PFS 3-13 QfP3: Defenders of Nesting Swallows by GM Lupulus (Inactive)

Game Master Lupulus

Sakura is intrigued by the simple life of these people.

Her own mother lived such a life before she was dragged to Axis for reasons that not even she understands.

Sakura is respectful to all that she encounters.

During the council meeting she listens and eventually bows.

“I am Sakura Kian Fane and I am willing to accept your offer - my comrades have to speak for themselves. Additionally, if you would also allow me to chronicle the history of the village and the lineage of your family Je Tsun then this would be greatly appreciated!“ the aphorite says while her sparkling metallic skin is shining.

As the party arrives in the village, Kiyoko dismounts and walks her newly-acquired horse to Xien Wun Lao's yurt. Tying the horse up outside, she enters the enters the yurt respectfully and takes a seat upon the dirt floor, folding her legs under her to sit in proper Minkaian fashion on the heels of her feet. When offered food, she thanks them and eats quietly.

After finishing her meal, she follows their guide to the larger hut and once again takes a seat in proper Minkaian fashion, making a point to bow her head to the ground in respect to the young woman who seems to be the village leader.

"Tamahi Kiyoko, of Minkai," she says by way of introduction. "You honor us with your hospitality, Je Tsun, Xien Wun Lao. I will help. I come from a long line of shugyosha, warrior-pilgrims, and I would surely shame my ancestors if I did not."

Grandfather died fighting bandits; it is only right that I take up the cause against banditry in his place.

"Lin Ki Chin, also of Minkai." The magus bows to the woman as he introduces himself. "I will share what knowledge I have if it would help." he says as he starts taking in the layout of the town. "How many are capable of fighting? And what do you have in terms of weapons?"

Ki Chin is a professional soldier. Do I need to roll profession to help setup defenses?

Je Tsun tells Sakura that there is not much history to the town, it's a small impoverished farming community, but people usually get by well enough. The Tengu bandits are not the only misfortune to plague Nesting Swallow recently. Last spring some illness claimed the lives of several villagers, both her parents included, leaving her as the matriarch of her family and one of the highest regarded councilors owing to her family lineage.

The history of Master Li Yao's descendants is not particularly exciting as they moved into this humble lifestyle. But of note, this large house belonging to Je Tsun holds that shrine including the clay tiles naming the descendants of Li Yao.

To Ki Chin's questions she responds "We are not warriors, but we will fight. Every able-bodied farmer will stand beside you - fifty men and women in fighting shape. We have few true weapons but our farm tools: sickles, pitchforks, and simple spears of sharpened bamboo. If you take charge of our defense, we will be your army. Additionally, we have been preparing defenses for the village; barricades, pits, anything to disable their riders. We will confer with you in detail on this later."

Ki Chin is a professional soldier. Do I need to roll profession to help setup defenses?

The defense is gonna be a lot of rolls and planning. If your Profession Soldier skill isn't already something of value in the scenario's rules, I'll add it in cuz it does seem perfect.

Elemenar, To-to any other questions or ready to get into details of the defense?

To-to greets everyone by bowing respectfully "My name is To-to-obika, of Shackles. Honor to meet you, Je Tsun. While I am a cleric, I can also fight fairly well."

Ki Chin takes his time in inspecting the walls of the village to see how it could be reinforced and how to place the barricades. Profession(soldier): 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (20) + 7 = 27
Gathering some villagers he advises them on how to maximize the wall's defenses.

Satisfied with the state of the wall the magus leads the villagers in exercises on how to use what weapons they had on hand.
Profession(soldier): 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (12) + 7 = 19

Sakura thanks Je Tsun for all the details and will write all that into her report.

She sees the state of the village and is clearly very impressed by Ki Chin.

“I have to praise you! It is clear that your presence in this mission is very valuable!“ Sakura says and she bows to Ki Chin out of respect.

So you guys shouldn't make any rolls yet to fix anything up yet, cuz the next large part of the scenario is day by day planning and preparing and training. So while normally throwing some ideas out now with a check would be good, here it's a big structured part of the scenario. Maybe I'll use Ki Chin's 20 there when we get to it... Maybe...

