Fletch's page

3.5 is more like the novels.

Excellent analogy. I got the exact same feel of "3.5 as novel/4e as film" and tried to explain that to my players. That's actually how the whole "4e as MMO" discussion got started because a couple players had decided a while back that it was an MMO model and I couldn't convince them otherwise.

If anything, though, this really does encompass my biggest beef with 4e. Honestly, I prefer the "novel" approach to the "film" approach because I *like* all those aspects of the character, setting and story which don't directly apply to the Plot.

A good & patient DM (if he/she thinks it is desirable) is still going to be able to get something more than just killing things out of players; I cannot deny that. I'm just wondering what situation such a DM may have to work with at the start?

I still think 4e gives some awesome tools to help roleplay your combat encounters. I know nothing about the social encounters someone described earlier (no books here either) but I consider the "powers" themselves to be almost like cue cards to the player or DM to help them describe the scene as it's happening.

Some players (mine, fer instance), are perfectly content to announce that they're using such and such power to move the goblin three squares that-a-way. However, it's not much of a stretch to take the time to explain the actions that are actually going into this. You don't even have to make up a scenario, the game has already told you that the goblin is being moved 15', all you have to do is say how it happens.

When the kobold warriors "marked" the warlord, I took the time to describe how the creature licked the blood off his sword and eyed the warlord hungrily for more. When the warlord used a maneuver to swap places with the shaman, he took advantage of a really high damage roll to describe how he impaled the kobold with his spear and physically lifted him up and hoisted him over his head.

No doubt you could do the same stuff in any previous edition of D&D, but it's actually easier in 4e because you've got those cue cards giving you the bare bones of your actions.

I don't see where this expectation would have come from.

Apparently it comes from people who haven't been reading every scrap of data about 4th and are just going off of the initial announcements. My players hears "4e is like an MMO" and they said "hey, I know how to play MMOs." and that's what they came in to do.

All I'm trying to say is that those of us who are promoting 4e as being favorable to RP need to be aware of potential (and unexpected) resistance from some players who may just be assuming their isn't roleplay involved.

You don't have to defend the game any more, Cross. I agree that it's a misperception from my players and not a fault of the game. If you don't think that's a valid warning, or think that it doesn't apply to your group, that's okay too.

When their marketing advertises this, it fuels the (false) accusations that 4e doesn't offer the same play opportunities previous editions offered.

Oh how I tried to get them into the swing of things. I roleplayed the heck out of my kobolds, presenting their 'marking', 'shifting' and other abilities in the best roleplay terms I could. It just didn't take. Hopefully, again, as we get more used to the rules, we'll have more time for that.

I’m finding that picking a campaign setting which interests you is key to making this adventure come alive. I’m not very excited about Winterhaven or cults of Orcus, but have found that this adventure (and 4th ed in general) morphs very well into my favorite D&D setting : the Scarred Lands.

Umm...nevermind. Despite my enthusiasm over the scarred lands, my players really hooked on the names Bahamut and Orcus and old familiars won out over new concepts. So, rather than try to teach them a new setting AND a new game system, we just went with the stock setting provided and pressed on.

My players are generally good-hearted people and, when I said "you're on a road to Winterhaven, having come from whatever town lies at the other end of this road" they just accepted it.

I considered offering them a chance to play it in Eberron (since they do have some experience with that), but the conversion notes over at the online Dungeon are pretty meh.

That is not a problem with the RPG. It is a problem with player expectations.

Right, that was my point. Unfortunately, the misinformation came straight from WotC itself. The player expectations that caused them to cast aside RP (during the combat scenes, I should stress) were based on announcements from the game makers themselves.

I still think there's room for RP in 4th Ed, I just encountered an unexpected speedbump during my own actual experience with the game.

... but that would happen no matter what game they were playing.

Not true. That had never been a problem with our 3.5 games, but because my players had read WotC's own early promotions of the new edition as having an MMO model, they latched on to that as being the point of the game.

