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From now on, when a language doesn't have a word for elf, the word is "soup"
What I would say in response to all this archer/fisher/hunter stuff, is that if you create a team dedicated to food production, they will produce food by producing gp at whatever their normal rate is, and converting at the usual rate (5sp/1food, I believe) In our narrative, this will represent a more structured and careful sort of hunting/trapping/gathering. It will not be subject to the depletion that the regular, unskilled and unorganized foragers are facing. These people are farmers and craftsmen, not survivalists, and simply don't have the training to live off the land in an unknown country. As they are formed into teams, they are learning the skills that they need. As for wardens and marines... to me, it seems like we can do these by reskinning. Sailors produce gp, Goods and Labor. Robbers produce gp, Goods and Labor. So we can say that Marines are robbers, and instead of jumping from expert 2 to expert 3, we can say they jump to expert 2/warrior 1. I also was thinking at one point, and may have discussed with the group, the idea of knocking down the class levels of the higher level teams. My reasoning is that these teams were built for a 20 level campaign world, but this is a 6 level campaign with a very few (total 10 in the whole world. The 6 of you, and the 4 PCs who have dropped) individuals who have the potential to one day reach 7th level. It won't affect the income that a team generates, or the cost to build the team, but on those rare occasions when the team members stats do come into play, halving their level seems to keep their relative ability in the scope of the campaign.
The Honeyflow is the Rotten River. Newspringers really haven't had leisure to build huts. Most are foraging, the rest are building palisades and so on. At best, they'll have sailcloth tents shored up with driftwood and the like. I did make a list of what other things are in the works that you guys don't really know about, but I don't have my notes handy. IIRC
Not that any of this was supposed to be a secret, I just realized the discount on capital was about to end and thought I'd crunch out what they had been working on, how far along they were, etc. I'll feed that into the spreadsheet when I get back to the numbers. My picture of things is that the Thayer's fortification is to the west of the spring, with most of the inhabitations clustered around. Their tent is in the middle of the fort, with the bunks and common room behind. I guess the gate would face the spring. The beach is near the marshes about a mile through the woods to the south, with the forge set up along the stream. Ingwe's area is northwest, away from marsh, shore, stream, everything. If you're really feeling ambitious, do Portress to Vallen's satisfaction.
The Newspring Spring is the source of a stream (barely a stream ... more a babbling brook ... it's rarely more than a foot deep and a couple of yards across) that only flows about 1/4th mile from the spring to the bay. There are several larger streams (waist deep and 10 yards across) that form marshes of scrub where they reach the bay in the same hex, and the beach where Edmund and the others spar is at the cusp of the largest of these minideltas, formed by a stream neck deep and twenty yards across. The ship's boats could make it up that stream, but only for about a mile or so before it gets too shallow and rocky. The Rotten River is somewhat larger, a good thirty yards across where the explorers encountered it on their way NW, but shallow and rocky. Where it flows into the bay at the edge of the Newspring hex, it breaks up into a dozen small channels that lose themselves in a black, fetid marsh. I want to go to Eleven Points River now. Sigh.
The goblins listen to Vallen's introduction to fire, Gwenci smirking but Sharpeyes listens carefully. When he begins his invocation to consecrate the forge, Gwenci attempts to translate, but for whatever reason, the speech is too difficult for him to grasp. ============ Is that really Ingwe's voice that Sorala hears, laughing? The big half-orc is nowhere in sight, but it sounds just like him. ============ Everyone sees lots of things as they look around. Trees, leaves, moss, brush, hills rising up, similar to the other hills you've explored, they are cut by deep valleys and crowned by bald peaks that give the opportunity to survey the land around. To the east, the land is flat, covered with thick forest, and to the west the hills continue to rise. As the group moves into the new territory, however, Kal'Tos spots a warm, familiar glitter in a stream bed. There is gold here.
