Old Drake's page

Goblin Squad Member. 222 posts. No reviews. 1 list. No wishlists.



1 person marked this as a favorite.

Well, let's see.
8. (evil->NPC) It's a rather drastic action. I know you aren't the GM, but I would recommend going with realistic responses to actions before you bring down the hammer. If the PC does evil things, it's very likely against the law. There is law enforcement even in fantasy games. And evil actions may well attract the attention of heroes that come and start hunting the group. Or it might disrupt the plans of other evil groups and they might deal with the disruption before it attracts too much attention.
If some of the players persist with the evil, try talking with other players that don't like it and then have your characters leave the party and seek assistance with the church/authorities to hunt down the band of criminals and execute them. Maybe then the problem players will realize just how much they bother you. There's a chance they'll use their next characters to get revenge; if that happens talk with the others about splitting the group. Your interests are just too different for any game to please everyone.

9. (item creation) You are actually creating more of a problem here. In most campaigns there is not enough downtime to craft an item. It takes a day per 1,000gp, and how often do you stay in a place for a month? I'd simply add the requirement of a lab to craft any items and remove the rule. Certainly being able to sell everything for the full price will leave the party with a lot more money during the campaign.
Also remember that during character creation you pay full price for every item even if you could craft it yourself. So unless you have a campaign with very long downtimes the rule ridiculously favors the players.

10. (guns) Depending on your interest in guns in the game, it would be reasonable to give guns more realistic reload times. Even emerging guns assumes late 19th/early 20th century gun tech.

11. (age) Drastic. Not sure if I agree. Each age category lowers how much you can carry, lowers AC, lowers reflex and fortitude save, lowers attack roles, less hp, and so on. That's a lot to give up for more spells... perhaps the problem if less with the spellcasters and more with leaving them unmolested at all times. Spellcasters are already more fragile than other classes, with high age that just becomes more severe.

12. (ability scores) The array is the equivalent of 36 point buy. Making the 18 a 16, it would still be a 29 point array. I can't see anyone taking 25 point buy as an alternative, even if the array is less than ideal. They would surrender a lot of power doing so.
That said, even a 25 point buy produces very powerful characters that require adjustments from the DM. Essentially the party would be about two levels more powerful than their party level indicates. Maybe three with your array. And that assumes their wealth is within the expected level. Which going by your other points happens regularly in your games.
In short, you are stressing the Pathfinder rules to the breaking point. As a quick rule, encounters should be three levels higher (four if they have more wealth than recommended) than party level suggests (before even taking templates into account), without giving extra treasure or XP.
Go 20 point buy or better 15 point buy. You will notice a massive drop in power from the players and far more balanced or much squishier casters. Even 25 point buy would be far better than the array.
In fact I suspect that most of your troubles come from too generous ability scores.

14. (dm rolls) A good idea, but slow if you use dice. You almost need to setup a computer program to roll the check for everyone at once or you will slow down things a lot.
I'd also add stealth to the list. Maybe even knowledge skills, spellcraft and other reflexive skills (that don't take an action to use) so you don't get the 'oh, he rolled a one, so I guess I see what I know' effect.

15. (metamagic rods) Marginally useful at best. Given the prices for the rods and their limitations, the effect isn't that great. Be sure they are used according to rules before you start banning them.

17. (full bab) Okay, why would anyone play a fighter now? Or a ranger? Or a barbarian? Even a Paladin becomes questionable. Unless you want a party that is mostly rogue/monk. I'd give the full bab classes at least 4 skill points/level and a feat to compensate. And even that might not be enough to keep things level.

19. (free two weapon feats) Combined with 17, you will have an awful number of sneak attacks every round. That's what? Up to seven sneak attacks per round at level 16... before any tricks. A rogue would expect to do 45d6 + 40 (or more) in damage every round. That's an average of ~200/round with potential to do more than twice that.
Utterly unbalanced!
If anything, I'd think about removing the feats completely to increase balance. Making them free would certainly make two handed weapons and shields utterly useless. And probably every ranged weapon expect thrown weapons.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Well, if the player is somewhat decent, then attempting to redeem the evil character, especially an evil cleric, would make for a lot of good RP. As long as the character can convert to neutral (or even LE), this should make for a lot of fun.
If you run that, I'd give the paladin player a heads up that she had a dream/vision from her deity that she should redeem the evil character and try to convert the character to another neutral or good deity that's a somewhat decent fit for the believes of the evil character.

