Ashram |
I'm not sure that i like the new look or name.
The Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition looks much better.
That said, i am going to buy this.
The title seems to suggest that this is the first, but not last, of Adventure Path collections.
I know - we won't getting a Second Darkness or Legacy of Fire APC anytime soon (if ever), but maybe a Kingmaker or Carrion Crown one? ;-)
If anything, a Second Darkness or Legacy of Fire compilation would be more likely than the others if only to finally update the other two APs that are still under 3.5 rules. Naturally, it's all up to how well this sells and how much old stock of the original modules they have.
Ckorik |
Ckorik wrote:Will there be an interactive maps for this (like Runelords?)Yup! It will be available separately and in the PDF version of the compilation. If you purchase the PDF version of the compilation, it also will come with a separate file containing player handouts :)
This is awesome! Thank you!
Heine Stick |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm going add more Occult flavor, which it already oozes in spades.
Same here. I think Occult Adventures and Horror Adventures will see a lot of use in my upcoming Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign, and I intend to insert elements from The House on Hook Street in the campaign as well.
James Jacobs Creative Director |
9 people marked this as a favorite. |
I managed to squeeze in some elements from Occult Adventures here and there into the new book. Not a lot, but the book DOES, for example, give advice on what happens if you bring a spiritualist into Scarwall, or how some occult options might allow for strange new potential interactions with the Harrow deck or other things you find along the way!
Hayato Ken |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I managed to squeeze in some elements from Occult Adventures here and there into the new book. Not a lot, but the book DOES, for example, give advice on what happens if you bring a spiritualist into Scarwall, or how some occult options might allow for strange new potential interactions with the Harrow deck or other things you find along the way!
That´s pretty cool.
I know quite some people who GM and feel overwhelmed by new options and have problems incorporating them into APs. They will surely appreciate it.James Jacobs Creative Director |
12 people marked this as a favorite. |
James Jacobs wrote:I managed to squeeze in some elements from Occult Adventures here and there into the new book. Not a lot, but the book DOES, for example, give advice on what happens if you bring a spiritualist into Scarwall, or how some occult options might allow for strange new potential interactions with the Harrow deck or other things you find along the way!That´s pretty cool.
I know quite some people who GM and feel overwhelmed by new options and have problems incorporating them into APs. They will surely appreciate it.
True... but that said, a GM who's overwhelmed by the new options and has problems dealing with them absolutely should NOT allow those new options into his game. That's not the mark of a lazy GM... that's the mark of a skilled GM who knows what his limits are.
Personally, I suspect that many GMs who find their games aren't "challenging" enough when they run a game run into that problem precisely because they allow players carte blanche to build characters from books and options the GM isn't familiar with. In a best-case scenario, the GM is the one with the best rules-fu at the table, and when a player knows the mechanics of a class a lot better than the GM the GM is more often going to be blindsided by things.
And to you players out there... if you DO get to build a class that you think the GM isn't familiar with, don't use this as an opportunity to trick/ambush your poor GM. Work with him to make sure he's aware of your character's options, tactics, and potentials. The whole mindset of "if the GM knows my tricks then he'll use that knowledge to win and kill my character" is toxic to the game. As are GMs who do that, of course... if you have a GM who pulls this kind of stunt, though, chances are good you know that already and the solution there isn't really to build a sneaky character using options that GM isn't familiar with but to either find a new GM or volunteer to be the GM for your group.
James Jacobs Creative Director |
James Jacobs Creative Director |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
James Jacobs wrote:Nuts, I felt like there were some ideal spots to put some of that stuff in...RHMG Animator wrote:Any chance some Ultimate Intrigue stuff got put in like, a Heist.There's a Vigilante, but that's about it from Ultimate Intrigue. No heists or anything like that.
The point of this whole book was to update it to the current rules but to keep the same flavor and experience as closely as possible to the original. It's not really a "remake" at all. As you saw with Runelords, the end result is pretty much the same game, with a few expansions here and there.
