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The Drifter CR 7
XP 3,200
Android gunslinger (mysterious stranger) 8 (Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 5 19, Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Combat 9, 51)
N Medium humanoid (android)
Init +5; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +12
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Defense
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AC 19, touch 14, flat-footed 16 (+4 armor, +1 deflection, +3 Dex, +1 natural)
Vig 46 (8d10) Wnd 24 (Threshold 12)
Fort +7, Ref +11, Will +5; +4 vs. mind-affecting, paralysis, poison, and stun
Defensive Abilities constructed; Immune disease, emotion, exhaustion, fatigue, fear, sleep
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Offense
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Speed 30 ft. (20 ft. in armor)
Melee mwk glaive +6/+1 (1d10-1/×3)
Ranged +1 laser rifle +11/+6 (2d6+8 fire/19-20)
Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft. (10 ft. with masterwork glaive)
Special Attacks deeds (dead shot, deadeye, focused aim, gunslinger initiative, gunslinger's dodge, pistol-whip, startling shot, targeting, utility shot), grit (3)
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Statistics
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Str 8, Dex 20, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 17
Base Atk +8; CMB +11; CMD 21
Feats Agile Maneuvers, Deadly Aim, Gunsmithing[UC], Improved Critical (laser rifle), Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus (laser rifle)
Skills Acrobatics +7 (+3 to jump), Appraise -1, Bluff +1, Climb +5, Diplomacy +1, Disguise +1, Escape Artist +0, Fly +0, Heal -1, Intimidate +12, Perception +12, Ride +0, Sense Motive -5, Stealth +0, Survival +6, Swim +5; Racial Modifiers +2 Perception, -4 Sense Motive
Languages Aklo, Common
SQ emotionless, exceptional senses, gunsmith, nanite surge, stranger's fortune
Other Gear mwk studded leather, mwk laser rifle, mwk glaive
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Special Abilities
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Agile Maneuvers Use DEX instead of STR for CMB
Constructed (Ex) Counts as both humanoids and constructs for effects that target type.
Darkvision (60 feet) You can see in the dark (black and white only).
Deadly Aim -3/+6 Trade a penalty to ranged attacks for a bonus to ranged damage.
Deeds Use Grit to perform special abilities with your firearms.
Emotionless (Ex) Androids have problems processing emotions properly, and thus take a –4 penalty on Sense Motive checks.
Exceptional Senses Androids have darkvision to a range of 60 feet and low-light vision. They also gain a +2 racial bonus on Perception checks.
Grit (Ex) Gain a pool of points that are spent to fuel deeds, regained on firearm crit/killing blow.
Gunsmith Gain free starting firearm that only you can use properly.
Gunsmithing You can use a gunsmithing kit to craft/repair firearms and ammo.
Immunity to Disease You are immune to diseases.
Immunity to Emotion (Ex) You are immune to all emotion effects.
Immunity to Exhausted You are immune to the exhausted condition.
Immunity to Fatigue You are immune to the fatigued condition.
Immunity to Fear (Ex) You are immune to all fear effects.
Immunity to Sleep You are immune to sleep effects.
Low-Light Vision See twice as far as a human in dim light, distinguishing color and detail.
Nanite Surge +11 (1/day) (Ex) Bonus to any one d20 roll. Glow like a torch for 1 round when used.
Point-Blank Shot +1 to attack and damage rolls with ranged weapons at up to 30 feet.
Precise Shot You don't get -4 to hit when shooting or throwing into melee.
Rapid Shot You get an extra attack with ranged weapons. Each attack is at -2.
Stranger's Fortune (3/day) (Ex) Ignore a firearm misfire.

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FlavorableDeez wrote:

You mention Serenity in the article, how boring would it be to play a character like Inara, Simon, or Shepherd Book during space combat?

There should be a Morale Officer position. If you can't fight or drive or fix things or keep stuff from exploding, you should at least be able to play cheerleader.

Bards...in...SPAAAACE!

Hi!

Unfortunately I need to cancel my Pathfinder Roleplaying Game subscription.

Please let me know if you need any more info.

Thanks,
--Mike

Also, the scene in The Princess Bride where Vizzini calls Fezzik a "hippopotamic landmass", but that's more mean. Fezzik remains to this day one of my favourite characters in any film, ever.

"Do you want me to send you back to where you were? Unemployed? In Belkzen?"

So long as there aren't any ROUSs we should be fine. ; )

Stick in there Ronnie. Good luck with everything. : )

(Yes, I am still popping in every now and then!)

Thanks everyone. You can be sure I'll check in from time to time...but at least this way nobody will be looking around, wondering where I am. : )

I am the super-ninja. ; )

Thanks Choon. In another two years I should be qualified as a primary school teacher, so it's all good. : )

Hi Angel.