I doubt the dwarf race would have survived if they discovered the existence of an elemental plane of alcohol, unless it was entirely elven wine. Ale Dwarf (10rp) Certain dwarves posit an elemental plane of alcohol. Other dwarves live there.They speak common and dwarven. They have darkvision to 60'. Like normal dwarves, they are slow, but able to carry substantial burdens. 20' move, but move is unaffected by armor or encumbrance. Unlike other dwarves, ale dwarves are known to be gregarious, but exhibit spectacularly poor judgement. Con +2
Like their cousins on the material plane, they are hardy and stubborn folk. (resistant) +2 to resist poison and mind affecting effects. They have been so drunk for so long that they are quite fearless. (fearless) +2 to saves against fear-based effects. Though most creatures only think they're eloquent when they drink, ale dwarves actually are. (gift of tongues) They get a +1 to diplomacy and bluff checks, each time they tank a rank in linguistics, they learn one additional language. (sociable) When ale dwarfs fail a diplomacy check to change a creature's attitude by 5 or more, they can retry once before 24 hours have passed. (weapon training) they are automatically proficient with battle axes, and treat any weapon with "dwarven" in the name as a martial weapon. (bonus feat: catch off guard) due to the frequency of brawls in the mighty stein-castles on the elemental plane of alcohol, ale dwarves are considered proficient with improvised weapons.
Melilla.
@ Cueta ... Like how knowing how to drive doesn't help with knowing which wild plants are safe to eat, Profession: Sailor does not allow you to make Profession: Fisherman rolls. I would say that it would allow you to make survival rolls to fish, and thereby escape the increasing penalties for foraging in the hex. If you load up the boats with a dozen or so people, those penalties may start kicking in.
If I recall correctly, the second palisade was to double the size, the 16 days was to complete a wooden palisade and the 32 was to improve it to a stone palisade for double the cost. I believe that it was decided that the wooden construction would serve as a basis for the stone construction, allowing the wood palisade to be finished as construction began on the stone wall, but it was a long time ago, so I might misremember. As far as the practicality of building a stone wall whilst starving, the capital has been spent, so the walls will be built. In theory, everyone could die and the walls would still be done on time, though I think I might bent the RAW in favor of a hint of common sense in that case. I've been going back and forth about fishing. Since there's only the two of them at it, I don't think they'll deplete the resources as quickly as the 54? people you have foraging at the moment. It seems I decided to use the Profession: Fisherman skill the same way I use the survival skill, rather than making a profession roll for sp and expressing the results as 1food/5sp. They are at a penalty because I subtract 10 from the roll rather than the result to make my own life easier. There is a greater chance of them coming up with nothing this way, but I think their averages are higher.
So you want to put some people on half rations and others on full? That should work out well.... But to actually answer the question: You know how starvation you make a con check that gets a cumulative +1 per day of not eating? I'll say each day of eating gives a cumulative -1 to that roll, until it's back to 0. So, the women you rescued, assuming they did not accept any of the food that was offered them, have been starving for approximately 13 days. So the checks started 10 days ago, so it's probably (mathematically) unrealistic that they all survived, but they did, so the dice were on their side. Whatever. They are currently at a +10 on that check's DC. Feed them and tomorrow they'll be at +9. They won't have to make the check, mind, but if they start starving again, they'll have a head start. 10 days of eating properly and they'll be fully restored, nutritionally. Am I making sense?
Gair, you make a good point. If you like, you're welcome to devise a system. It should accurately represent farming and includes spoilage, the damage done by insects and the challenges of farming on newly broken ground with no viable fertilizer and few tools, and the time elapsed between sowing and reaping. Weather should be factored in, and the varying intensity of necessary labor. We could make a whole game of it, call it Farmers and Fertilizer, using OGL rules for people who want to accurately reflect the action and adventure of pre-industrial agricultural life.... Seems I woke up on the sarcastic side of bed this morning. The system I set up is a ballpark, designed for ease of use and balanced to the needs of the campaign, rather than to be strictly realistic. I have no doubt that there are thousands of reasons why it should be more, and thousands of reasons why it should be less. I could open the door to that conversation, but I frankly, I don't want to spend that much time researching it. As is, taking 10 a farm will feed 4 people a day, a garden slightly less. There is no labor involved in that. It just magically happens, while people are busy building more farms, or palisades, or whatever. Pretty nifty, if you ask me. ------ Half rations. Interesting, and something I should have thought of. I'll call it half starvation, with con checks starting after 6 days, the DC increasing by 1 every 2 days, and the damage reduced from d6 to d4-1. ------ Once a plan is approved, I'm ready to proceed.
