OOC (out-of-character)

[michael]

Apr 3, 2011 20:04:16 GMT -5 reefwood said:

And followers do use different criteria than cohorts.

Followers have different priorities from cohorts. When you try to attract a follower, use the following modifiers.

The Leader... Modifier
Has a stronghold, base of operations, guildhouse, etc. +2
Moves around a lot –1
Caused the death of other followers –1

There are three charts of modifiers to your Leadership score. One is for your reputation, which effects both cohort and followers. Then there are two others, one with priorities for the cohort, and another with priorities for the followers. The section you quoted are modifiers followers have in addition to the reputation modifiers.

Leadership Modifiers: Several factors can affect your
Leadership score, causing it to vary from the base score
(character level + Cha modifier). Your reputation (from the
point of view of the cohort or follower you are trying to
attract) raises or lowers your Leadership score:

Leader’s Reputation
Great renown +2
Fairness and generosity +1
Special power +1
Failure –1
Aloofness –1
Cruelty –2

[reefwood]

Apr 3, 2011 21:06:15 GMT -5 michael said:

Apr 3, 2011 20:04:16 GMT -5 reefwood said:

And followers do use different criteria than cohorts.

There are three charts of modifiers to your Leadership score. One is for your reputation, which effects both cohort and followers. Then there are two others, one with priorities for the cohort, and another with priorities for the followers. The section you quoted are modifiers followers have in addition to the reputation modifiers.

Leadership Modifiers: Several factors can affect your
Leadership score, causing it to vary from the base score
(character level + Cha modifier). Your reputation (from the
point of view of the cohort or follower you are trying to
attract) raises or lowers your Leadership score:

Leader’s Reputation
Great renown +2
Fairness and generosity +1
Special power +1
Failure –1
Aloofness –1
Cruelty –2

By golly, you're right! I totally missed that the first chart applies to cohorts and followers. It makes sense too, and I wondered why followers didn't seem to care about the things from the first chart. My bad.

[reefwood]

Leadership - score corrections

These scores should be correct, but let me know if I missed anything. Also, I think the "-1 leave behind" should be able to be removed if you start bringing followers on missions. To remove the penalty, you have to avoid the penalty more times than you've let it happen. For example, if you don't take enough followers on missions for 2 levels, the penalty is still only -1, but now if you want to remove it, you have to take followers (enough times to avoid the penalty) across 3 levels.


Brion Shaw (renown: 32 +5 = 38 / 10 = +3)
Cohort: 13 levels +3 Cha +3 renown +1 fair/gen -2 failure = 18 (or 17 w/diff align)
Followers: 13 levels +3 Cha +3 renown +1 fair/gen -2 failure = 18
Brion can start with an 11th-level cohort (even w/diff align) as well as one 4th-level, one 3rd-level, three 2nd-level, and thirty-five 1st-level followers. This gives Brion a total of 10 follower levels -3 Cha mod = 7 follower levels that need to be brought on missions before the next level up (and these follower levels can be spread across multiple missions in any way).


Nimarius Steerhelm (renown: 15 +5 = 20 / 10 = +2)
Cohort: 14 levels +3 Cha +2 renown +1 f&g -1 aloof -2 cruel -1 alignment = 16
Followers: 14 levels +3 Cha +2 renown +1 f&g -1 aloof -2 cruel -1 leave behind = 15
Nim can start with an 11th-level cohort because of the alignment difference and gains no followers. He actually should've started with a score lower of 14 for less followers last time, so technically, he would have gained followers this level if I had calculated this correctly from the start. Anyway, this gives Nim 6 follower levels -3 Cha mod = 3 follower levels that need to be brought on missions before the next level up (if you want to start working toward removing the "-1 leave behind" penalty).

[icnivad]

I think I might just eat the "-1 moves around a lot" penalty rather than try to drag them with me. Especially since they are so weak and getting that "-1 caused the death of a follower" penalty is pretty easy to get, which would just give me that same penalty anyway.

Being able to remove the moves around penalty after bringing them with you for a while makes a lot of sense. It seemed a little harsh that it was for ever.

[reefwood]

Apr 4, 2011 10:13:43 GMT -5 icnivad said:

I think I might just eat the "-1 moves around a lot" penalty rather than try to drag them with me. Especially since they are so weak and getting that "-1 caused the death of a follower" penalty is pretty easy to get, which would just give me that same penalty anyway.

Being able to remove the moves around penalty after bringing them with you for a while makes a lot of sense. It seemed a little harsh that it was for ever.

Agreed on both counts.

