Adventurers' Guild HQ IC #2

[Bonecrusher Doc]

This thread will be used for subplots that develop in the HQ IC thread that we want to continue, but without disrupting the flow of things. For now, that will just be SPAM meetings, but there may be other scenarios in the original HQ IC thread that I recommend get moved to this thread, to keep things from getting too disorganized.

[DavidByron]

Matthew is arranging some papers on the library table.
Oh hey! You're a bit late to your own meeting Gylvin. Don't worry; everyone else is late too. Welcome to the inaugural meeting of the Society for the Perfection of Arcane Methodology. I wrote up that preliminary agenda for tonight you suggested. Perhaps you could check it for mistakes.

Society for the Perfection of Arcane Methodology

1. Discussion of integrating magic into combat or general exploration. This would be open to any guild member as we would be discussing situations where magic use needs to be coordinated with team tactics.

2. Covering our knowledge base. Wizards are usually expected to know academic stuff. What areas of expertise need to be better covered as a guild? What do we need to study more?

3. Expenses / finance Everyone benefits from having competent wizards with eg scrolls or researched spells, so we shouldn't have to pay all the costs. How should the costs be divided up?

4. Wizard-less teams. How to help out the team/s with no wizards. And how do those teams pay into the system?

5. Any other business.

Agenda - wizards only.
6. Selection of SPAM officers, charter.

7. Sharing of spell information

8. Spell Research.

9. Security

10. Crafting items

[hr]
Gylvin:
Gylvin walks into the room. He's a little flustered at running behind for the kick-off meeting. He see's that Matthew has gone ahead & set up.

"Thanks for getting started. Just you & I so far eh? I hope the other magic users are willing to work together, there's just so much that can be accomplished if we organize. Has anyone else expressed interest? I haven't gotten feedback from anybody."
[hr]
Matthew:
I think Balthazar and Sheila whom you know and Dravick. He's the bard from team Badger. The guy with the lute? Sheila has had some magical tutoring and Dravick can cast some cantrips. I'm not sure if anyone else in the guild knows anything about the arcane. Zan might be interested too. He's a cleric of Boccob but I don't know if he can cast arcane spells or not.

And then there are some of the new guys I don't know about them so much. I think they are going to all be in a fourth team and so far there's no representation from among them.

Lankin is a Gnome so I suppose he might know some illusion spells as all Gnomes seem to... more of an inherent ability I think... but I asked him whether he was an adventurer and he was pretty clear he didn't want anything to do with that side of things. Still if we wanted a senior member to sit in for some reason he'd probably a better choice than Bruce or Eldon.

While Gylvin and Matthew are waiting....

Well it's going to be a short meeting if it is just us. ......

I was going to check out the city library today but got side-tracked....
[hr]
Dravick:
Feeling a little better after his headache subsided, Dravick realizes that aside from Ana, he is alone in the Guildhall. I wonder where everyone is? I guess I should check around and make sure no one is getting into any more trouble. He carries his lute along and as he leaves the guildhall he sees someone entering the library. I think that was Glyvin. Deciding to see what Glyvin was up to he went into the library just in time to hear Matthew describe him as "the guy with the lute." He smiled at that description, and then announced himself. "Hello Gentlemen. What sort of shenanigans are you up to in the library?"
[hr]
Hey Dravick. Matthew hands Dravick one of the pieces of paper with "agenda" written on it. Welcome to S.P.A.M. We're just waiting to see if anyone else turns up. Gylvin was just asking who else was coming and I was trying to think of all the people in the guild with some experience of the arcane. Me, Gylvin, Balthazar, you, Sheila and Lankin maybe was my list.

