Sandpoint is Neutral Good, but would PCs be allowed to brandish weapons at the festival? I know some weapons like knives, are tools as much as weapons, but what about obvious weapons?
I am thinking of ways to make the PCs improvise so their heroics really stand out.
What do you all think?
I would advise against doing that for reasons more related to
storytelling, setting the tone, and fairness to your players.
I think the default assumption in most places is that it's OK to carry weapons around. Sandpoint is still a frontier town, and goblins do raid the roads and surrounding settlements.
Mechanically, making your PCs not have weapons at the festival is going to make the encounter a whole lot harder. The point of the Swallowtail Festival encounter is for a bunch of capable strangers to work toegether to defeat a bunch of insane pyromaniac monsters runining amok. The fight should be a decisive victory for the PCs that the town can celebrate.
In my opinion, making a fighter attack the goblins by improvising weapons out of a riding crop, a fireplace poker, and a wagon wheel would be adding a level of silliness that would get the campaign off on the wrong foot. It would also give an unfair advantage to the spellcasters, who would end up hogging the spotlight.
The spell caster argument is a valid one and one I hadn't considered.
Sandpoint is Neutral Good, but would PCs be allowed to brandish weapons at the festival? I know some weapons like knives, are tools as much as weapons, but what about obvious weapons?
I am thinking of ways to make the PCs improvise so their heroics really stand out.
What do you all think?
"Brandish," no. Carry, yes. So long as they haven't done anything to make the locals distrust them there's no reason to deny them their weapons.
I wasn't planning on denying them all weapons, just big obvious crazy weapons.
Want a short sword on your hip? Fine. A giant war hammer or battle axe across your back? The town guard might have a problem with that.
That's where my head was at anyway.
I figure that with the Shoanti having a presence in the area an earthbreaker would not be foreign to the people of Sandpoint. The local bouncers may even brandish them.
I agree with Shadowborn.
I have a player who's playing a brawler who lost his hand and uses a strapped-on scizore in its place. I'm telling him that he'll need a cover or sheath of some sort if he wishes to have it on at the festival. Then again, he might be fine with just wearing his hook hand.
|
In the game that I am running almost everyone, of their own accord and without planning all took a spear, long spear or boar spear. In every case these are weapons that are carried and obvious. I had no problem with them carrying these within the town as the town caters to a great many travelers, it is Varisia (everyone there wanders).
According to the fluff, there is a market every Fireday that brings in merchants from as far away as Magnimar. I can guarantee they have guards and they carry weapons at all times. That being said, I also decreased the number of times Fireday had a full market to every other week.
Being there for the Swallowtail Festival and wandering around with weapons isn't going to be a problem unless they make it a problem. Threatening a townsperson at an event with a weapon is not a smart idea. Peace binding the weapon is also not really needed since "the late unpleasantness" may still have people in town carrying a weapon for their own protection. As Haladir said, its a frontier town.
Creative Director
|
There are no laws against carrying weapons out and obvious in Sandpoint. And not allowing the PCs to have all their gear and stuff when the goblins come is unfair, unfun, and uncool. ;-P
But just as it wasn't a big deal in the old west, or even the turn of the 20th century, for people to carry guns in open in the public... it's not a big deal for people in Sandpoint to carry weapons. Most of those in town don't because they either can't afford weapons or don't know how to use them or both.
You can say it's unfair, unfun, and uncool all you want but I have players that actually like being challenged like this. I know they'd get a kick out of it. I've taken their weapons away from them in another campaign and I didn't have a single player complain.
And yes, Caius, I'm looking for ways to make the characters really stand out. I think simply routing the goblins isn't that big of a feat...between the town guard and the militia, they'd probably get routed without the PCs involvement anyway.
I've got other thoughts on how to do this as well, this is just one of them.
And the old west argument isn't accurate, either. Most towns had some kind of gun laws on the books regardless of what legends and stories tell us.
Yeah, you've nailed it Caius.
