blaznee's page

ahhhhh, thanks!!!

In a word.. Don't :).. Even making adjustments to room sizes, and even bringing extra mooks will do nothing to help the entertainment factor.

The campaign can handle 3-5 characters.. Depending on classes picked the small party will probably want a small boost, while 5 character parties should consider 15 point buys.

Try to split up your group and run it twice.. Once for the action happy fiends that want combat and stuff.. And one for the people who likes investigating and roleplay in the other group..

I was reading through the beginning of Spires yesterday trying to prepare for the first session with this book.

I'm reading the anniversary edition pdf..

I simply couldn't get to grips with that cabin.. Maybe it's me being non-english speaking or something, but to me it seemed like it wasn't quite clear how this cabin looked or was placed.

First of all.. Is it build on a cliff face (in my mind at the bottom of a cliff, up against the cliff). Or is build on a cliff edge (top of a cliff hanging out over it)..

The map makes NO sense to me.. The "bottom" part is much smaller than the top part, and has the horror tree standing outside, but some mine-looking tunnels to the "north)..
The top part describes a staircase outside leading down, but the top part is much larger than the bottom part.. Making me think of a really odd looking house.. Then it kinda looks like the top part is build into the cliff, but it's not clearly described, and it's still not clear exactly how this cabin is placed..

The best way I can see this is the cabin being build half inside a cliffside.. So only a small part is actually a wooden cabin. This could be an extra "danger" once the Wendigo starts tearing into the house, since the pc's can't escape out the back so to speak..

I was thinking of a similar build for an upcoming campaign. A synthesist/monk build..

So would you go Druid, monk, monk, monk, and then druid for the rest of the levels?

I have a conversion that was done by someone else here in Fanland. If you give me your e-mail I can look for it and forward it on to you.

Sure, but an official one would still be preferable :)

jesper . rathsach [at] gmail . com

So I'm sorry if this has been answered a ton of times before, I really had no idea how to get anything useful out of a search.

Anyway.. My group is finishing up Sins of the saviors right now, and it's becoming an increasing pain to find complete and high quality Pathfinder versions of the encounters, and I really don't have the time to do them myself (or the skill!).

With the pathfinder version coming up in a complete bound version, will you be releasing the statblocks for the encounters for people with the old versions? I really don't feel like buying the whole thing once more, just for the Spires part.

If you will release the statblocks I will wait with Spires part until you release them.. If not, I will go through with gimped encounter stats..

blaznee wrote:

Right, so he could add like flaming, bane, alignment or even vorpal given high enough level?

But never getting the armor above +10

Well not those qualities as they are weapon properties. The divine defender should have a list available for the qualities it supplies.

Hah! Complete brainfart from me after reading a similar thread about the divine weapon ability :D..

Vorpal Armor.. Awesome concept. You crit, and then it pops YOUR head off :P..

Right, so he could add like flaming, bane, alignment or even vorpal given high enough level?

But never getting the armor above +10

Shameless bump to get the attention of the EU evening crowd :)

Heh, I just doublechecked the rules.. I guess I'm used to playing with a bit more of an "optimized" group :P.. They routinely take down what the rules state as "epic" encounters from a CR perspective.

I'd still wager that 1 CR1 creature would be utterly destroyed by a party of 5, especially at low levels.

Which just goes to show that the CR is just a general guideline.. And I can only stress that you know your partys strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes it's good to through something at them they think is tough, but is basically just a bag of hitpoints with a high CR.. Othertimes that frail little magic user rips them a new one because he has spells designed to target their weak saves.

Oh and lastly, if you don't REALLY know if an encounter is bordering on TPK, try it out.. It's in your power to suddenly make them miss a whole lot, or get a reduction in hitpoints ;)

Not quite :).. That wouldn't really make sense either if your party levels up together.. No matter what, a CR X creature would then be an equal challenge to 2 lvl X players or 10 lvl X players.

A normal encounter for your party would be 5 CR1 creatures, or 1 CR5 creature.. Or a mix using the rules in the CR section.