We had our first 4e session Saturday and I discovered the biggest roadblock to roleplaying in 4th Ed is having players who also play World of Warcraft.

WotC and their critics have spent a lot of time talking about how the new D&D is based on MMO concepts that my players latched onto that and refused to see it as anything else. When they weren’t making MMO-based tactics like “holding aggro” and “herding”, they were making MMO-based jokes like “we look for the townsfolk with the exclamation point over their heads” and “can we re-run this instance until we’re all geared up?”

One of my players even named his dragonborn character Om’Grofl which sounded really cool until he explained that it was spelled OMG ROFL.

All my suggestions and arguments about roleplaying their abilities and keeping in character were actually argued against by players who felt that this really was nothing more than a tabletop version of MMO rules.

Mind you, they were having a hoot. They all seemed really engaged in the action and there was a lot of laughs throughout the evening so I didn't push the issue. It's possible that, as we become more used to the rules and the mechanics become more transparent the roleplay will start to come through, but I fear roleplaying in this edition may suffer thanks to WotC's own ad campaign that set up a preconception in the eyes of players who come to the game not even expecting to roleplay.

Is having actually read Runelords a hinderance to joining this group?

Let us know when you get to Curse of the Crimson Throne, it might be nice to actually play some Paizo adventures...

I say gut it. I'm sure the Dungeon crew didn't write the series to be a chain around your neck. Let your players go on to something else that you all will enjoy more. Do a quick "aha, we've killed the monsters who were making the pearls" adventure and move on. At this point there can't be that many loose threads...the big V is dead and the big D hasn't been anything more than flavor text. Once the PCs solve the mystery of the pearls, you're done.

Some day in the future, after watching Pirates of the Caribbean on NBC, you can pick up that aspect with a higher level party who could come across the machinations of the Big D and learn how it ties into some seemingly small business on a remote jungle island...

Have you peeked at theRPGenius.com? You have to register, but it's a treasure house of ideas and images that could improve any Shackled City campaign.

They might have maps.

If you're into building your own campaign from story rich setting material there is the superb Orpheus from White Wolf. It was printed before they blew up the old World of Darkness but it is amazing.

What's the story there? I'd heard the name way back when, but never knew much else and sure didn't know there was a storyline attached.

When I purchase a module, I do so to save my time. If I have to go in and build a backstory, deviate significantly from the text (e.g., the fancy tomb, or for that matter, any tomb at all given the fact that no one was there to entomb him after his death), or otherwise do a bunch of work to turn a bunch of random maps and encounters into an interesting and exciting adventure, then I have not saved time despite the outlay in cash.

Sorry to hear that. That's actually the fun part for me. I'm terrible at actually building encounters and campaigns and stuff, but I love being able to twist the premade ones and hang story elements on them. When I buy a published adventure (which I seem to do more than actually playing published adventures), it's usually just for the stats and outline. A lot of the fluff (unless it's pretty clever fluff) gets replaced with stuff that applies more directly to my group.

I'm none of the Paizooties mentioned in the OP,

Dude, you totally qualify as "other staff members".

Funny, I think your 4E DMG must be missing a lot of pages. Because my 4E DMG says the following:

Spoiler:
Jarret: I’m going to try to handle this with diplomacy.
etc...etc...etc...

Now I like this. One of the biggest peeves with me and a mechanics based social encounter is that it often comes down to a single roll by a single character. At best you might get an "assist" roll from some of the other players, but it's not the cooperative success that a combat victory is.

It sounds like the new system is set up for ensuring that each character helps (or hinders) a social encounter, presumably by the "four successes before three failures" (or whatever) system that I'd read about.

Coming up with a great way to keep all the players involved, even in the social encounters, sounds like a plus in the "We like RP" column. I wish there was an encounter like that in Shadowfell. I may have to invent one just to give my players the chance to experience one during our trial sessions.

Hey, I'm about to start a 4e summer campaign in the Tacoma area. Erik, James and the others, consider this an invite.

