Taejas Kudva's page

Can I ressurect this to go in a different direction? Most people have talked about using Conan to play a low magic version of PF. Has anybody tried ripping melee combat out of Conan to inject into regular setting PF?

I've always had a bug up my butt about AC, and while I was excited to see PF's rules in Ultimate Combat, they feel only half there.

I love Conan's armor as DR system, but it's so systemically pervasive. Does anybody have any advice? Specific concerns:

-- how to match up parry/dodge with PF classes
-- assigning AP to PF weapons (or direct Conan to PF matchups)
-- what Conan maneuvers and Conan feats are mandatory in order to use the system with PF
-- how PF spells interact with Conan DR
-- an easy guideline for changing PF monsters' AC to Conan defense and DR system

There are probably other the things to consider that I haven't thought of. In any case, thoughts?

I, on the other hand, was not sitting down to make this, because laziness has taken me like an affliction. But I had at one point wished they existed independent of my effort. So, you're the man!

Unless it was my willpower reaching out into the night (and, apparently, the past) to force your hand -- in that case, I'm the man! :)

As they say, STEAL, STEAL, STEAL. And in any case, thanks!

(Man, I am so glad people on the forums have more creative wherewithal than me...)

First off, thanks so much!

I figure there are quite a few homesteads here and there that the bandits are terrorizing. (This is where part of the population comes from when the PCs begin kingdom-building.) Many hunters/trappers/etc. Oleg must be selling his goods to _somebody_ to make a living there, or think he can make a living there.

This was definitely the feeling I got. So far, they've encountered a couple furriers, a tinker/peddler, a local whose son works part-time for Oleg as a stable boy, and Bokken at Oleg's itself. A rancher also stopped by driving cattle to sell meat to Oleg, but he has a big enough organization that the 2-bit bandits haven't bothered him.

They've also convinced Oleg to add a tavern on to the trading post because they didn't feel like sleeping in tents once Garess and his men at arms showed up, so that's attracted a few locals as laborers. And a camp follower. Yippee, oldest profession!

Out and about, they rescued a family being attacked on the road as they were heading to join blood relatives who were homesteading. They had to be rerescued when the bandits who attacked Oleg's mentioned that they had already sacked said homestead previously, and upon checking the PCs found the family cocooned by spiders. (Building a subplot on that trapdoor spider encounter).

Now that I think on it, there would be loggers too. There is an encounter with loggers in the second adventure, isn't there?

Oh, and they've run into the fey and the faerie dragon, though they haven't realized it yet. Hee hee!

There are probably some merchants travelling from Mivon...

I wanted to include this, but I wasn't sure where they'd disembark with cargo, especially given the location of the Staglord's fort.

And Lee, I love the big score idea! Maybe I could tie that into some merchants from Mivon who show up divested of cargo....

There aren't that many bandits, though.

I do agree that a few bandits can go a long way. I think, by and large, that I just needed to get a picture in my head so I can paint it for the PCs. I just wanted there to be more advice on locals.

Maybe I should have been more forthwith and just said I need help brainstorming random npcs! :) Or, better yet, a nice and easy random encounter mechanic for a few different types of social encounters with locals. Things that still feel realistic: folk who could live isolated, still reasonably survive, but still have problems with bandits/wild animals, etc.

Hmm, while I'm wishlisting, advice on some "dangers of the Stolen Lands" encounters would be great. It's been said elsewhere, so I won't beat it to death, but this is the dangerous, unconquorable (or at least unholdable) Stolen Lands. But it doesn't feel as dangerous as I'd like. I need some stuff for for the PCs to see from afar. Or see up close, and run from!

Just started running Stolen Lands a few weeks ago and having a blast. So far, the guys have only (recently - last session) explored a couple hexes around Oleg's, but they've also ventured out into unexplored lands and dealt with the Kressel's small bandit camp and a few of my plot points.

Last session was the first time we dropped into a macro-time frame and let about a week go by. Between that and the characters' week and a half of adventuring, I figure that the Stag Lord will finally have heard about Kressel's death, so the characters will have a bit of reprisal coming soon. But other than that...