And remember, your party really should breeze through a normal encounter.. You then bump the CR for hard and epic encounters using the stated rules..
And always be aware of your partys abilities.. A CR 1 flying creature can suddenly turn into a very unlucky Total Party Kill if noone has ranged abilities :D.. Or you bring an incorporeal creature and noone has magic weapons :P..

I'm confused about the wording of the divine defenders divine bond ability. It says I can put an enhancement bonus on my armor, up to a maximum of +6 at lvl 20. It then says it stacks with other enhancement bonuses up to +3!?..

So as I read it it would create the following paradox:

I can have the paladin buy a masterwork platemail which he can boost to a +6 at lvl 20.
OR he can buy a +1 platemail, but he will ever only be able to boost that to +3 even at level 20!?
That makes little sense..

Or am I supposed to read it so that it will stack with anything up to a +3.. So if he has a platemail +3, it could stack to +9 at lvl 20.. But if he picked up a +5 plate he would only be able to boost that to +9 as well at 20th (as if the armor was +3 to begin with)

If so, what happens at lvl where he could make a +3 enhancement like that.. He picks up a +5 armor.. Would he be able to boost that to +8 or only to +6 (+3 maximum used from the +5 armor, plus his +3 divine bond enhancement)

It's darn confusing..

So I'm sitting contemplating a summoning heavy Wizard, pretty close to what treantmonks guide suggests.. But how on earth should the "creatures summoned this way can't use spells or spell-like abilities that duplicate spells with expensive material cost" be handled? What is "expensive" in this line?..

It ofcourse doesn't come into play until fairly high level, as there are no high level spells availiable from summons until then.

Also, is there an errata somewhere with bestiary 2 and 3 monsters incl. in the summoning choices?

Well, a few good notes have been mentioned in this thread. But the main issue here is really that copyright laws are simply too complex and are also untested in courts as of now. Most of them are also patched laws from back when people didn't have internet.

Stuff like ACTA will have very little impact on piracy in my oppinion. Piracy will always excist, because people will ALWAYS seek the path of least resistance.. As someone mentioned, the price of retail dvd's in the most pirated markets are higher than anyone would be able to pay.

I would state that 90% of people with pirated material didn't pirate it because they didn't want to pay for it to the rightfull owner. It is ALWAYS availiability and cost that determines the amount of piracy.

Paizo does handle this quite wisely. They offer pdf's at a significant lesser cost than the printed version, AND they have the PRD as well. It's still not perfect - for one I'd like to have the pdf included when I buy a printed book.. I'd also like to have the subscription offers availiable to my country - or at least from EU so I didn't have to pay import tax and handling.

I'm quite sure that if Paizo pdf's were the same price as the printed versions, you would see a LOT more piracy of their products. Why? Because people enjoy using their laptops and especially tablets in their gaming. And pdf's ROCK for such things. Now they can get a copy of their books, and even whole adventure paths at a reasonable cost - EVEN considering that they may buy the print edition first. With higher prices people would not do this, but they'd still want the pdfs, and therefore pirate them a lot more.

P.S. Paizo, if you can't include the pdf's when you buy a print edition in a store, then you should consider printing a one-time discount code for them in each book, or ship them with codes to be handed out by the store at purchase..

So which Pathfinder conversion of Karzoug have people been running? I've found a few on these forums, but they change a bit. I'm just looking for one that is tested an came out as a mildly entertaining and fair fight :)

I'm slightly worried about this fight as well.. I can see my party reaching this at lvl 15, maaaaaybe just having dinged 16.

We have a sorceror, paladin, cleric and a barbarian.

The reason I'm worried is that I can only see this as a 1 round battle pretty much. If the barb comes before Karzoug, he's dead. If the paladin, and sorceror comes before Karzoug, he's dead..
If Karzough comes before any of the above, the party is pretty much wiped.
After fighting their way there I'm quite sure they are expecting a big fight, but I simply can't see this last more than one round effectively.. If the barb survives long enough to get close his damage output is good enough to end Karzoug in a round.. And even if he only gets one hit in, the pally and sorceror can almost match his damage output.

