noblejohn |
I am thinking of having caravan encounters using just the normal core rules. Has anyone else done this?
I was thinking of using stat blocks for a few first level fighters that would be part of the caravan and then the rest of the caravan members would be commoners - not sure what the stat block for these guys would be.
The wagons will hold whatever they hold normally. Then if there is an ambush or something, I will just play it out like a normal combat. But the badits could injur or kill civilians which will likely fire up the Part. Also, a wagon or two might be stolen. Who knows.
Do you guys think this would work out OK?
Matthew Downie |
Who would control all the civilians and guards? There are a lot of caravan battles in the game (the vast majority in book 3). Any caravan battle involving the PCs, the four major NPCs, various allies you've picked up along the way, pack animals, and all those level 1s, is going to run very slowly.
I tried playing one battle with me controlling just three attackers and the four major NPCs, and the players had to wait a looong time while I rolled dice and consulted character sheets before they got to do anything.
I wound up playing most of the caravan battles not using the caravan rules but with the PCs (scouting ahead or similar) and typically just one NPC ally. That worked fairly well.
Give it a try if you want, possibly giving the players control over multiple characters, but get player feedback - they may not want to do it a second time.
noblejohn |
Matthew - you are correct, this could turn into a bear.
What I have done in the past to help this is group NPCs or enemies into units. So I would roll 7 guys all at once. So I could have a 7 on 5 fight that goes fairly quickly.
Also, I could abstract some of the NPC fight - just indicate that these NPCs are locked up with these bad guys.....
Or I could just use caravan rules....
Any other thoughts?
Cranky Dog |
I started with the caravan rules. No one wanted the extra book keeping, so we hand waved it. No security checks, no food/good units management, etc.
Then we started with regular combat rules. Soon, no one wanted the extra book keeping of tracking what all the NPCs were doing, so we hand waved it.
Overall, I make a caravan encounter balanced for the PCs, and say that a few extra monsters are keeping the NPCs busy. The PCs will get normal XPs, NPCs will get their own XPs and a reason to gain some levels (albeit a slower rate than the main PCs).
There may be the occasional "special event" where some monsters try kidnapping NPCs and keep things interesting, but that's up to the DM. In the end, if the PCs win, everyone wins!
Also remember that with spells like Mending and Make Whole being easily available, any caravan damage is temporary.
noblejohn |
I started with the caravan rules. No one wanted the extra book keeping, so we hand waved it. No security checks, no food/good units management, etc.
Then we started with regular combat rules. Soon, no one wanted the extra book keeping of tracking what all the NPCs were doing, so we hand waved it.
Overall, I make a caravan encounter balanced for the PCs, and say that a few extra monsters are keeping the NPCs busy. The PCs will get normal XPs, NPCs will get their own XPs and a reason to gain some levels (albeit a slower rate than the main PCs).
There may be the occasional "special event" where some monsters try kidnapping NPCs and keep things interesting, but that's up to the DM. In the end, if the PCs win, everyone wins!
Also remember that with spells like Mending and Make Whole being easily available, any caravan damage is temporary.
I can see how this could happen - there is enough book keeping just keeping up with normal pathfinder rules.
I want to make my caravan encounters more interesting than just PCs vs Badguys. I want there to be objective based or mission based encounters where death is the obvious outcome. Maybe there are some theives where skill checks come into play. Maybe there are delemas where PCs have to choose between saving a common NPCs life or chasing down a bad guy to get back some loot that was taken. I want there to be a good chance for some failure to occur, but the failure does not mean PC death....Maybe the Frozen Shadows make an appearance....
Any thoughts on this?
magnuskn |
Don't use the caravan combat rules. They weren't playtested and simply don't work as written. Having individual combats play out normally may be more work, but with the caravan rules as written, the caravan will be destroyed after about two encounters. You can find several fixes or more advice on the board, you just gotta check for those threads.
If you and your group enjoy that kind of thing, the rest of the caravan rules are serviceable for keeping track of supplies and rations.