Askren's page

So with Seven Days to the Grave fast approaching and the need to get all my prep-work started so that I can have things hopefully flowing well into the story, I think it's time to kick off the discussion of how to go about fixing what needs fixing in Book 2, and hopefully creating a much more solid experience for the players.

Now, my working premise is that on the whole, Seven Days isn't actually that bad. Certainly not as badly paced and fumbled as the introduction to Edge of Anarchy was, meaning that it may not actually need any major overhauls to the story.

The problem I have is that as it's written, Seven Days doesn't have a whole lot of what I really love, which is horror atmosphere. I mean, it certainly has some, and they're pretty great. But the problem is that they don't carry through to the rest of the book. So my working goal is, hopefully, to alter every section so that the feeling of uneasiness and "horror" persists throughout the entire chapter, eventually building at a climax with the Temple fight.

So let's dive right in:

Part One: Infection
The chapter starts with the sinking of the Plague Ship, the first symptoms springing up, and the players meeting and hopefully curing Brienna Soldado. There's really not much I want to add here, though I think there needs to be a decent chunk of time with the players engaged in activity

Part Two: Outbreak
Unfortunately, outside of the activity of pushing through a mob of angry/scared citizens, this chapter isn't actually all that interesting. It contains a lot of the players being monologued to, first by Vencarlo, then by the priest of Abadar, then by Marshall Kroft and Davalus. There's no real investigation here, no combat, nothing to really pass any time. So that's the first bit.

Ideas:
-Stretch the initial outbreak of the disease out, probably over the course of some investigation content so the players can actually see the descent into madness and disease.

-One early idea that hits me is the old Gamemastery module "Gallery of Evil" to fill this early time, heavily re-written for the purposes here. The concept I am playing with is one of setting up a villain directly opposite to Blackjack for the course of this chapter, a sort of Joker to Blackjack's Batman, in the form of Victor Saint-Demain (the humiliated Inquisitor who went insane after failing to recover the Queen's Brooch). However, due to the horror nature of the story, I am thinking of making him a vicious murderer. More details to be worked out, but I think giving him a "signature" murder style, something gruesome and dramatic would fit his twisted need to reclaim his old fame...

Part Three: Pestilence
This part is strange because a lot of the sub-sections of it really dispense with all of the horror atmosphere completely. But most importantly, there isn't really any central, unifying theme or plot thread that runs through all of the scenes. They exist to give the players a wide-reaching effect on the city as far as saving people from the plague, but none are actually connected. There's vampires...but they don't really do anything or tie to any large vampire plot in the city. There's wererats...but they don't really connect anywhere and just happen to be a colony of rats that exists to be killed. Carowyn Manor is a great set-piece...but it isn't a link in a chain that leads anywhere. These are the issues I want to fix.

• The Hungry Dead (Vampires in Racker's Alley)
  
• The Color of Death (Dismantling Lavender's scam)
  
• Plague Rats (Colony of Wererats in the sewers)
  
• The Direption (Diving with hags)
  
• Carowyn Manor (Zombie nobles)
  

I want to find a unifying storyline that leads continuously from the initial outbreak of the disease right through to the Urgathoa temple at the end, ideally one that the players don't realize they're tangled in until the end. This is where I'll do a lot of tinkering.

Ideas:
-The disease was created by the cult of Urgathoa, meaning they're going to be the central pillar of the trail the players follow. This is majorly where I'm having trouble coming up with ideas.

-I know somewhere along the line I want to hint at Urgathoa's presence in the city. I want to do this by basically running a modified version of Carrion Hill, a horror-themed module where an invisible monster tears through buildings and leaves crushed and mangled bodies in it's wake. It's got lunatic asylums, murder, and plenty of horror. I plan on re-writing this so that the monster featured is one of the Leukodaemons, the pestilence demons the Urgathoa cult summoned and contained to create the disease, having escaped containment and gone on a rampage through a wealthy part of the city.

-One of my players has a sick mother resting in a small church of Sarenrae, with a younger brother lost somewhere in the city. I am still
unsure as to how I want to handle this, but anywhere I can make them rescue the brother is something I need to work on.

