And suddenly a Fighter
Jan. 26th, 2020 08:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethIn my continued efforts to understand the rules via hypotheticals
today I rolled up the 4th level Fighter
I earlier received from the Deck of Many Things.
It's an odd situation, that. You pull a card, and suddenly an entire person exists, and they're utterly devoted to protecting you.
And to make a character sheet for them you can choose Traits, but Traits represent how you are raised, what your life was like before you were an adventurer, and there's no trait for And Suddenly A Person.
Also their compulsion to protect is a good match for the Attached drawback, which would give them a whole extra trait.
So what three background things could fit them?
So I realised that And Suddenly has happened before. This is like Dawn, except in this case the protector arrives, not the protected. So it's And Suddenly A Buffy. Who is absolutely convinced they have to look after you, and the rules specify is same like you in several ways, like race and alignment. So, biologically similar, might be a sister made from whoever pulled the card.
If she's convinced she's looking out for a sister then you've got a whole personality instead of a stat.
But she's actually lower level than the one who got the card. Initially only one level lower, but because lucky cards, now six whole levels lower. Yet still bound and determined to protect, even though she won't be enough for the scale of fight they're likely to encounter.
... this has the makings of a tragedy, but I dislike that.
But for traits: Oathbound, because this relative is the most important person in the world. Kin Guardian, because looking after her sister. And Tactician, because there wasn't much in her life except however she learnt her skills, which are Fighter skills.
There are probably Traits that give more of a bonus for a bunch of useful things, but picking out story parts gave access to these ones, and that's more interesting.
So now they're a person. A gnome person.
And an instant sister.
I think I would deal poorly with someone deciding they were my big sister. Or that they would protect me even if weaker like that. I'd want to protect them or leave them somewhere safe while I dive into Adventure, and that would drive them up the wall.
The Knight card says you can take this person as a cohort if you have Leadership. But at level 4 they're a bit low for a cohort to an instant level 10 with a good Charisma bonus. I could have a level 8 cohort and they'd be much more capable. So why ever would I?
Well she thinks she's my sister and she'll put herself in danger for me and she's so fragile compared to me and if she's a cohort she can actually level up. I don't think there's a way without being a cohort... *searches* Ah! Hang on, Ultimate Intrigue is worth the cover price again: Lightbearers and Recruits. A Lightbearer is a single first level cohort, who you attract when you take the feat at 4th level. Can be a fighter, but can't start at 4th level. Recruits though, they can be plural, up to half your character level, though only one travels with you at a time, and while they must be 4 levels lower than you, all of them advance at the same rate. You can swap them when you get to a major town or city. And you *can* swap this out for Leadership, but you don't have to, it doesn't automatically upgrade when you hit level 7 or anything.
I cannot see if it can stack. If you can have both Recruits and Leadership... hmmm, pretty sure that's against the intent, but not the wording. The section is called Variant Leadership but they are still just different feats. Can swap is different wording from the Torchbearer, which said it auto upgraded. Wording looks like you can just... accumulate followers. One player party... ETA Nope, it says, cannot have bot Recruits and Leadership.
It's Groom, Lightbearer, Page, and Weapon Bearer that don't make it clear if they can make a team.
But Recruits is more interesting to me because of the training them. Followers don't increase in level, you just attract newer shinier followers. Unless you want to gloss it as a very few leveling up. They don't go like cohorts though.
Recruits you actively train. That's a much more interesting story.
So take this Knight not as a Leadership Cohort but as a Recruit
along with four others of levels up to 6.
If a recruit dies you take a -1 on your Leadership score, which will matter, especially with five of them around.
But they all train like a cohort, as far as I can tell, so if they survive all of them will be advancing as fast as each other. That's interesting. And I like the story element of taking personal responsibility for that advancement.
"A cohort does not count as a party member when determining the party's XP. Instead, divide the cohort's level by your level. Multiply this result by the total XP awarded to you, then add that number of experience points to the cohort's total."
So a 4th level cohort to a 10th level gets XP*0.4.
... so if I get enough XP to go up to 11th I have gained...
235K-160K on slow
155K-105K on medium
105K-71K on fast
60,000 XP gets you from 5th to 10th level on Fast.
So 34,000 XP to next level up
means my Recruit at level 4 gets 13,600
at level 5 gets 17,000
and level 6 gets 20,400
4 to 5 is 4,000
5 to 6 is 5,000
6 to 7 is 8,000
7 to 8 is 9,000
and my recruits would stall at the top of 4 levels below me if they could get there, so they don't get to 8 but could be one XP short until I level again.
