Oh yeah, I've also overhauled Goti and Wodes quite a bit, and am having Goti be the primary foil in Kalsgard proper, hiring the sniper and other agents the party runs into there. Toughened him up a fair bit as well.
I'm tinkering with NoFS almost constantly - the leaps of knowledge it requires are almost silly (A magic helmet to provide a crucial link? Really?). My PCs happily figured out the Rimerunner/Frozen Shadow connection by keeping one of the ninjas from Snorri's boat alive and using Charm Person on him. I mod's flat statement that the entrance to the back door of Ravenscrag simply can't be found irked the hell out of me, so I was happy to give them a chance to find it using the info from the ninja (they hit a DC30 survival check, but if they'd thought of it the wizard's raven familiar could have found the back-door valley with ease). I will give the writer kudos for the ochre jelly, which befuddled the wizard who had been blinding/greasing everything in sight. Even his pit didn't work as they made so many ochre jellies that it overflowed. heh.
I also had to pump up the NP archer assassin encounter as it's woefully underpowered. A single archer with arrows of seeking is supposed to take out the fighter? Her surprise round shot did 24 points of damage, which didn't even bloody him. The wizard threw up a silent image of a wall between them and her and it would have been over if not for the thugs I'd tossed in. Also - she's getting paid 500gp to kill someone. She fails and them spends 0ver 2000gp on an arrow of slaying? I'm not a stickler for details but that's just ridiculous.
Gotta agree that the payment for the assassin was kind of low. But in both JR campaigns I ran, she almost killed her target ( one time Koya, the other time an unarmored bard character ), where the "save" came from unlikely sources ( Sohei special ability to act when surprised, and two hero points for the bard to not be dead ), so maybe the problem here is that you attacked the fighter character, not the poorly armored vulnerable one?
Gotta agree that the payment for the assassin was kind of low. But in both JR campaigns I ran, she almost killed her target ( one time Koya, the other time an unarmored bard character ), where the "save" came from unlikely sources ( Sohei special ability to act when surprised, and two hero points for the bard to not be dead ), so maybe the problem here is that you attacked the fighter character, not the poorly armored vulnerable one?I was following the tactics block:
During Combat Hekja makes a ranged sneak attack against the most heavily armed and armored PC on the surprise round. On following rounds, she fires at the PCs as long as they remain in sight.
I've learned that my instincts might be a better idea, hence the thugs mixed in as part of the surrounding crowd. I think you're right and attacking the damn wizard would have been the better call. He's super clever and min/maxed his stats so he's tossing around insanely high DCs for the level. I'm going to toss a mage with ray of enfeeblement at him and his 8 strength and see what happens :)
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Hungry Storm, my players finally begun the necropolis and encountered the stone tree. An area with no real way to "beat the trap" besides shrugging and going around it.
With a detect magic before entering the cavern, they realized that the barrier was there, and with a detect undead that the inside zone was filled with angry spirits.
They understood that the tree was originally consecrated to Desna, and after conversing with Koya, the PCs tried to help the spirits.
Entering the pool to meditate and join or converse with the spirits didn't work out as they planned as the specters attacked. But they did notice that specters were coming from the tree.
What happened next was that our life oracle turned into his positive energy elemental form, entered the pool and hugged the tree and started to channel energy inside the barrier. The petrified tree responded to the positive energy and faintly pulsed with light. Our cleric/monk joined the fray to channel energy too, and so did Koya. We're talking a lot of concentrated karma being pumped into the area. Any undead specter that popped out of the tree was effectively instantaneously destroyed.
I decided that there was a 5% cumulative chance for each channel energy to "reawaken" the petrified tree.
After four rounds, the tree started to glow under its own light, the water now reflected the tree's light in addition to it's own, and a long forgotten comforting light filled the cavern as if moonlight was shining down through the branches of a tree.
We ended the game session on that note, but I treated it as an unexpected CR10 encounter (lots of channel energy were consumed). I've decided that they've reconsecrated a powerful symbol of Desna and turned the cavern into a Sanctuary spell safe zone if they need to rest.
As an extra one-shot reward (that will be unknown to them), the PCs that participated in channel energizing or protecting the clerics/oracles while they were doing it will receive a "get-out-jail-card" while in the necropolis (DM's discretion), courtesy of Desna. Useful when you know there is a demon worshiping ghost possessed yeti boss nearby.
I was following the tactics block:During Combat Hekja makes a ranged sneak attack against the most heavily armed and armored PC on the surprise round. On following rounds, she fires at the PCs as long as they remain in sight.
NPC tactics often suck and are nonsensical. That's simply how a lot of writers for Paizo do them, I guess so as not to kill too many PC's. But if she is an assassin, she won't be attacking the target most likely to survive, but the one most likely to be dead. Her goal after all is not to kill the party, but to assassinate one member of them and get her pay.
A lot of tactic blocks say things like, "If character X is reduced below <an amount hit points indicating he's going to be dead in a round>, he will cast <a buff like Rage or Enlarge Person> on himself."
Always trust your GM instincts over the tactics.
Having said that, getting killed by an assassin in a surprise round isn't much fun.
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Well, assassins who are physically unable to kill their targets also suck. And Hekya the archer didn't drop the two characters in a single surprise round, she also won initiative against the two of them.