-I want to extend the Vampire storyline into something much longer and farther reaching. I'll have to comb through my materials for a module that includes vampires as a plot element to see if anything good comes to mind, but I have an idea for a plot thread about Vampire covens mind-slaving citizens to keep them safe from the disease to secure an un-infected food source.

That's all for now, this is just a spitballing post. I'd really love to stimulate some discussion on this topic and hopefully come up with some great ideas to flesh out Book 2.

I did it with Rise of the Runelords, so it stands to reason I'd do it with Curse of the Crimson Throne. That is to say, taken on the task of re-writing the campaign in my style, which means more padding, more content to explore character relationships and choices, and more exploring Korvosa and hopefully developing deep and meaningful connections to the people and places within.

Let me start by explaining my experience with CoCT. I've attempted to run this campaign like, 5 times now, all with mixed success. My farthest was level 8~ in book 3, my shortest didn't even make it to session 1. But through all of it, I've always loved CoCT, and I've spent every time polishing my knowledge of the city, and making the way I bring players into the game down to a science. So when my Rise of the Runelords group decided to go on hiatus as one of our original members had to excuse himself to deal with personal stuff, my group decided they were tired of the one-shot modules, and wanted to play something they could really explore characters in, rather than just throwing together a build for whatever level one-shot I can throw together. I, of course took the opportunity to pitch Curse of the Crimson Throne, knowing these guys are fantastic roleplayers, and if they buy into it, we could do great things with this campaign. They bit the hooks, and we went right into it.

Character creation went about as well as it could. All human save one Dwarf, all melee save the Cleric, things are looking good, and I'm excited to play.

So let's look at our dramatis personae:

Harald Frontsman

Finn Dawley

Balthur Stoutforge

Shinji

So this sets the stage for our characters. Aside from these, for CoCT I have every player write me up to 3 NPCs, small characters of their creation whom they have a relationship of some sort with somewhere in the city. Not important people, but enough so that the players can have a minor resource and a familiar face in the sea of strangers Korvosa can be. I won't detail these unless they come up.

And so our party meets. We didn't have much time to play our first session, but we got enough done to set the proper scene.

Session 1
I always open this game by having every player describe what a standard day in the life of their character is, and walking us through the events of that day, because Curse of the Crimson Throne starts on what is otherwise an ordinary day in Korvosa. The only difference is, each character stumbles upon a Harrow card, hidden away in their personal belongings in a place they are sure to find. I've assigned the card, it's picture, and given the text on the back to each player so they can weave it into their narrative. Everyone finishes their description with their player waiting for sunset and then heading to Zellara's house.

When they meet there, there is some uneasiness, maybe even some hostility, but after someone mentions the name Gaedren Lamm, everyone relaxes a bit. They go inside, look around and talk for a bit before Zellara joins them and tells of her need of their help. Of course, everyone is skeptical for their own reasons, but she suggests that she read the group's fortune before they go. You can find my write-up of my Harrow Reading for the group HERE (ignore the bit at the top, it's old). Needless to say, some of the details in the reading resonated a bit personally and the party decided they needed time to plan.

So they left Zellara's and hunkered down at a nearby tavern, talking over what they knew, what resources they had, and where to go next. Knowing that Gaedren cleaned house a few years ago and has gone into hiding, his location unknown to most everyone, the group decides they need to follow the only lead they have, which is drug traffic. Luckily, Harald has a bit of a Pesh problem, and one of his few "friends" is a street-level pusher known as Sid "Swarthy" Swartham, a jumpy little man who is trying to get out of the game. Under a little bit of pressure, he tells Harald that he doesn't know where the product comes from, only where he picks it up, but that his best bet is to check out the old church-turned-flophouse known as St. Caspeiran's, a crash spot for junkies of all types. And so with that lead in hand, the group has a direction.
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So that's where my campaign is kicking off. I'm going to use this section after every write-up to detail some of the major changes I have made, and am planning to make to the story as it goes. So, here;

So that's my Curse of the Crimson Throne. I hope I can keep this thread going and maybe have some discussion on changes, additions, different use of characters, and ideas people want to see played out. I know my group will be up to the task.

