| SuicidalSkydiver |
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Hello all,
I've taken a group of 5 NPCs through all of Kingmaker up to the beginning of Fort Drelev in book 4, and as of late have run into a bit of a GMs block with regards to encounters.
The campaign so far hasn't been non-lethal: The rogue died when she got stuck between an Owlbear and an angry Bandit King, the Fighter and Cleric were both crushed by the same shambling mound and the Magos got torn apart by trolls by the end of book 2, but it's now gotten to going through most of book 3, and the start of book 4 and I just don't feel like any of the encounters are challenging anymore.
Vordekai's Tomb had the only moments I would call even moderately close to taxing in the entire book (versus the PiscoDaemon and the Water Elemental respectively, and even then the big bad just felt like such a pushover in comparison). This led on to the start of Blood for Blood, where I decided to power up the Troll encounter slightly to give the party closer to the experience they would have gotten as a group of 4 in the interests of pacing.
I made one of the Trolls an Advanced Troll Acolyte, and one of the others a 2-headed Troll. The party still demolished the encounter with minimal injury. This has put me in a bit of a slump, because running encounters where my players don't even break a sweat is unenjoyable for me, and unfulfilling for them.
This led on to the party deciding to head straight for Fort Drelev to sort out Baron Hannis, and as they did so coming up against a random encounter of 7 Giant Leeches which they ignored, and the Boggard Ambush set piece. I don't understand why the encounter is there, because it just felt so depressingly easy. The boggards would be lucky to hit the lowest AC character on 17s, and even then the damage would be so pitiful that it wouldn't matter to begin with. This then led on to the Azuihotl encounter, a set piece which is 4 levels lower than the party in the first place which relies on the players to act like idiots to be effective.
Has any other GM felt like nothing in the adventure path is actually a challenge any more? Is there something I'm missing that should be happening with these encounters? At the moment I feel like I'd be better off ignoring the travel and exploration entirely and going to the main events of the book, because the fights are wasting both my time and theirs.
If anyone has any advice in general for running Kingmaker too, I'd love to hear it. I guess the past two sessions have been a bit dissapointing for me, and it makes it difficult to run something if you can't feel invested in it.
| Lee Hanna |
I've been cutting out most exploration and wilderness encounters, too, since somewhere in Book 3. The PCs could just easily handle whatever comes at them, and it was just a waste of time.
Using the 6-player conversions has made things more challenging, my only PC death so far was among those trolls. I've made them sweat a few other times, though.
| pennywit |
I've thrown out almost all the wilderness encounters except for a few set-piece items and monster-related plotlines that I can turn into interesting side quests. The problem, IMO, is that once you get past book 2, it just doesn't make sense for the PCs to be exploring the wilderness. They're dukes. They have people to do that for them. My players typically use Exploration Edicts to see what's outside their kingdom, and then they'll hire adventurers if their explorers can't handle something. Very occasionally -- if the encounter is with particularly troublesome fey, or if there are signs of a threat to the kingdom -- my players will suit up and head into the wilderness themselves.
When my players get the adventuring bug, they use a set of secondary PCs (dubbed "the Expendables") who adventure within and around the kingdom, rather than run it.