What are y'all doing this Saturday? (and...umm...you haven't played Keep on the Shadowfells yet, have you?)

for me and my group 4e lacks the ability to present non-heroic roleplaying opportunities with ease.

4e portrays the PCs as heroes from level 1 through to level 30, the fixed scaling of the DCs and powers makes this hard to avoid.

That's a spot-on comment, Q. I hadn't thought of it that way but, being a big fan of the "common man in extraordinary situations" kind of heroism, I too miss the opportunity to start my players off as townsfolk thrust into a larger world (or whatever).

Of all the changes going from 3.5 to 4th ed, it's the NPC classes and profession/crafting skills that I miss the most. That may just be a symptom of, like you said, being forced into the role of hero from the start.

I like the more realistic approach to D&D sometimes but I can't see an easy way of accomplishing this in 4e.

When I get my books, I'll likely be taking a look at how they stat "soldier" type NPCs or what have you and see if I can't adapt that into a variety of 0-level character options. Perhaps a wizard or cleric who can only cast rituals, fer instance or a fighter with only a base attack ability. Maybe cutting out the "at will" abilities entirely is a good place to start for a 0-level character.

Yah know, I'm getting really fracking sick of people badmouthing bards. I'm also getting sick of people who think "every char. has to be able to hurt the bad guys every round in combat, or the char. sucks!"

I think the argument was (and I may be putting words into Antioch's mouth here) while fighting critters and doing damage is something everyone can contribute to (to some degree), a mechanics-based social encounter boils down to the bard rolling a good diplomacy check and the adventure moving on. There's no participation from the other party members and really only one roll from the bard's player himself.

Personally, my enjoyment of the bard depends on my involvement with the campaign setting. Because the whole point of bards (to me) is the lore of the land and the world's society and history, if I personally don't care about it, it's not worth playing.

The hope is to populate it from various 3e products that were created with no grounding in any setting. Cityscape is a wonderful example.

Don't forget ol' 2e too. College of Wizardry is one of my favorite location-less settings from that era.

For myself, I'm really tempted to dig out my old Basic D&D stuff and adapt it. If encounter creation in 4th ed. is as easy as some are saying, I'd love to be able to run Night's Dark Terror; Red Arrow, Black Shield; or even the Wrath of the Immortals under the new system. Dudemonkey's right. This new system really does feel like the old red box set, right down to the Keep on the Boarderfell.

For what it's worth, Grim, I admire your ability to pack meat on the bones of this setting. While some would just accept it as is or even walk away from it for being too skimpy, you were able to take what was written and see it as clues to a bigger picture. That's pretty cool.

If I weren't already lifting Winterhaven into another setting entirely, I'd likely be using your premise in its entirety. In fact, depending on how much interest my players have in my setting versus the default setting, I may keep this as a fallback anyways.

Thanks.

From all the talk I imagine it reads like this--

Winterhaven: Harmless.

You're thinking 3.5. With the 4th edition, Winterhaven has been upgraded to "Mostly Harmless".

Flipping open my ink-smeared book, Winterhaven receives just over four pages of text plus a half-a-page map. Come to think of it, there's also a half-page map of the surrounding area showing where the adventure locations lie in relation to each other.

Winterhaven itself is made of less than 20 buildings but with a surprisingly thick wall surrounding the lot of it. You get a paragraph or more for each of those buildings (and the thick thick outer wall) including the Inn, Smithy, Temple, Market and other standard village locations.

While a number of NPCs are listed by name in their respective location (such as Thair Coalstriker, the village smith), the module focuses on 4-5 NPCs it's assumed the PCs will engage with at the local pub, none of which, I confess, reach too far from a stereotype (the learned sage, the grizzled farmer, the elven scout, etc.) The module does give a number of quotable responses from these NPCs to likely questions from the PCs as the adventure procedes, some of which are good character moments or clever adventure hooks.

It's not a lack of content that makes Winterhave feel so empty, it's really a lack of context. It just seems out in the middle of nowhere (which may be kind of the point, I suppose). However, it is part of the sample setting presented in the DMG, so maybe it'll shine a little more once it has a place in the world.

