I think the correct method is to adjust according to CR.
Personally I just make minor adjustments to each encounter on the fly, an extra guy, slightly better equipment, boosted stats, that sort of thing.
I'm much more the relaxed GM and focus more on the story experience and fun than worrying about correctly balanced encounters. So I'm probably the worst to ask about this. :)
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I think the correct method is to adjust according to CR.
Personally I just make minor adjustments to each encounter on the fly, an extra guy, slightly better equipment, boosted stats, that sort of thing.
I'm much more the relaxed GM and focus more on the story experience and fun than worrying about correctly balanced encounters. So I'm probably the worst to ask about this. :)
This is what I've done, both in table top and in my RoW game. If the encounter says to have 3 NPC's for 4, I'll run 4 for 6. I also adjust based on tactics I plan on using. I might add more if they are just going to blindly rush forward like a Zombie or Skele, I might not change at all if I'm going to adjust their tactics and make them especially annoying.
Hm... Looking further into things, I think I'll run me a module before I get into a full adventure path, to build some experience.
My AP's when I run them I don't give out XP, I just level the party at appropriate times. This way if I have say 6 characters in an AP meant for 4 I can wait to level them later to keep the difficulty for them.
Also you can always toss in extra monsters or beef up the current monsters a little.
A module is likely a good starting point though, like you mentioned. The AP's can take a really long time to go through. :P If you want something even shorter try a PFS scenario they go pretty quick and are generally well defined.
Den I have considered hitting DragonCon, but I don't know if I will make it or not. I'll look at the dates and see if I can swing it.
Castor - An AP is no more work than a Mod, and maybe less. And if you are having a good time, you can keep playing. I recommend them over a mod. I think you get better quality players wanting to play APs. A mod is over so quick that I do not even bother to try to get into them any more.
Dragon con is an old friend for me. I have not missed since 1990. Its labor day weekend (but I bet you knew that). That puts it too close to Gen con for me to easily do both. My wife is very giving and lets me do plenty of gaming but that is pushing it even for her good nature.
If you decide to go do let me know. All the close hotels have been sold out for 11 months but you can find decent deals in Mid town on the subway line - its only 3 or 4 stops away.
Ha I lived in the Atlanta area for the 20 years or so and never made it to a DragonCon. One of these years I plan on going though!
Ladies and Gents, the GM has left the building. Off to GenCon! If anyone ends up there come track me down. I'm running 7 slots of 4-14 My Enemy's Enemy, and would love to meet ya!
I'll be back and ready to fire everything back up on the 19th!
Have a good time!
I'm miles and miles away so no hopes of seeing me, but enjoy!
Only way you will see me soon is if you can make Dragon Con... But do remember that I'll be very close to you mid October when I take that class.
@Castor: how can i note on the loot table that i spend 100 GP (out of my alloted 192 GP) to buy a chain shirt?
You could do what I did with the masterwork armored kilt, add it to an empty line, put 0 in the loot column and put the full price rather then selling price and then claim one. It will remove the gold from the amount sold and deduct the full price from your share.
I don't think that needs to be shown on the common loot table. I'd say just track that on your sheet.
I don't think that needs to be shown on the common loot table. I'd say just track that on your sheet.
Except that with Oleg's gold on hand it is slightly better to barter his share of goods rather then sell for gold and then use the gold to purchase.
I've added a space for "Value traded", and added in Winifred's kilt, Castor's chain shirt and Hadin's chain shirt.
If anyone else sells thing, just add more to the value of that space.
Thanks Castor!
Another question: would it be useful if we regroup in one place only (under "Campaign info" maybe?) the loot document, the wiki links and all other needed stuff?
There is the game... website, setup by Tripps on his own site. I think it has most/all the links already. Also, Castor (or someone) could put the link under his statbar, like Brom did with the helper map and Castor does with his spells? It's a little more permanent that way, if we just want a copule things to be static.
I like that second idea, Brom. Sadly, there's no space in my statbar for it anymore.
When Trips returns, we could ask him to put it on the wiki, yeah.
Or someone(s) else could put it under their profile as well. Like me... :)
ah voila
Sorry to leave ya hanging Brom. Left yesterday for a quick vacation, so you're getting phone updates at the moment.
np, I'll take what I can get.
