The Sword of Valor relic reclaimed and the demonic forces on the defensive, Queen Galfrey orders six heroes of Drezen to explore the Worldwound near the citadel for pockets of resistance and information on what the demons may be planning.
When the border city of Kenabres was attacked without warning by demons, much of the city was destroyed and many crusaders killed or scattered. In the aftermath, a stalwart group survived a fall into caves below the city, fought their way back to the surface, rooting out a lair of a cult supporting the demons in secret along the way. Once back to the surface, they fought through the dangerous city, battling remnants of the demon forces, traitors, and dangerous animals. Once they rejoined the remaining forces defending the city, they helped locate safe houses for other cult members, liberated the manor of Terendelev, the silver dragon who was slain during the attack, from would-be looters, and finally fought their way to the damaged but still intact wardstone, one of the magical barriers preventing the demons from invading beyond the Worldwound. Once the stone was destroyed, positive energy filled the heroes and they were transformed into mythic heroes.
Book 2:
The heroes of the Battle of the Wardstone Remnant were honored with gifts and medals by Queen Galfrey and sent on a secret mission to liberate the fortress city of Drezen, once a crusader stronghold lost to the demons through treachery. Their goal is also to locate and hold the Sword of Valor, a banner with magical properties that once protected the city. The army of paladins, swelled by freed prisoners of the forces defending the citadel, have defeated the armies holding Drezen. The heroes next entered the citadel, cleared out remaining enemies, found the traitor Staunton Vhane, defeated him, and then entered the dungeon created by the demons, where they hoped to find the Sword of Valor. After fighting their way into the vault holding the relic, the group had to defeat a powerful demon before they were victorious.
Book 3
With Drezen recaptured and reinforcements from Kenabres arriving and rebuilding, the heroes head into the Worldwound to do reconnaissance, seek out intelligence on the enemy, and follow up on numerous intriguing quests, revealing things that have been hidden and testing each. They must come to the rescue of a succubus—-one who not only possesses valuable information about the enemy, but is also striving to abandon her evil ways. Finally, they must strike against the Templars of the Ivory Labyrinth in an attempt to sever their leadership and disrupt their plans.
Rolling Perception, Knowledge, Sense Motive, saving throws, etc.:
To keep things moving, the GM will make some rolls for the players. The rolls will be hidden under spoilers and represent the same kind of game play as a GM rolling dice behind a screen for the players. The reasons for this are partly to remove meta-game information from the players, partly to focus play on the role playing, rather than the rolls, and partly to keep the pace from bogging down. If the GM asks players to make knowledge checks or will saves, it can add a day or more to the game to resolve all these. Since the dice-bot determines the rolls, I hope players will not feel there is any control being taken from them.
For perception checks, I will assume the characters are actively looking for anything that might be a threat or a benefit. So players don't have to say, "I'm looking for traps," as they walk along a corridor in order for perception checks to be made. If there is something to be perceived, the GM will roll for everyone who is in a position to perceive and notify anyone with information of what they notice should they make the DC.
For Knowledge checks, I will assume the characters are always alert for ways to apply their knowledge to a situation, so I will make rolls for everyone with ranks in the appropriate knowledge areas (and for bards and the like who may make knowledge checks without ranks) and provide what information the character can bring to bear on the situation.
Same goes for sense motive and certain other situations. If there is an advantage to making a roll, the GM will automatically roll for each character and notify those who make the DC.
If a character wants a chance to know something using a knowledge check, tell the GM what the character wants to check and the GM will make the roll.
An important game mechanical advantage to this is that the player should not know the result of the roll, so he won't know if something failed because of a low roll or because there is nothing to know.
Characters who have special abilities which grant them a re-roll for such rolls will be notified of the roll's result and given the opportunity to request a re-roll, but the GM will make the new roll, again behind a spoiler.
Maps, Movement, and AOOs:
Map links will be provided with movable character icons to provide the tactical details of a melee. If players authorize me to do so, I will roll AOOs for any PCs who could make them against foes once their movement occurs. This will speed up melee and avoid ret-con situations. If a player prefers to be informed of the AOO so he/she can decide if he/she wants to take it or not, I will honor that, but it will slow things down.
House Rules:
I have a few house rules you may want to know about up front. I try to play by the rules as written as much as possible, but there are exceptions.