In the last 11 months or so, a lot of things have changed for me. I've gone from full time work to not working and studying instead. I've gone from being the breadwinner in the family to being the primary caregiver for my kids. And I just don't have the time I used to.

So honestly it would probably be better for me to withdraw from this campaign. Even with the minimal posting, I have often been unreliable.

I was going to make a decision on Friday, but since we're talking, I might as well do it now.

Good luck with the campaign, everyone.

--Mike

Pretty much! : D

At first level, two hits from a bow are capable of taking out pretty much any of us. That was a tactical retreat! ; )

We'd be going wherever we can go that will put concealment or cover (or both) between us and the camp. Running is a full round action so Katya can't do anything else this turn, but next turn she plans on finding some cover (a tree trunk perhaps?) and pulling out her bow to ready an action to shoot anyone who pursues.

I could always find a picture of the brain bug. : D

Wahahahaha!

Better one of those than one of these. ; )

Click me. You know you want to.

: D

Now I am thinking about spiders owning guns. Thanks Devon.

Congratulations Choon! I have two daughters myself. Just watched the eldest one put on a concert with her school class this afternoon. : )

Being an Australian I pretty much have no comprehension of a private individual owning a gun. Farmers might own firearms to keep their properties clear of pests, and sports shooters might own guns, but that's pretty much it. The concept of an individual owning a gun for personal protection is pretty much totally foreign.

I hope everything works out all right.

Holy moly. Good luck with everything.

Hope all is well, Devon. Take care.

Says the guy on five hit points. ; )

Hmm. What does everyone think? Should we fight our way in or come back later? We have no idea of their strength. Just that they are quite well prepared!

That's...a pretty awful spot to be in, tactically speaking. We're hemmed in by a river and pretty much our only option is to hide behind the cart and hope we don't get hit too much, because one bowshot is enough to drop any of us.

Perhaps it's worth doing the 'right' thing and announcing ourselves as duly appointed officers of the law, but I suspect the bandits won't have a bar of that.

If we can, I'd suggest we hurry off into the trees and retreat, and come back another time--possibly at night. Does Anton know any fire spells that might set something in the camp alight and eliminate night fighting penalties? Then between the disarray caused by the burning tents and perhaps having Katya sneak up to a watchtower and eliminate its guard and then start firing on everyone in the camp, we can get some results.

What does everyone think?

Been there! Good luck Choon. Hopefully the sleep deprivation doesn't mean you wind up resembling Cuddles. ; )

Hehehe...nothing like a gold mine to get our little empire off to a good start. We might want to defend it with something once we start building things, I suppose!

Marching order: I suggest standard arrangement has highest Perception at the front, highest Survival second, squishiest character third, and a rearguard at the back.

Since Harsk has the highest Perception (Katya's is reduced thanks to her drawback) and the highest Survival, I'd put him in front.

Then I'd go (with the arrow representing marching direction):

<-- HARSK (10 feet) CUDDLES (5 feet) ANTON (10 feet) KATYA

What does everyone else think? The spaces are to allow maneuvering and so we don't end up with all four of us falling into e.g. quicksand. : /

For stealth work, I'd swap front and back and double the spacing.

###

Noise level: usually I would say we'd try to find the path of least resistance. Forests don't usually have a lot of underbrush. If we're faced with a relatively impassable area then we'd probably try to go around.

But I doubt we're making Stealth checks while we explore.

###

Katya walks around with her bow strung, across her chest. Her sword is sheathed unless she needs to use it for hacking and chopping. With her BAB of +1 she can draw the sword or bow as part of her movement, so she should be right to meet any threat that shows itself.

Yeah, end of the week is always a challenge for me as I struggle to get done all the things I've been putting off. Now I have two big assignments due.

But hey, I'm here now. : )

Yeah, I think in terms of the GMPC, we need to make sure that they are there primarily to advance the plot--to act as the GM's mouthpiece, rather than outshine the PCs or act as a Mary Sue character.

Otherwise, it would be okay. There are probably precious few NPCs in the early parts of Kingmaker, so having a GMPC would make some sense.

So far we have:

• Cuddles: big damage and anti-caster grappler.
  
• Harsk: medium damage, some healing, lots of armour.
• Katya: small damage and some battlefield control with combat maneuvers.
  
• Anton: spellslinger; with Int 19 should have decent DCs for spells vs. enemies.

We lack a face character, and we lack a few key skills.

This post still applies, I think. : )

I once played in a game where we split the party. My druid flew off to investigate something while the rest of the party trundled on the ground. A random encounter generated 7 trolls.

Two hours later, the combat was over. I'd spent my time looking up the finer rules of charging with a lance and Ride-By Attack. It wasn't very interesting.

But it did teach me something: random encounters need to have a purpose. Verisimilitude is well and good, but if that verisimilitude leads to bogging the game down and disengagement from players, it's not serving a positive purpose.