Of course this requires a well thought out background for the evil cleric, but I'd require that for any evil character anyway. And for any chaotic one, for that matter.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Essentially, the AP, like all others, is designed for 4 PCs, but playing with 5 makes almost no difference. If the DM simply leaves things as they are, the reduced treasure and lower XP will keep everything working.

Of course, if the DM prefers to run for only four players to allow for more roleplaying or simply does not feel capable of running five PC, that is his right. Or if he simply doesn't want more people over at his house.

Direct your DM here, if he has any questions about running it for more than four players, but respect whatever decision he makes.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I can imagine Restov being happy to fund an evil city. I however couldn't see them happy funding a chaotic city; you never know what those kind of people would do.

And lets be realistic here, if the PC are psychotic, they'd never manage to get together a city, let alone a kingdom. But realistic evil groups? Isn't evil the alignment of politicians anyway?


6 people marked this as a favorite.

I agree with Varnhold. Look at the army costs and it becomes clear that they couldn't build up further. And to make matters worse, farms were so exposed that Centaurs and other critters made all attempts at farming suicidal.

Drelev is even easier. Unrest. The Unrest is so high that not only do they fail almost all checks, but they've lost most hexes they had claimed and local critters have destroyed what farms there were. And like Varnhold, they needed more military power from the start to deal with local dangers - barbarians, bogards, etc.

Unrealistic?

No!

Do not forget that there have been dozens if not hundreds of attempts to settle for Stolen Lands. All failed. The players are the first group that beat the odds and manage to create something that might last.

The kingdom building rules may make success too easy on the players, but that's necessary to allow casual gamers to succeed. Likewise the players are always confronted with only one or two situations at a time. That's the key here - the rules as presented are a simplification stacked in the players favor to allow casual gamers to enjoy kingdom building and succeed without any optimization and little planing; everyone else operated by the harsher rules. If you have a group that is willing to go beyond the basics, the rules need to be toughened up; toughened to the degree that success becomes a real struggle and repeated heroics are necessary just to starve of failure. That would be a far better representation of the Stolen Lands... but also too harsh for most players to enjoy; campaigns would fail not because of TPK or loss of interest, but because kingdoms failed. Would that be fun?
In a homebrew where you can simply move on and continue with the characters and see how they deal with such a failure? Absolutely. In fact it is probably more interesting than success. But for a published campaign that's the end.
Perhaps the best analogy is playing a computer game on very easy. You play basically by the same rules, but get so many things stacked in your favor that things can become too easy. Too easy to such a degree that the game would be stupidly boring were it not that it is just the background to the real game, the story of heroes slaying their foes.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Having the sponsor of the exploration/settlement a sea voyage away would IMHO strengthen the settlement story, however I find it hard to believe that bandits would prosper... at least not until there are numerous minor colonies trading with one another.
Other neighbors of course need to be replaced as well. The barbarians could become natives of some kind, maybe non-human. All back stories should be reworked to account for their rather recent arrival on the continent, assuming the players are among the first pioneers.
Another thing to keep in mind is a much stronger naval theme. With ships being the only connection home and all major settlements in the early year at the cost (and even later still within easy reach from the coast), naval protection, sea monsters, storms, etc will play a more important role.

Stolen Lands:
I'd reskin the Stag Lord into some kind of anarchist/rebel with known leanings towards an evil cult - if possible one that some of the player characters hate.
Oleg's trading post obviously has to become a natural harbor of some kind; I'd also move an eccentric noble there, who pays for the rewards from his own pocket. As the story goes on the party can learn that things aren't as they seem, and the noble might not be a noble at all. It could be an ally, a red herring, or a major villain later on.
I'd also remove any signs of previous work from the Goldmine in SL.

RRR:
Lonely Barrow should be clearly from an unknown culture.
Owlbear lair probably shouldn't have humans there. Whatever the natives are instead.

