How accessible should items like healing potions and wands really be in martial law Kintargo?
I understand that it should be covered by the usual market rules (75%?). Perhaps this decreases over time but I can’t remember
I just wonder whether it will get to a point where the authorities are thinking - there are troublemakers out there and people buying healing resources (presumably more frequently than pre rebellion). 2 + 2 = ... ?
At the very least would there be some heavy bureaucracy?
Or do the rules of the game simply assume relatively easy access to this stuff and I would be considered a real nasty GM for not allowing access?
I am just one of those , like many including seemingly the game developers, who don’t like the cure light wound wand top up after every combat pretty much removing any threat apart from running out of spells or getting ability damage/conditions
I am not convinced that is the intention of the game
Or is there another way to make the group pay for not pressing on? I would say allowing the enemies buffing time after hearing a combat but the few minutes or so for a bunch of CLW charges shouldn’t make much of an impact in this kind of thing
TLDR : would it be really harsh to clamp down on healing items (primarily wands) in Kintargo and the martial law status ? Or is it already factored in somewhere that I have missed
There's a couple of healing wands given out throughout the books and, unless they're going after everything all the time and incredibly careful about the rest of their resources it's not likely to be an issue.
The group I'm running is partway through book 4 and have purchased 1 Wand of Cure Light Wounds. They're possibly on their second but have barely used it.
It's also worth noting that the only healer is a Shaman. There isn't a Cleric and the Bard didn't want to take any healing spells as they were the healer last campaign.
If your group can make it through the dungeons with great resource management and only spamming a healing wand, let them. Resource management is fun, dying because you were too afraid of pushing on sucks.
And being afraid to push on due to a lack of hit points makes for 15 minute adventuring days.
And the dungeons are alive enough that it's easy for enemies to move from one room to another if the group is sitting there healing after every fight.
This is more a question of play style than Hell's Rebels. Any number of situations (and AP's) could justify restricting access to healing items, not just martial law in Kintargo. And more a question for the people at the table than an internet forum. Here, you'll find many different answers to the question, each right for its own group but maybe not right for other groups.
Healing is really a difficulty calibrator. Hit points are a measure of how much challenge a group can take on - less healing means less hit points means less challenge before resting/retiring from "the field." My take has always been to let the players/pc pursue as much healing as they can muster/afford as it gives me more margin for error. If the challenge runs up too high (by GM mistake) they can use healing to endure/survive. If you think healing magic is making the campaign "too easy" then turn up the challenge. Send in more mooks, apply advanced templates (though many AP monsters already have this) and so on. Changing published tactics which are often mediocre (to be generous) can also increase difficulty.
Applying narrative consequences for overly cautious pc's always sounds good but it has some negative aspects.
- Narratively, asking pc's/players to push on when they have assessed the situation as too dangerous is to ask them to be/role-play suicidal characters.
- Game play-wise, applying consequences (penalties) to the pc's choices is only reasonable/fair if the pc's/players clearly understand the trade-off. This can be very hard for GMs to effectively understand - we know the whole story, what the NPC's strategy is, etc. but the players don't.
There's several underground religions, two official good religions, and several good-aligned noble houses. There's a Milanite cleric who will join up if things go right. Access to healing should not be an issue.
The issue is your sense of game play. If you don't want to make purchased healing plentiful, just make sure that the party can function and that you don't put them in long dungeon crawls with a requirement that they finish them in one night in game. Make sure that there are a few days between big encounters at higher levels, as natural healing and a few spells from non-dedicated healers won't cut it after a while, which is a problem for book four when hell fights back
And the dungeons are alive enough that it's easy for enemies to move from one room to another if the group is sitting there healing after every fight.
Yeah, fair warning: the Fantasmagorium is set up such that when combat starts, many of the inhabitants will start moving in waves towards the commotion. The monsters are close enough and without closed doors they'll hear combat in a few rounds.
As a player, I would be super-skeptical that I couldn't buy healing in this town, but I could not only wear armor and lethal weapons, but also buy lethal weapons in several stores. Unless you plan on denying the PCs access to weapons, I wouldn't deny them access to healing.
Yeah, fair warning: the Fantasmagorium is set up such that when combat starts, many of the inhabitants will start moving in waves towards the commotion. The monsters are close enough and without closed doors they'll hear combat in a few rounds.
Especially the second part! Two of the PCs in my group went down in that basement...
As a player, I would be super-skeptical that I couldn't buy healing in this town, but I could not only wear armor and lethal weapons, but also buy lethal weapons in several stores. Unless you plan on denying the PCs access to weapons, I wouldn't deny them access to healing.
My thoughts were on the limitation of divine magic spellcasting in the city- especially from positive sources
Who would be making these?
