My group got the Sootscales as allies, avoided a few fights with the local wildlife, (a wolf pack and a lone grizzly) and managed to spare one of the bandits from the initial combat at Oleg's. But other than that, they've killed everything else.
I'd play it on the fly with redeeming the bandits.
Some will probably need to be incarcerated. Some may be beyond redemption. Or you may just decide that they are all just misunderstood and are varying shades of the darker side of Neutral.
Looking at Kressle's and Happ's backgrounds, it's easy to tweak it just a bit and get LN, N or CN NPCs out of them. (Same could be said of everyone) Maybe they're really evil, but hate themselves and want to change. Its really up to you, the rest of the players and your GM.
I played Kressle as the cruel b*!#@ she was written as and the players killed her outright. But yours may discover that she is more complicated than the one-dimensional portrayal in the AP.
I'd ask the GM to throw you a bone. Maybe some Knowledge: Local, Sense Motive, Intimidate, Diplomacy, etc. to reveal something in their past or some current aspect of their true nature that can be used to bring them to the Light. (so to speak)
I'd like to have gotten a chance to see Happs and/or Kressle in my players little sandbox kingdom (Just finished Rivers Run Red) but they're a bit of a bloodthirsty bunch. (The PCs that is)
Give them minor duties that don't require weapons!
Have them build a small place of worship outside of Olegs. AND PAY THEM FOR THEIR EFFORTS!
the most important thing for these troubled folks is to find a place that they can latch on to. Somewhere they can call home. If you don't want to pay them, then figure out some sort of credit system at olegs. But have weapons be unavailable for purchase.
You might want to institute a reward system where they can purchase ale.
My group had a similar experience with the early AP. You can go quite far in this campaign without being agressive, and can turn many potential enemies into friends. Its designed with a good amount of flexibility in mind. My group loves this right now, and its a welcome relief to the more standard hack and slash.
Have fun playing it up.
My players have killed the overwhelming majority of the foes they've faced. They left Happs in a secret cellar under Oleg's bedroom (improvised during play) with the intention that he'd be turned over to the authorities by Oleg. Little do they know that Oleg hasn't exactly done that. I'm hoping to set up Happs for their kingdom.
Kressle was eliminated in a very cruel, violent way. Most unrepentant bandits that survive the fights have been executed under the charter.
It's been interesting and some of my pre-game advice went unheeded after being acknowledged. I'm looking forward to the next session on Sunday.
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My group is as bloodthirsty as the bandits, monsters, & wildlife they slaughter with gleeful joy. Negot...negoti...negotia...yeah 'that' word never comes up. But now that we're in kingdom building, the Grand Diplomat PC tries, then laments just how hard the other players make his job.
My group of LNs, some LE. allied with everything and their mighty kingdom is home to the 'many and varied' creatures of this world.
dont worry, its a nice change.
there is load chaos to slaughter later though
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In terms of where you are up to, my players:
Captured Happs and co, questioned them and then hung them for unrepentant banditry.
Killed of Kressle's group but captured her. Took her back to Oleg's for questioning and handed her over to Kesten to work off her crimes against Oleg and Svetlana. Faced with the prospect of certain death, Kressle seems to be towing the line.
Negotiated with the Kobolds at the Beet field.
There is a lot of opportunity for a good aligned party to avoid combat and/or take prisoners for redemption is this sandpit adventure. If you treat your captives well, spend time talking with them about their wrongs and teach them the folly or their ways, show them they can be a valuable member of your fledging kingdom, let them earn your trust etc etc, any decent GM is going to have their alignment swing around.
I'd appeal to any DMs that have players treating their prisoners well and genuinely seeking to redeem enemy NPCs not to punish them for their actions. There also the temptation to further sub-plots by having NPCs betray the party at a later stage, but this just railroads players into killing all the baddies because it's just safe and easier. Dumb play IMHO.
CEO
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The day after we captured them my PC prepped and cast detect chaos/detect evil. A strategy that has helped us in identifying who our lawful allies are and who is chaotic or evil.
Remember that the Detect Evil/Law/Chaos/Good spells don't register ANY alignment for creatures with 5 or fewer HD unless they are aligned directly with a deity like a cleric or paladin, or are outsiders.
Check the table at the bottom of the spell page for more info.
I see these spells being played improperly all the time and only recently (at the beginning of my Kingmaker campaign) realized that we had been doing it wrong ourselves. It makes it much more interesting to not know anything about the alignments early in this campaign.
