War for the Crown

Game Master PJP

After a lively discussion of horses and gear, Lady Rauls says, "You should hunt down the missing Taldan Horse regiment and find out more
about the Qadiran “bandits.”"

Thalasou feels a bit awkward once everyone starts the social mingling. He's always felt out of sorts in these sorts of situations but it seems that they are inevitable. He spots the priest who is also standing alone and approaches him.

Diplomacy: 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (1) + 14 = 15 Hmm. That could have been better.

"Hello, Chief Enumerator Abrun Palliettor? Do I have that correct? I am Thalasou Eidelhan. You may have seen me with the group of newcomers. I'm with them. And you know. Well, maybe you didn't know, but when I was a baby I lives in a church. I guess it was a temple. For Alseta. You know of her, right?"

Capricia returns to the others and reports Lady Rauls's suggestion to go after the Qadiran bandits.

"An excellent idea, Capricia. I think it's our most concrete lead, and we should head out tomorrow. With the rest of today, we should try talking with this Caradinna Farkin lady in town. Keep an eye out for a red bird-man!" he ends cryptically.

Once everyone's done with their chatting, Bimble decides to lead the group to Farkin's house.

”For these bandits, do we know their numbers and capabilities? It seems that saying we will hunt them down is easy, but doing it without such knowledge could prove difficult.”

Note on town improvements - I believe the following were completed or at least paid for: (pump house being the last one as we were there physically to survey the damage and schedule repairs)

Basic Market
Basic Civic
Basic Farm
Mill
Gold Canyon Bridge
Public House
Basic Pump House

(we had 13,000 gp repair funds total: 8K from the Count and 5K from Dame Crabbe; I believe we also received a trade commitment from Baroness Voinum, but we needed to repair the canals first before sealing the deal...)

My irl GM usually runs a group that has more or less 10 active players but we all have really hectic schedules so you only usually get about six people at a session. His excuse is that there is an ethereal dumpster that follows us around randomly and indiscriminately eating and throwing up players as it feels necessary. So there's a suggestion if you want to go with that :)

Ethereal dumpster - absolutely the way to go!

Here's the thing - both groups have a history, both were living on the Estate, so it isn't anymore nature to have them called in to reinforce than it would do do the opposite.

Two universes have collided. You can't explain it, can't comprehend it, but it just feels natural to continue at this point. It's like you had a very weird dream...

@GM Fuzzfoot--looks like the PCs who were up have posted. Just mentioning because we turned the page in gameplay so it's not as obvious.

Yep - I came in this morning to see the post I wrote 24 hours ago was still sitting in the edit window... just hit submit.

So what are the group finances for town upgrades?

Is it the Stachys tab in the loot link? Meaning we have 6000 remaining for upgrades. You all got a lot further in upgrading the town than we did. I know we were about to go to the pump house and I think did the basic improvements and that was it.

I updated the loot sheet to show 2 triumphs for the Envoy ring (it gives +3 to the associated skills and grants the ability to read/speak/understand the area's dominant language when you activate the 24 hour disguise self)

@GM: please clarify how you'll handle relic progression in this campaign. If done strictly by the book Valeria will offload the crossbow to someone else and keep the ring (which she had initially)

@Sara - The current "town funds" stands at 11,000. You started with 8000, spend 2000 on marketplace, and gained 5000 from a vist to Dame Crabbe. You can also use any loot you have acquired, or even sell off treasures found on the estate. But overall, you are just getting started in this phase.

@Valerie - triumphs will be noted as events provide them. Since you clearly have read the rules, I will be basically following those, but adding in a little GM discretion from time to time, which is my basic approach to running published content. But if the ring already has 3 triumphs, we will keep with that. But you are correct in thinking that spreading these out will best benefit the party so you can maximize the application of triumphs.

Do you all know where you were with your personas?

I wasn't very good with the personas system back in the day, and have forgotten pretty much everything I once knew. Looking it up in Dak's game, Capricia apparently earned one point each in Genius and Heroism. I'll dig into the system today to see if I can get my mind around it better.

