Fan-made changes to WotR?


Wrath of the Righteous


Any fans planning on making some changes to this adventure path once it comes out in full? I'm planning on making the following changes for my players when we take up this adventure path:

Changes to Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Path:
25 points for ability scores
May NOT be True Neutral, Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil, or Chaotic Evil in alignment
4 traits from the Basic (Combat), Basic (Faith), Basic (Magic), Basic (Social), Campaign (Wrath of the Righteous only), Race, Region, or Religion trait lists

Changes to the Worldwound Incursion:
The six players will start out at 2nd Level and will reach 5th Level (and their 1st Mythic Tier) by the end of the adventure. Also, the boss fight will be changed to a Male Half-Fiend (Balor)/Half-Human Antipaladin 5 named Khorne (the accursed half-spawn of the Storm King)!

Changes to the Sword of Valor:
The six players will start out at 5th Level (with their 1st Mythic Tier) and will reach 8th Level (and their 3rd Mythic Tier) by the end of the adventure. Also, the boss fight will be changed to a Male Dwarf Antipaladin 10/Champion 2 of Baphomet named Crageel Blackhammer!

Of course that's just a basic rundown of the most basic changes I'll be making (I'll of course be making a hell of a lot more but I don't wanna list them all here). What about you guys and gals? Any changes you think you'll be making? If so, feel free to list them here kay?


Only did a couple real changes so far myself:
- No evil and characters must be motivated to do good and stop demons/Worldwound
- Hero points are in use though with the following stipulations: none on levelup, only rewarded seldomly for really heroic actions/good roleplay, and single use
- They were allowed to customize their mongrelfolk cohorts (pick name, appearance, combat style, feat, and equipment)
- I let them take leadership at 5th level but only get the bonus of having a cohort until they get to 7th level (this was to let them keep their mongrelfolk if they wanted, only one decided to)
- Mythic Path does not need to be tied to the campaign trait picked
- Also various changes to npcs and story to better fit the characters (examples: one character knew Irabeth but not Anevia, some of the random encounters involved other npcs they knew, etc)


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I will start the AP in a month, and so far these are the changes I will do:

- 20 point buy, but the caracters cannot have an ability score below 10, if racial modifiers put it below 10 you have to raise it again.

- Only good alignments.

- Only one campaign trait from the WotR Player's Guide.

- Mythic Path is not tied to the campaign trait picked.

Changes to the Worldwound Incursion:

- The final battle is very underwhelming, with all those buffs. I will change half the babaus to another demon (vrock, same CR as 3 babaus) or make the players deal with more than one wave of demons. Either way, players receive the xp listed in the module.

Changes to the Sword of Valor:

- The three mythic opponents in the module will be modified as appropriate. For example, Soltengrebbe will get a myhtic ability replacing Coordinated Bites that help him deal with Will saves (similar to the mythic ettin Two Brains ability). See also the Sword of Valor (GM Reference) thread where I explain some errata affecting these opponents.

- I will think about adding more mythic enemies. Only three is a bit low for my tastes.

- The encounters are not that challenging, most of them are at APL+1, and my experienced players will probably deal with them with no problems. Some of them will get tougher, others will be eliminated.

- Some of the NPCs tactics will be changed. I don't think a lone incubus CR6 should go and attack a camp full of paladins and 4 mythic heroes...


My own changes so far (we only just finished the first session, during which we only just got started down the cave passages)...

- Gestalt chargen (I have only three players)
- Good alignments required
- An intro scene was rp'ed before the plaza opening cutscene, during which the players got to help Lord Horgus be relatively merciful with a beggar (I felt his obnoxiousness would need some leavening, so their first glimpse of him was actually him doing something charitable, in a pompous sort of way), dealing with a pickpocket, introducting themselves to each other, and formally swearing the Crusader's Oath for the first time as part of the Armasse ceremony. /Then/ I dropped the hammer on them.
- Two of the players had backstories of having met while being tutored by the same wizard. I made that wizard Aravashnial, as part of a 'conservation of NPCs' strategy.
- A third one had a backstory of being the son of a high Taldan noble, who'd run away to join the Crusades. That gave him an early connection with Lord Horgus Gwerm (not that their families know each other from Adam's off ox, but someone else of genuine noble blood as party leader was good for a small Diplomacy bonus).
- Lord Horgus' backstory has been changed to where he no longer remembers that he isn't actually Horgus Gwerm; the traumatized child that he was way back then repressed almost all memories of the relevant part of the incident. This is so that if and when he's exposed later, the more lawful members of the party can still accept that he can plead the diminished responsibility defense.
- The Storm King's cutscene of killing Terelendev was spiced up with him dogpiling her with relatively powerful demons in addition to himself, to explain why she died so fast.
- The wandering encounters in the tunnels will be spiced up with some abyssal-tainted animals, to represent the massive energy dump that just happened and to establish theme.


