Kingmaker

Game Master Rackal28

Glad you're okay, Signy.

A few notes about Level 2, just in case anyone had thoughts. This is where I'm planning to take Brental.

Not too much new happens for druids at Level 2 (Woodland Stride, more spells per day), but the skills are important. Each level I will advance Handle Animal, Knowledge (nature), and Survival, which are core for qualifying for Green Faith Acolyte. I also put skills points into Climb, Heal, Linguistics, and Profession (cartographer). For languages, he picked up Gnome and Elven. Gnome made sense given his associations with Wisp, who he was talking with more before she left the party. And Elven is so strongly associated with Druidic and Sylvan that it seemed like the next most logical choice to grab.

Level 2 is actually more exciting for the animal companion. Vodnykel picked up Power Attack, a rank in Acrobatics, and a lesser elemental manifestation. As a water elemental companion, Vod now has a swim speed, can breathe underwater, and gains a +2 dodge bonus versus attacks of opportunity.

If this steps on anyone's toes (i.e. you were planning on picking up this or that skill), please let me know. I can still switch things out.

Also, I believe that with healing as it was, everyone (except for Brental) got HD+Con for the one successful long-term care, and then rested overnight for an additional HD+Con restored. So +3 hp for Brental, +6 for Vodnykel, +4 for Meneas, +6 for Signy, and +6 for Lorna. A question, though! Is new HP considered gained in full? If so, then Brental wakes up at 13/17. If not, he's sitting at 6/17. Same with Vod: 13/21 if he wakes up with all his shiny hp, but 7/21 if not.

If everyone (except Brental) sticks with hp as the favored class bonus and the new hit die is gained in full overnight, then our wake-up should look like this:
Brental: 13/17
Vodnykel: 13/21
Meneas: 15/20
Veil: 24/24
Signy: 18/20
Lorna: 15/20

And Brental will prepare three cure light wounds, going to Vodnykel, Meneas, and himself to prepare for the day.

A trip back to Oleg's to give them the good news, sell some of our new wares, and finish resting seems like a good next step. Then looking for the mites?

What method are we using to determine HP per level again?

EDIT: In terms of leveling up, I got my sneak attack! And I got one rank in intimidate, mostly just in case. The rest of my skills went up by one rank, except diplomacy.

I'm... pretty sure that's it. Oh, wait, Veil gets a new feat, too. I'll give her Mobility.

For HP you can either roll or take half your hit dice plus con rounded up.

Signy's dipping a level into Swashbuckler (Rostland Bravo) for 2nd.

HP: 1d10 + 2 + 1 ⇒ (6) + 2 + 1 = 9

+1 BAB
+2 REF
+1 Panache

Skills: +1 Acrobatics, Diplomacy, Perception, Spellcraft

Background Skills: +1 Perform (Sing), Linguistics (Sylvan)

I won't list all the details here, but Signy also gets the 1st Swash abilities and Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Aldori Dueling Sword).

Tempting as it is to roll, I'm pleased enough with half +1 (which looks like it's what Signy got anyway). If I rolled a 1 it would be a painful Level 2!

Likewise - while I've got a fair amount of HP, levels 1-3 are pretty damn swingy. The 7 HP I get from half+Con bonus+favored is enough for me.

Re: Another person, I'm mostly looking at our lack of Int-based skills, especially Knowledge (arcane, local, and planes). If I were to venture any hole to fill in the party, I'd be especially interested in an arcane spellcaster with those knowledges. I remember a few from the original recruitment who fit or partially fit that bill and looked interesting. We could chat by PM to nominate people, if you wanted. Or you could just grab someone that looks interesting to you? Your call.

NPCs are fun, too, but generally not for the long-term. Just a thought!

I'd tend to agree with a character tilted more toward intelligence and arcane spell casting as the sort of thing we could use the most. Applications of that sort were skimpy in the recruitment but there were two or three.

Signy has the skills you mentioned in class Brental, but no INT bonus and even with 6 skills points per level she has too many demands on them to cover them adequately.

I agree that we will want someone with broader skills than we have. Someone who could blast things would also be nice, yes.

I asked someone and am now waiting on a reply >.>' Hope to hear back soon

Um the loot sheet link doesn't seem to be working for me poly would you mind updating it?

Weird. I'll fix it.

I might have posted the wrong link before. Try this one.

Loot

Gah, can I ask you to remove Kintargo GM from the campaign, Rackal? (It's on the campaign information tab/editing tab thereof, at the bottom.)

Oh can we roll more than one like Signy did? Or just one?

Just the one please, sorry I didn't clarify that again.

