This really won't work. The water isn't permanent.
The water's impact doesn't go away at the end of the spell, or otherwise characters would dehydrate.
It goes away if it is not consumed. Plants will consume it, but a water table will not form. You are not permanently changing the terrain. If you take away the level 1 cleric watering the tree, the tree will wither and die and the desert will return. It might be argued that if you get enough trees growing, that weather changes might occur, but I'm skeptical whether that would indeed be the case, and I'm not a climatologist.
mcbobbo wrote:
Darkbridger wrote:
There aren't enough clerics (and probably not enough people you could train to be clerics) to clear an entire desert, let alone enough people to man the support systems those clerics would need.
In such a setting, where the end result was a limitless resource, I think you might round up enough people with 10 Wisdom to make it happen. Now, in a common fantasy setting, there's a limit, and this kind of scheme simply isn't an option. But in any 'realistic' setting concept where this avenue exists, SOMEONE would have at least tried it.
Wait, I'm confused, what limitless resource results from stationing millions of clerics in a revitalized forest? Whatever you manage to get out of the new territory will be more than offset by the need to feed and protect all of them.
Hmm, interesting. Conceded, then. Doesn't much matter in the example (swap in cleric, repeat same point), but I'll need to modify my table game just a bit. Thanks!
This really won't work. The water isn't permanent. Even if it stays around long enough to transform soil and allow plant growth, you would have to maintain significant water output forever to prevent the desert from reclaiming the area. You aren't establishing a water table or changing weather patterns. You can't change one acre and then send the clerics on to the next acre to change. Do you really think any religion on Golarion has the resources to keep all those level 1 clerics fed (and watered, heh) in order to KEEP the desert that way? An oasis for their temple? Sure... that's possible. Transforming trackless miles of desert into forest and keeping it that way... no.
Redirecting some rivers or building permanent irrigation would be a far more efficient and economical means of terraforming rather than a 2 gallon water cantrip. There aren't enough clerics (and probably not enough people you could train to be clerics) to clear an entire desert, let alone enough people to man the support systems those clerics would need.
Also, Create Water has Verbal and Somantic components. How many hours can you make the same gesture(s) and say the same word(s) every 6 seconds before your hands start to cramp or your voice grows hoarse?
Spoiler:
Calculations here http://www.virtualsecrets.com/annual-rainfall-water-calculator.html
Daily rainfall needed for 1 tree with a 50' radius root system in an area that does not get any rain: 289.6 gallons
At 5000 gallons/day, a cleric could maintain 17 such trees. Though, I'm not sure if the area of the spell would actually work for this... as long as he moves from tree to tree in sequence, it might work.
There would be 11 such trees per square acre, or 7,102 per square mile. Death Valley is about 4000 square miles, so about 28,411,108 trees. You'd only need about 1,671,241 level 1 clerics to maintain that. Best of luck with that.
The Players Guide states that the caravan is level 1 when the PCs first get it. However, by my calculations, the party will be Level 2 by this point (assuming they do everything in the swamp). Will the caravan immediately level up to 2 in that case?
As an additional product idea, I'd recommend a "counter pack" for each adventure path (or each individual module if necessary). This could include all the necessary NPCs as well as the more common monsters. In fact, a gridded combat map collection and counters product mirroring the adventure paths might be even better idea.
Apologies if this was suggested previously, I didn't read the entire thread.
The current direction this player is heading is toward a mounted druid with a horse companion. She will also be elven, using a long sword and long bow. She wants to focus on spell casting which is why she asked about a Domain. She also asked about the possibility of getting some mounted or archery feats as well, since she apparently wants to spend most of hers on spell casting related things. Also, she did wonder if taking the Animal domain would get her a second companion, as she liked that idea.
I have a Pathfinder player that wants to play a Druid, but isn't interested in the shapechanging. Is allowing a single domain choice (similar to giving up an animal companion) a fair swap?
The spiked chain was one of 3 things in the PFRPG that immediately got noted for house ruling while I was reading the rules.
I agree that there are several Exotic weapons that should be made useful and worth a feat. I also feel the other changes made reduce the cheesiness of the chain, and will be restoring the reach.
The other two are the half-orc and the cleric heavy armor proficiency. I have my own idea for giving back heavy armor that will offer more flexibility to the cleric, but I'll have to try it out with the group to see if it is too much.
Actually, a friend of mine that plays Magic a lot saw more similarity than I did. He equated the selection of powers to "deck building". He pointed out how certain powers could be taken to accomplish certain things, and by "building" a different way, you end up with a different "deck" of powers. <shrug> Didn't really matter to me, as I've never played a CCG, and I don't play 4e enough to really say it's a right or wrong comparison.
In this regards one could say the same of 3.5. In 3.5 you pick your stats and feats in order to accomplish a 'build' in the same way as in Magic you choose cards to make a deck. Both tend to work on some kind of a theme. This is especially true if you ran a 3.5 spell caster - then you picked spells. Picking spells is a lot like picking powers. What all of these things have in common is picking things.
In truth the only time I see any real comparison is maybe if you start by building a really high level character. A magic deck is a set of choices designed to beat other magic decks using the resources provided by whatever pool of cards one has access to depending upon the rule set your designing for (usually standard).
A D&D character is a small subset of powers, feats and stats. It grows as one gains levels and adds more feats, stat mods and powers.
Well, his statement did come up after he built a Level 11 character. But even during the conversation he mentioned a Wizard and how he was selecting spells to use against the days encounters. He views both systems as building a set of resources to overcome certain challenges. It isn't just "choice" in his eyes, it's the collection of resources (deck) used to overcome the opponent (DM/Monsters). Now, his experience also involved the power cards, so maybe that's why he latched on to the similarity. As I said, I don't necessarily agree, I just found it interesting to see it from a CCG players perspective.