Does anybody else here subconsciously think everyone else looks like their avatar art?

Unless Sebastian, in real life, looked like a little runty bald guy, I'd likely not recognize him.

As to Winterhaven, I really like Grim's explanation for it. There's nothing in the module that supports that, but there's even less that disagrees with it (Yeah, Winterhaven doesn't get a lot of air-time, as it were).

For myself, I've replaced Winterhaven with Mullis Town (again, Scarred Lands) and placed my PCs as travelling there from Mithril. Just that the town now feels like it exists in a world really helps me bring it to life more than running Dropinanymap Village.

Well that's funny. Because there's not one chance for you to use your social skills (Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidation - or whatever they're now called) in the module. Fact is, none of the key NPCs is statted out for you to perform such skill checks, and that's a heavy indication that they aren't meant to be performed throughout KotS.

Yeah, I think this is where my definition of roleplay starts to go askew. While there really is very little content in KotS for social encounters, I don’t consider those moments to be the only place for roleplay. “Roleplay”, to me, is simply when you immerse yourself in the illusion of the game and that’s just as likely to happen in combat as out.

Fer instance “I swing at him with my sword” is no more roleplaying than “I attempt to trick the guard into letting us in.” I much prefer to hear “I throw caution to the wind. Letting the rage build up inside me, I hammer away at his shield until he weakens and my blow strikes home.” There isn’t a whole lot of socializing, but I’d still call that roleplaying.

However, I’m totally on board with comments about a lack of social encounters. Not because the rules don’t allow for them but, like Grimcleaver said, the PCs are really detached from the world. Not only does this Points of Light premise lack a full world for the PCs to be a part of, but the absence of crafting skills (for example) or NPC classes means the PC seemingly would have no role in society even if there was one.

I've said it before... a LARGE number of people do indeed simply read adventures for entertainment; they never run them (or if they DO run them, they might do so months or years or even decades later).

So far my only exposure to delve formats is in the new Keep on the Shadowfell and in Logue's St. Demain finale in the online-Dungeon. Maybe it's my limited exposure, but I'm not sure I'm following your point.

I'm just as much a reader as the next guy (if not more so) and I found these delve formats to be very conducive to "reading the story". In effect, the storyline was presented first and then the gritty crunch of each room later. Because I always skip the grit on my first "pleasure" read anyways, this fit my reading style perfectly.

Do the rest of you, when reading modules, stop to pace out each encounter in your mind?

I've seen a lot of comments to the effect of how 4th Edition takes away from or doesn't allow for roleplaying. Now that I've had a chance to read the demo rules from Keep on the Shadowfell, I'm getting the exact opposite impression.

Before I post any arguments to these other comments I'm seeing, I wanted to find out exactly why some of you feel the way you do.

What is it about 4th edition that makes you think it's unfriendly to role playing?

While I suspect my players will likely be more concerned about learning the new rules rather than following deep plot developments, I agree that the adventure’s a bit generic. For the most part, though, I’m trusting that the new rules will give a new feel to encounters we’ve all had before. Sure we’ve all fought kobolds before, but I don’t think we’ve ever faced off against 15 at once.

Having said that, though, I’m finding that picking a campaign setting which interests you is key to making this adventure come alive. I’m not very excited about Winterhaven or cults of Orcus, but have found that this adventure (and 4th ed in general) morphs very well into my favorite D&D setting : the Scarred Lands. Once I made that change and became a little more invested in the setting, I found all sorts of new ways to bring the setting alive for my players and (hopefully) build a fun environment for these otherwise “standard” encounters to take place around.

Not that I won’t be stealing some ideas from Sebastian, but my only changes to the actual encounters will be purely cosmetic. For example, I’d like to swap out the goblins with the kobolds (and vice versa) to help them fit into the roles that I have for those races in my campaign setting. Without the core rulebooks, though, I’ll likely just use the stats as given but call them goblins and kobolds instead of kobolds and goblins.

