First let me say that this is not an attack at the rules as writen, I and a few of my players like them. the problem is coming from one of the other players in the game that keeps throwing a fit when the party has to spend its money to buy a new wagon to handle the extra passengers, his beef is that buying a wagon in the core rule book is cheaper that with the caravan rules. He also feels as if the caravan is a money pit that offers on reward to the party(the only reason he joined the party and stays currently its to get treasure).
So we have 2 weeks off from game as two of the players are attending a wedding& taking a vacation while there. So I was going to put together a small house rules hand book for everyone, and in that book I wanted a break down of how the caravan would look $$$ wise if they didn't use the caravan rules. For that I need
- Gp cost of wagons
- How much food would be needed to cross the crown of the world
- How much food the averaged horse needs per day
- The cost of repair material for wagons
- true wages for all caravan hands
Thank you all
(the only reason he joined the party and stays currently its to get treasure)
The player's guide actually tells you that you have to take a campaign trait, thus tying your character to the NPCs by bonds of friendship (and anyway the campaign traits are stronger than normal anyway). This is pretty crucial because a mercenary like him is a terrible fit for this Adventure Path--realistically, the party can't risk someone like him having access to them in a vulnerable position, as the oni are way richer than the party is and could offer him vastly more than what he's currently making in exchange for betraying the party.
Anyway, I think this AP definitely works best with PCs who are strongly tied to the NPCs, if not also heroic PCs (though I wish some of them had been Good, my group are all Neutral, but they are fiercely loyal to the NPCs, so it works out).
Well, he could be working to help Ameiko on the understanding that when Ameiko is an empress, she'll be able to make him incredibly rich.
My group had an Oracle who could cast Create Food and Water at least four times a day. According to the core rules (but not the JR caravan rules) that would be enough to feed 16 horses and 48 people every day. I decided to stop keeping track of food at that point.
That would be great chaos, thanks
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Dude you may want to check out the trade route expansion from Louis Porter Jr. it adds a lot of extra options for wagons, supplies, and feats to help pull it back up.
The other thing you might want to look at is playing up the scope of a caravan encounter vs. a standard player encounter. As written when you run into goblins while on your caravan it is a small horde of them like 15-30 and the CR is still only like 1/3 as if taking on a single one. Use this to play up the strength of the caravan in relation to the standard party. Heck if you want to get a little more crazy you might want to develop a system so that your party can retreat to the caravan and proc caravan combat, dropping the CR of difficult normal or random encounters (and therefore lowing the XP they recieve) but allowing them a better chance at survival.
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The other thing you might want to look at is playing up the scope of a caravan encounter vs. a standard player encounter. As written when you run into goblins while on your caravan it is a small horde of them like 15-30 and the CR is still only like 1/3 as if taking on a single one. Use this to play up the strength of the caravan in relation to the standard party. Heck if you want to get a little more crazy you might want to develop a system so that your party can retreat to the caravan and proc caravan combat, dropping the CR of difficult normal or random encounters (and therefore lowing the XP they recieve) but allowing them a better chance at survival.
That is early on. It doesn't take long for it to be easier for the PCs to take on the group attacking rather than the caravan. Our caravan only does like 1d6+8, while the enemies will be doing 4D8+20. Our AC is like 15 whuiles theirs is 20+. Our attack bonus is +8 while their's is +15. Whereas our party is 7th level, and can cast fireball, attack with powerful weapons and do a ton of damage.
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looking back I think the primary issue with the caravan is that it doesn't attack as often as it needs to, the damage output doesn't scale with enemies, unless you have every player attack for the caravan each round. that would give it 1 attack per PC (4 by default assumption) and be hard enough to support the enemies at higher CRs