I had that problem too, and it's a general issue with Fighters in those levels when Full Plate comes into play and bad guy BAB hasn't caught up.
I had smarter opponents (stone giants, bosses) switch to tactics like sundering, disarming, etc., which should be useful. The dumber opponents smashed harder and went down like chumps, but I was fine with that. My player made the character to be a melee killing machine and deserves his chance to shine.
Things will change once you get to flying opponents and into Sins of the Saviors as the Fighter may already be close to maxed out on AC and attack bonuses start creeping up into the high 20's, and save DCs get scary high.
The adventure is balanced for 4x15 point first level characters.
They're already 20% stronger because of the extra character and maybe another 20% for the extra 10 points.
If they would accept 15 point second level characters (0 xp or no is immaterial in the long run), you'd be better off unless your group really enjoys plowing through baddies without much challenge.
I might rip off your idea of the PC who can see departing souls. I have a PC with a newly regenerated eye who might discover that he can see a little more than he expected with it...
I'd do a human polearm paladin 4/sorcerer 1/ gold dragon disciple 10, built for tripping. Core build:
Bumps go to strength, then charisma, then constitution.
He would end up with base scores of:
Str 18
Dex13
Con 16
Int 15
Wis 12
Cha 14
CL 8 sorcerer
BAB 11
Wings, fire breath, form of the dragon II, bite, claws, Nat Arm +3
4th level spells: Dimension Door (verbal only), Fire shield
3rd level spells (cast still if need be): Haste, Blink or Displacement
I know you've said no but, the nice part about the Ranger (Weapon and shield archetype) build is you get to where you want to be sooner:
1 - Improved shield bash
2R - Shield Slam (2nd level, not 6th)
3 - Power Attack
5 - Improved Bull Rush
6R - Shield Master (6th level, not 11th and this is a huge feat - at this point there are no two-weapon penalties on the shield side)
7 - Greater bull rush
9 - Improved Critical: Main-hand weapon to go with...
10R - Bashing Finish - Moar shield bashes!
You could have scores like:
Str 16
Dex 12
Con 16
Int 12
Wis 14
Cha 5
You don't have to be a fruity hippy smell the flowers elf ranger - you're a shield slamming dwarf ranger who kicks ass with that shield. Heck, you could even be the kind of ranger who doesn't like animals and plants and seeks to use his abilities to subjugate nature.
The downside is until 6th level, you are bashing or attacking but you get 4 extra levels of shield slam and 5 extra of Shield Master (which as I mentioned is a monster feat).
I'd focus more on figments and glamers because they are more often no save or save on interaction effects, which, depending on your DM, can require an action of some kind.
I'd avoid the phantasms at later levels because they are mind effecting and all too often targets are immune.
I think the coolest illusionists would be the ones that mix real and illusionary effects so the targets won't know whether the wall of stone is real or not or if the summoned creatures are real or not.
I'm planning an illusionist for next time and am thinking about using lots of conjurations and illusions of same, lots of battlefield control, buffing and miscellany.
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Seven kings of Thornhold are
Exploring forth, we travel afar
Tower and mountain, forest and dungeon
Finding seven-pointed stars
Oh Star of mys't'ry, star of night
Star of evil's earnest plight
Named Sihedron, why's it turnin'
Up on our foes left and right
We're planning a game in the week after Christmas so I've been penning butchered Christmas Carols to pump up the event. This is my best effort so enjoy:
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Now there's Slasher and Stabber and Halfling insp'ration
Ray-Ray and Blaster and Healer and Marksman
But do you recall
The toughest recurring villain of all?
Xanesha the Lamia Matriarch
Had a very freaky mask
And if you ever saw it, you might turn to stone quite fast
All of her thrall - charm slaves
Used to laugh and know their names
Then they met Xanesha, now they only play her games
Then one foggy Summer's Eve
Xanesha came to say
"Now you've lit my boat on fire, won't you die and drown tonight?"
All of the charm slaves swam hard
And they shouted out, all free
Xanesha we vow this on this night, some day you'll be hist-or-eeeeee!!!
My group's going to be hit by random encounter howler monkey thieves in the pre-dawn light on day 3. They have a decent shelter built and they found Jenivere and cleared it of eurypterids and any treasure they could take.
For me, my goal would be to minimize the amount of work I'd have to do in the long run. The easiest way to do that would be to get your PCs to the correct level sometime in the first three adventures (because it's much easier to boost lower-level encounters than it is to do the same with high-level ones).