VV:
Varnhold obviously becomes another colony with its own port. So the city needs to be reworked a bit.
The Centaurs haven't encountered humans at all until recently and conflict comes from the fact they don't like any newcomers. But nothing major would change. Perhaps a few comments about how unusual the weapons seem, strange ornamentation, and so on. Of course they speak no language known...
Simply remove A, B, C

BfB:
Obviously the Barbarians need to be replaces with natives

WotK:
This module works worst... Pitax could be another colony or a native empire I guess, but I'm not sure how well it would fit. Or how different from the last module it would be. I'd ignore the plot and find a new idea to drive the story. The tournament just doesn't fir the colonial theme.

Module six needs very little if any modification.

Of course a lot depends on the background that leads to the story; where the continent is, what powers are trying to move there, etc.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

First I'd expand the list of awards for kingdom building. As in a reward for every 50 additional hexes, rewards for having 5 cities, 10 cities, X cities, having a full grid in 5 cities, 10 cities, X cities, having 2, 5, 10, X grids in a city.

Second, how do the players and the rest of the people learn of Choral's return? How does he proof his identity? That might provide some story ideas.

Looking at Carrion Crown, in the first book there are XP rewards for research. So having some rewards for the players researching Choral and his allies could provide XP in a somewhat different manner than they are used to.

During the research they could come upon a legend of a weapon forged against Choral. This could be the result of a project started by Restov, but not finished in time for the final battle, or it might have been present at the battle. It could also be an artifact that is somehow connected with Choral; maybe they find an ancient prophecy linking Choral's demise and the artifact. So hunting down the item could provide a high level dungeon.

As Choral is aware of Nyrissa, he from the beginning worries more about the player party than any army; he knows he can overpower any army, but doesn't want to slaughter so many of his future slaves. So he plans and plots to minimize casualties while taking out the only real threats directly. He might use demons, human assassins, or just about anything else. Maybe use an army of giants coming down from the mountains towards Varnhold as bait for the party; use several waves of giants and other stuff to wear down the party, before a hostile adventuring party from the rival guide comes in for the kill.

Unconnected, or maybe not, a host from the Worldwound breaks through the line of defenders and spreads chaos through the region. While they won't reach the players kingdom, their neighbors will be destroyed without help.

With the players taking over Pitax, they infringe on the River Kingdoms. Lots of possibility of intrigue there; maybe the players decide to make a land grab against some of the less friendly neighbors in the south before Choral returns? A few provocations from the neighbor (or a third party wishing for that war) may be enough to get a good number of sessions; and it should give the players the feeling that they are driving where the campaign is headed.

A team of explorers has worked in Vordekai's tomb for months and removed many artifacts of historic significance; while the pathfinder society is present and supporting the effort, it's headed by people loyal to the kingdom, and when they discover a new secret door, they immediately send word back - the PS isn't pleased, but after Vordekai also worried about what might be hidden there.

Has the party dealt with the tower on Candlemere island? If not, there's now a cult there, and they have woken something.

A messenger delivers a warded box (Warding Box minor artifact - no way to tell what's inside the box) to the party from an unknown party. Inside is the seal of Amatatsu (Jade Regent AP). Opening the box at all attracts the attention of the Oni, and an assault group teleports with orders to kill anyone present and steal the seal. Now the players may need to find the heir, return the seal, and get them on a journey to deal with the Jade Regent, if they ever wish for peace. They could maybe go themselves, but it'd mean abandoning everything they have built... you need to judge if the players would do that. It's intended as a constant hazard to the kingdom until they find the heir and send her with a well equipped party north; after a while, depending on how the other party traveled, the attacks stop and they get a good friend far away.

A mysterious plague sweeps through the kingdom. Even casual investigation shows magical involvement in the spread of the disease. Is this some kind of revenge from beyond the grave by Nyrissa, or something else?

A mage that's lived in the kingdom for years goes missing and his golems run amok. What happened to the mage, and where did he get that much adamantine?

During the clearing for a new city district ancient ruins are found. Historians connect them to the Whispering Tyrant. Is there an army of undead inside, as the panicked population thinks, or is this merely a burial site used by the Shining Crusade?

I hope you'll find some useful ideas in this brainstorming.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Karzoug is a transmuter, and to me Golems always were the pinnacle of transfiguration.

Karzoug recovered a few years ago, but was intensely frustrated that he was imprisoned and worse, had nothing to keep him occupied other than the rare reports from his minions. So he turned to research and discovered a way to create Mithril and other ingredient required for crafting certain magical items. So he set out and build two Mithral Golem.
Optional: The Mithral Golems have a Cloudkill breath weapon (SU, Fort: DC 22 1d4+1 recharge, duration 12 minutes)
Optional: The Golem's fists are enchanted as magical weapons and it wears a ring of protection
Flavor: Golem is formed in the image of a dragon.