I've retooled Kaibuninsho for part five to be actually able to work through the near or more than hundred HP every PC got by now... let's see if he will be effective.
I overhauled the caravan guide that takes them across the Crown of the World for my "second half campaign" starting this Saturday.
Rokuru Kaijitsu's ghost possesses a repentant old school Hellknight, formed after his wraith was dispatched / send away at the end of Chapter 2. Details are in a spoiler at the bottom of page 1 of my CJ for Jade Regent. Stat-block isn't detailed there, to prevent nosy players knowing too much.
My terribly clever PCs used Oathtaker to make the captured Winter Wolf swear to help them over the Eye and not harm them. Skygni is not pleased and I think may have some of his friends show up one night on the trail. They finished Ravenscreg with zero spells left and the communal CLW wand drained from full to empty. The monk was down to 6 CON and when Kimandatsu fell they had three of the five in single digit hits.
They killed pretty much everything in the fortress except for Wodes, so I think I'm going to pump him up a bit and have a good old ambush in Kalsgard featuring Wodes, Hekja, a bunch of raven swarms, and some of the remaining ninja. Any advice to challenge a party that's lethal when they are hit at full strength?
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There's two things I'd really change if I ran this again (for this group anyway).
The Hungry Storm- I'd probably reroll all the various small village encounters, replacing them with specific, predesigned pit stops. Toss in a group of fur trappers here, some distrustful elves there, really put some time into them, so the party can stop, hang out, maybe solve some problems for the locals, and generally get a more meaningful break from the long bleak road. The few "hard coded" encounters like that went over pretty darn well, but they're a bit front-loaded.
Forest of Spirits- The spirits themselves are a bit awkward. Conceptually they're great, but in practice it's really kinda tricky to do much with them as a mechanic. With a haunt, you potentially have something that's going to go on over a couple rounds, with prolonged efforts to disperse it from the magic people and everyone else probably busy restraining people from trying to kill themselves or whatnot. Spirits are just... well, if you happen to perceive them, have decent init, and you can channel positive energy, you MIGHT be able to swat them down, but otherwise they're just going to hit someone, who hopefully has some clue if they want to make a save against it or not... and this is all with mechanics you really do kinda have to explain on the spot since they're being introduced for the first time here. Playing these out as quick encounters with a visible manifestation acting out a skit and then lunging at people, with them potentially running away or trying to intervene would have been more interesting. Plus the dungeon at the end really caused some burn out by being such a LONG string of encounters, most of which are cake walks against fairly dull mooks, that really can't be avoided.
Meanwhile, I thought caravan encounters actually worked surprisingly well with the basic tweak of +1d6 damage and +1 to a stat every level. Although toning down some of the encounters for Forest of Spirits would have helped. Very very last one I rolled took the caravan out, which was just a bit awkward.
I might also cut some of the add-on NPCs out, or drop them off early. Easy enough to keep track of the big 4, and extra people who act as guides for a single chapter, but... the various non-humans who show up early on and really don't have any particular purpose once they join up were just a weird complication to deal with.
Otherwise I was actually really surprised with how beautifully a lot of the crazier stuff in here came together. Had a lot of fun with all the non-linear fortress assaults, reputation mechanics, parties, riddles, and the main NPC relationship mechanic worked out far better than I expected (even if it made bookkeeping a hassle).
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I'm about to start this game up and try and make it mythic, and the largest change I will probably be making is to make Ameiko 14 years old - she is the adopted daughter of Koya (who runs the Rusty Dragon instead of her) and Sandru is like a brother to her, which means there's a lot of hate between him and Tsuto (who is alive and well and I plan to feature as a recurring villain). I just figure that as written, it's going to be far too easy for her to steal the show from the PCs. I believe that escorting a child empress across the top of the world to reclaim a birthright also has more of a mythic feel to it. She's going to be a 1st level summoner, with her eidelon being a kami guardian of the Ametutsu family, but she won't actually acquire it until the PCs open the warding box (at which point they are anointed as scions of the family and imbued with mythic power). She's going to lag about 3 or 4 levels behind the PCs at all times as well.
That's one way of doing it. I put Ameiko at the same level as the PC's and the other three NPC's as lagging one level behind. Since I already had six PC's, I only had Ameiko and Shalelu accompany them everywhere and it has worked out okay. The two don't overshadow the other damage dealers at all, although which such a large group there is some annoyance at how long turns take during combat. If I do the "NPC accompanies the party" bit again in the future (I'll try to avoid it as long as we have six players), I'll try to restrict it to one NPC.
I'm completely overhauling and rebuilding the NPCs, actually. They're all starting at the same level as the PCs (3rd, because we're skipping some of the early parts of the first book, and I'm upping the challenge of everything to add a little bit of oomph to the AP), but they will advance more slowly and they're built on a lower point buy. They'll tag along, but their contributions to combat are going to be relatively minor in most cases (Koya casts a healing or buff spell each round, Shalelu stands back and makes a full attack against a mook, ect...). Many of them are being given archtypes that fits their role in the game and gives them more out-of-combat stuff to do, but makes them less effective in a fight (Koya is a Varisian Pilgrim, Shalelu is a Warden). Bottom line is I want them to have a presence in the game (especially because this group LOVES having NPCs to interact with - it's the reason they voted on this AP), but I don't want them to be the stars, so they're going to be supporting the PCs more than actually fighting. Ameiko is starting at level 1 and on the same point buy, and will probably level up at about the same rate as the PCs, but they'll still have a couple of levels on her at all times.