I guess it is just how a market should work when magc items are involved but it is tricky to get my head around it
There's several underground religions, two official good religions, and several good-aligned noble houses. There's a Milanite cleric who will join up if things go right. Access to healing should not be an issue.
The issue is your sense of game play. If you don't want to make purchased healing plentiful, just make sure that the party can function and that you don't put them in long dungeon crawls with a requirement that they finish them in one night in game. Make sure that there are a few days between big encounters at higher levels, as natural healing and a few spells from non-dedicated healers won't cut it after a while, which is a problem for book four when hell fights back
Well I haven’t got to long dungeon crawls yet
My uncertainty came from the topping up of HP between every single fight and how that would play out in a dungeon
But I suppose making things harder could be an option. But I wasn’t sure if that was justified as I don’t know if the book as written - say in hocums - assumes topping up to full after every fight? For example the redactors as written are pretty feeble and just seem to be bodies in the way...
I was talking to my wife about this kid of thing the other day (topping up between fights/making the fights harder) as my assumption is that the AP is written for 4 characters at 15 point buy.
I think my assumption is wrong.
Very near deaths/would have been dead without enemies avoiding the killing blows:
(It's a group of 4 players made with 20 point buy, not min/maxed but definitely made to be good at what they do.)
At least one fighting the tooth fairies
One against Scarplume
One during the Unsanctioned Excruciation (mostly due to the character's lack of impulse control)
Two characters in the basement of Hocum's
One on the first floor of the Lucky Bones
Two (three?) characters below the Lucky Bones
Three characters during the Ruby Massacre
One in the Records Hall
and that's as far as they've gotten so far.
Also, this is with healing to full pretty much all the time.
Some of the fights in this AP are much harder than I thought they would be.
I'd agree the redactors are not much of a challenge. They're just 1st level monks after all. Even in numbers they weren't much of a threat - even when they would hit with their 1/day stunning blow the save DC is pretty easy.
I'd also agree with Warped Savant - if the pc's aren't getting themselves back to or close to full hp after a fight, the next fight is going to be much more dangerous. My group has just finished Book 1 and they are also 20 point buy characters (like Warped Savant's) and they've had a couple close calls and they use spells or magic items (mostly potions or scrolls) to get themselves back to full after most fights. They haven't gone so far as to get a CLW wand but they've talked about it. Getting to 4th level and beyond shrinks the risk a single critical hit can knock you unconscious but at earlier levels its a real danger. If your maximum hp is 16, running around at 12 is risky, those additional 4 points probably mean the difference between life or death (or being unconscious and unable to do anything which might be just as bad.)
So as a slight update to this -
It is definitely a gameplay and preference issue
Had a big back and forth over the necessity of healing in the game with one adamant that cure light wounds wands were vital if you wanted to play anything suboptimal. They also very much believe you should be able to heal to full after ever encounter
This is fine as a stance. My worry has now become that if i make combats challenging they will become too scared to do anything
In the last session there were a punch of PCs who stayed outside of a room with enemies in whilst others were being ganged up on
They seem terrified of the risk of character death.
As it turned out poor tactics almost resulted in a TPK
But this would reinforce their view on healing to max and not pushing on
I don’t really know what I hope to get out of this I just know some of my players read the paizo rules and will take a post by me of asking how to approach issues with cowardly PCs really badly. I am hoping they are not reading the Hells Rebels boards. Posting specifics gave me away on the main Advice board so I can’t do that again
One of the things about this campaign is that you can let the PCs have some early easy successes. Let them get the jump on some patrols. Let them scout the Salt Works. Let their plans that have good tactics work. Have an NPC like Rexus be the voice of pessimism and some other NPC be the voice of optimism, so that all possibilities get on the table for them to consider if they don't voice it.
You don't want the PCs getting to full (or nearly full) HP between each of the fights, right? But they keep doing that so you've upped the difficulty of the encounters?
So wouldn't that mean that they HAVE to be overly cautious or be at a high risk of character death?
Most of the fights, as written, are relatively difficult. The AP is written so that the players can wait days and heal-up between the missions and it's expecting the players to really only do one at a time. And your players aren't going to know which fights they have to be really careful with.
The "dungeons" in the AP are written to be difficult as well. The one at the end of the first book has two levels (being careful with wording just in case players are reading this) that are separated enough that they can fully re-charge everything before they go to the next one. Heck, they could even come back the following day. (Note: Every fight upstairs was easy. Every fight downstairs nearly killed the PCs. The last fight downstairs killed two of them while they were trying to run away.)
The main dungeon in book 2 is similar in that there's different points where the players can easily and obviously rest/come back after a few days. It's written that way so that you can introduce it early but then distract the players from going to the level portion of it by having something else happening in the city. The fights take this rest/recharge break into account.