Karzoug himself isn't in the Runewell but in his hidden lab/quarters that can only be reached through a tiny opening in the floor; whenever Karzoug needs to travel between the rooms he uses an advanced version of reduce person (range personal) that reduces him to the size of an ant. A lift allows him to travel from his quarters to the Eye or back within a round. If the lift is up, gaseous form does not allow passage. So spotting Karzoug or hitting him with weapons will be nearly impossible until after he has cast a few spells and the party has countered his advantage.

If you have more than 4 characters in the party, I'd suggest adding one extra golem per character above 4; alternate between Iron Golem archers in Mithral Full Plate and normal Iron Golems in Mithral Full Plate.
Optional: 'Fire chamber' drawing fire from the elemental plane of fire within the Golem causing 5d6 fire damage to the golem each round (effectively fast healing 5).

If you want to really make the players glad they arrived when they did, have a partially assembled Adamantine Golem in the Eye as well.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

A quick summary of what we did:

No building/expansion during winter. Extra cost during harvest. Farms only start working in spring. Some other seasonal impacts.

Build time for certain buildings.

Control DC is calculated as written plus modifier based on population.

Buildings cause different population increases.
Extra buildings: Sewers, temples (benefit by religion), cathedral (benefit by religion), bank, bathhouse, bazaar, Court house, embassy, exchange, gambling hall, hospice, kitchen, lighthouse, lock shop, menagerie, mint, museum, pawn shop, school, scriptorium, slave pen, stock yard, warehouse, workhouse

Hex Improvements: Most things come in levels. (cost in BP)
Hex claimed: population = 100, other improvements may increase pop
Farm lvl 1-3: -1 Consumption per level, 250 people per level, cost 2^lvl in plains, requires Infrastructure of matching level to provide bonus to kingdom
Trade road, lvl 1-3: 25 people per level, each level counts as road
1: (1;2;4) dirt road, useful only in good weather,
2: (3;6;12) normal travel speed most of the year, all cities need to be connected to capital with such roads to provide bonuses.
3: (6;12;24) +1 Economy, very good roads usable all year,
Infrastructure lvl 1-3: 25 people per level, each level counts as road, same price as Trade Roads, +1 Stability at level 3
River crossing:
simple bridge: cheap and easy to destroy
solid bridge: very solid construction hard to destroy, more expensive.
fortified bridge: very expensive, but includes fortifications: +1 Consumption, +1 Stability, +2 Defense, 50 people
small Ferry: 25 people, road, suitable for people and mounts, but slow for trade or armies.
large ferry: 50 people, road, slightly reduced army movement.
Estate: (24;36) requires Farm II, -2 Consumption, -1 Economy, +1 Stability, 75 people, noble estate owns most of the land and provides education/guidelines to improve local farm yield
Estate, fortified: (20) requires Estate, +2 Defense, +1 Stability, +1 Loyalty, -1 Economy, Estate serves as local defense center, providing security for the area.
Fishing camp: (6) 150 pop, +1 Economic, +1 Stability (x2 with rare resource)
Logging Camp, small: (6)75 pop, -1 consumption, +1 economy
Logging Camp, large (upgrade): (12)125 pop, req. small logging camp, -1 Consumption, +1 stability
Mine, small: (6;9) 75 pop, -1 Consumption, +1 Economy, req. hills or mountain
Mine, large: (18;27) 250 pop, -2 Consumption, +1 Economy, +1 Stability, req: hill or mountain, not Farm lvl 3
City: Cities are no longer founded, but grow from smaller settlements.
Hamlet (.25 district), 4 Blocks, +.5 Consumption, pop by block
Village (.25 district) 8 Blocks, +1 Consumption
Town (.25 district) 16 Blocks, +2 Consumption
City (.25 district) +1 Consumption/32 Blocks, loose all Farms in hex
Underground Complex: (24) 6 months preparation time, req: Mine, subterran race (like dwarves), building cost x3, district costs 48 BP and takes 6 months preparation

