Riverlands Here We Come (Inactive)

Game Master Chainmail

No, you are level 1 still.

Assassin equipment was studded leather, dagger, hand crossbow for the most part.

Brightberry can carry a couple of hand crossbows and quivers. He would leave his spear and sling behind for Lady Jumandi. He's already near encumbered.

Now is the time to change characters.

Brightberry may want to add the independent trait to a familiar. When familiars provide obvious aid to a party, they can be attacked. I know from experience with other DMs in 2E and it makes sense, but it turns out the independent trait would have been useful in the boss fight.

We will soon be leaving to Oleg's, but we will be using the rules to explore as you go to Oleg's not from Oleg's.

You are in Restov and will be traveling straight West to Oleg's. There is a hex map called Stolen Lands Hex Map that you can view but not edit in the campaign tab we will be using. Lyra's image is the party token. If anyone wants to keep their own hex map, I will link it.

Is anyone going to have a problem with the weekday posting plan??

Pretty happy with Edoom. Still need to get more familiar with what he can accomplish... but for the most part looking forward to his growth as a character.

Also, probably take a hand crossbow and 6-bolts or so.

BB is good to go. Now being more familiar with familiars, and their traits, should help.

That hex map is awesome! Can you give us an example of how you would like to handle the rules for exploring hex's? Also, I'm fine with your weekday posting. Could you remind me what days those are again?

Jade doesn't need physical weapons, so I don't need to grab any. I'm easily able to post daily.

We will certainly want to take the portions and jewelry. The hand crossbows fetch good coin as well. I will not be keeping mine to use.

The man with the ledger is helping to see what you want to leave with the lady and what you don't. Remember the longsword and mace were found in her personal treasury.

Unless someone objects, we will return all the longswords, including the magical one (but Lyra will get mundane one back), the chain mail, 6 hand crossbows (after Edoom takes one). The magical mace will be returned as well.

I think we would keep/sell the rest, except for the potions, which someone should claim/carry. If the Lady wants to buy it from us, it saves a step.

If my math is right, that adds to 104.11 gp. I'd suggest we get a cart and draft animal (mule?) with some of that so we can carry things through the Greenbelt easily. Think we should also get some outdoor gear, like tents etc, and enough food for a while. Thoughts?

I am fine with a team name. Guardians of the Greenbelt is merely a suggestion.

I'm not sure that court guards would use hand crossbows. That's more of a scoundrel's weapon. I think a cart and horse is a fantastic idea! Brightberry is not in need of any outdoor gear, but he would offer to carry the potions. For those times when his spells and berries wear out, he could continue to heal as needed.

I will assign them to you on the Tracker Sheet. Do you want the non-healing ones as well?

Lol, after being burned and cut with an axe, this tree person would So like the fire resistant one if no one else wants it.

Longsword +1 and mace +1 are yours. Lady Jumandi appreciates your offer, but insists you keep them.

Longsword +1 and mace +1 are yours. Lady Jumandi appreciates your offer, but insists you keep them.

Lyra will keep the longsword then. Anyone want the magical mace, or sell? Or hold on to the rune to Transfer?

Second one a much better option, especially for Edooms weapon. Even an argument to put mace rune on bow, and give Edoom a longsword (or move that one to katana)

I would agree with the cart and horse. Command an Animal is a nature check, and I think a lot of us have that skill.

The healing potions, I think, should be divided among everyone, so that everyone has access to them for themselves and/or others.

We should transfer the mace rune to one of Edoom's weapons.

Splitting the potions seems the wiser choice. I agree about the rune. The bow would seem the biggest bang for the buck in action economy.

I am in agreement about splitting the healing potions. Since we will hopefully not stand in a formation during combats it would help to have everyone with the ability to heal on the move.

Edoom would be ecstatic to take one of the magical weapons and transfer it to his favorite Katana.

As mentioned, each rune is 3.5gp and one quarter time to transfer than make new OR one day each rune.

You know the trading post has asked for assistance and bandits have plagued the area. Common thoughts are two days given the length of the journey would probably not be significant.

It makes more sense to transfer the rune(s) first so that we have better capabilities against the bandits.

Alright, hard decision time for me. Really thinking I should swap out to the Fighter concept I had suggested before.

I definitely feel like PF2 is a completely different playstyle from PF1, and I may not be understanding exactly what kind of emphasis is needed for tanky character. If anyone has any advice, please let me know.

It makes more sense to transfer the rune(s) first so that we have better capabilities against the bandits.

Thanks. Wasn’t sure if someone with the craft magic item feat was here.