Book 3 is written so that any of the dungeons in it have active enemies that shouldn't be allowing enough time between fights for the players to heal up. (In part 4 of that book, at the gap, when my players tried to rest I had one of the devils teleport into the room which kicked off the action before people were at full.) The climax of that book shouldn't have much of a chance of the party all getting together and healing up either. (But, if needed, individual characters should be able to hide and heal somewhere.)
In the 4th book there's pressure on the players and detrimental consequences that happen if the players don't push on as much as possible. Sure, the fights are, for the most part, relatively easy but the players will be stretched thin on their powers. Running low on abilities/spells makes it difficult to end the fights quickly therefore running out of HP is a threat. Plus there's a few unexpected fights you can spring on your players at any time.
Sure, there are some fights that would be fine to go into without full HP but there's a lot that you need to be at full or you're at a very high risk of having a TPK.
A lot of the fights are challenging enough that you shouldn't need to make them harder. And the ones that are easy for the players? Well, sometimes it's good to allow them to feel like heroes. (Assuming that going through and killing law-abiding, government officials that haven't actually done anything all that wrong is what they think makes them heroes...)
You don't want the PCs getting to full (or nearly full) HP between each of the fights, right? But they keep doing that so you've upped the difficulty of the encounters?
So wouldn't that mean that they HAVE to be overly cautious or be at a high risk of character death?
Most of the fights, as written, are relatively difficult. The AP is written so that the players can wait days and heal-up between the missions and it's expecting the players to really only do one at a time. And your players aren't going to know which fights they have to be really careful with.The "dungeons" in the AP are written to be difficult as well. The one at the end of the first book has two levels (being careful with wording just in case players are reading this) that are separated enough that they can fully re-charge everything before they go to the next one. Heck, they could even come back the following day. (Note: Every fight upstairs was easy. Every fight downstairs nearly killed the PCs. The last fight downstairs killed two of them while they were trying to run away.)
The main dungeon in book 2 is similar in that there's different points where the players can easily and obviously rest/come back after a few days. It's written that way so that you can introduce it early but then distract the players from going to the level portion of it by having something else happening in the city. The fights take this rest/recharge break into account.
Book 3 is written so that any of the dungeons in it have active enemies that shouldn't be allowing enough time between fights for the players to heal up. (In part 4 of that book, at the gap, when my players tried to rest I had one of the devils teleport into the room which kicked off the action before people were at full.) The climax of that book shouldn't have much of a chance of the party all getting together and healing up either. (But, if needed, individual characters should be able to hide and heal somewhere.)
In the 4th book there's pressure on the players and detrimental consequences...
Ok I won’t overthink it and let them do there thing
On my post above I wasn’t clear - they were super cowardly and that lead to terrible tactics in the salt works (half the group quaked in their boots outside). I didn’t power up the combat apart from giving Kossrani one more point of strength to make his point buy 18
But basically the lightly armoured cleric walked in trying to bluff asking for a job. The fighter stayed outside so the CCG guy shut the door. Ranged character dived in whilst the other two dallied outside for the start of the fight
What I am saying is they seem terrified of facing any threat (over exaggeration but not far off) even when healed to full
This resolves my query - I will let them buy whatever they want to heal
But I fear it could get ropey if half the group hide in the previous room until after the combat has started. And I don’t see a way around
In hindsight I was maybe a bit harsh on how I had the combat start but feel like I did run it in initiative from when they were outside trying to talk their way in. Scarplume also creates an anomaly as she threw out loads of damage which they weren’t expecting
Perhaps level 3 will help ...
OH! I had assumed they were in Hocum's! Not just a one-fight mission.
Being cowardly at the Salt Works makes no sense... They would've been at full, they'd know that there's prisoners inside they're trying to rescue, they should know the rough size of the building and maybe knew that there were only a few of the CCG inside.
It sounds like, based on your description, you had the bad guys do things that made sense. IF the cleric went in it wold make sense for one of the workers to close the door.
If the fight broke out right away it also makes sense for a CCG to go over and close the door.
The other two staying outside sounds like a good chance for in-character role-playing as the cleric and ranged character to confront the other two about why they weren't helping in the fight.
The fact that Scarplume started off with a tonne of damage is an argument as to why the group SHOULD'VE been trying to get into the Salt Works as soon as the plan went pear-shaped.