So as I see it I have to make the choice at initiative and HOPE the Barb isn't the first.. THen I can fudge Karzoug in at an oppertune point in the round.. Try to kill the barb and sorceror and then hope the pally saves his way through a few rounds with the cleric supporting.

So did anyone run the final fight yet? And did the party defeat Karzoug? Sitting here studying his stats and spells, he seems like quite the handfull even for 4 lvl 16 characters decked out in gear.

If he survives the first round, I simply don't see the party defeating him. He can control the fight using his spells, and put out so much damage that I simply can't imagine the party defeating him.

The party is currently a Barbarian (good ac and insane damage output), a Paladin (VERY good ac, good saves (and he's a divine defender, and pretty good damage output), a Cleric (heals and control focused) and finally a sorceress that does what a sorceror does best (control and damage).

If Karzoug survives round 1, it's just quickened timestop, wish (to heal up if necessary), prismatic wall and forcecage.. Maybe some more stuff if time permit. He should now be alive for at least 3 rounds more. In this he could do quickened wail of the banshee and horrid wilting.. That should easily take care of the sorceress and the cleric. Next it's a quickened meteor swarm and finger of death. ANd final round he can buy some time with a quickened temporal stasis and just find his favourite no-save damaging spells and finish the paladin and barbs final hitpoints laughing as he goes.

Ofcourse, a bad init roll and he gets the pally and barb in his face, a lucky crit and into oblivion he goes..

So I pretty much only see this going either "was that it??" or completely destroying the party, leaving them with a "ehmmm, what just happened"..

I could ofcourse hold back just a wee bit, but he doesn't have THAT many hitpoints, and it's 1 vs. 4 fight. And this is the END fight, so it should be epic! It should end with a 2hp left Paladin making a lucky crit while the rest are dead or dying.

Searching the forum didn't reveal much..

Can a sorceress who casts elemental body on herself still casts spells while in that shape?

Thanks for the conversion.. That will be needed very soon :)..

One thing I wondered was that she seemed to do more than one AoO pr. round.. Which feat makes her do that?

Has anyone come up with a suitable solution to the Mage's Disjunction trap? It's not really a danger any more, since the chance of it destroying magical items is so low..

Have any of you adjusted it successfully to present the correct level of danger?..

Also, pretty much everyone in the party has a Sihedron Medallion, which is listed as a minor artifact.. As I read it, there's a slight chance that my dear sorceror has a tiny chance of losing her spellcasting ability completely if her medallion gets destroyed..?

We're about to enter Jorgenfist in the RotRL adventure path. This was our first campaign in Pathfinder. I had GM'd some D&D 4th edition, but never 3rd/3.5. I've GM'ed other systems though.

RotRL's can seem like a bit of a fizzle to the GM sometimes, because the big baddies tend to sometimes vaporize in the first round. It annoyed me to begin with, and the first real challenge didn't come until Xanesha really.

I have gotten a lot of positive feedback from my players though on how I've handled the fights and progression. You just simply have to acknowledge that A LOT of the fights in the AP will be steamrolled by the players. We have a decent setup with a sorceror, cleric, paladin and a crazy high damage barbarian.

It's all about keeping the party juuuust enough on their toes to not fall into the "there's no danger to us".. And they SHOULD feel progression as well. Having something that was a little scary the first time, can show up again and be wiped by the players.

Once in a while a fight turns up that makes the characters go OUCH. The first one is probably Xanesha, and many parties will have their first death in that.

The Fort can be dangerous if they are not sufficiently careful. Yes, the ogres don't seem particularly dangerous one on one, but if they suddenly take a hating to the party spellcaster, you can take said spellcaster out in 1 round.