To accomplish that goal, I'd shave a half to a third off your XP awards so the PCs feel like they are making progress when they are really falling back a bit. I'd keep the treasure similar to what's in the adventures so you don't pull too far ahead in Wealth by Level terms.
Spoilers:
Burnt Offerings: Goblin encounters become Bugbears and Goblins (run the battles with oodles of stupid suicidal regular goblins running around soaking up fireballs and whatnot so you get the feel of goblins and the punch of bugbears), bump the named NPCs by several (3?) levels. Pace your XP for 6th level at completion.
Skinsaw Murders: Ghouls become Ghasts, Bump NPCs and use the full hardcoreness of Xanesha instead of pulling her punches like happens with most groups. Pace XP for 8th level at completion.
Hook Mountain Massacre: Give the Grauls the advanced simple template and Mammy a Level and aim for late 8th, early 9th level by then. At that point, they'll be ready for Fort Rannick and all that and back on the path at about the appropriate levels.
Pride/Confidence - "Be confident and your people will follow"
Lust/Passion - "Show passion and your people will love you"
Sloth/Patience - "An impatient ruler risks all"
Wrath/Justice - "Trust is earned by a just and firm hand"
Envy/Ambition - "A dying nation is one without growth"
Gluttony/Subsistence - "Feed your people and you will never know revolt"
Greed/Conservation - "Conserve the bounty of today so you never see famine of tomorrow"
Have you worked out (other than what Xanesha was obviously up to in Turtleback Ferry) what Karzoug's forces have been up to in the past year and a bit? I can't help but think that if Mokmurian is left alone long enough he will discover more and more about Thassilonian magics and perhaps cause an even greater problem than he does in the original AP.
Although there might be something in Kingmaker to handle that, I'm not sure.
Good reading, I'm enjoying your campaign!
--Mike
I suppose that is a valid question. I run a dynamic world where PC decisions and indecision affects the world around them but I am not a slave to events happening as they are outlined in the time line. If the Giant attack doesn't happen for 3 or 4 years of game time, I'm fine with that and then everything relevant to that attack will just have been moved forward by those 3 or 4 years. If, for instance they weather the giant attack and don't go after the source then the source will come to them in its own time and form.
The short answer is: My PCs haven't heard anything about Karzoug and his forces so they don't really exist until the plot dictates they are needed.
I did some reading ahead and I may a bunch of HMM etc. until and unless my PCs start spoiling for a fight. If they push through HMM on the medium advancement chain, they won't be more than 8th level by the end of the adventure so it'll start getting really hard for them.
My preliminary plan is to have them liberate Ft. Rannick (which I think they can safely do at 7th level with help) and then stop things there.
If they are eager to do some kingdom building at this time, I'm ready for that and one of the first encounters will probably be with the Shimmerglens Nymph, whatever her name is, so my PCs can be the ones to tell her about the attack. She'll rush away, never to be seen in corporeal form again and the rest of that thread will make more sense than in the original HMM version.
I'll probably give my PCs a couple of months to explore, govern and wonder about the wet/snowy weather before I spring the dam encounter on them. There will be red herring evidence from that one that will lead to the troll site from KM#2 if they follow it.
If they decide to be aggressive about pursuing the runelords plot, I'll let them do that as well but I'll probably be forced to up the xp awards to speed things up a bit in that respect.
I updated my complete preparations in my campaign thread but I thought I'd update here on my decisions about what memories to give to each player:
- Dwarf Barbarian, basic raging warrior
---> He remembers seeing the murder list fall, remembers being questioned about it and remembers Xanesha being displeased about hearing the list is lost.
- Halfling Bard, history buff
---> I decided to go with a language teaser here. During some private sessions playing music for Xanesha, he overheard her speaking a few words in an unknown language (Thassilonian). Over the time spent in captivity, he recognizes words from the Giant, Varisian and Shoanti tongues. If he learns those languages in addition to being able to write Thassilonian, he will be able to piece together how it is spoken. He will be the first scholar to do so since the fall of the empire.
- Shoanti Cleric of Erastil, hunter, Animal and Community
---> I went with the crow animal companion idea (noting explicitly that he can change companions at any time) as he would have been kept cloistered because he is marked with the symbol of Erastil on his palm and thus could not see the world. The crow has taught him about some of the local geography, including the closest "man-nest" on the north shore of Claybottom Lake. Early after captivity, I have an encounter with another potential Animal Companion, a large (4th level druid's constrictor snake) Anaconda. He'll get a chance to tame the snake if he tries to and is successful.