[Thymin]

Dravick:

Oh, right, the SPAM meeting, I totally forgot. Oh well, it all worked out in the end. "I guess I'm not too late then. I'm interested in getting started, though I don't know how much use I will be." Dravick focuses his attention on the agenda and reads it over fairly thoroughly.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Shiela:

The red-headed Shiela enters the library, her hair more of a mess than usual, and rubbing a bruise on her forearm.
"Am I late?" She asks, bleary eye peering about the room, following up, without pause with the phrase, almost as an excuse: "Valeris can Fight!"
She sounds very excited at the prospect of another skilled fighter in the guild.

[Bonecrusher Doc]

Lankin enters, carrying a three-legged wooden stool suitable for a person of his size. Rather than crowding around the table where others are already seated at the benches, he places his stool in a corner next to bookshelf, sits down, and leans back against the books.

Lankin
"Contrary to popular belief, I'm not an arcanist, but I am familiar with the principles of arcana, and Bruce suggested I attend at least this first meeting. I can probably help you with any questions you have about expenses and supplies."

Spoiler

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It appears that in 3.0, Intelligence of 10 was the prereq for gnomes getting ghost sound, dancing lights, and prestidigitation. In 3.5 the prereq was changed to Charisma of 10. Lankin has 9 Charisma. Which means all the other gnome kids never let poor Lankin join in all the gnomish games growing up.

[Karaswanton]

Balthazar

Balthazar enters, looks over the documents, and says nothing.

[strongoak]

Gylvin

Gylvin is impressed by the crowd. Gylvin looks over the agenda and stops when he gets to item 6 (electing officers). He thinks for a moment and then asks Dravick for a moment of his time. "Dravick, I see you're a bard" Gylvin says. "One of the purposes of SPAM is for us to learn about integrating magic effectively into our teams. An important part of that learning experience will be the keeping of accurate records of the discussions and lessons learned. As a Bard, you have a unique talent for handling information. Would you be willing to serve as the scribe for SPAM? This would involve you keeping meeting minutes and composing any other documentation that we need. Please consider it and let me know if you'd like to help out."

Gylvin then turns to Matthew & says "Well, we may as well get started. Looks like a good crowd tonight." He goes to the front of the room and addresses the group.

"Welcome all of you to the first meeting of the Society for the Perfection of Arcane Methodology. I know that's a mouthfull, so we'll just refer to the group as S.P.A.M. I see that we have 3 magic users, a bard, a fighter and a guild official. This should make for a very interesting meeting. "

"In this forum, we'll be endevouring to address tactics for employing mages during battle as well as mundane topics such as financing the creation of magic items and the sharing of information. For those of you who are not Wizards/Sorcerors I'd like to let you know that part of the meeting is closed to non-Arcane magic users. This is not meant to be an insult, it simply reflects oaths that we have taken regarding the protection of arcane information. If we start getting Paladins or Clerics in this meeting, then I assume that there would be agenda items that were only open members who gain their magic powers from Divine sources."

"I'd like to suggest that we begin by introducing ourselves and briefly describing our interests in the Arcane Arts as well as what we hope to gain from this meeting. I'll go first."

"In case you don't know, my name is Gilvyn Liadon. I'm a wizard and my primary interest is Battle Magic. I've always been taught that the best defense is an overwhelming offense. I tend to favor spells that make things go "BOOM". From this group, I'd like to gain a better understanding of tactics used by non-elven fighting teams. I hope to become at least a good battle mage as my father."

Gylvin finishes his opening remarks with "Thank you for listening, who would like to go next?"

[DavidByron]

OK...
I think everyone here knows me already.. Matthew Estella. As most of you know adventuring is a change of occupation for me so I don't have much experience of fighting beyond clearing out belligerent drunkards from pubs. I don't know what my team will be facing but I want to be prepared. So I need information on how to fight esoteric adversaries, especially those where perhaps raw steel is of limited use and knowledge is key.

Secondly I'm keen to see the guild succeed. I think that we wizards can be a big part of that but we need to organise and co-operate efficiently. Prevent arguments by working out rules. Our resources are currently limited so we need to make every effort count. We can also help the teams that don't have wizards, or any arcane casters.