I played many encounters where they just throw themselves at the barbarian, and he cuts down everything with little trouble. The paladin buffs the party and protect the squishies. But sometimes just work around it. 4 Ogres suddenly turn into a dangerous situation if they suddenly flank the party cleric. The damage dealers simply can't kill them all fast enough to not see their cleric take considerable damage.

Also, don't be afraid to kill of a character. My player who is now a Paladin, had a fighter before that. He was dumb enough to charge the ogre leader in the fort, so the dude could go full attack on his go. Power attack, w. human bane weapon and he crits too. The fighter vaporised in 1 single round

Last time they ran into what looked like a standard encounter. 4 ogre barbarians. The fire domain cleric was first and went "fireball". The ogres ofcourse take a disliking to him, so they ALL went for him. He lost half his hitpoints that round. He decided to make a BAD move. Stay in melee range and do Slay Living, which is like hitting an ogre with a wet piece of paper. But alas, he was now in melee range of all 4 ogres, and they went "whack a cleric" and he was reduced to pulp..

The party was 11th level, and felt like it was just another small skirmish, and I killed the party healer. They thought they had NO danger, and I wanted them to get on their toes before approaching Jorgenfist. I bent the world a little bit, and they went to Ravenmoor and sold all they could to afford a True Resurrection spell - which I allowed the city high priest to perform. The cleric had ALSO died during the fight with the dragon earlier, and looked a little sad that they had JUST spent the money for 1 resurrection, and now one more - just one fight later.. But to ease the pain, his deity gifted him a 25k sun yellow diamond as he was brought back..

Just make sure your party feels powerfull 75% of the time, and then now and then give them a decent scare.. Also, don't be afraid to whack the squishy players a bit if they start acting cocky and invulnerable. Our party Sorceress has twice felt like going in melee range to something, and both times ended up on the wrong side of 0 hitpoints the next round..

So the only thread I could find about this is this one:

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderR PG/rules/largeCreaturesReach&page=1&source=search#0

But something doesn't quite make sense to me.. And I wonder if anyone else has had this clarified, or play it differently than the above thread..

So a standard reach weapon used by a medium size creature reaches the 2nd square away from the character.

Now in many stat blocks for large creature it states "reach 10", which makes me think that "Reach" pr. standard is reach 5..

So if reach is 5 and threatens 2nd square away. Wouldn't a reach 10 stat mean they threaten 3 squares away?.

The reason being that we're fighting a lot of giants at the moment, and the better fighters among them would always try to be at range.. As we play it right now, the player characters can still just take a 5ft step and hit the giant with a full attack.. I want them to feel the danger from the AoO and not have the ability for a full attack. It just seems more "fighting a giant"'ish :D..

Has anyone playtested this? It may make the giants MUCH more difficult.

Thanks for the input. I would say a natural weapon is "held", so what would we end up with then?

First off the Nat. weapons with Haste question.

So as I understand Haste a character with +6/+1 with haste gets a full attack of +6/+6/+1 Right?

So I have a creature that has (numbers are just examples, I don't remember the real values)

Tail +5 AND 2 claws +4 AND bite +7

That would leave a normal full attack as +5/+4/+4/+6 right?

Now what happens when that creature is Hasted? 2 bites? at +6 plus all the other attacks?

Then the Mirror Image..

I have a monster that has Mirror Image as an At Will cast.. Isn't that pretty much invulnerability?

Actually one of the things that made me dump D&D 4.0 and go Pathfinder were the amount of RP and fluff for characters that it had..

D&D 4 was just a miniature battlegame.

Pathfinder really shines because you can make A LOT of different concepts and carry them out. You get really inspired by flipping through the books..

I have a feeling the people that talk trash about "bad underpowered content" simply forget that not all of us are "in it to win it".. We are here because we enjoy playing our flail handling, god loving Paladins out to save the world and be pious as hell :D.... In another story we're the cackling mad warlock with a tendency to eat goblin children.. Yet another sees us in the role of a dual knife wielding gnome ranger with a tendency to "have to carry stuff for other people"..

I can see a poor monk and a druid with a severe skincondition among those as well..