This is a bit of an odd, throwaway question, but I find myself having to ask a lot of these when I'm setting out to make maps for a game and the answer is important in deciding how I actually go about visualizing the thing I'm making.

Currently, I'm constructing a goblin village. Actually a specific village, I'm doing the Licktoad vilage in Brinestump Marsh. What doesn't seem adequately explained in either the source material for the village or any other document I can find is; Just how good at building things are Goblins, really?

I've seen art of them using animal-skin tents, and lots of fluff explains how they steal and re-use garbage for most of their construction. But then they have this fort-style village with full wooden houses constructed 5 feet off the ground. Did the goblins make these? If they're competent enough to, did they steal the wood planks or make them themselves? Where did they get the nails? Or are they really good at lashing? They are capable of making secret doors and palisades and gates, I guess?

My major concern is; if they're competent enough to actually construct the village, are they also competent enough to use relatively well-fit plank floors, straight walls, etc.? Or is it just as ramshackle as I'm led to believe it should be, just sort of held together out of sheer luck?

And here we are. After going through and re-writing most, if not all, of the first book for Curse of the Crimson Throne to take advantage of the fantastic ideas but fix the horrible pacing and execution, and then moving on to completely overhauling and cutting up/rearranging the plot of Rise of the Runelord's Skinsaw Murders to make it play better and advance at a more natural and narrative pace, I've finally arrived at Jade Regent.

Jade Regent, I should point out, is a campaign I really don't have a lot of gripes with, at least in the initial books. While some people consider them to be the weakest links in the AP, my conclusion is actually that they're rather interesting stories, they just lack the pacing and the padding necessary to really make the scenes in the book develop and have the impact they should. So originally, my intention was to just play the book as-written, with the addition of some extra content wedged in to pad the runtime out and allow more roleplaying interaction opportunities with the NPCs.

But this all assumes an important thing; That the players are basically coming to Jade Regent immediately following experience with Rise of the Runelords, and thus a pre-established familiarity and level of caring for the NPCs involved.

This is not the case for my current group, and as such, I'm having to improvise, to give them some time to become familiar with Sandpoint and develop those relationships before the campaign starts. I actually have the content I'd like to run here, the problem is a bit of a mechanical one. I was thinking of running The Dragon's Demand as the "introduction to Sandpoint", but that module is struck by a bit of a leveling problem. And my problem with the DM is that I can't just run roleplay-only sessions in Sandpoint, there has to be something for the players to do, but I don't want them to be level 7 by the time they finish all of it, because then I have to either remove or scale away all the content in Jade Regent to match, and that's a math nightmare.

And so with that, we move onto my current outline for how this campaign will proceed.

1.) First, I'm thinking of running the introduction to The Brinewall Legacy (TBL) basically as-written. The players spend a little bit of time establishing their place and role in town, and then it's right off to Brinestump Marsh to deal with the Goblin incursion. This will just be delivered normally, with the Goblin Bounty and all that, and likely a little prodding from Ameiko and Shalelu.

2.) Being that I'm running the Marsh first, I'll probably do the whole Kaijitsu-family ship and letter thing normally too, with the difference being that when the players return to Sandpoint, they will be returning to the tower collapse that marks the start of Dragon's Demand.

3.) Dragon's Demand will play pretty much the same, for the most part, with the players delving into the ruins beneath the Witch Tower, fighting the Kobolds, and finding out the source of the collapse, etc.

4.) Perhaps a truncated version of the Blood Vow Lair, as I think I can do without 20 rooms worth of dungeon here just to get across the point of the plot.

5.) I really like the Wizard's Estate auction piece, the problem is as-written it's designed as a platform for the players to basically explore the Wizard's house and deactivate traps, followed by a set-piece auction who's major purpose is to introduce the dragon. Unfortunately, I'd likely just have to end the module here, as going any further and actually running the auction as it's intended would really just open up too many quests and plot threads that would need to be resolved, and it would take too much time and effort to fix the scaling problems brought about by them.

