Page 107, Special Maneuvers:
I see that pretty much all of them involve saves against Paralysis. Is this intentional or perhaps too much emphasis on one Save?
APM: It’s intentional. Paralysis is a fairly easy save for most characters.
Page 127, Paying Expenses, Stronghold Upkeep:
“In addition to maintaining a garrison, the adventurer must pay for the upkeep of his stronghold. Strongholds cost 0.5% of their total value in upkeep each month. For example, a 75,000gp keep costs 375gp per month to maintain.”
What happens if you neglect the upkeep of your stronghold? Most of the other expenses have consequences if you neglect them (Morale, unrest, etc), what about this?
APM: Good point! I’d say your stronghold value decreases. I’ll make a note.
Page 130, Keeping the Peace:
The table says “Garrison below normal last season: +1/gp/family increase” and “Garrison above normal last season: -1/gp/family decrease”, however, the examples and explanation go on to say the opposite, that having a bigger garrison makes the people happier. It appears that the table is reversed.
APM: The table does look “off”. I’ll double check.
Page 144, Domain Income:
“Marcus earns no domain XP, as his gp threshold is 12,000gp. Marcus contemplates raising taxes…”
When I was reading the section on Income, I didn’t see anything mechanically on raising taxes/the corresponding effect on morale. Unless I missed it, I think this is something that would be beneficial to add.
APM: Raising taxes lowers morale by 1 point per gp/family.
In the Transmogrification proficiency, “When the character casts polymorph spells (such as animate dead)…” I’m thinking that’s not the intended example.
What happens if you neglect the upkeep of your stronghold? Most of the other expenses have consequences if you neglect them (Morale, unrest, etc), what about this?
APM: Good point! I’d say your stronghold value decreases. I’ll make a note.
In lieu of a straight decrease - e.g., failure to pay upkeep for a month decreases the value of the stronghold by 2x the amount of upkeep until repaired - it might be interesting to have missed upkeep risk more catastrophic failure, like “every month of missed upkeep incurs a 5% cumulative chance of significant structural damage which reduces the value of the stronghold by 10%.” Sort of like how not fixing a hole in the roof gets expensive very quickly.
However it’s done, the specific numbers will end up answering the very useful question, “How long does it take a completely abandoned stronghold to crumble into ruin?”
Don’t know if it got lost among my other stuff or if I’m simply alone in my opinion, but I still think that including a reminder about the Nonlethal Damage bonus (pg 105) on the Mortal Wounds table would be most helpful. I know Nonlethal doesn’t come up that much but, especially if there’s room, I could see it being an easily forgotten rule.
Proficiencies: I just noticed that “Beast Friendship” was missing from the Explorer’s list- is that by design? It seems like a natural fit.