RaithRamis's page

Name: Rufio Soranus
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Unchained Rogue (Rake, Scout) 6 and Ranger (Sentinel) 1
Adventure: The Twilight Child
Location: Tallgrasses
Catalyst: Anua (Commander Jaliessa Staubel's Ram Animal Companion)

The Gory Details:
After defeating the ambush on the approach to Talgrasses, the party used magic to fly over the caravanserai and land on the western section of the porch (K4). After a quick but careful check of some of the nearby rooms without incident they went straight up the north Western stairs to Jaliessa's office (K16) and just opened the door wide and loud and started the fight with Jaliessa, Anua and the two Traitor Officers. Rufio as one of the party's two front line fighters did take a light hit from Jaliessa but was somewhat fine. It was when Anua was able to get a full round of attack's that ended Rufio. The first Gore power attack got him real low and the second pushed him into the negatives past the threshold into death.

The Fighter/Occultist was able to get the finishing blow on Jaliessa, Anua and the two Traitor Officers (all as merciful strikes) and knock them all out. The party bound and shackled the "bandits" and their pet, found the notes on the Gray Kingmaker and carried their unconscious prisoners and Rufio's corpse outside and flew back to their carriage parked away from the area and made a retreat. After turning the prisoners over to the Firewatch in for future interrogation they took their fallen friend to a temple of Desna to hold the body until they could send word to Martella and have Rufio sent back to his family.

Once recovering the party now intends to return to the caravanserai and raid the hideout with the loyal members of the Taldan Horse that they had rescued from petrification and get revenge.

I'm going to second the thanks, Trichotome. These are great additions. If my group hadn't already overhauled the system in our own way, I'd advocate for this.

My group used the Persona system fairly unmodified for about half of Book 2. As we started approaching 5 ranks (enabling a bonus feat), we made our first change. As a group, almost everyone was trying to max out Charm or Subterfuge because Persuasive and Stealthy seemed far better bonus feats for the campaign than Brilliant Planner, Diehard, Dazzling Display, or Insightful Advice. Rather than replace them entirely, we expanded the list of possible bonus feats granted at 5 ranks in each Facet:

Heroism: Acrobatic, Athletic, or Dazzling Display
Subterfuge: Deft Hands or Stealthy
Sacrifice: Diehard, Nature Soul, Self-Sufficient, or Street Smarts
Genius: Brilliant Planner, Magical Aptitude, or Prodigy
Sagacity: Animal Affinity, Alertness, or Insightful Advice
Charm: Deceitful or Persuasive

We basically assigned the 2-for-1 bonus feats to a facet that seemed more or less appropriate. Being able to swap the bonus feat out for each persona phase has also made for great flexibility if we knew what was coming next.

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We kept that for most of Book 3 before we reevaluated the system again. The higher-skill characters (Bard, Inquisitor) were near max ranks, while the lower-skill characters (Cleric, Brawler) were pretty much capped out at half. None of us minded the disparity, but it felt strange to say that this group that had been traveling together had vastly different reputations when most of what we did was essentially the same.

We were also treating the system as another element to maximize rather than doing what our characters would actually do. My Bard, for instance, is definitely a charmer, but how many damn parties can he throw? I tried to mix things up by driving legislation or arranging secret meetings, but the actions to develop persona always felt tacked on and shoehorned in. He was also developing Sagacity because Sense Motive...

Yes I would be very interested if you could share how much further you went with your revision of the Persona system. My group has just finished Book 2 and they followed the pattern of just Developing Personas instead of doing any Operations.