Leadership is definitely one of the more unusual feats and very open to interpretation, so it makes sense to modify the modifiers as needed.

The penalty for losing followers seems equally odd that it would remain the same. I wouldn't expect it to ever go away, but it seems like losing 1 follower is much different than losing 10 followers. Although, -1 per follower could add up to be a lot, but then again, if you lose a lot of followers, it makes sense that the others would leave you. It doesn't seem like the PCs will be bringing followers along, but I may tweak the penalty to something like -1 plus -1 for every 5 follower levels killed. So, if Bob the 1st-level Fighter follower is killed, that is a -1, and if four more 1st-level followers are killed, that penalty increases to -2. Or is Sasha the 5th-level Cleric follower is killed, that is -2 off the bat (-1 killed -1 per 5 follower levels = -2). I figure hearing about low-level followers being killed isn't too scary, but hearing about a mid-level follower being killed is much scarier. And with this tweaked penalty in place, it could be better to just leave them behind and stick with the one-time -1 penalty instead of risking the penalty that increases with more and more deaths.

Another thing that came to mind, that I won't bother with for now - or maybe at all in War Stories - is that the cohort penalty of -2 for having a special friend (animal companion, familiar, etc) could have probably applied to a lesser degree to Nim, so maybe a -1 for having his Ghoul champion and making bonds with devils. I didn't think of it at the time, so I'm not going to do it now, but it could make sense for another time. Though, I wouldn't count grunts like Bodyguard because those are just soldiers you automatically got, as opposed to special friends you go out of your way to make.

Anyway, I still need to post the War Stories Leadership rules in the Code of Conduct thread, but if any new ideas come up as I am doing so, I'll be sure to bring them up here first.

[reefwood]

Alchemist

As I mentioned at the end of the last session, the effort to research the book of the firebomber revealed him to be an Alchemist. The "arcane tome" is called a formula book, which is the equivalent to a spellbook (but cannot be read by Wizards), and the flasks & vials are worthless to anyone besides the creator. Feel free to read up on the class, and you are welcome to use it (and related feats, items, etc) for current or new PCs, cohorts, or followers who wish to take levels in this class.

The main feature of this class is the ability to make special concoctions: potions, bombs, and mutagens to temporarily alter ability scores. Although, most of these can only be used by the creator and have certain limits (i.e. only 1 mutagen can exist at time).

[michael]

I just read up on Alchemists, and they seem really cool! If Brion dies or retires, I may consider one of these guys.

They can also be absurdly useful as followers. They're perfect for research, they'll be an easy source of half-priced potions, and if they take the right abilities, they can make True Strike extracts that we can carry around with us!

I think I may have two or three among my followers. In the fiction, since Brion was the one to recover that Alchemist's formula book, he's been put in charge of a small group, the first Nemedorans to be trained in this new science of Alchemy.

On the subject of followers, I have a question: Say my leadership score went up from 18 to 19, granting me my first 4th level follower. Instead of getting a new 4th level follower, could I level up one of the 3rd level ones and pick a new follower at a lower level?

[reefwood]

Apr 5, 2011 16:59:46 GMT -5 michael said:

I just read up on Alchemists, and they seem really cool! If Brion dies or retires, I may consider one of these guys.

This is the only "advanced" core class that I've really looked into so far, but it does seem like it might be the most versatile one and was my favorite to try out first.

Apr 5, 2011 16:59:46 GMT -5 michael said:

They can also be absurdly useful as followers. They're perfect for research, they'll be an easy source of half-priced potions, and if they take the right abilities, they can make True Strike extracts that we can carry around with us!

Good catch on that. It looks like an alchemist can take the "infusion" Discovery at 2nd-level, and from that point, others can use any extracts they make. Though, all extracts expire after 24 hrs.

As for the actual Brew Potion feat, it looks like a character can make 1 magic item per day as per the standard magic item rules, and for potions, it takes 2 hrs for up to a 250 gp value, or 1 day (8 hrs) per 1,000 gp. The Spellcraft DC is 5 + caster level for the item, so a 1st-level potion set to a 1st-level caster would be DC 6, and a 3rd-level potion set to a 5th-level caster would be DC 10. Failure means that materials and time are wasted, and failure by 5 or more results in a cursed item, so I'll make the roll in secret (unless the Alchemist is unable to fail by that much). And just like any other crafters for the Nemedor army, followers can do work during Time Off.

Apr 5, 2011 16:59:46 GMT -5 michael said:

I think I may have two or three among my followers. In the fiction, since Brion was the one to recover that Alchemist's formula book, he's been put in charge of a small group, the first Nemedorans to be trained in this new science of Alchemy.