So... I'm taking a crack at CotCT after all. If anyone's curious, it's here.
I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaack. Now to catch up on the gameplay thread which has obviously gotten out of hand in my absence! :)
Had a great time, and I'm completely wore out. I need a vacation now to recover from my vacation. :)
So did we come up with a final decision on the group makeup and destinations?
Den is pushing for the exploration team (whoever that is) to take the 5 horses so they can cover more ground.
Welcome back, Winifred wants to be with the group visiting Kobolds, even though they'd need to hire a draconic translator and I'm not sure how well diplomacy would translate.
Given that very real issue, we might consider meta-gaming slightly & hold off on going for the Koblods until we have leveled up so she or one of the other diplomacy oriented PC's has Draconic.
I'm not saying don't go after the Kobolds, I'm saying have that team take a bit longer to get there & encounter things on the way.
Added the link to the Kingmaker Wiki in my profile, hope it will be useful
Welcome back!
Exploration - Castor, Theod, Brom, Cappi, Hadin
Kobolds - Rufus, Will, Winifred, Dend, Karse, Tshilaba (NPC)
I proposed this earlier and still like it, or at least want to re-propose it in the interest of getting things running again.
Added the link to the Kingmaker Wiki in my profile, hope it will be useful
Thanks Hadin!
I will second Rufus' suggestion. Nothing says you need to rush off to the kobolds yet and you all are actually teetering on getting near the level 2 mark. So you might want to do some basic exploration around the post to allow for that to happen before hitting some of the quests, as they translate into tougher encounters. Exploration of each hex actually awards exp, plus whatever you might encounter along the way, so it will help push you along.
In the end, this is sandbox, you all decide the story and what you want to do. I'm merely here as the storyteller/facilitator of the environment.
When you are ready to make your way out just let me know, and I'll move things along.
I agree. There's lots of quests available.
Wanted: Tuskgutter
Sootscale Unrest (Kobolds)
Wanted: Tatzylwyrm
Missing: Svetlana's Ring
Wanted: Falgrim Sneeg (Kesten Garess's quest)
Fangberries!
How about:
Castor, Theod, Brom, Cappi, Hadin - explore new areas westward and look for Tuskgutter, as Brom really wants to test his mettle against him.
Rufus, Will, Winifred, Dend, Karse (Tshilaba ???) - explore new areas eastward, maybe getting the fangberries in the process.
Agreed?
Well Winifred already has a rank in linguistics so if we do some more exploring to reach second level I could take another, its better then the retraining rules to get a new language, which is studying for 20 days.
That all sounds good to me.
Makes sense to explore the hexes around us for sure. The group spending the least time in the forest should take the horses.
I am fine with waiting on the Kobolds but I am curious why no no thinks that at least one of the Kobolds speaks common...
Well unless the one kobold that knows common is important we'd still have to worry about how well diplomacy translates.
Just waiting on you all. Let's keep it rolling :)
LOL. We can always backtrack if needed to resolve that. :)
Seems no one wants the magical post #1000 for the gameplay thread.
How about:
Castor, Theod, Brom, Cappi, Hadin - explore new areas westward and look for Tuskgutter, as Brom really wants to test his mettle against him.Rufus, Will, Winifred, Dend, Karse (Tshilaba ???) - explore new areas eastward, maybe getting the fangberries in the process.
GM - lets run with this above as it got several votes and was the only idea submitted. :)
Guess you're wrong, Wini.^^
Beat me to the punch :) Woohoo for 1000!
Sorry everyone! Here's my string of accurate, but not incredibly sufficient excuses:
I was supposed to get back from vacation late Sunday night, however because of delayed flights I got to spend an extra day at the airports with my family (and surprisingly well behaved 10 month old... figure that one out). I didn't actually get back home until last night.
On top of that, my phone fell out of my pocket on the 4:00 am shuttle to the airport. The good news is that it's been recovered and is being sent to my house. The bad news is that even if I had the energy to be checking in here yesterday during our airport fiasco, I no longer had my only option of doing so.
But I'm back now, and I'll try to resolve that "Cappi Toss" that's been up in the air for so long. (Pun intended)