Magical items aren't sold but remain available for six months before being replaced. However for every actually item slot there is a virtual slot representing a variety of magical services that can be 'sold' for BP. Sell Dc as listed, but +5 for every additional item of that slot type. So major is DC 40 to sell one, DC 45 to sell two, etc.
minor: 1 item/district/month while roads are open
medium: 1 item/full district/month while roads are open
major: 1 item/full district/quarter
Any item the party buys is replaced the next month and provides the kingdom with BP as listed in RRR.

skill uses:
Profession(ruler): DM rolls twice for random events and chooses the more favorable result
Profession(treasurer): reroll economy checks
Profession([head of city guards, Warden in RRR, Marshall in RN-KB]): reroll loyalty checks, solve crimes, locate spies, professionalism of guards, resist bribery
Profession(High Priest): reroll stability checks
Profession(Magister): boost BP income/magical item
Profession(Diplomat): assure communications with embassies abroad
Prefession(spymaster): 'hands off' intelligence or counter-intelligence operation
Profession(councilor): know what people want rather than special interests
Profession(general): secure communication, locate infiltrators in military, ensure training quality, ensure equipment quality
profession([rural areas]): solve crime, locate spies
profession(Royal Assassin): remove undesired elements silently
all professions: prevent corruption in bureaucracy
profession(bureaucrat): can serve as any of the above professions but with -5 penalty to any action specific to those profession.

normal skills will come up often enough during normal role play of diplomacy, Intrigue, trials, and public council sessions.

Interaction with factions. Interaction with every faction has advantages and disadvantages.

Politics: Internal politics of the country; political parties with conflicting interests, VIPs advancing their agendas,

Unrest never was a real problem. Unless players roll very, very badly for several months in a row, the only way to get an unrest problem is to expand too quickly, and most players realize the problem early enough. Especially since houses alone can bring down unrest rather easily.
I guess with politics and tension between various political ideologies and people of importance unrest will become harder to manage.

For combat we used Warpath rules. That made things somewhat more interesting.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I'll echo Dudemeister a bit; preparation is far more important than in any other AP. The AP covers the bare bones of what is going on, but if you don't flesh things out, a lot of things will feel off.
First thing is the world. Usually you can ignore anything but the local government as GM, but not so here. You need to think about all regional governments, their politics and conflicts, both between one another and internal. That includes merchant houses, organized crime, and churches just as much as noble families.
The entities to think about are: the other three expeditions, Brevoy, Restov, Numeria, Mivon, Pitax, 'the fey', Nyrissa, churches (at least Erastil, Pharasma, Abadar)

To get the players started, work on the background before starting. Don't start at Oleg's, start in Restov. Have them meet the other groups, their benefactors, and some of the other groups interested. And after the first book have them meet again; they get 100,000gp worth in BP, so the benefactors should pay some attention to who they give it to, and attach strings. They start as peons in a power play between factions and should have to work to become a faction in their own right.

If your players are into Game of Thrones or intrigue in general, forget about the AP. Don't discard it, but don't use it as the major focus of the game. Growing the kingdom and 'game of thrones' will be the major focus after the Stag Lord... and then suddenly one of the players, Varnhold, vanishes. Including the spies the players have there, the friends they made when they visited, their ambassador/envoy, maybe a local priest helping with the construction of a new temple, and perhaps a family member. What will the party deal with, the fallout of a player disappearing and taking their place, or finding out what happened? Perhaps the rules of Varnhold was visiting their kingdom when his people disappeared, or perhaps he was in Brevoy and blames them...
Use the AP as spice to flavor the story of your kingdom and its rise to prominence.

And just in case you missed it: Keep Notes. Or better, keep notes, record every session, and then listen to the recording when you prepare for the next game.

I'm not certain I agree with the recommendation concerning magical items. You need to be aware that if you allow them, starting very early on magical items will become the major source of BP, as they sell magical items to unspecified buyers. Buyers that apparently will buy up an unlimited number of items. I'd recommend a modification of the system:
minor items: as is. sell one item per district per month
medium items: one item per full district per month. Full as is every space in the district is filled.
major items: one item per full district per quarter.
You'll still have to roll, so there's always a 5% chance per item that there is no benefit that month.
The item sold is not named and is in addition to any item that is available for players to purchase. It doesn't so much represent the sale of a single item as providing a number of magical services to the community and beyond. In addition if the players buy an item from a slot, the kingdom gets BP as appropriate to the slot. I'd replace items after six months if they aren't bought, but that's just me.
If you remove the magic item economy completely, you'll slow kingdom development a lot and you might need decades to develop the kingdom. Realistic, yes. Fun? Maybe. Humans and other short lived characters will run into aging penalties. And at this point the AP itself becomes a very minor aspect of the campaign. Not necessarily an argument against the move, but something to be aware of.