Since there was never a heist in the original, there's no heist in it now.
Steel_Wind |
The point of this whole book was to update it to the current rules but to keep the same flavor and experience as closely as possible to the original. It's not really a "remake" at all. As you saw with Runelords, the end result is pretty much the same game, with a few expansions here and there.Since there was never a heist in the original, there's no heist in it now.
And of course, it's a relatively open campaign - especially in the beginning of both volumes 1 and 2. There is nothing which prevents a GM from adding such elements to the AP as they may wish. I plan to do exactly that in the first half of the Edge of Anarchy to suit my own campaign's plans.
FWIW, I had never read or played CotCT for these past 9 - going on ten years as I always wanted to leave playing it an option. Having resolved to run it, I have been reading the first two volumes all week (for the first time!)
I definitely can see the changes over the years in writing and editing styles as well as the refining of the development process. "AP Creation Skill Levels" are certainly not static at Paizo. For one thing, the readability level of CotCT (at least as initially released) is quite a bit behind the curve of the standard at Paizo over the past 4 years (say). (It's not even close, really.)
While I suppose this will come off as a criticism, it's not meant to be. There's no way that you can devote your lives to 11+ years making APs and NOT get noticeably better at it.
Olmac |
Now for the Eternal Question: Do I buy it on Amazon for $50 and free shipping, or buy it from Paizo for $60 and another $12 shipping. Hey, not trying to be disloyal or anything, but $22 bucks is $22 bucks. So the question is whether the PDF is worth $22 when you already own a hardcover.
Plus Amazon will likely have it closer to $40 by the release date.
I get where you're coming from. I live in Canada and after crunching the numbers of getting it from Paizo or Indigo Books the choice was obvious. Paizo was going to cost me ballpark $105 Canadian. Indigo with free shipping is $72.84. No brainier for me. I wish I could order everything from Paizo, but the reality is, it does not always make economical sense. Indigo is expecting to have it delivered by October 18 so I am good with that. Not likely running it until the new year anyway, have to finish Emerald Spire first.
Steel_Wind |
Maveric28 wrote:I get where you're coming from. I live in Canada and after crunching the numbers of getting it from Paizo or Indigo Books the choice was obvious. Paizo was going to cost me ballpark $105 Canadian. Indigo with free shipping is $72.84. No brainier for me. I wish I could order everything from Paizo, but the reality is, it does not always make economical sense. Indigo is expecting to have it delivered by October 18 so I am good with that. Not likely running it until the new year anyway, have to finish Emerald Spire first.Now for the Eternal Question: Do I buy it on Amazon for $50 and free shipping, or buy it from Paizo for $60 and another $12 shipping. Hey, not trying to be disloyal or anything, but $22 bucks is $22 bucks. So the question is whether the PDF is worth $22 when you already own a hardcover.
Plus Amazon will likely have it closer to $40 by the release date.
And cheaper still at Amazon.ca at $68.68 with free shipping. Which I expect you knew and you prefer to shop at Indigo for some reason (which has it at $69.37); however Indigo.ca also offers Plum points if you are a part of that loyalty program, so there is that.
The NPC |
The NPC wrote:There will be an NPC with a Kyton Eidolon. Will that be available as a player option?The rules for kyton eidolons are in the book's appendix. Whether or not your GM makes those rules available to your PC for this adventure or for any adventure is up to your GM, of course.
Cool. Thanks.
magnuskn |
3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Just pre-ordered this today over Amazon. I won't be using this for a good long while, since I already ran CotCT years ago with forum-made conversions and my second group is now wanting to run Shadowrun for a while... but I wanted this for such a long while, it would be hypocritical to not support this.
Also, Laori deserves it. Second favorite Pathfinder character for me, after Ameiko. :)
Steel_Wind |
I was looking through Vol 1 Edge of Anarchy last night and broke down the XP point awards and the point in the adventure where the PCs "ding" to the next level.
