[Finished] PF2 - Hell's Rebels adventure path (Thurs 8-11 EDT)

General Games Virtual Table Tops
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VTT Client: Fantasy Grounds Classic (Ultimate License)
Host DM Name: OTG_Rando
Host Password: will provide via Discord

Game System: Pathfinder (2)

Voice: OTG Guild Discord - VTT channel

Dates/Time: Thursday August 13th, 8-11 EDT, then weekly same day/time till completed

Preferred Party Size: 4-6

Curernt Party:

  • ChacoBlue - ???
  • Ocelot - ???
  • Ryukan - ???
  • Mithinar - ???
  • Quixote - ???
  • Airen - ???

Party is full.

Hell’s Rebels

The city of Kintargo has a new lord-mayor, but he’s not someone interested in maintaining that city’s free spirit. Paracount Barzillai Thrune has placed the city under martial law, and his cruel proclamations and sinister plans for the city bode ill. Can a small group of heroes and would-be rebels stand against the might of the Thrice-Damned House of Thrune and the Church of Asmodeus and save their home town from being crushed under the boot of an infernal tyrant? Will one of Cheliax’s most powerful inquisitors make the city his playground, or can the rebels known as the Silver Ravens rise up to bring a new era of freedom to the so called Silver City of Kintargo? Join the rebellion! Save Kintargo! DOWN WITH THRUNE!

The game world is Golarion (the default world of the Pathfinder RPG), and the setting for this particular adventure is the city of Kintargo in the Archduchy of Ravounel which is part of the nation of Cheliax.

Time wise, the adventure takes place in the year 4715,which is 5 years in the “past” of the current Pathfinder 2 timeline. Yes folks, we’re time travelling!

Due to recent internal turmoil in the nation of Cheliax, martial law has been declared in most of the major cities of the nation - including the city of Kintargo. The old Lord Mayor of the city, Jilia Bainilus, is missing and has been rumoured to have fled the city for the distant shores of Arcadia. A new Lord Mayor, in the form of Her Infernal Majestrix Queen Abrogail II’s cousin, Barzillai Thrune, has been appointed.

Kintargo, a city that prides itself on its diversity, creative spirit, and artistry, was initially hostile to the change, but the agents of the new Lord Mayor were quick to act and a week before the adventure starts they struck. In a night of arson and murder, known now as the Night of Ashes, they drove off, captured, or killed many known agitators, dissidents, and other vocal opponents of the Thrune regime.

Already the city feels like a different place. Barzillai Thrune’s first seven proclamations have given the city’s citizens a grim preview of the times to come.

The day dawns with a light drizzle as dozens of Kintargans gather at the northern end of Aria Park, across the street from the opera house (Barzillai’s appropriated headquarters), to protest the paracount and his proclamations…

Characters will start at level 1. Characters can expect to reach levels 16-18 by the adventure path’s end.

Everything from the following published Paizo sources is valid for creating characters:

  • Pathfinder Core Rulebook
  • Pathfinder Advanced Players Guide
  • Lost Omens World Guide
  • Lost Omens Character Guide

With the following exceptions:

  • no evil alignments
  • no lizardfolk, hobgoblins, or orcs
  • ask the GM about archetypes from Lost Omen’s World Guide or Lost Omens Character Guide
  • ask the GM about the rare backgrounds from Advanced Players Guide
  • ask the GM about stuff from Lost Omens Gods and Magic (we’d have to enter it by hand)

Character backgrounds/hooks for the adventure are described in the Hell’s Rebels Players Guide which can be freely downloaded from Paizo’s website. Updated backgrounds for PF2 will be forthcoming.

The adventure path was written for PF1 and will have to be converted for PF2. A lot of the content in the players guide may not make sense. The GM is working on new updated backgrounds appropriate for PF2.

No purchases necessary.

Will be using Guild Discord for voice communication and Fantasy Grounds Classic as our virtual table top. A free demo license of Fantasy Grounds Classic is fine for connecting to my game. We may or may not make the jump to Fantasy Grounds Unity in the future; again no purchase would be necessary, a demo version of the software would be fine.

Session Zero (Thursday August 13th) will have character creation/input/discussion. We’ll be meeting for Session Negative One on Thursday August 6th for the players to discuss character ideas as well as to ask questions of the GM in person. Y’all can also discuss character concepts and/or ask questions in replies to this thread.