I'm still waiting for the D&D/Magic combo that was forecast back when WotC bought TSR. I mean, why else would WotC have bought TSR except to make a D&D/Magic combo.
Isn't that 4th Edition plus Power Cards? (semi-serious)
Pfft, everyone knows D&D became a CCG back in 2nd Ed, with Spellfire.
For a more serious response, though... yeah, there is absolutely no truth to that claim. Power Cards can (and have) been used in previous editions, and people currently can (and do) play 4E without using them. They are simply an alternate means of tracking resources, no different than a spell-list from earlier editions. They are an innovation on an easy way to organize that information in a very intuitive fashion, which is why many people use them.
But there is no actual CCG influence at hand. They don't change how the game is played. Claiming the presence of power cards makes the game like a CCG is like claiming it is an MMO because someone chooses to print out a character sheet on the computer. There is a brief superficial resemblance from a distance, but it doesn't remotely hold up under any genuine comparison.
This. Thank you - I haven't heard it more succinctly said.
Actually, a friend of mine that plays Magic a lot saw more similarity than I did. He equated the selection of powers to "deck building". He pointed out how certain powers could be taken to accomplish certain things, and by "building" a different way, you end up with a different "deck" of powers. <shrug> Didn't really matter to me, as I've never played a CCG, and I don't play 4e enough to really say it's a right or wrong comparison.
I always thought WOTC back during the 3e days were dropping the ball by not using more D&D properties in their other ventures.
A D&D Heroscape and a Castle Ravenloft boardgame are great ways to get people's toes dipped into the D&D pool. Just as importantly, as I understand it, Heroscape is a top seller in Toys 'R Us and other chains and having D&D back in non bookstore big chains is a GOOD thing.
This is a win win for the hobby as I see it (especially given that with the recession, Hasbro actually pointed out in their quarterly statement that their revenue from boardgames has actually gone up)
I was shopping with my kids in Toys R Us the other day for a board game, and they had the D&D 4th edition starter set for sale there. I agree this is great for the hobby. When I was a kid I bought quite a few D&D products from the KB Toy store in the mall near where I lived.
For me it started with the AD&D Coloring Albumn. That lead to the basic set.
One of my players in both of my games has negated the need for referencing the book constantly in the PFRPG game by just doing what you (and he) does 4th edition. He prints out the spell descriptions of his known spells much like how one does with power cards. His need to reference books has been very minimal in both games because of that.
***ding ding ding*** Good advice to stand the test of time.
Heh... I find this "power card" thing amusing. I've been printing "spell books" or "spell cards" of some variation for my players for... well, since I started DMing 1st edition. In fact, I ALWAYS did this for new players if they wanted to play a spellcaster. I created similar "feat cards" and "feat lists" once I started 3.5. If your edition of choice isn't accessible, it probably has more to do with the DM in question than the complexity of the rules themselves. That's not to imply 3.5 is easier than 4e to intro to or play in or vice versa... but the ease of transition is hugely affected by the DM.
I really like these challenging encounters RORL seems full of encounters that push the PCs to the limit. In scanning all the APs after this one It doesnt seem like there are encounters like these
My reasonings for thinking this about the other APs is there have not been a bunch of DMs complaining about an encounter being to difficult.
I rather have the encounter pushed to the limits and have to lie on a die roll or two then to have all the encounters pushovers if I dont cheat for them
In general, I'm not opposed to encounters of this sort either. I've created some myself. However, in a published module I'd expect a nice little note attached for the less experienced DMs that might not realize exactly what they're throwing at their party. I know that's just another detail that steals from the word count, but if the encounter is going to be that difficult, I think it is warranted. In fact, I wouldn't be opposed to seeing a Standard and Difficult tactics section next to each other, but that's a lot of space to dedicate to something of that sort.
The thing I'm actually most eager to see happen is folks seeing the Council of Thieves AP and realizing that it's NOT a super evil-all-the-time, mustache-twirling place. Cheliax's leaders are diabolists, and the official state religion is Asmodeus, and that means that the government is indeed evil, but the majority of its civilians are not.
We're already used to that... Korvosa was like this to some degree. I haven't started CotCT yet, but I have a group of L/Gs and L/Ns lined up (including a Paladin) who want to see the city improved and the government changed. Should prove all kinds of fun in that AP.
I think all these histories of easy victories over Xanesha (*cough, *cough, Pusssy GMs, cough*) clearly indicates the urgent need to buff her, as she is clearly not up to par.
I know you're joking, however...
My group re-ran this fight the following week so I could show them how bad it could have been. They went in fully buffed (Cleric of Gorum that was enlarged, bull's strengthed, etc). They knew silence would be in effect and lead with a detect to find and remove it. Even with all the preparation, the party was dead in about 6 rounds. I have no doubt, if you play her ruthlessly, you will kill some or all of your players. I have no problem with characters dieing in sessions as a result of unlucky dice rolls or bad decisions. But having characters die in a situation that seems harshly stacked against them rarely leads to a happy gaming group. Yes, there are people that thrive on this sort of thing, but they go in knowing it and asking for it and shouldn't be surprised when they get pushed beyond their means... but they're a minority of the groups out there I think.
Before climbing to the roof they heal themselves full with a magic wand and cast every available buff.. they suspect that the boss is at the top of the tower.
They climb up the scaffolding and see the major image demon Xanesha casted as a diversion, the cleric opens with a targeted dispel magic that only dispels the image.
Xanesha attacks the cleric with her petrifying gaze. A certain death if it hits, but the cleric makes the save, then rushes her and attacks rolling a 32, his confidence wavers when I tell him "you miss". Then the paladin strikes her and does only one hit for a decent damage but she full attacks him and drops 3/4 of his Hp. She also finds herself on a zone of silence, but the sorceress keeps a safe distance
The sorcerer casts a maximized magic missile that bounces on her Shield and she gets an Empowered Scorching ray as an answer. She drops the silence spell as the main caster is staying away anyway.
