I'm going full fighter, I suppose. Steel shield > full plate armor > +1 runes up the wazoo. I'll also need a repair kit to fix my shield from any damage it gets (or give it to a better crafter).
Shield is first up.
Craft? Just use magic!
And yes, I do have the spell. But I don't prepare it everyday...
The hat and cape have both been identified — they can be sold for 7GP and 5GP, respectively.
Repair kit is a good choice for Grog, as repairing a shield is pretty much the fighter's refocus. Mending uses a spell slot, which makes it really expensive whilst adventuring ;)
As for things Finch can buy, potency (+X to hit) and striking (+X damage dice) are generally the things you are expected to buy or find as soon as possible. Once you have a potency rune, you can also look into weapon property runes, such as returning. Consumables are also great — healing potions, of course, but things like acid flasks can come in handy against enemies with specific weaknesses. Talismans like owlbear's claw and potency crystal are nice to boost crit damage and onyx panther is situational but can be handy.
As for transferring runes: the cost is 10% of the rune cost (so, 3.5GP for that +1 rune). Medardo can do that for you if you want.
Grog is surprisingly sentimental, but will support to sell Myron's gear to outfit the party.
If we sell them, it's 2.4 gp each. I suspect we can't haggle for higher price using Persuasion, right?
As for the other stuff, Grog will gather gold to upgrade his armor from the tight-fitting dwarf suit to a better-fitting plate suit down the line.
Hey, where did those grigs go? Are they still around, or did they get their autographs and then leave?
Grigs: I let them fade in the background to avoid walls of text. Giving you free reign there: what did they do? Did they stay with the circus for a couple of days and move on afterwards?
(You don't have to answer if you don't want to, but I thought it could be interesting to delegate this to a player.)
Haggle: you can try. It would be a diplomacy check (DC depends on the person you're trying to haggle with — FYI Medardo will be pretty high). A good post (e.g. a convincing argument) lowers the DC.
We should obviously hire the grigs! I'll leave that up to Pandir, though...
Oh yeah, totally hire the grigs, or at least ask them to teach us some of their songs. Uh, without causing us to dance uncontrollably.
Once they are done, Pandir will give vague directions to Mother Meredith's grove. Tell them to say hello.
sorry for the delay in posting—I was partly hoping that Ceija would post and partly too busy with the new job and the move.
Also, a couple of other things:
- as you've noticed, my posting has taken a bit of a hit lately. It might take a bit more time for me to get back to the previous pace, but please bear with me;
- since the starstone isles are at least partly inspired on Byzantium/Constantinople, I will sometimes tweak titles and descriptions to reflect that. In this case, I called the sheriff a koiaistor, which was a public official whose tasks partly overlapped with that of a sheriff — albeit more of a mediator and magistrate than someone who enforces the law through physical coercion.
Ooh, interesting!
I'm down with the byzantine effort to reflavor the titles.
Sorry, but is this before or after the four days of downtime? I haven't quite figured out what to do with those yet.
Me neither. I don't really know any options other than retraining.
If this is like PFS, you could spend the time on Craft/Perform/Lore checks to earn income on the side. Potentially we go to Abberton and forge stuff/street perform for cash/do research and sell our results.
But that's PFS, I don't know if Downtime in Adventure Paths adds new options and features.
This is all happening four days after the first chapter, yes, so whatever you have done in your downtime happens in the past.
As for what you can do in the downtime itself: a large part of it for me is narrative. You treat your wounds, rest, repair old equipment, buy new stuff, work on your tricks, reflect on your past experiences (aka gain a level). It's in many ways the time your characters need to have to actually exist in the world and not just jump from one fight to another.
As Pandir said, you can roll to Earn an Income, which can give you some extra cash. Retraining is also a possibility, but neither are mandatory. Crafting items is also an option, though this is of course only worthwhile some characters.
There are other things not specified on any book, but which can make sense: you spent one day gathering information regarding the Hermitage, for instance, or making contacts with the more unsavoury inhabitants of Abberton. For actions like that I would ask for a roll. I'm really open to whatever you want to do here and will try to reward your choices, just be reasonable (as in, no stumbling upon a dragon's hoard, pls).