Going strictly by the book and not including bonus XP arising from any encounter which does not explicitly specify it, there is a very real problem with the XP awards in this Volume of the CotCT AP.
Essentially, the problem arises from the different possible resolutions of all of the encounters at Eel's End.
Should the PCs stick with the premise and bribe Devargo and resolve the whole matter peaceably (indeed, as the bag of gold they are given by Cressida explicitly suggests as how they are supposed to resolve it) the PCs will earn only 800 xp for this segment of the adventure -- instead of the roughly 11,600+ they would otherwise earn if they just kill everything and everyone, instead.
Seeing as there are only a touch over 36,000 XP available in all of Vol 1 to earn, this is a significant potential oversight as it will leave the PCs at 2nd level
Question: Has there been any tinkering with the XP points specified in CotCT anniversary edition? What about the assumed progression track? Medium or Fast?
Steel_Wind |
Fast track same as Rise, I already asked, not sure about the rest though. :-)
On the XP point breakdown, at the end of Edge of Anarchy, if the PCs do everything, they will ding 4th at the conclusion of the final encounter if on the medium track (Which is what they are supposed to be in accordance with the intended design).
Admittedly, if the Fast Track is used and Eel's End is resolved through roleplay, the PCs should then ding 3rd after the Shingle Chase and before the Dead Warrens starts.
My reason for doing the breakdown was to figure out how much slack there was in the design for additional encounters, and switching to medium track and adding a 5th PC, whether I could expand the 1st volume significantly by adding in ~15,000-25,000 XP worth of CRs.
Answer: YES. Assume Eeel's End is resolved via roleplay and that there are 5 PCs instead of 4, all progressing on the Medium track, you can then add 25,000+ XP to Vol 1 safely.
Kalindlara Contributor |
James Jacobs Creative Director |
5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Updating a 3.5 product to Pathfinder is more than just swapping out statistics. A lot more. Adjusting the experience point awards is another big part. As with Rise of the Runelords, the Curse of the Crimson Throne hardcover assumes that you run using the Fast XP track, but as Kalindlara pointed out, even our Fast track is slower than was 3.5's XP route.
As a result, Curse of the Crimson Throne for Pathfinder gives out more XP overall than the version for 3.5. This is the same thing for the Runelords hardcover. How does it give out more XP? Two ways:
1) Pathfinder is more interested in actually giving out story awards for XP than was 3.5. You COULD do story awards in 3.5, but game and adventure design philosophy put a much stronger focus on killing as a method for gaining XP, at least as the assumed baseline. With Pathfinder, we give out XP for solving problems via methods other than killing, and also give out XP for completing significant story awards far more often.
2) The bigger way, though, is simply by adding MORE. There's certainly a significant addition to the campaign between "A History of Ashes" and "Skeletons of Scarwall" (a new complex I designed consisting of about 20 encounter areas), but that's not the only place I added encounters. I added encounters to EVERY adventure. Some more than others—in Scarwall, for example, EVERY room now has something going on, be it a fight or a trap or a haunt or a clue or a treasure or whatever. That more or less added, I'm guessing, about 15 pages or so of content to that adventure—all of them encounters. There's additional encounters in the other adventures as well; in some cases things I put back into the adventure after I had to cut them from previous publication for space count, but in most cases entirely new things I added as part of the development process.
So... in the end, you start this campaign at 1st level and can expect to reach 17th level, and more or less will progress through the levels at about the same rate and speed as you did if you played it back when it first came out. All part of my goal of preserving as much of the original play experience as I could.
James Jacobs Creative Director |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
captain yesterday wrote:Fast track same as Rise, I already asked, not sure about the rest though. :-)On the XP point breakdown, at the end of Edge of Anarchy, if the PCs do everything, they will ding 4th at the conclusion of the final encounter if on the medium track (Which is what they are supposed to be in accordance with the intended design).
Admittedly, if the Fast Track is used and Eel's End is resolved through roleplay, the PCs should then ding 3rd after the Shingle Chase and before the Dead Warrens starts.