Unless you optimize them, players will easily pull ahead of them anyway. But it's your game, so decide how you want. :)
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i wish i had done away with the NPCs entirely, the PCs havent warmed up to them, except for Sandru, my wife has been calling Shalelu "Lady Tanis" because she reminds her of a female Tanis Half-Elven lol part of the problem was i didn't have RotRL when we started, so i had only a vague idea of background, not knowing how effed up Ameiko's family was the biggest blunder. but onward and upward:) it hasn't kept us from enjoying the AP just the NPCs:) which as the GM is all my fault:)
I'm wondering how different it would be to run the campaign with a PC taking the part of Ameiko. And by that, I don't me AS Ameiko, but one of the characters is actually the heir...
pretty easy actually:) the problem with my party is its a Catfolk, Dwarf, Gnome and Halfling:)
i wish i had done away with the NPCs entirely, the PCs havent warmed up to them, except for Sandru, my wife has been calling Shalelu "Lady Tanis" because she reminds her of a female Tanis Half-Elven lol part of the problem was i didn't have RotRL when we started, so i had only a vague idea of background, not knowing how effed up Ameiko's family was the biggest blunder. but onward and upward:) it hasn't kept us from enjoying the AP just the NPCs:) which as the GM is all my fault:)
I *haved* played RoTRL (up to book 5 at least), so I've played through Ameiko's messed up family (and her old graphic design) and had Shalelu as an NPC (who we also forgot most of the time).
Meeting the Ameiko as a player in RotRL, and seeing her again with a completely different personality as a DM in JR was interesting.
Another weird coincidence, as I played RotRL, we had to go north of Riddleport, and my DM looked at the map thought that Brinewall was an active community where we could sail through. I had to explain that it wasn't and where it fit in the world.
Come to think of it, a subtle change I brought to my game is the way I'm improving the caravan NPCs.
The main characters have overshadowed them a quite a while ago, and the NPCs usually stay put, so have little reason to adventure on their own. So I made some discrete side quests for them whenever the PCs had to leave them.
-In Kalsgard, while the PCs were doing Ravenscraeg, the NPCs had to fight off some Frozen Shadow agents/mercenaries.
-HS, with the two travel paths gives me an excuse to add in more encounters the PCs would've missed. In Iqaliat, when the PCs were after the dragon, I had the NPCs help the village against Qallupilluks and their offspring.
-On the high ice, while PCs were in the storm tower, the NPCs duck it in some caverns where they encountered Saumen Kar.
-In Ordu-Aganhei, the NPC participated in some of the feast challenges (the driver brothers were the cooking heroes)
Overall, I'm giving the main NPCs +1 level per book. Currently they're 7th (Shalelu 8th) level in FoS.
With the NPC additional levels, I've given them interesting support abilities. Koya has crafting feats, Sandru has the Black Market Connections rogue talent, Ameiko has skill boosting spells, etc.
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I kept things mostly the same for Brinewall Legacy, with the exception of Ameiko being the 4th 'PC' in the party for the Brinestump Marsh. Our fourth player joined up when the caravan hit Wolf's Ear. Honestly, I think Ameiko being there for the discovery of the skeletons, ships and letter worked out really well. I did drop the Rimerunner's Guild in at Roderic's Cove, to show their spreading influence.
I changed quite a bit for the beginning of Night of Frozen Shadows. I've read the Land of the Linnorm Kings setting book (which is fantastic) and there are too many cool ideas in there for me to handwave just getting to Kalsgard. I included an encounter with a Shadow Satyr and his sprite minions in Solskinn where he lured townsfolk to his extraplanar tree hollow and charmed them into partying for the rest of their lives. I also introduced the Haggersly family in Ullerskad in the form of Carolus Haggersly. The PCs rescued one of his grandchildren from the satyr and he rewarded them justly. Ran with the idea of him having a ton of kids in various merchant guilds, leading to him telling them about Lute joining the Rimerunners.
One of my PCs is from the LotLK, so I included his town in between Ullerskad and Kalsgard, which he'd been banished from. The town was under assault from a Hala demon that had escaped from Katiyana at the Crown (though the PCs don't know that yet, only that the demon came from the north). I included this guy just to give a little more hatred going towards Katiyana early on.
My group is very close to finishing Night of Frozen Shadows, last game ended outside Kimandatsu's room for time reasons, but the only thing I should have changed about it would be some of the skill checks. My party is not very skill based, and some of the knowledge checks were too high or the party just didn't have them, so it led to moments of "What do we do now?" for the group. It's been worked around, but I should have changed the DCs earlier.
I didn't do a lot of changes but here are some:
-I changed Ameiko's levels of aristocrat to levels of bard.
-I had both Shalelu and Ameiko get captured by the Frozen shadows. I didn't want to make Ameiko seem like she had Lois Lane syndrome.
-Later on at my player's suggestion Shalelu was inducted as a scion.
-Also, at some of the more grindy parts we narrated the sequence of events.