After this chapter you will have enough time to organise another show, in which case I would give you some sort of mechanical reward.
There are other things not specified on any book, but which can make sense: you spent one day gathering information regarding the Hermitage, for instance, or making contacts with the more unsavoury inhabitants of Abberton. For actions like that I would ask for a roll.
Gathering information sounds good. Is that one roll per day? What do I roll?
Unless someone else really wants it, I'd like to transfer the rune from the sickle to one of my shortswords.
Feel free, I'll take the next weapon rune.
It's all yours, Finch.
I don't use weapons.... Go for it!
Gathering information sounds good. Is that one roll per day? What do I roll?
Roll: it largely depends on how you go about it. If you want to ask around, Diplomacy; if you want to consult the local temple for records and archives, Society; if you want to eavesdrop stuff whilst performing, Performance. Diplomacy is sort of the skill for this, so the DC is lower.
Days: for simplicity's sake, I'd say just roll once and tell me how many days you spent doing it. More days will give you better info, but using all four days means you won't have had the time for other things like shopping and retraining (not sure you did either, just saying).
To keep things simple, I'll say that Finch uses all four days gathering infromation on the hermits, unless buying the armor and transferring the rune take up a whole day. In that case, it'll be three days. She'll do her snooping in civilian attire, without her make-up, basically disguising herself as a young peasant girl to blend in. This place doesn't seem quite so small that everyone knows literally everyone.
Well, there goes my good luck. Are you sure I can't roll separately for each day? :P
I don't know what to roll, but I'd like to earn some income since shields and shield repair are going to cost a bit as I understand.
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Hi all — apologies for the lack of posting. I will have something up later today.
FYI, starting next week I should slowly return to a steadier rhythm. Thanks for the patience!
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Let's hope the 5 gp payment pays off- that ain't cheap at level 1.
I put my <drawing of Pandir> on the map.
IC avariciousness aside, do you want to split the cost?
This brings up a good question of how we want to split loot.
I tend to be very laid back when it comes to this- I hate keeping track of all the goods and the exact costs and money splitting and ugh.
I'm pretty ambivalent to how we want to split treasure and costs. If people wish to donate or split, that's fine with me. Pandir did choose to do it on her own, though. So if you wouldn't have agreed then don't worry about it.
Just uh let me get dibs on any magic handwraps you find out there, OK?
Generally, I'm of the mind that magic items should be handed out according to need, as that benefits the group as a whole (such as the monk getting the handwraps, the fighter getting the magic sword, etc.). Money and sellable valuables can be divvied up evenly. If someone really want to keep something that would benefit the group best by being sold (maybe for RP reasons), it can be deducted from their share once we get to selling the spoils.
I think Ceija was already sort of keeping track of the loot, but she hasn't posted in a long while...
I agree with that. Things that make the group stronger are best granted to the character that can use it best for the group. I really hate it when you have to keep track of item value that each person gets to be sure the loot is split evenly! If we don't run into anything that I can use and I'm 4th or 5th level, then I won't have any magic items. If everyone else has a magic weapon and or magic armor by then.... I'll be hiding behind everyone!
Personally, I plan to hoard my resources until I can craft a staff for myself! I kind of like how PF2e does staves.... I like the Staff of Illusion, but want to create a custom version of it. The rules give basic options, https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1053, but I still need to figure out how the "formulas" work. Would I have to craft a formula before I can create the staff?
Everyone, I'll be on vacation starting on Wednesday the 21st and returning on Tuesday the 27th. My internet should be fine so I expect to continue posting.
If Pandir needs to be botted, she wants to be in melee. She will use the Stumbling Stance, feint, and then use flurry of blows as many times as she can. She will try to flank with Grog and Finch as much as possible.
Who is the healer of the group? Is anyone trained in Medicine?
Medicine(Wis)(Expert): +7
Regarding Ceija: I have tried messaging their player, but have received no reply for the past month or so. They also seem to have stopped posting on the forums altogether, so I'm assuming IRL issues are to blame.