I'd say a simplish boat like a canoe (with or without outrigger) would be DC 5, and for a dugout, all the tools you need are fire, water and a few rocks. A seaworthy canoe like the kuru use would come in around DC 10, and a launch with a mast like you got from the Harpy would be DC 15. A full blown ship would be DC 20. Double those DCs to use carpentry. I'm not feeling a lot of love towards steam (punk or otherwise) in this campaign, mostly because the source material (such as it is) is more 16th-17th century. Pre-steam, in other words. I'm not entirely opposed to the idea of you inventing steam power, but until I get around to inventing a system for inventing things, let's table it. When you get within a snowball's chance in heII of hiring a shipbuilder of that caliber, I'll have long since retired from GMing. You'll have to ask the next guy. (Honestly, I have no idea, but i know it's enough we don't have to worry about it now).
OK.... There is absolutely no way you can build a Masterwork boat without having the Craft: Ships skill. Now you've got me thinking about it (see what you did?) any ship/boat you built with carpentry would probably have the fragile condition, as you don't really know squat about building boats so much as woodworking generally. Not a big issue except when the kraken attacks. Oops, should I have spoilered that? Ditto with your longspear. A canoe is a tricky beast. A canoe big enough to carry 5 is not going to be manageable by 1, paddled. For simplicity's sake, any canoe under muscle power needs at least half of it's maximum crew paddling or it will be moving at half speed, halved again if it's got more than half its load. Outrigger canoes frequently have masts and sails, which would allow an individual to sail it just fine, weather permitting. Most of the tools you're looking at are made of metal, so would be built by blacksmiths. Masterwork Artisan's tools cost 55gp, so there's that. I would say that a masterwork boat/ship triples the cost of the base item, so 150gp for a MW canoe/rowboat. 75,000 for a MW warship.
@ Sorala: The way the foraging parties work is they make one roll at +2 for each person in the group. I add a -9 modifier (because you don't get any food with a roll less than 10) and a -1/day that the area has been foraged in (currently at -13) and divide the result by 2 for the number of food/days that are gathered. You can certainly use your roll to add a +1 food to one of the foraging groups, or you can look independently.
Acidface laughs at Cueta's pantomime and mutters to his companion. comprehend languages: Acidface - You see? She wants to be one of us and bear our children.
Surrenderpants - Maybe she'll come and set us free in the night.
Ardainn stays a healthy distance back, his bow at the ready. Moving slowly, he angles off the path, towards the top of the hill.
Hobgoblin composite bows are made of wood, and the tears of elven slaves. But in reality, you're absolutely correct. To make an actual composite bow (or any of the things we're talking about making) requires much more than a good bit of wood. Though the overall idea was to attempt to simplify the process of gathering materials to reduce GM headaches.
You had to ask: "We don't need no water, let the mother****er burn" Yes. I am ashamed.
@ Kemek - I agree whole-heartedly that to play it as intended, drow can't be a familiar race. I'm just not certain it's a problem to play it the other way. I think I'm going that way (drow are unknown) but I just wanted to see if anyone had any strong feelings before I told everyone to unlearn the last 30 years of D&D. ...and now it's apparent that there's at least some consensus. Drow are completely unknown, plus, you think it's sort of a weird word. Malaki, your hat is just a black cap woven of some incredibly fine and peculiar silk. When you activate it, there is an eerie sound that it equal parts spitting, knitting, and frosty winds roaring through dark infinities. Just for a fraction of a second. Anyone who feels like it should give their magic items some flavor. I'm sort of enjoying seeing what the rolls produce.
"I'm sure if Gorion wanted you to know what was going on, he'd ahve told you," Qorin says to Corban, tactful as ever. "But if you think you know better than he, by all means, pry away. Try to steal the secrets a mage keeps hidden. What could possibly go wrong?"
