Budoman's page

This should be in General Discussion forum.

I'd say probably because they don't automatically assume/pigeonhole one's social identity to be of the nobility. Shopkeep, bank clerk, accountant, etc, they can all be social identities.
Traits are probably expected to provide the background class skill relevant to one's social identity.
Though I agree with you. I think base vigilante class should have a selection of social identities specializations to expand the class skill list and provide a social base ability. Noble would make a great category/specialization.

I do not think knowledge of nobility pigeonholes a character into being a noble, just someone knowledgeable of noble traditions and bloodlines etc. This basically just pairs with the social grace this class gets. Also as an intrigue character - farmers, clerks etc. have little intrigue. I would think any vigilante or intrigue type would have more than a passing interest in local politics, which almost everywhere in Golarion involves nobility.

If you want a rough and tumble vigilante you don't even have to put point in that skill but it seems if a character wants to go that route and be involved in noble intrigue they are at a disadvantage with out the class skill.

A practical skill knowledge nobility has to be one of the least rolled of all skills. I think in my last year of PFS I encounter only one time where we were asked to roll it - so it would be a very small addition.

I just find it strange that the description for the vigilante has the secret identity so he can hob nob with nobility yet there is no knowledge nobility as a class skill.

Although this is answered above, I'm just adding a note for extra clarity. I also had this question regarding selling back enchanted prestige items for quite a while myself until I dug through the rules.

The Society Play Guide states fairly clearly in the prestige table footnotes:

"Once per session, you can acquire any single item of
this cost or less from your faction by spending the
appropriate number of Prestige Points. Items purchased
this way are worth 0 gp and cannot be sold."

It says nothing that prohibits you from enchanting further a prestige purchased weapon or armor; just that you should make sure it is something you want to keep because you will never be able to sell it.

If you would like to have the PC engage with Sandpoint more, simply have Sandpoint engage them. Several of the shop owners can approach them to invite them to their stores. The half orc in town can hit on a female in the group etc. NPCs can tell them stories of Chopper. If they are chomping at the bit to move to the next area, you can have the mayor, sheriff or Shalelu tell them they will help them with scouting or provisions but they need to wait a day in town.

Also a great idea that I saw on another post is that because Ameiko inherits her family mansion after her father dies, she can give it to the PCs for saving her (since she really would rather run her inn and house only holds bad memories). The PCs can then re-outfit it to their liking using rules in Ultimate Campaign or however you see fit.

I'd allow a dozen goblin PCs before I allowed an aasimar or tiefling PC, simply because of stats.

I'd likely normally agree with this but this particular adventuring party has both younger and newer players, so I really don't mind if they are bit overpowered as the youth and newness will likely be a hindrance with many of the encounters already.

What are the others interested in playing as or in?

For the Party we have a half-orc (or maybe full orc), an aasimar and an elf. The players are all mostly new, one of the reason i first looked RotRL was because it a classic adventurer.

Some of the party members are younger players (middle school) as well. So overtly brutal or adult themed adventurers are either going to be out or heavily redacted. I was going to redact some of the more adult sections of RotRL although the vast majority of this is ok as very little of it is something you wouldn't see on network TV. Skull and Shackles which seems ideal for the group also seems a bit to brutal thematically in the first parts to have younger players involved.

Look through the threads in the section for Rise of the Runelords, and a campaign run by a poster "tbug". His group ran goblins through this AP, and I believe he posted extensive notes on how they altered the campaign to fit.

I looked this up and thanks for the suggestion. Tbug's campaign seems hugely edited and they seemed to have a whole group who thematically wanted to challenge the story with a whole goblinnoid group. I just have one player that really wants to be a goblin. The half-orc could be considered monstrous as well but with a half-orc being a core race I would figure they would be at least grudging accepted wherever they go, save maybe Lastwall.

Add a hat of disguise to the party treasure pretty early. One of the Thistletop Goblins could have been using it to scout around Sandpoint (I would use Chuffy from the free "We Be Goblins" module).