I kept things mostly the same for Brinewall Legacy, with the exception of Ameiko being the 4th 'PC' in the party for the Brinestump Marsh. Our fourth player joined up when the caravan hit Wolf's Ear. Honestly, I think Ameiko being there for the discovery of the skeletons, ships and letter worked out really well. I did drop the Rimerunner's Guild in at Roderic's Cove, to show their spreading influence.
I changed quite a bit for the beginning of Night of Frozen Shadows. I've read the Land of the Linnorm Kings setting book (which is fantastic) and there are too many cool ideas in there for me to handwave just getting to Kalsgard. I included an encounter with a Shadow Satyr and his sprite minions in Solskinn where he lured townsfolk to his extraplanar tree hollow and charmed them into partying for the rest of their lives. I also introduced the Haggersly family in Ullerskad in the form of Carolus Haggersly. The PCs rescued one of his grandchildren from the satyr and he rewarded them justly. Ran with the idea of him having a ton of kids in various merchant guilds, leading to him telling them about Lute joining the Rimerunners.
One of my PCs is from the LotLK, so I included his town in between Ullerskad and Kalsgard, which he'd been banished from. The town was under assault from a Hala demon that had escaped from Katiyana at the Crown (though the PCs don't know that yet, only that the demon came from the north). I included this guy just to give a little more hatred going towards Katiyana early on.
My group is very close to finishing Night of Frozen Shadows, last game ended outside Kimandatsu's room for time reasons, but the only thing I should have changed about it would be some of the skill checks. My party is not very skill based, and some of the knowledge checks were too high or the party just didn't have them, so it led to moments of "What do we do now?" for the group. It's been worked around, but I should have changed the DCs earlier.
Yeah Dcs being too high and no one playing an all seeing all knowing pathfinder can cause some troubles. Even a wiz that rolls low can fail high checks. "Sorry guys, I don't have a clue. I thought I passed my exams!"
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So I made a change to the final battle with Munasukaru. (Actually, I suppose, two changes, but one was almost irrelevant.) It worked out really, really well. Without these changes, my players would have steamrollered her. As it was, it was a tough, scary fight, but they escaped (barely) without a fatality. (I should note I have six players with 25-point-buy PCs, but they do not have a full arcanist or cleric. They have plenty of healing, but not much in the way of utility magic.)
(1) I decided the SotBP would retreat to Munasukaru when reduced to 40 HP and make a last stand there.
(2) I added eight magical prayer wheels to the walls above the pit overlooking the kimon. (So they are embedded in the walls, spinning 30 feet above the floor of the pit.) While spinning, these prayer wheels give Munasukaru the following bonuses:
+6 AC, regen 12/-, DR 8/-, +6 damage, +6 attack, SR 18.
I divided the bonuses up and randomly distributed them among the prayer wheels. E.g., one prayer wheel, if stopped, might give a -1 att, -2 regen, and -1 dam. The upshot is that if all the prayer wheels are stopped, Munasukaru has no bonuses left. (To facilitate play, I made a chart of which bonuses where associated with which prayer wheels, and made tick-marks for "effective penalties" (because I incorporated the bonuses into her statblock).)
While even one prayer wheel spins, Munasukaru cannot die or be disabled. When she is in "disabled" territory, she is staggered.
Two ways to stop a prayer wheel (must be adjacent):
(1) Knowledge (engineering) DC 22 to pick a spot to jam; jam with anything with hardness 4 or higher. (This ruins a non-magical item.) These are move and standard actions respectively. I allowed one PC to do each action.
(2) Knowledge (religion) DC 22 to recognize the glyphs on the prayer wheel; recite counter-prayer. Again, I made these move and standard actions respectively, but I did not allow them to be split between PCs.
Anyway, as I said, it worked out really well.
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I'm about to start this game up and try and make it mythic, and the largest change I will probably be making is to make Ameiko 14 years old - she is the adopted daughter of Koya (who runs the Rusty Dragon instead of her) and Sandru is like a brother to her, which means there's a lot of hate between him and Tsuto (who is alive and well and I plan to feature as a recurring villain). I just figure that as written, it's going to be far too easy for her to steal the show from the PCs. I believe that escorting a child empress across the top of the world to reclaim a birthright also has more of a mythic feel to it. She's going to be a 1st level summoner, with her eidelon being a kami guardian of the Ametutsu family, but she won't actually acquire it until the PCs open the warding box (at which point they are anointed as scions of the family and imbued with mythic power). She's going to lag about 3 or 4 levels behind the PCs at all times as well.
martinaj, I love this idea! I wish the Mythic stuff would have been out when I ran this campaign. I did something on my own, giving the Scions special powers and whatnot throughout the campaign. They basically powered up each time they defeated a major Oni villain, so whenever Suishen got an ability they got another "gift" as well.
I also like the child empress idea a lot. If you don't do that, I strongly suggest having someone play Ameiko as a PC, or make one of your PCs the heir instead. I think things would have been gone much smoother that way.
Of course, your post is month's old, so you're probably past this point by now...
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The one of the first things I modified was Sandpoint's harpies. I couldn't let them unused. The merchants who used the road to north were extorted for fish and baubles and they did call young men at early spring, but people of Sandpoint think that they were needed to keeping goblins low. I also created rumor: The halforc bard of village was once fallen from cliff near of harpies nests. Day later harpies made threat that they will move into Sandpoint, if he was not resqued. It is debatable if it was his singing or his cologne, which made harpies tire of him.