Thirdly I guess I want to increase my own powers and abilities. So for me it's to benefit my team, my guild and of course myself also.

Guess that's about it......

[Thymin]

Dravick:

"I'll go next. I think you all know me, I'm Dravick. Some of you may know me as 'the guy with the lute.'" He smiles and holds up his lute. "Anyway, I'm the only arcane caster on Team Badger, and I think that this group can be of great benefit to the guild as a whole and each of us individually, so here I am."

[Jensik]

Sharn Vankessel

A rather heavily armored pale man steps in the door. He looks around and notices the meeting already started. He says bowing, "Don't mind me, continue."

He does not take any seat, but stands by the door he came in through.

[Karaswanton]

Balthazar, LN Dwarven Wizard

The dwarf pulls on his beard as he talks:
You can call me Balthazar. I am an associate of Gylvin here, as part of Team cougar. My area of expertise is somewhat more subtle than my comrades. I specialize in conjuration. My training is a result of military research.

[Thanatos 51-50]

"I'm Shiela. You're probably a wee bit surprised that I'm here due to the rather obvious fact that I'm a Fighter.
Truth is, I've always been interested in the Arcane and its uses. I've even learned how to light a wand - although I'm still not very good at that. I'm here, primarily to learn, but secondarily, to provide a mundane fighter's representation of how I can use whatever spells you discuss in battle tactics. Where to drop those fireballs and such, what type of illusions are helpful - just more basic combat tactics stuff."

[strongoak]

Gylvin

"Great introductions! Let's go ahead and move onto the first item in our agenda. We'll be talking about using magic in different situations. I'd like to start tonight with an example where a simple spell can be used creatively to help the party."

"Suppose your group is in a large, dark hall. Suddenly, an arrow flies past, nearly hitting a party member in the head. You know what direction the arrow came from, but you can't see anything in the dark. What is one thing that you could do with magic to support the party?"

Gylvin gives the group a couple of moments to think about the problem. Balthazar signals that he would like to respond.

Balthazar says "Well, there should be some way to use a light spell in this situation....

"Exactly" Gylvin responds enthousiastically. "Depending on how far away you think your opponents are, you can cast the light spell on an arrow or rock. Can anyone think of other circumstances where the light spell could be useful?"

[DavidByron]

Matthew
I normally use Prestidigitation if I want light. I suppose it isn't much of a combat spell though because it only works on things close to your person.
[hr]

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I'm just going to throw down another subtopic but assume Matthew says this after the discussion on the use of the Light cantrip is over. Oh and you get those horizontal lines by typing [hr]

I have a question about "Enlarge Person" (to translate the technical name of the spell from Draconic). This is a spell that doubles someone's size for a short time, but it also makes them quite clumsy. If I was going to use it in battle should I cast it on a friend or an enemy? Or is this a poor spell for a fight?

[strongoak]

Matthew
I normally use Prestidigitation if I want light. I suppose it isn't much of a combat spell though because it only works on things close to your person.
<hr>

Gylvin

"I would be more concerned that the construct would be too fragile to survive being thrown or shot. If it were capable of surviving a shot from a bow or a throw, then this would be a good spell due to it's duration."

[MK Kilmarnock]

The cleric was capping his flask as he clamored into the room. He sheepishly looked around, knowing he was definitely late.

"I'm.. I'm sorry! It's just that I was told that this was a meeting for arcane spellcasters only. Then somebody mentioned my team didn't have an arcane spellcaster, so... here I am."

[DavidByron]

Matthew passes Zan a copy of the agenda. That's the last one I made so if anyone else turns up you have to share!
[hr]
It would be interesting to hear from the non-Wizards what their expectations would be for a Wizard during combat. What sort of role? If there are only so many spells a Wizard can have memorized and maybe one or two scrolls... should the spells be stuff to help retreat if need be? Or zap spells that target the most enemy fighters? Or something for defense? Miscellaneous stuff?

Should the role of Wizard be an offensive one or is that best left to the fighters, and Wizards should concentrate on stuff the fighters can't do?