6.) Once the matter with the Kobolds is wrapped up, it seems like a perfect time to bring Ameiko back into things, having things in town settle down, and lots of wealthy people pouring in to auction off the Wizard's estate seems like it would be her perfect opportunity to pawn off the Rusty Dragon and leave town with the party. By this point she's been sitting on the letter from Rokuro for a while, but probably hasn't thought about it at all since all the activity with the Kobolds. But when things calm down, she finally realizes that she's tired of being a passive player while adventure happens around her and leaves. This is where Jade Regent picks up again.

So that's what I've got so far. I'm looking for input, ideas, corrections, questions, basically anything I can get to make this whole thing a bit more interesting and work better.

Sorry for the long-winded post. That tends to happen with me.

The title basically says it. I'm going to be running Jade Regent, and before it I would really like to have my players spending some time in Sandpoint getting to know the town and all that.

So what I'm in the market for is basically any module that can easily be rewritten to take place in Sandpoint without too much hassle, and if possible keeps the players in the town for a decent chunk of it rather than just starting there and shipping them off to a dungeon, as the goal is for the players to become familiar with the NPCs around town.

My first instinct says Dragon's Demand. It takes place in a small town, it's got a fair share of time devoted to meeting NPCs and investigating, the Auction scene is interesting, etc.

The problem is it's leveling. This is supposed to take place before an Adventure Path, so obviously leveling the party up to 7 as per DD and then shipping them off on a level 1 adventure doesn't work. So I'd either have to scale down Dragon's Demand massively and slow the leveling pace, or cut large chunks out of it and end it early so the high level isn't needed.

Is there any other module that might fit here? I'm not familiar enough with most of them to really know which might work.

I'm gonna throw this out there, but I'd like to point out that it's a very tentative idea right now, because work has been picking up and I just don't have time to do the mapwork I used to.

That said, I do want to see what kind of interest there might be for this type of game.

Curse of the Crimson Throne is one of my favorite adventures, but I have not yet gotten to finish it. This last time I played it, I spent a while putting together what I thought would be a group that worked together really well, but when it came time to game, they just fell apart.

CoCT is an urban-centric adventure with large portions of political intrigue and other themes. It's a great adventure for the right kind of player, that kind of player being one that can really get invested in the city of Korvosa.

On the other hand, the one thing I really don't like about Pathfinder is power scaling. I'm a fan of challenge that really feels like an accomplishment, not the superpowered rocket-tag that most games turn into. A game where a player can be strong and do great things, but still feel like a person rather than a walking god. That's where Eternal 6 comes in. Eternal 6 is a game style where the level cap is 6. You stop leveling there, and while you still "level up" and gain more feats and learn new skills as normal, you're stats don't go past level 6.

The kind of player I'd be looking for to form this group would be one who is interested in the roleplay side of the game, not necessarily to the detriment of combat and other aspects, but more to bolster the immersion in the world and make the accomplishments through combat feel more rewarding. I'm interested in the players who are happy for a game that runs slowly rather than quickly, allowing time for the events and character interactions to breather. If it gives any context, my Rise of the Runelords game is currently at 26 sessions played and only 2 sessions into the second book.

I've done some very extensive rewrites of CoCTs introduction chapter to make it much, much more immersive and rewarding, and I'd love to have some players who can enjoy this campaign as much as I do.

Some specifics: This is not the kind of game where showing up with a character sheet plays, it's very much about building a character that is involved with Korvosa and developing the connections to it that make playing through it more natural. I always spend time working one-on-one with my players to make sure they have a backstory and character that let them engage with the world in meaningful ways. This game would be core races only (though honestly I'd prefer it be a human-only campaign, I won't mandate that).

There's probably some more details I could discuss, but I'd rather not get into them now unless people have specific questions.

The game would be played via Skype and Roll20, likely on Mondays as that's really the only night I have free at the moment.

So yeah. If there's interest around, please let me know.

So I'm finally arriving at the Skinsaw Murders more than 25 weeks after starting this campaign with my group. We just played session 1 Friday, which was largely consisted of the party being shown the murder scene in the lumber mill and being told of various things going on, with some leads elsewhere.