Since the group is still pretty weak on the healing department, I'm thinking I will keep Ceija around for the next couple of encounters, mostly as a healing bot outside combat. If you want to, one of you can also take control over her during battle but since the AP is planned for 4 PCs you should probably be fine without her.
EDIT: looking at Ceija's sheet, I don't think Crystalseas ever updated it with their final choices regarding archetype, skills and etc. As it stands, Katala probably has the highest modifier in Medicine. Ceija is still useful for Soothe, though.
Sounds like I should get a healer's kit and then invest in >Natural Medicine< then.
I did hear there was a new cantrip in Secrets of Magic that will let you generate an on-the-fly healer's kit.
I need to wait until level 4 to get another skill feat. If the GM is OK with it, I could instead swap out my Quick Jump feat for Natural Medicine and retroactively purchase a healer's kit.
Sorry for the spotty posting and lack of participation; last few weeks were heavy on me (I had a baby and had to handle several new tasks at work), but I'm going to correct it.
Congrats on the new addition to your family, Grog!
A new baby? How are you back so soon!?!
I've been on the road but should have a stable week now....
Apologies for the delay in moving things forward.
Grog, congrats on the baby =) And obviously no problem with your posting rate — I am clearly in no position to judge anyone on that.
Uh, I might have taken this to mean that swarms have no DR whatsoever, and got us into nasty fight as a result. My bad!
Some swarms don't have DR, but I guess these do.
So I have no way to damage these things without borrowing someone's slashing weapon. It's all up to you!
Note to self: Memorize Acid Splash as tomorrow's cantrip if I survive this.
Grog would vote the party retreats. He isn't ready to see his clowny friends die black-and-blue from wasp venom.
If you guys are OK with it out-of-character, Grog will pick up Pandir and Finch and retreat, ready to swoop in to help Katala if necessary, before shutting the door to this place behind him.
Also thanks, all. The baby says hi.
Well, mostly sticks his tongue out, but I think it's friendly.
Retreating is fine by me. We can head back to town and purchase acid flasks/slashing weapons if we want to try again.
Swarms are still designed to just shut down low level party's options. This swarm has at least DR 7 vs bludgeoning.
In general, foes with the swarm trait are only guaranteed to have immunity to a few conditions. That said, they also tend to resist at least some regular types of physical damage and be weak to area and splash attacks. Combining that with the auto-hit attacks and, in this case, poison…it can be really nasty.
I'll wait to see what Finch and Grog do before resolving everyone's actions.
Sooo... acid? I guess we could also buy some actual vermin repellent, if it wasn't so expensive.
I can afford exactly one flask of acid, so I guess that's what I'll buy. Pooling our money for one dose of repellent might be worth it, if we use it on, say, Grog, and the rest of us do damage from afar. What's a good ranged weapon that does slashing damage?
I can also afford 1 acid flask. 3 gp is pricey at this level.
Doesn't look there are any ranged weapons that deal slashing damage. Here's common reach weapons that deal slashing damage.
* Fauchard
* Whip (Nonlethal though)
* Guisarme
* Glaive
But all of them require Martial Proficiency.
There are Uncommon Reach Monk weapons, like the Kusarigama. But that only works for me. If we can come back the next day, I can switch my spells to Electric Arc or Produce Flame so I can spam ranged attacks that will actually deal damage.
...knowing our luck the wasp nest is right next to a gold hoard.
I suppose we could also try to smoke them out or something like that (with a Nature check, maybe?), is the GM is amenable. Going after a swarm of insects with blades or acid is kind of silly to begin with, from a narrative perspective. Of course, we'd have to do in such way that the whole town doesn't think their mill is on fire...
The GM is very amenable to alternative solutions and smoking them out is a solid idea. Alchemical items such as smokesticks could work, but there are other ways of making smoke, of course.
And, indeed, almost anything outside of battle would require a few nature checks unless you get really, really creative.
Grog wears an N95 facemask and carries two burning brands of wet wood to make the most smoke.
Can we get a beekeeper suit?
1st edition: https://www.aonprd.com/EquipmentMiscDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Swarmsuit
Can't find it in second ed rules....