The Unseen Servant forums

This thread is for the players to discuss long term strategery and goals. These are the assets the players will be starting with, in addition to their personal wealth:

*A warehouse of 1000 sq. ft. of general storage space plus a vault with 25 sq. ft. for valuables. This space includes a pair of armed guards on duty day and night and office space for the adventurers' factor. I will not mess with the space unless the PCs do anything in Junction to warrant it (i.e. it is off grounds unless they pick a fight with the local thieve's guild, for instance). Consider this a safe place to bank money.
*A factor, Madam Fleur, who lives in Junction and can handle the adventurers' affairs remotely. This includes purchasing or commissioning goods, find mercenaries or henchmen to recruit, selling trade goods, etc.
*A magic silver mirror that allows the adventurers to contact Madam Fleur once every seven days.

Just off the top of my head, I think we should start out with some short expeditions away from town, maybe a few days out and a few days back. See if there are any areas where it really makes sense to settle down (like we find gold near Rocky Peak or there's good farmland in the Sarn River basin). If we don't find anything, we can build a fort, use that as an extended base, and start exploring further out.

Past experience suggests that we ought not to start domain building until we all hit 9th level first though.

What do you guys think?

Sounds like a plan

sulldawga wrote:Just off the top of my head, I think we should start out with some short expeditions away from town, maybe a few days out and a few days back. See if there are any areas where it really makes sense to settle down (like we find gold near Rocky Peak or there's good farmland in the Sarn River basin). If we don't find anything, we can build a fort, use that as an extended base, and start exploring further out.

Past experience suggests that we ought not to start domain building until we all hit 9th level first though.

What do you guys think?

I'm going to be revising the list of starting hooks, btw, as another adventuring party has already headed south to try and clear out the troll nest . . .

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As I've got the domain rules written now the big difference between establishing a domain, or a Guild, or a School of Magic, is that you don't attract followers/settlers/students whatever until you hit 9th level.

Does that include temple?
Are the domain rules available?

Domain rules are attached. They're a modified version of those found in the Rules Cyclopedia.

I'm thinking that treasure map looks like a good start for us. Get our feet wet, get a nice little 40 mile jaunt under our belt.

Are we going to handle mercs individually or should we pool our funds to pay them as a group?

sulldawga wrote:I'm thinking that treasure map looks like a good start for us. Get our feet wet, get a nice little 40 mile jaunt under our belt.

I would agree.

sulldawga wrote:Are we going to handle mercs individually or should we pool our funds to pay them as a group?

If anyone else is interested in getting mercenaries, I think pooling resources makes sense.

sulldawga wrote:Are we going to handle mercs individually or should we pool our funds to pay them as a group?

My background was going to have one hireling but, for anything else, he would pool funds.

I was thinking about a squad or two of mounted bowmen.

Would it be a better idea to hire as many, or more, as we need since we get a "freebie" of hiring what we need at the beginning?

Gerrin wrote:Would it be a better idea to hire as many, or more, as we need since we get a "freebie" of hiring what we need at the beginning?

That is certainly not a bad idea! Remember a couple of things, though, about mercenaries:

1. They're not "independent actors". They're not going to go into the wilderness alone, or into dungeons (even with the PCs).
2. They're going to need some support staff. For every 50 mercs you hire you're going to need a blacksmith (25 gp/month) and armorer (100 gp/month) to keep their gear in working order.

I'm on board for a short shake-down cruise before we try anything too ambitious. And I'm happy to pitch in for hirelings of various stripes. Archers sound good—what else would be helpful? Torchbearers? Healers?

Here's how we're going to handle hex clearing: a 6-mile hex contains about 32 sq miles, which is a lot of area! I've divided hexes into smaller 1.2 mile hexes, like below.
It takes the following amounts of time to search a hex, based on the terrain type:

*Plains/Grassland/Desert: 6 subhexes per day
(four days to explore an entire 6-mile hex), or 1
subhex every 80 minutes (1-1/3 hours)
*Hills/Broken/Light Forest: 4 subhexes per day
(six days to explore an entire 6-mile hex), 1
subhex every two hours
* Mountain/Heavy Forest: 3 subhexes per day
(eight days to explore an entire 6-mile hex), or
1 subhex every 160 minutes (2-2/3 hours)
*Jungle/Swamp: 2 subhexes per day (twelve
days to explore an entire 6-mile hex), or 1
subhex every four hours.

Unless you guys give me a specific path you want to take I'm going to assume you sweep the hex in the most efficient manner. You're within range of Junction, so you've got the option of either camping out each night or returning to Junction to sleep. Returning to Junction is going to slow you down by one subhex per day. Sweeping the hex is going to reveal all lairs, interesting features, etc, as well as give you an idea of the wealth of the hex.

I might be a little nervous about going into a dungeon situation with just the four PCs. I know you said we couldn't recruit non-human henchmen off the bat but can we recruit human henches now?

sulldawga wrote:I might be a little nervous about going into a dungeon situation with just the four PCs. I know you said we couldn't recruit non-human henchmen off the bat but can we recruit human henches now?

Now that play has started, yes. I really just didn't want to bog character creation down with PCs and a crapton of henches.

The players should all come to an agreement about henchmen before we begin recruitment. They are very, very useful but they're also an XP and gold sink.

I propose, at least at the beginning of the game, we limit each PC to one henchman. What do you guys think?

Fine with me. Can we put the word out and interview? any prospects we find?