Kingmaker

Game Master Rackal28

Alright everyone, this is it! The begining of our bold adventure we shall be delving into with one another. This is as exciting for me as it is for you as I'm new to DMing PbP so I hope you'll all be kind to me as I will be to you <3

Without further ado, this is the OOC chat where you'll all be able to discuss the game and ask me any questions you would like answered.

I'll open the game itself on Monday so in the meantime I'd recommend getting to know one another, establishing if your characters know each other and how, and making any last minute adjustments to your character sheets if you want to even out some skills or roles you'll play in order to balance the party. On Monday after my first post all builds are final.

If you have any questions please feel free to ask me.

Also if you have any topics you would wish avioded in game (potential triggers and the such) please either tell me here or in PMs as is most comfortable to you and I will do my best to work with your needs.

Anyways, welcome and congratulations! I hope we can all have a long, happy adventure ahead of us in the Stolen Lands!

Signy swaggers up to the table with a ridiculously wide, ear-to-ear grin plastered across her face. She takes an odd wooden canister with a screw top for her backpack and removes the lid, pouring a dash of ale into each glass.

She grabs her own glass and raises it high for a toast.

"We made it! Here we are, wherever this is!"

"Here's to Cayden! May he show us wisdom in the bottom of a glass!"

Signy promptly tosses back the contents of hers and downs it in one.

Hi everyone! Thank you for choosing Signy Rackal!

So it's too close to bedtime for anything deeply analytical, but if I remember correctly nobody among us is a ranged combat type. Given this is an outdoorsy kind of campaign, it seems like a good angle for us to have covered.

If the rest of you agree on this point, I could switch Signy over to archery very easily. Inquisitors do archery well, and come with longbow proficiency. I certainly don't mind doing it, I haven't played an archer in ages.

What do you think? Worth it?

Wisp scrambles up onto a barstool—her bad leg giving her some trouble, but the gnome is determined—and grabs a froth-filled mug half the size of her head in both hands. "Ah... here we are. Thanks, dear. And thanks to Cayden—very kind of him to treat us to such a fine venom."

The gnome waits until everyone is seated and served before drinking, her fingernails tapping idly on the glass as she waits.

I'm absolutely thrilled to be here! Thank you so much for choosing Wisp, and I'm so glad I get to have such a fascinating crew to play with!

Wisp has some ranged utility with her sling and magic stone (and some good buffing utility along those same lines, by the way), but she's very much a skill monkey and secondary healer/caster for now. I think having a primary ranged combatant would be healthy.

Welcome everyone <3 thrilled to have you here~

Now for balance I feel I should state that having the ability to take down flying oppennts may come in handy at a few points in this game. So some ranged capability may well be a good idea.

Also the migraine is gone! I can see again! Huzzah!

I don't have any major triggers when it comes to a text-only medium. Just, y'know, no explicit torture or abuse, no excessively descriptive gore, that sort of thing. All I ask is that if there are any issues with Wisp, please let me know before they become problems. I haven't been a player in a PbP in a very long time, and I might be rusty on proper etiquette.

Wisp has some issues that might be good to check in on first, so I can choose a level that is in line with everyone's comfort area. Content warning below for some references to parental abuse.

Thank you for sharing Kobold! I do tend to use a lot of descriptive language when writing and this goes for combat as well so some of what I write can be decribed as "gorey" but I can try to limit it as much as possible. I don't really do gore for gore's sake (I'm no follower of Khorne xD) but if I ever seem to go too far please let me know. I just like battles to feel real and scary, not make them gross bloodbaths.

There is a character in the first book who has, in the past, been tortured by a parental figure. I will limit or altogether strike that from the campaign if you would like.

My personal limits are pretty flexible. I just cringe from, like, explicit stuff. I'm happy to let you know if it's a problem when/if it ever comes up, which it probably won't.

Also, I am personally not uncomfortable with that character—like I said, Wisp herself has been through some things. I just wanted to let people know in case anyone else felt uncomfortable roleplaying with that.