-Lisa
One my players is a cleric (theologian) of Sarenrae. He picked fire as his one domain and wants to purify the "sinners." For fun, I allow him to burn channel energies to get a bonus on his diplomancy roles when trying to "convert" defeated foes to the light of Sarenrae. So far, he's still low level enough that it doesn't really work well, but it doesn't stop him from trying (or burning through valuable channel energies). The other PCs have had to pull him off a few bandits when they wouldn't convert. Usually, they try to keep him occuppied by asking to learn more about Sarenrae so that they can question the bandits in peace.
When not converted, most of the bandits have been facing frontier justice for their crimes.
My group just started Kingmaker this past weekend. In the first session we managed to capture Happs and two of his bandits and keep all four horses(two died from crits), explore south and negotiate with the kobolds at the moon beets field (avoiding another fight), and then summarily ambush Kressle's group in the night and capture her and three(or two?) of the others. The only enemies to die so far have been the four bandits that were crit (three by one gunslinger and the fourth by an archer ranger).
We're a fully lawful party with myself as de-facto leader. As a cleric of Abadar and fully in the mind that rehabilitation is the best method for being both just, fair and eliminating crime, we've managed to build up a miniature kingdom in just our first session.
..Did any other parties get this lucky? Do you think we can continue this throughout the rest of the adventure? So far we've been lucky to ambush every enemy we've fought (except for some random centipedes) and negotiate successfully with everyone we capture.
Any suggestions on the best way to slowly start to change the bandits' alignments? The day after we captured them my PC prepped and cast detect chaos/detect evil. A strategy that has helped us in identifying who our lawful allies are and who is chaotic or evil. I know that Kressle and her troops are evil and non-chaotic (betting on neutral over lawful..) but am not sure how to go about altering that alignment and am looking for some ideas!
Hah! My players did something very similar! They managed to capture/stabilize Happs and 3 of his bandit buddies in the first encounter (there were 6 all totaled as we had an extra player for the very first session) and captured all of their horses (not a big deal as I had the PCs start with horses anyways). They then proceeded to conduct a mini trial of each of them with the outcome of said trials being unknown to the rest of the bandits. They had a chopping block set up in the courtyard of Oleg's that the bandits were marched past on their to 'court'.
The 3 PCs running this (a LN Cleric, a NG Psion and a TN Barbarian) asked various questions about the bandit's crimes and history. In the end they ended up executing Happs as the Barbarian basically goaded him in a fit of anger in which Happs revealed several key points of the bandits layout and strategies and that Happs was going to find a way to kill them (the barb's high Sense Motive roll and interrogation technique was near perfect for Happs' personality). The other 3 bandits they stripped of gear, rode them 4-5 miles away and told them to get the hell out of the Greenbelt. The NG horse archer was kind enough to give them a short sword to defend themselves with. This amounted to leaving them, with minimal food & water in a hostile land nearly a week (on foot) from the closest settlement.
I thought this was an incredible development and one I did not see coming. The players are taking their role as being future rulers of this land pretty seriously and it really rekindled my DMing fire to see it unfold like this. One of the LN in the group (1/2 Orc Druid) has even expressed some misgivings about how the bandits were initially tricked into an ambush by the party right at the start without being given a chance to surrender. I tell you Kingmaker has brought back all the magic for D&D to me.
My player recruits far and wide, and has a couple of the Stag Lord's men still, and a *lot* of kobolds (led by King Mikmik Trollheart), and some hobgoblins, and a pack of werewolves, and a lot of faerie allies including some rather unseelie ones, and (until recently) a boggard, and a small band of centaurs, a pack of wargs, and...it's pretty boggling, actually. The only things he won't recruit are mites and goblins.
He also has a certain barbarian chieftan's twin four-year-old sons. That will either be a very good or a very bad thing someday, but I don't yet know which.
We also captured the "early" Bandits. The first one was brought to the Erastil Temple for penance of a year and a day and is now a respected cleric of Erastil in his own right: Pavel Riverelk Fi 1/Cl 3.
His 2 companions, Wanja and Wano ended up as Ranger Srgts. in Tatzlfort after their penance. Bayden "The Un-repentant" turned up again later with Dovan, the *#-?ß% and was ecxecuted. I think we also captured Kressle alive in a glorious night-raid, but executed her.