If you'd like it, I can e-mail it. Just to warn you, there are some tweaks that may be necessary after some playtesting, but it is mostly solid. It includes the standard races and most of the MM races... If you can provide your e-mail I'll send it right over.

Ding ding!

fletcher.gibson (at) med.navy.mil

Thanks, friend. That's a really intriguing idea that I've never seen suggested before. I'm a big fan of racial substitution levels and this sounds exactly in tune with those.

Having seen 4th ed in the Keep on the Shadowfell preview, my opinion of 4E has changed from “going to steal some 4E ideas to use in my 3.5 game” into “going to steal some 3.5 ideas to put in my 4E game.”

I was looking at 4th edition for ideas on how to solve some of my own 3.5 troubles, but with just the preview I’m seeing a great new game that I’m looking forward to hitting full tilt.

To answer the question, though:

What I like about 4th Edition: It reduces the reliance on gear and makes the actual character himself the root of that character's abilities. It also did a good job at eliminating the “15-minute adventuring day” while still keeping a feel of diminishing resources as you delve deeper and deeper.

What I like about 3.5 Edition: Everyone followed the same rules. While 4th ed. monsters default to combat roles like “slinger” or “minion”, the monsters and NPCs in 3.5 were defined by the same traits as the PCs – they were the same classes, used the same spells, etc. That made for a more objective game world to me. It also meant that, just as NPCs could be described in character class terms, the PCs had the options of taking non-adventuring related skills and open up new options for the game to include non-adventuring aspects. Also, I and my group were just learning to reduce our reliance on maps and minis and take the game back to its roots in our imaginations. 4th Edition starts that learning curve all over again.

House Rule of Choice: 4th edition goes even farther into the idea of very generalized “hit points”. I was a big fan of the optional 3.5 rule of Wound and Vitality Points to differentiate between battle weariness and actual physical injuries and am looking into a way to recreate that in 4th edition. It really really bothers me that there’s no way to simulate a 12th level rogue dying from getting stabbed through the heart (fer instance).

For what it's worth, I mention 3.5 edition rather than Pathfinder because I'm not really following that development. There were more rule changes that I didn't like than those that I liked so I just stepped aside and let it move on without me.

Sounds like the "powers" could be used in a future Superhero RPG.

I think they did themselves a great diservice by calling them "powers" at all. In fact, I'm finding a lot of my anticipated displeasure is stemming from poor naming conventions. "Powers" and "shifting" and "squares" and "Orcus"...once I renamed them, most of my grief was gone.

Once I started thinking of "powers" as "abilities", "shifting" as "maneuvering" and "squares" as "five-frickin'-feet," the game became a lot more palatable.

Seriously. One of the figher's "powers" is to land a number of smaller jabs in addition to a single main thrust. It's not a superhuman ability, just a sign of training and skill.

But I wonder about the feel of play, such as how difficult (or not) it is to play without a battle mat. Half of my players despise fiddly bits and tactics and minis, and they won't like rolling to resolve role-play situations.

Same boat here. A couple of my players were pretty outspoken about how much they didn't like the boardgame play of 3.5 and I suspect that's going to be a big roadblock in getting them to try 4th ed.

Just as we were moving away from the battlemat in our 3.5 game, I don't see anything keeping play nailed to the battlemap rules-wise in 4th. I've been glossing thru the quick-start rules in Shadowfell and making mental notes of how I'd adjudicate the seemingly map-focused abilities off the table. Fer instance, if a rogue wants to shift positions with an enemy, I could just as easily discribe that narratively and then remember to fudge a disadvantage for that opponent who has now been placed "exactly where I want him". The only real drawback is that your players might not see much difference in their "powers" from level to level. While other tables would be going all "sweet, I can shift him three squares instead of one," your players will likely get the same flavor description from you with only your unspoken RP-style "fudged disadvantage" being the difference.