Should get more details out in the morning if nothing comes up, but work's been busy so no promises!

Je Tsun is pleased by the party's agreement to help them defend their home. "You have my heartfelt thanks. We have made some preparations, but there is much still to do and your expertise will prove invaluable. Most importantly, we still need to bring in the harvest, as without it a victory over the bandits will be a moot point. We also do not yet know when they will attack, so scouting that out could help greatly. Beyond that, if you can provide training in archery or melee combat, or help improve the barricades that we have started, we might just be able to survive the attack."

You are up several hours longer planning with the village leaders for the plans in general and specifically tomorrow.

You need to assign the free villagers (30) to tomorrow's tasks, and decide what each of you will personally assist in. We will do that each day, one at a time, until the bandits attack. Feel free to ask me questions or plan among yourselves on the discord if that's faster. Once decisions are made a player will need to post that plan for the next day here on the gameplay thread.

Note the Harvest is not optional, and 20 requires villagers on it every day until it finishes, but you can speed this up to free them up sooner.

Also of significance, you don't really know how much time you have. Some Scouting will happen for free to narrow the attack window, but can be vastly improved with additional villagers or players.

See Slide #5

@Ki Chin, you can apply your profession rolls you made as 1 success for 1 day of Combat Training if and when you spend a day on that.

Elemenar is not pleased with the current situation. This was supposed to be a simple job of activating the braid. Now these villagers are expecting him to help defend against the bandits. It is the right thing to do but it is also exhausting and frustrating.

It's obvious to Elemenar that the top priority is the harvest.

Going to use Knowledge(nature) to assist in harvest for my day one activity

I think that the other martial characters are well suited to give combat training but given the fact that Sakura has the intelligence to at least try the craft bow check I’m going with that.

The samurai and fighter is not the most dexterous person but she knows how bows work and can teach it! Potentially she could even craft bows!

Knowledge(Nature): 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (18) + 8 = 26

I propose the following the next days:
- 20 villagers farming (no player), Elemenar (harvest, kn nature 26 rolled) + NEW SAKURA (harvest, KN NATURE TO ROLL)
- 20 villagers Combat Training, Ki Chin (Profession soldiers already 27 rolled), Kiyoko (INTIMIDATE TO ROLL)
- 10 villagers archery, To-To (no roll)

"I'm fine with teaching an archery lesson, though I'm more familiar with crossbow than long- and shortbows. Ready to teach traditional tengu swordfighting as well if you have interest. Unfortunately I have no expertise on farming."

After a long night of discussing plans, Xien Wun Lao takes you back to his house, where the village will put you up while Xien stays with other family.

******************************

The next morning its time to get to work trying to save this village!

Day 1 Activities. All 50 Villagers are harvesting unless anyone takes them away for training.

Elemenar - harvesting (already rolled, success, so counts as 10 villagers)
Ki Chin - harvesting (count as 5 villagers, no roll) or combat training (takes 10 villagers, already rolled but can use it now or later) or scouting (Perception roll to Aid Another)
Kiyoko - harvesting (count as 5 villagers, no roll) or scouting (Perception roll to Aid Another)
Sakura - harvesting (count as 5, Knowledge Nature to count as 10 instead), Combat Training (takes 10 villagers, Intimidate roll), Archery Training (takes 10 villagers, no roll)
To-to - harvesting (count as 5 villagers, no roll) or scouting (make a Perception roll)

Sakura will harvest to move things along.

kn nature : 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (16) + 4 = 20

Ki Chin leads the villagers in training to fight.

Kiyoko goes scouting.

Perception: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (15) + 1 = 16

To-to helps with farmwork so more can train with Ki Chin.

Only 10 can train with Ki Chin either way. With your Perception modifier, you’d be good as the main scout, with Kiyoko using Aid Another.