So my 4th level fighter is gonna level several times before I do, which gets complicated. Math would change.
Okay so, they get 4,000 while I get 10,000. And get to level 5 while I'm still 10.
They get 5,000 while I get another 10,000. And get to level 6 while I'm still 10.
Then they get 6,000 while I get 10,000, but neither of us level from that, still 6 and 10.
I get 4,000 to level up to 11
so they get 2,400 and stay level 6 a little while. Like 600 XP longer.
Which they will now make only when I make 1100, because maths.
So then while I'm headed for level 12, they get level 7 and start heading for 8 but can't get there.
40,000XP for me before level 12, and they're going to get 24,754 XP
except no, not actually, they're stuck at 33,999 for a while, because cohort limit for recruits is my lvl-4 ie 7.
That's a lot of math showing they catch up pretty fast then bump against the limit for a while before I get over the next line.
See if I started at 10 and recruited an 8th level cohort with Leadership, I'd only have one of them. If I start with Recruits, even starting with one at 4th level, I'd swiftly have a 7th level cohort, but they'd have 4 friends. I could only bring one at a time, but I could swap them around. And if I want full Leadership later I can have it. "selecting one minor cohort to become a full cohort, while the rest move on." So I couldn't keep my five Recruits if I wanted Followers or just one closer to me in skill level, but I'd have four ex students with good reason to appreciate me, which is a more interesting story.
... and I could level up my Fighter as well as several other friends, and try out which one was most helpful, or who I could help most.
The problem is simply keeping them alive long enough
but since the Knight is going to really try and be involved anyway
training them seems like a reasonable obligation.
... I mean I made them.
... that's the other sort of way to think of them as family.
... magically created instant family, but still.
And the ones not travelling eith me can be Managers in my Castle etc. Which would be neat too. And with five of them would give me dedicates options in different Major Towns or Cities, each Manager of a different project, and I could take my recruit to the next place and swap them ariund so they'd get a well rounded view of my holdings.
I have no idea how much use this would be in an RPG, with that kind of level gap they seem more like Dependents that keep trying to get involved, but they make very excellent Story this way.
Five recruits. Students. One of them a Fighter made by a deck of cards.
That's got many Story in it.
today I rolled up the 4th level Fighter
I earlier received from the Deck of Many Things.
It's an odd situation, that. You pull a card, and suddenly an entire person exists, and they're utterly devoted to protecting you.
And to make a character sheet for them you can choose Traits, but Traits represent how you are raised, what your life was like before you were an adventurer, and there's no trait for And Suddenly A Person.
Also their compulsion to protect is a good match for the Attached drawback, which would give them a whole extra trait.
So what three background things could fit them?
So I realised that And Suddenly has happened before. This is like Dawn, except in this case the protector arrives, not the protected. So it's And Suddenly A Buffy. Who is absolutely convinced they have to look after you, and the rules specify is same like you in several ways, like race and alignment. So, biologically similar, might be a sister made from whoever pulled the card.
If she's convinced she's looking out for a sister then you've got a whole personality instead of a stat.
But she's actually lower level than the one who got the card. Initially only one level lower, but because lucky cards, now six whole levels lower. Yet still bound and determined to protect, even though she won't be enough for the scale of fight they're likely to encounter.
... this has the makings of a tragedy, but I dislike that.
But for traits: Oathbound, because this relative is the most important person in the world. Kin Guardian, because looking after her sister. And Tactician, because there wasn't much in her life except however she learnt her skills, which are Fighter skills.
There are probably Traits that give more of a bonus for a bunch of useful things, but picking out story parts gave access to these ones, and that's more interesting.
So now they're a person. A gnome person.
And an instant sister.
I think I would deal poorly with someone deciding they were my big sister. Or that they would protect me even if weaker like that. I'd want to protect them or leave them somewhere safe while I dive into Adventure, and that would drive them up the wall.
The Knight card says you can take this person as a cohort if you have Leadership. But at level 4 they're a bit low for a cohort to an instant level 10 with a good Charisma bonus. I could have a level 8 cohort and they'd be much more capable. So why ever would I?
