Hell's Vengeance

Game Master eriktd

Here's the discussion thread.

Dotting from the airport.

Once you've got some of your character background worked out, we can discuss how to get started. :) As it says in the Player Guide, you should know Cimri Staelish, who is a human rogue that has some local fame in Longacre for being a troublemaker and for the Sheriff being her aunt.

I got in at 4am this morning, so I probably won't get anything up until tomorrow once I'm recovered a bit.

One thing I do know is that I'll be taking the Charlatan background, as I imagine having a second identity will be useful on occasion.

Sure, no worries! I think you should take two traits rather than just one, because there should be something tying the character to Cheliax and the setting. I'd love it if that were one of the campaign traits from the Player's Guide, but it's not required if none of them really work for you. In that case we can brainstorm some better options.

I still need to acquire gear and equipment but am otherwise ready. How much wealth do I have?

Heh, how do you figure out starting wealth in Johnsonfinder?

Character looks great! Amusingly, there is an NPC described in Longacre who is specifically a seller of sham potions. Let's say that Sameen simply takes his place, so your concept doesn't overlap with him? Here's the text from his description:

14. Odmer’s Tonics: The painting of a rainbow-hued imp exploding from a bottle makes the gaudy wheeled storefront of Elish Odmer (NE male human alchemistAPG 3), normally parked in one of Longacre’s town squares, look like the cart of a common snake oil salesman. And that’s exactly what it is. Elish Odmer claims to have ties directly to the Nine Wonders Conglomerate, a Thuvian corporation dedicated to bringing the secrets of their mystical medicines and revolutionary tinctures to the world at large. Few believe the Nine Wonders even exist, and everyone in Longacre knows the story of how Odmer was banned from town for a year after brewing a batch of bad moonshine in Natisha Howell’s bathtub. Regardless of the shyster’s reputation, he’s a charming flatterer who occasionally has useful items on hand. Most of Odmer’s brightly colored bottles are junk, but anyone who succeeds at a DC 12 Craft (alchemy) or Knowledge (arcana) check can find any alchemical item with a cost of less than 75 gp in stock

Feel free to adapt any of this to your own background, or discard it as you like. You can have your own cart that isn't as obviously a fake if you like. Or if you prefer, you can have a working relationship with Odmer, some kind of shared swindle or an apprenticeship or something like that.

That's amusing. Honestly, it's probably easiest to just have Sameen replace Odmer - unless he's necessary to the plot, of course. XD

Starting Wealth: I vary it depending on the campaign, but it's typically essential class gear + 150gp. For martial classes, I'll also throw in a free starting weapon and armor, but that doesn't matter for Sameen.

Something to keep in mind, by the way: You'll probably want to adjust the AP's loot somewhat due to the use of ABP. I tend to halve any money earned/found and remove the pluses from magic items (so a +1 returning dagger becomes a MW returning dagger). That's based on a traditional party size, however. Since there's just me, you'll need to decide how much adjusting to do because if you keep things as-written, I'll end up with something like quadruple WBL.

I was giving this some thought last night. Something I did in a previous solo campaign that I thought worked really well was I simply multiplied the cost of everything new or crafted by 5, but kept the resale value of items the same. That way the character got all the loot and I didn't have to do much adjusting. It does make found magic items like scrolls and wands more valuable, since selling them makes less of a profit. With ABP a lot of items disappear, and since you're supposed to halve the wealth characters receive, maybe it would work to increase the cost multiplier to 10?

So, a 5x cost multiplier would mean a dagger (normally 2gp) costs 10gp and sells for 1gp, right? That would mean a Rogue's Kit (normally 50gp) is unaffordable for a starting character. A solo campaign with unmodified loot/costs results in 4x WBL, so the proposed fix would result in 0.8x WBL. That makes purchasing gear difficult, so we'd be very reliant on found gear. That may or may not prove troublesome depending on what's out there.

I think it'll hurt most in the early game when money is low already. When a masterwork weapon costs 1500gp and a potion of cure light wounds costs 250gp, buying anything becomes a struggle.

Is that significantly different from reducing loot to almost nothing though? :) The major benefit to this system would be that it is relatively easy to calculate. Starting gold should be similarly increased so that the character has the opportunity to buy gear.

I guess ultimately it's the difference between low wealth and heavy inflation. XD I'd suggest using a 4x cost multiplier in any case. Paizo assumes a 4-person party when they calculate loot for APs, so that'll maintain the appropriate ratios.

Yes, but that's a lot harder to calculate. :P Also, that doesn't account for Automatic Bonus Progression, does it?

ABP would make it an 8x multiplier, but that's even harder to calculate. ;-) Since you want to keep it simple, how about using a 5x multiplier. 10x puts me below expected WBL, and a smaller party benefits from having higher-than-expected wealth. The goblin game ends up around 1.25x WBL, surprisingly enough (most of it's at the end of Book One). The absence of +X items means extra money tends to get spent on fun-but-not-particularly-powerful things and/or fluff. My CotCT party's been investing a significant amount of money opening and running a tattoo parlor during downtime.

Sounds good to me! Let's re-evaluate how the money feels at the end of book 1 and then we can adjust as needed. It's pretty easy to explain a sudden economy shift between adventures. :)

Sounds like a plan. I'll buy some stuff tonight, and we should be good to begin tomorrow whenever you're ready. XD

I think I'm all ready. Sorry about the delay; I'm the rare player who absolutely hates shopping for gear. XD