Fair enough! And yeah please let me know either here or in PMs if you ever have an issue with what I write and I'll tone it down no questions asked.

Hey guys!

Many, many thanks for the selection! It was such a competitive recruitment with truly great applications. I'm delighted and humbled that Lorna got selected!

Lorna is a quintessentialist, which is a weird type of spiritualist - her "phantom" is actually part of her own psyche, and when summoned it drains her of all her strength (including feats, gear and spells - for feats and gear I get to pick what goes to the phantom in each summon, but I really just lose my spells... And the phantom gains them!) PLUS she starts taking damage round by round.

It's an archetype considered terrible, but I'm willing to play and make it work for RP reasons as I think it's fun and has great potential! I'll probably take it slow when it comes to bring her phantom out on the beginning.

She is overall some sort of melee damage dealer with psychic spells, which I'll be using for defense and hopefully support for the party at some point.

Out of combat, when her phantom is in her conscience, I think she can really be helpful as a sort of face :)

Again, thanks for the selection and looking forward to play with all of you!

Of course! Lorna is a fascinating character, we didn't want to miss the chance to see her in action with one of the rarer archetypes out there :)

Welcome aboard!

Thanks for choosing me, Rackal. I'm still half-asleep, so I just wanted to drop in and say hello.

Welcome Sensen! A pleasure to have you aboard!

Okay, now I'm more awake. Here's a few mechanical tidbits that might be interesting about Meneas. First, he gets Sneak Attack at level 2, so flanking and feinting will be something of his bread and butter there. Second, he gets a handful of spell-like abilities at level 8, which are hideous laughter, enthrall, suggestion, and animal messenger. Handy.

Third, Hooded Knights are rather good when on or off road - on roads, he's got a handful of bonuses, while off-roads, Veil (his horse) doesn't get impeded by difficult terrain from forests, undergrowth, etc.

While generally I will want to start combat off with a lance charge, because, well, cavalier, afterwards he'll probably drop it in favor of his sword, because feinting with his sword gives him bonuses and is easier.

In terms of his social abilities, while he's not as good at it as Wylhia or Lorna, he does have a bonus to talking with fey - and fey abilities treat him as either humanoid or fey, whichever's more beneficial to him (so a fey with charm person can't actually charm him).

Other than that, does anyone want to make some connections with him? I think either Lorna or Signy are the ones he is most likely to have met in the past, given that Wylhia and Brental are both from further south than he usually ventures.

Question, Rackal - Are you planning on using the kingdom building rules from Kingmaker, or the more recent ones from Ultimate Campaign? I like the latter more, but I understand either way.

Likewise, I think there're three versions of exploration rules - one from Kingmaker, one from Ultimate Campaign, and one from Ultimate Wilderness. I'm not sure the latter two are different, but there ya go.

Honestly, I'm only familiar with the rules from the Kingmaker Campaign and was planning on using those, maybe with my own twist, but I can most certainly look into the stuff from Ultimate Campaign and Ultimate Wilderness!

My sense is that the latter do more things, which isn't necessarily desirable for every game.

Other than that, does anyone want to make some connections with him? I think either Lorna or Signy are the ones he is most likely to have met in the past, given that Wylhia and Brental are both from further south than he usually ventures.

Yeah, sadly, Wisp and Meneas are unlikely to have met. I'm sure she'll be fascinated with him when they do, though, owing to his fey connections. As a sidenote, Hooded Knight looks like such a cool archetype!

polyfrequencies: I was thinking that it would make sense for Wisp and Brental to know each other to some extent, or to at least have some connections. They both serve the Green Faith, and while Wisp probably isn't formally a member of the Oakstewards, she does respect their authority.

