Would the Falcon's Hollow series be appropriate for new players


Adventures


Has anyone run any of the Falcon's Hallow adventures with new players? My sister in law is moving in with my wife and I this weekend and she's expressed a strong desire to learn Pathfinder and I think this would be a pretty cool story to start her off with. My wife would also be playing and she has experience as she's played in my ROTRL campaign for the last 2 years.

Any advice on running this with a new player?


Crown was the first modules I ran as a GM (I used some of the encounters from Hollow's Last Hope to pad the early part out in place of random encounters), the players had (with the exception of one) almost no experience with tabletop RPGs. It was a fun experience and a couple of the NPCs became long time favorites of the players.

It's 3.5 material, so obviously you'll have to convert it to PF, but a lot of the work there has already been done on the pfsrd bestiary.

I didn't run any of the other modules in Falcon's Hollow (we ended up taking those characters to a different adventure that was published under PF rules), but I highly recommend Crown.

Warning

Spoiler:
There are Shadows on one of the lower levels in Crown, be very careful about running that encounter at inexperienced players.


I just ran Hollow's Last Hope with my players, two of which are not totally new to Pathfinder but still very inexperienced. It went well, which I suspected after preparing the module and educating myself about Darkmoon Vale. Crown of the Kobold King will be next, so I already prepared everything.

What I think really pays off is to read up on Falcon's Hollow, since Hollow's Last Hope barely scratches the surface of the town's social structure and all the problems and adventure hooks therein. It is very easy to include some extra backdrops with the first adventure and, as a result, have the follow-ups feel more organic because they don't come out of the blue. Towns of the Inner Sea and the Guide to Darkmoon Vale both add to Falcon's Hollow and provide some extra background or hooks (Pathfinderwiki.com also has a lot of denizens listen).

This becomes especially important when considering how to connect Crown of the Kobold King with Hollow's Last Hope. HLH itself sort-of suggests you run the both at once, but I would strongly advise against it.

Connecting HLH with CotKK:

While it would be easy to have the kids from CotKK go missing at the same time of HLH's disease, it has a high chance of distorting the urgency of Laurel's quest for the medicine because children in danger will probably trigger a more immediate response from your players than some roots and mushrooms. I think it pays off to put the players on a clock with the medicine and let them run the search & rescue later on at their own pace.

Second, CotKK has some very dangerous encounters not appropriate for 1st level parties. Jeva the werewolf will shred most 1st level parties to pieces if run as suggested and the basement levels of Droskar's Crucible are not a walk in the park either, especially if the players want to go there after exhausting themselves with cleaning everything above-ground.

Third, while it can be slightly off-putting to have characters run to the same dungeon twice in a row, it doesn't have to be. If the first run was dangerous and full of wilderness encounters, the second could (and should) be easier. If the players stop by the same lumber camp on their way, let them be hailed as friends. Give them a map of Droskar's Crucible surface if they cleared it, and while it's probably a good idea to put a few now kobolds and traps in it, let them have the advantage until they venture below.

Speaking of the basement levels, I changed the HLH's setup in Droskar's Crucible so that the stairs in Greypelt's chamber where blocked and some kobold miners were digging for an access point in several places. Worked like a charm in my game and it also explained Gurtlekeep's presence a bit better since 'overseer of scouts and miners' is a better title than 'the single sentry on the surface for all kobolds below'.

Another thing you could do to enrich the adventure's environment is playing into the fey theme that is hinted at here and there. In my game, I hinted at the possibility that HLH's problems may have been caused by some shady deal between Thuldrin Kreed and feys gone south, and I totally plan to do the same with CotKK.

Last but not least, adapting both HLH and CotKK for Pathfinder is done within minutes, since the PRD provides all monster statistics you need and the NPC Codex (or the NPC Gallery from the GameMastery Guide) gives you stats for the local NPCs if needed.


I ran Last Hope and Crown for a group of folks who were all either brand-new to RPGs or else hadn't played since their high school (2e) days. They had a blast -- though scheduling didn't work out to run the second half of Crown.

Crown in general is a great module -- I also ran it for a group of veteran gamers, and both groups enjoyed it. It does a good job of covering a lot of classic dungeon crawl tropes for both the novel group and the nostalgia group. (According to my wife, though, who was part of the veteran group, my role-playing of the kobolds was 90% of the fun, so ham it up!)

Be aware, though, that parts of Crown are pretty darned brutal, even for a full-strength party -- do you only have the two players you're thinking to run it with, or can you drum up some extras?

Crown spoilers:

The shadows were mentioned. The Forge-Spurned is pretty tough. The kobolds riding slurks took a fourth-level monk from full HP to actually dead in one round. (monk gave them a flank. oops.) The Grasp of Droskar is an awesome/fun magical item, which I guarantee some party member will immediately try to wear, and they're too low level to get it off again: the unarmed monk in one party loved it, the archer ranger in the other party was totally nerfed.

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