Travels amongst the Border Princes (WFRP 2e) OOC

[rax]

What are your career plans for Gabrielle & Severin?

I want a lone gunslinger vibe for Severin, so my ultimate aim was to get into the Targeteer career. Easiest way to do that is to move into Bounty Hunter after Scout, but since it's just Severin and Gabriele now, it might be wise to detour through another basic career to pick up some social skills.

[Haval]

What are your career plans for Gabrielle & Severin?

Maybe spy depending on how things go with the Duke's spymaster. I think rogue in the short term. If we keep getting into these situations I need charm and more fel.

[dojango]

Gunslinger, eh? Duellist or Roadwarden might also work for that. If you literally want a gun, that is.

[rax]

No, it's not guns per se I'm after. Severin's main weapon will still be his sling, perhaps backed up with a crossbow for longer range and higher damage shots (with Mighty Shot, crossbows have Strength 5). And since scout requires Specialist Weapon (Longbow) or (Crossbow), I might look into picking up a repeating crossbow or a crossbow pistol (though either of these is strictly inferior to the sling now that Severin has Rapid Reload).

Basically, I figured the Border Princes would work for the wandering gunslinger type - someone who's very handy with weapons, can handle the wilderness and still have some unexpected career variations to round him out, e.g. the Gambler career for social skills and a way to make money without killing people. Severin probably doesn't want a position with fixed responsibilities, but his skill set should end up making it easy to find employment when needed.

On the subject of elite advances, is that a house rule we're going to use? The closest thing I can find in WFRP is the sidebar on p. 29. The sidebar says that if you don't like any of the career exits in your current career, you can enter any other basic career for 200 xp. Importantly, it says you can do this without completing your current career. At the most basic level, this just gives you a great deal of flexibility in choosing careers, but the sidebar also doesn't say that you must complete the new career you entered. So, for 200 xp, you should be able to access any GM-approved basic career, buy the specific advances/skills/talents you want, then move to a new career for another 200 xp. Also per the sidebar, this can be any career you could access from a previous career.

In other news, I'll be heading off on a three-day family holiday today, and I won't be bringing my computer. I don't like posting from my phone, so expect short or no responses from this evening until Sunday afternoon.

[dojango]

I will be out of town until Sunday as well so no worries. As far as elite advances go, say 200 per for skills outside your current career for the first advance, 400 for +10. We'll get some more XP if/when you make it back to Stralwald.

[rax]

Smooth, Gabriele, smooth.

[Haval]

Smooth, Gabriele, smooth.

Didn't want to get her hopes up. I may be being too paranoid.

[dojango]

Roll outdoor survival to see how well you can forage or hunt.

[Haval]

Outdoor Survival vs. Int 38
(1d100)[69]

Perception to look for signs of game
vs. Int 38
(1d100)[98]

[dojango]

Hm, OK, let's see. (1d100)[84]. Very interesting...

[rax]

What do you know, it turns out Severin has Outdoor Survival as well. I really need to reacquaint myself with his skills and talents. I suppose it's a bit late to roll for him now?

[dojango]

goferit __

[rax]

Cool, I'll roll the same skills as Gabriele then. Here goes nothing...

Outdoor Survival vs. Int 39 (1d100)[14]

Perception vs. Int 39 (1d100)[43]

[dojango]

roll perception I guess to see if anyone's lurking around.

[rax]

Perception test coming up...

(1d100)[40] vs. Int 39

[Haval]

Perception vs. Int 38
(1d100)[48]

[dojango]

Praise Taal for acute hearing (+20 to perception).

[Haval]

Praise Taal for acute hearing (+20 to perception).

Praise Taal

[rax]

"Coulda sworn they went this way," "Damn sneaks always disappearing" "Let's just jump them back at the camp" "Colten's not gonna like it" "Jes' gonna give them a good thrashing" "They killed Fats n' Redeye and woulda killed me! Let's at least break something!" That last voice you recognize as Tick's.

Is it possible that Gabriele can tell how many people are talking? Obviously there's at least two, but whether it's one, two, or even three more is hard to tell just from reading.

[Haval]

We could try and get closer. Obviously it's not worth trying anything if we're outnumbered by a lot.

[rax]

Sorry folks, busy weekend - will post Monday evening.

[dojango]

Halflings are supposed to have stronger willpower, so (1d100)[81].