Any changes to the AP itself, particularly story changes, will have to wait until I get a broader picture from additional volumes... but history suggests that I'll make some pretty substantial changes for flavor purposes, yeah.

Our AP groups are always 4-5 players, always 20 point buys and always start at 2nd level with the initial challenges bumped up a bit to compensate. We level up at pre-determined points in the story rather than keep track of XP. Magic is never available for casual purchase nor is crafting allowed... but those aren't changes to the AP so much as the standard M.O. for our group.

I've already decided that I would try this out without the Mythic rules as-written... they're just a little too cumbersome for my taste though there's lots of good stuff there. Instead, I'm planning on giving characters an extra class level when they would normally recieve their 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th and 10th tiers and will advise them to plan their builds accordingly. Also, I will open up mythic feats to them once they begin book 2. This might be a bit chancy, but my players know how to build characters and know how to run them, so I don't mind the risk. I will be using the campaign traits (1 each in addition to the standard 2) but obviously not the Mythic paths they represent.

The party looks like it will be a Tiefling Paladin of Iomedae (Oath of Vengeance, Oath Against Fiends) with an Oracle dip, a pair of twins running a superbly built pair of Dervishes of Dawn and a Human Sorcerer (Fey Bloodline) although that character is now considering on my advice a Human Sorcerer (Draconic Bloodline) / Dragon Disciple (Silver) though I've only hinted at why...


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Chuckg wrote:
An intro scene was rp'ed before the plaza opening cutscene, during which the players got to help Lord Horgus be relatively merciful with a beggar (I felt his obnoxiousness would need some leavening, so their first glimpse of him was actually him doing something charitable, in a pompous sort of way), dealing with a pickpocket, introducting themselves to each other, and formally swearing the Crusader's Oath for the first time as part of the Armasse ceremony. /Then/ I dropped the hammer on them.

I like this. A little more time in the city, a chance to encounter future NPC's and one another before the bottom falls out (literally). It makes the big scene that opens the story a bit more dramatic in my opinion.


In Handout #1 of the Worldwound Incursion on pg. 23, I eliminated the names of the safehouses in Vhane's letter. The PCs can find out the safehouses by interrogation and/or I will leave torn pieces of parchment they can find providing them the name of the safehouse or clues to their names.

A clue parchment might read something like this:
(for the Tower of Estrod)

In the aeries of pigeons
Death grasped the quill
Restored by magic
Littered with glass
Seeking knowledge
While Dark Lords trample underfoot

Or instead of the clue parchment, the PCs could be directed to a streetwise mystic NPC once they reach the surface, or it could even be a Mongrelman mystic that utters these clues.

Scarab Sages Contributor

I amde a few...tricky changes.

My players are a 5-man group with 20-point buy, so naturally I have to ramp up the challenges a little bit. But that's only half of it.

-I am allowing a LE character (devils vs demons ftw)

-DEMONS WITH CLASS LEVELS. EVERYWHERE. (The advanced dretch barbarian 1 they faced in the Mongrel's Lair was fun...though I question as to why I gave him a glaive...)

-Faxon played a bigger role in book 1. (He managed to escape from the party, and joined Jeslyn in the final battle - he even fired off a phantasmal killer to off the cavalier! Granted, he died and the cav got rezzied a round later, sooooooo....yeah.)

-In the second book...

Spoiler Alert - can't risk my players seeing this!:

I plan to let our resident traitorous demi-human 'stumble upon' a very choice item.

A Whispering Medallion, to be specific.

I'm gonna slip it to a character with like zero ranks in Planes, so they can't ID it as a glabrezu. Also, I'm gonna make up a bunch of fake flavor text about it, reflavored as the 'spirit of a crusader'.

I'm sure they'll find ample opportunity to use the wish on there (cheap resurrection, psychosis, even replenishing the rod of cancellation). Oh, and jsyk, this amulet is keyed to a specific glabrezu - Itsumo, a glabrezu ranger 1 / bard (archaeologist) 6. And you thought Itsumo would twist the wish to his own desires?

Forget that noise.

Anyone here read Demons Revisited? Remember that MArk of Treachery they talk about?

That's right, I'm gonna implant a mark of treachery on a mythic hero.

Some might say this is cruel, or that I am a bad GM. I would argue this:
-Yes, it is needlessly cruel. But I like the idea!
-I would say I am a very good GM, for being so sadistic to my players for providing them with a challenge.

Thoughts?


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

It's your campaign, whatever. If your players are cool with it, then it's cool for your campaign. If they are generally not cool with how you run things, you'll notice it soon enough, when players stop coming to your games. I wouldn't let it fly in my campaign, but there I am GM, so it'd not be your decision there, anyway. ;)


One thing I'm pondering for when I get around to maybe running this, depending on how other projects work out regarding my fiddling with APs, is related to the NPCs. What I'm wondering is the viability of pulling out most/all of the existing ones and replacing them with PCs from previous campaigns that my group has gone through.