So, I'm coming to the point where I need to pad this stuff out. Small bits of content, extra modules I can rip sections from to use, anything really as long as it matches the dark tone of TSSM. This is also an open forum to share ideas, obviously.

First, I'm thinking of heavily focussing on Undead this time around, so the things that catch my interest are the ones that really let me play up that ghoul-invasion aspect. I've got a little blurb written by someone detailing an abandoned horse left on the side of the road, it's rider I'll probably have the group find the remains of later as a meal for roaming ghouls.

Also, I've got the PF module Hungry Are The Dead, which as I read through I am just enamored with. It's a big, chunky dungeon crawl loaded with disgusting rooms filled with undead being lead by a Dread Wight Necromancer. In my head, this seems like a great little bookend for the chapter, by introducing the players to Carlizu when they visit Habe's Sanatorium, and having him escape. By the end of the chapter, I figure it would be cool for him to have stumbled upon the power that turned him into a much more powerful (and undead) necromancer. Though more likely, I'll shrink the actual dungeon down to be a few less rooms and smaller, so that it's not 10 sessions of dungeon crawling.

There will be more ideas coming, I haven't even gotten into planning out Magnimar, but one thing I know I'll have to include somehow (if only in a passing mention) is the Succubus Assassin of Shax that the party let escape when I ran Dawn of the Scarlet Sun as the in-between books 1 and 2.

As a side note, I have a player who's background involves his father using his children as collateral for a debt, making the PC basically legally bound to go to Turtleback and join the Black Arrows, and he's been doing everything he can to get out of it, asking everyone he found with some influence to help, but without much success. He absolutely loved it when I had him return to Sandpoint to find a note from Orik Vancaskerkin (who actually saved their lives in Thistletop once they spared him) saying that he's gone in the PC's place. So big thanks to whoever it was somewhere on this board who suggested that.

I know this has probably been done over a million times in the 10 years this AP has existed, but I'm coming up on it and after the last time I ran Nualia, I really want this time to be better.

I don't like the way the fight is, by default, set up, what with it's 1x1 corridors leading to and from her room meaning that any sort of push into the hallways basically creates a conga-line traffic jam, and her moving to the L-shaped room is the only way to give her some room to move around in. The last time I did, she ended the fight with Obscuring Mist as per writing, but all it did was turn combat into a boring slugfest of 50% miss chance that no one enjoyed, and she couldn't even retreat because the only way she knew was blocked by PCs.

So I want to do this better. Currently, my party just engaged Bruthazmus after descending to Level 1 after entering an alarm-raised Thistletop, they're mostly out of spells and I suspect the challenge of Level 1 will drain them a lot. So I'm not worried about Nualia being too strong (though I may give her all three dogs on the lower level, since she has warning they're coming).

What I want to come up with is some interesting things for the fight itself. Is starting in the Observatory really a good move? Removing that means that the only other option is the L-room, and even that ain't huge. Obviously we want the trap, so the first room is out. Have you guys come up with any ways of making her fight really interesting and memorable?

The thing that springs to mind is a last-minute Obscuring Mist use to cover a retreat to the Crypt where she hopes the Shadows will deal with the PCs when they chase her in, but I don't know if that's enough.

So, gearing up to start running CoCT again, and this time around I wanted to really crank up the intro mission a bit. I always felt that while the twist was great and it had some of the best characters and setting an AP has had, it fell short in the department of having any real weight or punch.

Starting with the Player's Guide really selling up Gaedren as this big underworld force only to have him crash and burn as soon as anyone challenges him and then never be mentioned again, really doesn't have the impact I'm going for.

So I wanted to find a way to have Zellara bring the party together based on their destiny and connections through Gaedren, but I didn't like the idea of her just sending them right to his door. So I wanted to have the players basically do what Zellara just sort of handwaves in her speech, the snooping around and bribing people to try and find his hideout. I think this serves two purposes, the first being that it lets the players really dive right in to the city and start using their wits and making contacts to explore the personality and boundaries of the town, and two being that it gives the players a bit of grounding in the setting, letting them experience it at it's most normal before everything turns to riot and terror.