The Brinewall Castle went way differently.
After some approaches my players finally decided to move on and climbed over wall right next of Solarium. They killed one the ogrekins, while another escaped to inside. Muthilda was angry, but didn't come out. Then they found the sleeping Mobat and decided that they kill it by poking it from holes of glass. Well, they succeeded to wake it. So how would angry, mortally bleeding Mobat react? It screamed and thus alarmed the whole castle.
It was good that I had listed every creature and their position on my own map, which I could update as it happen. The look on my players was remarkable, when I throwed initiatives for every group of monsters. Kikonu was more interested of his new play than some noice, so he and actors stayed inside. Troglodytes were also staying where they are, because they weren't interested to disturb either Kikonu or angry cave lizard. Ogrekins also decided that they would stay inside. But rest of monsters in main floors were popping up to look what is was about. First came out Nevakali. Soon the whole area was under smoke and darkness. Somehow rogue got attention of every corby and he kept running around corbies behind him. Cue to Benny Hill music.
In this point, the older 'gentleman' sorcerer decided to leave and sneaked away, but he got found by Zaiobe. I used hand signals to tell that she couldn't speak, but before she could get a touch, the sorcerer started to woo her. His high charisma, selected feats, good roll, promises of wealth and great roleplay proved success. But neither of them noticed spying quickling, who then went and told everything to Kikonu. Kikonu didn't react good for news of his lover and hell break out. Players runned every direction thinking only their escape. The sorcerer called feather fall and jumped out of wall. Zaiobe grabbed her new love of live on her talons and flied over lagoon followed by Kikonu, who yelled theatrical threats for both of them. Finally someone striked Kikonu by stunning ray. Miraculoysly every player escaped.
Now I had to rewrote everything. So while everyone was back in caravan and sorcerer was telling why they should allow harpy to join them, they heard swearing from caltrop field made by rogue. They found quickling, who limped away faster than they could follow. Soon the Kikonu walked from main road and promised that everyone could leave alive, if he get his wife back. Players said no, so he said: "Have it yours way." And monsters attacked.
I decided that quickling and Shalelu play it themselves. Troglodutes attack caravan and npc's. Zaiobe and players have Kikonu and corbies. Players weren't doing too good but they did finally drop Kikonu. At this point I decided to give them little mercy and every living corby started rip their master to pieces ignoring players. They killed all enemies, but one troglodute, which escaped, but players were so hurted, that they let him escape in case of ambush.
Next morning when they come back to castle, they found it deserted, but they did deserved some reward. The troglodute leader was stuck on stairs with huge sack of loot. And to crown of it all, when players found the vault, they took the harpy with them. And when I gave each of player their own personalized vision, which revealed some main turn point of their background life, I had think to something similar to Zaiobe. In the end, also her destiny is now with the others.
If I could "do it all over again," I'd amend the trip from Sandpoint to Brinewall. My group's not using the caravan rules, and I hate just hand-waving huge chunks of time, which has made all the caravan trips super boring. At least for the trip up to Brinewall, I'd totally include Feast of Ravenmoor. The caravan travels right by it, too, so it's be easy to include. Some of the timeline/story line may well need to be edited, but it's flavorful and something parties can really enjoy during the AP.
I make Ameiko PC's Kagemusha.
One of PC is rightful Heir of Minkai, Ameiko is just her(in my group) shadow warrior.
In Book 6, the granary rice rescue will have an extra surprise.
The Taotieh guardians swallow whole creatures into pocket dimensions. One of them will have a Guecubu undead (Bestiary 3) from a former rice thief who died inside the Taotieh.
If a PC gets swallowed, it might be with the undead, otherwise the undead will appear when his Taotieh gets destroyed.
Additionally released with the undead will be rice that the thief originally had with him that will spread around and curse the a 20ft area with the Guecubu's misfortune ability.
Special thanks to the poster Gluttony for the choice of undead.
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Making the most important character in the mod a pc not an npc would help immensely
For the most part we haven't warmed to the npcs either
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I just ended my 3 day game weekend with my friends playing middle part of Hungry Storm, starting after leaving the village of Iqaliat.
For background
To play it out, I decided that she gave 3 gifts for 3 monarchs, the caravan would meet, each having secret plan not told on daughter.
The first monarch was Qallupilluk, whose present was elaborated banquet, but while the player was not with us on that weekend (hence the solo play), the carawan had met the Qallupilluk and killed her. Well, the player decided to share the banquet with whole caravan, though she was clever enough to notice the slowly spreading poison on the all expensive bowls.
The second monarch was Katiyana at the Storm Tower. ~
The caravan travelled many weeks over high ice and went through some customs and holidays from their homelands. One of the best moment was when all other players created puppet theater for Silverglazer Sunday to surprise Andorran PC.
Before Storm Tower, the player of witch persuaded all others to give him a chance with Katiyana and I decided to reward his roleplay. Guarded by 2 frost wights, she was allowed to met Katiyana alone.
With right amount of respect, pride and groveling, she gave gifts and asked a greater alliance for the rights to travel through her lands. So, I decided to allow that, for price that she and her 'nearest's' would take blessings of lord Sithhud in seremony couple of days away.