Like I was saying on the thread, it could be interesting to treat Wisp and Brental sort of like a cleric/paladin duo: Even though they're both druids, Wisp's higher Intelligence and Charisma may have enabled her to have more of a "rank" among the Green Faith than she necessarily deserves. It's possible that she's been assigned to assist Brental as a guide, "PR person", or advisor, or that Brental's been assigned to assist her as a protector. Or that's just how she sees it, and he's actually there to keep her from getting into trouble. Alternatively, it's possible that Wisp and Brental have been traveling together for some time, or that they're just acquaintances who follow the same faith. Thoughts, polyfrequencies?

"Face Characters": Finally, it's probably worth acknowledging that with the exception of Brental, we're all face characters to some extent. It gives us a lot of flexibility, but we might want to set up some sort of understanding to avoid stepping on each other's RP toes? Like, Wisp is going to want to immediately step in to be negotiator when fey show up, but so's everybody else. Will it be "first-come, first-serve" for the Diplomacy check, or do we always deserve to whoever has the highest bonus in the scene, or will we defer to whoever has the clearest idea of what to say?

It's worth noting that Wisp's Will save against fey is currently +0. I'm sure that won't come up.

I think that Lorna and Meneas could know each other, being that she’s a noble from the same region, and he is a... Bastard? Her relation with the Surtova isn’t the best, but maybe this is a good thing for Meneas, since he left the family behind?

As for face, I am absolutely okay with us having a good intersection at the role and different specialties. I’m sure we will find our niches and complement nicely! For instance, I’m certainly there are people more capable with negotiating with bandits and brigands than Lorna, even if she could also intervene to aid when needed.

I designed her with aspirations to have her work as a leader of sorts, maybe even targeting the kingdom role of queen. With that said, saying that she’d work as a face definitely won’t mean the only face, as I know this AP has several great opportunities for different backgrounds.

Mechanically I might go the catch off guard/Shikigami feats for the phantom, or invest in his slams. Either way is simple and efficient. Still thinking. I’ll have to seek stuff like boots of the earth and things that give Lorna fast healing/etc to stay viable. I’ll likely find ways for her to hide or disappear and stay alive maybe with wands.

Last, I might need to buy her a horse! Not a combat trained one, just a regular one. We’ll see :)

Yes, Meneas' relationship with the Surtovas is just barely this side of murderous on both their parts. It would've been murderous had he not been caught during a duel and kicked out. (He did leave his original dueling sword in his half-sister's gut. Oops. Fortunately his mentor left one for him.)

That said, I was thinking that whether they've met before the game starts or not, I was going to suggest that Meneas might develop something of a small crush on Lorna, but that's up to you as her player - whether it would be comfortable for you or not.

Depending on what Lorna did during her time in Brevoy, Meneas and his mentor, the Nameless Knight, may have saved her carriage from bandits or assassins or suchlike, depending on what you'd like to see.

I think that Lorna and Meneas could know each other, being that she’s a noble from the same region, and he is a... Bastard? Her relation with the Surtova isn’t the best, but maybe this is a good thing for Meneas, since he left the family behind?

As for face, I am absolutely okay with us having a good intersection at the role and different specialties. I’m sure we will find our niches and complement nicely! For instance, I’m certainly there are people more capable with negotiating with bandits and brigands than Lorna, even if she could also intervene to aid when needed.

Wisp is probably the ambassador to Banditland, so I can try to deemphasize her "feyspeaker" elements a little to make room. Maybe her susceptibility to fey magic, understanding of fey workings, and deep respectful wariness towards fey also make her too shy to communicate assertively, allowing Lorna and the rest to step in for those interactions.

Wisp is very much designed to be the primary negotiator with fey, animals and bandits. Because this is a face-heavy party, I'll deemphasize her role with fey accordingly.

Sooo... Items to clear...

Content & Triggers: I'm not too bothered by things broadly speaking. The only time I've come across any thing that was a problem for me in a game on the boards here was my short stint in a Hell's Vengeance campaign that started last summer. There weren't any specific things that occurred that were the problem, it was more timing. Playing House Thrune's boot on people's necks was just icky and uncomfortable given last summer's current events. I live in Portland, Oregon and the campaign was really hitting close to home. I had to drop out of that one.