The problem I'm encountering here is one of Zellara;

So like the title suggests, I'm looking to put together a solid, fun group that I can play with long-term. I've not had great luck when it came to players, my last pre-formed group wanted to play Jade Regent and then proceeded to cancel sessions for multiple weeks in a row to the point where in 3 months, we played 4 sessions. I'm not into really into that, I'm looking for people who just want to sit down and play regularly. I'm actually pretty alright with pre-existing groups, since it means less recruiting for me.

So, anyway, details:

What: I'm really looking to actually finish either Curse of the Crimson Throne or Jade Regent. Which one is up for discussion, though there are a few caveats that I'd like people to be cool with up front.

• CoCT is a decidedly urban adventure for it's first half, and part of making this adventure come alive means players really need to be sold on the setting. Players should expect to build a character that's tied to the city itself and has meaningful ties to it. People who can be self-starters and seek out people and things in the game to interact with will find a lot to do here. Feel free to download and read the Player's Guide if you want some information about the setting, it's available for free from Paizo.
  
• Jade Regent is a sequel to Runelords, and relies kind of heavily on the players really enjoying and being familiar with the NPCs from that campaign. For this game, I request that any players have experience with at least the Burnt Offerings chapter of RotRL, simply because I don't think reading about the characters you're joining the game with connections to can be a substitute for actually experiencing them in a game.

So, that's just kind of my feelings on either path. I have both set up already and I've run both, though not finished either. Which one I go with will ultimately depend on who ends up playing.

When: Tuesday evenings, EST is the evening I've set aside for this. That can possibly change, but I'll have to see. It won't be Fridays, though.

How: Skype voice chat will be used along with Roll20 for the game board. Players should be comfortable with voice communication. I use Skype groups to keep in touch between sessions, so players should expect to be able to receive messages via Skype.

What you need: A solid enough mastery of the Pathfinder system so things don't get bogged down, an ability to create engaging and interesting characters and no strong desire to powergame or try to compete with the group. I'm not saying there's no combat, but I'd much rather an interesting, if slightly weaker character than one built to steamroll encounters but has no personality. Regular attendance, and a friendly attitude.

Character Details: My games are 20 point buy, normal trait/flaw rules. Races are restricted to core, though classes are fairly unrestricted with a few options. Full-casters I will encourage be kept to a minimum.

My style play is one that attempts to remove meta aspects from players' control so they can focus on their characters. People who need to see all their rolls succeed or be told their XP after every fight won't really enjoy my games, but those that love playing an interesting character and engaging with the world, both in and out of combat, will do well here.

Get in Touch: You can get in touch here or on Skype, where my name is Askren- (with the dash). Hit me up and let me know a little about what you're looking for in a game and what interests you.

I'm looking to get a group set up in the next few weeks, so there's plenty of time for people to get acquianted with a setting and discuss character options.

So my current group is pretty much all male characters, and I'm really not a huge fan of the suggestions for changing Aldern's obsession for a PC from lust and jealousy to like, envy of strength and stuff. I may be alone here, but I think the mod works best when it's playing up the creepy aspect of some stalker's obsession with a female character.

So, not having anyone in my current group to focus on, it was suggested to me to use Ameiko, which I certainly don't mind because I actually have two players who are basically fighting for her attention, so she'll likely end up getting a lot of screen time.

The problem is, we're kinda late into Book 1. Specifically, they just defeated Erylium, so by this point Aldern has come and gone from town (it's never actually mentioned when he leaves, so I usually just make him slip out unnoticed after the boar hunt).

So I'm looking for some input here, what do you guys think I can do to play up this obsession, keeping in mind a lot of it will have already happened? I'm thinking of having her, now that the PCs are closer to her, come out with stories about Aldern's unwanted attention and stuff, so I'm looking for some interesting ways to play it out over the coming story. Maybe some letters delivered to her, or presents scoured from his house or something?

This is just a random question that probably has no answer because it's slightly off-script, but it kind of came up when I was building a map for Brinewall Castle for my games.