I don't have his specific build with me here, but I have a character in my party that has 6 levels of fighter and 2 levels of Barbarian, and he's a dwarf.

WHen he power attacks he has something like +36 on his damage.. It's pretty insane.. When he's hasted and gets 3 attacks, he can down a BBEG i one round, and his crits are *3, so do the math :S

I've even had to device my tactics around him now. Rarely attacking him as he has the best AC in the group, he has the most hitpoints by far, he's the most likely to hit me and he does the most damage by FAR.
He's pretty imbalanced it seems, but I haven't found any faults in his build.

To make it interesting for the rest, I attack them instead and the tension comes from whether or not the Dwarf can down the monsters fast enough for everyone to survive.

I will choose to agree and use that as my RuleHammer[TM] :)

Thanks for input :)

Yes, but reading the feat it could just as well mean she can only use the feat once pr. round..

But she uses the feat to grant the bonus, and reading it literally the affected character has the bonus from then on..

It's weird..

I would also deem it "only for that attack", but the wording of the feat makes it hard to argue :).

Time to summon GameMaster powers? :D

So the Saving Shield feat from APG states that you can grant an adjacant ally +2 shield bonus to ac as an immediation action, when said ally is attacked.

What it doesn't really clarify is how long this lasts.. Is it only for that 1 attack - meaning that the next time in the same round a boogyman hits the ally, does the +2 still affect her? If so, does the effect last as long as they stay adjacent to eachother?

If read literally it could mean that by the end of the fight, everyone could have gotten next to the character with the feat and enjoy the +2 bonus.. (other stacking rules permitting).

Awesome.. Thanks for the clarification

What's the actual game difference between a temporary bonus compared to the non-temporary then?

Okay, so under Belt of giant strenght it says that after 24 hours of wear the ability bonus turns into a permanent ability score increase. Does this then mean that after you wear said belt for more than a day, then you can actually get yet another bonus by having bull strength cast on you.. Normally those two wouldn't stack, but after reading that wording I'm in doubt.

Also, does that "rule" go for any magical items granting ability modifiers?

Can someone point me to the rules for this? I had no idea about the -2 on everything but piercing for one..

And the spellrules are confusing.. I read the steam part of a fireball, but it also states that fireballs need line of effect and that water block it.. So you could really only cast the fireball just above the water, and get the steam effect "below" it..

So a couple of things have cropped up during the last playsessions.. ANd I was wondering if anyone had some input for me :)..

First up is fighting in water.. We had an encounter where a player was dragged into a deep water pool by a amphibious creature.. We looked up the rules to continue the fight, and they looked really odd.. What we came away with that the players could hold their breath for more than enough rounds, and could easily use their weapons in water. It was only some concealment to take care of when using melee weapons under water. It was basically just like on land except for LOS and LOE for spellcasters and ranged damage- and that didn't make sense to me at all. What did I miss..

Fireballs and other area effect spells... So fighting in close quarters against large (tall) creatures.. Nowhere does it state if the effect is "ball" shaped or "disk" shaped. If anything, it sounds like more like the latter.. So the party started throwing fireballs in the tall creatures face, and thus above the party members themselves..
Has anyone run into this as well as a sort of loophole? How do you handle it? Just by making area spells work as an "infinite pillar" in a game technical perspective?.

Unfortunately I didn't see these answers in time for my game session, but we handled it rather neatly I think.

We used our smartphones to take pictures of each little map, and people could sit and study them on their phones..

Worked like a charm!.. I even started using the technique for monster statblocks from the bestiary instead of bringing the book up now and then on my laptop (I only have the pdf)..

Thanks for the help anyway people :)

Name of PC: Nalrak
Class/Level: Rogue 3
Adventure: Skinsaw - Misgivings
Catalyst: Misgivings

Nalrak failed the check in the study and brained himself with the knife/woodsplinter.. It was a planned death with the player that didn't enjoy this specific character.