###

My point is, if a lot of Kingmaker involves exploring (and random encounters while exploring), that's going to be tough to administer in a PbP. Much easier would be a system where we agreed an expedition to explore specific hexes, then you made all the necessary Perception, Survival, or whatever rolls for us as we went. Then we can pause at the interesting bits and fast-forward through the "you tramp through the damp meadows for eight hours and see nothing interesting; what's your camp watch order?" parts.

So for example, if we're following a trail then you can make a series of rolls for us and we get back in control of our PCs when the trail runs cold or we find something interesting. If we're just exploring, then we plot the hexes we want to explore, the order in which we explore them, we pay a certain amount of gold to purchase intangible 'supplies' for the mission (a certain amount of gp per hex would make sense, perhaps differentiated by predominant terrain type), and then you make rolls for us as before. And just say it takes a flat day to explore each hex, or half a day to traverse one without exploring, and leave it at that.

Or, adapt the exploration edicts rules from Ultimate Campaign. We don't have a treasury with BP yet, but I'm sure we could do something similar with a little thought.

###

Now, to actually answer your questions...

I'd prefer #1 or #3, as Cuddles does. Although it seems like we're destined to kill everyone we ever attempt to capture and interrogate at the moment!

Whether we get new players on board or not, I don't mind.

###

As for what path we're trying to explore, I think this post sets out the most recent plan we had about where we wanted to go after the bandit trail ran cold, before we ran into the four kobolds.

From my perspective, Angel, if we all agree on exploring this pathway I would just let you make all the rolls required and tell us what (if anything) we find.

So being railroaded through explorations is perfectly fine (even expected) by me. Just let us make decisions about things that matter. : )

--Mike

I have the same feeling. Angel, how are you going over there?

Hehehehe...wasn't intended to be, but let's say yes. ; )

Hehehe. We went to the local fair today, which was partially at my daughter's school. The teachers were all helping out, and they had that kind of manic-but-about-to-get-relief look in their eyes. It was pretty funny. : )

Damn you! SA doesn't get holidays for another two weeks! *glares enviously*

Really? So you have Easter in the middle of school term, and then get a holiday? So you get extra days off?

No worries! School holidays here after today, so my opportunities to lounge around and pretend to be someone else on the internet will be even more limited while I look after the kiddies. Hopefully I will be able to keep up. : )

I know these four kobolds are rather annoyed with us already. When I was talking about antagonising them, I was referring to the possibly several hundred kobolds living in a tribe somewhere near here. Having to fight off a siege of kobolds at Oleg's isn't high on my list of things to do! : )

In any case, it looks like you're right anyway and that there's simply no way to actually negotiate with them. Off with their heads, I guess!

My concern as a player is that the kobolds have to come from somewhere. We already have bandits. We know those bandits have a base nearby but I doubt it's their main stronghold, it's too close to civilisation. We're already planning to antagonise a bunch of bandits. Can we afford to similarly antagonise a bunch of kobolds who might join up with the bandits if we force them into a corner?

I'd rather deal with one at a time, which is why Katya's trying to engage the kobolds in some kind of conversation--to see if they can perhaps carry a message back to their leaders. Kobolds have an intelligence of 10--the same as your average human--so it's not like they're incapable of discussing things or relaying a message.

I am thinking of the Stolen Lands a lot like any modern military invasion: we're effectively a vanguard army of PCs sent to pacify/root out local militants. That doesn't tend to work very well when you annoy all the locals and they start resenting you instead of welcoming you. I'm sure there will be stranger (intelligent) things than kobold tribes found in the depths of the forest!

Does that make sense? Or am I overthinking it?

Got to get into character. ; )

Hehehehe...nice work. : )

So...does the kindling give us +1 to Survival checks to find a decent campsite? ; )

Wait, sorry, that should be

I swear, you guys are making me laugh entirely too much. This is like watching an ongoing slapstick episode of the A team or something like that.

So who is playing which role? Harsk could be Mr. T., Anton could be Hannibal, Katya could be Face, and that leaves Cuddles as Murdock. ; )

Go on Devon, see if you can fit an "I pity the fool" in there somewhere... : D

Hey Ronnie. I'm more than happy to carry on and have you back when you're ready.

Stay safe in the meantime, and good luck.

--Mike

Half the time I think the internet is likely to be broken by any display of positive emotion. ; )

Hope you're feeling better Angel. And Devon. : )

--Mike

Hi!

As far as I know we're waiting for Angel to move us on in the gameplay thread, or put out the word to recruit a new face or two, or both.

If anyone has any amendments to the plan above, we can always talk about that. : )

So the plan then is:

• head west into the forest hex (which will take until nightfall, I think?)
  