While we're at kingdom economy, I'd boost the impact of regular economy like logging and mining a lot. Maybe have them produce two BP/month. I'd also vastly limit the kingdom options they have during winter (and maybe during harvest). Most kingdom building in winter should center around enduring natural hazards.

On the other hand, if you don't have a lot of time to prepare all the extra stuff, tweak rules, and work out elaborate backgrounds with your players, then another AP might be more suited. Perhaps most important, you'll need months to properly prepare to start the AP, to plan out the politics in the region and how your players fit in, to customize the character backgrounds and so on. Other APs can be run more out of the box, even if they profit from customization, but for Kingmaker it is needed more than anywhere else, and the rewards are much clearer.

On a site note, with all the extra stuff you will probably have going on, consider running the AP at slow progression and hand out XP for role playing and objectives the players set themselves.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

In my experience the first session is always the hardest, so I'd recommend that you get the group together on session 0 and let them build their characters together. Have them make certain that their characters have reason to trust one another and to stick together - that's more important than anything else.

Things to keep in mind:
- characters must stick together. It's not evil that destroys campaigns, it's characters that can't work together. After you know their motivations reread the whole AP and make certain to remove anything that stresses their motivation for sticking together too much, then add in a few bits and pieces specific to their motivation.
Say they are interested in Thasilion; make Aldern a closet historian too! Maybe the topic comes up at their hunting trip and they find a few books in the manor - another motivation to seek out the city house and secure the books he has there. Maybe there are minor/hidden ruins near Fort Rannick or a famous historian/archeologist was visiting the fort when it fell out of communication. Especially at this point a genuine motivation is very much needed, since the adventure doesn't really provide anything, so make sure to give the characters a reason to go to Fort Rannick without much prompting. Maybe when the players clear out the cellars of the fort they find hints to a hidden tunnel that leads into a strange dungeon that the founders of the order located but decided not to explore and that's been unknown since they died. There they could find hints about the dungeon beneath Sandpoint and arrive just in time to defend the town; and look, the chief giant has orders written in runes of ancient Thasilion!

- Core-only and point-buy have been mentioned, but get boring very fast. Since you know the group already, make sure the power-gamers choose feats in line with their character, but try to allow anything a player brings up. My group favors rolling - if you think a character is too weak, compared to the rest of the group, have the re-roll, or give them something special; not a canned feat but something interesting that the player would never choose. Especially interesting for this adventure would be something like see invisible 1/day for ten rounds for a fighter, for example. Or a rogue with very low Wisdom? Well, let's say his perception is so low because he is short sighted (+2 for all non-visual based perception). Players do enjoy non-standard bonuses far more than any canned bonuses! It's a great way to get them invested in characters from the beginning.
This can end giving you a party that's a bit more powerful than simple point-buy, but that doesn't matter. If you have an experienced group, you need to power up most encounters anyway. The AP is designed to not totally screw over novice players and allow them to succeed, so if you even have one system expert that helps the other players level their characters, they will be ahead of the power curve anyway.

- stress test the group! Run them through a few training fights. I'd suggest 4 Kobolds to start with, a Lizard man with his pet Lizard Monitor, and then a very young black dragon (CR5) with a Kobold 5th level sorcerer (black dragon bloodline) in a cave, and after the party died make sure to tell them that there are situation where they will have to retreat if they wish to live - that they can't just brute force through and that not all enemies will just miraculously be appropriately low enough level just because they run into them. If they remember, that should help later on. After the test, let the players modify their characters. The purpose of the test is to get players used to first level characters and to let them make certain feats and class features perform as they expect - it's not part of the actual character history, so no XP.

Specifically for Burnt Offering:
Start before the festival. The players arrive in town (or live there) and get involved in the preparations. If all you do in the first session is the build up to the festival and a few games there, that's a good first session. If you get to end on a cliffhanger with the goblin attack just starting at the end of the session, even better. And if they just see one NPC from their backstory that plays no role in the story, but that they had friendly interaction with during the session get killed by goblins, it sets the right mood.

