Multiple Choice's page

Please cancel my AP subscription. While I have enjoyed my subscription, I have more than enough AP modules to last for several years to come.

*pokes the membership button*

Same as with joining Dagedai, I intend to provide infrastructure support though architecture, engineering, and carpentry. Assuming those things pan out of course.

Is there some other website for the settlement that I should be looking into? There is clearly a lot more going on than is posted here . . .

@BrotherZael

I was simply taking a look at the closest mountain settlements. We'd be more than happy to trade with Forgeholm given sufficient security for the caravans.

While M may have been a more ideal location, L is excellent as well. Looks like we'll wind up focusing on agricultural exports (food, herbs, potions) given the surrounding terrain.

We can also seek to turn a profit as a last-stop market before adventurers get out into the as-yet unclaimed sections of the map. With that in mind, consumables like potions, bolts, arrows, rations, etc. are prime good to keep in stock.

PS: We'll want to build wooden fortifications first (if available) and worry about stone defenses once we have favorable trade relations with Pas Golgotha, Empyrean Order, or Keepers of the Circle. They'll be our trading partners for iron and stone.

I joined up a week or 2 ago, but just decided to introduce myself.

For my non-adventuring character (have the dual-leveling kickstarter thing), I'm primarily looking to be a crafter of some sort (Expert class), likely carpentry to build structures and carts/wagons for trading. After all, while caravan guards and drivers may get all the glory for getting goods to market, they're not going anywhere with a broken axle. Someone has to build the infrastructure.

Why did I decide to join Dagedai? Because it sounds like you plan to create a meritocracy with a well-regulated capitalistic approach.

While I am also pursing this matter via phone and e-mail, I have the same issue. Pages 49-64 are missing and in their place I have duplicates of pages 33-48. My order number is 2709798.

Preamble:
I've noticed a number of posts cropping up since the recent blog post about alignment. A lot of people are concerned about the direction the alignment system is taking, especially since it currently seems to want to push everyone towards being Chaotic Evil.

We all know that ethics/ethos is more complex than 2 sliding bars. People are complex beings that take a variety of actions for myriad reasons. At the heart of everyone's decision-making process, though, is the belief that one is always taking the best course of action available to them. The reason people make different choices given the same situation is often because of different priorities and knowledge. Whether you value your own comfort above another's is a huge factor in determining your inclination towards charity work.

Visible Issues:
Now, the primary reason for the outcry that I can see is that a whole lot of ways have been outlined to become evil and/or chaotic, but not much has been said on the matter of becoming lawful and/or good. According to the outlined system, if you see a merchant being attacked by bandits and leap to his aid, YOU SHIFT TOWARDS CHAOTIC. If any of the bandits die in the engagement, even if you did not deal the killing blow, YOU SHIFT TOWARDS EVIL. Thus the action of defending someone from bandits, clearly a Lawful Good act, has resulted in your alignment shifting towards Chaotic Evil.

This also creates the "Alignment Mountain" problem, where you will end up with a lot of players at the base of the mountain (Chaotic Evil) and a rare few at the top (Lawful Good) simply because climbing the mountain isn't something they have the willpower to do. If 90% of the players are evil, why bother trying to be good? You may still play as an honorable character, but according to the alignment system you are Chaotic Evil or close to it. The mechanics of becoming Lawful Good simply aren't worth the effort.

Possible Solutions:
The simplest solution I can think of is based on PC settlements. When a company of players forms a settlement, they determine the alignment of the settlement and the "laws" of the area. These "laws" can be used as a primary method of shifting player alignment. Especially in Lawfully aligned hexes, following those laws should shift in you towards being lawful regardless of the normal consequences of those actions. If one of the laws for an area is to attack players who initiate PvP against ANYONE, that would allow you to defend another player who is under attack and be considered a law-abiding citizen for doing so. It could in fact be possible for player guilds to be set up similarly, allowing players who are following the laws of their guild to mitigate or eliminate chaotic shifts. You could even mitigate abuse of this mechanic by making certain laws alignment specific.

I don't have as concrete of an idea when it comes to the good/evil axis, especially since the core concept of "Good" is placing great value on life itself. This is the reason, I think, that Paizo determined that killing is an Evil act. If anyone else has any ideas, please share them.

Oh, I do recall the single toughest fight we had, and it wasn't even a BBEG. It wasn't even, technically, a monster written into the module . . .

Keep in mind that complexity, while potentially a good thing, should be minimal when possible. The fewer things the player has to keep track of, the easier the system is to code and use. For those that don't watch Extra Credits, "elegance" is one of the primary goals of a game designer. To achieve it requires you to get the most depth possible with the least complexity possible.

Ultimately, the concept here is to create a system where players can move about while offline/AFK. GW has indicated that they want the world to feel big, and instant travel would almost completely negate that. A queued AFK transportation system seems to offer the best of both worlds, giving players mobility while still requiring forethought on where they intend to be.

For simplicity, since the river is out of the way and ocean travel is not yet available, I'mg going to simply my references to "Hub" and "Caravan" instead of "Hub/Port" and "Ship/Caravan."

Collection of Proposed Changes
1) Players are the ones who build hubs and caravans instead of having developers place them. This would put logistics squarely in the hands of the players.

2) Each caravan would require a driver and, potentially, guards. Also, large enough caravans may require additional players or hirelings to maintain.

3) During travel, NPC or PC bandits can attack the caravan. Victory would force the driver, guards, and passengers to pay the bandits a % of their carried wealth based on how decisive their victory is. Failure would cause the bandits to forfeit gear and/or be captured to be turned into proper authorities.