Alright, hard decision time for me. Really thinking I should swap out to the Fighter concept I had suggested before.

I definitely feel like PF2 is a completely different playstyle from PF1, and I may not be understanding exactly what kind of emphasis is needed for tanky character. If anyone has any advice, please let me know.

From my experience anything you can do to add up bonuses is critical. More than any other game I’ve ever played party synergy is critical to success. Also anything you can do to give flexibility to your action economy rules.

While Edoom is very effective at dealing damage his low AC and HP make much better at getting in and avoiding attacks. A fighter, Barbarian, or champion make a good pairing with a Magus who also has limited spell slots.

I'll offer some thoughts, but before I do I also want to point out that the intro to Kingmaker seemed really brutal. I read the gameplay thread while brainstorming concepts, and the fights for level 1 characters seemed to all be really high difficulty, though I don't know how the AP adjusted the monsters. But, I mean, you guys ran into ogres and giants at level 1, so it might be rather hard to make a judgment on how good a character build was as it seems to me you were punching about your weight class, and successfully, in most, if not all, of the fights.

Tanky in the system has a lot of range, as I think most things do.

One of the first things to understand is that the role of AC in PF2E is not to prevent hits, it's to prevent crits. The other key thing to understand is that tanking is mostly about mitigation and action denial. There are very few ways to make a monster attack a tank.

Who makes good tanks? Almost any class can be a good tank.

Champions get the best AC in the game and have incredible reactions that handle damage mitigation.

Monks get the best saves in the game. They can get very high AC, and have a lot of options for battlefield control.

Fighters can tank, though IMO, it's rarely the best role for them. With fighters' enhanced ability to crit, if there is another tank option, they are better off with a two-handed weapon and trying to land crits.

Druids and War Priests both get shield block and can make decent off tanks.

Swashbucklers, with the right feat selection, can make excellent tanks.

Armor inventors and mutagen based alchemists can make good tanks.

Barbarians can HP tank, and after level 6, Animal barbarians can make normal tanks, as they lose the AC debuff and get an AC bonus when raging.

Can Kinesticists tank? I don't know yet, but I plan to find out. I can go into some of my thought processes when designing Jade if people are curious why I made the choices for her I did.

I don't think Magus makes a good tank, because of action economy issues. They want to spell strike, they want to recharge it, they want to be mobile. Cantrips can be used for spell strikes, too, Edoom, don't forget that, and they can be very effective.

Another big part of tanking is action denial. Moving an enemy. Tripping it. Moving away from it if it doesn't have AoO - and most monsters don't! Debuffs help too, and there are a lot of ways to debuff in the game.

All that said, if you think you'd be happier playing a fighter, do that. I would like to point out that off all the classes in PF2E, alchemist is the worst one at level 1, because its tool kit grows so much at each level. The higher level an alchemist is, they not only get more daily items, but they get more formulas and more options. But, in the end, I think it is crucial to play a character you have fun with.

We can wait another day for a character change.

Does anyone have a problem with the daily posting requirement?

I am trying to play an alchemist in Jade's new Mantle of Gold group.

Food for thought, food for thought...

I'd love to play a crit monster Fighter, but I suspect we may have all we need for damage with Edoom and Lyra when their dice are hot. Does the PF2 Fighter have Crit modification for effects instead of damage or is that only a PF1 or Rogue only thing?

If I can make a Fighter that's mostly there to create openings for the rest of you, that might even some things out for us.

Lyra will offer up the sword to anyone who will use, and will move the rune to her longbow instead, if that's the decision.

I will vote for waiting a day to get that accomplished along with selling the rest of the gear, and buying some outfitter supplies. Do you want to manage that on camera or off? I am fine with hand-waving it if DM and all are. Happy to handle the math of selling, and buying, and splitting the proceeds. I'd like to get that business settled so we can set of for real.

I am fine with daily requirements most days, though there are some where RL intrudes. And I will try to tell you if away for any length of time.

My experience playing/running PF2 is still limited, but I don't think there has to be a tank per se to make things work well. There is enough flexibility without super-optimizing party dynamics to make most things work, so play what would be fun for you.

Tibold, I have a PF2 fighter in our home campaign that fights one-handed and with his feat selection either pushes people or combat grabs them to make them flat-footed against everyone else in the group. That seems to work pretty well, especially since we have rogue in the group.

Lyra, I thought the Rune was going to Edoom, butt I could be wrong. I'm fine with you handling our merchant needs off camera. I don't think BB is in need of much.

Two runes—each take one day.