Aki is our General in Sunburst, but the rest just didn´t surrender in time.
Our party killed the majority of the bandits. All of the ones in the first encounter died, as did all of the ones at the camp except Kressle. We were keeping her and one bandit captured during a random encounter in the stable at Oleg's for a while, trying to rehabilitate them....until we came back from one of our trips out to find that a party had been sent to rescue Kressle and hopefully kill us as well. They'd wreaked a great deal of havoc at Oleg's while we were gone, so when we returned we killed them to a man/woman--all except the second bandit we'd been keeping in the stable. He'd been beaten by them for refusing to go along with their plan. He became our spymaster when we founded our kingdom, and at our last session became our Duke when my character married him.
We kept Akiros and one other bandit from the Stag Lord's fort around, though Akiros later died and the other bandit is now short a tongue and one arm after they tried to hold the Stag Lord's fort by themselves before our kingdom made its way down there. My character is determined to locate a scroll of regeneration for him.
We also have made allies of the kobolds and lizardfolk, the various good fey in the area (one of cities is named for Perlivash), and a behir that we rolled as random encounter. The last is now the ruler of one of our cities (he named it Behiria) as a reward for helping us during our war with the Troll King.
My group has been almost fanatical about recruiting. We've managed not to kill most of the things we come across and have even trusted a few of them to high position. We currently stand at the end of book 2 and the party consists of a LG Cavalier, a CN Rogue, a LN(?) Fighter(Archer), and my LE Ranger, the Kingdom is LN mercy and justice prevails, but heaven help you if you break a major law or are a threat to the kingdom.
Let's see if I can do this in order:
Happs and Company: Happs - Crucification, Bandits - Recruited into police force/brute squad; Kressle and Friends - Recruited, Kressle now serves as general of all things; Random trolls - one killed, one recruited, now serves as my bodyguard and chief enforcer in the secret police; Kobolds - recruited, they even have a (rather nice) district in the capital; Bandits at the Fort - recruited into police, except the Stag Lord, to many folks wanted him dead and his brutal slaying sent an excellent anti-crime message; Various fairies - recruited, some under direct employ and some only loosely affiliated with the kingdom; Wolves and Thylacines - recruited or left to roam; Hill giant - recruited, sheriff in capital; A certain bard - missing, presumed (heh heh heh) dead; Werewolf - cured and recruited; Cultists - serving hard labor; Lizardfolk - some recruited, some not so much; Other trolls- Some refused surrender, these were promptly burned to death, some surrendered, some accepted positions in the growing army, those that did not were told to expeditiously remove themselves from the borders of the kingdom.
All and all we have been a rather merciful little group, I'm so proud.
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My group has a "collect 'em all!" mentality, so we've got tons of kobolds and ex-bandits and fae creatures and whatnot running around (and in some cases, running) the barony. The PCs killed a couple bandits in the first skirmish, but the other two bandit mooks (Conrad and Jeremias) have been with them since that day, and have become two of the party's most trusted and valued friends. They spared Happs, but he was humiliated by going back to Kressle with his tail between his legs, so he came after them again, and they finished him off fairly brutally for not accepting their mercy. They killed the first kobolds they encountered in the radish patch, due to language barriers, but that prompted some of the PCs to learn their language, and they dealt diplomatically with the other kobolds they encountered. Chief Sootscale himself sits on their council, and some kobolds have joined patrols of the farms and fields, and even the town guard.
The party kinda steamrolled the Thorn River encampment (never rolled so many 3s and 4s in my life, lol) and they managed to take all the bandits prisoner without even one of them dying. (I had to come up with all these personalities and mannerisms off the top of my head...good thing I had a few "spare" names at hand already) Kressle was a handful; she cussed them out, heckled them, she refused to sell out the Stag Lord, and went off on her own men for being such spineless cowards. Only Lor, the only other female bandit, stayed on her side. The other bandits did their best to appease the PCs and get into their good graces, but ironically the party wanted Kressle and Lor more because of their integrity.