My reason for doing the breakdown was to figure out how much slack there was in the design for additional encounters, and switching to medium track and adding a 5th PC, whether I could expand the 1st volume significantly by adding in ~15,000-25,000 XP worth of CRs.
Answer: YES. Assume Eeel's End is resolved via roleplay and that there are 5 PCs instead of 4, all progressing on the Medium track, you can then add 25,000+ XP to Vol 1 safely.
In the end, how much additional content you want to add to ANY adventure or campaign is your call. You're in charge of and control the game, after all, and that means you control how often and how much XP is given out. Just make sure you let your players know if you're adjusting XP totals or gain rates before the game begins!
Kalindlara Contributor |
Marik Whiterose |
Updating a 3.5 product to Pathfinder is more than just swapping out statistics. A lot more. Adjusting the experience point awards is another big part. As with Rise of the Runelords, the Curse of the Crimson Throne hardcover assumes that you run using the Fast XP track, but as Kalindlara pointed out, even our Fast track is slower than was 3.5's XP route.
As a result, Curse of the Crimson Throne for Pathfinder gives out more XP overall than the version for 3.5. This is the same thing for the Runelords hardcover. How does it give out more XP? Two ways:
1) Pathfinder is more interested in actually giving out story awards for XP than was 3.5. You COULD do story awards in 3.5, but game and adventure design philosophy put a much stronger focus on killing as a method for gaining XP, at least as the assumed baseline. With Pathfinder, we give out XP for solving problems via methods other than killing, and also give out XP for completing significant story awards far more often.
2) The bigger way, though, is simply by adding MORE. There's certainly a significant addition to the campaign between "A History of Ashes" and "Skeletons of Scarwall" (a new complex I designed consisting of about 20 encounter areas), but that's not the only place I added encounters. I added encounters to EVERY adventure. Some more than others—in Scarwall, for example, EVERY room now has something going on, be it a fight or a trap or a haunt or a clue or a treasure or whatever. That more or less added, I'm guessing, about 15 pages or so of content to that adventure—all of them encounters. There's additional encounters in the other adventures as well; in some cases things I put back into the adventure after I had to cut them from previous publication for space count, but in most cases entirely new things I added as part of the development process.
So... in the end, you start this campaign at 1st level and can expect to reach 17th level, and more or less will progress through the levels at about the same rate and speed as you did if you...
James, will you also be adding "Milestones" where PC's should be at a certain level before doing something? For those of us who don't use XP.
James Jacobs Creative Director |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
James, will you also be adding "Milestones" where PC's should be at a certain level before doing something? For those of us who don't use XP.
We do this for all our adventures, be they modules or AP installments. Harcover compilations (like Runelords, and like Crimson Throne) included.
James Jacobs Creative Director |
James Jacobs Creative Director |
3 people marked this as a favorite. |
James Jacobs wrote:Thomas Seitz wrote:Wait...did you just say you added MORE to Castle Scarwall, Mister Jacobs?!QUITE a lot more, in fact.OOo....OOOO....oooo
*faints*
All those rooms in the previous version that had either no encounter in them or one of the letter codes for a generic kitchen/armory/whatever? With the exception of the toilets and generic storerooms... ALL of those rooms now have new things, be they actual monster encounters or hidden treasures or haunts or clues or the like. Several of these were things I had to cut from the original adventure, but most are brand new even to Greg.
Olmac |
Olmac wrote:Maveric28 wrote:I get where you're coming from. I live in Canada and after crunching the numbers of getting it from Paizo or Indigo Books the choice was obvious. Paizo was going to cost me ballpark $105 Canadian. Indigo with free shipping is $72.84. No brainier for me. I wish I could order everything from Paizo, but the reality is, it does not always make economical sense. Indigo is expecting to have it delivered by October 18 so I am good with that. Not likely running it until the new year anyway, have to finish Emerald Spire first.Now for the Eternal Question: Do I buy it on Amazon for $50 and free shipping, or buy it from Paizo for $60 and another $12 shipping. Hey, not trying to be disloyal or anything, but $22 bucks is $22 bucks. So the question is whether the PDF is worth $22 when you already own a hardcover.