Otherwise I guess I'd say I align more or less with what Kobald Claver has said. I'm not bothered by graphic stuff, but there is a line between graphic and gratuitous. It may not be a clear line but I'd rather not cross over in to gratuitous.

Archery and Sneak Attacks: Signy's Sanctified Slayer archetype will also pick up sneak attack down the line. I'm not a huge fan of sneak attack (one reason why I'd alway play an Archaeologist over a Rogue) and wasn't planning on building around trying to use it. I was going to treat it like a nice extra benefit when it came up. That's less likely to happen with archery, but Signy will be getting some teamwork feats so it might be possible to find a way to help Meneas set them up.

As for the changes needed for archery, I'd like to keep Signy viable for melee in case she needs to engage close up, and I'd also like to make minimal changes to do it. I will need to double check, but this should work:

Signy will drop the Human ability Martial Tradition and Weapon Finesse to free up both 1st level feats and replace them with Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot. She will keep her 2nd level Oracle dip but switch her mystery from Dragon (Red) to Battle. She will take Skills at Arms as her revelation, which will give her proficiency with all martial weapons and heavy armor. She'll have lost her exotic weapon proficiencies so sadly her pretty Aldori Dueling sword will have to become a long sword because she will keep the Sword Scion campaign trait. It's too important to her backstory now to trade out.

Most of her feats will be used to support archery, as that tends to go. It's a somewhat convoluted way to get things done considering Signy is proficient with rapiers. But I don't think I'll have the spare feats to take both weapon focus and fencing grace. Since a rapier can't be two-handed it's just about the worst weapon possible for a dex to hit and strength for damage build, which is what Signy will have to do.

Or, I might just keep her out of melee as much as possible if I can't work weapon finesse in anywhere. Feats will be tight. She will have Studied Target to help out with bow and sword regardless.

Face Stuff: Signy will be good but not exceptional (for this party) at social skills aside from Intimidate and Sense Motive, where she'll be ridiculously good. I can easily see her as the types who can't really stay on topic and get her thoughts out elegantly, but is much more socially canny than she seems.

Party Relationship: Signy is looking like the odd one out here. She's really a city girl and her background with fey can be concisely summed up. "I've heard of them in stories! They so cute!".

Potential Relationships (pre-established and no):

Meneas: Wisp is deeply transfixed by fey—her closeness to the fey world makes her uniquely vulnerable to their magic, and she's pretty obsessed with them besides. She's probably going to be fascinated with Meneas and his steed. That could take a lot of forms, from infatuation to reverence to mistrust to simple shyness. Both Meneas and Wisp are good "wilderness guides", so they'll be working together a lot to keep the party on track.

Lorna: Wisp would probably respect Lorna as a leader, as much as she respects anyone, though she'd expect her counsel to be heeded and her guidance to be followed. She's closer to a Vaarsuvius than a Belkar Bitterleaf, to use Order of the Stick as a comparison. She might see Lorna's phantom as something evil or foul, since it might would likely read as undead to her. Lorna's got something riding on her, just like Wisp does.

Signy: Wisp may end up viewing Signy as a bit of a kid, and would do her best, in that case, to protect her—and to "teach her the ways of the world", of course, since someone has to make sure this kid doesn't grow up to be another Chaotic Good sucker who'll get knifed in an alley trying to help someone. Even if we don't go that route, Wisp is a cynical person who thinks the world is harsh and cruel. She's going to have fun interactions with the idealistic Signy. Wisp trying to be a mentor figure is sort of her repeating the sins of her own guardians, and while she thinks she can "do right by" Signy, she may do more harm than good, or just make a fool of herself.