Hit points at new level: roll your hit die two times and take the better roll. If the hit points gained at an earlier level is below half the maximum, each new level you can reroll one of those lower level results and keep the new result if higher than the former result. For example, if your hit die was a d6, you could re-roll results of 1 or 2. If you hit die was a d8, you could re-roll results of 1, 2, or 3. etc.
Touch attacks: apply the better modifier of strength and dexterity to melee touch attacks.
Sling damage: sling damage and range is the same as a longbow for medium size and as a short bow for small size creatures. This is based on scientific research into the effectiveness of slings in ancient battles published in Scientific American.
Drawing non-weapon items: Rules for drawing potions, scrolls, wands, and other magic items which must be held in hand to use are the same as rules for drawing weapons, as long as the item is kept in a pocket, pouch, or other easy to get to container or location on the body (not inside a backpack). Drawing these items is a move action if the character’s BAB is 0. Once the BAB reaches +1, the character can draw the item as part of a move action. Drawing these items does not provoke an AOO, although using the item might.
Cautious movement to avoid AOOs:
Characters with Combat Reflexes have the following option during movement: At any time during movement, a character can move five feet and expend half his/her normal movement allowance (round up) to avoid an attack of opportunity. This implies the character chooses to move out of the threatened square at an opportune moment when the enemy cannot make the AOO. No other action (such as drawing a weapon) may be done during this move action.
Characters without Combat Reflexes may avoid an AOO by spending 100% of their movement (for a normal move action) to move 5 feet out of a threatened square. If the threatened square is the square the character starts in, it's just the same as a five foot step. But if the threatened square is at a later point, the cautious move can avoid the AOO by using up the normal movement for a move action. Example: Joshu has a movement of 30' and no combat reflexes. He begins a move action but at 10 feet, he moves into a threatened square. By expending 30' he can move out of the threatened square without provoking an AOO. This the point where he moves to 15 feet from his starting point, he has expended 40 feet of movement and has 20 feet left in a double move action.
Both the above rules can only be used when the terrain is normal. If either the threatened square or the square the character is moving into is difficult terrain, the option is not available.
Cautious Movement replaces the Withdraw action.
Light/dark rules are complicated and impossible to interpret. When light spells and dark spells are used in the same location, the GM will make on the spot rulings about the light levels. See separate spoiler.
The charge action only requires that the last ten feet of movement be in a straight line and over non-difficult terrain. More details will be given when the situation demands.
Hero points will be given at a rate on one per level up until the character attains mythic status. After that, the mythic abilities should eliminate the need for hero points.
Mythic Rules: I have heard that the mythic system has issues of balance, so I reserve the right to house rule any overpowering choices that may surface as players begin to get mythic abilities, feats, and spells. I have some options in mind, suggested by another GM who is running a WOTR PBP campaign, so I’ll keep an eye on that list of possibilities.
Light vs. Darkness, rationale:
I generally only house rules when the RAW are ambiguous or incomplete, or when rules are inconsistent with other rules. The light rules are both ambiguous and inconsistent. What follows are my reasons for invoking the rules listed in the next spoiler down.
1st Ambiguity to be resolved: What happens when light spells overlap with darkness spells? Two cases to consider: 1) when light has a higher level than darkness, 2) when the light and darkness spells are of equal level.
Darkness and Deeper Darkness state: “Magical light sources only increase the light level in an area if they are of a higher spell level than darkness.” I will refer to this as the “darkness rule” in the analysis below.
Daylight spell is higher level than darkness and equal level to deeper darkness. By the darkness rules stated above, it should increase the light level in an area of darkness but not deeper darkness.
Brightest Light spell is higher level than both darkness and deeper darkness, so it should increase the light levels against either of these spells.
Daylight (and by extension, Brightest Light) states: "Daylight brought into an area of magical darkness (or vice versa) is temporarily negated, so that the otherwise prevailing light conditions exist in the overlapping areas of effect." I will refer to this as the “daylight rule” in the analysis below.
Without this daylight rule, the rules for overlap are perfectly consistent: when light and dark overlap, the darkness prevails if it is of the same level as the light spell or higher. The light prevails if it is higher spell level than the darkness.
Note: it is still not clear how to determine the resulting light level. This will be addressed separately below.
With the daylight rule, we not only have it contradicting the rules stated in darkness and deeper darkness, but it introduces a 2nd possibility for the overlap: cancelation of both effects, leaving ambient levels in area of overlap. This adds inconsistency to the ambiguity.
