Greetings community! So I'm stoked to do my first ever session where I DM. My friend, who is an excellent DM and to whom I also accredit everything I know about the game to began his DMing career with a brief Stolen Lands campaign, so I figure it'd be an excellent place to start as well. I am hosting 4 players, who have never played Pathfinder before (or D&D, or any type of tabletop roleplaying game) and we will be playing it online through Roll20.net
Traditionally all campaigns I've ever done have began at level 4, so that is my players starting level. They are given the 6,000 gold limit to spend on items before the campaign, they keep the leftovers but are encouraged to buy whatever they can with it.
I've already been able to do some play-testing with 3 out of 4 of them, and I will provide some summaries of the experience.
My biggest fear is that they end up not liking their classes they chose. As DM I encouraged them to take their time picking their class and they picked them very quick, I'm fairly sure 3 of them picked their class solely because of their names the exception being the Bard. But they finalized their character sheets, so they're stuck with them unless they want to make a new one before campaign day.
The players:
The Nomadic Halfling Bard, Sehren
-Public enemy number one, played by my close friend. Having a real life int score of 24, picked up on the game extremely quick and has corrected me on multiple occasions through play-testing. He has been a huge help, as he learned quickly how to develop character sheets and has helped the other 3 players develop theirs when I'm busy, asleep or at work (I work at nights)
My concern for this player is primarily that he has learned the joy of the sleep+CDG combo, which I plan on counter-acting to avoid abuse by swapping some of the human bandits with the occasional Elf to keep him on his toes. I want to avoid him abusing this so that he doesn't find himself getting bored with repetitive encounters, and as to not steal the glory from the other players (He has landed the killing blow on every play-test enemy I've thrown at him AND the group as a whole.)
I expect him to become the "face" of the group.
The Samsaran Magus, Bakhti (I'm lenient on races)
The group Magus is being played by another good friend of mine. I fear he chose this because it sounded closest to the word "mage". My experience with the Magus class is limited, the closest thing I've ever played that even had spells was a Bloodrager (Abyssal woot woot). So I was only able to give him so much advice. He is playing plain Magus, no archetype.
The Elf Pureblade Slayer, Eurus
Essentially the groups tank (the only character with above 30 hit points. He has 42, second to him is the bard with 24). I know for a fact he chose the Pureblade because of it's name, and probably read minimally through the actual changes being a pureblade makes on being a slayer. He had a rough time on the play-testing, (opened himself to several AOOs) but it was a learning experience. He ended up below 0 hp before being stabilized by the bard and running away from the combat. Despite me warning against him taking the archetype and advice in general, I want to make situations and scenarios where he will feel special from being a Pureblade and not just feel like a gimped slayer the whole campaign. I have to review the content a little more to see how much more content I'd need to add for him, but I feel like I can manage that fairly well, But I'd love recommendations as I'm still familiarizing myself with the bestiaries. I feel like he'll fair better next time he's in combat with his new knowledge.
The Elf Hedge Witch (no name given to me yet)
This is the player I'm most concerned about, she is the girlfriend of one of the players and is only playing because he wants to. After rolling her hit die and adding appropriate bonuses she ended up with a solid 11 hp at level 4. I need to review her class a bit more, but I'm afraid if she even does play that she will end up just being the Slayer's "cohort" and frail healbot, and that's fun to some people but I don't think it makes for a good first experience playing the game.
My concerns of being a DM to first time players, especially being a first time DM
-Players feeling like it's personal if their character is having a hard time or dies in game.
-My Bard friend trying to take over the rules / impose his own way on things. He is admittedly just as, if not more familiar with the rules as I am now and has more time to study them. I appreciate his help greatly most of the time, but I don't want it to turn in to backseat DMing. I have final say in everything as DM.
-Players being frustrated with the amount of rules. There's a lot of rules, too many to abide by %100 of the time. I'm pretty lenient, but I do enforce combat strictly for the sake of balance. I know my first time playing it frustrated me occasionally, and I probably frustrated my DM too O.o
Some custom content I'll be putting in:
Orcs give me... I like Orcs. A lot.
Red-Eye Hold (lvl 7-8 content)
Red-Eye hold is a smaller stronghold of Orcs led by Gor'Atan Red-Eye. The number of Orcs is small, but they are unusually well trained and equipped for Orcs. Smarter too. The Fortress itself is also not huge in size, but is well defended and has warded off attacks from the Swordlords before, who have since decided to leave it alone after losing multiple men.
Gor'Atan was banished from a larger encampment of Orcs from the south. he was a Warchief that ended up adopting the covert tactics of the local Human Rangers (Which he had his underlings learn, his style of fighting is much more... Scary.) Though he was very successful, he was inevitably driven out by larger Orcish clans, made General under a new Warchief and was soon banished after a nearly successful coup, thwarted by the loud, bragging mouth of an orc under him. In anger, he gathered the few orcs still loyal to him and set out North after stealing back his mammoth that he's had since his youth. Starting out with a small, makeshift encampment in the Greenbelt, he has since upgraded in the past few years. Massively. The Stone Walls of Red-Eye hold have risen tall and proud from the slave laborers taken from trading caravans and unsuspecting guard patrols.