Dealing with the Stagfort and its denizens was interesting, too. After many screaming and violent fights, multiple escape attempts, etc. the party finally got Kressle on their side by promising to spare the Stag Lord and try to cure him of his alcoholism, on her word that he was a great man, or at least, used to be. Despite dealing with Nightmares practically every night courtesy of Mr. Nettles, the group vowed to keep their word. And they did. They locked him up in Beaky's cage to sober up, and, after some extensive detective work, put Nugrah to the sword. They gave the Stag Lord the name Ayrk (His declaration that "This name is as good as any other" spawned a meme in our group of "This ___ is as good as any other." :D ) and offered to pay for spells to remove his addiction and restore his marred features. He ultimately decided to accept the former and reject the latter, since the scars helped make him who he is.
Dovan got thrown down into the cellar where Nugrah used to hang out, theoretically awaiting execution as well (boy, did everybody dislike that guy!), but Saachi kept going to taunt him, getting the tables turned on her, and leaving in a huff, but eventually you feel weird chopping the head off a guy you hang out with a lot, and they wound up sparing him, too.
The sorceror, Arturo, has been taking his role of Grand Diplomat very seriously, trying his best to integrate all the indigenous people of the Stolen Lands into the barony, while Tev, guide/skirmisher/ranger, (trying to do his best as the Warden) gets grumpy that the group is "letting another monster get away." Kalen the alchemist (Treasurer) had a crush on the Battle oracle, Saachi, as well as cool ex-bandit Lor (now one of the barony's elite Thorn Knights, along with bumbling but earnest Conrad)but has since hooked up with Fiddler, ex-bandit and Court Musician (read: Spymaster), as well as Tiressia and Falchos, though he is currently pursuing a relationship with Rebekah, a young Harrow reader who is also the Councilor as well as an all-around cheerful and kind person. Saachi is the Baroness, and with her sympathetic and caring nature, as well as beauty and personal magnetism, half the barony is smitten with her. (The other half is probably smitten with Arturo. She has been torn for some time between her feelings for Arturo and Akiros (General and "Hand of the Baroness," acting in her stead when she is away adventuring), and has chosen Arturo, though she and Akiros are both painfully aware that their mutual attraction still exists. Tev and Kressle (Royal Assassin) have a rowdy, playful "friends with benefits" arrangement, although Tev may be developing stronger feelings for her, while Kressle still harbors feelings for Arturo. Also Dovan shows up from time to time to antagonize or give the odd bit of helpful advice (or make shameless and overtly sexual comments), leaving Saachi hating-but-liking him. Arturo just flat-out despises him. Dovan has recently been hired on to train Rebekah for stealth and combat and such so she can go adventuring with the group at times (Kalen's player wants her as a cohort.)
Long story short, my group is a challenge and a joy to GM for, because I have to manage so many NPCs, but I get to play with so many different types of interaction! They are very diplomatic and just characters, and even if they really, really want to hurt or kill someone who is a major thorn in their sides, they virtually always try reasoning it out and calling for surrender or seeing what they can do to help first. This AP has been a great fit for us. ^___^
My own group is DOMINATED by the Lawful Alignment, with everyone being either Good or Neutral, so more than a few encounters have been talked through.
I played up Happs Bydon as a rough kind of person who, though being generally bad, is just in it for a comfortable life and a pocket full of coin. The kind of guy who's smart enough to be useful, but dumb enough to only be a good lieutenant. One of the PCs (A Magus) captured him and his bandits during the big fight (one died from a coup de grace spear through the heart, but it was no big loss), and they held a trial. A few Sense Motive checks let them figure out he'd make a useful tool if they can keep a fairly short leash on him and goad or threaten him into helping, and he basically gave them everything they needed to launch an attack on the Thorn River Camp.
Kressle I played up as more of a heartless bandit, given how the module implies she's the worst of the bunch and threatened to chop off Oleg's fingers for fun. The PCs captured her too, and put her through a trial, but she was defiant to the end and ended up dangling off a rope from her own guard tower. Her bandits managed to flee during the fight and scatter, while Happs' have been put to good use as Indentured Servants for Oleg's Trading Post to work off the debt they wracked up from all the theft and vandalism.
The most interesting part is how Happs Bydon became a recurring character, and ended up even being more important than Jhod Kavken (who was mostly ignored due to having three divine caster on the team). He helped out with the kobolds and mites, he was around for the Tuskgutter battle, and though he always demanded a cut of the loot, the PCs kept him just threatened and bribed enough that he began to see being a "Hero" as being a cheaper, easier, and better way to make coin than being a "Bandit."