I was thinking of this - The drow books I mentioned above have the main character use a similar mask and now I've found the oddly off named "Cap of Human Guise" in Ultimate Equipment seems better suited to small races and a less expensive item than hat of disguise so it can be introduced earlier.

Although frankly, I kind of like the idea carrying the goblin in a bag - it just seems the appropriate way to carry a goblin around and a slightly insane thing a goblin would go for. And then opening the bag and letting him out to run around when exploring danger outside the public eye just seems goblin-like. However, the PCs would ultimately make the choice of what to do.

If he has set on making an Alchemist, then my first thought would be to make him the clandestine contact of the proprietor of The Feathered Serpent (the local magical shop) - the owner buys potions from him and sells them for a profit, and it'd be up to you to decide if the relationship was a mutually beneficial one or an exploitative one. Alternately he could be an acquaintance of Madame Mvashti from one of her many long walks through the local environs. Either way, one of the PC's could discover the relationship or the NPC could step forward and 'vouch' for the goblin when it appears there is need for him.

Those are good ideas that I will likely use. I'll probably have the PC play an NPC for the first raid and then introduce him maybe by having select townsfolk refer the other PCs to him as someone who could help find out more about the raids for the sheriff - although he would know little more than them but be willing to help and could join up at that time. Maybe someone has already been using the sack to smuggle him in and out of town and the PC could get the sack at that time as well.

I am quite torn. I really like the RoTRL and now that I've read quite a bit into like it even more. But some other people's posts, such as Story Archers post about the goblin unnecessarily drawing attention and possibly spoiling fun to be a big factor in making me reconsider. However, I may have a solution and was wondering what you guys thought.

For the goblin, I was going to start him out as an outcast from the local Sandpoint tribes, similar to what other have done. But because he is an alchemist with cure light wounds as one of his first potions, I was thinking he may have some tenuous dealings with Sandpoint, even if not fully welcome, selling potions to the temple and maybe some others so that many of the villagers know about this rogue goblin even if they don't fully trust him. He would know something about the initial raid and try to warn the Sheriff, Mayor etc. but not be believed however, afterward he would have some trust with key people like the mayor, sheriff etc. who know about this. This would allow him to at least interact directly with these characters.

Because we have big barbarian, the goblin can be carried around in a sack by the barbarian that will let him travel with the party unseen in populated areas so he's not the center of attention. He can whisper to the barbarian to participate by proxy in conversations. If he wishes to participate more fully he can purchase, go on a side quest or invent some alchemist potion to let him disguise more fully (with the illusion of halfling or polymorph or some such thing) when traveling in a city.

Thank you all for the suggestions.

I'm just kind of wondering about both Skull and Shackles and Kingmaker. Both looking into them seem a good possibility. I should have mentioned some other items. Two of the players are both new and young. Skull and Shackles actually seems a great reason to throw a goblin, orc, elf and aasimar into room (my player's first choices or races), but it seems like a quite a dark first adventure especially for a younger player.

As far as Kingmaker goes - is it complex or does it require a bunch of other rules for running a kingdom. Just wondering how complex it is to run.

Also just looking around so far Legacy of Fire seems like the main city would be both goblin tolerant and AP is young player friendly.

I am looking to set up a game to GM and one of my players absolutely wants to play a goblin. Before he picked goblin I looked into maybe running Rise of the Runelords but the early campaign is so completely anti-goblin, and after getting advice on another thread, I definitely decided there isn't really any good way to shoehorn a goblin into that AP.

I'm still a bit a of a newer GM, so I'm looking if there is something that would be a complete campaign with a lot of lore for me to build on and also allow for a odd or unusual set of PCs or at least take place away from intrigue of large cities or towns that would harbor a large number of monster haters.

I've played the "We Be Goblins" scenario and I'm familiar with that but the other players don't also want to be goblins, just the one player, and those scenarios just seem to be intros.

Also not really looking to run an evil campaign - the goblin character would be neutral or even unusual in being chaotic good. A neutral campaign would work fine.

Any idea?