They are really scared by this time but they press on. The paladin presses on swift heals himself (the Pathfinder paladin can take insane amounts of damage) and recieves a very hard full attack that could have dropped him to negatives, also the sorceress gets a quickened magic missile salvo.
The sorceress maximized scorching ray bounces against SR but the cleric lucks out with a targeted dispell and debuffs the poor lamia.
A much-easier-to-hit Xanesha is victim of a couple of sneaks attacks by the rogue and slashes by the cleric. The paladin smites her for a lot of damage and even the sorceress gets lucky with an empowered ray of enfeeblement dropping like 10 STR points.
The tide is turned so Xanesha turns to flying and exchanges a couple of ranged attacks with the party before fleeing.
Neither side knew that the paladin had only 5Hp left, the Sorceress around 10Hp and Xanesha left alive only because the dispel magic didn't dispel her sihedron medallion false life.
CONCLUSION> I played a wholly buffed Xanesha, I used her...
It's been a while since I've run this fight, but...
As I recall, the Silence effect covered almost the entire top of the tower and was placed near the entrance. How did the cleric get off a Dispel at the beginning? I'm not sure why Xanesha would drop the silence spell when it was still keeping two casters (cleric and paladin) from doing their thing.
Thanks for all of the suggestions. Here are some responses in case anyone is interested...
There is not a Bard in the party. The party is the bardish Rogue, an Elven Cleric of Pharasma who wants to dual wield daggers, a Fighter type who I haven't gotten any details on yet, and lastly (and I'm considering bludgeoning this player) a Varisian Sorcerer/Fortune Teller that wants to replace all material spell components with cards and use the name 'Gambit'. :(
Making the bard abilities into rogue talents doesn't seem like it would cost the Rogue enough... I like the idea of penalizing something better. Sure, he's giving up other talents, but I'm not sure it's an equal trade... I'd have to review the talents again. Also, he kind of wants the knowledge stuff as part of his background, which the talents don't fit very well since they come in later.
I've seen many Rogues centered around Dex that were more concerned with damage output than skills. And as KaeYoss pointed out, you don't need to focus on Int to be a decent Rogue, it all depends on the concept the player is working on.
The player won't need to make this decision until after the PFRPG is out. Everyone will be reviewing the new, finalized rules before any final character decisions are made.
4) Reduce Skill Ranks Per Level to 6 + Int Modifier.
This one seems the worst option, since he'll probably want skill point to put into knowledge skills.
Except Bardic Knowledge gives him a free skill point every level as well. Not to mention +(level/2) to every Knowledge skill. I think that's an extremely fair trade.
All of the original poster's suggestions sound fair to me. Maybe you could also offer to swap Evasion for Bardic Knowledge (although I doubt anyone would make that trade; evasion is nice!).
The bardic Knowledge did not give a free skill point every level like it did in beta when they previewed the bard.
I personally would tend to say don't swap them out, if he wants bardic lore let him play a bard. Trust me working with players to customize the classes can lead to inbalnces you do not forsee coming. For example if you left the rogue at 8 +int and lowered yoru sneak attack you would effectively make the rogue better at the bards knowledge then the bard. You would then have to ask if evasion and talents are worth as much as bardic music and bardic magic.
His goal is to play an intelligent explorer type. The Bard doesn't suit his tastes at all as he doesn't care for the entertainer angle, even with a simple Oratory type of thing. He doesn't want to inspire the party, he wants to have certain thief skills and, in particular, have lots of knowledge. I've never been completely happy with the "this feature belongs only to this class" type of thing. There are lots of things that can be combined to make some really entertaining characters. These are veteran players that have plenty of experience with the standard classes. Customization is where they like to explore from time to time. We've had imbalanced stuff before on occassion and we correct it or house rule it when we do. Now, if he tried to grab a level of Cleric and add Knowledge Devotion, I might think he's being abusive, but I doubt that's the case here. (To the other poster that mentioned it, I have Unearthed Arcana and it is what spawned this whole option)
I'm not sure how he will be better at Bardic Knowledge than the Bard. Maybe I need to review the Beta material again... he may have more skills, but his knowledge checks will get the same bonus, AND... if he focuses on Intelligence, his thief side will suffer somewhat from a lower Dexterity. It is very much a trade off to get a middle ground between the two classes.
Evasion was not listed as an option because the player already wanted to keep that. :) The Talents and Dodge options aren't high on his list either. He's torn between the sneak attack damage and the skill point trade at the moment. I'm glad none of the options seem out of whack though. I was worried I might be reducing the sneak attack damage too much.
I've had a request from a player for a Pathfinder RPG game. He'd like to create a Rogue with the Bardic Knowledge Feature. I offered the following swap options for him to choose one from and would like opinions on them. If anyone has alternative suggestions, I'd like to see them as well.
1) Remove half the Sneak Attack progression (skipping, +2d6, +4d6, etc) with a max of +5d6 at 19th.
2) Remove Uncanny Dodge and Improved Uncanny Dodge.
3) Remove some of the Rogue Talent gains (gain them every 3 levels starting at 3rd level).
4) Reduce Skill Ranks Per Level to 6 + Int Modifier.
I mean, oh dear. Good job I didn't get my original, tougher ending into this adventure then...
Good to hear you're having fun.
Any ideas on how I can avoid the TPK running this fight as written (without cheating)? I love Rich Pett, Nick Logue, Steve Greer and Greg V; but guys, this end fight is seriously broken (and not in favor of the PCs. I'd love to hear a rigorous defense of the difficulty of this end fight, and perhaps some ideas on how an intrepid party could defeat it as written.
