposing fullplate.
Leveling seems like a distant thought at the moment, but I'd like to throw those concepts out there!
Well, I am sure you considered, but Dread Vanguard is compatible with Tyrant.
I played one and the abilities were quite fun to use, even if technically spells could have more potential. But it would do exactly what you want - avoid spells and give you something else for it.
Regarding the Bond, I tend to agree that they tried to make it different just for being different. In theory, it is more flexible, and most Summon Lists do have at least one creature suitable as mount in them(yay fiendish woolly rhino).
I think they wanted to drive the enforced "Chaotic Evil" point home in that a permanent companion would be troublesome even if it was a trusty steed. Of course, I am not GM but I think your request to have the generic horse companion seems reasonable - reducing flexibility and adding some staying power.
When I’m at my computer I’ll look at the Paladin archetypes that take out spellcastinf and modify one of them to be appropriate for anti-Paladin.
Hum. If you are willing to do such modifications, could you attempt a conversion of Zen Archer Archetype for the Unchained Monk while you are at it? Up to Level 5 would be sufficient.
Main point would be that Unchained Monk has full BAB natively, not just for Flurry, which is rather relevant with the +6 BAB entry requirement for Arcane Archer. +1 BAB extra from Monk over 4 Levels would let me enter 2 Levels earlier, only requiring 4 Sorcerer Levels rather than 6.
So instead of being locked into a Monk 4/Sorc 6 prereq before entering, I could do Monk 4/Sorc 4 or Monk 5/Sorc 2 instead.
Figured I could at least ask :)
Embarrassingly, I seem to have somehow completely missed dread vanguard! It kind of really sucks until higher levels, especially with a bardic inspiration cleric, but hey, I'll take it!
Now all that's left is the question of being mounted! I suppose eventually having an infernal tyrannosaurus would be "cool" but I'm a sucker for the classic black knight on a dread horse type aesthetic
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I’ve had something unexpected come up; I’m going to be offline for a while entirely not sure how long.
I’ll try to get back when I can.
Nobody else picking up on the intra-party RP?
"offline for a while entirely not sure how long" is intensely vague - could be some more days or could be a month - or more.
I feel it could be healthy to keep things going in some way, especially considering the game just started.
Up to everybody i guess but just wanted to check back with you guys.
I've been meaning to; I thought that I had in fact but oops! It either didn't go thru or I was thinking of something different.
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I was trying to address ooc before continuing on Addanc taking up the bard role with the change to his character and Maurice taking up the rp space of head cleric thus considering changing my character since I feel the build isn't doing all that much so keeping the character but shifting the build to something the group can use more like some hard front line crunch since we have a lot of battlefield buff and control