[rax]

No IC post from me ATM. Happy to wait and see how Berry responds to Gabriele.

[rax]

I'm sort of in two minds as to what to do next. I'll hold off on posting IC until Berry's replied to Gabriele.

[Haval]

I'm sort of in two minds as to what to do next. I'll hold off on posting IC until Berry's replied to Gabriele.

Is it a case of staying a bit longer for the sake of breaking something in the camp versus getting out as soon as possible with Berry?

Rescuing the other Halflings might be a bit beyond the two of us unless we can find more information. In theory if we win at the village we can always come back for them.

I feel like looking around the camp some more might need us to go investigate the other groups in the camp.

[rax]

Pretty much.

On the one hand, the barrels have me thinking they might be Colten's supply of gunpowder and the idea of blowing them up and causing mayhem in the camp is appealing. On the other hand, it's a good way to get caught and - as with destroying the food - it might just provoke an immediate attack on Stralwald.

On the other hand, we're still not sure on the relative size of Colten's force. Berry seems very certain about the "newbie" camp, but what about the other two? If she can't hazard an educated guess, I think our best bet is to sneak around the camp perimeter and count tents to get a feel for whether the other two camps are larger or smaller. The old dudes' guess of about a hundred men isn't too far off if the other camps are the same size as the newbie camp.

Of course, if we do decide to spend time counting tents, then Berry either has to leave straight away with Bert or she has to go back until we're done...at which point it's not at all certain we can get her out without tipping our hand. And the same goes for her sister and cousin, of course. If we break them out now, it probably won't take them too long to put two and two together and work out whodunnit and where we/they are likely headed, but if we only break out Berry, there's a chance her remaining family are going to be in a lot of trouble and perhaps be "questioned" in a very unpleasant manner.

[Haval]

I want to suggest doing something risky anyway and rely on burning fate to get us out of trouble, but there's really no reason to push our luck unless it seems like we can get away with it. This probably includes going into the other camps to talk to the more violent raiders. We are presumably good at being sneaky, but if we fail at scouting the edge of the camp we can always fall back on talking. I don't think we're limited in where we're allowed to go anyway.

I'm going to ask Berry about what the consequences of her running away might be here. I'd like to think they don't care enough to torture Berry's relatives while they're useful as servants. They might send people to recapture her obviously, which would mean we'd be reliant on Burt to get her out without us. He seems capable though.

[rax]

Given that we're about to be hit by a downpour, Severin's reevaluating his earlier idea to scout the camp more thoroughly and get a better head count.

I went back and looked over some of the earlier posts and matched them with Berry's information and the old mercenaries' gossip:

- In post #1013 we learn that we can see about 30 tents pitched around the farmhouse.
- In post #1037 we learn that there are 10 tents in the southern camp.
- In post #1078, Tilean Rick guesses that Colten has about 100 men.
- In post #1145, Berry says there are 27 bandits in the southern camp, plus Figs.

If 10 tents house 27 bandits, 30 tents could house 81 bandits. That's close enough to 100 that I'm willing to accept that Colten has about 80-100 fighting men at his disposal.

Another interesting tidbit:
- In post #1037, Colten says that he'll be moving out in 3 weeks, once the harvest is done.
- In post #1139, Berry says that they'll be out of food in a fortnight.

I'm going to hazard a guess that Colten was either lying about when he'll make his move or that he'll adjust his schedule once it dawns on him that he'll run out of food before the harvest is in. I have a very hard time believing that the bandits will keep taking orders from him if he insists they go hungry for a week.

With all this taken into account, I'd say we have good enough intel to bring back to Stralwald without skulking about the perimeter in a downpour.

[Haval]

Shouldn't try to raid on an empty stomach. No food might make some of them desert, but going after Stralwald or another village might be the easiest way to get food and might be a reason for them all to stay together.

That bit about the chance of them showing up earlier then we expect seems quite important to pass on, so let's get out of here.

The one thing I'm curious about is the amount of actual Chaos worshipers in the band besides Colten, but I don't think confirming that will change much.

[dojango]

Gabrielle Perception: (1d100)[5] v. (38+20-10=48)
Severin Perception: (1d100)[24] v. (39 -10=39)

Rain actually makes it harder to track because it will wash away tracks. But once the rain stops, the mud comes... It doesn't matter since they rolled really well to track you.