House Rules

  1. Character’s can “swap” spaces in tight spaces. If Character A strides or steps into character B’s space, Character B can take an immediate step as a reaction to move out of the way.
  2. Magical Implement Rules (stolen from 4E D&D and modified for PF2) forthcoming.
2 Likes
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i am leaning toward rogue spy, PaksBlue is 1/2 elf (or human) member of the old guild of thieves that was disbanded/destroyed when martial law was imposed. She really wants to rebuild the guild but knows it won’t happen until Kintargo is free of Cheliax rule.

Not much background but yet, its a start…

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At this point, I figure I will take what I learned from Rockie or Rasinar. So if we need a tanky type I’ll do another champion, if we need healing I’ll do a cleric that branches out on the side with druid for a little bit of ranged AOE damage. and with either of them I’ll do Medicine and Religion. The third one I’ll pick later.

Mith

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So I was working on updating/morphing the campaign traits in the Hell’s Rebels Players Guide into backgrounds for PF2, and then I had a thought.

Do not be alarmed.

Your typical background in PF2 does this:

  • two ability boosts, one of them free, one of them you pick between two stats
  • training in one general skill, training in one lore skill
  • gaining a skill feat in one of the skills you got trained in

The backgrounds in the Agents of Edgewatch Players Guide add more options for characters in that AP:

  • you gain a +1 circumstance bonus on Deception, Diplomacy, and Intimidation checks when interacting with one sub-group of the city guards of Absalom, and with one group of people related to that sub-group of the city watch

I liked that addition and something similar is very appropriate for Hell’s Rebels. So I added those.

So I continued to update those Hell’s Rebels campaign traits, and it was going okay, until I came to the very last one, the “Urban Sleuth”. I had given it the Glean Contents skill feat from the APG. While cool, it didn’t really capture the spirit of the “Urban Sleuth”, and other backgrounds had already taken all the “good” Society skill feats (I didn’t want duplicates). When I read the blurb for that campaign trait, what jumped out at me was, “Investigator!”. So instead of giving it just another skill feat, I thought why not give the “Urban Sleuth” a free archetype dedication in the Investigator class? But that wouldn’t be fair to the other backgrounds.

But there’s this variant rule in the Gamemastery Guide…

Do not be alarmed.

On page 194 of the Gamemastery Guide they have a simple 4-paragraph rule on how to give every character a free archetype. However, they’re assuming that everyone gets the same archetype, like if we were to run Skull and Shackles, everyone would automatically get the Pirate archetype. But I’m thinking of giving each background their own archetype that’s flavourful, bu they’re not all “equal”.

Like the Hell’s Rebels “Child of Kintargo” would get the Dandy archetype for free, while the “Diva in Training” would get the Celebrity archetype for free. The “Urban Sleuth” would get the Investigator multiclass archetype. That’s not “fair”.

The Dandy has a grand total of 5 archetype feats available to it; dedication at level 2, two more at level 4, and finally two more at (weirdly) level 7. So what if I said the “Child of Kintargo” got the Dandy dedication for free (at level 1 instead of level 2), and then I picked one of the level 4 ones to be gained for free at level 4, and finally do the same for the level 7 (gained at level 6). And then did the same for the other backgrounds, so the “Urban Sleuth” would get the Investigator multiclass dedication for free at level 1, then I would pick a single free Investigator archetype feat to be gained at level 4, and then a final last one gained at level 6. Three free archetype feats in total for each background.

The free archetype dedication and feats gained via these backgrounds would not count towards the normal rule that says you have to take minimum number of archetype feats of a particular dedication before taking another dedication. So you would all be free to pick up any other archetypes you wanted with your own class feats later (at level two and up, level one in the case of the Arcane Trickster rogue).

Too complicated? Too much? Thoughts?

5

I’m gonna break tradition and go with a Tiefling Wizard. I’ll post details here later today.

@Rando that all sounds great. Can we work with you to pick the free dedication for our background?

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No. They’d be fixed to the backgrounds in the players guide (forHell’s Rebels). I’d be picking flavourful stuff over “effective” stuff and I’d try to pick feats that would be geared towards exploration or social encounters as opposed to combat.