Okay, so it's been a week since I messaged my choice for a new player and no response so if you guys wanted to PM me some possible choices you think might be good O can message them, otherwise I'll just choose another person from our list myself~

Also wow Signy that Diplomacy roll was amazing I thought it was gonna be tough to convince Kesten to spare Vlad but Signy just walks in and is like 'nah' and Kesten nods 'seems reasonable'

Hehe, all my best rolls seem to go to skill checks. Not the worst thing, sometimes it works out great. But I do roll my eyes when yet another 20 goes to beat yet another DC 12 perception check.

Who was it you contacted Rackal? So we're not repeating you.

All those items you wanted should be available for purchase guys <3

And yes, I made the moon radish soup ramen >.>' Because ramen is delicious and it didn't tell me anything about the soup other than the name so deal~

Also minty ramen because it's fantasy and I love mint >.>'

Hello, everyone! Rackal was kind enough to think of me as it seems the expedition could do with reinforcement, so I'll pop in as soon as I update Lina and catch up a bit on what's been happening so she doesn't appear quite out of the blue. (Still a few levels away from teleporting about!)

Lina's a bit very much more a bard-y, witchy magus, but if folks have ideas for blastier magic that they'd be relieved to know is at least in her spellbook, I'm happy to see what I can do. :)

Hello new person! Welcome.

Hi Lina and welcome!

I don't think anyone is expecting any particular type of specialty from you. We just need someone to take care of the arcane side of things in general. We're two divine casters and a psychic caster right now.

Signy's purchases from Oleg are minor and probably mostly stuff an animal companion can carry: Grappling Hook, 100' Silk Rope, Pitons (x4), and Hammer.

Stuff that we might need for climbing down holes and ravines, or up cliffs and trees.

The only personal thing is a Mending Kit, which Signy can easily carry herself of course.

Total cost is 42 gp and 4 sp.

Otherwise she's saving up to get a Traveler's Any Tool.

Hi Lina/Qunnessaa and welcome! Just like Signy said, our biggest need is arcane knowledge and spellcasting. Inquisitor, druid, cavalier, and (currently on hiatus) spiritualist. We're on the melee-heavy side at the moment, but that's not causing many problems. Lina looks like she will be a welcome addition!

So far we received our charter and made our way into the Greenbelt of the Stolen Lands. There we encountered the husband and wife duo extraordinaire Oleg and Svetlana, who informed us that they had for three months been threatened and "taxed" by local bandits led by a man named Happs Bydon and a woman named Kressle. Kressle is one of the lieutenants of a bandit who has styled himself The Stag Lord, and has amassed an army of seemingly loyal followers. Concerned for Oleg and Lana's safety, we laid an ambush for the bandits led by Happs and slew them all save one boy, Vlad, who surrendered and is currently working for them. He told us Kressle's location, so we ranged out to her camp and launched a massive (outnumbered) assault on them, taking no prisoners. Otherwise, we are aware of a brewing conflict between a tribe of kobolds (whom we have befriended) and a tribe of mites (who we haven't met yet).

We do have a Medvyed in the party: the aforementioned spiritualist. I haven't reviewed your whole background yet, but maybe there is a connection there that we could use to loop you in?

Odd build notes: Just trying to help manage expectations, so that no one gets their hopes up for a full 9-level mage: some arcane skills are definitely something Lina’s aiming for (e.g., Arcana, Planes, among the Knowledges), and she’s certainly willing to dabble in blasting to the extent that the magus list allows it, but that doesn’t really synergize with her archetype abilities, which tend more to de/buffing.

She’ll also be investing heavily in Craft (alchemy) as an herbalist and *glances around guiltily, whispers* poisoner. :)

I gather it's a fairly face-y group, so she'll splash around some skill points for social skills until she decides what might be the most fun given how her voice develops and various spell boosts (glibness, blistering invective), but she doesn't have the Cha focus to really step on any toes, I hope.

Connections and joining the group: I’m still working out the details of leveling up and joining the group, but I was able to skim the last couple of pages of gameplay. For looping Lina in, I’m not sure what your Medvyed player has established for the family: if she’s the only child, or strictly the only daughter, while there might be a son running about or the like. I had a vague idea that Lina had helped a Medvyed scion with a bit of fey trouble, but it could just as easily have been another favoured retainer, or a very new addition to the family, Lina playing the good witch to thwart the plots of people swapping out changelings (in the folkloric, not narrower PF sense) or cursing babies in cradles.

She’s also a river person, so I can imagine that she looped up the Thorn River, and narrowly avoided an unpleasant surprise at Kressle’s camp thanks to your intervention, at which point she would have followed your tracks back to the outpost, serendipitously ending up where she meant to go all along. She would have been recommended, perhaps, to the folks chartering the group by the head of the Medvyed family as a belated addition to the group, maybe?