- Human Rogue, pretty much evil - going for Shadowdancer
---> He was a card dealer and got to know the clients well but for some reason, he can't remember faces. He'll get a flashback about Kaven *after* they figure out that mystery.
- Human Wizard, blaster evoker
---> Remembers writing or drawing the Sihedron rune many times but does not remember where or with what medium. When they discover that they all have been tattooed, he will remember doing the tattooing and when they figure out that townsfolk have been tattooed as well, he will remember doing that for all the regulars.
- Human Fighter, reckless sword and board type
---> His memory involves being questioned soon after the group was captured. He remembers telling every last detail about their adventures to date including telling Xanesha that the group had told the city guard about their efforts in tracking down the "Star Murderer". This nugget combined with my Dwarf's will explain why she chose to stop murdering in Magnimar and move her operation to phase 2 at Turtleback Ferry.
- Human Water bloodline Sorcerer, also mostly a blaster
---> His player can't make it tomorrow so he is going to be in a state of severe amnesia after the escape. He won't remember his name, won't have any class abilities, nothing. Only with time to heal (and the player returning to the table), will he retrieve his lost identity.
I had 5/7 players in attendance so in order to keep continuity, I had the two missing characters be abducted by Xanesha's agents while the party was selling loot. This was needed because I needed all the characters in attendance, even if the spotlight was to be on 5 of them.
At this stage, my party has bypassed all kinds of opportunity for recon, scouting and intel from prisoners so had no idea what they were stumbling into at the clocktower. In typical cocky fashion they strolled right in, worried more about spell durations than combat tactics.
After an easy time of the golem and the staircase, the party dribbled onto the clocktower roof, spread out and didn't have a coordinated attack at all, with the sword specialist fighter choosing to not melee and each person going one at a time against Mme. Xanesha. Without flanking, without sneak attacks, without any serious buffs/debuffs it wasn't even a close fight. The PCs hit all but 1 of her mirror images and managed to do about 30 points of damage total.
I adjusted Xanesha's spear into a normal sized Halberd and added an ability that it could optionally do subdual instead of lethal damage (because I expected this could be a learning opportunity regarding future encounters in this adventure path and was pretty sure I'd TPK using Xanesha as written).
It was a slaughter and I couldn't be happier. Each character was beaten into submission with no deaths so I can move onto my plan I've been working on for several months:
At the end of the evening, I collected their character sheets and will have to transpose them to equipment-less versions for our next session "Charm Zombies and the Escape from the Paradise Barge". The other good part of this is I'll be able to assess and balance the party wealth if necessary. I think I'm pretty good on that front but we'll see.
I'm half prepared for next time (I have the maps of the barge done and I have the broad chain of events written out) but I need to work on specific descriptions, dialogue and whatnot. The broad strokes are:
1) PCs get a description of snatches of images from months in wisdom-drained captivity. They have endured a hell of forced servitude as oarsmen aboard the Paradise Barge. Their snippits will include images of some of their more recognizable adventuring gear as trophies adorning the walls of the gambling barge.
I think I will leak these dream snippits out over email over the coming days before our next session.
2) One evening in the late summer/early fall (8 months after the disaster at the clocktower) when the barge is full of patrons and out on an evening cruise, one of the other captives finally snaps and smashes a lamp on himself, starting a fire at the stern of the boat. The patrons jump overboard and lady Xanesha (in human form) descends the stairs to the bowels of the ship where the PCs are held locked in place by their wisdom-drained, charmed state. She quickly gathers a treasure box and tells her thralls something like "I suppose your service is nearly over my pets. You have done well in your part to pave the way for Karzoug's Return" and leaves before the fire spreads too far.
3) Once the fire does enough damage to the stern, the barge begins taking on water and once the cold lake water hits the feet of my PCs. At this point, they wake, I return them character sheets with next to no equipment, Wisdom values of 1, and they can start rescuing themselves - somehow - as the barge begins to list and take on water in earnest.
4) The PCs make it to shore having left a lot of their loot behind as decorations on the wall. There, they learn the history of the barge and discover that they have been tattooed with the Sihedron Rune at the base of their necks. They will probably take a break here to regain drained wisdom and interact with the people of Turtleback Ferry.
5) They mount an underwater return to the barge (Cleric + water breathing) and regain whatever loot remains for them there plus any clues I wish to plant to keep the plot moving forward, if at all.