They've been Kingdom Building for an in-game year now, and Happs Bydon has become their Spymaster. Though he's a little quick to suggest discreet murder, beatings, and knowingly allowed a group of thieves to attack travelers since they left their citizens alone (with the thought process of "Aint my problem unless they rob our guys"), he's shifted from Neutral Evil to True Neutral and is living a fairly sweet life in the city of Alstindelle. Especially when the PCs are away and not keeping an eye on him. :3
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They've been Kingdom Building for an in-game year now, and Happs Bydon has become their Spymaster.
Cool! I played him up as cocky, foul-mouthed, arrogant, and clever enough to agree with the PCs to their faces, even if he clearly felt differently. My group hated the guy. But he looks awesome (I love the new "human ranger" mini based on him), and I'm glad he survived in someone else's game.
Kressle is loud, brash, massively uncouth, and an unrepentant bully in our game, but I figured that made sense since she was raised by bandits, then taken in by other bandits. She uses intimidation tactics to avoid actually killing people...also because if her victims die, they can't tell other people how scary and badass and amazing she is. That's pretty much her tactic as the "Royal Assassin," too, since the Baroness doesn't want anyone getting the axe(s) without her explicit baronial say-so.
I'll admit, many of my decisions regarding how to portray the NPCs are based as much on what I think the group (and I!) will enjoy, as they are on the brief write-up or lack thereof. Love me some banter...
They've been Kingdom Building for an in-game year now, and Happs Bydon has become their Spymaster.snip...
I'll admit, many of my decisions regarding how to portray the NPCs are based as much on what I think the group (and I!) will enjoy, as they are on the brief write-up or lack thereof. Love me some banter...
I have tried to do the same as a GM in this adventure path. I'll try to include NPCs that will engage all of the PCs. As a note I'm the GM in Jack of Tales game.
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We made an attempt to get to the tower in the middle of the Candlemere lake..that place is terrifying. We ran once the Will saves started up.
Our final recruitment list looks as follows:
4 bandits from Kressle's camp
All bandits from the Stag Lord's camp including all named, even Sneeg.
Random encounter Worg
2 baby Tatzlworms (we found some eggs because our GM rocks)
Chief Sootscale's tribe
Tyg & the faerie dragon
Graggle's Mite tribe
Garuum the Boggart
and then all of the people you're expected to have: Jahd, Keston, etc.
Hahaha, wow, I thought my group was the recruitingest in town, but yours puts us to shame! Arturo has developed a real hatred of enemies that talk smack or try to mess with one's head (worgs, will-o-wisps, Dovan...) and Saachi freaks out around the numerous giant bugs, so that has removed a number of potential "allies" from the list.
What are your bandit mooks like? What do all these NPCs do? Do they just hang out, or do they have special jobs in the barony? I love to hear about other people's games...
We made an attempt to get to the tower in the middle of the Candlemere lake..that place is terrifying. We ran once the Will saves started up.
Our final recruitment list looks as follows:
4 bandits from Kressle's camp
All bandits from the Stag Lord's camp including all named, even Sneeg.
Random encounter Worg
2 baby Tatzlworms (we found some eggs because our GM rocks)
Chief Sootscale's tribe
Tyg & the faerie dragon
Graggle's Mite tribe
Garuum the Boggart
and then all of the people you're expected to have: Jahd, Keston, etc.Hahaha, wow, I thought my group was the recruitingest in town, but yours puts us to shame! Arturo has developed a real hatred of enemies that talk smack or try to mess with one's head (worgs, will-o-wisps, Dovan...) and Saachi freaks out around the numerous giant bugs, so that has removed a number of potential "allies" from the list.
What are your bandit mooks like? What do all these NPCs do? Do they just hang out, or do they have special jobs in the barony? I love to hear about other people's games...
I'll just make few comments, but I'll leave Jack of Tales to tell most of the story. The group just recently finished the first book of Kingmaker: The Stolen Land and are still assigning positions to the various NPCs, so I'm sure that Jack will let us all know when that has been decided.
During their time adventureing most of the NPCs have been at Olegs making improvements such a building a small shrine there among other things. Several NPCs like Kressle (who was not welcomed a Oleg's) and Jhod have been traveling with the PCs, but only took part in battle if a PC was absent that day. Jhod has been used several times, I built him before seeing his stats in Rivers Run Red, so he might be a little more combat capable than usual. Several mites and kobalds where traveling with the PCs to learn of the ways of Abadar and spread his worship among their respective tribes.