Swordlords and Restov
Are we good with making deals with the Swordlords and Restov as is?
Does anyone want to attempt to modify these deals or can we sign and seal it?

In reply to Borric d'Tor (msg # 125):

With Restov, we have the Secret so most any of us can sign the deal with a +1 to one of the stats for a simple DC 10 Diplomacy check. It would be a shame to take anything less than that. But, since we still have some time, you could shoot for an even better deal against a higher DC.

Same with Orlovsky.

No one has talked to Swordlords yet. It may be worth investing some time improving if someone has the skills.

Updating my previous recommendations based on where we've already invested.

Gronzi or Medvyed: Exclusive, but have both Gronzi Secret and Medvyed Motivation. We could try to remove the exclusions, but I'm not sure what that'd look like.

Mandatory: Erastil, Pharasma, Restov(Have Secret), Swordlords

If we have time, in order: Goldfield(Have Secret, use it), Gronzi(Have Secret,) Orlovsky(Have Secret, use it,) Erastil Side(since we already have Motivation unlocked), Lebeda(if we remove exclusivity,) Drelev(Have Motivation,) Mivon Side, Numeria Side, Varn(Renegotiate to improve the deal?)

In reply to Borric d'Tor (msg # 125):

Borric@: I have no problems signing the deals you mentioned as is, but because we have the Restov secret, is seems like we can get a free modification then sign the deal.

Dominique@: I know it may not be the best deal on the table but I was planning on using one or two of my remaining actions to try to modify and sign the deal with Medvyed. It would be an important deal for Vyntis.

The description in the Movers thread says that "Artanix is not looking to be the dominant religion and is willing to co-religion with up to 2 other non-evil religions". Is that extra religion something we can negotiate then?

Anyway, I'm kinda at a loss as to what to focus next. We should probably star closing on some of these deals, so I may wait a bit and assist someone if needed.

Oh, and DM, thanks for flipping those rolls and giving us that success with Orlovsky.

@Kael: That was taken care of when Dom negotiated the deal.


@Vyntis: It's actually one of the worst deals on the table, severely restricting our ability to establish our nation and possibly even going so far as to block Erastil's side deal. Dom would sooner deal with Numeria and Ustalav. But I dug through the threads and it seems we're leaning in their favor, 3v2(Borric being silent.) Having their Motivation rather than a Secret, and that motivation being the opposite of ours if we want to fix the deal, also makes things difficult.

There's no reason we can't 'preserve the wild beauty of the stolen lands' and have diplomatic relations with druids without having our hands completely tied for little gain.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:47, Fri 17 Sept 2021.

In reply to Dominique Telvari (msg # 130):

I agree with Dom here :)
Don't remember forgetting to cast a vote.

One point of order you don't have to sign a deal here to specify a state religion. You can just declare it and offer it to any church you want. If you do it after this point though it becomes a kingdom action to establish the diplomatic relations and it might have different effects on your kingdom.

But you could, for example, decide you want Gozreh or Desna as a state religion and they'll definitely send someone to take part in the council.

What you see here are just the religious leaders of the local area that responded to the invitation. Desna for example doesn't have a very strong base of worship in this area so there is no reason to expect a high priest of Desna to show up with a diplomatic deal in hand.

You can also just give a seat to Abadar without entering into any specific deals. No loans, basically but anyone you put into a position of power will have an effect on your kingdom no matter what so choose wisely (or more accurately make choices you can stand behind, for better or worse).

@Borric: There was no vote, I went and searched through posts to dig out people's opinions on things--trying to make sure the more quiet of us weren't getting drowned out. Most besides Elena and I haven't actually said much about their goals or strategy.

@Vyntis: But that makes it an even split on Medvyed. :/ If you could strike a deal that protects our ability to build proper cities and a nation (aqueducts, canals, river locks, sewers, roads, mines, quarries, necessary logging, clear-cutting for farms, etc,) then Dominique would be fine with some restrictions or druid involvement. But since those deal changes go AGAINST their motivation, I don't think their Motivation will help much. Maybe unlocking their secret first could help.

If I can get Erastil and Pharasma on first tries, maybe I could try to strike a deal like "Reasonable restrictions on development, negotiated with druids." Caramip was also Pro-Medvyed so maybe she'd be interested in making the attempt.