She persuade others take a part in ceremony and keep it a secret from Koya and other npc. When they returned to tower, where hundreds of Icetrolls, Yeties and other creatures were gathered, they calmly joined on party and even made some friends before main event. Then listened the sermon, singing and some even gathered to take sacrament of revolting black liquid, which is said to be blood of Sithhud.
After that, they returned to caravan with their new friend, Yeti named as Slush, who stayed with the caravan until end of High Ice.
Nothing of this was planned, and I did panic for moment how easily the things deviated, but I think this was more rewarding and fun than fighting monsters again and again at each level of tower. Now the caravan is stuck at Jaagiin, until sun comes up. So there is time to things to happen and I have some ideas, how to get back to final confront.
The only major change I did was adding a new significant NPC.
On their way to Brinewall the PCs met Kinshiro Iseou, a bird merchant from Minkai who was stranded in the middle of nowhere. They agreed to take him back to Minkai and he served as a merchant with no monthly salary. Unbeknownst to them however, Kinshiro was actually the god Apsu in disguise and his precious birds were actually dragons! I did this to enforce the feeling of destiny, and also to make it more like traditional Odyssey stories, like...well the Odyssey, where the gods were always watching. The characters could build relationship points with Kinshiro and if communally they got enough he would bless them in part six with a big reveal.
I realize this is quite an old thread, but I love this idea and plan on using it as I'm gearing up to run Jade Regent, with one change.
I plan on using the Tian god Tsukiyo. Tsukiyo is the Tian god of the moon, spirits, and jade, and has an ancient enmity with his brother, Fumeiyoshi, the Tian god of envy and dishonor, primarily worshipped by - would you look at that - Oni.
Given that Jade is sacred to Tsukiyo, coupled with the Oni being his brother's mortal servants, this seems to fit even better.
Of course, given that my players are playing an entirely drunk party of worshipers of Cayden Cailean, there's certainly a consideration of using Sun Wukong instead, but I think the LG nature of Tsukiyo should instead create a fun and somewhat exasperated element to Tsukiyo's mortal avatar's relationship with the party.
I think he'll be a jewel merchant... maybe I can use Diablo III's Covetous Shen as a bit of inspiration....
Scanned through this thread and others, my group just finished Tide of Honor last night and now we're going in the home stretch. The campaign has been great thus far and I've tweaked and added things as we go.
So I thought I'd see if any GMs had any specific notes for the Empty Throne? I'm leaning towards running it more or less as is; the only change I'm going to make is a shameless need to plug in some kaiju for the climax.
My thinking thus far is that in times of need the Five Seals could be used together to summon a kaiju protector of Minkai. I've hinted that the Five Storms have their own anti-seals so to speak and can use them to summon a tarrasque (I've GMed for decades and never had a chance to use it so this seems as good as any time).
So the mission in the end becomes a focus on locating the hidden vault obtaining the remaining seals and summoning the kaiju to take on the tarrasque before it destroys the rebel army.
My thinking is the dead Emperor could reveal the location of the vault after his body is restored.
Also just curious on any other GMs that have tweaked the final book?
Enderrin, thank you so very much for your plug-in! I've bookmarked it for when we get that far.
So many wonderful ideas, but my mind started glazing over by the time I got to the end. I'll have to come back...
For us, my biggest change came because one of my players wanted to play a bladebound magus, and asked at the beginning for a katana. I had banned all eastern stuff in character design (I wanted Minkai to have a truly different feel for the PCs), but I told him I could do it if he let me place the blade.
It was Tsutamu's wakizashi, which I changed to a bladebound katana just desperate to get out of the cave. And since the players did everything in the Brinestump, the PC had just hit 3rd when she found the Shrike.
So now I'm trying to figure out what to do with Suishen. If all it does is tell the PCs things, the Whispering Shrike can do that too. And two intelligent blades seems a bit much. (We haven't gotten to Brinewall yet, so I've got time to look up weapons that improve over leveling in non-intelligent ways.) I'll keep Suishen as the family blade, of course. But I'm curious for those that actually know the full story-arc: Are there abilities described later beyond "tell the PCs things?"
Things I wish I had not done: Tried to fix the trading rules.
I was scandalized when I read the caravan rules; I could see that a caravan would barely break even -- if they rolled decently. If not, not. So I put in a whole system for buying better class trade goods; they cost more money up front, but deliver better profits when sold. I also modified the wagons to hold more trade goods -- the one-horse cargo wagon RAW isn't even a light freight wagon in the Ultimate Equipment Guide. So I called it a Wain, and said it needed two horses (increasing the HP and the cost/consumption). I then added a Freight Wagon pulled by four horses and carrying 2,000 pounds of stuff.
Some of my improvements really were improvements: I clearly described the "Covered Wagon" & "Fortune-Teller's Wagon" as a gypsy-style "Roofed Wagon" complete with stove & small kitchen -- which changed the HP, but much more so the flavor of the journey.
But all that trading stuff made the players want to get into business -- to trade and keep the profits for themselves. Sandru told them that he needed his wagons for his own trading, and that they'd have to buy a wagon for themselves. It was terribly divisive right at the beginning; Sandru became the black-hearted merchant out for profits.
