ajb47's page

From the beginning, this Fading Glory empire has caught my interest, though I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it until just recently. I'd like to run a campaign focused on returning Taldor to a country worth thinking highly of. To change "Fading" to "Rising".

If it matters, I am planning on using the Princess as the person who can actually do it, and thus the NPC the PCs will work for. Eventually.

But having read the original Campaign Setting, Taldor, the Inner Sea Primer, and the Inner Sea World Guide, I am still not sure how the government of Taldor works. (Yes, I know that most Taldans don't know how the government works). There are hundreds or thousands of Noble Houses, a Senate, and a bureaucracy all trying to get things done.

Writings suggest the bureaucracy somehow gets things done day to day. So are the people in the bureaucracy from Noble Houses or are they just people elevated? Who gets into the Senate?

And how does anyone in the Senate or the Bureaucracy have the power/ability/legal authority to go against any Noble House that wants something done?

Thanks in advance,

AJ

This has been something I've been wondering about since back in 3.5 days. I'm not sure where the line is between them. Is the Acting not what we think of nowadays so it is far more stage-specific?

Which should be used for a character who wants to appear drunk so as to hustle at cards or dice in a tavern? Or to fake an injury to get out of a dance at a gala? Is it Bluff or Acting to have a character's face show sympathy when the character feels none?

Or is it as simple as when using Perform it is obviously a performance and there is no real Bluff involved? And by that I mean that Acting is used for the purposes of giving a performance and Bluff is used for all other lying in the rest of the character's life.

I just made a Charlatan rogue (basically - he has some wizard for campaign reasons) headed for Master Spy and this kind of thing occupies my thoughts about him from time to time.

AJ

We're in the second part of the path, building the city of Newhold and somthing that we really liked came up, but I want to ask:

What does it say about my group that they are coming up with names for the "Founding Group's Brews" for when they build a brewery?

Tiger Stripe Ale (Druid's Animal Companion)
Berne's Hard Cider (Pear) (Half-Orc Ranger)
Lily Lager (the Druid)
Müller Stout (with a creme brulee flavor) (Oracle of the Wind and Party face)

And I forget what the ruler, a paladin of Erastil who started as a farm boy wanted to call his booze.

Also, they decided it was "Fangberry Brewery" and would they are trying to coax Bokken into becoming a brewmaster.

This could be interesting when it comes down to it.

I was rereading the Game Mastery Guide for the heck of it (and because I like it a lot). I got to the section on various government types and the feudal section just stuck with me. As a 30+ year player, the feudal system usually stays with me, I admit, and I had read (and seen on TV) various overviews of the system. But reading it this time left me with more than, "Yeah, I get lieges and vassals".

I remembered I had Alison Weir's "Eleanor of Aquitaine" in my "To Be Read" pile. So I started reading that. Twelfth century, kings, dukes (and duchesses, of course), successions, who is liege where and vassal where -- I gotta get me some of that!

But how in the world did the kings of Francia ever allow their vassals to get more power than themselves? How can that happen when the oaths are "You get land, I get military service"? Let's look into that.

The Capets (Hugh, to be exact) were elected to the kingship when the Carolingian line died out. That's explained in "Eleanor". But since the book is focused on the quite intriguing (in every definition of the word) Eleanor, Weir doesn't explain how the royal situation came to be.

Thanks to Amazon, I now have a few books on what happened with the Carolingians, so I can figure out how the Dukes were able to basically ignore the king.

And all this just to put together a coherent late medieval, war, tournament, courtly love, adventure, and political intrigue campaign that rather suddenly popped into my head.

(And I must admit that reading about the Carolingian takeover just makes me want to go further back and read about the Merovingians, too.)

So... too much research or just right? How much have you done to help create a good setting for your players? How much to create a good character for your DM?

AJ

Since I used the adventure's description of "greenish herbal liquor", my players have decided there is something special about it. Perhaps I should have called it Absinthe, or Chartreuse, or even Galliano, but it's too late for that now. They have taken a bottle to Bokken to find out if there are any special properties. Is there a way to subtly tie the booze to either Nyissa or does it even make sense to try to tie it to Pitax, since they try something later?

And a related question, which may be answered by the above, where does it come from? I gave my players two bandits to help them out some, and the players have asked how they get the liquor. I'm a little worried they would go haring off after the liquor if I say such and such a merchant delivers it every couple of weeks.

Ooh. Maybe Kressle would go off and get it by herself every couple of weeks and the low-level grunts don't know where. Since she is dead, they may never know where the liquor came from.