I posted about this fight many months ago just after I ran it. If you run Xanesha as the tactics say, there's very little a party can do to beat her. My group beat her due to two reasons; First, I changed her tactics, made her grossly overconfident and she 'toyed' with the party giving them time to try things. Secondly, a very lucky roll with dispel magic removed her fly spell while she was zipping around outside the tower.
But as written and sans extremely lucky rolls, she would simply spear an entire party to death in a few rounds.
I didn't have any major trouble with the timeline.
** spoiler omitted **
Well, I can add rounds where movement distances don't add up, but it makes the raid longer and more likely that a party can intervene in more places. I'm still skeptical that my group will be able to thwart the raid, and as you point out, that's intended.
However...
Spoiler:
Given past reactions from my group I expect the raid to semi-fail, simply because, as soon as the leader orders the retreat, he is alone AND giving away his position with 7+ rounds of time required for him to flee Sandpoint.
I am failing to see the problem here, especially in light of Pathfinder RPG basically continuing the 3.5 ruleset so we aren't losing "v3.5".
Perhaps it's a minor point, but... was there any company that "took up the torch", as it were, for 1st or 2nd edition when those systems were replaced? I don't seem to recall any, but I won't claim my memory is perfect. Granted, there was no license back then to allow a 3PP to pickup where an old system left off, but I don't really remember any candidates. The creation of Paizo and the Pathfinder RPG is fairly unique. It's also probably due, in very large part, to Wizards themselves. Who would have thought back when the OGL was created, that they were setting the seeds of schism within their own system?
I did read that thread previously... I've already mapped out a timeline document of my own. It doesn't answer my primary concern with the timeline though. It's too short for things to occur in the distances given.
The previously mentioned binder system for things like monsters and spells is a tempting idea. I would be concerned about the quality of them, even though the utility would be really great.
Quote:
Would you be interested in subscribing to such a line, provided the books cost somewhere around $35 a pop?
I don't subscribe because I like to support my local store. They are great people that do a lot to drive the hobby. If I could afford to do both, I would, but I can't... and yes, I realize a subscription would be cheaper.
Quote:
What titles/ideas would you like to see us explore?
Complete style books, including racial books, especially Human racial books that deal with setting specific subraces. I really enjoyed the alternate class feature type stuff that showed up in PHBII and Unearthed Arcana. I'd love to see setting specific things in that vein also.
Quote:
We're all worried about rules bloat. What is your opinion of new classes and races?
Even though they often cause problems, I'd still like to see new classes and races. More options keeps things from feeling stale for some players.
Quote:
Are you as tired of prestige classes as I am?
Not really, though I would like to see more setting specific things along with general ones.
I'm usually a DM. In 4e I am a player. The DM is new to DMing. I am technically signed up to play all 9 modules, the 3 heroic, paragon and epics released by WotC. We are 1 session into the second heroic module at this point. Keep on the Shadowfell was bad. It didn't help that rules were changing via errata while we were playing it. It was even worse that some of the rules in the module itself didn't match what was found in the PHB. Most of the 4e rulebooks we have were obtained in trade... the modules represent most of what we've spent in actual money.
1/3 of our gaming time goes toward 4e currently, though it sometimes dips to 1/4. The rest is spent on Pathfinder APs in 3.5.
The party I DM'd for had quite a bit of trouble at first. In a fit of rage, the Cleric of Gorum, went for a grapple and succeeded... it was all over after that.
The group did this fight before heading to Thistletop, and it kind of set the stage for all of the adventure path we've played since then. They originally didn't take things very seriously when encountering the Goblins, but Erylium sobered them, and they're now a little more jumpy about most every fight.
Derek - I was just telling my kids the other day what a great supers game the 4E system would make ...
Being a player of City of Heroes, I also immediately picked up on this. Once I mentioned it, my friend who is running our current 4E game started begging me to do a CoH conversion to 4E so he can run a Hero game. I'm not much on supers games in general... I'm too attached to levelling as a player, and most supers games aren't set up like that. But who knows, I might convert it for him if I dedicate enough free time to it.
Hahahah! This is EXACTLY the game I was thinking about. The levelling mechanic in CoH could easily be converted to 4E. The only problem I really foresee is being able to expand the powers enough to last 30 levels.
Actually, it's not that hard... I already looked at that part of it. Of course, we're talking about a straight port, not adding significant stuff to the CoH system. Since CoH is a 50 level game, condensing those down to 30 for 4E actually makes the powers show up pretty frequently. The selection may not quite be the same as a typical 4E D&D character, but to be honest, paring down the powers might be a good thing and make for a faster playing game, which I think would be pretty important for 4E CoH. On the down side, tracking all the secondary effects of the powers (like the accuracy debuff of darkness powers) will be a royal pain.
The other thing that immediately jumped out was the recharge mechanism that already exists for Monsters in 4E is perfect for the player side of a CoH port as well. It would require removing (to some degree) the at-will/encounter/daily designation, but given how long some recharge times are in CoH, I don't think it will be too problematic. And instead of power sources (martial, arcane, etc) you use Origins (mutant, tech, magic, etc). This opens up the possibility of making Origins more useful than they are in the online game, but we haven't delved into that at all.
Derek - I was just telling my kids the other day what a great supers game the 4E system would make ...
Being a player of City of Heroes, I also immediately picked up on this. Once I mentioned it, my friend who is running our current 4E game started begging me to do a CoH conversion to 4E so he can run a Hero game. I'm not much on supers games in general... I'm too attached to levelling as a player, and most supers games aren't set up like that. But who knows, I might convert it for him if I dedicate enough free time to it.