Or for example Zan, you can use arcane scrolls, right? What would be the best scroll for you to have in reserve for your team?

[Thanatos 51-50]

"If I may -" Shiela interjects "I think that mages who have some sort of scouting ability would be extremly useful for example, if Matthew and I were exploring a ruin, I would be very grateful if he could, for example, cast a spell to see in another room, and then cast one of those wonderful illusions to show me whats going on. That way, I could better plan an assault or a path around the room in question.
"I'm not aware if anyone has that capability yet, or can ever reach that, but maybe its worth researching?

"Also, while I'm quite fond of swordplay, I can only hit one person at a time, and only then when I'm right next to them - I like it when the other guy goes
"Boom" and I can give my sword-arm a rest, but thats just killing as may birds as possible with as few stones as possible, maximum allocation of resources and junk.

"Furthermore - and I'm not sure if any of the magi here can - but if we had a mage that could smith magical arms and armor, such an asset would be invaluble outside of a combat situation, during downtime and such."

Shiela looks around the room quickly before staring at her feet.
"Um - Shiela smash puny orc?" she mutters quietly shortly before shutting up.

[Shades of Gray]

Durx, having overheard bits of the conversation from the next room, walks through the door, trying to act subtle. However that idea was a failure. He knocks a Chair down, and picks it up. He shuffles over to the chairs and sits next to Dravick.

I fink the role of a wiz'rd is to help in offense. A sportiv'ur defensive role is better handled by a cleric 'r bard. If the team's mult'ple warriors then they could have a subtle role, like using illusions'urenchantments

So, what about smashing orcs?, Durx give a slight scowl at Shiela.

[strongoak]

Gylvin

Gylvin listens carefully to the conversation. There are some very good ideas being discussed.

"Actually, the role of the Wizard can be either offensive or defensive in nature depending upon the skills of the particular mage. Some are masters of Illusion, some conjuring objects while still others favor spells that are more combat oriented.

Let's look at Shiela's example of scouting. Matthew or Balthazar may be able to come up with something to help with that request but I would not as my education is more offensive in nature. I prefer to let the ranger or someone trained in spotting traps & hidden objects do the scouting.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Wizards only have a finite amount of spells that they can cast each day. This means that one of the most important jobs of a magic user in combat is deciding when he should cast in addition to what spell he will use. After all, if the mage uses all of his spells in the first 10 minutes of a battle, he's pretty much out of the action for the rest of the day. He then becomes a liability to the party rather than an asset."

[DavidByron]

Hm. It sounds like this question is impossible to settle without taking into account the specific make up of each team. In fact the whole question might be answered differently for each team. I suggest we table this item until we've had a chance to talk to our team mates.....?

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Moving on due to lack of posts for > 24 hours but feel free to retroactively post to it

Well the next item is "covering our knowledge base".

I think we need to make sure we have experts in any area of knowledge that might be useful instead of all trying separately to know a little about everything. Of course we have the city library practically on our doorstep if there's time to research something.... but sometimes you need to know enough to know what to look for in the library.

On the other hand I can see that if you're down a dungeon killing monsters and you come across something you need to know about right there ... such as how to kill a certain creature... it might not do much good to have a friend who knows the answer unless we had some sort of spell for communicating that knowledge somehow.

[MK Kilmarnock]

Zan stared downward, not really being able to think.

Arcane scroll... arcane scroll... best arcane scroll to have....

His trouble in thinking about that problem was so great that he found great relief when Matthew moved the conversation onward.

"I've recieved much schooling about various deities and the planes.... I could probably help you out in that respect."

[DavidByron]

Yes that's the sort of thing I mean.

I have a pretty good knowledge of the way Bridgeport's political system works, and for what it's worth some contacts in the entertainment industry up and down the river.

What about everyone else? I guess we all have a good knowledge of spells and arcana, I'm talking about other stuff more.