Brental: I've already talked a lot about this. Wisp probably sees Brental as a good man and a fine comrade. She also probably thinks she's a bit smarter than him. She might be inclined to boss Brental around a little if he doesn't stand up to her, but she'll probably come to respect him as his deeper wisdom becomes more and more apparent. Brental and Wisp are equals in their ties to nature, even if she may not recognize it.

EDIT: Also an Oregonian here, and yeah, there's a reason why Wisp at her worst would be Chaotic Evil. I don't want to roleplay tyrants, colonizers or ruthless conquerors, and it's important to me that Wisp be the most morally gray of the party so that the other PCs can "rub off" on her. With a Caydenite as our only city slicker, I don't think roleplaying tyrants will be a problem.

Meneas would lean more towards chaos than law, himself... though mostly 'cause he's impatient with "legal" things, which haven't ever been in his favor.

Amusingly, he has a fairly low tolerance for bandits, to the point that he thinks of them as his prey - not even as opponents, per se.

Wisp appears to be the only PC here with bandit connections, which should be interesting. She will be at least privately defensive of the "line of work". She sees it as a job, just like the one she's doing now. Getting killed by adventurers is one of the risks bandits signed up for, of course, but Wisp will certainly be inclined to negotiate or play nice when possible.

Lorna you worships Erastil and is Neutral Good on her side. She’d naturally hit well with the druids. Other than the caydenite, all of us seem to gravitate around neutral. I’m curious as to why wisp is not neutral... from what you describe and the way you seem to want to play, it sounds more like pure neutral or chaotic neutral in a stretch... just my two cents, I don’t really see much of the evil angle.

I noticed a mistake on Signy's character sheet. Her CHA had to be upped from 10 to 12 to be able to cast the spells she'll get from the Oracle dip, but I didn't make the change to it when I readjusted the other ability scores. That's why her Wisdom is so low right now.

Taking into account the actual difference between her Wisdom and Charisma bonuses, the Conversion Inquisition really isn't offering much anymore. Travel is one of Cayden Cailean's domains and it fits really nicely with what Signy has been up to in her recent past. There's no good reason not to take it instead.

Well, at 18 years-old, I believe Signy actually IS the kid in the party.

Yeah, Wisp isn't coming across as NE at all. N or CN seems a better fit, probably plain Neutral. I mean if things like helping people and loyalty are occupying her mind then the alignment of sociopaths doesn't fit well.

@Wisp: Ha! Where in Oregon?

Currently, Monmouth, but I'm from a little ways south in the rural part of the Valley!

Okay, so. Alignment talk.

Also voted most likely to drink the tavern dry of the party for three years running!

To make an addendum off of my previous post, I see Wisp as "ethically Neutral with Chaotic tendencies" and "morally Evil with Neutral tendencies". Fundamentally, we might just interpret alignments differently, and that's okay—since there are no paladins here, Wisp's alignment doesn't necessarily have to be relevant to anything except how I understand my character. The two letters on my sheet are just there in case we get hit with blasphemy or I pick up a +1 holy longsword. :P

<Shrug> Works for me. I've always considered alignment to be a framework for understanding character's thinking behind actions and such rather than a mechanical thing. So I don't really have a dog in the race concerning what you choose. I figured I'd add my two cents because you seemed to be wondering what alignment best matched your concept.

Signy will probably ping Wisp eventually, but she won't have detect alignment until 3rd level. Then she'd have to get around to using it. She's not going to be running spot checks on people. And then Wisp would need to do something. Signy's only really going to be concerned about what people do, not what they are.

I've never been to Monmouth but I'm familiar with it. Y'all caught it pretty badly from the fires last summer?

Hi all! I just got out of a meeting and am prepping to go do some errands, but I'll catch up on this, make Brental's official alias, and then respond more in detail!

Cheers!

Yeah, that's how I like to see alignment—it doesn't tell you what to do, it's just a lens through which you can view your character. It's part of why I like to play with the more shunned alignments and explore what kinds of people could end up there. There's this idea that NE and CE are "worse" than Lawful Evil, or that CN is "worse" than TN or LN, and I think that, like the CG-NG-LG split, it's more complex than that.