The real challenge, though, is that the combats are geared for a lot more participants than you might have seen in 3.5. Six to 10 opponents seem common in this new version and your brain might have trouble remembering who's marked whom or who has what disadvantage. I'm toying with the idea of using a mini-map behind the screen to help me keep track of all the participants but then filtering all of that into evocative descriptions to my players and vice versa rather than forcing them to just move around game pieces.

On the up-side, though, it looks like the rules actually encourage roleplay rather than deny it. The "powers" seem to scream for evocative description on the part of your players and, aside from rules to see whether or not someone sees through your bluff, rules for RP-style interaction are completely absent.

The direct tie-in is explained at the beginning - Theldrat asks the PC's to investigate a local "murder mystery".

More accurately, Theldrat (from Mad God's Key) introduces the PCs to the guy who asks them to investigate the murder. The introduction for those characters who haven't played MGK is to meet that contact directly without being introduced by Theldrat.

Maybe the ties would've made more sense with the 3rd or 4th adventure he was talking about, but it's hardly a sequal as it stands. Saying it's thematically linked because they both take place in Greyhawk is like saying Chimes at Midnight is the sequal to Steel Shadows because they both take place in Sharn.

I ain't saying it's not a good adventure, I'm just saying it's not a sequal and DMs without access to Key to the Grave shouldn't feel cheated.

I ordered Key to the Grave for my home group specifically so we could continue the adventure from Mad God's Key.

If it makes anyone feel any better, I could find no connection what-so-ever between the two adventures other than them taking place in Greyhawk. I wound up cancelling the session because it just didn't meet the expectations we'd set up with the idea that this was the sequal.

So while I have you here, Jason, what was the connection between the two? What elements in Key to the Grave did I miss that would've tied them together?

The easiest I can think of is having his “maker” be one of Choppers victims five years back. What the PC has done in the intervening time is up to him, I suppose.

I’ve also read something somewhere about a golemwerks somewhere (although I can’t place the reference off the top of my head). He could be from there, but it’d take some player decision as to what business he has in Sandpoint.

I ran Age of Worms in Eberron, and it's pretty fun. Though it may not be for you. It takes some adaptation (which Paizo has amazing resources for) and doesn't really allow itself for an Eberron game, since you basically end up ignoring everyone save for...

** spoiler omitted **

Actually, though I haven't run it, my mental adaptation of Age of Worms was very Eberron-rich. Not only can you have machinations of the Chamber and Lords of Dust, but there's quite a bit of travelling to boot ranging from Sharn to a giant city in Xen'drik to a handful of cities around Khorvaire to a dragon's lair on Argonessen. What's more Eberron than globe-trotting?

But it does take some time which you admit to not having any of.

It's the sequel to Crown of he Kobold King, check here

I can't quite read that. Is that a level 5 adventure?

I had a very tentative plan not too long ago of relocating Darkmoon Vale into Bloodsworn Vale. I’d start with the Last Hope/Kobold King/Carnival trilogy and then roll right into Bloodsworn Vale based around the conceit that someone’s finally decided to “civilize” the region by building a fort. From there, it’s just up the street (so to speak) to Seven Swords of Sin.

And since SSoS is bound to kill an entire party of PCs, I was going to end my campaign there with all of them dead and move on to something else…

I'm not familiar with this 'Revenge of the Kobold King', though. What's that about (you know, aside from the Kobold King getting his revenge)?

All of our scenarios will be available on paizo.com for a small fee starting after Gen Con. We will be running a delve in our booth. I second what everyone else said.

When you say "after Gen Con", do you mean right after GenCon?

And how much of a fee are we talking? I lurv RPGA-style adventures. Nothing's better for my gaming group than being able to start and finish a module all in one sitting.

What really sounds odd about this for me is the idea that someone would be able to read a language just fine but not be able to speak it aloud. While I guess that has some real-world examples (**cough**hieroglyphics**cough), it just feels clunky.

What might be fun is to have the reading/writing skills not be based around the language but by the alphabet. There are a lot of languages that use the draconic alphabet, for example, so it makes sense that someone with a skill point spent on reading "draconic alphabet" would then be able to read any language he knows which use that alphabet.