What does "bandit activity in the area" mean? Other than Oleg getting extorted, what sort of banditry are the characters (and the locals, and Brevoy?) having to deal with? The PCs have killed more than 6 banditos, so they've received the reward from Restov and "bandit activity has been notably reduced" but what activity was there in the first place? I don't want to populate the area with scores of bandits beyond the module, but how much trouble could the few bandits mentioned really cause? I mean, if they killed 6 guys and now the Stolen Lands are safe, that feels a little cheap.

For that matter, what the heck are bandits doing out here? I suppose that they could simply be an encampment of bandits who had fled the law in more populated areas, but the book makes it feel like there was ongoing activity other than Oleg that required the PCs' aid. Yet, they are miles and miles from anything worth banditing. Are the bandits doing hit and run forays into Brevoy? They are kind of far south for that to be pragmatic, and Sherwood has to be close enough to Nottingham for the Merry Men to cause some trouble. Besides which, they are just as low level and as limited by the hazards of the area as the PCs. Bandits could travel in strength, I suppose, to scare off monsters, but there was that original concern about inflating the amount of bandits too much.

And who are the bandits bothering, anyway? Even if a band of 15 or so bandits could terrorize an area of some 30 hexes, who are they terrorizing? Are you/did you have little pockets of folk here and there? Homesteaders and pioneers ekeing out a subsistance existence, maybe? Tiny villages squirreled away in forgotten hamlets and valleys? Ranchers driving cattle or oxen? (I know River Kingdoms fluff puts a high value or food producers) Maybe these are the bandit's victims, but how many can you put in, still have the area feel like a mostly unexplored frontier, but still be able to justify an area rife with brigands?

Long story made short, I need some advice/GM-level justification for these bandits, because it's fine to mark the map with "banditos aqui," but now that we've started playing, I'm having trouble seeing a scope that feels real. I feel like I need some events and news to have as a context, even if it's only in the background as far as PCs are concerned.

Thanks!

Thanks for the suggestions. I know that at least one of my players will take what an outside observer might mistake as sadistic glee in shifting npcs around like marionettes tied to his grubby, scheming, manipulating... er, ahem, his fingers. Yes, pushing them into place with his fingers.

In the spirit of finding any old yayhoo with a mediocre atribute score to act as a leadership placeholder, I thought of allowing the kingdom to get by with fewer positions occupied. The empty positions grant no bonus, obviously, but cause no penalty:

size<=10........ req 5 leadership roles (ruler manditory, natch)
10<size<=25.. req 8 leadership roles
size 26+......... req all roles

My hope, of couse, is that their ambition will drive them fill in the phantom roles earlier. It's only to their benefit, after all.

I also really like the suggestion of the roles being jobs with different possible names, because it appeases my completely unrulesy sensibilities as far as scale. A ruler could be a mayor until somebody insists that he start calling himself Duke....

And consider your shameless plug utilized. My friendly gamestore owner thanks you. :)

Hi all! I've been wanting to try Pathfinder for quite some time, and coupled with the fact that my friends and I are rather enamored of the big picture bits of Birthright and Reign, Kingmaker seemed the obvious starting point! We might even be able to start within the next week....

Anyway, I know it won't be a concern until that twilight bit of downtime between Stolen Lands and Rivers Run Red, but I was wondering about leaders. Specifically, do you need all 11 to be in place when you start up? I haven't seen it in threads, unless I missed it.

First, it seems a little odd to me that a few hexes worth of land with a dinky but growing settlement would have posts such as High Priest, General, Magister, etc. At the same time, it is a burdonsome crutch to saddle a start up colony trying to get out of that first size tier with the penalties accrued by empty posts.

Of course, I realize the kingdom building is abstracted a good deal and we could just handwave away the oddness as lipservice to mechanics... but second, I was also a little worried about the players having close ties to 11 (well, 7, since they will probably be taking seats in leadership) trusted npcs by the end of the first module.

In folks' experience, have you started with empty leadership slots? Does it greatly hamper expansion? Or do you have enough npcs to fill the slots, albeit it a tad unrealistically ("I am the Spymaster/Royal Assassin of Smallvillageshire! Yeah!")?

I'm sure that I'll have more questions (not sure how I fee about the magic item economy, for instance) but thanks in advance for opinions on this first one!

-taej

...and now y'all have been exposed to my love affair with elipses (and parentheses)...