As far as I'm concerned the 2 best things Paizo has ever done for D&D is improve and simplify the rules from 3.5 and the creation of the Adventure Paths. The Adventure Paths have allowed me to dip my toes into GMing with great success. I love the idea of having a whole campaign all ready and laid out for you saving you countless hours of preparation. I am now on my 3rd campaign (CotCT) as a GM and we are on the last chapter.
One thing that irks me about APs is that the difficulty of the encounters you come across are nearly ALWAYS balanced to the level/power of the party. This makes sense from a balance point of view but is too artificial and on one level stopping you from completely immersing yourself in the story because it seems fake.
I wish to shake this up a bit when I start my next AP at the completion of CotCT. My idea is that most of the time you need to have that balance because if it is too easy then the players will get bored but if it is too hard you are likely to have a TPK on your hands. I want to throw in a very occasional curve ball. The ideas I have on how to do this are:
1. Warn the players before the start of the campaign. They need to understand that they will need to THINK and decide if discretion or running away is a worthwhile option. On the flipside, I will tell them that the reverse could also happen and they could completely walk all over their opposition as that is realistic as well.
2. It is not a common occurrence. It is a tool that is used only occasionally as balanced encounters make sense... most of the time.
3. These curve balls should only happen for random encounters or for side quests that aren't on the critical line of the story.
4. Give my players Hero Points to help improve character survival. These are handed out very sparingly and it is up to the players to make sure they are used wisely. They already know I let the dice fall where they may and that if they act stupidly or are incredibly unlucky then their characters can and have died.
Any other ideas are very welcome. I would also like to hear other people's ideas on the whole artificial balance issue as players level up.
There's a lot that could be said and, since CotCT has been out for a long time, there's a lot that has been said. Here's the forum for all things Crimson Throne. There are a bunch of threads with tips, suggestions, house-rules and additional modules or encounters.
I haven't run CotCT personally so I don't have any specific tips, but I wish you luck. It seems you're aware of the challenges and ready to make adjustments if you need to. =]
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Kingmaker is very popular and would be easy to adapt to such a plan. If you get unlucky it can happen. We were 9/10th level and our 1st random encounter in Kingmaker 4 (Blood for Blood) was 4 adult black dragons.
Kingmaker is very popular and would be easy to adapt to such a plan. If you get unlucky it can happen. We were 9/10th level and our 1st random encounter in Kingmaker 4 (Blood for Blood) was 4 adult black dragons.
You are right. Kingmaker would be a very good candidate. Unfortunately, that is one of the APs we have already run.
Bleh, I must have rolled really poorly on my Linguistics check for reading comprehension. Change my suggestion to this forum instead. ;D
Skull and Shackles sounds pretty great for free-form exploring and random encounters. I haven't started my run through it but I have skimmed the books. I've heard some groups get completely sidetracked and just wander the seas, searching strange islands and meeting interesting creatures. Even the weather can make for a challenging encounter. It'd be pretty easy to justify having low-level and high-level challenges right next to each other on the map.
Just explain it to your players like you did for us. "Some of these encounters will be higher CR and you need to be smart about it."
I had a similar discussion with my table where I explained that if they meet a red dragon on the road and decide to rush it with swords, they will most likely wind up dying horribly. Play wisely.
Just explain it to your players like you did for us. "Some of these encounters will be higher CR and you need to be smart about it."
I had a similar discussion with my table where I explained that if they meet a red dragon on the road and decide to rush it with swords, they will most likely wind up dying horribly. Play wisely.
Good advice.