For example, if my ranger spoke ogre, draconic, kobold and elvish, but could only read the draconic alphabet, he'd still be able to read and write in draconic and kobold languages.

That actually sounds like a great tool for describing cultural influences in a campaign. "Hmm...I don't speak Shoanti, but I do speak Varisian and they seem to use the same alphabet. I wonder why."

No, I’m going to have to side with K on this one. There’s nothing heroic about fighting baby dragons. I remember seeing a piece of art in some 2nd edition book that involved a bunch of adventurers posing with the hanging corpse of a 5’ long dragon they’d presumably defeated. I laughed myself silly when I saw that.

True, dragons shouldn’t just hatch large-sized out of their eggs, but I don’t think that means adventurers should be encountering hatchlings just walking around on their own. If I walked into a cave with a baby dragon in it, I’d start getting very nervous about when Momma was going to show up. If you allow dragons to be raised to adulthood by their parents, you’re very unlikely to encounter anything smaller than Large on its own.

So yeah, you could certainly keep the stats for wyrmlings and adolescent dragons for the sake of backward compatibility, but in practice I’d never want to see them alone.

I'm looking at a military deployment to the Horn of Africa towards the end of this summer. Any chance there are any gamers stationed out there waiting for me?

I don't hate the idea, but it does harken to the idea of change for the sake of change.

So while I agree with your ideas (and really like the idea of a 'magically aware' feat for spellcasting (lord how it bugs me when characters just up and decide to take a level of spellcasting "just for kicks")), I believe a change like that is outside the boundaries of the intent behind PFRPG.

Of course, much of PFRPG feels like change for change's sake to me, so I guess it's not that strong of an argument after all.

I'm with Rolflyn. The new superpowers assigned to the clerics and wizards are my least liked things in PFRPG and the main reason I'm not using it.

Infinite 0-level spells is awesome and a change I wholeheartedly agree with. It helps aleviate a shortcoming in the wizard's contributions to the group and can be interpreted in a way that makes sense in the setting.

The extra stuff, though, just seems to be there to make sure each character gets something new to do at every level, as if having adventures stops being fun if you don't have a new power to use during it. What's more, by making some of the supernatural abilities rather than just extra spells, it comes across as a superhero rather than a spellcaster. A priest of Gozreh shooting lightning from his hand at will sounds more like X-Men than Merlin.

So while I've already swiped the free 0-level castings, extra domain powers, a cleric's "burst" healing, and specialist bonuses (with soft restrictions on opposing schools) will be left out.

** Some spoilers for Hook Mountain, Seven Swords of Sin, AND Carnival of Tears **

Once my PCs move into Fort Rannick, I'd like to give them some time to settle in and enjoy some non-RL-related adventures before being drawn back to Sandpoint.

I was thinking of inserting Carnival of Tears in there with Turtleback Ferry taking the place of Falcon's Hollow. The faerie-riddled Sanos Forest is perfect and Lamatar Bayden could make a nice return visit as the faerie leader seeking the PC's help.

I know the level's a bit low for them at that point, but I'm looking at presenting things to encourage the party to feel like they need to split up and tackle things individually. I'm looking forward to seeing how my players deal with a half-dozen simultaneous but seperate events that are each murdering one townperson per minute.

As for Seven Swords of Sin, well...I don't own that one yet. While I scrape together the cash to get it, does anyone have any advice on how that would fit into the grander story of the Runelords?

Wouldn't the Storval Deep be drainable ONLY if the flood gates were at the bottom? Looking at the cutaway view, there's still 100' worth of water below the gate, and that's pretending that the lake bottom doesn't slope downard towards the center.

I confess, there's a lot of stuff in the new Pathfinder game I don't like, almost as much as the stuff I do like. My question, then, is how "interconnected" are the changes to this system?

If I wanted to use the new Rogue class but hated the new wizard powers, would my New Coke rogues be overpowerful compared to my Coke Classic wizards? I like the altered skills (for the most part), but want to keep skill points. Will my characters then have too many skills?