Plus, as we've hit towns along the way to Brinewall, one player is rolling for selling trade goods and figuring out what to buy while the others fidget. It's a time-waster, in other words.
We'll see how well back-pedaling works, but I'm going to background the caravan. Skip saving up for improvements: Sandru can magically afford all the improvements that the actual story (as opposed to caravan encounters) requires. (It looks like we're going to need another Roofed Wagon soon, for instance: we're full-up on traveler capacity.) Sandru also pays for all the supplies the party consumes, all the inn stays along the way, etc., out of his trading. I'm hoping it turns him back into the glad-handed merchant he's supposed to be.
And we'll skip caravan combat, since apparently it's broken. Unless we do a mass bandit attack against the actual characters as written. Again, it means that one player can come up with caravan stats and feats at level-up time between game sessions for his own amusement, but we won't have time-consuming (and apparently, not fun) discussions about it.
Okay, maybe my biggest positive change was with Shayliss Vindor, except that I can't take the credit -- it's all been role-play or fate playing out through the Harrowings forcing the story.
I was running off of the ideas found in RotRL for treating the PCs as Sandpoint celebrities and heroes, so I wanted Shayliss to make a pass at the "manliest male" in the party. Then I looked again at my party of PCs: two women and an admittedly male gnome. Well, Shayliss wasn't daunted. She started chasing the highly reluctant gnome. End result after a couple of evenings of RP: Shayliss came with the caravan as one of the cooks it needed. She's deeply in love with one of the female PCs, and monogamous.
Then we get to the combination of Koya's Harrowing for Shayliss (random draws) and a Plot Twist card I drew; it meant that Shayliss turned up just when the party had tracked down a cyclops terrorizing the countryside outside of Galduria. I've thought about it, and she is turning into a Shaman devoted to Desna with the Heavens mystery -- and a PC. It's just the way the story is working out.
So now I'm trying to figure out what to do with Suishen. If all it does is tell the PCs things, the Whispering Shrike can do that too. And two intelligent blades seems a bit much. (We haven't gotten to Brinewall yet, so I've got time to look up weapons that improve over leveling in non-intelligent ways.) I'll keep Suishen as the family blade, of course. But I'm curious for those that actually know the full story-arc: Are there abilities described later beyond "tell the PCs things?"Do you mean besides the abilities given in Part 2 of the AP? The only other thing is that it's particularly effective against Anamurumon in the climax.
Bear in mind that Suishen is built for use against oni: air walk reduces their flight advantage, cold resistance helps against ogre mages' cone of cold, see invisibility stops them from hiding magically, and flaming usually stops their regeneration. (A lot of those come in handy against other foes, e.g. white dragons.) So without it, a few encounters may be a bit harder. That also depends on how optimised the PCs are, of course.
None of that relies on it being intelligent, necessarily (though intelligence does make action economy easier).
Thanks! Part of my distaste is in how disconnected those abilities are. Maybe the Amatatsu family from way back was concerned with oni...
Part of it is that I have a magic-heavy party. By then, I'm hoping we'll have most of that covered, and in spell versions that can be granted to the whole party. Still, I can look for a theme for my Suishen that would cover a lot of that.
Dragons... Yes, everything there except See Invisibility is great against a White Dragon. Is there any reason to believe that White Dragons would prey upon Minkai, as opposed to the area north of it? (I only have the first two books so far.) Or since Silver Dragons live in temperate mountains, maybe one conspired in the crafting of Suishen.
Finally, is there a built-in reason to assume that Suishen will see combat if Ameiko does not? Or rather, is there a reason to assume that Ameiko will (wielding her family's ancestral weapon)?
Thank you, Uqbarian, for your answer. And oni are a possibility. But my imagination has been caught by the idea of a dragon being responsible for Suishen's design -- either as its foe or as a co-creator. And you're right, there's no obvious candidates in Bestiary 3. So I'm moving this to a new thread: A dragon to inspire Suishen.
Thank you, Uqbarian, for your answer. And oni are a possibility. But my imagination has been caught by the idea of a dragon being responsible for Suishen's design -- either as its foe or as a co-creator. And you're right, there's no obvious candidates in Bestiary 3. So I'm moving this to a new thread: A dragon to inspire Suishen.
I was going to just edit in the actual url as soon as I posted, but I took too long writing it. Ooops! That should have been:
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Ran the very last session of Jade Regent, I quite like books 5 and 6 as written but inserting a kaiju battle while the opposing armies fight was a pretty epic way to end this campaign.
The Five Storms (down to Three Storms for the final battle -Jade Regent, Oracle, and Anam) had control of the Tarrasque. The party after completing the quest at the Emperor's Isle were also blessed with the ability to summon a CR 20 Imperial Sovereighn dragon using the Amatatsu Seal.
So the final battle occurred outside Kasai triggered by the summoning of the Tarrasque to stomp out the rebels.
It more or less eliminated the walk thru of the palace in book 6 but I inserted some challenges around the army and included the Raven Prince attempting to assassinate Ameiko on the eve of the battle. It made for a more fluid last half of book 6, my group seemed to enjoy it.
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I've been meaning to share this for some time, but after a recent eureka moment while preparing to run The Hungry Storm, I was finally inspired to write up a forum post.