And just to reiterate, you don’t have to pick one of the updated backgrounds I’m making/changing/adapting for Hell’s Rebels, they would, however, have those three extra archetype feats (instead of a general skill feat) as well as the +1 circumstance bonus to the three “face” skills when interacting with certain people in Kintargo, thus making them more “powerful” than backgrounds from other sources. mwaHAHA! I can indirectly “force” you guys to be locals!!! :smiling_imp:

After I pulled out what last remaining hair I had answering all your questions about lawful alignments, Hellknights, and paladins?!?!?! :astonished:

Okay. :smile:

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We’ve got a 6th player, everyone welcome @Airen (with one “n” right? gosh that’s confusing)! Early bird catches the worm!

Game is now closed to new players. Thanks everyone.

1 Like
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Welcome!!!

Mith

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:wave: thanks for having me. Not sure why, but my gut reaction is to say bard. Will do some poking around before i lock in.

Airen

1 Like
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Still working on the updated backgrounds with free archetypes. It might have been a bad idea. I’ll deny ever typing that.

Also working on the implement rules.

I’ll have both ready for tomorrow. Hopefully.

11

So here goes another one of my typical emo character concepts:

Nastaran is a Chaotic Neutral Human-Tiefling Wizard.

The markings of her fiendish heritage are plainly obvious - small horns, pointed ears, grayish-purple skin, yellow serpent-like eyes, and a tail that frequently expresses whatever mood she is in at any given time - which is fortunate because she’s generally reserved, even around friends.

It’s impossible to tell what her ethnicity on her human side might be. The name “Nastaran” however is Kelishite as anyone familiar with the local Kelish population or language might know. She never speaks of her family or childhood. One gets the feeling that there’s serious anger there and it is a subject better left alone.

Despite her generally moody countenance, one thing that always cheers her up are books. She can chat hours on end about all of the books she’s read and she can always provide great advice on what to read next. She’s not into live theatre - that would require being in a crowd with strangers, but she loves stories of all kinds - especially ones that give her a sense of escape. In some ways, maybe she would’ve excelled at being a Bard, but her generally ornery disposition has taken her into a different direction - the world of the arcane. It is there that she is able to channel her anger into an obsessive drive to acquire knowledge - and ultimately, power. Along with her developing magical skills (which are no doubt augmented by her fiendish bloodline) she is exceptionally skilled in Arcana, Society, and Crafting - at least when said crafting involves books and magical runes.

By and large, she is completely accepting of people regardless of who they are, where they come from, and who they love. The one exception to this is other Tieflings. For some reason she doesn’t much like them (and perhaps she doesn’t like herself either) although this is surprising given that she recently penned an editorial arguing for Tiefling rights. Unfortunately, that editorial resulted in a raid by the local authorities in which her bookstore had all of its merchandise either confiscated or burned as well as her lease revoked along with everything in her modest apartment.

Now homeless, with just a few gold to her name and her spell book (which she was miraculously able to save) she has been forced to lodge at the Cloven Hoof Society while trying to figure out what to do next. In the meantime she has decided to attend the protest in Aria Park. While she’d rather not be around all of these people, its not like her cot at the Cloven Hoof gives her any privacy and after all, as they say, misery loves company.

tiefling_wizard
tiefling_wizard730×1080 451 KB

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^
She needs to be red.

I’ve backed off the free archetype idea. I had to make up a couple of my own archetypes to get the bits I wanted/needed to match the backgrounds of the Hell’s Rebels Players Guide. So…

Instead, each background will provide three feats to a character of that background. Characters get the first one at level 1, the second at level 4, and the last at level 6. For free.

All of these feats are - for the most part - duplicates of existing archetype feats from various different sources or at the least very similar. Their names have been changed to respect their privacy.

Back to work.

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That’s racist.

14

And the backgrounds have gone through another rework. /le-sigh

Now they do:

  • two ability boosts; one picking between two stats, one free
  • training in one general skill; training in one lore skill (which you get to choose from a small list)
  • a +1 circumstance bonus with Deception, Diplomacy, and Intimidation when interacting with at least two and maybe even three groups of “people” in the city of Kintargo; some of them are more specific than others which are slightly vague
  • a free skill feat (related to the trained general skill); a new feat of roughly level 6 “power”, some of them shamelessly stolen from archetypes

And yeah, still working on them…

And another rework!