Does this version allow my to cherry pick or should I be cautious about allowing A and B without allowing C?

For Runeforge it's a bit muzzier. It's easy to get the PCs back to Sandpoint by just dropping a big hint that Mokmurian was trying to get at a powerful magic item underneath the Old Light, or by having Sandpoint call for help. But clueless PCs may not figure out the riddle, or may not want to go to Runeforge.

I'm starting to suspect that I'd be one of those clueless PCs. The real motivation behind everyone going to Runeforge seems divided up among a few entries in a couple different books and my brain is missing whatever part it needs to put them all together.

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So...Karzoug wants the Runeforge destroyed because it contains the only tool capable of defeating him. Big K knew of a traitor to him who knew the secret of Runeforge, so he tasks Mokmurian with finding the spy's former home and obliterating it so there'd be no clues leading anyone to Runeforge.

The PCs, of course, stop the giant's plan before that happens but, thanks to the villainous Golarion habit of keeping diaries, they know that he was looking specifically for a traitor with information about the "Runeforge". Assuming the enemy of their enemy is a friend,the PCs go searching for Xaliasa to find out why Karzoug (or at least Mokmurian) is interested in this Runeforge.

Putting together the Scribbler's rhyme, the PCs track down the location of Runeforge and learn the "trick" to unlocking it. Inside, they get another handy diary entry that explains that a couple of the Runeforge bosses were scheming of a plan to defeat Karzoug themselves by combining their magic into their Runeforge to empower their weapons with abilities that Greedy McWantit can't defend against.

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Is that about it? Do I have any of that right?

Yup; that's pretty much the way we're going.

SCORE! Respect the power of my "meh"!

I'm glad to hear that's the plan for Golarion 'cause it was my initial readings of the Pathfinder stuff that inspired the idea in me. The vibe I got wasn't so much of gods with a vested interest in the wellfare of the "mortal world" but just powerful extra-planar entities who granted power to mortals who shared their interests. I like to think religion is an invention of the mortal races rather than an a declaration from the gods.

Fer instance, Sarenrae gives healing and protective powers to priests who demonstrate a shared interest with her via their prayers to her. Meanwhile, everyone around said priest of Sarenrae says "hey, he can cure my kid" or whatever and people started following that priest. Other folk might be realizing that the tools the priest of Torag produces really helped their society and collectively begin revering the god their priest says is so important.

Meh. I'm not too keen on racial deities. That implies that all the deities we've seen so far are default human deities.

I actually like the precedent set up with Desna where you have a group of peoples who worship a particular god and the invading Chelaxians just up and added her to their own pantheon. I can see Torag, fer instance, being a dwarven god that gained popularity amongst other like-minded peoples.

Hmm...maybe I can keep that assumption and just pretend that the racial deities are the ones who didn't catch on with the manfolk.

It sounds a bit late for you, but for future DMs who encounter this problem, it's worth mentioning that not all the goblins at the raid came from Thistletop. If my PCs take the same steps to interrogate a captured goblin, I'd like to take the opportunity to muddle the issue with exactly what tribe any particular captive(s) are from.

In this specific case, though, I wonder if you couldn't cut and paste some of the adventure. I don't have any concrete details to back this up, but perhaps your PCs could adventure through Thistletop and, after sacking a couple of Nualia's henchment, learn that she's seeking aid from her mentor in the Catacombs of Wrath. The PCs then rush back to Sandpoint to confront her and Li'l Miss Q.

Not exactly sure what to do with Malfeshnekor, but that's the basic gist.

Awesome input, all. His request came coincidentally right at the time I was focusing on the social encounter discussions up at the Pathfinder: RPG section. Hopefully all the discussion there has prepared me for the curveball potential of a charmer like this.

As luck would have it, this is for our upcoming Rise of the Runelords campaign and I’m pretty confident the book packs enough NPCs and social opportunities to keep him engaged.