I'm sure it works very nicely for you and your particular group of players, but games set up like that seem to be going the way of the dinosaur. Not only is it difficult to appeal to anyone beyond those specifically looking for a simulationist take on role-playing with that sort of game, in my experience it creates far more potential problems than it solves.
While I agree that there should be consequences to heading off in search of the ancient red dragon at level 3, that's not the same as justifying a style of gameplay where "unanticipated character death", as you put it, is something to be expected. If my players take an innocent wrong turn somewhere, it would be insanely punitive of me to essentially force them to reroll their party just because I imagined a dragon living in that cave they accidentally stumbled into.
I've been lurking in these discussions for quite some time. I'm an older D&Der, having started out with the first Basic Set and soon after that, original AD&D. I am usually a DM, but I've been playing 4E as a player for several months. I really am trying to give it a fair shot... but it's just not living up to successor status. But, I also wasn't a fan of the original 3E when it came out... it wasn't until 3.5 that I was fully pulled out of my 2E games I was running. That was thanks, almost single handedly to Paizo's products. But I digress...
I couldn't disagree more with the above sentiment. First, I don't think this style of game is going anywhere as long as Pathfinder and 3.5 sytle product endures. If 4E is indeed successful with the younger generation, then that game style might become (if it isn't already) a minority... but it's certainly not disappearing. It would indeed be a cruel DM that intentionally puts a red dragon in an easily discovered area for a 3rd level party, depending on what purpose that dragon is supposed to play. There are, even in 4E, other ways to deal with a dragon... the DM might actually intend for the player to talk to it... yeah, I know... it's a foreign concept now in 4E as far as I can tell... but it's still a possibility. However...
By removing the threat of accidental death, you are removing one of the better sources of roleplaying, humor and over all enjoyment from a role playing game. Now, I think 4E is still very deadly in some respects, but in others, not so much. I don't think the original post that this was responding to implied that "unanticpated character death" was to be FREQUENTLY or even REGULARLY expected. Sure, low HP characters have a tough time at the low levels, but if bad luck or failed save deaths are overly frequent, no one is going to like that, including the DM. But, to me, that doesn't mean at ALL that this aspect should have been removed from the game.
Like many others, this is only one thing that has changed in 4E that I perceive as a loss. There are numerous others. The feel of 4E overall, to me, is lacking. I won't be buying any more 4E product beyond what I already have. However, I do hope it draws in a younger audience, because that, more than anything else, is what will drive the success of the game. The only gamers I see picking up 4E stuff in my local game store are younger gamers, and I consider that a good sign. They don't have to grow up with my D&D to keep the hobby healthy.
On topic, I agree with some of the preceptions related to the tone of the article. Could it (and other 4E marketing) have been done better? Absolutely. Does it need to be? That's debatable, and relative purely to how much they want to cater to the older audience. There are some insightful (and to me disappointing) bits in there about how things were developed.
Add me to the list of people disappointed by the Winter Council. There's an awful lot of build up of these elves leading up to this module. To find a group of elves besieged by, as described above, mid-level demons, and paralyzed by fear and/or doubt is, to say the least, really disappointing. This group, as was pointed out, has been around for 10,000 years, and they're apparently completely undone by the death of their leader and drowification of another member. Are they really that weak and/or flawed... not just one of them, but ALL of them? The final test to which they will apparently succumb is a siege? This is the same group that can order mercenaries and assassins around on a continent wide basis, keep the elven nobility almost entirely under thumb, and keep the existence of the drow hidden from the entire world, and yet they can't summon the aid to break a siege on their barely secret location? Ignoble end indeed. If I were a player in my group, I'd be tempted to kill them all out of disgust. Such weak willed and easily cowed people should not wield the power they have.
Also, the module itself is very unclear on a variety of things that I know will come up when this is run. I haven't gotten or read #18 yet, so perhaps some of this is answered there. The party is apparently expected to loot the tower at some point, but I'm not sure how. If they follow the expected path (and my group likely will) they'll befriend the guard captain and quickly organize a meeting. Following the fight and assuming it goes mostly as described, the party will be left with what? A broken council? A three person council? Three elves that should be taken back to the queen in chains? (the party I will be running for is likely to feel this way.) With three remaining members I doubt that the party will be given free reign over the entire tower. What if a fight breaks out with the remaining members? If the PCs befriend the captain, it mentions he'll send a couple of guards to accompany them, but it doesn't mention where the guards will or won't allow the party to go. The module says that the siege breaks with the death of the leader, but I find that hard to believe... surely Treerazer will quickly move to reinforce the position, particularly if the demons do any significant damage to the structure in the brief time it is defenseless.
Sure, all of this can be handled by an adequate DM, but in such a politically motivated module, I guess I expected a little more detail on the fallout from the end of the Council. Hopefully it is expanded on in #18.
You don't have to spear ppl all the time, if your baddie is having too easy a time of it, sunder a weapon or shield, go for a grapple on the fighter, trip somebody... it may honk a player off that you smash their +1 Sword but at least it was not their face. Then, after a few good sunders (maybe giving the party an AoO to remove an image or two), give somebody who can take it a good stab to put the fear in them, when it gets to the point where you think that the monster and the party and go at it without TPK (Maybe just 1-2pk), let loose. Just because you can stab ppl and the monster likes to mix it up in melee does not mean hasted baddie TPK... unless you want it to.
No, but Xanesha's behaviour as described in the adventure is, essentially; "Wipe the floor with those PCs!"
My players don't know when I've subbed in a weaker protagonist but they can feel when I'm pulling punches.
I fully expected this to be a TPK for the group I am running for. They were all 7th level, a Dwarven Bard, Human Cleric of Gorum, Half-Orc Rogue, and a Human Soul Blade variation that is more Warrior like than the original. After petrifying the Rogue on the first round, Xanesha used a full attack action that left the warrior with single digit HPs. While "wipe the floor" may have been the described behavior, I modified it a bit... made her overly arrogant and self absorbed. Played outright ruthlessly, she would have killed the entire party in a few more rounds with her melee attacks alone.