Well she thinks she's my sister and she'll put herself in danger for me and she's so fragile compared to me and if she's a cohort she can actually level up. I don't think there's a way without being a cohort... *searches* Ah! Hang on, Ultimate Intrigue is worth the cover price again: Lightbearers and Recruits. A Lightbearer is a single first level cohort, who you attract when you take the feat at 4th level. Can be a fighter, but can't start at 4th level. Recruits though, they can be plural, up to half your character level, though only one travels with you at a time, and while they must be 4 levels lower than you, all of them advance at the same rate. You can swap them when you get to a major town or city. And you *can* swap this out for Leadership, but you don't have to, it doesn't automatically upgrade when you hit level 7 or anything.
It's Groom, Lightbearer, Page, and Weapon Bearer that don't make it clear if they can make a team.
But Recruits is more interesting to me because of the training them. Followers don't increase in level, you just attract newer shinier followers. Unless you want to gloss it as a very few leveling up. They don't go like cohorts though.
Recruits you actively train. That's a much more interesting story.
So take this Knight not as a Leadership Cohort but as a Recruit
along with four others of levels up to 6.
If a recruit dies you take a -1 on your Leadership score, which will matter, especially with five of them around.
But they all train like a cohort, as far as I can tell, so if they survive all of them will be advancing as fast as each other. That's interesting. And I like the story element of taking personal responsibility for that advancement.
"A cohort does not count as a party member when determining the party's XP. Instead, divide the cohort's level by your level. Multiply this result by the total XP awarded to you, then add that number of experience points to the cohort's total."
So a 4th level cohort to a 10th level gets XP*0.4.
... so if I get enough XP to go up to 11th I have gained...
235K-160K on slow
155K-105K on medium
105K-71K on fast
60,000 XP gets you from 5th to 10th level on Fast.
So 34,000 XP to next level up
means my Recruit at level 4 gets 13,600
at level 5 gets 17,000
and level 6 gets 20,400
4 to 5 is 4,000
5 to 6 is 5,000
6 to 7 is 8,000
7 to 8 is 9,000
and my recruits would stall at the top of 4 levels below me if they could get there, so they don't get to 8 but could be one XP short until I level again.
So my 4th level fighter is gonna level several times before I do, which gets complicated. Math would change.
Okay so, they get 4,000 while I get 10,000. And get to level 5 while I'm still 10.
They get 5,000 while I get another 10,000. And get to level 6 while I'm still 10.
Then they get 6,000 while I get 10,000, but neither of us level from that, still 6 and 10.
I get 4,000 to level up to 11
so they get 2,400 and stay level 6 a little while. Like 600 XP longer.
Which they will now make only when I make 1100, because maths.
So then while I'm headed for level 12, they get level 7 and start heading for 8 but can't get there.
40,000XP for me before level 12, and they're going to get 24,754 XP
except no, not actually, they're stuck at 33,999 for a while, because cohort limit for recruits is my lvl-4 ie 7.
That's a lot of math showing they catch up pretty fast then bump against the limit for a while before I get over the next line.
See if I started at 10 and recruited an 8th level cohort with Leadership, I'd only have one of them. If I start with Recruits, even starting with one at 4th level, I'd swiftly have a 7th level cohort, but they'd have 4 friends. I could only bring one at a time, but I could swap them around. And if I want full Leadership later I can have it. "selecting one minor cohort to become a full cohort, while the rest move on." So I couldn't keep my five Recruits if I wanted Followers or just one closer to me in skill level, but I'd have four ex students with good reason to appreciate me, which is a more interesting story.
... and I could level up my Fighter as well as several other friends, and try out which one was most helpful, or who I could help most.
The problem is simply keeping them alive long enough
but since the Knight is going to really try and be involved anyway
training them seems like a reasonable obligation.
... I mean I made them.
... that's the other sort of way to think of them as family.
... magically created instant family, but still.
And the ones not travelling eith me can be Managers in my Castle etc. Which would be neat too. And with five of them would give me dedicates options in different Major Towns or Cities, each Manager of a different project, and I could take my recruit to the next place and swap them ariund so they'd get a well rounded view of my holdings.
I have no idea how much use this would be in an RPG, with that kind of level gap they seem more like Dependents that keep trying to get involved, but they make very excellent Story this way.
Five recruits. Students. One of them a Fighter made by a deck of cards.
That's got many Story in it.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-26 08:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-26 11:38 am (UTC)straightforwards
Also says that in Intrigue, guess I missed it.