Sounds good to me.

Apr 5, 2011 16:59:46 GMT -5 michael said:

On the subject of followers, I have a question: Say my leadership score went up from 18 to 19, granting me my first 4th level follower. Instead of getting a new 4th level follower, could I level up one of the 3rd level ones and pick a new follower at a lower level?

No, I want to stick to the basic set up for this. In part to help prevent a new class from getting cycled into old spots. For example, if you start out with Leadership 15 that provides one 3rd-level Follower #1 as an Alchemist, leveling him up to 4th-level at Leadership 17 would leave the one 3rd-level spot open, and I wouldn't want that to be filled by some other class. Cos normally, you don't get a second 3rd-level Follower until Leadership 19, and even then, you would still have 1 Alchemist and 1 Other but never 2 Other.

Of course, if you already have a 3rd-level Alchemist, your new 4th-level follower could totally be an Alchemist too. I think the only restriction I may impose is that you cannot replace a lost follower with the same class. I touched upon this idea earlier and was going to include race too, but that could get too restrictive, so instead, if 3rd-level Follower #1 is an Alchemist but gets killed or leaves, you cannot replace his slot with another Alchemist, but... when you get 3rd-level Follower #2 or 4th-level Follower #1, they could be an Alchemist.

EDIT: And you know what, I am going to finally collect all these Leadership rules that are posted across this thread and hash out the definites.

[reefwood]

Leadership - War Stories rules

This should be everything applicable to how Leadership will work in this campaign. A lot of it is subject to DM discretion, but this spells out the basics of how it will work most of the time. Let me know if I missed anything or if there are any questions.


Leadership Score Modifiers

Great Renown
Every 10 AP earned from missions with a Good rating or better will provide +1 to Renown, and these are the equivalent AP amounts from missions before the AP system:
Ch 8: Great = 4 AP (Brion & Sahme)
Ch 7: Good = 3 AP (Brion & Sahme)
Ch 6: Good = 3 AP (Brion & Sahme)
Ch 4: Great = 4 AP (Brion)
Ch 3: Fair = 2 AP (no renown)

Fairness and Generosity +1
This is largely based on treatment of NPCs, and especially allies. The current PCs have given equipment to all their grunts, so that counts as fair and generous. New PCs can't start out with this bonus but can earn it over time.

Special Power +1
This will be based on DM discretion and will most likely consists of unique racial or class abilities. Multiple special powers could provide additional bonuses.

Failure
Every mission with a Poor rating or worse will impose a -1 to Failure, and these are the equivalent AP amounts from missions before the AP system:
Ch 5: Terrible = 0 AP (Brion)

Aloofness -1
Nim definitely comes off as distant and standoffish with his loner creepy vibe. Brion and Sahme are more sociable and into making friends. Though, Brion can be pretty intimidating, and Sahme sometimes plays up the loner beast angle, so while they wouldn't receive this penalty right now, it could come up in the future depending on which direction they go.

Cruelty -2
Killing enemies is part of war, and even the "good" people do it, so that isn't enough to impose this penalty. Even sending grunts to their death in battle won't count (unless it is done for no good reason) because that is part of war too. However, being mean to grunts or innocents will impose this penalty, as may other applicable situations.


Additional Cohort Modifiers

Has a familiar, special mount, or animal companion -2
In addition to class features, special bonds to other NPCs may impose a -1 penalty.

Recruits a cohort of a different alignment -1
Also, you cannot have a cohort with an alignment that is opposite on either axis (good/evil or chaos/law).

Caused the death of a cohort -2 (cumulative per cohort killed)
Additionally, if a leader dismisses a cohort, or a cohort leaves for some reason, this will impose a -1 penalty.


Additional Follower Modifiers

Has a stronghold, base of operations, guildhouse, etc. +2
The PCs don't have anything like this, but if you find a way to get one, you will gain this bonus.

Moves around a lot –1
This is changed to "Leaves behind a lot" and imposes a one-time -1 penalty. To avoid this penalty, the leader must meet a requirement of bringing X amount of follower levels on missions before gaining a new level. The followers must be with the leader for the majority of the mission or be able to contribute to the mission while away from the leader (DM discretion). X is equal to the total amount of follower levels available to the leader minus Cha mod. X is recalculated each time the leader gains a level (which is also when followers are adjusted). X can be filled by followers of any level and can be split up among any number of missions between levels. To remove the penalty, you must meet the requirement more times than you've missed it.

Caused the death of other followers –1
The death of any followers will impose a one-time -1 penalty, plus an additional -1 penalty for the death of every 5 follower levels.