I don't really have the stomach for unlikable characters, of course, and I never create an evil PC who isn't meant to have a redemption arc. I think even Neutral characters benefit from arcs to improve and become more committed to helping others. That's part of why Wisp's version of evil is so relatively innocuous.

Also, sorry if I miscommunicated! I don't think I was wondering so much as I was making the offer to Rackal that I'd be happy to dial Wisp back to CN/TN if need be, especially if we had a paladin who would be made immediately uncomfortable by Wisp's presence. I'm also happy to do that if it's more within your comfort zone playing Signy, or if anyone else would feel more comfortable with an all-nonevil party.

EDIT: We got the fires really bad. Salem's area was in the middle of some of the worst of the smoke, and my girlfriend and I could barely breathe during the worst days. It took me a while afterward to even be okay with morning fog. I kept thinking the smoke was back. We bought an air filter a month or so ago, so hopefully we'll be ready for this year when it all likely happens again.

On a totally different note, I'm looking forwards to playing with everyone. This will hopefully be fun.

Same! I'm really excited to start this game and see how our PCs get along when they're actually interacting.

I'm sure Signy will really like everyone. That's what she does.

Yay! We're all here now~

This Ultimate Wilderness book has been a great read, I think we'll try to do exploration like it's set out in these rules. I still have to read Ultimate Campaign's settlement building rules but we've got a lot of time before that even becomes relevant so I'll let you know in time ;P

Any other optional rules you guys think might be fun?

I had a couple thoughts I'd like to run by all of you actually.

1. So for balance, with a five person party, I'll be adding a couple enemies to multi-enemy fights but for bosses and/or single monsters I was thinking I could add another quarter to their hitpoints and, now this is where it gets crazy, give them another quarter of a turn. Now what do I mean by "quarter of a turn?" Well, I was thinking maybe I could roll a d4 at the start of every combat as whatever number comes up, on that round of combat they would have two turns? It's wacky I'm well aware but I figured, 'hey I'll ask them, what's the worst that could happen?'

2. Did you guys want to do any harvesting from monsters rules for making potions and the such? There are optional rules in Ultimate Wilderness concerning this we could use. Or I have spent a few years developing my own formula for monster part harvesting where the benefit is that you don't have to actually know the spell to make the potion version of it. (ie You don't know cure light wounds but you find a monster part that can be used to make potions of cure light wounds so you can make it anyways) The downside is, you don't get to make whatever potion you know the spells for you HAVE to make whatever potion you can make out of that particular monster part. I'd be happy to go more in depth but I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Also, Kobold I actually really love the idea of an evil PC turning good over the course of a campaign. I feel that we don't explore redemption arcs as much as we should these days and it's nice to see one in my first campaign. Just, try to not cause so much havoc that it causes problems for the group <3

Yeah, I've been thinking about Kingdom roles for our party, but that's, uh, quite premature.

1. I'm sure that the multi-enemy fights will be fine. Adding hitpoints probably won't break anything either... the action bit is a bit more iffy from my perspective, but I think I'd be willing to try it - at least for a few 'bosses' before saying "yes, this is fine" or "no, I really don't like this." I admit, my reflex is to go "no, not even once," but I'm getting better at ignoring that knee-jerk reaction.

2. I wouldn't mind doing the Ultimate Wilderness stuff, though for me it's a bit of a wash - I don't have much knowledge of that subsystem, so I have little interest on first brush, but I don't mind exploring it.

EDIT: Looks like the Ultimate Wilderness exploration rules compliment those of Ultimate Campaign, from what I can tell.

First, I am so pleased to be delving into an adventure with all of you!

Topics to Avoid: I am generally open to just about anything! But if something bothers me, I’ll let you know.

I wouldn't mind buying a wand of CLW, speaking as someone who is probably gonna get hit frequently...