Serious question: Do you consider yourself a Court of War or a Court of Peace?

From a mechanics perspective the difference is:

Court of War:
Stats: +1 Operations +1 Resolve
Power: Add a die to attack rolls, +10 feet of movement, movement doesn't trigger AoO
Feature: Pass a DC 13 Operations check to get +2 Comms for the intrigue
Feature: If your comms is higher than enemies, choose a # of enemy units equal to domain size and if they fail a DC 15 Command check you can deploy a unit directly next to them.

Court of Peace:
Stats: +2 Diplomacy
Power: As a reaction after someone is attacked you can add a die to their AC for 1/rnd and gain HP of that die.
Feature: Pass a DC 15 Diplomacy check to increase Comms by 1 and use Diplomacy instead of Espionage for rest of Intrigue
Feature: Pass DC 14 diplomacy check to let all your officers reroll saves vs. spells during next combat against target domain.

Roleplay-wise, I think Court of Peace fits better.  Obviously we're going to do our share of killing, but I don't think military conquest is going to be our main focus.

In terms of mechanics, Court of War seems to function off of communications.  And the thing about communications is: we have no communications.

I just posted information in the Info chat but basically kingdom defense like Comms are split into two parts: stats and levels.

Stats determine the DC of enemy actions. So if they try and break your comms they'll roll vs. DC 10+your comms bonus.

Level is sat from 3 to -3 and during an "intrigue" (think of it like a kingdom vs. kingdom prelude to war where you are spying and sabotaging one another) you can roll to raise your comms or try to lower the enemy comms and so it starts at 0 and can go up and down based on how well your kingdom is defending against code breaking from the enemy.

Okay, so communications is a different thing than communications?  Still, I'm guessing our communications is generally going to be determined by checking our communications, so our poor communications will tend to give us poor communications, even if communications and communications aren't necessarily the same thing.

Domain Defenses have two parts:

Defense Score is your DC for other organizations. If they want to crack your codes then it is vs. your Domain Score. This is what you are negotiating for. I think yours starts at DC 10 so if you get the Hanspur deal then your DC becomes 13.

Defense Level during an Intrigue which is a specific extended fight against another organization/domain/kingdom etc. your defense LEVELs start at 0 and can be raised through actions up to level 3 or lowered to -3. These play a part by offering bonuses or penalties specifically for the big climatic battle either at a army warfare level or at the showdown with the BBEG.

You use your Domain Skills to raise it and your Defense Score protects it as enemies try to lower it.

I have a few questions about the warfare system:

1: What does "diminished" mean?  It's referenced a bunch, but not defined.

2: The definition of "exposed" says "The exception to this is units in the center and reserve ranks."  What does that mean?  Is everything in the center and reserve rank safe from cavalry charges, as long as there's someone in the vanguard?

3: Cavalry are basically ranged units here, right?  They can "charge" any exposed enemy, but stay in the same position on their side of the battlefield the whole time?

4: Why do some units (peasants, goblin smokers) suck so bad?  If all units of the same tier are just as easy to recruit, why have obvious losers on the list?

5: Units lead by non-magic classes all get access to a unique maneuver.  Is there an advantage for units lead by wizards, etc?

6: It's mentioned that there's a max number of units per kingdom level, but I don't see any mention of what that max is.

7: there's a lot of mention of "reaction" abilities.  Is there a limit to how many reactions a unit can take in a turn?
This message was last edited by the player at 21:18, Tue 21 Sept 2021.

1. Diminished means <50% HP.

2. I forgot to add this section for Exposed:


So as long as you have Vanguard and Rear Guard your center and reserve are protected. Once you lose one or the other then your squishy insides are vulnerable to cav charges as per normal rules.

3. I didn't go over deployment but Cavalry and Aerial units aren't actually placed on the battlefield at all. Basically the idea is cavalry are too fast for standard infantry to attack, you need either your own cavalry/aerial units, archers, or use the "Set for Charge" ability to inflict casualites as you are being attacked.