Do you all know where you were with your personas?

According to the linked sheet, I have 2 Charm and 1 Subterfuge. However, I absolutely don't remember how the Persona system worked, so I'll need to refresh myself on that one.

EDIT: Here is the PDF of the rules Dak linked in the previous Discussion thread.

Regarding Personas, there was a tab with Group 1 and Group 2's current persona status. So I'll summarize:

Bimble: Genius 1, Sagacity 3
Capricia: Genius 1, Heroism 1
Eregos/Hargus: Charm 2, Subterfuge 1
Sara: Charm 1, Subterfuge 3
Sveng: Sagacity 2, Subterfuge 2
Valeria: Charm 2, Subterfuge 2

Bimble's crafting log:

Capricia's +1 Falcata - 1 day
Capricia's +1 Buckler - 0.5 day

Lots of time to craft other stuff if folks have wealth.

Is it correct that we can sell the Godspike for 9151gp? That should help folks afford to craft more.

Yep, Sara was 1 charm and 3 subterfuge. We had one round of the personas if I remember correctly. Not sure why Capricia is only at 1 and 1 though.

In this post, Capricia got a point in Subterfuge. So she's probably at 1 Heroism, 1 Genius, 1 Subterfuge.

Yes, that seems to be the sell price for Godspike.

Okay, so let's sell the Godspike. Everyone should add 1,525.16 gp to their characters. Kindly confirm you've done so in this thread, and tell me if you want more crafting as a result!

For example, Bimble shall craft for himself a Quarterstaff of Entwined Serpents! His flagpole now shoots magic missiles for extra inspiration!
- Bimble's Quarterstaff of Entwined Serpents, 5 days.

Is that loot split into an extra share for "party loot"? I usually recommend such for party expenses like healing wands, but I'm fine either way.

I have added it marked as sold, and it is currently in party funds. To split it, we just add Coins entries for each of you and put it in party outlays. (I can do the paperwork, but just need clarity that this is what you want to do.)

For you crafting, just note how much you need to spend, and whether it comes from party or personal funds.

Having a crafter is a huge boon here - cause the available high end equipment around here is quite limited. (I am not too sure who just bought a holy spear for such a large sum... we will just need to assume this was brokered somehow for you.)

Dividing the Godspike money 7 ways results in shares equaling apx. 1,307.28 gp each.

For crafting, Capricia asked for her buckler and armor to get upgraded (not her falcata), but if the armor would only take a half a day, she'd get all three enchanted if Bimble's up to it. Total cost would be 2,000 gp, correct?

My memory regarding Capricia's persona stuff was that she had 1 point each in Heroism and Subterfuge. Genius doesn't seem to be up her alley. :) I'll try to double-check this later today.

I agree we should keep party CLW wands, but Valeria seems to have two such wands totaling 88 charges? So that's plenty for now.

Sorry, totally got confused but yeah, we can upgrade Capricia's falcata, armor, and buckler.

Regarding Capricia's persona, I think we got points as follows:
- up to two points based on checks--you succeeded in one for Subterfuge.
- one point of our choosing based on how our character performed in the module. Heroism fit the bill there, I think.
- one point assigned to something corresponding to each character's highest stat as between Int, Wis, and Cha. Which happens to be equal for Capricia. So I think you could choose to get Genius, Sagacity, or Charm?

I vote for an additional split for party loot, so unless the majority says otherwise I will be adding the 1307.28gp to my sheet, bringing me to 2308.38gp.

I would be interested in getting a headband of wisdom +2, spending 2000 of that gold.

I have added it marked as sold, and it is currently in party funds.

I looked at the loot sheet: well done GM Fuzzfoot! very nice and clear!

I have edited the CLW wands entry to 'Party' instead of 'Valeria' (she's carrying them but it's for the party, wand tapping being what a bard does quite a bit...) Maybe we can add a column for 'Party' value at the very right end of the Inventory tab? (East of Valeria so to speak...)