In the Ultimate Wilderness rules, Survival seems to do a fair amount of heavy lifting there, though I'm sure the other two skills can be useful. It's a shame no one has poison knowledge, though... there's a lot of natural poisons in that book.

1. So for balance, with a five person party, I'll be adding a couple enemies to multi-enemy fights but for bosses and/or single monsters I was thinking I could add another quarter to their hitpoints and, now this is where it gets crazy, give them another quarter of a turn. Now what do I mean by "quarter of a turn?" Well, I was thinking maybe I could roll a d4 at the start of every combat as whatever number comes up, on that round of combat they would have two turns? It's wacky I'm well aware but I figured, 'hey I'll ask them, what's the worst that could happen?'

I think the "1d4" might make combat a bit too swingy—my advice, as someone who's running a 6-person Age of Worms game, is to just add one or two more guys to every combat. For every 3-5 enemies, add one extra. If it's a single NPC or a small group, boosting HP is probably best—or just add some smaller enemies, like giving a troll one or two weaker lackeys. Or, if a troll has 2-3 attacks, give them one extra, and just try not to concentrate all those attacks on one PC.

The good news is, this party has a lot of healers and a lot of melee, plus, like, two animal companions. The action economy is on our side, and you can afford to err on the side of "more enemies".

In particularly epic encounters, adding an extra action for a lone boss monster might be a good idea. I just wouldn't bother with the 1d4 in that case, and, again, make sure not to pile all the actions on a single target.

2. Did you guys want to do any harvesting from monsters rules for making potions and the such? There are optional rules in Ultimate Wilderness concerning this we could use. Or I have spent a few years developing my own formula for monster part harvesting where the benefit is that you don't have to actually know the spell to make the potion version of it. (ie You don't know cure light wounds but you find a monster part that can be used to make potions of cure light wounds so you can make it anyways) The downside is, you don't get to make whatever potion you know the spells for you HAVE to make whatever potion you can make out of that particular monster part. I'd be happy to go more in depth but I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Personally, being new to druidic herbalism, I'm happy to just run it the generic way. That being said, I actually wanted to run an idea by you of exchanging my gp for "forest trade goods"—basically, when making my potions in the forest, I'd be able to spend the gp as if buying the materials in town, representing Wisp foraging, making deals with minor spirits, leaving offerings for fairies, that sort of thing. It would just save Wisp from having to go to settlements to buy her potion brewing supplies. In exchange, maybe her gp is worth less in actual settlements.

I'm also open to trying the variant spell component rules from Unchained (which could be used to empower potions, I believe), but that affects me less than a lot of you.

Also, Kobold I actually really love the idea of an evil PC turning good over the course of a campaign. I feel that we don't explore redemption arcs as much as we should these days and it's nice to see one in my first campaign. Just, try to not cause so much havoc that it causes problems for the group <3

Of course! Wisp will be a model teammate. :)

I don’t think that it fits anyone’s build, but there is a fun Trait called Voices of Solid Things that gives you connections to the First World Witchmarket, gives you Disable Device as a class skill, and makes it Charisma-based. Vagabond Child and Criminal also give Disable Device through a Trait, but it stays Dex. But since Signy is planning to dip Seeker, I think we’ll be covered.

Oof, if I had literally any skill points or traits to spare... Wisp is a really tight build. I had to ditch Spellcraft and Perception just to make sure she could get the languages and Knowledge skills she needs.

On Healing Wands: Yes! Wisp will be happy to serve as the party's healbot if we can grab a healing wand. Until then, she produces a lot of potions per day. She doesn't really have money to spare, unfortunately. Druids start with 120 gp, with an extra +100 gp for Wisp's banditry past. A lot of that went into her quilt cloak.

Also, by the way, since we're doing all these spoilers... what's our policy going to be on those? I've played with people who flat-out do not care and read every spoiler they see, trusting their ability to separate player and character knowledge. On the other hand, I've read games where all players left spoilers alone and had to wonder what was going on with the other team when they got split up.