Pathfinder 2e fighters already have ‘crit specialization by the new rules (expert in most weapons)

Fighters tend to crit more initially since they do start at expert in all weapons. However, this will even out with everything except the fighters weapon group of choice. At 5th level, when other martials hit expert, fighters get Master, but only in 1 weapon group, so with their main weapon, they still have crit advantage, but with other weapons they are on par with other classes.

We have two +1 weapons, the sword and the mace. I think the mace rune will go to Edoom, and the sword rune can be kept on a sword, or maybe transferred to Lyra's bow.

I'm also ok with hand waving the shopping.

That's right, I forgot that we were gifted two magic weapons. Those placement choices make sense to me.

Just a couple of thoughts. It might be useful for someone (Who is better with this type of things than I) to create a spreadsheet to keep track of the rumors we hear. As a sandbox adventure it would be easy to forget things to be addressed later in the game.

We should probably also have default exploration activities to keep from having to repeat them. Perhaps when we sense danger we slow down and default to an exploration activity until things return to normal. I chose "Sense Direction" as it doesn't slow us down... but when alerted would switch to "defend".

Tibold

Tibold the character will be exiting, so consider him missing from the roster which set out.

I’ll most likely be using the Local Brigand background, so meeting Unnamed Adventurer 17 on the road should work out just fine.

I’m thinking he may have quit his band and might be hanging around Oleg’s looking for odd jobs from pioneers and other travelers.

If the equipment Lady Jumandi was offered to buy for 105 gp is more than you can carry and at half purchase cost, she will pay but not offer the magic weapons. Sorry I missed that in bookkeeping post.

You can buy +1 weapons for 35gp plus cost of weapon in Brevoy and save 2 days. Sounds like you come out ahead this way in time and gold.

I totally missed that post Lyra—sorry bout that.

Now that we have a fifth the 105gp sale hits WBL better!! The medallions were supposed to help too.

To be clear, the 105gp results from the sale of the bandit items, and the other things that Lady said we could take. We gave back her guards gear and the money, and offered back the magic weapons. Offering them to her was intended as a courtesy, not a slight.

If she didn't want to have first dibs on the other gear, and would retain the magic weapons instead, I think we would've just kept the magic weapons, and sold the things elsewhere in Brevoy.

Just a couple of thoughts. It might be useful for someone (Who is better with this type of things than I) to create a spreadsheet to keep track of the rumors we hear. As a sandbox adventure it would be easy to forget things to be addressed later in the game.

I added a tab "Rumors and Leads" to the Loot Tracker file, so anyone can add/edit etc there. I will list these things we learned most recently.

Lady Jumandi thanks you profusely for your aid. The money in the treasury Lady Jumandi considered to be her property. Any weapons, potions, and armor that you found she would like you to keep.

Lady Jumandi does inform you that she will need to reequip and restaff her forces, and any equipment (weapons and armor) that is left behind will be put to good use. Nevertheless, she generously offers for you to take all that you can carry to start your new kingdom.

Sorry if I was being unclear. Did you intend to buy a wagon and put the things in the wagon "to carry"?

Are the items being offered to her to buy more than you can physically carry using normal encumbrance rules?

Tibold's replacement here!

@GM Tribute: Let me know if I screwed anything up.

Welcome back!

I am holding posting until the initiative comes around for Lyra. I may be tied up this weekend, so if it comes to my turn, feel free to shoot the boar if they are hostile (or if we are hungry) using her bow skills. I will be back Monday most likely.

Klaus looks good. He will be in the Greenbelt.

I can heal both Edoom and myself for 1d8 every 10 minutes, so if we don't fight the wolves, we should be back to full before any other encounters.

Lol, 2e wolves don't get AoO. That's hilarious.

I long for the day when we don't have to be bailed out by GM controlled characters and beasts and can actually accomplish something for ourselves... :-).

So far, the fights in this AP have had the party fighting things higher than they are. Two boars against four first level characters is a severe encounter.

I think once we get a level or two more, we'll be doing better. If we were level 2, the boars would have been a moderate encounter, for example.

if you are restored to full Hit Points and rest for 10 minutes or have a successful treat wounds, all wounded goes away

I'll need home in a few hours and be able to open the map, or you can place me randomly near some sort of cover.

No hurry I will be updating Mon or Tues

Hey guys, I'm going to go ahead and bow out. Nothing against our GM or you as players; the game's been fun. I've got some things jamming up my creative mind and life's also been a bit more hectic reducing my ability to get on the forums as much as I'd like.

Thank you for having me for this time, and happy gaming.

Good luck Tibold!