Story Archer thank you for the wonderful comments as well to everyone else. It likely is the case of the "special snowflake" you mention more than anything. And calling me out on the racism thing was appropriate, I had only recently read RA Salvatore novels which are well done even if they create the problems you mentioned. They were likely more heavily influencing my thoughts than they should have been. I will consider the comments strongly, likely asking the player to consider another character and keep this character on reserve until I get a campaign better suited for monster PC or in area more tolerant of monster characters.

Peet - thank you for the suggestions.

I actually already took one of your suggestions in part. The player who wants to be an orc isn't because of the +4 but because they are a fan of orcs out of Warcraft lore which are generally more noble than a regular orc in Golarion and act more with the intelligence of a half orc. Since it is a house rules game I basically just had her build a half orc stat wise and called it a full orc because she didn't want to be called a half orc. I also just found it strange that a full orc wouldn't have the same intimidating traits a half orc has.

Also just the general theme of racism and racial relations or how to deal with them I also find somewhat compelling as GM and it is a topic not really discussed in say the GameMastery guide and given very little attention in the Inner Sea World guide (other than given some short sentences of these races tolerating those etc). Say in the Dragon Age fiction, the fact that elves are an oppressed race forced to live in slums makes the world more alive and compelling. Likely I'm going to be doing a bit of hand waving to have some characters ignore who they talk to but in other instances it seems racial tension is a good hook to add a compelling element to the story.

The hatred for orcs and goblins seem to come from different places. Orcs are feared and thought to be somewhat stupid but respected for their martial prowess. However, goblins are viewed simply as vermin.

So a goblin is born and unlike the other goblins is exceptionally smart and not so crazy. Unable to relate to his own kind, what is his place?

Your mileage might vary, but my advice for you would be: Say no.

As DM's we want the players to have a good time. But we are forced to say no sometimes, manly because what the player want will decrease the fun for the players involved (including the DM).
So we have the responsibility to be able to say no sometimes.

This has crossed my mind. I'd rather have a creative solution because it doesn't seem that beyond the beginning of campaign that indicates a the goblin character will be as much a hindrance. After the initial stages of burnt offerings it seems the goblin as PC matters much less as goblins play less and less a role or the encounters take place outside the public eye. The player I know isn't going to play evil or cause event ruining trouble by playing up the semi-insane nature of goblin (and I would not allow that if it did start to happen), but that player just has an affinity for playing a goblin.

The back story of this character is that due to his kinder nature (and for trying to write down formulas in a formula book), he has become an outcast from his tribe.

As one possibility, I was thinking of making him an outcast from a local tribe so that locals know about this outcast being different from the rest, even if they don't initially trust or like him. As far as it being fun for a GM, the whole area is ripe with possibilities with more interaction with goblin tribes and where the character could even establish himself as a conquering leader of the local tribes to bring a tenuous peace to the village. I was more wondering if there is some stories to lore around standpoint that may be useful to allow some of these deviations from the main story to help allow it to flow without being forced. Either in the direction of working with the goblins or when other parties angered Sandpoint in some way and needed to be redeemed.

Hello All,

I'm a newer GM embarking on a RotR campaign. I picked it as a newer GM because of the huge amount of lore and support material to draw on. However my players have thrown me a curve with one player absolutely wanting to to be a chaotic good goblin firebomber alchemist (without knowing much about the story). To make it more intriguing a second player is a full orc barbarian. The other two characters filling out the party are fairly standard with an elf rogue and an aasimar cleric. Somehow I don't think Sandpoint will take as easily to a goblin defending them from other goblins, but I've decided to accept the challenge.

There seems to be a lot of possibilities for intrigue with other goblins and racial discrimination tension etc. And it seems an extra possibility for a side quest for the players to prove themselves as heroes to the city. A certain popular set of stories about a Drow hero comes to mind as well as the discrimination he encountered. I warned the goblin character that he would likely face quite a lot of discrimination due to his racial choice, likewise for the orc but less so since she's a lot more intimidating.

One part I'm not sure how to deal with is

Just wondering if anyone encountered similar situations or maybe a had some suggestions or possible places to look to incorporate local goblin culture etc. into the story.