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Hello everybody!
The title of the thread actually says it all. I am going to run CoCT with a group of very experienced players (my regular gaming group), using the beta rules and some house rules and wanted to ask for advice on some issues.
1) Since I did not place any restrictions on alignement, two of my players have come up with a LE necromancer and a NE bard. Looking at the AP, I wonder how much tweaking the AP will need to accommodate them? I have a few ideas in the back of my head to keep them interested, but I am wanting to know what you think.
2) The NE bard wanted to become an assassin later on in the campaign. I am developing a schism PrC within the Red Mantis (calling themselves the Grey Vipers) for this purpose and have also deleted the assassins need to be evil prerequisite in the process, because it never made sense to me.
3) Lastly, I am thinking about splitting the power of Merithinsiel (is that the name?)'s sword in order to give each PC an active role to play in the final battle. Comments? Criticisms?
Thank you very much, guys,
Makamu
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1) Since I did not place any restrictions on alignement, two of my players have come up with a LE necromancer and a NE bard. Looking at the AP, I wonder how much tweaking the AP will need to accommodate them? I have a few ideas in the back of my head to keep them interested, but I am wanting to know what you think.
What type of law is the necromancer following? this might cause issuesin edge of anarchy
2) The NE bard wanted to become an assassin later on in the campaign. I am developing a schism PrC within the Red Mantis (calling themselves the Grey Vipers) for this purpose and have also deleted the assassins need to be evil prerequisite in the process, because it never made sense to me.
Possibly after they face off against the mantis, the bard takes a active role in founding the Grey Vipers? maybe introduce a group of people who gather intelligence for the guard in edge of anarchy, and have one of them deliver a note to the bard asking for an audience (once he levels up to a point he can use the prestige class) with people who want to form the Grey Vipers?
3) Lastly, I am thinking about splitting the power of Merithinsiel (is that the name?)'s sword in order to give each PC an active role to play in the final battle. Comments? Criticisms?
Sorry, can't really help here... haven't really gotten that far in my preparation for my PbPThank you very much, guys,
Makamu
If you can ensure that your characters are loyal to Korvosa, despite being evil, then I think you could make it work. If they are loyal to Korvosa, then Cressida (and other quest-givers) can appeal to the lawful aspect of their characters. You may want to modify the alignments of such NPCs so they won't be quite as offended by the anti-social behavior evil PCs are inclined to.
Once they learn about the Crown of Fangs, their motivations may be more similar to the cult of Zon-Kuthon: *do* want that power in the world, but *don't* want Ileosa to be the one wielding it.
If any of those characters are sympathetic to Zon-Kuthon, you'll need to contend with that as well.
Personally, I'd encourage the players to stay away from evil, but that's me. My group definitely leans strongly towards good, and it has certainly helped me as a DM - I can just feed them the next bit of adventure, and they'll bite. I don't have to railroad them into following the story.
The Skeletons of Scarwall adventure could easily be modified so the PCs have to collect the last piece for an evil ritual instead of the LG sword. You'd probably have to rewrite a fair bit of backstory to make that work. For example, the Shoanti probably wouldn't be keen to tell a group of evil PCs the history and location of an evil artifact.
A fledgling DM doesn't need a pair of Evil characters. Tell them to try again.
Evil characters - especially in this AP - are not as easy to get to go along. I concur with the others - you're a fledgling GM - make your players help you out by not hosing you and the campaign over with such characters.
Most of the time an evil character is played to get one over on the GM and/or players, often because the character does not suffer as much from 'as written' material in the AP/campaign.
Keep in mind as well, those evil characters CANNOT hope to easily dispatch the Arkonas (no blessed stabbity death for them!), nor can they even deal lethal damage to quite a few of the latter-stage baddies, especially in Crown of Fangs.
And if the good and neutral characters tolerate the evil ones for too terribly long, odds are either the evil characters are 86'd by the other characters, or the entire party slides to Evil.
Then they're hosed - I wouldn't change a thing to accomodate the evil characters. They'll have to be creative and come up with something else. :)
The players have to give you a character background that includes one person they will always love more than themselves and one ideal that they'll lay down their life for every time. Then, use that info to ruthlessly keep them in line.
Or you could just wait until they get killed. If the players don't work together, this problem will take care of itself. Roll in the open and don't take prisoners.
I have to agree with the majority here ... alignment is enough trouble without two of the characters being evil. I'd ask them to adjust the chars up to neutral at least, and work as a party.
If, for whatever reason, you really can't get them to change their alignment then force them to love the city. It's not like Evil is out of place in Korvosa. There's a temple of Asmodeus in the Heights and Queen Domina the Great seemed to patronize it. She's possibly the best thing that ever happened to the city, and she was probably evil. She likely even had her predecessor assassinated. She was some peasant in Cheliax who heard that a distant (and dead) relative had become king in some backwater and so she sailed in and claimed the (conveniently vacated) throne.
So create some evil NPCs who are their buddies and who love Korvosa and honestly want the city to prosper (if only because their power bases depend on it).
This should be Plan B, though. As a beginning GM I still think Plan A should be to go it without Evil PCs.
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plan a: lose the evil characters. whether by focused fire early on in the AP or through player to dm conversation, get rid of em.
plan b: run with the evil characters, but dont change a thing. evil doesn't mean anti-social morons, after all, and necromancy is hardly unacceptable to Korvosa in general (distasteful, yes, but not out of the norm. the Shoanti will have other ideas, of course). if they get out of hand, see plan a. feel free to have hellknights and red mantis assassin teams hit them when they're low level, especially if they mouth off or show off evil ostentatious powers.
plan c: (what i plan on doing) modify the setup ever so slightly so the pc's get involved with the city. it becomes their power/money source, so any threat to it becomes a threat to their livelihood, and you know how evil characters can react to that kind of thing.
good luck, and lets hope the evil bard doesn't become enamored with the crown and try to pull an Ileosa.
-t
Thanks for the helpful hints, everybody!
I actually managed to persuade them to change their alignments to non-evil ones and I am now looking mostly at a neutral party. The necromancer was the only one who grumbled slightly for mechanical reasons.
I will keep you all updated on how its going once we have actually started playing and I run into new quanderies :)
Makamu
Thanks for the helpful hints, everybody!
I actually managed to persuade them to change their alignments to non-evil ones and I am now looking mostly at a neutral party. The necromancer was the only one who grumbled slightly for mechanical reasons.
I will keep you all updated on how its going once we have actually started playing and I run into new quanderies :)
Makamu
Yeah, well, he'll have to live without animating the dead into a nigh-infinite supply of additional fodder.
That's the main reason to play a necromancer. ^_^ (And the gawds know that zombies and skeletons make excellent fodder...)
I am curious as to the breakdown of your group Makamu? How many players do you have? And are any of the others leaning heavily toward the good?
Indeed Mandravius' sword could be fun from a role playing aspect if one of your players was a priest or devote follower of Zon- Kuthon, but still playable scenario.
I am running one of my groups through CotCT right now and 2 of the 4 characters are evil (well one started evil and another swung that way). Perhaps I can start another spoiler thread and break down how my party and I have handled this adventure so far. We are just beginning A History of Ashes.
-Rose