PS: Can you please also clarify whether Valeria having more than one relic impede on the growth of the second relic? we previously handwaived this if I remember correctly but as I said, I'm fine giving the crossbow to Sveng or another non-melee type if leaving it on Valeria will be detrimental...

Sveng would not be good with the crossbow, but he would also not be egregiously bad. Dex is in fact his highest physical stat at a solid 12 lol

The point is that by RAW only one relic per PC can 'grow' as we accumulate Triumphs. If you handwaive this then it doesn't matter who carries it, but if you follow RAW, it's better to leave the crossbow on a character that won't even use it... I know, silly, but this is how I read it in the other WtfC campaign I'm GMing. For that game I handwaived this limitation and ruled that Triumphs affect the whole party for purposes of relic growth and thus one of the PCs has 3 or 4 relics on her character (the other PCs are fine as she's effectively a 'tank' or bullwark of steel, while the rest of the party are infiltrators and casters that did not need a defending sword, for example...) I've also allowed free feats/skills and even archetype retraining everytime a PC acquires a relic, to simulate the epicness of it all, but that's perhaps me being over generous and dramatic. :)

Dividing the Godspike money 7 ways results in shares equaling apx. 1,307.28 gp each.

Loot sheet updated; I added a party share column to show the value of party items and party cash combined. I added a box to shot how much party cash is readily available for purchases.

On my character sheet, Valeria converted her share into 13 additional tourmaline 100gp each, and the rest in gold coins.

We also have: amulet of natural armor +2 and bracers of armor +2 on the loot sheet (received at the Crabbe estate; we had not divided these). Let me know if one of you is interested to wear/carry; otherwise we shall sell and split in shares...

I'll take the amulet of natural armor +2 as an upgrade over my amulet of natural armor +1, and someone else can take that one.

Thanks Eregos!

I have given your amulet of nat armor +1 to Sara (doesn't have one yet) and the bracers of armor +2 to Bimble (AC 10 when sleeping at night or while crafting is no good... no good... lol)

LOOT SHEET UPDATED!

We should sell the Bracers of Armor +2, the party has better uses for that wealth. Bimble will buy a Haramaki for 3gp to get a slight armor boost.

Latest crafting schedule:
-Capricia's Buckler +1 - 0.5 day
-Capricia's Armor +1 - 0.5 day
-Capricia's Falcata +1 - 1 day
-Sveng's Headband of Wisdom +1 - 2 days
-Bimble's Quarterstaff of Entwined Serpents - 5 days

I'll need the 286gp once I craft the Quarterstaff of Entwined Serpents. Right now, that's in 4 days, but I am happy to craft other folks' items first, as I imagine they'll be more important.

Ok... sigh... I will sell it later when we have more to sell then; for now do you mind carrying it or do you really need that additional 286 gp now? (2000 divided by 7...)

PS: don't forget it resizes to small and weighs 1/2 of normal weight...

Bimble has shown an aversion to bracers :) He had to very firmly tell Sara in the dungeon with the kobold merchant No Sara I do not want them, No, Sara, No.

I finally had her listen.

Thank you, the amulet will be lovely. I need to figure out where I want to take Sara buildwise, since continuing down bard with both of us in the party seems silly. Maybe rogue. Any suggestions would be welcome.

Oh also keep in mind Sara has insightful advice as a feat, meaning she can give you a bonus of +2 on a skill of your choice(as long as she is trained in the skill) lasting all day. Only one skill per person though.

Sara could take move into rangerdom, get precise shot next level and use the crossbow? An option I guess.

I still think two bards are doable because of the diversity of bardic performances, but I am obviously not playing either of said bards.

Some prestige class ideas:

Arcane Trickster could be fun. I think the ideal setup is Bard 4 / Rogue 1 (taking Accomplished Sneak Attacker) / Arcane Trickster X. But an extra level of Bard is fine.

Arcane Archer could be fun. You could start taking Ranger or Slayer levels to qualify (maybe Bard 6 / Ranger or Slayer 2 to get the bonus feat), although I also think you could go Bard 8 / Arcane Archer X. GM permission needed to use a crossbow instead of a longbow or shortbow.

