Actual Play – Three (7/11/2015)

Blood for BloodGM: Dennis Jordan
Players: Regina Joyner, Karen Twelves, and Sean Nittner
System: Pathfinder
Adventure Path: Kingmaker

Lazy days on the southern border

Aldori does a have a few things going for it in terms of security. Both our southern and eastern border are occupied by allies. We still get raids from the Tor Mountains hobgoblins but we don’t have an angry nation on our backs, which is more than we can say for our western and northern borders.

Arvin’s Rangers are sent to patrol all of the Aldori borders regardless. We’ve had trolls in the south, there are always fey in the Narl, we’ve got a proto-dragon that likes to show up every so often, and that last hobgoblin raid was a thousand strong. The rangers get to see a lot of action and there are some big damn heroes like Rombilard and the twins that are always there to get the glory.

And then there’s us. The not-quite-good-enough to join the army [those are 4th level rangers] stragglers who have missed all the great battles and all the glory. We’re Arvin’s patrol, and we’re assigned to a pretty damn boring patrol at that.

Cedric’s Folly

In the south east of Aldoria, between the land we’ve officially claimed and Mivon, there is a large stretch of hills that nobody really cares about. There are too many bandits to the south, to many roving monsters in the woods, and not far to the east it flattens out just before hitting the Tor Mountains, where hobgoblins are known to live. It’s just too much of a pain in the ass for anyone to want… but people still live out there.

It’s frontier land, not really part of Aldoria, with no laws to speak of, but protected by the rangers just the same. There’s Cedric, who set up shop “Cedric’s Rest” selling fish and bar-tending and repairing good and what all have you. He employed some of the young ones that weren’t cut out for farming to do odd jobs. A great guy, liked by everyone except the irascible tailor and his wife the exasperated weaver, both of which were great gossipers and always found fault with everyone.

As far as law goes, it really doesn’t. So instead, people come to us with their problems. When the are legitimate, like say, all our pigs are stolen, our skills are put to good use. When they are petty, like say, the tailor doesn’t like the fact that Cedric offers so many services, we know it’s time to blow this popsicle stand and get back on the road (or what passes for a popsicle stand and what passes for a road).

A little bit about Arvin’s Rangers

Mechanically speaking we figured out a good way to make characters actually good at ranging. Here’s what we did, and what I consider Arvin’s requirements for his rangers:

  • We all had cold iron weapons melee weapons (cheap), cold iron and alchemical silver arrows (also cheap), silversheen to put on our melee weapon (250gp but worth it), and a single oil of magic weapon. This means that either in melee or ranged we could overcome DR/Cold Iron, DR/Silver, and DR/Magic.
  • All our classes with decent skill points and good skill selections (Ninja, Ranger, Hunter, Wizard, Inquisitor, Magus) that have stealth, survival, and perception as class skills, or if they don’t, taking traits that grant these as class skills.
  • Intelligence, Wisdom, and Dexterity is a must. Intelligence to have a few languages, dexterity to be good with ranged weapons and stealth, and wisdom to have decent will saves and good perception.
  • Every character takes the stealth synergy teamwork feat. That means the more of us there are, the better we’ll do with stealth. Also, all our character have light armor and either masterwork armor and/or the Armor Expert feat to reduce armor check penalties. Further, we all have cloaks of elvenkind and our stealth skills maxed out.
  • Everyone is equipped with ranged weapons. Even our Wizard had a composite longbow. Good to be and elf!
  • Focus on teamwork feats like Precise strike, Shake it off, and Outflank, to get the most synergy between us.
  • All the spellcasters were focused on battlefield control. Spells like entangle, web, [continue from here]

The end result is that we were able to do things (like average 30+ on our stealth rolls for the entire party) that most band of adventurers would never accomplish. There would always be

 

We fought, and fought, and fought and finally rescued the hostages. Or at least most of them.

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