Yay!
But what's AMOM?
"At The Mountains of Madness" I'd hazard.
Search Posts
Endless Decanter of Queso.
I recall that Paizo has said once or twice that they are hesitant to do timetravel plots for a number of reasons. One of which was doing design work for cultures/empires not present in the current version of Golarion that all their other books describe. If the players are not able to impact the events they'd encounter they wouldn't have much agency. If they do alter the cannon history then the result could be any number of Golarions that bear only passing resemblance to the iconic campaign setting they've carefully crafted for years. Leaving ancient history vague also ensures that they always have a vast reservoir of story hooks.
I always find the look on my players' faces hilarious when they learn they've stumbled into an anti-magic sphere. The subsequent 5-10 minutes it takes for everyone to recalculate their stats is usually sobering though.
I would say that it depends on the degree to which you plan on enhancing the difficulty of the combat encounters in Iron Gods. If you plan to run an AP as written, then a group of four players with over a year of play experience with the system and a party of four 15 point buy PCs, they will find the encounters to be of little challenge, barring a few exceptions in each AP. As APs are written with the assumption of groups that have an experience range of just starting to roughly six months of play, stated at one point by James Jacobs, encounters are usually very forgiving to non-optimal builds. Players with a good understanding of tactics and some of the more effective spells, items, and abilities in the vast toolbox that is Pathfinder will be able to breeze through encounters with just a 14 in their primary stat that newer players with an 18 might find challenging. It's really all about understanding your group. That is my experience, at least. I've run a group of four 15 pt buy pcs run by experienced players through the first two books of Jade Regent and the content, as written, would very rarely lead the characters to expend resources. I've had to rebuild enemies, add enemies, and adjust tactics in most encounters to make them have enough tension to engage the players and justify the use of the rare and precious time we are all free and able to tell stories together. My players aren't the reincarnations of history's finest generals and they aren't using the flawlessly mathematical idealizations of their classes but they do understand the effectiveness of group buffs and abilites that remove the threat that enemies pose without chewing through their health pools. My take is that in this case knowledge is in fact power, and for experienced players that enjoy a challenge in their Pathfinder 15 points is more than enough. That's for running the Paizo APs as written though. If you are comfortable making changes to scale up the challenge for your party then use whichever point buy you like. I happen to rather enjoy the process of enhancing encounters myself.
Witchfires. High AC, incorporeal, invisibility at will, flight, very strong touch attacks, faerie fire and fire vulnerability when hitting or hit. These things are ridiculous at their CR. If a character of mine saw one of these emerald infernos they'd either unsling their ghost touch longbow or assume the fetal position and hope for a quick immolation.
I'm currently running for a similar party: our druid favors wild shape combat, our magus is the Amatatsu heir wielding Suishen, and our bard is slowly upgrading a long spear that has immense sentimental value. Only my sword and board paladin is interested in acquiring a new weapon. We're just getting into The Hungry Storm and I've already resigned myself to seeing many of the cool weapons of Minkai be sold for crafting supplies. I've made two changes that have worked fairly well this far. I've swapped in a couple of strong niche weapons that are outside the characters specializations but are good enough that the party decided to keep then around. A ghost touch axe I tossed in pretty early in the campaign became the only thing that prevented Old Magyu from immolating the party. I've also swapped out some of the loot for magic items with fun, impactful active effects. My party has had a blast with their ring of the ram. As an aside, that witch fire seems pretty ridiculous for its CR. If I hadn't played her with poor tactics she'd have obliterated the party even with their ghost touch weapon.
Qlippoth - Great concept and execution, wish I had the occasion to use these guys more. Oni - Enjoyed the idea of evil spirits as extreme hedonists. Cyclops - Really dug the history of Ghol Gan's collapse. Ghorazagh - Awesome and eerie replacement for the iconic floating orb monster. Humans - Usually end up being the most monstrous foe my parties face in my games.
Hey there. I've been following these forums on and off for a few years and finally decided to post. I've been running a slightly modified Jade Regent game for the last year and my PCs are just starting The Hungry Storm. Thus far they've only had to use the seal twice. Once when our Paladin fell to flames and wakizashis while guarding the deck of the funerary ship and once when our bard was slain during a Hill Giant raid as they crossed the Thanelands from Kalsgard to Turvik. The burst of "here we are" magic from the seal in Kalsgard served the plot nicely by verifying 100% who the party was, leading to some great RP between our emperor-to-be and Thorsborg. It's the second seal-reveal that has me stumped. The group has already destroyed the leadership of the Frozen Shadows and scattered their forces in Kalsgard, so I'm not sure what response the Five Storms would make to the knowledge that the heir is alive and entering the Rimethirst Mountains. I've considered having an agent hire Erutaki mercs/assassins to target the PCs as they cross the Bearleg Lakes. I've also considered giving Kimandetsu another oni partner who has just returned to Kalsgard from some distant extortion work and sets out to get revenge on the party. I could do an ambush by magically controlled beasts and Wodelyn the Red, a powerful Ulfen Druid and consultant to the Kalsgard elite (my stand-in for Wodes and one of the few survivors of the sacking of Ravenscrag). It doesn't seem all that likely that the Five Storms would have many oni just hanging around the Avistan end of the Crown of the World. What events/encounters have other DMs come up with after the PCs used the seal before reaching Tian Xia? |