One of my other thoughts was having a good portion of the town guard get called out of town right before the festival to deal with something else, so the town is more vulnerable during the attack. Hell, maybe Tsuto could even create a feud between two tribes that ends up the farmlands outside of town, knowing that Sandpoint would send some of its men to squash it and leaving the town without proper resistance? I dunno, I just came up with that...i'd have to mull it over a bit to see if it works.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
On the topic of weapons (and spells), I made it clear to my players before the first session that Sandpoint is a pretty quiet town, where the town guard usually has nothing more serious to deal with than a drunken fight or a goblin in the woodpile. Especially during the festival, they should each have a specific, role-playing reason for having weapons other than a dagger or staff prepared, or for having markedly offensive spells prepared.
I don't think the goblins encounters were designed to be challenging enough that players needed their 'best case scenario' to defeat them.
Some of the things that happened (or that I would have accepted if someone had done it):
The fighter, who came to the festival without armor, bought his greatsword from Savah, as he had been saving up for it and decided to buy it at the festival.
The wizard had two castings of Snapdragon Fireworks prepared, so that he could make fireworks during the bonfire that night. These happened to be useful even in a fight. He knew he could use his bonded item to cast another spell anyway.
The druid arrived in Sandpoint that day from the surrounding area. He had his quarterstaff and sling (for hunting rabbits) on him anyway, and just swapped his 'non-confrontational" spells for Summon Nature's Ally.
The bard considered briefly grabbing a weapon from the display table at Savah's booth, but instead decided to use Arcane Strike to boost his own dagger a little.
I also would have accepted someone going to the Festival in their armor (or part of it), to 'show off' and look cool. If someone said that they got accosted in the Fatman's Feedbag last night, and were a bit on edge, or had a (real or imagined) sighting of the Sandpoint Devil, or 'had a bad feeling about today', I would have allowed more preparation.
Basically, I was trying to get them to imagine actually being at a day-long festival in a small town, by forcing them to think about what they would actually be wearing and carrying there. The characters who had brought a weapon had to think about what to do with it when they were doing something else (like the friendly games at the festival). This is, effectively, the last day that people in Sandpoint are going to feel safe, at least for a while. I wanted to contrast that bucolic, small-town feeling with the anxiety and fear that the goblins/ghouls/giants will cause.
On the subject of the guards, Sandpoint only has a dozen. That may seem small, but based on general reports of police/population ratios, it's actually about three times as many 'police' per person as the US currently maintains. Some people have previously suggested that would mean four were on duty at any given time, but that makes the guards work seven days a week. I would suggest that you add Sheriff Hemlock to that number, and give the guards each five shifts a week. That gives you three guards on duty at any given time, each working five eight hour shifts, with three 'extra' guard shifts for times when you anticipate trouble (end of the working week, etc). Of course, you may have them pull extra shifts on the day of the festival, but really, you will have about 4 guards who are actually 'prepared' for trouble, covering a town of 1200 people, with a lot of visitors from the outlying regions in town for the festival. I think there's an easy and ample opportunity for the players to shine without any special circumstances.
Also, despite the fact that there are many militia members in town, those people probably don't normally carry their weapons or wear their armor. I suspect that most of them haven't even been in a real fight. People like Belor Hemlock are probably savvy enough to notice that while most people run away from danger, the player character instead ran towards it. That's exceptional.
*I don't want to give the impression that I, as a GM, didn't allow people to carry weapons in Sandpoint. However, if you're going to a festival to eat free food, maybe compete in a sack race, chase some chickens around a field, and engage in a tug-of-war contest for a free kiss at the Pixie's Kitten kissing booth, why are you lugging around a shield and a spear?
Butch, you have nailed exactly what I have been trying to get at in this entire thread.
Sandpoint is Neutral Good, but would PCs be allowed to brandish weapons at the festival? I know some weapons like knives, are tools as much as weapons, but what about obvious weapons?
I am thinking of ways to make the PCs improvise so their heroics really stand out.
What do you all think?
I figure our Archer is going to have her bow and arrows due to competing in an archery competition and our bard will likely be carrying his rapier... everyone else will be unarmed and unarmored and will have to make due with belt knives and improvised weapons. It might make those 1st level casters feel a little less useless, eh?
By and large a personal weapon like a sword probably wouldn't raise too much of an eyebrow... but armor would be a bit much in my opinion. As counter-intuitive as it may sound, a weapon could be carried for self defense, but when you see someone don armor, you KNOW they're looking for trouble.