Name of PC: Cho-Lau
Class/Level: Monk 6
Adventure: Skinsaw - shadow clock
Catalyst: Xanesha

An infamous encounter indeed. All three of the characters in melee combat were 1 hit away from going down, and Xaneshe was heavily wounded they knew. Cho-Lau goaded the Lamia into attacking him, and thus saving another of his friends. Unfortunately for him, Xanesha crit'd and sent him to minus 23 hitpoints and instant skewering on her spear.

Much appreciated here as well.. I need the conversions for everything passed Hook Mountain..

jesper . rathsach at gmail dot com

Hi guys,

I have NO idea if this is out of order to ask for or what, but I'm running through the Fort Brannick take back tonight, and I'm having a tiny issue.

I wanted to hand out the 4 maps on page 27 to my players to aid in their planning. One of the characters is a former Black Arrow, and they have the saved BA's with them as well, so I figured they know all the maps show them.

But alas, the photocopier at my work has just died, so I can't make the handouts.

Can anyone scan page 27 for me and post it (or email me)? I don't feel like buying the pdf for a single handout printing :S..

Ofcourse, if the Paizo guys think it's a breach of copyright, then ofcourse don't post anything like that, and I'll just have to get by with the book tonight.

The Grandfather wrote:

I have finished a comprehensive PRPG conversion of the monsters of the Hook Mountain Massacre.

Enjoy!

Very helpful, Thank you!

I used your earlier version but just got to the point where I needed to work on the rest of them so this is perfect timing!

Awesome! Thank you very much!

So we're a little confused about the Damage Reduction rules.

DR/adamantine takes either an adamantine weapon or a +4 weapon to overcome, right?.

+3 for cold iron/silver etc.

But what about DR/-.. A character just picked up an adamantine armor with DR/- of 3.. So no matter how awesome a weapon it counts according to the rules? Not even a +7 Longsword of Holy Awesome Goodness can negate that damage reduction? Or am I misreading something and even a +1 weapon negates a DR/- stat?

blaznee: I would strongly recommend against ever having her drop her spear. With spear she does 1 Wisdom drain each attack; without she does three touch attacks per round for 2d4 wisdom drain. That will put down a party very quickly, far more quickly that HP damage.

Oh, and from your short summary it appears as if you played her wrong; she is supposed to flee when she is down to 60 hp, so her effective hp are 82+false life. That's a mere 5 hits from a buffed fighter (hitting on 5 and 10 respectively)or 4 from a buffed, smiting Paladin (hitting on 2 and 6 thanks to the addition of eagle's splendor). There's a good chance that she turns into a one round wonder without her buffs.

Oh, and just a question; after the beating the cleric got and especially the Wisdom drain, why didn't they flee? At that moment they should have realized that they are in over their heads, if they spend too many resources on earlier fights. Just curious.

I agree with not attacking the party healer; but she honestly should know not to charge before her meat shields.

Well, she dropped the spear (on a fumble) simply to give the pc's some needed hope.. The Wisdom drain wasn't so bad as I didn't roll very high damage on it.

She wasn't supposed to flee at 60, she's supposed to fly out of the tower and throw spells at the party. My party only had 1 ranged character - the sorceror. So I didn't want to go there.. I actually wanted her to survive, but I had managed to set it up poorly for myself and decided against it in the end..

I really have no idea why they didn't flee.. THey fled Malfeshnekor earlier in the campaign..

I ran this encounter on my session.. 4 players. Monk, Fighter, Cleric and a Sorceror.
I knew from reading the forums that it could be a TPK encounter, so I didn't play her to her fullest potential. Especially as I saw the party expend a lot of resources on the Golem. So they came to the fight lacking critical firepower.

So what I did was running her with her AC of 26 - as the note says, even though it technically doesn't make sense.. I'm sure it's adjusted for balance ;).. 26 is plenty high with ~150 hp (remember false life).