Yes I am one mission from Hocums so am trying to get my question in early
I think some of the players are just quite “gamey” and seem terrified of losing a character to the point where they won’t do anything
I will have to see what they do at hocums
I am going to have someone to tell them about hocums in the salt work prisoners and have Rexus the requisite key be captured for the excrutiation . It will be interesting if they rest or go on the rescue
Despite the stuggles at the salt works I feel like they only didn’t use many non HP resources
Then the mini dungeon(s) start. There was mention of them being living dungeons what should happen if they take several days to clear it out ? I can drag out the search but would they bring in more redactors or CCG thugs if they think they are under attack? Would Nox confront them earlier ?
The Salt Works was a cake-walk for my players. But they probably still used a spell or two, some bardic performance rounds, and some healing. Encounters aren't meant to be huge drains, and some use more than others. (Eg: Scarplume probably used up more resources that the Salt Works.)
I like the idea of them having to rescue Rexus. The Unsanctioned Excrutiation is an AMAZING way to get a reaction out of your players and to get them to hate the CCG. If they do wait for a day then you can have Rexus in worse condition and perhaps he's not as helpful or slightly disillusioned with the group. (When NPCs in my game go largely ignored they've started doing their own things in the name of the rebellion, not always for the good of the group.) Don't forget, the book suggests that after Rexus finds out about the death of his parents he becomes depressed and may get himself killed. If the group delays in rescuing him he may blame them for the death of his parents (grief doesn't have to be logical).
Hocum's can be done in a day; it might take two though depending on how it goes. I believe the AP says that people come up once a week or so. I wouldn't let the players go too long between attacks, but wouldn't punish them if they clear out one level and wait a day or three to clear out the rest. (But honestly, don't worry about it too much as players won't realize that they can wait for a day between floors so they will most likely push on.)
The one in book 2, no one in the government knows about so if it takes them days, or even weeks, to clear it out that's totally fine.
Hokum's took 2-4 days for my team. A waves battle on the top floor, then some cleanup. They darn near missed the hidden stairs down. They brought in a team to guard the stairs on the top floor to prevent escapes and guard their retreat. With Yilliv's help, they were able to do a good battle plan for making the basement manageable in one go.
Then they did an extra day for searching.
A few observations:
1. You should specifically recommended or direct, pending your authority/influence level that your players do NOT visit this forum. Ever. Way too many spoilers
2. Your players actions at the Salt Works are a classic blunder. Most well known of which is - "Never get involved in a land war in Asia" but just as well known in fantasy RPG circles is "Never Split the Party." If your players don't want their characters to die, first rule - stick together. Always. Game mechanic explanation: the diverse classes in a pc party and their "typical" advantage in action economy give them big advantages against most of their opponents. Splitting up reduces both of those advantages significantly.
3. I'm never a big fan of consequences for the party/a pc when those consequences aren't clear to them ahead of time. So, if the party decides to rest after a significant fight, it's not really fair to say "Well you decided to rest so Rexus has been crippled or killed by an excruciation since you took too long to rescue him." More fair - the party knows Rexus has been captured and still choose to go fight something else, say Scarplume. Okay then, they knew ahead of time they were risking damage that would require rest and therefore extend Rexus' risk.
A few observations:
1. You should specifically recommended or direct, pending your authority/influence level that your players do NOT visit this forum. Ever. Way too many spoilers
2. Your players actions at the Salt Works are a classic blunder. Most well known of which is - "Never get involved in a land war in Asia" but just as well known in fantasy RPG circles is "Never Split the Party." If your players don't want their characters to die, first rule - stick together. Always. Game mechanic explanation: the diverse classes in a pc party and their "typical" advantage in action economy give them big advantages against most of their opponents. Splitting up reduces both of those advantages significantly.
3. I'm never a big fan of consequences for the party/a pc when those consequences aren't clear to them ahead of time. So, if the party decides to rest after a significant fight, it's not really fair to say "Well you decided to rest so Rexus has been crippled or killed by an excruciation since you took too long to rescue him." More fair - the party knows Rexus has been captured and still choose to go fight something else, say Scarplume. Okay then, they knew ahead of time they were risking damage that would require rest and therefore extend Rexus' risk.
I hope they don’t but it should become a bit obvious if they have unless they are master actors. Only one or two might even consider it
I don’t want to bring it up now because that might act as a tempting beacon
However given that I tend to express my full annoyance and exasperation (on the rare occasion it is relevant) on here if they read they could well decide they want to play. That would be more of a concern than spoilers
I vented a bit on main advice forum and used some specific examples and a player identified me. Not a fun aftermath as I have over dramatised things to generate to responses
I like the point on understanding of consequences and will try to be careful there. I played a module once where is taking time lead to this underwater monster growing in HD (and in doing so gaining SLAs) and becoming something we couldn’t beat. Clearly lovecraft inspired so perhaps not the worst ending but we had no idea at all.
Never split the party is an obvious thing and they were only split for 2 rounds I think. But against 5 foes it was enough to really make it difficult for a while