Instead I had her cast many low level spells from melee range daring the party to hit her and peppering them with damage from Silent Spell enchanced magic missiles and such. Eventually I had her fly out of the tower and start using spells from range while she laughed and taunted the party. They missed obvious hints about the Silenced area, and never got a detect magic off to find the source. This neutered the Cleric somewhat, as he is fond of Inflict spells, which of course would have worked wonderfully against Xanesha's lower touch AC. He did have a damage shield spell going when he arrived that allowed no save and no SR and Xanesha took minor hits from it each round she was in melee range, but never failed a Concentration check. Both he and the Bard retreated down far enough to escape the Silence effect. The Cleric piled on a few more buffs to push his Strength up to 26 or so and then the Bard turned the whole fight around. A targeted Dispel Magic removed only a single buff... Fly. Xanesha plummeted to the ground and took 60some odd points of damage.
As the Cleric returned to the roof and the Bard cowered in the lower level readying his crossbow, the Warrior set a smokestick up to obscure the entrance. Xanesha re-cast Fly and came back angrier than ever after a couple of heals and ended up smack in the middle of the smoke cloud trying to re-enter the tower thanks to the Clerics chosen position. Most of her lower level spells were gone by this point, and I was debating flying her back out to Dimension Door into the tower to retrieve her possessions (she was near flee threshold from the fall) or to try a full attack action against the Cleric through the miss chance of the smoke concealment. But all that debate ended when the Cleric finally rolled a natural 20 (the only weapon hit in the entire encounter) through the miss chance. The damage from his Magebane Greatsword coupled with 26 Strength was enough to finish her off.
In retrospect, from a DMs perspective, this is a very badly designed encounter for this level. Played as described, this encounter would eliminate a normal party in 5-6 rounds just from melee attacks... less if the petrification goes off at the correct place and the victim is pushed from the tower. The party I ran for moved entirely inside the top room on one round, leaving Xanesha no target to petrify near the edge. There's no way the CR on Xanesha makes ANY sense, and it must have been a ruthless, bloodthirsty person behind the creation of this. :) I have no problem with overpowering encounters... but when present, they should be presented with accompanying text indicating what their purpose is and how they should be handled. I assume Xanesha is a mistake in this regard, as the Magga in the next module includes such detail. Making her this powerful and expecting her to flee and show up in Hook Mountain would have made far more sense.
In short, there were only 3 reasons this party survived: A lucky Dispel Magic roll on the only buff that could hurt Xanesha, a non-resitable ongoing damage spell (ie, a little cheesy and probably overpowered... Ring of Blades) from the Magic Compendium that was in place before the Silence was encountered, and (most importantly) my willingness to portray Xanesha as a little more arrogant and reckless than she is probably supposed to be.
I'm not sure I understand the timeline for the raid. Are these events listed in combat rounds... meaning the entire raid lasts only 2 minutes and 30 seconds? The party that I am currently DMing for is light on ranged attackers, and their only arcane spellcaster is a Bard. They're going to be hard pressed just to react to and travel to the occurances listed in the time allowed, and they'll probably feel completely overwhelmed by round 16. How the dragon moves that far across Sandpoint that quickly is beyond me. He goes from eating people by the Hagfish to setting another fire 300' away in 1 round? Assuming the characters take a short cut through the cemetary, it's 450'+ from the Northgate to Tanner's Bridge, which is 4 rounds assuming you run, or nearly double that for anyone in heavy armor. From there, they'll more than likely start splitting up as events continue to occur. Given past group dynamics, I'm skeptical that the group will respond well here, and I'm not sure how to handle it.
Also, Teraktinus is listed with a speed of 40', but is wearing Hide armor, which should reduce his speed to 30'. Even at a run, it's 7 rounds or so for him to exit Sandpoint after sounding the retreat, since it's about 750' back to Mill Pond. This is probably the best opportunity to tackle him, since he will be alone and he calls out his position by sounding the horn. Does it do him any good to call for aid after sounding the retreat? I'm not sure I would label it a successful raid if Teraktinus is isolated and killed/captured while his army retreats.
Did anyone else that's already run this do anything to decompress the timeline a little? Or am I just being too rigid in my reading of it?
What makes that "Super Achiever" category doubly misleading is the fact that it has an upper limit... 3,600. The adventure states 5,000 will die with no intervention. This seems pretty low to me, but whatever. Anyhow, given that 3,600 is listed, it seems to imply that 1,400 can not be saved. Or, perhaps that sidebar had actual numbers attached at some point that brought the total to 3,600, but they were left out in the final print? If you add in all the "patients" in Part Five, you can exceed 2,800... but not all of them are actually sick, and they aren't listed under Bodycount tags, but in the AdHoc XP sections.
This may also be the reason that 2nd Edition AD&D has gotten a reputation for "the edition with the best characters". Unlike 3rdEdition's rapid Experience Level progressions, the 2nd Edition rules let players hold onto a character for years, and the game "led by example" with Dragonlance, showing how a campaign and its PC's could be molded together.
This was true for me and my group. We briefly tried 3.0, and I quickly discarded because of numerous problems. We switched back to 2e and over the course of about 15 months, the players had characters that got to 8th-9th level. I finally decided to run 3.5 once I picked up the first RotRL module. At our current rate of play on the Pathfinder stuff (which is a little less frequent that we used to play) the characters will be level 8th-9th in about 3 or 4 months.