By default, I read backstories but avoid reading PC-specific ingame spoilers. I find it more immersive that way. What's our thinking, though?

I figure Signy would have been in Restov for some time, a few months, prior to the beginning. If that aligns with Brental's timeline I'd be happy to work out some sort of prior familiarity between him and Signy. Brental sounds like he might be kinda hot, even if he isn't much of a talker. He could have made an impression.

I'm fine with adjustments to HP and numbers and so forth of adversaries. Experimenting with things like 1d4 & extra turns is fine too. But I haven't seen much difference between a 4 and a 5 person party in PbP. I think PbP tends to make parties less efficient in combat. Since it's asynchronous time rather than synchronous, it's much harder for individual characters to coordinate with each other in combat. Back when I played tabletop PFS scenarios at meetings, it was really common for there to be considerable combat synergy in the party, football or soccer style play if you see the metaphor. PbP combat is more like baseball. Everyone has the things they do, and they do them. Sometimes those actions piggyback off each other to greater sum effect, usually they don't. Anyway, we can certainly tinker with it to find the right balance.

As for the kingdom building and exploration rules, I haven't used them before and I'm not familiar with them. I'm happy to defer to what those who do know them think is best.

I'd be interested in the harvesting rules if they don't require additional feats to use. If they do, Signy won't be using them so it doesn't matter to me.

I don't read spoilers with the roll or my character's name.

I tend not to read in-gameplay spoilers that I haven't rolled the knowledge for or that don't have my PC's name in the title, just so I don't have to worry about keeping the meta separation clear in my head.

I also tend to use them so I can more easily organize things, but that's mostly when I'm GMing. As a player, I'll probably just use ooc headings.

Skills: Signy has a lot of in-class skills to cover, well more than she can devote points to at 1st level. Up front I favored skills that I'm fairly confident could see some use right off the bat. I'll be filling in the rest later. We are a bit weak in knowledge skills, and will likely never be great since we don't have a hight intelligence character in the party. Of the Knowledge skills, Signy will tend to favor those used to ID enemies to get the most out of her Monster Lore ability: Arcana, Dungeoneering, Local, Nature, Planes, Religion. Maybe we can figure out some division of labor for getting them all covered by 2nd level?

Healing: I'd be surprised if we could scrape enough money together for a wand right off the bat. I still need to make some adjustments to gear because of Signy's switch to bow. But that will only leave her with less money, not more. We might be fairly wand dependent though. I'd rather not fill up Signy's spells known slots with healing spells since she has so few to work with.

Meneas can only scrape up about a seventh of what a wand of CLW costs, so it's not gonna happen before we get into the game.

Wisp originally had Knowledge (arcana), but I couldn't spare the ranks. I'd be happy to make sure we have then all covered by next level—Wisp in particular can easily put ranks in Planes, Religion, History and Local without it feeling ill-fitting. She gets 8-9 skill points per level as a Feyspeaker. I should be able to wrangle it.

Dungeoneering, Engineering, Nobility and Arcana don't really fit her (she's not going Mystic Theurge, I'm pretty sure). Someone else might be better at covering those. Wisp's coverage will also be pretty weak simply due to not having a lot of Knowledge skills as class skills.

We're pretty good for Nature, at least, and Geography, too.

So, Wisp can prepare at least one CLW a day—her other's gonna go to the escape route, obscuring mist. She'll use that, plus the potions she regularly brews (she brews two per day for free). Healing in combat will be a pain, but that's usually a pretty bad play anyways in Pathfinder. Wisp will be happy to use her actions simply to administer potions to people as well. She's meant to be primarily support in combat, without a lot to do herself at first aside from offer help where she's needed.

I do have enough spare money to pick up a couple of alchemical weapons. If anyone else does as well it might not be a bad idea to do so. Swarms at low level are the worst.