The Dark's page

Danke =D

Thanks to Dudemeister I have all the adjustments to Chapter 2 I'll need, other than my one personal tweak to Hargulka. Where the Stag Lord had the ring of the jabberwock's skin, granting him a small part of its immense physical resilience (DR 5/Vorpal), Hargulka will possess the ring of the jabberwock's blood, which will grant him the Half-Jabberwock template posted above (immunity/eye ray element fire). Irovetti will have the ring of the jabberwock's voice, which will give him Burble and Frightful Presence. I haven't decided what Armag's going to get, I want it to be thematic but he already has plenty of potential to break things.

How about a ring of the jabberwock's spirit, which grants fast healing 10? This is in line with his being a combat machine and annoyingly tough without granting him any more offensive abilities.

Again... the best way to "fix" the trade problem is to simply introduce a new Caravan feat: Expert Trader or some such, that adjusts the amount of money trade brings in. That way, a caravan who wants to be all about trade can just take that feat early on and be done with it.

How much that feat would adjust the money? You tell me! You all are the ones worried about caravans going broke! :-)

A relatively simple way that wouldn't require a feat would be to put in a chart similar to what Al-Qadim had for its merchant-rogues. They established trade companies rather than caravans, but the concept of a monthly profit is similar enought to a trade profit, and it kept the average profit manageable. On a trade, roll 1d10:

On average, this chart generates a 3% profit on any goods traded, with losses on 30% of goods and profits on 50% of goods. If characters choose to do research on what's needed further along their route, they may get a +1 bonus. Conversely, if wagons are badly damaged or they choose improper goods (bringing thin cotton tunics into the frozen north), they may be penalized with a -1 penalty.

Looking back at some much older issues (these are mostly 2nd edition, but should be relatively easy to convert):

Dungeon 63 - Huzza's Goblin O' War (lv. 4-7)
Huzza's the big man on board. It's even more hilarious with Golarion goblins.

Dungeon 64 - Grotto of the Queen (lv. 6-9)
A magic ship has been stolen.

Dungeon 65 - Flotsam (lv. 6-8)
It even takes place in "a pirate-infested archipelago"!

Dungeon 66 - The Sunken Shadow (lv. 1-3)
Salvaging a shipwreck.

Dungeon 66 - Operation Manta Ray (lv. 6-9)
A spy has been captured by an enemy nation. Heroes to the rescue.

Dungeon 74 - The Scourge of Scalabar (lv. 1-3)
A gnomish submarine? Yes please!

Dungeon 77 - To Walk Beneath The Waves (lv. 3-5)
Something is attacking and sinking fishing boats. What?

Dungeon 80 - Fortune Favors the Dead (lv. 5-7)
Finding the treasure will be easy. Getting the map? Now that's a different story.

For sale:
A stitch in time: the next time the character drops below 0 HP, they automatically stabilize as a mysterious animated needle sews their wounds shut with thread that, upon close examination, looks strangely like green pine needles.

A price:
The changing of the seasons: On each solstice and equinox, the character is transported to the seller and serves them for the day.

Oh, something else for everyone: Brevoy has its \imports and exports listed in the article on it in Kingmaker 31.

Also, I remember that Katapesh has a much longer section on trade in Dark Markets, but I don't have a copy of that.

Judy Bauer wrote:

Exotic foods (monstrous seafood, fruit from other continents/monstrous plants, etc.) are also far more viable as luxury trade goods on Golarion than in the equivalent time period on Earth thanks to gentle repose and purify food and drink (as a relatively mundane example, Sargava exports pineapples).

And don't forget trade with other planes!

Okay you changed my entire trade layout with that one post!! :)

That is genius to use gentle repose to keep food fresh, and it makes a lot of exports and imports far more viable, in particular seafood and exotic fruits to northern climes. I am trying to lay out trade routes and import/export lines and this idea changes everything in a good way. Now I don't have to guessimate travel times and spoilage, etc.

I had not considered extraplanar trade at all outside of wizards guilds maybe. Where in the heck would extraplanar travel take place? Major temples of Abadar (god of civilization/commerce+plane shift) or Absalom? This plus an earlier post I read about the witchmarket now really has my creativity going...

The other obvious choice would be Cheliax for infernal products. Major temples of Sarenrae may do some trade with the good planes of the Outer Sphere, since she was one of the Empyreal Lords before ascending to full godhood. It should still be rare, though, to preserve the mid-high fantasy feel (as opposed to the potentially epic fantasy feel of massive interplanar trade).

Eric - as far as magic plants and minerals go, they got somewhat short shrift in the core setting. Darkwood and skymetal were the only ones explicitly mentioned that I saw.

The Dark wrote:

So I got bored the other night, and had a new copy of the Inner Sea World Guide. Using just the descriptions of locations within that book, some likely exports for each country:

...Awesome stuff....

This is obviously not a complete list, but it's a starting point utilizing one book to get a quick listing of some available commodities in different countries.

Thanks so much for putting this together! I was not looking forward to trying to dredge a list like this out of the books!

I made a list of my own, but it is possible trade goods. I am posting here in case anyone is interested:

...awesome list...

If anyone can think of anything else to add this list, that would be awesome as well.