I'm aware that we're rather late to Jade Regent, but these forums have been incredibly useful for me - particularly threads like this one.
Early on while preparing for Jade Regent, I did a lot of research into Tian Xia in addition to reading though the AP. I almost immediately latched on to the story of Shizuru, Tsukiyo, and Fumeiyoshi, but was disappointed to discover that they are hardly mentioned prior to The Empty Throne, when I feel that their story is the heart of the entire Adventure Path.
Looking at the AP as a whole, I saw a divine play or proxy war, where the chosen of Fumeiyoshi (the Five Storms, led by Anamurumon) stood in direct opposition to the five imperial families of Shizuru, all warring over the throne created by Shizuru's love and Fumeiyoshi's greatest rival.
I immediately wanted to reframe the background of the adventure path with this ancient rivalry standing at the center of it. In order to do that, I needed to fill in some blanks. We find that Shizuru granted the five imperial families the divine right to rule in 100AR, but little is known of who the patriarchs of these five families were, or why they were deserving of such a gift.
We also know that Tsukiyo then crafted the Jade Throne itself as an additional gift for Shizuru's champions. As I mention above, I cannot imagine a more natural reaction for the god of envy and enemy of both Shizuru and Tsukiyo to immediately covet Minkai and wish to claim it for himself. As god of the oni, I envisioned that he set his own plan in motion. As Shizuru granted her divine favor to the five Imperial families, Fumeiyoshi imbued his divine power into five powerful yai - the Five Storms - each one representing one of the five mythical elements: Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, and Void.
I knew that Anamurumon would undergo a significant upgrade to a Void Yai (actually quite befitting the backstory given to him on page 7 of the Empty Throne), and was the last of the Five Storms yai imbued with power by Fumeiyoshi and tasked to supplant the five Imperial families. This also helps fill what I considered an odd timetable as explained in the Forest of Spirits with regards to the oni trapped inside the House of Withered Blossoms (though I also decided that I'd arbitrarily move their escape to several centuries earlier rather than only a few decades, considering that Minkai was founded over 4,000 years prior to the start of the AP.)
I had all of the above planned before we played our first session of the Brinewall Legacy, but something has been nagging me that I only just figured out a solution for.
I'd already determined that Munasukaru (the oni left in charge of the House of Withered Blossoms, described as "the least of the Five Storms") was going to be my Earth Yai - after all, Munasukaru and an Earth Yai already share the same CR, so it seemed a natural fit.
I'd also already determined that I wanted Nigankona, the Fire Yai oni that appears at the finale of Tide of Honor, to be the next of the Five Storms yai met by the PC's. I imagined that his entrance and confrontation as described on pages 48 and 49 to not be at Anamurumon's behest, but his own arrogant decision - taking matters into his own hands, so to speak.
Lerrasuwa, the Water Yai referenced on page 63 of the Empty Throne was an obvious choice to take a more prominent role in my revised adventure. I decided to insert her encounter on page 14 of the Empty Throne, as the party attempts to travel by boat to the Shrine of Heavenly Sovereigns - it made sense to me that she would wish to ensure that the party could not pass the Torii Gates and gain entrance to the island.
Anamurumon was my Void Yai, appropriately reserved for the final encounter of the Adventure Path.
And as it turned out, the Wind Yai's description and powers seemed a perfect fit for Katiyana.
A third eye rests on the forehead of this ornately robed giantess, her figure half-shrouded in the darkness of a starry night that swirls continuously about her.
...Thus are wind yai desperate to gain some semblance of control over the capricious winds, and they use their sheer might and monstrous resolve to bend that untamable force to their will, taking pleasure in not only controlling nature, but also using it for unnatural acts of destruction.
*Tell me* that doesn't sound like the kind of villain that would be trying to wrest control of the morozkos and turn them into weapons!
It was everything that I wanted; a *perfect* replacement for Katiyana as-written. Katiyana's later possession of a yeti could simply be her re-forming as a yeti-based oni instead.
There was just one little problem... Wind Yai are CR 16. I'd shelved this problem for months, waiting until I had to deal with it. This Sunday, I start running The Hungry Storm, so it was time to work it out.
And the solution was so simple and elegant that I nearly smacked myself for not figuring it out sooner. The Katiyana that the party will meet at the Crown of the World will simply be a simulacrum of Katiyana. A simulacrum of an oni that has been working at the Crown of the World for near a century. And thus, even when defeated, it has been an oni for so long, that the simulacrum is granted true status as an oni, and re-manifests as a yeti oni.
This of course left the *real* Katiyana to make her true appearance in a later adventure; as I plan to run the Ruby Phoenix Tournament during Tide of Honor, I think I will have her try to intercept the party before they can claim their treasure (a weapon wielded by one of the Heavenly Knights).
So that's it! I was so excited to have figured out how to make Katiyana my Wind Yai that I just had to share the entire rework.
I am planning to begin this AP soon but did not like beginning in Brinestump. I really want to install more foreshadowing at the beginning, so I thought of doing a 7 Samurai-style start: a hamlet in Varisia is desperate for heroes to protect it from bandits (who have the weapon with the message hidden inside).
The PCs have solid backgrounds in Sandpoint that logically tie to Ameiko and Koya. Shandru is easy and Shalelu is going to encourage the PCs to protect the hamlet from bandits.