It should provide some nice continuity from past adventures, they get to see their old PCs are still around (instead of mysteriously vanishing into the old-campaign-ether) and will by default have a stronger connection and/or interest in them (perhaps even learn from them if they so choose - at least one player had an 8th level Wizard/Riftwarden who could take the place of Aravashnial, for example). Plus, this could help show just how powerful the mythic PCs can become, where they dwarf their previous characters on the power scale (literally, in the case of one player who wants at some point to run a dwarf cleric of Iomedae while his current character is a human cleric of Iomedae...). If the mythic PCs get high enough and their old PCs don't gain any power, they might even end up with their old PCs becoming cohorts to the new ones, too.

In essence, the closing-the-Worldwound campaign becomes a "capstone" adventure path, where the players wind up seeing all their characters, past and present, taking some sort of role in saving the world.

My biggest problem that I can see at the outset is the degree to which the current NPCs are going to feature as the AP continues, so the amount of modification could become extreme. A couple of those former PCs are no pushovers, either, and might render the first adventures problematic. Persistent penalties and the like (perhaps they weren't armed in the attack because they weren't expecting... no, that sounds ridiculous for PCs, even former PCs) could help limit their abilities, but still.

And I'm obviously going to have to wait a while and see how the rest of the AP shapes up with regard to NPC development, so I can't put this into play for quite some time until I have a better picture of the overall story.


Alleran wrote:
In essence, the closing-the-Worldwound campaign becomes a "capstone" adventure path, where the players wind up seeing all their characters, past and present, taking some sort of role in saving the world.

While the manner in which it is implemented remains to be seen, or the manner in which other groups might implement this idea, I think it is a spectacular one.

One thought though - if you do allow former PC's to become cohorts to the current PC's, even if not necessarily cohorts to their former player, are you going to allow them to run the former PC's or are you as the GM going to do it? I could see potential problems arising with a player when a beloved former character is RP'd by another, even a GM, with immediate reactions like 'I/they wouldn't have acted like/said that'...

Sczarni

Mostly I am changing the narrative focus of them adventure from the story to the PCs themselves. The actual events are taking a backseat to the development and interaction of these once in a generation creatures. Every session starts with a foreshadowing conversation between two unknown individuals who are discussing past events (the events that occur during the game) in a very tenuous unrevealing way (but that hints at dangerous things to come for the players). The way I see it, myths exist only in the past and are seldom accurate to the real events, so the contrast between real gritty painful events and the way those two people talk about tem is quite interesting (and makes the game feel very different).

Also changed the personalities of a few NPCs as their personalities seem very bland and slightly nonsensical for a game that not only starts with a massacre but one in which the fate of the world hangs.

The initial enemies in TwI will be reskined to be more demonic and/or horrific in appearance (the mood of the opening scene is killed by fighting random snakes and maggots).

Last but not least, make Queen Galfrey a later in the game obstacle/antagonist who sees this mythic heroes as a threat to her 100 year old holy war.

On a more narrative aspect I am trying to go into the nature of what a myth is and how it defines the individual character. How who and waht you are gets diluted as stories about you start to arise. How this defines oneself and even mutate the behavior (as the stories become mroe you than you yourself are) one has can be represented by the influence of having more and more mythic tiers.


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Frerezar wrote:
Last but not least, make Queen Galfrey a later in the game obstacle/antagonist who sees this mythic heroes as a threat to her 100 year old holy war.

I'm also considering doing something with her, but I need to see what is done over the course of the AP before I can decide exactly what I'm going to change, even at the beginning. Still, I think its important for this campaign to not just have 'good' and 'bad' in the classic, generic sense... there's the whole 'Abyss stares back into you' thing and the 'so dedicated to defeating evil they've lost sense of good' thing... I would think there are some very 'good' people involved in this war who've begun to lose all perspective and their zeal carries them into some dark places.

Besides, our heroes aren't the only heroes in this war... and after so long, what's a hero without a cause to fight for? Some might discover they need the war more than they need victory.


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Story Archer wrote:
One thought though - if you do allow former PC's to become cohorts to the current PC's, even if not necessarily cohorts to their former player, are you going to allow them to run the former PC's or are you as the GM going to do it? I could see potential problems arising with a player when a beloved former character is RP'd by another, even a GM, with immediate reactions like 'I/they wouldn't have acted like/said that'...

I generally allow my players to run their own cohorts, animal companions and familiars so I can concentrate on other things. However, I do reserve the right to step in if I feel that they're abusing their cohort/familiar/companion/whatever. I've only rarely had to use that, though. They're pretty good about roleplaying their interactions with their familiars and so on, including interpersonal rivalries.

And there's always the possibility that characters who've gone on to other things might have gained levels, changed outlooks somewhat, and so on. It really depends on how I decide to go about it, since I'm a long way off from running WotR.

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