I lured them in with darkness and the demon. I gazed the sorceress who missed the save and was petrified for 10 rounds. And then the fight began.. The Cleric felt brave and rushed at her, and was promptly delivered 52 points of damage in return! The players faces whitened a bit at that strike.. The Cleric pulled back with his 2 remaining hitpoints.. And he was the savior of the party.

Now I'm all for keeping my party alive, but I DON'T want them to feel safe and untouchable.. So even though I spread out the damage a bit, and she dropped her spear on a fumbled melee attack as well.. And I didn't go completely ranged as the tactics say either.. The party would have been toast!.

Anyhow.. Middle of the fight the Fighter goes down, but is quickly put on his legs again and starts to heal up. The sorceror joins the fray, and immediately penetrates the SR on Xanesha and starts whittling away her hp. The monk fights bravely, but is simply not efficient enough. Low to hit, and not that much damage.. He instead tries to just aid the now awake fighter.

It turns quite desperate for the players as they are VERY low on hitpoints. The Monk goads the Snakegirl to attack him as he knows the fighter can't take another round, and the cleric needs to stay alive.. She obliges, and takes out the monk in a single round to -23 hitpoints and he dies. The party knows that each round one will most likely fall, it's just a matter of who and how much. They didn't know at that point that she had only 21 hitpoints left.
The Sorceror delivered the killing blow and there was much rejoicing.. The party felt suffieciently challenged, and truly feared for their characters, and one guy fell..

My advice.. Don't attack the party healer!.. If she dies, it's game over.. Keep the ac at 26!... Fumble the dice a bit with the spear attacks. Those are crazy.. And lastly.. Kill a party member! Motivate the group! This is the first truly big baddie, and you can spend a round taking someone out in a horrific way while they whittle at her hitpoints..

So my group decided to ditch 4.0 and went to Pathfinder. Usually we do our own stuff, but I decided to try to run an adventure path after reading some good comments about it..

I decided on Rise of the Runelords - which may not have been the most clever decision, as it's written for 3.5 rules and a few things are off or missing.. But we got by.. I wouldn't say the entire story went completely without hitches - it was practice as much for me as for my players.. :)

So here's a short recap.

Players were:
Cho-lau the Varisian Monk with a dark secret
Nalrak the Varisian Rogue. Flashy combatant and avid entertainer
Rukan the stout fighter. Heroic to the last drop of blood and a fierce combatant specialising in using his Spiked Chain.
After the first session they were joined by a 4th character.
Sijit the gnome elemental sorceress. Big power in a small package!

So the players decided they knew eachother from a travelling circus group travelling the cities from magnimar to korvosa and even Riddleport. Cho-lau was the most recent addition, joining the group after their last visit in Korvosa. Travelling towards Riddleport trying to make a shortcut their caravan had been attacked by Hill Giants. The entire convoy had been destroyed and our heroes had only barely managed to escape with their lives. Travelling south towards the last city they remembered they run into a Dwarven brewer on his way to Sandpoints swallowtail festival, they decide to jump on his cart as "protection". That's how they arrive at the festival..

They quite enjoyed the festival, and got really into the whole food competition thing. Cho-Lau was somewhat of a cook himself and got acquanted with Ameiko at the festival. They were absolutely clueless when the Goblin raid startet, but they jumped straight to it.. Much hilarity ensued as new players fumbled with new rules and had to try everything. Among the highligts was Cho-Lau being grappled by a goblin after himself fumbling his grapple ending up face down in the dirt.

They spent the next few days running into the various scenes from the path, especially enjoying (and facing the challenges it brought) the seduction in the General Store basement. Nalrak completely fell for it, and couldn't talk his way out of it. During this they also had a habit of finding Goblins in the most odd places - both dead and alive.

They made good friends with Ameiko while staying at the Rusty Dragon - courtesy of Sandpoint for their efforts during the festival. So when she dissapeared they really got into it to rescue her. The big fight at the glassworks was a memorable piece and they spared Tsuto's life and imprisoned him instead. Once they spotted the tunnel downstairs they didn't feel that compelled to check it out, but a shambling monster coming out of the dark stirred their curiousity.