Battle Herald is a prestige class that combines Bard and Cavalier. Normally you'd want to do something like Cavalier 1 / Bard 4 / Battle Herald X. The extra level of Bard is a little annoying because it doesn't increase BAB. Can also combine with archery.

If you want to do something completely different, and rebuild, Sara could be a Mesmerist. Charisma based, good skill points, Sara's sharp-tongued words can be used as flavor either with or replacing Mesmerist "stares."

*Edit* - Another long haul strategy, Eldritch Knight as Bard 7 / Martial Class 1 / Eldritch Knight X would be different but could work.

Veiled Illusionist can sort of make you a master of disguise without losing any caster levels. Can enter as a Bard 5 (may need to learn new feats).

Shadowdancer is intriguing. Again, can enter as a Bard 5 (learning new feats). I think Hide in Plain Sight has social as well as combat uses. Though it's dippable--don't need to stick with it forever.

Those are awesome ideas. THANKS BIMBLE!!!

The obvious choice for many WftC campaigns (including the one I GM right now) has been The Lion Blade which requires both rogue and bard levels to qualify [sneak attack 2d6 and inspire competence as prereq]

There's even a way to do it with rogue levels only, via the Bardic Pretender rogue talend:

Bardic Pretender (Ex) (Pathfinder #130: City in the Lion's Eye pg. 76): The rogue knows enough about music and performance to survive in a bardic college and can fake what she doesn’t know. The rogue qualifies as having the inspire competence bardic performance class feature for the purpose of meeting prestige class requirements, although this talent doesn’t grant her the bardic performance ability.

You can do mad stuff with the Lion Blade PrC, but it's a long wait to get to that cool stuff, and it's rather Pathfinder on HARD mode i.e. you need to have a really good mastery of the rules to fully take advantage, e.g. Hide in the Crowd is perhaps one of the most underappreciated gems: you can use soft cover from allies (or from enemies against other enemies!) to use the Stealth skill, which can lead to a perma-stealth mode character...

Bimble has shown an aversion to bracers :)

Just to close the loop on this, I'm gonna put those bracers in Valeria's wrist slots until we really need the money. I could see the occasional social situations in this AP where Valeria won't be in battle gear and just wearing a fancy dress, so some kind of bracer protection will be handy. After our next big haul or when we need a push for cash I'll offload it from her gear.

LOOT SHEET UPDATED.

Bimble since you need the extra money for your staff, Sara can loan it to you since she doesn't have enough for an attribute boost item at the moment.

how much money does he need?

"I'll need the 286gp once I craft the Quarterstaff of Entwined Serpents. Right now, that's in 4 days, but I am happy to craft other folks' items first, as I imagine they'll be more important."

Which is what he had said. The actual amount from the 286 he needs I don't know.

Works for me, thanks!

No worries: any of us can loan such a small amount I think. I'd even be happy to make him a donation if the rest of us all chip in. Split 5 ways that's only 57gp from each of us.

No worries, I'll coordinate with Sara--much more straighforward.

Okay, here is a slightly modified Sara, keeping the parts of her that I think are HER, minor manipulative magic, heavy social and subterfuge skills, and a sharp tongue.

Plus keeps her in the running arcane trickster or lion's blade, though in combat she'll start relying on the crossbow more than trying to help flank.

I think by looking she is the lockpicker now, so she bought concealed masterwork thieves tools and increased her disable device.

I haven't changed her alias officially since I don't know if any of this is okay with our GM yet. So... here it is

I like it! Cleaner Slayer for Deceitful and sneak attack is clever. I think Sara would be great as a Lion Blade.

just having fun, but in essence she's just trying to on with the people who work at the mansion... if there are any.

I think the people who work in the mansion are all Valeria's Persona followers.

No Eregos we all have 8 servants each or 'agents' that can perform/assist certain tasks, i.e. 2 agents per point of personae.

PS: Correction... not all of us have 8 agents apparently, sorry for the confusion. I have updated the Persona tab of the LOOT SHEET to show the new team and how many agents they each have.