The essentials on Gor'Atan, I'll post a full character sheet once he's finished.
Level 8 Iron Hulk Barbarian
Hell Knight Armor (armor spikes)
+1 Flying blade (Vicious Enchantment)
23 STR
Feats: Combat Reflexes, Lunge, Combat Expertise, Intimidating Prowess, Unexpected Strikes (The barbarian feat to be able to do AOO on opponents 5 foot stepping)
The interaction with Gor'Atan will be relatively non hostile. The players will be taken captive either by force or willingly when confronted by a covert Orcish hit squad who will bring them to the hold. They will be brought before Gor'Atan to be spoken with, Gor'Atan will likely have little respect for the "newcomers" in the area due to their race, and when realizing they've been contracted by the Swordlords to map the area he decides to release them not wanting to draw the attention of "forces larger and more troublesome than they." For my Dragon Age fans out there he will conduct himself in a way similar to the Arishok in DAII.
Throughout the campaign, the Orcs of Red-Eye hold will cause occasional trouble after the initial encounter (hitting trade caravans, taking Oleg's wife hostage/slave) and the players will eventually have to decide to take out the hold and Gor'Atan, enter a fragile alliance with the hold or find a way to barter with him to stop attacking caravans, taking slaves etc etc. This is designed to give players more "end game" in the campaign towards the end, and if the hold stands in the end. To add more dynamics in the following campaigns. I just can't stand the idea of not having Orcs in a campaign.
I'm open to thoughts, criticisms, complaints and commentary in general, I appreciate every word of it!
Hope this wasn't too long for reading! First post ever and all.
I'll also be doing a play by play once the campaign begins, so stay tuned for that as well.
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I played through about book 2 of Kingmaker back when it came out, and the biggest issue was "nova"ing. This is when the party, confident of only facing one encounter per day, blows all their daily resources on it. (Watch the magus...) It skews the challenge and, due to random encounters, causes xp to balloon. Our solution was to remove xp awards for random encounters, but that isn't to everyone's taste.
Other than that, good luck! I have to get some sleep before my own campaign, so I can't offer more detailed aid yet. Sorry.
If you start at level 4, you'll need to revamp all the encounters up to the end of the book to provide a challenge. All Paizo APs assume starting at level 1.
Kalindlara: Ya I'm a little concerned for that too, if he ever expends all his spells ( in a needless manner ) I'm gonna toss another encounter his way, just to give him something to think about. I'm a little worried about group consistency too, but all I can do is wait and see how things turn out come session time. I have other people that would love to partake in a campaign if anyone drops, people I know I can rely on at that.
Baha who: agreed, I'm vamping up the difficulty on encounters slightly at first and adjusting accordingly as I see fit. I think I'll have them get to lvl 7 in the end. I have a good friend who can make recommendations for me, but I'm always open to anyone's advice! I think for the first encounter at Oleg's I'll raise all their levels by 1 and add one additional bandit and seeing how well they deal with that.
I'd really recommend bringing the PCs levels down a bit. One way to balance it would be to have all the PCs start at level 2 but 0xp, so they don't level up until they get enough XP to gain level 2 and then level 3.
The first encounter is intended to be an ambush. The PCs should roflstomp the bandits. The increase you suggest won't change that.
Bah multiposts, bare with me I'm doing this from my phone lol.
Pennywitt. I like this idea a lot, I gotta pick up the book on rivers run red and review it. My one hesitancy about this is the groups consistency, I'd hate to arrange and work on all that and have it fall apart. But I do like this idea and sense of plot a lot more than the original Stolen Lands plot.
I was doing a 5 hour road trip today and had a lot of time to think about the campaign and what I want Gor'Atans role to be. I put a lot of thought about him being a more central part of the campaign, like in the first encounter the pcs have with him. Right after he tells them to leave, he hesitates and offers them a small job. To locate a shaman that has gone missing (something along the lines of a bone oracle obsessed with necromancy gone rogue) and upon completion of the quest having him be still a villian but an npc the pcs can build a relationship with over time and complete side quests for (you want me to hand over my slaves then? I'll make a deal with you, bring me more slaves. And for every man you bring I deem good slave stock, you can take one of mine) the quests would be moral conundrums and things for the party to debate over. But in the end it's delaying an inevitable confrontation with the orcish legion. That's just a general idea, I'd write more on that at my computer but I'm limited atm.
I'm also a big fan of empowering stagamuffin, after reviewing his actual fortress and his defenses I was a bit underwhelmed.
I'll be thinking more about all these recommendations, I think the groups not agoe for a campaign session tonight so I got more time to think about it.
Thanks much, pennywitt! I appreciate the creative thinking!
Heya paladin I totally didn't ignore your post, I refreshed my phone while editing and it was unintentionally deleted, didn't want to appear rude! I sent my group a message to have level 2 characters ready. Level 2 I think would be a good start point for them, it let's them have enough leniency to make and learn from mistakes without being outright killed. I'd let them keep their current inventories as well. Your recommendation is super solid.
Pennywitt: I will definitely take a gander at their ideas!
Thanks to both of you guys, you're both a massive help.