General OOC

Oh and @RageRed since I have the only active adventure at the moment, you can slide in if you want. Just head over to the "Timber!" thread in the Wanted: Helping Hands sub

@Direhalfling,

Okay. Thanks. BTW, I sent Loyal a message on Discord about posting. Don't know if he'll see it until later this evening though. Depends on his work load today.

Just want to clarify my above statement about background feature. I personally as a player don't mind that while my feature "free healing and care at a temple" will not work in the settings where no temple exist, while for example sit Ironheart will bring 3-4 characters to the job and it would only be fair that he is getting 3-4 times bigger cut of the rewards than any other PC does.

But I've seen players who do mind. We were banning feature to prevent such player complains

If the group wants to remove options, like retainers, then I am fine with it. I just wanted to try something new. To clarify what a retainer is here is the background feature that I used. I asked about using the sidekick option for my retainers went with that for creating them. However retainers are different from sidekicks. Do not use sidekick rules for retainers As I understand from what I have read the original intent of sidekicks is to allow the DM to give the party some extra kick and they can go into combat. As seen above a retainer it not to go into combat to fight, and thus would not be a part of the loot distribution in my mind. Thus a player with retainers might have 4 characters they do not have 4 characters combat effectiveness but still have 4 bodies to protect.

While retainers may have an impact on what a player can do other features have other affects The whole discussion about banning certain race/class for equity is something that is typically decided by the DM before gameplay any. As this game is a group thing with multiple players and DM, DireHalfling has been more open to suggestions, which is nice of him.

However, as I would like to still play this out there could be some rules put into place on retainers creation. The RAW is that retainers use the "Commoner" stat block. It has already been stated by DireHalfling that "They'll still be treated as retainers. They'll act in self-defense and may defend you if you were to be attacked directly, but won't be ordered to attack." Another rule/clarification is that retainers do not level . Thus after 1st level it becomes very risky to bring your retainers along on a full adventure but in the castle or at camp they may have other uses.

This is exactly why I also created my characters' retainers as Sidekicks. I think it adds a lot to fleshing out those entities, as opposed to coming up with it all on your own or putting it on the DM to do so.

As much as I'd like them to be NPC's, I think it'd be a little weird, in a multi-DM game, to show up and be like "here's my NPCs."

No worries. They are extra player controlled characters but not adventure PC. I might bring some along, depending on the quest. I figure having and extra ax, scout, and healer on hand for emergencies right outside the gate to establish a foothold in this place is an acceptable risk. Dungeon crawling . . . probably not.

We should establish if/how retainers level up before we get to that point though. I'm ok with static level 1 but think a reduced rate, a half level, shouldn't be too big a deal.

That sounds fair.

Question. Anyone see a problem if I make my second PC a noble warlock who will sacrifice immediately (before first quest) one of his retainers and take over his scalemail and longsword otherwise not available to warlock lvl 1. That will establish his lawful evil nature (sacrifice a soul to his patron in this new world to get access to patron's powers) and solve my hexblade starting equipment issue.

I will just say that if this happens, be careful where you do it because there will be consequences. A good way to start some drama, though.

Doing that might affect loyalty of the remaining retainers. But if they're in the cult it won't be a big hit, hopefully. 🤔. Still something for the DM to track. If too many retainers disappear the survivors might blab or try to replace you as the cult leader 😁

So do I need to strip my character of background skills and inventory?

I am up for consequences and like drama. Since it looks like I can also decide on retainers races, I'll make one of them Reborn (You have escaped death need no sleep/eat...). my Patron - goddess of death will demand that the delay must be ended. That will make his act of terminating life of already dead creature controversial rather than plain evil.
Besides there is no court, no King to judge out PCs, are there?

Since Gen has experience felling trees and moving them over distances with out the aid of horses let me know how in depth you want me to go in setting up the Spar * cable system between trees to move heavy logs * and what checks you would want her to make to rig up the system if you want to go that far in detail with the logging methods of that time period.

Not really. Theyve been pretty much governing themselves.
No you're fine. Just get inventory as usual through the class section and whatever is on the background.
The intention is for them to have one team fall a tree, have another use 2-man saws to trim them into manageable sizes, and a third team to load them into the empty carts.

Any chance there is a wizard in the keep with floating disk, levitate etc? That could speed things up

Entire logs can be dragged by a team of horses

Understood about the teams a Spar would allow the cut tree to be moved down the slope of a hill to the bottom to be loaded into a cart. Normally the upper branches and limbs would be cleared by a climber then a Team of fallers would move in and fell the tree and buckers would then work the tree into manageable sizes to me moved on the spar to be loaded by chasers and chokers and a whistle punk would be the signal man for the Spar operator to let them know it was safe to move the logs

Assuming standard historical construction the castle/keep is likely at the top of the hill we want to clear. So we likely want the logs to go uphill.
@DireHalfling is this correct? Or is the terrain basically flat?

How about setting a line high on a couple trees angled down towards the castle gate? Start near the gate and work our way down/around.

or maybe just keep the logs here...creating a logging camp/millwork of sorts to gather up the raw materials and process them into boards etc...finished product is moved up as needed?

Sounds like mechanical puzzle for the the Artificers to work out