There's good and bad there. The players actually kind of like knowing they'll get a reasonable chance to run more than one character. They may not be as attached to their 3.5 characters, but they say they are having just as much fun. They like the "speed" of 3.5 since we don't have as much gaming time as we used to. Maybe we've all just gotten old and lazy... I am finding it refreshing to not have to do as much work on a campaign as I used to, though I don't know how long that will last before the need to create my own stuff surfaces again.
The group I am DMing for has not suffered a death yet. However, the Cleric of Gorum is undoing most of the interesting bits of the story. They faced the Quasit early on, and she shattered his precious Greatsword, which lead to him eventually grappling her and squeezing the life out of her. :) At Thistletop, the captured goblins gave them lots of trouble due to frequent misses... the Cleric was reduced to single digit health before recovering and turning the tide. The Bunyip feared everyone in the group but him, and he killed it after several rounds of combat with a critical after the creature had reduced him to 5 hp. Ripnugget charged the warrior of the group and nearly killed her outright, but countered with a very strong attack. The Cleric then stepped up and crit'd the warchief, killing him instantly... poor bugger never got a chance to beg for his life. :( On the first level, the Cleric charged Bruthazmus and defeated him in two rounds. Then strangely, the group decided to hold back against Lyrie, giving her time to work through her entire spell list. Finally, on one round, the Rogue hit strong with a heavy crossbow and the Cleric finished her with a heavy attack. Orik reduced the Cleric to 1 hp before surrendering himself after another strong Greatsword attack.
Having a Greatsword wielder at this level has lead to combats that resolve as soon as the party can string together a couple of hits, and things usually end swiftly and brutally. When the party misses too much, the Cleric ends up flirting with defeat and death. They captured Tsuto earlier with non-lethal attacks, but he hung himself in jail. They let Orik go without any interrogation though. Every other opponent is dead so far. :/ I'm hoping Nualia gives them a tougher time, but I'm worried Malfeshnekor may have the "greatsword effect" on the party. If they survive that, Skinsaw should prove interesting as the Cleric lacks the ability to turn OR rebuke undead thanks to a little variant he took at the beginning.
Was I the only one that did not get the Catcombs of Wrath in my Map Folio? Also the Seven's Sawmill and The Shadow Clock? Was this on purpose? There might be other missing, but I have not looked thoroughly.
My copy is also missing these maps. Are they supposed to be included?
Well, since it was my post in another thread that spawned the original quote, I'll add my thoughts here.
No two players are the same, but I've rarely encountered one that enjoyed playing "through" a story as opposed to feeling like they were the story. No writer or designer can account for all the possible actions of a party, nor do I expect them to. However, there are usually some rather obvious things that can be dealt with in a module. There's even an example in #7...
Spoiler:
It gives details about what happens to Trinia based on a few possible outcomes. A little more detail on options of hiding Trinia would have been nice, but at least it's mentioned.
That example is fairly close to what I would like to see as an acceptable level of "looseness" in a module. The story still progresses, but there are different routes at least touched on briefly. Other parts of the module lack this approach, which can make it seem railroady without DM intervention.
Just like players, no two DMs are alike. Some are creative and flexible and can handle modifying stuff either in advance or even, at times, on the fly. Others aren't very good at that and rely heavily on the material at hand. I'm sure some would argue that these are the "bad" DMs, but they might just be new and/or inexperienced. Anything a module does to provide looseness and touch on the various options goes a long way to helping those DMs, and even makes the lives of experienced DMs easier. If many people are buying these products as novels, then I guess I can't argue with the story approach, but I'd still prefer to see them "loosened". I'm not really looking for a sandbox when I pick up a module, though I do expect it in other product types.
Lastly, the feedback provided by the writers and designers here is very much appreciated and one of the best instances of customer service I've seen anywhere. I am enjoying the Pathfinder products immensely, and like a previous poster, they are almost solely responsible for getting me back into D&D and they're even threatening to make 3.5 enjoyable for me, which is saying a lot considering the number of years I accumulated under 2nd edition.
It wouldn't have to be a half a year... I'd be interested enough in a single module that carried from 17th to 20th, but again, there might not be enough interest in a single adventure to make it worthwhile.
A single 32-page module isn't big enough to handle what I've got planned, alas. Although a big 256 page hardcover crazy-deluxe module would do the trick! (Such a beast would also probably cost like 50 bucks or something...)
That price tag doesn't bother me, depending on the content. But I'm sure the lower price points are better sales-wise. Either way, I'd look forward to it. The real question from players is "are these guys retired at 17th then". If the follow-up is based on the Pathfinder RPG and not 3.5 as the RotRL path is, then they probably will be.
Eventually, yes. Sandpoint will appear again in Pathfinder. Both of the current sequel adventure paths I have in mind actually start in Sandpoint at this time, in fact. But again... at the very least, we're at least 18 months away from anything crazy like a sequel Adventure Path...
Are there plans to carry the first two paths up to level 20 with another module or two? Is that what you are referring to above or would it be another new path?
One plan is to take up where Runelords ends, which would probably be an adventure path that goes from 17th level to whatever... maybe 25th or 30th. I'm not sure that one will ever be written, though, since the number of people who want epic level stuff is, I strongly suspect, not enough to justify taking up Pathfinder for half a year.
One plan is to start in Sandpoint after Runelords is over, but have new characters starting at 1st level. In this adventure, things would start in Sandpoint but would pretty quickly move far, far away.
Both plans are still pretty much in the "vague idea in James's head" stage, along with a half dozen or so other Adventure Path ideas.
It wouldn't have to be a half a year... I'd be interested enough in a single module that carried from 17th to 20th, but again, there might not be enough interest in a single adventure to make it worthwhile.
I would think things like Queen Ileosa would be the least of your problems. I'm still trying to figure out how to prevent them from going down the side tunnels that are not in the scope of the adventure in the Ossuary.