One alternative is to leave them with only sparse clues and a bit of a Mystery and run some RRR Kingmaker stuff out of Turtleback Ferry (the Trolls, some of the Fey stuff, the Owlbear and the Lizard Men remain from that book). Then when I figure that the PCs are ready for a change and some plot, Fort Rannick will fall and we'll start HMM. I'm leaning towards this approach so my PCs can drive the agenda to whether they want to leave the Sihedron Rune and Xanesha stuff behind them or whether they want to pursue that with all their resources. If they do use their resources (and divinations and whatnot) they will arrive just a bit too late to save the Fort.
I'm running numerous side quests as I am running a 7 PC group and medium advancement. The Burnt Offerings ones included some drama between the Licktoad and the Birdcruncher goblin tribes that was exported (with minimal effort) from Kingmaker.
What do I do? Give me some ideas. I don't want to just jump back into combat with Xanesha. How should I handle this?
I have an elaborate plan for this eventuality and I actually hope I can whip up a TPK because I think it's so cool.
My plan for a TPK at the Clocktower is to have the PCs be taken by Xanesha up to Turtleback Ferry and forced to work on the Paradise barge, through a combination of wisdom drain and repeated charms/dominates. This would then mean that Xanesha replaces Leucretia as they are the same person. In this scenario, I would have Xanesha pick up the missing Rogue (after interrogating the other PCs) and I would put them all on the barge together.
Once they are on the barge, they would exist in a living death as charm/dominate slaves for some time (months? a year maybe? - probably just enough time to have the timeline make sense for it to be early winter up there), stripped of their identities and their will and made to serve drinks, cook and clean. Eventually, while the PCs are in the hold somewhere, one of the other slaves in the kitchen goes mad and suicidally lights himself on fire, starting a fire in the barge in general and causing it to sink.
Xanesha (in human form) then looks down into the hold, and smiles saying something about them having served their purpose anyway and leaves the PCs to die and goes away to organize the attack on Fort Rannick.
When the cold water of the lake hits the PCs' feet (think the rising water in the lower decks in Titanic), they snap out of their charm and are able to act. They have within their reach the ability to escape from the hold (haven't worked this out yet - I'm imagining an axe or something to cut their way out of the hold as it sinks) and swim to the surface, seeing on the way that many of their possessions were up on the walls in the gambling areas of the barge. They could then return to the barge at the bottom of the lake (water breathing) and retrieve the rest of their gear (probably missing gold and some items) and maybe get some clues about Xanesha's motivations etc. and get any missing treasure or XP they need to get to the next part of the story with a reasonable chance of success.
If you need to add any PCs in the process (i.e. if your Barbarian was dead dead and the player wants a new character), they are on the barge too.
I couldn't find one elsewhere so I mapped my vision of the Paradise Barge from HMM. I made it out of a turtle shell and gave it oars so the gambling patrons could go on little cruises powered by wisdom-drained charm zombies (that will include my PCs if I can manufacture a TPK back at the clocktower in Skinsaw).
The more I read the kingdom rules, the more disappointed I am by the total uselessness of forests. Makes you wonder what all the trouble with the lads in Sherwood was about IRL. I suspect that one reason they got downplayed is that nowadays, most players and GMs, if they cook at all, do so with invisible fuels like electricity or piped gas, rather than dung, wood, or charcoal. If anyone else is bothered by this, I'd suggest letting forests with roads in them contribute one point towards Consumption (half a farm). That way you break even on claiming them.
Is there any rules reason not to do this? And if not, exactly why are elves willing to fight to protect these barren wastelands, and why do humans bother to try and exploit them? Are the humans so young and stupid that they know no better? Are the elves as leafy-minded as bloody-minded dragons that need their shiny hoards?
Swamps, deserts and tundra I can see as being net costs.
As for mountains and how dwarves or anything manages to subsist in the underdark, I figure they work off an alternate food chain. One where lichens and fungi are not so much lithavores as they are neutrinosynthesizers.
I am planning on using the KM rules for a Rise of the Runelords campaign and the kingdom's starting location (Turtleback Ferry) is exclusively surrounded by forest, swamp, lakes and mountains for a very long distance so I have this problem too. My solution was to expand the definition of "Farm" and make all of the non-mountain hexes farm-able but to up the BP cost to do so:
2BP - Grassland
4BP - Hills or Lake Front/Coastal (requires a pier in an adjoining city hex, representing it being "farmed" for fish, seaweed etc.)
6BP - Swamp (rice paddies, fishing)
8BP - Forest (hunting, logging, bee keeping, orchards, mushroom gathering, whatever an elf eats)
I suppose you could add dwarf agriculture in the mountains for a price too but I intend to keep mu PCs kingdom hedged back.
Greycloak of Bowness