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Is this format not working? Basically the only reason for the agenda was to role play the fact that --well frankly all the wizards are LN and just like that sort of stuff. However I don't think it works very well for the players Don't want people feeling they can't post something because according to the agenda its XYZ time.

This thread is supposed to go a bit slower too. However I'm going to throw down the next item on the agenda for now just to keep moving along.

[hr]
Later on...
Moving along.... next we have... Expenses and finance. Ah well this ought to be interesting. Lankin, this is somewhat about the details of the contract but for the most part it's about how cash will be split up among party members within a team and to some extent between teams.

Still the appropriate text of the contract might be worth re-reading here... Matthew picks up a piece of paper which is a copy of the guild contract and reads from it.

Member will contribute 50% of monies earned through any activity to the care of the guild treasurer, until such time that the value of 1000 gp have been contributed. Thenceforth, member need only contribute a tithe of 10%. Should a member experience material gain in a form other than coinage, a reasonable contribution to the guild is expected.

So the first question here is what should count as a material gain and specifically what replacement costs and operating costs are discounted before calculating profit? Replacing something like a few crossbow bolts or a few arrows is cheap enough but a scroll costs 25gp and a potion 50gp even for the cheapest of them. What I'd like to suggest is that items that get "used up" for the direct benefit of the team while on a mission would be replaced from any loot taken on the mission and profit calculated afterwards for purposes of sharing out how much money each member gets and how much the guild receives. Other operating costs like tolls or fares when traveling would be treated the same way.

Second question: Each member of the team is likely to want to spend some of their share, perhaps most of it, on upgrading their equipment. For example better armor or weapons. Those items would be bought with members own money and would belong to them. But some items might be bought for the team as a whole. These items would belong to the guild although used by a specific team and might be bought from the team's loot, again in this case before profit is calculated.

Third question is about team to team transfers. Let's say I make a scroll for Zan's team using my personal ink and parchment. The normal sale price is 25gp and materials account for half that. Should Zan's team just pay me cash? At what price? If the item was something from team Adder's loot would we pass it to another team at the purchase price or at half price which is all we'd probably manage to sell it for, or something in between?

[MK Kilmarnock]

The young Morseworth stared at Matthew before looking up at the ceiling, scratching his head. "Money.... I'm not very good with financial stuff. But I guess we'd pay whatever the cost of the scroll was, unless you were willing to take anything off out of the kindness of your heart."

[strongoak]

Second question: Each member of the team is likely to want to spend some of their share, perhaps most of it, on upgrading their equipment. For example better armor or weapons. Those items would be bought with members own money and would belong to them. But some items might be bought for the team as a whole. These items would belong to the guild although used by a specific team and might be bought from the team's loot, again in this case before profit is calculated.

Third question is about team to team transfers. Let's say I make a scroll for Zan's team using my personal ink and parchment. The normal sale price is 25gp and materials account for half that. Should Zan's team just pay me cash? At what price? If the item was something from team Adder's loot would we pass it to another team at the purchase price or at half price which is all we'd probably manage to sell it for, or something in between?

Gylvin

"I think the most fair way to handle intra-guild magic item creation would be to base it on creation cost rather than sale cost. For example, if I make a scroll that costs 25gp for another team, then the reimbursement should be the 25Gp. It should come from the purchasing team if they are using it on a personally contracted missions and from the guild if they are sending the team. It may be easier for the guild to fund the creation of the scrolls or items and then charge the appropriate team when they requisition a spell. I'm more concerned about use of the mages internal life forces during the creation {ooc: reference to xp}

{OOC: Maybe the mages capable of scribing scrolls or creating items should be allocated a portion of the guild experience specifically for creating items to help the team. Maybe 5-10% of guild activity experience which does not contribute to levels and is specifically for creating magic items for the guild armory. }

[Karaswanton]

Balthazar

Balthazar looks a little lost during the financial discussion.
Um. My wife usually handled the money, I'm no help here.