If you do harves today then I’d rather recommend to start archery training from tomorrow onwards - I personally think that perception is rather relevant after a couple of days. All the knowledge of when they attack won’t help if the village is not ready. ;-)

I was working on the resolution post, but if you guys are trying to convince To-to to change their mind I can wait. In 9 hours though time is up and To-to's post stands so To-to needs to post here before then if there is to be any change.

IMO its important to get the job done fast, so fields can be flooded. That's why scouting can wait a bit.

With the help of extra hands, 40 villagers, Elemenar, Sakura, and To-to are able to nearly complete the harvest. Little remains to be done, so the 20 dedicated villagers will defeinitely be sufficient.

Ki Chin drills his trainees with military precision. The 10 he trained receive exemplary training.

Scouting: 1d20 + 4 + 2 ⇒ (2) + 4 + 2 = 8
Kiyoko helps scout the area, but mostly the villagers are in the fields but keeping a watchful eye for any sign of the tengu. No sign of them can be found yet.
The scouting check with Kiyoko's aid is not enough to narrow the window for the attack, but at least you know it is not imminently within the next two days.

Your successes essentially give the village "defense points" (DP). You even already got some before you arrived by not allowing any of those tengu bandits to escape.

Today's gains (and earlier):
+1 DP for defeating all the tengu badits
+0.5 DP for training a unit of 10 for a day (can do second time per unit of 10)
+1 DP for a successful intimidate or profession soldier check (one time per unit of 10)

DP gained on day 1: 2.5
Total DP: 2.5

Je Tsun meets you all at the end of the day. "The Harvent is nearly done, tomorrow we will have it all in and after that 100% of our able bodied men and women will be devoted to defense."

She applauds Ki Chin "I could hear the training session from my home, and the participants say that they are now much more confident for the fight ahead."

With scouting not revealing much, she sighs. "I wish we had a better idea of the brigands' location. Knowing when to expect them would doubtless ease minds and help preparations."

Day 2:

20 villagers go harvesting, but they insist no further aid is needed and they will finish today.

You have 30 villagers free for other tasks.

With some questions around scouting, you should know that if villagers are assigned to scout, it gives a bonus that day and a cumulative bonus going forward for each day any villagers were scouting. The villagers alone get a +4 Perception check, which you can replace with one of you if it is higher, otherwise more villagers add to the check and PCs can Aid Another.

Please Post your day 2 action once it is decided, including what to do with the 30 villagers available, and any roll you may need to make. Questions welcome here or on discord.

Sakura hopes that the villagers will be prepared in time.

“You have a great community Je Tsun and I’m glad that we can help such hard working families!! Duty is important. And the stories I hear will be recorded!“ she says during their evening meeting.

~

Two options now as the group wishes. We could now dedicate all 30 remaining to construct a barricade. I could roll kn engineering to see if only 20 would be needed. Or I do archery training.

The next day she’ll start …

or

Personal preference would be for you and Elemenar to use Knowledge (Engineering) to construct defenses. Kiyoko can train archers, but she doesn't have the skills needed for anything other than combat training or scouting.

With scouting not revealing much, she sighs. "I wish we had a better idea of the brigands' location. Knowing when to expect them would doubtless ease minds and help preparations."

"It would. Others may have more success in locating them than I did. I will see to training willing fighters instead," Kiyoko nods in agreement with Je Tsun.

In the morning, she takes a small group of men with her and creates an impromptu archery range with whatever materials are on-hand.

Kiyoko will do Archery Training for Day 2.

To-to decides to embark on a scouting mission. "Training is important too, but we need a barricade to reduce casualties. Now I will try to find if the enemies are approaching."

Perception: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (14) + 7 = 21

Sakura's success at overseeing the villagers means only 20 are needed, so Kiyoko can train those 10 archers.

If Elemenar helps on the barricades as well, and succeeds on the Knowledge Engineering check, it would allow Ki Chin to train 10 soldiers too, the only other option being both of them aiding in scouting. (Toto's check is pretty good, but more would be better cuz it's a tough check)

If Elemenar can pass the Engineering check on the barricades, 10 villagers could also help scouting along with Ki Chin.