Sugar. Sugar was incredibly important in history, because it's fairly limited in where it can grow, and it doesn't travel well unless processed (raw cane ferments incredibly rapidly). Honey is somewhat of a substitute, but there are things both sugar and honey can be used for that the other can't.

Medicinal herbs. Some will only grow in certain areas, others can be widely cultivated. Their importance will vary somewhat depending on how common magic is in a particular campaign (if every village has a cleric with the ability to cure disease, medicines are less important).

Flax/linen. More comfortable and cooler than wool, easier to make than cotton, and cheaper than silk.

Tobacco. Possibly falls under the category of "drugs," but worth mentioning. Along with sugar, this was the major cash crop of the early American colonies.

So I got bored the other night, and had a new copy of the Inner Sea World Guide. Using just the descriptions of locations within that book, some likely exports for each country:

Andoran:
Lumber, furniture, art, olives/olive oil, grapes/wine

Brevoy:
Grain, fish, lumber, ore

Druma:
Gems, precious metals

Five Kings:
Mercenaries, siege weapons, iron

Galt:
Food

Geb:
Food

Isger:
Goats (and goat products - milk, leather, cheese), fish, ice

Jalmeray:
Knowledge, sugar, coffee

Katapesh:
Pesh, slaves, spell components

Linnorm Kings:
Furs, copper, lumber

Mana Wastes:
Gold, crystals, (few) guns

Mediogalti:
Whale oil

Mwangi Expanse:
Gold, gems, darkwood

Nex:
Potions, elixirs

Nidal:
Horses

Nirmathas:
Ore, lumber

Numeria:
Skymetals

Qadira:
Salt, spice, silk, slaves, weavings

Rahadoum:
Cloth, produce, gems

Sargava:
Gems, cattle, slaves

Taldor:
Metal, lumber

Thuvia:
Sun orchid elixir, potions

Ustalav:
Wine, perfume, alabaster

Kelesh:
Silk, drugs, philosophy, bronzework

This is obviously not a complete list, but it's a starting point utilizing one book to get a quick listing of some available commodities in different countries.

Not that I am aware of but I would love something like that.

Ditto. The only mention I can think of at the moment is pages 240-241 of the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting. It states that most trade travels either along the "North Tack" (Sedeq-Katheer-Absalom-Taldor-Andoran-Corentyn) or the "South Tack" (Sothis-Absalom-Merab-Manaket-Azir). Other runs include Almas-Sothis, "the increasingly profitable Varisian Run," and "nearly two dozen" trade routes from Katapesh, with destinations ranging from Eleder to Kalsgard. Piecing through the various books to figure out who produces which products and where they'd be good to sell would be an interesting project, and one that could probably be done best by a group, since it will probably involve throw-away references scattered throughout adventures and sourcebooks.

real ship to ship combat... did not take hours, if the crews knew what they were doing. Take a good look at USS Constitution vs HMS Java, or USS Chesapeake vs HMS Shannon. Long battles "occur" because they get calculated by logs, denoting when the ship sets course for battle, with its crew being sent to battle stations, not actually when the first shots are fired and usually mostly as the result of long chases.

What "killed" ships were shots under the waterline (being hard to plug and causing flooding) or into the rudder mechanism, wheel or the rudder itself , plus those taking out masts (shredding sails with cannonfire was something the french tried without success for most of a century - although grapeshot worked well, it only did so over very short distances).
And what mattered most was the size of the gun delivering the cannon ball, having it punch through the oppositions hull - dependant on what the ship using it could conceivably carry, and to a lesser degree on the thickness of a ship's size.

Catapult work, done only in classic times and possibly by the Byzantine, would have been even more effective as the ships of those ages were considerably more vulnerable.

That being said, the "ship to ship" rules are mostly a sad joke. I mean "burning sails".. what is a crew to do ? Drop them on the deck ? Nevermind fire spreading ? IMHO the damage for the warmachines is deliberatly low. Otherwise, warmachines, especially ballistas etc would be too useful in eliminating out "heroic characters".

Actually, I don't see even Conan shrugging off a hit from a Trebuchet, but... Yeah well, the rules as in RAW..*shrug*

The examples you selected are far later and more technologically advanced than a Pathfinder setting. The Constitution had a 950 pound broadside. The heaviest ship at the Battle of Lepanto, if it fired every gun it had (not a broadside, *every* gun) would shoot 504 pounds of ammunition. Most vessels of the time were far more lightly armed (carracks and caravels generally had broadsides of under 100 pounds). Battles did not necessarily end quickly - the Battle of Cannanore (1502) involved fighting over two days. Likewise, the 1508 Battle of Chaul involved sporadic fighting over two days as the Mamluks tried to board Portuguese vessels. Even Lepanto, with thin-hulled galleys and relatively heavy artillery, was a five-hour battle from first shot to final disengagement. Looking at the Armada campaign, the engagement off Eddystones lasted from dawn to dusk, and Gravelines lasted from dawn until 4PM, when the British ran out of ammunition. At Cape Celidonia, the first shot was fired at roughly 9 AM and battle continued until sunset, then resumed the next day and went until sunset again, then continued for a third day and lasted until 3 PM, when the galleys finally retreated from the galleons, for approximately 26 hours of battle over three days. Yes, some battles were quick. Just as many were long and slow.