Plus Amazon will likely have it closer to $40 by the release date.And cheaper still at Amazon.ca at $68.68 with free shipping. Which I expect you knew and you prefer to shop at Indigo for some reason (which has it at $69.37); however Indigo.ca also offers Plum points if you are a part of that loyalty program, so there is that.
Yep, got me 694 points with the purchase. That is worth far more than a $0.69 difference in price.
Olmac |
Marik Whiterose wrote:James, will you also be adding "Milestones" where PC's should be at a certain level before doing something? For those of us who don't use XP.We do this for all our adventures, be they modules or AP installments. Harcover compilations (like Runelords, and like Crimson Throne) included.
I was really hoping this would be the case...Thanks.
I love to add more crunch without worrying about how the added experience would effect the actually adventure level wise. Now to start planning some more encounters and side treks.
I have a great group of players (aged 13-42, my friend and his 2 boys and my nephew) don't really care how long it takes between levels as long as they are having fun. After all, that is what it is all about.
Lady Bluehawk |
Chris Lambertz wrote:Announced at GAMA Trade Show and now available for preorder! Cover is very close to final, but may change when we go to print. Description is not final.And now we know why James got pulled off Strange Aeons. I hope Shattered Star, Second Darkness and one to two more of the older paths (I hope either Carrion Crown, Serpent's Skull or Skulls and Shackles) go this way in a year or two. I love that you guys update them and add some new material. Great call!
Meh, nothing beyond Legacy of Fire would NEED to be released like this; i.e., converted from 3.5 to real Pathfinder rules, since Council of Thieves was the first "true" Pathfinder rules-based AP.
I'll not pay those prices for just "some new material" in a hardback version of something that doesn't need conversion, but I'll say what I would buy: Flip-Mats, Map Packs, whatever-it-would-take maps at full scale, all the maps, for all the books in an AP (had to get new drafting equipment for Second Darkness's drow areas). Granted, some of those gods-forsaken huge things ("1 inch = 10 feet," anyone?) would have to be rolled up into a tube, rather than folded into a book (or block), but still...I know of at least one GM who would've greatly appreciated that for the fifth book of CoCT. :-/
LB
Rysky |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Flynn Greywalker wrote:Chris Lambertz wrote:Announced at GAMA Trade Show and now available for preorder! Cover is very close to final, but may change when we go to print. Description is not final.And now we know why James got pulled off Strange Aeons. I hope Shattered Star, Second Darkness and one to two more of the older paths (I hope either Carrion Crown, Serpent's Skull or Skulls and Shackles) go this way in a year or two. I love that you guys update them and add some new material. Great call!Meh, nothing beyond Legacy of Fire would NEED to be released like this; i.e., converted from 3.5 to real Pathfinder rules, since Council of Thieves was the first "true" Pathfinder rules-based AP.
I'll not pay those prices for just "some new material" in a hardback version of something that doesn't need conversion, but I'll say what I would buy: Flip-Mats, Map Packs, whatever-it-would-take maps at full scale, all the maps, for all the books in an AP (had to get new drafting equipment for Second Darkness's drow areas). Granted, some of those gods-forsaken huge things ("1 inch = 10 feet," anyone?) would have to be rolled up into a tube, rather than folded into a book (or block), but still...I know of at least one GM who would've greatly appreciated that for the fifth book of CoCT. :-/
LB
Uh, "those prices"?
You do realize the hardcover is 1/2 the price of all the AP volumes, right?
(Accounting for the most recent APs anyway, with half of the volumes that are left of the original CotCT being marked down to $5 because the other half are completely sold out you'r not likely to complete the set if you tried now outside of buying the hardcover)