Can I just say that you guys are awesome? As a GM, there's nothing better than putting my feet up and watching you guys advance the story. So if it seems I've been dozing lately, it's largely because I'm liking what's happening. Please, nudge me if you feel like you're groping around in the dark, looking for the path. Sometimes a GMs effort to not force things in a particular direction can seem like there's no direction to go in, and critical details that you learned several weeks ago might not be as fresh in your mind as if you'd learned them yesterday, as your characters did.
The basic formula for who's the prettiest works like this: Base pretty score=25 subtract flat-footed AC subtract wisdom modifier chaotic+1
elf+10
multiply by the square root of -7 to reach the final score.
I don't think there's any need to qualify your quote. It's normal for artists to malign those who paved the way for them posthumously, because they're artists, after all. Had Tolkien been an artist, he probably would have talked trash about whoever came before him.
The Donaldson books are too much thinking not enough action. Even the Tolkien movies needed the addition of female action heroes, something that did not exist in the old man's work. Imagine Tolkien's fury when he discovered someone snuck Eowyn into his work.
Evil should have consequences. One of the things I love about the Ravenloft setting is that there are consequences hardwired in. And like Nearyn says, there are rewards as well. In game terms, the reward is approximately double the penalty, but it does twist you. It makes you a little better at doing your evil thing, but a little less capable elsewhere. Until you go far enough and your character becomes an NPC. It's tempting, it's rewarding, but it's also dangerous.
I don't read anything where the first sentence is all caps. Just a personal thing.
The Upper Class Barbarian... a.k.a. Lord Hissyfit Wild Rager archetype.
NEVER takes any of the feats or rage powers relating to improvised weapons.
CoC and Traveller don't have xp OR levels. They assume that you're about as capable as you're going to be and allow for some small improvement of skills by spending time studying. GURPS and Savage Worlds give you points with which you can buy more power, allocating it according to your tastes. You never really level up, you develop less dramatically but with more fine control. D&D (and clones, including pathfinder) and many other games use levels. Levels are like cheese. The rat that successfully navigates the maze gets the cheese. I love D&D, and I love cheese (and levels) but it assumes that your character starts weak and becomes more and more powerful as the game progresses. This works well and is hugely satisfying, but it's certainly not the only way to do it. I'd be careful of designing a game using levels without a mechanic for assigning levels, because players want levels. If levels are assigned at the GM's whim, they are also NOT assigned at the GM's whim. The GM is then instantly cast in the role of the guy who isn't giving out levels. What a jerk. XP are not necessarily the only mechanic for gaining levels, but they are the only one I can think of off the top of my head.
Of course it's not evil. You already said your killing was justified, so that just leaves the blood. Leeches and mosquitoes drink blood and they're incapable of being moral or immoral. Neutral at worst.
Ah. See, I thought Sasha was just an accessory, but a quick look at the Gravewalker archetype set me right. It looks as though most of your class abilities will call for powers checks, and you could easily wind up forever damned (and worse, DMPC'ed) before you hit second level. As for Sasha, when the dark powers pull her strings (and they will), I'll let you know.
Yeah. I actually love the high power stuff but I don't love how long it takes to play at high levels. I'm lucky to get through one or two encounters in an evening's play with my real-time group. Oops. And yes, there's room for more. To my knowledge, there are still only two finished characters.
Just found this thread and wanted to say thanks to Jr. Annalist for what he's created. I have a couple of thoughts. Master of Forms is a BIG benefit to druids. A huge animal form is a big power bump. Obviously, you want a wild-shapey signature feat, but I'm not sure this is it. Possibly adding uses and/or duration? I'd like to see Greater Skillfulness grant a flat number of skill points, maybe with Int modifier, rather than extra skill points every advancement. Greater Toughness the same, a flat hp bonus (I like 5, or the usual amount you gain per level, 4 for wizard, 5 for cleric, etc) without additional hps for every advancement. I might make it possible to take the feat more than once, for someone who really wants to be tanky. I think rogues have to have something better than improved uncanny dodge. One thing I would consider would be giving them a second attack if they hit with their first attack when sneak attacking. On the other hand, that's far away from using the pathfinder rules as they exist, so never mind. But they still want something better than improved uncanny dodge.
In this case, since the OR is a skill penalty, I would say that would just be handled through roleplay. You're despised and looked down upon, but since you perform an actual function, people will tend to tolerate your existence by doing their best to ignore you.