Some of the added feats were sooo cool, but I’m drawing a blank on what to give some of the backgrounds. If you read the campaign traits in the Hell’s Rebels Players Guide, for some of them the flavour text does not match the bonus provided. So some of the reworked backgrounds I tried to match the flavour text, and some of them I matched the bonuses. And some of them I have no idea what to give, like the Star Struck trait/background.

So now the updated backgrounds are going to do this:

  • two ability boosts; one picking between two stats, one free
  • training in one general skill; training in one lore skill (which you get to choose from a small list)
  • a +1 circumstance bonus with Deception, Diplomacy, and Intimidation when interacting with at least two and maybe even three groups of “people” in the city of Kintargo; some of them are more specific than others that are slightly vague
  • a free skill feat (for the trained general skill)
  • a new feat that updates the campaign trait bonus from the official Hell’s Rebels Players Guide to PF2 rules

I’m kinda sad I couldn’t make this work. Hours of work for nuthin! So all the PMs to a few of you that asked questions about the backgrounds/archetypes/feats/etc, sorry, that’s all irrelevant now.

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looks at the time stamp, hopefully you did not stay up all night figuring this out. :wink:

I"m assuming the backgrounds from the 1.0 campaign are called campaign traits?

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I’m crazy, but not that crazy. My fan decided to unplug itself at 4:00 AM. I thought it had died.

Yes, in PF1 characters had up to two traits; all of the paizo published adventure paths had campaign specific traits that you could take instead of generic ones.

Two traits were worth roughly one feat. (PF1 had a feat that did just that, grant two extra traits.)

PF2 has backgrounds instead that provide more things including stat boosts, free skills, and usually a free skill feat. I’m updating the PF1 campaign traits to PF2 backgrounds and making them more enticing by adding stuff to them compared to generic backgrounds.

P.S. I’m referring to PF1 in the past tense like it’s already dead… like I thought my fan was. :astonished: :laughing:

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That’s fine with me about the reworking of backgrounds. I’m thinking of taking a different background anyway, so I’ll just wait to see what you do with them before nailing down that particular part of my character.

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Welcome Aboard!

19

…

I’m not reworking the backgrounds again, honest.

However, I’ve been handing out cool sounding Lore skills to them without actually knowing if those Lore skills will ever be used in the campaign. The Hell’s Rebels Players Guide lists four that it says are important. They’re right, but missed two equally as important skills.

PF1 had Knowledge skills instead of Lore skills, i.e. the Knowledge (Nobility) skill in PF1 would be Nobility Lore in PF2. Also Arcana, Religion, and Nature were Knowledge skills (like Knowledge (Arcana)) instead of being their own thing like in PF2. Occultism wasn’t a skill at all, though I’m sure it showed up as a Knowledge skill in specific AP/modules like Strange Aeons; it doesn’t show up in this AP at all.

So I searched through all 6 modules of the adventure path for “Knowledge” and every time I came to a skill check asking for a particular Knowledge skill I marked down a tick. Some of the skill checks could be rolled against by multiple Knowledge skills, each Knowledge got it’s own tick for that check.

This is just Knowledge () checks, I didn’t search for Craft, Perform, Diplomacy, Bluff, etc.

Here are my findings (under the spoiler blur). This is across all 6 modules. There’s no consistency in usage; some skills are used in early modules and then drop off in usage completely, some are useful throughout the entire AP, some show up prominently in a single adventure, others are sporadic.

Religion - 43
Knowledge (Local) - 42
Knowledge (Planes) - 28
Arcana - 24
Knowledge (History) - 24
Knowledge (Nobility) - 19
Knowledge (Engineering) - 9
Nature - 7
Knowledge (Geography) - 5
Knowledge (Dungeoneering) - 1

Make your choices accordingly.

When I actually go through and convert the adventure(s), some of those checks will work with Occultism and I’ll spread some of those checks out to other skills; i.e. some of those Religion checks can maybe be farmed out to Occultism, and some of those Local or Planes checks can be spread to Geography, Nature, or even Dungeoneering (or at the very least be added to the check alongside the primary).

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Wow! Gimmee some of that old time religion!