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I really have no understanding of any of the financial stuff in D&D at all. I probably never will. I just wanted to add something to the thread.

[DavidByron]

Matthew:
You know I have a few scrolls I'd like to sell because I am trying to raise enough money to get a familiar. I'm not sure what would be a good idea though. I quite fancied getting one of those little birds that can speak, or perhaps an owl. I was thinking you could train a bird familiar to take messages back and forth over long distances.

[MK Kilmarnock]

Zan quietly thought before...

"Wait, Matthew! Boccob will allow me to make scrolls too, right?"

No no no..... maybe it was use scrolls... Augh, I wish I had HIS penchant for sorcery and wizardry....

[Karaswanton]

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Zan quietly thought before...

"Wait, Matthew! Boccob will allow me to make scrolls too, right?"

No no no..... maybe it was use scrolls... Augh, I wish I had HIS penchant for sorcery and wizardry....

If I'm not mistaken, it is use wizards scroll, unless you are also a wizard and then you can make wizard scrolls. Really, most clergy of Boccob are probably wizards. Not that you are a disappointment as a cleric instead of a wizard of course

Balthazar tries to smile sweetly, thinking:

I hope that didn't sound sarcastic, I didn't mean to be sarcastic. Or did I? I'm not sure. Was I sarcastic or not? Who am I? Who are all these people? Oh right, I'm Balthazar..no I'm not that's not my name. Oh right, it's an alias, and these people are my comrades. Or at least they say they are, they might be dwarvish spies. Wait, no beards. And that one's an elf, and the dwarf government never uses elf spies, unless the do now. Why do I worry so much, I'm paranoid. Oh no, I'm paranoid, I must be going insane!

OOC: Balthazar has an overly healthy sense of paranoia.

[DavidByron]

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Clerics can make scrolls if they take the feat

Matthew:
I'm sure a smart guy like you could learn how to do it Zan!
[hr]
Matthew is still fussing about accounting....
Let's say I have a spell that allows you to disguise yourself magically. Now that's very useful sometimes but most of the time you won't need it. So is that a good spell for a scroll?

And Silent Image -- the figment spell -- I mean the "illusion" spell -- it's very useful for getting out of a tight spot. If things turn badly for a party having a scroll with it on might be a very wise idea.

Let's say then that the other two teams lack these two spells --- actually that's something else we need to sort out. I think I'm jumping up and down the agenda a bit but it's getting late and I've been trying to get to sleep earlier these days. Trying to get a good solid 8 hours before everyone starts getting up in the morning....

Hey maybe we could lobby Bruce for a separate room for the wizards to sleep in? Oh what was I sa--

let's say team Badger and Cougar decide it would be good to have a scroll of those two spells. Would they give me personally 50gp out of their teams' money? Would they have to pay the 50% "tax" on that to the guild first? Would the money be subtracted before the team divided up it's profits between members?

Let's say team B gets 200gp. They decide they want two scrolls from me. Would they pay me the 50gp then divide up the remaining 150 six ways, 25gp each and then give the guild 12.5 of that each? And would I have to pay the guild half of the money I got for selling scrolls? The materials alone cost me half. It seems like I'm just wanting to swap four scrolls worth 100gp for 100gp worth of materials needed to get a familiar.

*Sigh*
We need an accountant for this stuff. Maybe it's not worth worrying about it right now.
[hr]
I have to get going... I know there's stuff we didn't cover. Can we quickly go over item seven? Sharing of spell information? I guess you'd normally have a price for copying each others spells but none of us have any money right now so I propose we just waive that between us for now and make sure everyone has a chance to learn the others' spells? We're going to need a LOT of magic ink.

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In view of the team threads moving on I suggest we wrap this meeting up with a few last comments and then skip forward to the next SPAM meeting which will take place after the first adventures and after the two women (sisters?) and the gnome are prisoners. After the small weapons are found, the goblins killed, the twin daggers examined and while the jail in the cellar is being dug out.