Catacombs of Wrath turned into an old school dungeon crawl, but it has some memorable moments. They especially liked that flying head thing I forgot the name of now. The end battle turned out to be too much for them though, so I had to tone it down a bit.

Next came Thistletop.. I lured them up there with some urging from Father Zantus.. They quickly found their way through the thistle maze and missed most of it really.. BUt they didn't seem to care at all.. I kinda screwed up the front of the fortress, but to my luck the ever entertaining Cho-Lau decided to basically charge 4 goblins and 4 goblin dogs.. They did take it careful with the bridge, so nothing happened with that.

The fight outside did take quite a few recources from them due to some really bad rolls, so I gave them a slightly easier time inside. I had peaked into the next adventure, so I wanted to present a few "wrath, lust, envy" things on them.. Things turned especially dark when the Gnome sorceress snuck into the bedchambers of goblins and sliced the throats on 6 sleeping goblins.

The big fight against Ripnugget ended with Ripnugget bravely shouting "For Thistletop" and charging the Sorceress who had killed most of his entourage damaged himself quite a bit. A few attacks of oppertunity later he was killed. Not the most challenging fight, but it was very cinematic.

First dungeon level took quite a while. They quickly subdued Lyrie the scholar, and I used her to explain a bit of plot. They ended up almost making friends with her. The Harem encounter I decided to just make a plain old fun - and slightly disturbing scene. It involved some panicky naked goblin girls and a painfully naked Bruthamus :).. Lots of laughs :)... The chapel scene turned into a regular slugfest as they fought the Yeth Hounds. Rukan was panicked by the howls, and the rest had a very hard time. They were heavily wounded after that. It turned out to be a good thing though, as the memory of those hounds made them really fear the Nualia encounter later.

On the second dungeon floor Nalrak pulled off a few amazing rolls, and my disarm roll ended with a 30 on the trap. Suffice to say they pretty much danced across that trap :).. The fight against Nualia was a little annoying due to the small room, but it was a challenging fight and the party was pretty exhausted after. They decided to go up a level and rest until the next day.
THe next morning they soldiered on, and at the golden pillar it was Cho-Laus turn to pull out the abnormously high search roll. "A small line in the wall?? Ok, I put a gold coin in it!.. ".. I was mildy surprised :).. They quickly found their way to Malfeshnekor, and even still being badly hurt they attacked. One round later they were running for their lives and closed the door again :). The demon was beyond what they could handle.
They made it past the Shadows, although Sijit the gnome was left with a strength score of 4. Badly hurt they made their way to the treasury only to run for their lives from the Crab as well..

They saved Shadowmist and made their way back, and I ended the campaign just outside Sandpoint.. The players were really happy, and the notebook from Nualia coupled with some lore they got from Lyrie has spurred their interest.
Out of game though they were happier with the first part of the book than the 2nd part.. They enjoyed the small scenes in the city more than the dungeon crawly bits.. They were hooked though and are eagerly awaiting the continual..

I must say I really enjoyed the book, and it's by far the best published adventure I have tried.. Ofcourse their are some grey areas here and there, but overall it's a really nice GM tool to run after.

I can't seem to get anything useful from my searches on these forums for these questions..

First of all, in my first game I'll be running the Rise of the Runelords campaign.

So question 1:
Next to several encounters there's aa "EL 1" or similar next to it. What does that mean? Is that "encounter level"? or what is it? And what can I use it for?

Question 2:
On many creatures there are multiple attacks listed. I'm curius as to how to use that.
Take a "Sinspawn" from the Runelords campaign. It says "2 claws +2 and bite +0)

So how many attacks does that give me? 1 attack using only either 1 claw or the bite if I make a standard attack action? 2 attacks with the claws at +2 each with one standard attack action? Or the whole shebang with 3 attacks (2 claws and the bite) for one standard attack action? Or will it requite a full round action to get more than a single claw at +2 (or the bite at +0)?