To prepare for the festival, make sure to write out some speeches and think of at least three ways to relay every piece of information you believe the players need to know that their back story wouldn't provide. Make sure the players have all the information their characters have about Sandpoint.
Think of additional information that various NPCs in town would have - both true and false - and think of ways the PCs could gain that information. It will probably take several sessions before the PCs are friendly enough with any PC for that to matter, but you never know what might happen.

I started with a memorial for the priest that burned in the old church at the graveyard in the morning, several hours before the festival opened.


4 people marked this as a favorite.

Some other ideas that could help out, if you're really concerned about profit:
1.More expensive trade goods:
Instead of trade good costing always 10gp, you could buy trade goods for 10 gp(x1), 50 gp(x5), 100 gp(x10), and 500 gp(x50) and would multiply the sale role with the value in the brackets to get the actual sales price.
Note: You can only sell trade goods in a community's up to it's base value, no matter how many traders you have or how much the trade goods are worth.

2. Special trade goods:
These could be things starting with expensive jewelry to things like black powder, masterwork items, and similar. You'd have to haggle somehow - I'd probably use opposed Diplomacy checks - and try to buy cheap and sell high. You'd have to develop a much more detailed economic system for this to work on a large scale, but it should easily work for cross-continental trade. What's common in Sandpoint would be very exotic on the other side of the world, so a considerable profit margin should be possible.

3. Passengers:
Provide some people that are interested in traveling in the same directing as the caravan but are unwilling to risk traveling alone. Paying passengers would not only be a source of income, but could also provide role playing opportunities but also plant seeds for some side adventures you might want to run or allow the BBEG some time to interact with the party before they attack from the inside.
A variation might be other merchant who want to join the caravan for a while to enjoy increased security and would pay a share of the costs or a fixed price, as you see fit.

4. Transport Service:
If they make no secret of where they are going, they may well be approached by people who need something transported in that direction - be it iron ore from the mines or heirloom furniture - and are willing to pay.

Whatever happens, the players should not forget that the caravan doesn't belong to them - neither do the profits! So don't allow them to take the money for themselves. This money should be exclusively for the travel costs and other common needs.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Who are the Navi and what do they have to do with the situation?

Anyway, I think the best thing they could do is let things calm down while they start to make serious preparations for what they want to archive. Do they want to free Westcrown or all of Cheliax?

Regardless of what their choice is, attacking the Hellknights doesn't further their aims. The Hellknights are independent Orders dedicated to law, not part of the military of Cheliax. There's no need to attack them and any attack would provoke massive reprisal from the other Hellknight Orders. If Westcrown officially rebels and follows the party, most of the city should be razed by devils while the party and their troops are laying siege to the citadel. At least unless they took some measures to ensure no devils could teleport in.

A better choice might be going after the House of Thrune directly, rather than trying anything in or about Westcrown directly. You could run it as a social game (meeting lots of nobles, gathering allies, assassinating nobles unwilling to assist - basically what the siblings did in Westcrown for all of Cheliax) or as a quest to find the source of House Thrune's power - what deals did they make with devils? Maybe infiltrating Hell - IIRC a place was mentioned where copies of all contracts are kept. So the party could try and find out what these contracts are and find a way to sabotage them. Or they could try to infiltrate the palace and kill the Queen. Of course removing the most direct inheritors first would go a long way in preventing a smooth transition in power. And her named and leveled Pit Fiend body guards would probably wipe them out at their current level.

The most important aspect in all of this is to not let the players get away with any hasty and unprepared action. They are up against an enemy that keeps Pit Fiends on retainer and can teleport large demon armies in with no notice - and has many high level figures working for it along with all the typical resources of a large national state. The resources of the Council of Thieves or even all of Westcrown are small compared to Cheliax - if you ignore that any victory the party gets will be spoiled by how easy and unrealistic it was.

You mention the Bellflower Network - a good example of avoiding any direct attention and only operating in the shadows, never challenging Cheliax directly or providing a fixed target to attack.

When planning the campaign it would probably be a good idea to assume that the two only things harder than defeating Cheliax are healing the Worldwound and killing a god.