• explore the forest hex (which will take one day)
  
• deal with the bandits, if we find them (which will take probably one day)
  
• make a beeline back to Oleg's, whether we've found the bandits or not (probably two days)

Overall, then, that makes for either four or five more nights on the road. Anton, Harsk, and Katya are all fine for rations for that long, presuming we don't find any supplies in the bandit camp or hunt along the way, and if we find a river like we did when we camped we should be okay for fresh water, even if we just follow the river out of the forest and then head across the plains (or keep heading north until we find the road and walk along that back to Oleg's).

I reckon we're all right to carry on then. And if Angel needs to introduce a new PC partway through there are lots of ways it can be done. : )

Good luck with the lurgy, Angel. : )

It makes more in-game sense for us to press on. Presuming we're in the hex southwest of the spider lair, I say strike directly west and look for a source of fresh water that the bandits might camp on, then if we find them assess their strength and decide whether to attack. If they are too strong we can head back to Oleg's. If we don't find them at all we can head north/northeast and go back to Oleg's anyway, through the forest hex.

The out-of-game rationale for us to head back to Oleg's is also strong, so I'm comfortable with that if that's what everyone prefers, but my preference is to carry on.

I don't know anyone I'd specifically consider adding to the group.

Ronnie, since Melbourne gets Adelaide's weather somewhere between 24 and 36 hours later, yeah, I've seen the craziness over the last week! I spent most of the thunderstorms pacing around the house looking for leaks in the roof, given we've had two in the last month!

###

Given we've lost the trail, does anyone else think that going into the nearest forest hex is a good idea? I can't imagine that the Stag Lord's bandit minions would be hiding on the rolling plains somewhere, so I'm figuring that a trip into the forest hex that I assume is to the northwest of the hex we're in now, and then explore that hex, would be a good start.

If we find nothing, then perhaps we should head back to Oleg's and wait for the bandits to attack. It'll be just like something out of Seven Samurai. ; )

Another random thought: we could possibly do with some ranged support. Katya is heading towards a trip build, IIRC (it's been a while!). I could re-spec her if Angel will let me, but it's worth having a conversation about our tactics at some point. Now's a good opportunity.

To answer your actual question, I'm keen to recruit 1 or 2 more characters.

I'd be interested in recruiting a face character; without Leandric our highest Charisma score is Anton's 11. If you look ahead, that could mean that we're recruiting for someone to be our monarch, in terms of kingdom roles.

Skill gaps:

• Nobody has any ranks in Disable Device, Handle Animal, Knowledge (dungeoneering, engineering, nature, planes, religion).
  
• We're poor in Bluff, Diplomacy, Sense Motive, and Stealth.
  
• We only have one decent character for Survival.

Random thoughts about what might be suitable:

• Bard: good support and plenty of potential as a ruler.
  
• Cavalier: more martial power with all the face skills available.
  
• Cleric: although skill points will be thin on the ground for a cleric.
  
• Oracle: plenty of synergy around a good Charisma score.
  
• Rogue: handy skill monkey and you can make a charismatic rogue. A rogue ruler could be an interesting way to play it.
  
• Sorcerer: could be a nice combo and complement Anton's more analytical approach to magic.

All of this is just off the top of my head so feel free to disagree and I am quite happy to change my mind about any of the above! Let me know what you think. : )

Hah! With the variability on a d20 it may well turn out that Harsk is the stealthiest of all of us. ; )

Angel, will you let us know when we're in a new hex so we can make that choice? Otherwise it's hard to tell what's 'new hex encounter' vs. 'random encounter'. : )

Otherwise, that all makes sense. I suggest at the moment that if we're following a trail and trying to make sure the bad guys don't send a sizeable force to destroy Oleg's, that we make a beeline for their camp and don't explore until we've spent some time fortifying.

Fine by me too.

As for marching order, I think Harsk should go first unless we need a stealthy approach.

Normal order: Harsk, Cuddles, Anton, Katya. (Katya can hold her own as a rearguard and protect the squishy Anton.)

Stealthy order (bonuses in brackets): Katya (+3), Cuddles (+1), ten feet of empty space, Anton (+2), ten feet of empty space, Harsk (-1)

That effectively gives Harsk a +6 to +7 bonus on his check vs. stuff in front of us, and only puts him a double move or charge away from danger.

Without Cander we are really missing our outdoorsman. : \

The last time Tassadan (Cander) posted on the boards was in August, and the last time Cuàn (Leandric) posted was October, so they might well be absent. Without their email details it'd be hard to get onto them.

No worries! Take it easy Angel. We all have challenges in our lives. : ) Look after yourself first and foremost.

--Mike

Hey folks. Back from the holiday. In answer to the questions earlier: we flew, my kids are five and three, they did have lots of fun, and the five-year-old even went on some rollercoasters with me. : )

And I have no problems with things moving slowly; I have just enrolled in a new university degree so will have plenty to keep me busy!

I only have access to Windows on a work computer, so will be Mac-only.