7. The lowly fire beetle. Like the will-o-wisp of folklore, they lead the unwary into swamps. Most of the time they spend immersed in the muck, so their lights are suppressed. Only one or two of any given group will be active at any given time, trundling around on the ground until approached. Then they fly away, relying on terrain to separate their foes. Once they have one meal (er ... PC) isolated and relatively immobilized, the others emerge from the swamp and swarm in from all sides. Maybe not as good as Tucker's kobold, but there's a reason I started with a creature with a Intelligence of -.
Why is it that when people say "I'm not saying there's anything wrong with ___..." they immediately go on to say something they think is wrong with ___? Is it strictly a spoon-full of sugar to help the medicine? Or is it sincere belief that there's nothing wrong with being unoriginal, overused and cheesy? I hope that is not the case. I hope that what you mean is, a setting with no magic or low magic or wild magic or persecuted casters is using an unoriginal, overused and cheesy trope. I'd have said tropes, but I see them as distinct things. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with persecuting casters in a no magic world, but by Vance's shiny elbow, can't they at least persecute someone that exists?! I would guess the reason people fiddle with magic is because it's not something taken for granted, except by those whose only window into fantasy is through PF and the various DnDs. The magic system in PF present rules for a very specific and precisely defined view of what magic is and how it works. It is a view that turns up very occasionally in fantasy. Magic in most fantasy movies and novels is very different from PF, and there are a lot of people who take inspiration from such things and try to make their games reflect that.
dotting
Listens for a few moments as the others speak, but most of his attention is on the mark on his chest. He scowls at it, and after a moment's prodding, decides it won't be coming off. He stands then, slowly, and looks at the leather chest. Of the three, it is the one that is clearly meant for him. Meant for him as a trap or as a gift, he was unsure, but he was cautious as he approached it.
"Light and dark," he mutters, looking at the other two. "I suppose I'm here to split the difference, but I would not begin to guess at the plans of the creator of this place. Our survival is a matter of entertainment to him. This is bloodsport, and I wouldn't count on our host to take more than a sporting interest in our safety." He stands behind the chest and uses a cantrip to open it, walking slowly around to look inside.
Sai rubs his eyes, peering into the void and not liking that there seems to be nothing to see. Liking even less that this place seems the opposite of his home, shadowless and empty. He has many questions, but has little hope that the disembodied voice's answers will tell him what he wishes to know. The deck is stacked. Survival, then. A goal that is doomed to failure, given enough time. Survive for now. Survive long enough to find his way out. Survive long enough to find whatever is using him as a toy. Survive long enough to hear it beg for mercy. Sai smiled, to find himself in agreement with the voice. It was simple. "OK, Sweetheart," he says. "Where's the best place to get a drink in your little playpen here?"
A quick peek at your characters looks like they rolled and came out pretty close to a 25 pt buy. They all have about +9 total ability score bonuses (except the paladin, who has +10) which are naturally optimized for their characters. They hit more often, they hit harder, their special abilities are more effective, saves are better, spell DCs are harder, etc. The average 15 pt buy (what the APs were built to be challenging for, I think?) gives you about +4 or +5. So essentially, you've given your party roughly a +1 to their individual CRs. If they were (at first level) an encounter, the adventure is treating them as CR 3 (4x1st level characters) but you have 6 stronger than average characters, CR 4 or 5. Granted, this is not how you evaluate your characters, but it can be a helpful way to look at it. Toughen things up for them by adding mooks to the BBEG encounters. The players biggest advantage in those fights is number of actions, and your guys have 6 to every one of hers. That CR8 lich has 39hps, a total that the fighter can reach in a round if he crits. She has a fairly hittable AC and should last maybe 4 rounds, once the party starts hammering her (assuming she has darkness, mirror image and mage armor up). That gives her 3 or 4 chances to hit back, and she hasn't got the hitting power to have a chance. Her summon spells are going to delay the inevitable, but they'll get chewed up pretty quick. Put a couple of drow ninjas with her in the darkness (even 3rd level) and your party will have a fight on their hands. Give her a Schir demon sidekick, and the players will be crying for mama.
Isn't that a prestige class?
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