Things are tight while villagers are still working the fields. Tomorrow should be easier to manage.

Elemenar and Ki Chin given the above, what actions would you like for day 2?

Rising early the next day Ki Chin rouses the villagers for another day of training. I'll use the 19 I rolled earlier.

I'll help with the barricade.

Elemenar watches a group of villagers head back out to the harvest fields. They should be able to finish today without any help from him. He turns back to the remaining villagers. [b]"You bunch, come on. I'm going to show you how to build proper barricades.

Day 2 Resolution:

The 20 villagers in the fields are able to bring in the rest of the harvest. The harvest is now complete.

To-to goes scouting, but despite covering a large area and good conditions is unable to get any more information about the bandits.
If you can send villagers scouting, they create a cumulative bonus for future scouting checks even if those villagers later do other tasks. If any villagers went on day 1, your day 2 check would get +1. If then some villagers went on day 2, your future checks would get +2. No villagers have gone scouting yet, so you have not earned any cumulative bonus yet. I'm not sure what this is supposed to model; maybe they set traps or notice things that weren't the same a previous day.

The remaining 30 villagers are in high demand. Improving the barricades is a priority, and Sakura is able to provide some good tips but most of what Elemenar says goes right over their peasant heads. Overall, progress with 10 villagers and 2 overseers goes slower than you would hope. At this rate, it will take a week to finish the barricades. It would go faster with more villagers. Seeing the lay of the plan though, Sakura and Elemenar know that if either one of them sees the plan through every day, they can make a Craft Traps or Disable Device check at the very end of that week, or if the villagers finish faster.
This barricade task rules-wise is unnecessarily complicated, but you essentially ended up with too few workers and ended up going slower than if just a full compliment of 30 was working on their own.

Kiyoko drills the archers, these 10 are relatively experienced in usiung their crossbows for hunting. But they need tips on how to aim for armor and fire under pressure and duress in the heat of battle.

Ki Chin proves a good melee instructor for the second day in a row on a new set of 10 villagers.

Today's gains:
Harvest Complete, 20 more villagers free to assign going forward (total of 50)
Slow progress on barricades (no DP until complete)
+0.5 DP for archery training
+0.5 DP for a second unit's 1 day of combat training
+1 DP for successful intimidate or profession check on second unit

DP gained on day 2: 2.0
Total DP: 4.5

"I know things didn't all go according to plan today, but with the harvest complete you will have more of our poeple available for construction or training or scouting however you decide. Hopefully we can start being of more help."

Day 3: 50 villagers are free for assignment.

The harvest is complete, so the fields can be flooded. 20 villagers (no more or less) take 2 days to do it, one PC with an Endineering check makes it 1 day.

If you continue on the barricades, consider making sure enough villagers are assigned.

Scouting is a difficult task that snowballs if you send a few villagers every day. If you don't you are just hoping for a lucky high Perception roll.

It's a resource management game here, and you now have 20 more resources to work with. Most of these non-training tasks get more efficient with focus rather than spreading the villagers around. Even so, it may not be possible to "finish" everything.

Please Post your Day 3 action once it is decided, including what to do with the 50 villagers available, and any roll you may need to make.

Okay, so we definitely will send villagers out scouting for Day 3. To-to should also continue scouting, imo.

Kiyoko continues training her archers. (Assuming that the same group of 10 can benefit from a second day of archery training.)

After discussing the plan with Kiyoko To-to nods and departs with villagers. I assume at least 10 villagers can take part in scouting

Perception: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (19) + 7 = 26

Sakura tries to support the flooding of the fields!

kn engineering: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (5) + 7 = 12

Kiyoko is training the 10 archer villagers again
To-to wants to take 10 villagers scouting
Sakura directs 20 to flood the fields and tries to see if she can help them do it in one day instead of 2

10 villagers are yet unassigned
Elemenar, Ki Chin have actions to decide.