4. Again I didn't go over it but units with the pitchforks are Levies. You get two of them for a recruit action and they are used as cannon fodder. Upside/downside is they go away after battle so you don't have to worry about casualties but they also don't gain XP. Up to you if you want to use them or not but given you only have like 6 or so turns to raise an army, raising some cannon fodder to protect your elite units isn't a terrible idea.

Goblin Smokers suck really bad because they represent kobolds. Against an army they are going  to go down hard. They will be replaced with proper kobold units once the unit deck is published but...yeah. They're just there to acknowledge that you do have access to non-human troops because of your alliance with the kobolds and they can be used to inflict status effects on enemy units but...they're probably not very good for a standing army. You might get some for free though through diplomacy or events.

5. Yes! So All classes provide bonuses to their units. Wizards and other magical classes typically allow for counter magic (bonus on power tests) or provide scrolls and wands to their units. I'll work on typing them up but with my current workload finding time for that is difficult.

Although I guess I don't have to type up every single one...just the classes you have and the domain size you are... hmmm... i'll try and get that done ASAP

6. First of all their is an organizational limit (need more Is then IIs, more IIs than IIIs etc.). I think the limit is around 15 units and/or a single Class V unit (not including special units recruited through diplomacy and special actions.

So as a noble court you can always choose to raise a unit of shock knights but these are like typical medieval knights: local minor nobility sending their sons and daughters to fight for glory and then going back home. To actually "recruit" a unit of permenent knights is a HUGE investment for a nation which is why you only see one or two truly elite units.

Also keep in mind that "size" is relative to scale as well. A unit of knights in a Domain Size 1 kingdom is different than a unit of knights in a Domain Size II kingdom and there are tons of rules for dealing with mismatched kingdom sizes. When it comes up we can deal with it but there are only so many rules I want to throw at you guys.

7. One reaction per round.

Okay, so my understanding here is that the perfect army is just all cavalry.  An all-cavalry army is completely immune to infantry attack, and every cavalry unit in your army can charge the same single enemy unit one after another until it's dead.

We just need to somehow gain access to a tier 2 cavalry, and then we never set foot on the ground again.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:36, Fri 01 Oct 2021.

It's the equivalent of asking why an army has anything besides tanks? Because they're expensive.

You will never be able to field an all cav army because each unit of cavalary requires 1-2 infantry to support it.  (You have to have more tier 1 units than tier 2 units).

But yeah, cavalry was really really really powerful. The author of this ruleset even says that a typical battle starts out with cav vs. cav dueling and the winner of that (as in who still has cav left) has a huge advantage in subsequent fights.

But one of the cheap counters to cavalry are archers as you can get them at tier 1...but then you want to be able to protect those archers from cavalry attacks requiring infantry as only foot soldiers can be used as meat shields for your artillery/archers/spellcasters.

Elena, I would like to suggest that you sign both the deal and the side deal with the Nestarovs with the same action at 12 PM.

I might not be able to, since I rolled diplomacy this turn.  If I can still take the side deal for free, I will.

Okay, I'm feeling a bit of confusion about the exact state of the army, so I thought I'd try to get a more definite handle on things.  Here's how I understand the army situation, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Rivermarch has 2000-3000 citizens, mostly in or near the town of the same name.  500 of those citizens are full-time soldiers.  Still kind of a preposterous amount of mouths to feed if they don't also have day jobs, but that's neither here nor there.  Maybe we've got magic farmers?  Anyways, since we've got four units of soldiers under the kingdom rules, we could say 20% of that number are noncombat support personnel (That's how the romans did it: a roman century was 80 fighters and 20 servants/slaves.)  Which leaves four 100 man companies.  We haven't decided the exact makeup of the army, so lets say two companies of infantry and one each for archers and cavalry.

And from what I understand, these guys mostly suck.  Level 1 warriors with crap gear, the whole lot of them.  But is it all of them that suck, or there people in our army with real class levels, aside from the named NPCs like Akiros?  You mentioned a medic tending to the wounded.  Was that some kind of magical healer, or just a level 1 expert with the heal skill?  And if we apparently sieged the Piper's tower for several days, but didn't actually make any sort of earthworks or catapults or tunnels, I'm assuming we have nothing in the way of combat engineers?