4) Passengers who are online during a bandit attack can defend the caravan along with the driver and guards, though they are free to negotiate a reduction in travel costs if they do so.

5) To support the logistics side of things, craftsmen/merchants could use another player's caravan to transport their goods. This would be at the risk of bandits stealing a portion of it . . .

6) Provide a rating system for caravans. This can be a general approval rating, or be broken down into Speed, Safety, and Reliability, or simply allow player word of mouth to speak for itself.

Did I miss anything?

PS: I really wish I could edit these into my original post . . .

How did they handle Thistletop? Did you let them back off, rest and come in again?

I remember running this a while ago, and we had a uniquely appropriate party for it: a Polearm fighter, a cleric, a rogue/bard (myself), and an Enchanter.

I had a high enough stealth and climb to get the gate open with the goblins none the wiser. The fighter handled the hordes of goblins with his combat reflexes + lunge, and when we got the to sub-boss . . . the Enchanter charmed him and used his charisma to talk him into staging a coup against the ACTUAL boss.

We completed the whole place in 1 run, and the sub-boss died in the coup attempt.

The APs in my experience are easy if you play smart and use all your tools.

@Caedryan
1) A large number of players take the ability to form a group in a MMO on the fly for granted. A lack of instant travel is a break from the norm and will require players to adjust how they do things. Keep in mind that, even in Eve Online, travel between far away points is still relatively quick. You can travel 30 jumps in under half an hour if you do so manually in a fast ship. This system would, ideally, be much slower than that.

2) The downside that is unless a way is provided for players to organically create the hubs, it would be the developers artifically creating the trade centers. This would draw away from the full player sandbox that they are attempting to create.

3) If you read the full post, you will note that I mentioned that part of the goal was to allow players to travel w/o having to pay attention all the time.

@Andius
Yes, the goal would be for it to be slower than riding a horse on your own from point A to point B, but allow you to do so w/o having to manually steer the horse the entire way.

This form of fast travel would not be available for moving massed troops, only single characters or their parties.

Adding inspections and bandit attacks would be trickier, but possible if you made the whole system player-driven. You could have the caravan driven by a player, who can hire guards, and the driver and his guards would be the ones defending the caravan (and the players "sleeping" inside).

Addendum
This concept would perhaps be best implemented for travel between maps if/when GW creates regions beyond the initial starting area.

I read the thread about how mounts will ruin the game, and it dawned on me that he wasn't arguing that mounts would ruin the game so much as fast travel. I actually have to agree that instantaneous fast travel would be detrimental to how GW has prosed to design the game (a.k.a. with travel times for selling goods and whatnot).

So I got to thinking of how we can have a travel system that allows people to get from point A to point B without having to run/walk/ride all the way, because lets face it: no want wants to have to manually direct a character across a continent that is supposed the size of Asia. I came up with the collowing concept:

Travel Hubs
There will be 2 kinds of travel hubs: ports and caravan posts. These are the places that ships/caravans pull into to seek new cargo and passengers. Going into a travel hub will bring up a list vehicles appropriate to the hub and their itineraries.

Itineraries
This is where things really start to come together. Each ship/caravan will have its own itinerary. These will indicate when they will arrive at the given hub, as well as when they leave and when they arrive at other hubs. When your character choose to board a ship/caravan, they will be presented with a list of destinations and associated gold costs.

From here, they simply select their chosen destination and their character will automatically board the ship/caravan or wait until it arrives and then board it. Once on board a ship, you will still have access to all chat functions, but your avatar itself will be largely unavailable.

Now here is where the kicker comes in: The ship/caravan travels in real time. It will stop at each hub along the way, and will deduct the gold cost of transport as it arrive at each hub. At any time a player may choose to get off at an earlier hub instead of completing the full journey, and they will have already paid the cost for traveling to that location.

The player may log off their character at any time during this process once they have chosen a ship/caravan and a destination. Their character will automatically board, travel, and get off as they have chosen while they are offline or playing another character. This does mean that the player MUST be able to afford the full cost of the journey in order to select it.

Benefits
1) Maintains the "big world" feel that is integral to the setting GW has set out to create.

2) Provides a way to "autopilot" travel across the world, which is necessary in my opinion to prevent players from never leaving their home country.

3) Still associates a cost with travel and maintains the realism of travelling cast distances.

4) Doesn't lock players out of any interaction or punish them if they accidently click to travel to a hub much farther away than they intended.

Downsides
1) No instant travel means that forming groups will have to be coordinated in advance.

2) Placement of travel hubs by developers can artifically "force" players to congregate in certain areas (maybe have a way for players to build their own hubs or ships/caravans?).

3) Ability to implement difficulties during travel will be hard since players will likely not be online during travel.

Closing
I think this is a great way to maintain the feel that GW is looking for in having a large game world. Instant travel may still be available (I'm looking at you wizards), and players may be able to create their own itineraties via spells like Wind Walk.

The primary goal is to allow a way for players to travel from A to B without having to be online constantly guiding their character, and without said travel being instant. If anyone has any additional ideas or comments, please post em!

Also, if I seem unclear on anything, let me know so I can clarify it.

You can use Gang Up with a ranged attack, and you can use Outflank to increase the flanking bonus to +4.

However, the rules for taking an Attack of Opportunity state that it must be a MELEE attack, thus disallowing Outflank from giving an AoO to someone with a ranged weapon.

However, as per the 2nd example, if C3 scored a critical strike it would still allow C2 to make an AoO, since C2 is capable of making a melee attack.

Even better, if C3 is wielding a whip and is within 15 feet of E, then he could actually take an AoO whenever C2 scored a critical hit. After all: While the whip doesn't threaten, it is still a melee weapon with a 15ft reach.