The daylight rule makes no mention of spell levels and so makes daylight both more powerful than other higher level light spells in some cases and less powerful than lower level light spells in other cases. It is more powerful than 3rd level continual flame spells, which don’t cancel or overpower deeper darkness. It is less powerful because a 3rd level continual flame spell will overpower a darkness spell but daylight (same level) only cancels a darkness spell. It is also more powerful because it can cancel a darkness spell of equal or higher level (deeper darkness, heightened deeper darkness spell, or blacklight).
No rational is stated or implied for why daylight works so differently from light and continual flame when they otherwise work in much the same way.
2nd Ambiguity: The rules do not state how to resolve cases where other evocation (light) spells which use light to deliver damage are applied to targets in an area of darkness. Does the darkness block the light and so prevent the damage? Does the relative level of the light spell to darkness spell matter?
Only one spell, sunburst (level 8), addresses this. It specifies that sunburst dispels any darkness spell of 8th level or lower. In this case, a light spell of equal level to the darkness doesn’t just prevail over the darkness but dispels it, even though the darkness rules state that darkness prevails if the light spell is of equal or lower level than the darkness, and sunlight only cancels darkness even if the darkness is higher level than sunlight.
What about spells like flare (0), flare burst (1), glitterdust (2), burst of radiance (2), blinding ray (2), searing light (3), sunbeam (7), prismatic spray (7), and prismatic sphere (9)?
Trying to infer how these interact from the rules on light and darkness, we could use the darkness rule and state that light spells of an equal or lower level than the darkness spell do not affect targets in the area. What about sunbeam, which presumably uses the same power as daylight? Would it be ineffective in any darkness region because daylight only cancels the darkness but doesn’t raise the light level in them?
Another ambiguity is determining what the resulting light level is when a light spell is of a higher level than a darkness spell. The darkness rule states a light spell of a higher level than the darkness “increase the light level” in the area affected by the darkness. It has been clarified in the forums that the increase or decrease of light levels only applies to the ambient light level of the area. Mark Seifter interprets the situation as follows: the higher level “light spell has its normal effect, as per the spell. Do not reduce its light level again for the darkness spell; that already happened.” It is not clear why he assumes that, but it seems reasonable and simple.
Light vs. Darkness Rules:
To resolve all these ambiguities and inconsistencies and establish one overarching set of rules to resolve questions of overlap, I will use the following:
1) Disregard the sunlight rule that specifies it merely cancels darkness spells of any level in the overlapping area. Sunlight simply works the same as the darkness rule, overpowering darkness of lower level than the sunlight.
2) Modify the darkness rules so that darkness prevails if it is higher level than the overlapping light spell. Light and darkness effects that are of equal spell level will cancel each other out where they overlap, like the effect described in daylight rule.
3) When a light spell tries to penetrate a darkness region to do damage, blind, or otherwise affect a target using light, the spell is ineffective on targets in areas of darkness that are equal to or higher level than the light spell. If the light spell is of equal level as the darkness, it merely creates a flash of illumination if there are light sources that can illuminate the area were it unaffected by darkness. Note: spells cast on one or more targets cannot affect targets hidden by darkness.
4) In areas where light and dark effects overlap, when a light spell is of a higher spell level than a darkness effect, the darkness is negated, and the light level is the same as the light spell would produce on the ambient light. When the light and dark areas are of equal level, the light level is the ambient light level. Other light sources can raise this ambient level in the area of overlap as if there were no light or darkness effects present.
Fast-Forwarding through some encounters:
The WOTR adventure path has its share of the usual encounters that provide melee experience and danger, but do not advance the overall plot of the path. To speed up the progress of the AP so we don't take six years to complete it, I would like to propose the following:
I have worked a lot with d20Pro software, which allows mostly automated game play, with the program taking care of dice rolls, damage, even spell durations and effects. I will make a d20Pro version of each PC and NPC. When there is a random encounter or one that is with a relatively straightforward situation and against not particularly intelligent monsters, I will run the party against the foes. Assuming the party puts the monsters down with no major loss of resources, I will report the entire encounter with a narrative post. If the encounter proves to be challenging, I'll run it as normal.
Players can give me a list of Standard Operating Procedures for such melees, so I can play the characters more or less as the players would.
Whether or not I use this depends in part on how fast the group tends to get through melees and whether or not the players welcome this idea.
I will be using the program anyway to playtest encounters so I can tell if something is too easy or too hard. It may get unwieldy at higher levels, but we can cross that bridge later.
Note: this campaign will use the Pathfinder Unchained rules for poisons and diseases.