Actually, those types of things I can handle, and I've often had to over the years. Those types of things are smaller scope. Most of Korvosa is riddled with vaults and tunnels afterall. Dealing with the Queen is dealing with a major plot element, a key villain, and a vital first stage story hook all at once. It's a pretty important part of setting up the entire AP really... well, depending on the players, it is.
Eventually, yes. Sandpoint will appear again in Pathfinder. Both of the current sequel adventure paths I have in mind actually start in Sandpoint at this time, in fact. But again... at the very least, we're at least 18 months away from anything crazy like a sequel Adventure Path...
Are there plans to carry the first two paths up to level 20 with another module or two? Is that what you are referring to above or would it be another new path?
You know your players better than I do. (I don't even know all their names!) And you know what works for them and what doesn't. Take the information we give you and roll with it as you think would work best for your particular group. If one single sentence strikes you as ridiculous, take a Sharpie and blot it out.
Hmm, I hate marring a book... are the .pdfs editable? I assume not, but worth a shot. Maybe just some pieces of sticky notes or something is good enough. :)
We've given you a LOT of material between the Guide to Korvosa, the Player's Guide, and Pathfinder itself to draw upon if the PCs don't play nice with the adventure's plot, in any case. Of course... if you have players who HATE being railroaded almost as much as they HATE the mere concept that they MIGHT be railroaded... you probably shouldn't be running pre-made adventures for them anyway. You should instead have a big fat campaign setting and a big mountain of adventure hooks, maps, and stat blocks for anything you might need. And then just turn them...
Indeed, there is a LOT of stuff to work with so far, and it's good stuff too. The players know this is a pre-made. They just dislike it when I have to needle them back on track in a way that seems counter to what their characters would do. I no longer have the time to develop my own campaign, though I might get pressed to do that once the Pathfinder RPG is out. From the DMs perspective, I WOULD like them to meet the Queen early, because I can completely see how that's going to set things up for later. But one of the players has already asked about the Guide to Korvosa, and I'm still not sure I want them to read some parts of it yet.
I actually like that aspect of this campaign. In RotRL, for example, Karzoug is introduced at the end of #4, and there isnt much time to grow to hate him before the big battle. GIving the players someone to hate nearly from the get-go might make an interesting change.
That's exactly the point. We want players to pretty much know who the main bad girl is in this campaign as early as possible, but we also want to give them the opportunity to discover who she is during the course of play.
As I mentioned in the thread about the Guide to Korvosa, the problem I am expecting to have is convincing a party of do-gooders to want to help the Queen. I'm thinking they'll be so suspicious, so early, that they may decide to dispose of the brooch instead of returning it. And I'm skeptical they would answer a general call for the help of adventurers from the Queen. I've got time to work something out, but my players are fairly sharp, and I need something that won't make them feel like they're being railroaded into the plot.
Is the sidebar about the Queen supposed to be in the non-Secret section? I'm very leery of letting my players read that before I run the AP... it seems to cover a few things that would not be public knowledge and I know it will cause at least one of my players to be very suspicious of her almost immediately when the riots start.
Nope; that Queen Ileosa kinda hates Korvosa and is a bitter and petty woman is more or less public knowledge. If the PCs are suspicious of her, they should be. The first time they meet her, the encounter's designed to be very non-confrontational so that things don't come to blows, but the PCs being suspicious that she's involved in the problems facing Korvosa should be fine. After all... much of Korvosa itself comes to the same conclusion—that's part of the reason so much anarchy hits when the king dies in the first place!
AP Spoiler to follow:
** spoiler omitted **
Knowing that she's bitter and petty, doesn't view Korvosa in a good light, or even that she married solely for power isn't my problem. It's this line:
"While many of the noble houses continue to publicly support her, the queen knows through her spies that none of them truly want her in power."
Now, if that's all public information, then there are a few things wrong here. Why did the Queen need spies to find this out? Is she (and by extension her spies) SO inept, that they had to use subterfuge to gain what appears to be common knowledge? Are the noble houses in question (those that offering public support at least) that inept at hiding their true intentions and motivations from the general public? This single sentence seems to offer a ridiculous amount of insight into what should be background, hidden power plays going on among the nobles of Korvosa.
Given the current writeups of the characters being submitted for this series, I'm faced with either not letting them read this (at least the sentence mentioned) or trying to find a darn good way of convincing them to return the brooch or even work directly with the Queen. I'm tempted to have Cressida contact them directly rather than go through the Queen. These are all L/G or L/N characters whose players very likely will not want to get involved with the Queen given the decidely infernal leanings of the royalty and most of the nobility. Sure, they'll definitely be interested in helping stabilize the city... but doing so in a manner which reflects at all well on the new Queen will probably put a significant damper on the whole thing. There are angles that can be used, such as this being an opportunity to influence the Queen and/or nobility away from those infernal leanings... but that's a tenuous tack to take given her description in this product.
I'm glad we're only halfway through Rise of the Runelords... I've got plenty of time to work on this and decide how best to approach the first Korvosa adventure, and what information I need to filter out from this product.
I'm sorry if any of that comes off as overly rantish. I really like the first Korvosa adventure and the city itself is a very well done setting, and I'm looking forward to making use of both, even if I have to rework a couple of things.
We didn't use pre-gens for the APs, but one of my players ended up with a Paladin of Iomedae. I ended up modifying the deity for him though... he really wanted a deity with Protection in it, and he thought Torag sounded too Dwarven. So, I removed Sun (not sure why Iomedae needs both Sun and Glory) and added Protection. The player reasoned that protecting the lower classes was part of the duty of the L/G nobility... which made enough sense to me. <shrug> I'll be glad to see all of the deities get some attention, even if they don't get full write ups right away. It's tough dealing with this type of thing when some of them have nothing more than a single line in a chart.
Posts