Ki Chin leads another group in training.
Prof(soldier): 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (8) + 7 = 15

At the end of the day, Elemenar is exasperated and exhausted. These villagers can't follow even the simplest of commands. How hard is it to understand? When he asked for the poles to be laid leaving rhombus shaped holes, he got squares... At least they had four sides. But then when he asked for compacted buttresses supported by reciprocating stanchions they looked at him like he was speaking a foreign language. Elemenar shook his head. Sometimes it was so painful working with commoners.

After taking a supper by himself, he met up with the group. "I'm going to try to work on the barricade with the group again tomorrow. They were practically useless today but maybe some of what I taught them today will stick. Tomorrow they might do better."

Barricade building again.

per discord discussion, elemenar aids Sakura in the field flooding instead of barricades

On the third day, Kiyoko and Ki Chin continue defensive drills with archery and melee.
Kiyoko feels like the archers are making good progress, and can probably gain about 2 more days of training.
Ki Chin is again successful with his soldiery check and gets a bonus for this third unit. Only one more unit of 10 remains eligible for the bonus from a skill check (but all can gain another day of +0.5 without the bonus check).

Sakura and Elemenar leave the mess of the barricades behind for the time being to help the villagers flood the fields. Their engineering know-how is not enough to speed up the work very much as the villagers seem to know what they are doing well enough, and will be able to finish this job tomorrow.

To-to's scouting with the 10 villagers is extra fruitful. They are able to get far afield, and hear from a neighboring village some rumor about the approaching tengu forces. They estimate that the tengu will attack Nesting Swallow on day 10 as we are currently tracking, with a moderate level of confidence in that timeframe.
Additional successes in scouting will either increase the accuracy further if it is not exactly right, or give a nice chunk of Defense Points for scouting numbers and preparedness in the schedule. 10 scouts gave a bonus of +2 to To-to's check, and from now on a permanent additional +1 which will stack any time more villagers go scouting.

Day 3's report:
Flooding Fields needs 20 villagers and 1 day, no PCs required
+0.5 DP for archery training
+0.5 DP for a second unit's 1 day of combat training
+1 DP for successful intimidate or profession check on second unit
Scouting estimates attack on day 10, scouting has cumulative +1

DP gained on day 2: 2.0
Total DP: 6.5

With a day of largely successful work, Je Tsun seems hopeful, especially with word about how long you still likely have to prepare.

"The training continues to go well, and I hear the flooding of the fields is on schedule and we have some idea of how much time we have left to prepare. Before you came we were hopeless, but now I believe you will lead us through the darkens and into the dawn of a brighter tomorrow."

Thanks to successful scouting, the going theory is you have 6 days of preparations remaining. Scouting can continue to refine this estimate or provide more Defense Points.

20 villagers are required to finish flooding the fields, no PC is required or even able to help.

Past experience with the barricades tells you if you want to get it done fast, it needs a lot of villagers. 30 to start and the more the merrier.

You have 50 villagers to assign. Keep in mind that 20 will automatically finish the fields in 1 day whenever you you put them there.
Post your Day 4 actions when you are ready!

"Your village is very brave! It is an honor to serve such dedicated people!" Sakura says to Je Tsun.

As the villagers have the flooding under control, she decides to aid To-to with the scouting.

perception aid DC 10 To-to: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (1) + 5 = 6

Ki Chin decides that it would be better to finish the barricades so he leaves the villagers to it instead of training them for the day and aid the scouting group.

perception: 1d20 ⇒ 19

Thankful for aid of his friends, To-to once more scouts.

perception: 1d20 + 7 + 1 ⇒ (16) + 7 + 1 = 24

Flooding the fields will take 20 and completing the barricades will take 30, so that precludes using any villagers as scouts or training anyone.

Kiyoko decides to amuse herself for the day around the village. In the end, that mainly means that she helps build the barricades--not that she's good for much beyond manual labor when it comes to that.

So far all villagers are assigned to the barricades and field flooding.

Elemenar, without taking any villagers off task you can either try Knowledge Engineering on the barricades again, or you can do a Perception Aid to help the scouting.