If there aren't any people with real class levels in our army...that's kinda weird?  I mean, this is Pathfinder.  "Wizard" is a regular job people have.  The bandits had maybe fifty people between the lot of them, and five of them were spellcasters (Minerva, Nazaria, the Stag Lord's pet druid, and the two Piper gnomes.)
This message was last edited by the player at 01:01, Fri 11 Feb 2022.

Hmm, I assumed that most of our army would be levies of some kind? Then those numbers could make sense.

Yeah peasants made into soldiers are generally levies but I dunno here, I've not read the rules the DM is using :) (referring to real life middle ages though)

Our GM said "standing army", but to me it makes more sense that it would be a levy or a self-defense militia or whatever you want to call it.  That would explain the huge number of them and their low quality, plus it gives us an in-game reason not to pursue a military solution right away:  It's spring, and you don't take the farmers away from their fields in the spring, unless you want to starve in autumn.

Economics Of A Standing Armmy
I wouldn't try to apply real world economics to a fantasy kingdom. In the real middle ages 90% of your army was levies because as mentioned, having a standing army wasn't really something that happened until economics moved towards late-stage feudalism/early capitalism.

But this is a land with magic and dragons. The middle ages were around 800-1400 BC while here in Pathfinder it's the year 4700s. There have already been huge advanced societies that raised and collapsed so assume that between magic, knowledge, and a different societal focus on things that Pathfinder supports much larger standing armies compared to a real world feudal analog. You guys cut a lot of deals with farmers and churches and merchant organizations so it's taken care of.

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Exact Numbers of Troops
Army sizes are deliberately kept abstract to avoid people arguing over the numbers. How many troops make up a company? How many are combatant vs. logistics? The bottom line is, it doesn't matter. What matters is how effective they are in the battle field in comparison to other units and that is what the various stats are measuring.

Also keep in mind unit sizes are factored by kingdom size. So in a kingdom like yours, each unit might be a couple hundred. In a kingdom like Brevoy they might be a couple thousand. Exact numbers don't matter. What matters is how effective they are in comparison to the other units on the battlefield.

So how many troops do you have? You have enough troops that you can effectively deploy a unit to do a task. Want to guard the border? Assign a unit and they will get a roll. Want them to scout? Assign a unit. I'll adjust things in the narrative to reflect whether you have a legion of ten thousand parked on a border or a couple hundred skirmishers strategically located at key spots for maximum effectiveness.

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Class Levels
In general you're not going to find many people who have class levels. Basically class leveled people are doing something special which typically means they're not in a "9-5 job" so your ranks are full of Warriors/Experts/Adepts. That said I've been listing out "special" NPCs that you could tap. I've listed them out and most of you haven't done anything with those lists so if you want someone with class levels to be your general or treasurer etc. then find an NPC you trust and tap them but generic citizen off the street who spends 90% of his time just walking around the city or guarding a city wall doesn't have heroic class levels.

The bandits that you faced were almost entirely composed of level 1-2 warriors with a few leaders that have heroic classes at the top.

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Levies vs. Professional Soldiers
It is up to you how you want to define what your standing army is composed of. Perhaps it is a true Napoleonic era standing army, or perhaps it is more like reserves where one weekend a month the fighting men and women get some basic training. Up to you but it makes no difference to the narrative.

Levies, which are literally just conscripted peasnats bringing pitchforks to the battlefield as cannon fodder ARE explicitly listed in the rules. As a kingdom action when you are facing off against another kingdom you have the option of recruiting a unit of troops OR you can recruit x2 levies. If you want cannon fodder you can very quickly flood the map with peasants but don't expect much for them. Like in real life the rules seem to support using them as literal meatshields to take hits while your elite troops do the heavy lifting. And like in real life, conscripted levies suck.

Finally once the conclusive battle is fought, the levies go back to the fields while your standing army stays available for the next one. Early on I'm guessing you're not going to need many levies because the battles will be much smaller in scale but if you were to go to war against Brevoy as a late game kingdom you would likely want a half dozen levies or so just to soak up initial cannon fire and spells from enemy artillery and wizards before committing your real troops to the battlefield.

Although that is just my guess. For all I know the rules would favor completely flooding the board with endless levies. I haven't run a battle with it so I don't really know the intricacies of the system yet.