Any other ideas? Anybody actually answer it? Did I miss the answer in the module?

AJ

My 10 year old daughter and 8 year old son have been bugging my wife and I to run some Pathfinder for them again. We had already done the black dragon adventure with them using the premade characters (cleric, rogue, fighter) and wanted to do something else this time. As I was trying to figure out what, I remembered that I had reacquired the first adventure I ever ran for a friend -- Keep on the Borderlands.

So we made characters for them - elven black-dragon-blooded sorceress, human cleric of Gorum, wife ran Merisiel. And they just finished clearing out the kobold cave. Part of the modifications I'm doing in my head are changing it a bit so that the creatures living there are more warriors (so no females and young to deal with) and being forged into a fighting force by the Temple folk.

So it looks like our family fun times will now also include Pathfinder instead of just the Wii or Robot Combat League viewing.

Thanks, Paizo!

AJ

Last night, my players rolled up their characters. I don't have in depth backgrounds yet, but I know races and classes.

Half-orc Ranger (Spell-less, from Open Design)
Human Cleric of Torag
Human Fighter
Human Druid (with Tiger Companion)
Half-elf Oracle of the Wind
Human Paladin

Is the lack of Arcane magic going to be something I have to watch out for? It also looks like they are going to have to be creative about finding and disabling traps, if/when they come up.

Any other things I should take into consideration?

Thanks,

AJ

I have a player that is going this route and I want to make sure I have it right. The animal companion is *not* the Tiger from the Bestiary, right? Because that seems like way too much. As an animal companion, it starts out more as a young, not fully grown tiger (size Medium) and grows at 7th level.

Also, can a medium-sized human ride a medium sized tiger? He wants to do this, but it seems off to me. Should I just keep the -5 on Ride checks in mind since the animal is not a normal mount type animal? Make sure he gets an exotic riding saddle and has taught the Tricks to get it to use it?

Thanks in advance.

AJ

Yeah, I may be late to the party, but that just means I (and my group) can benefit from others' experiences, which I am eagerly reading about. But I've been away from what I'll term "leveled" fantasy for a bit. We've been trying other systems for a little over a year now, and they were fun, but my group is ready to get back to where we started.

So, Pathfinder (moving from D&D 3.5) and I decided to pick Kingmaker. Because I've wanted to run it since it came out.

And my first question is what resources have others used for their tabletop Kingmaker campaigns? I know the Bandit Outpost flip-mat is Oleg's. But what other flip-mats or map packs fit well? Any other props or add-ons that enhance the experience?

Thanks in advance.

AJ

Just received my subscription order and it is missing Isles of the Shackles print edition. I received everything else that I was supposed to. If you could ship that out to me when you get a chance, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks,

AJ Butterwick

I ordered "Fellowship of the Black Oak" with this order, but it isn't downloading. When I click on the name of the PDF in my list, it acts like it is trying to download, but when the "Important, yada yada, 5 seconds, blah blah" is supposed to come up, it doesn't. Basically, the My Downloads page just reloads without actually downloading the PDF. Though it does show that I tried in the "last download" column.

All the other PDFs in this order have downloaded correctly.

AJ

Just read that WotC seems to be laying folks off and I wanted to make sure that a company whose CEO answered a question about whether there were tours of their HQ was at least treading water. Because if I need to subscribe to the RPG line (in addition to the stuff I already subscribe to) to help out (rather than waiting until closer to release date to order the rulebook), I'll do it.

'Cause that's the kind of guy I am.

AJ

I am going to be starting the Savage Tide in the next few days. I know, two years later, but I was in the middle of another campaign when the AP started, plus I wanted to have the whole Path before starting it.

Anyway, I have read a bunch of interesting stuff about the path and some people's experiences with it over the last couple of weeks as I got ready, and I am going to go with several of the suggestions (Blue Nixie grounding, Olangru creepiness, handling Spell Compendium spells), but I was wondering if there were any other suggestions floating around in someone's head that haven't been typed up yet.

Also, I was wondering what some with experience running the Path might think about my party's makeup and if there will be insurmountable problems:

Elf Swashbuckler
Human Bard (heading for Seeker of the Song)
Human Paladin (heading for Kensei)
Human Ranger
Human Rogue

(and joining up later, most likely a Warlock - the kind that fights against whatever infernal heritage he might have).

I know it is extremely light on arcane spellcasting, but Seeker of the Song has some interesting abilities, and the bard will have Use Magic Device (and I'll try to talk the rogue into it, too).

And another also, if anyone wants to follow along with what happens, I will be keeping track of things here.

Thanks,
AJ