Which would add another favour to cash in addition to that for previous services rendered, and might allow a fun role-playing twist: “Really? Now, after all this time, Dad sends his spooky elf witch to, what, 'look out for' me? I don’t need a damn baby-sitter!” – Which, to be clear, wouldn’t even be his motivation: he just knows the right person for a job that purely coincidentally involves looking up one of his sprogs, and he might not realize how that looks. If it looks – we could make as much or little of it as folks want.

Alright, I think that's Lina all up-to-date. The trickiest part was narrowing down what spells she wanted. (Trick question: The answer is all of the spells, always.) I was tempted by coward's cowl: the tactical side of me likes the idea of fussy positioning as one tries to circle around all enemies in a given combat without getting any closer to break the spell, but that can always wait until next level or whenever. Illusion of calm just edged it out this time.

Anyway, she should be ready to stroll in from off-stage now, I think, whenever that would be appropriate.

Feel free to jump in now if you like Lina~

So excited to have you in the group! If you have any special requests please just let me know and I'll see what I can do.

And Brental, you wont need to do any exploration checks for the next little bit as I assume you're going back to visit the kobolds. Exploring unknown areas going forward I'll be giving you brand new checks for each tile you explore. Cause I'm an over achiever like that~

I'm using Greek for Elven. It looked like you were using the Greek alphabet, so I just hopped over to Google translate and made it happen. Welcome in officially!

Oh, and Rackal I thought we were going to check out the mites first, before we seek out the kobolds again? In either case, once Brental swings back through Soot Scale territory, he wants to roll for linguistics to make a gazetteer now that he has a map underway. That's probably going to be the model that he follows for a while while exploring: making maps and gazetteers unless they are looking for something very specific.

Also, Brental has also spent extensive time on the rivers, most notably the Sellen, so it's possible that he and Lina could have met before, depending on the nature of her river travels. Or they may know some of the same folks.

On Greek: Yep, I saw that! And Macedonian for Sylvan? I’m frequently tempted by Welsh (out of affection for Sindarin, naturally) and Gaelic, respectively, but Greek has the advantage that I have some reading knowledge of it. Well, not modern Greek, but still. Looks like the boards will be annoying about the diacritics, though.

I imagine Lina gets around a bit, mostly in the south of the River Kingdoms, and not going too far inland off the rivers except into some of the forests. The most time she’s spent in civilized places outside elven lands was in Daggermark and its surrounds, but since the Shroudwood is between there and Sevenarches, I’ll leave it up to you if she and Brental have bumped into one another before.

Either way, she’ll be friendly, but rather cool if she knows Brental’s from Sevenarches and, goodness knows, associated with the Oakstewards, no less, given the relations between them and Hymbria. So long as they don’t talk politics back home, they should be fine. :)

Oooh, I am happy to switch to Welsh for Sylvan. I hadn't even thought of that, but I liiike it. I have been stripping out some of the diacritics if it looks like it might cause rendering problems, but we'll manage!

Huzzah tension!

I'm happy to stick with Greek too. I liked how you tied the in-world links between Elven and Sylvan to representation in play! And it would mean I wouldn't be purely at the mercy of Google Translate. And I could imagine the hints of canonical Elven would decline! And... OK, dialling down the word nerdery a bit.

First three knowledge arcana checks are for Lina's draconic knowledge and not related to the exploration rolls btw

I do love me a good skill challenge!

A brief summary of where we stand for trained skills (last I checked) to help with decision-making:

That sounds reasonable to me, Brental.

Also, my apologies Lina for my absolute butchery of the Knowledge Arcana text I just noticed it *facepalm intensifies*

Sounds good to me Brental.

Sounds like a plan! Let's see what the dice have planned...

I made the diplomacy and perception checks successfully. They don't necessarily pair well in a single post, so how should I handle them Rackal? Does one happen before the other? How much time passes between the two? Should I just wait to respond to the spoilered information until you want it brought up?

You should only toll one at a time so you dont take up someone else's roll unnecessarily. Let's say you just did perception then.

Alright.

Hot damn that went well.

Which one is the leader, by the way? I can't tell from the colors and barking of orders.

I'm going to guess Green Poacher, who tried to entangle Brental?

Yup it's the green poacher :)

Eeexcellent. *taps fingers together like Mr. Burns*

I have...plans.

Totally unrelated, could you perhaps give us a dummy spell token that we could use to create spell effects? Just something that we can edit to add auras.

I've made a spell effect token for you to use on the bottom right corner of the map poly~

My first thought when the leader asked who we are:

"I am vengeance. I am the night. I am Batman!"

I think I may be contractually obligated to take a dip in vigilante now?

I think that the Green Bandit is still alive, too. He was just Entangled, but I don't think any of us have hit him.

Pretty sure Signy hit him earlier >.>'

Oh, I thought that Signy shot the leader (green poacher) three times. 1, 4, and 8 damage.

Also, he's dead now, but that 18 Strength check should have gotten him free.