Followers are captured
The capture of any followers will impose a one-time -1 penalty, plus an additional -1 penalty for the capture of every 5 follower levels. Freeing followers will remove the matching penalties, but this may not always be possible.


Cohort Advancement
At the end of a mission that includes the cohort, divide your level by the cohort's level. Multiply this result by the total AP awarded to you and add this number to the cohort's total APs. Unlike a PC (who resets AP to 0 when gaining a level), a cohort simply subtracts 4 AP from their total and keeps any remaining AP that can be applied toward future level gain. A cohort cannot gain more than 1 level between missions, but it can automatically level up after 2 missions.

If a cohort gains enough AP to bring it to a level one lower than your level, the cohort does not gain the new level—its new AP total remains at 1 less than the amount needed to attain the next level (i.e. 3 AP). Any AP above this amount are lost.

If your Leadership score is lowered, this will not lower the current level of the cohort or cause him to leave, but it could prevent the cohort from advancing further until your score is raised again.


Followers
When followers are gained, their favored class must be selected. Character sheets must be created for followers that go on missions, but otherwise, their stats can be filled in as needed.

If a follower is captured, that slot cannot be filled by another follower.

If a follower is killed or leaves, that slot cannot be refilled later by a follower of the same class.


NPC Creation & Gear
A cohort or follower selects ability scores using the Heroic array (or 4d6/drop lowest) for PC classes or the Basic array (or 3d6) for NPC classes.

Starting wealth is determined by Table 14-9: NPC Gear in the Creating NPCs chapter, and the value of a single item cannot exceed the limit of its specific category.

[reefwood]

Supernatural Abilities - "These rounds do not need to be consecutive."

Supernatural Abilities (Su): Using a supernatural ability is usually a standard action (unless defined otherwise by the ability's description). Its use cannot be disrupted, does not require concentration, and does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

I got the answer for this from an official source on the Paizo boards, and you guys are correct. It is a standard action to activate a supernatural ability that can be broken up by rounds, no action is needed to keep it going, and a free action is needed to turn it off.

I guess the one semi-interesting thing that could happen is if you are unable to take a free action (paralyzed, unconscious, etc) to stop your ability, it could run out by accident.

[reefwood]

Scheduling - Chapter 17

How does next Monday, April 18th work for people? Or if that is bad for someone, how about Wednesday, April 20th as a potential alternate?

[Rabbit]

Apr 12, 2011 15:07:29 GMT -5 reefwood said:

Scheduling - Chapter 17

How does next Monday, April 18th work for people? Or if that is bad for someone, how about Wednesday, April 20th as a potential alternate?

Works for me.

[michael]

Yeah, the 18th works for me.

[michael]

Can I use the rewards package to get magical items and equipment from the Advanced Player's Guide? (Maybe just with Cohort's package, if it's considered exotic stuff that Nemedor doesn't have access to?)

I've been trying to keep my exposure to the APG down, so there's not a specific item I have in mind, I was just interested in what else might be out there that I could get.

From the regular rulebook, I was considering grabbing an Efficient Quiver for cohort.

This appears to be a typical arrow container capable of holding
about 20 arrows. It has three distinct portions, each with a
nondimensional space allowing it to store far more than would
normally be possible. The first and smallest one can contain up
to 60 objects of the same general size and shape as an arrow. The
second slightly longer compartment holds up to 18 objects of the
same general size and shape as a javelin. The third and longest
portion of the case contains as many as 6 objects of the same
general size and shape as a bow (spears, staffs, or the like). Once
the owner has filled it, the quiver can quickly produce any item
she wishes that is within the quiver, as if from a regular quiver or
scabbard. The efficient quiver weighs the same no matter what’s
placed inside it.

Could I put a ranseur, guisarme, or lance in the largest section? Personally, I'd lump them in with "spears, staffs, or the like." If you look at the pictures of weapons in the rulebook, their tips aren't much wider than a longspear's, and none of them are as wide as an actual bow.

[icnivad]

question about leadership modifier:
Leadership modifier is regarding your reputation, right? As in what people know about you? The reason I ask is because of the age old question of what happens if you chop down a tree in the forest and no one is around to see it fall. Has it really been chopped down?

Specifically, Nim has the -2 cruelty penalty, which was given for summoning and killing evil outsiders. It seems like this shouldn't affect his leadership score because it was always done in secrecy where there was no one around. Other than this act, Nimarious has always been fair and kind to the troops under and around his command. It also seems like this could be described as a 'good' act, since all of the creatures he's killed are evil. If a good cleric goes around hunting demons, would they be attributed the Cruelty penalty?