I'm just a little confused as to the basic concept of the basement/dungeon, and want to make sure I get the representation right.

So you have the whole basement area, obviously set up like a normal castle construction, with kitchens and wash areas and stuff. And then you what appears to be a natural cave path linking the kitchen to the crypt area. Is that normal, to just have an unworked cave linking parts of a constructed basement? Is that path floored the rest or is it stone and dirt?

And then there's the crypt where it opens up into the big cave. Now, when I look at that map, I picture the crypt area as having collapsed down into the cave, but maybe it was opened when the crypt was dug and it's constructed around that?

Like I said, this is stupid stuff, but when you're spending like, multiple days on the same map and reading and re-reading the book, you kind of over think the details.

The map is here if you wanna give an opinion. It's nowhere near done, so probably not worth swiping. Like the rest though, it'll be around for free when I'm done.

So I've kind of busted on recruiting via Roll20 and stuff. We're coming up on the first session, and I kind of want to touch all the bases.

What: Pathfinder, the Jade Regent adventure path campaign.
When: Saturdays, 7PM EST (ish. Later is possible), weekly.
How: Skype voice mandatory, no text.
Details: Must have a functional working knowledge of the Pathfinder system, though min-maxers/powergamers need not apply. This is a very NPC-driven story campaign, with tons of content I've added to pad out the length. This will not be a simple hack-and-slash, so comfortable in-character roleplaying is necessary. The pace is deliberately rather slow and relaxed. Character building will be a collaborative process to make sure the characters fit the setting and work with the campaign. 20-Point Buy, Campaign Trait mandatory.
Restrictions: Core races only. I'm using a lot of content from third-party books, so I'm willing to entertain them, but I will probably tell people to intentionally tone down any full-casters. I'd rather not have anyone overshadowing the rest of the group.

The big thing, though, is that I really want people who are familiar with the Varisia/Sandpoint setting. If you don't know, Jade Regent heavily focuses on the player's connections to important NPCs from the setting, so coming in with experience of those NPCs beforehand is a big help. The first book of Runelords is obviously the best, but I'm flexible. I just don't want to have to explain the setting from scratch.

That's it, really. I'd like to have the character building session this Saturday. I'm looking for people who aren't rules-laywers, are easy to get along with, and want to play through this story.

If interested, please send me a message on Skype: Askren-

So we're wrapping up Burnt Offerings, and while I expect my players to deal with the Bhargest that's left there, but they have expressed interest in visiting Magnimar, possibly to pick up two new PCs joining the group. Ok, fine, I can roll with that.

So assuming the murders in Sandpoint have not started yet, what would they likely run into in Magnimar? They're likely to look for Aldern Foxglove, so if the book is to be understood, his house is currently boarded up and ransacked by the Cult? This description comes late in the book, after the murders and after Misgivings, but is it true before those?

My concern is them finding his house, seeing it abandoned, and then running off to track down any possible lead about Aldern long before the murders start and they start getting notes from him.

So this may be the wrong place for this, but I want some advice on a character I'm playing. Currently a level 5 Lore Warden Fighter using a Fauchard for Trip/AoO utility.

Being that my GM and I both liked the Path of War content that was recently released, I felt like the systems there would really help me turn him into a tactical leader that can stay relevant at later levels.

So my problem comes in; I don't know which to use. Both the Warlord and the Warder look like nice classes and have utility I want to take advantage of (neither are "optimal", as he has no Cha bonus and not much Int).

The issue here is that I want to take the first level when I hit 6 because I need the BAB. I also need the bonus feat choice, which the Warlord gets, but the Warder does not. I also planned on taking a 1 level dip in Monk at 7, but I may not do that now that I have access to armor.

I'm just looking for some input, because I really had no plan on where this character was going to go stat-wise past level 7 or so.

Current Statblock.

So I enjoy Jade Regent a lot. Fun characters, nice flavor, lots of potential. Getting into prep-mode to run it myself, I figure I want to do for my players what I wish had been done for me; A GM-instituted system for governing how a group of players can use their caravan as a profit-making enterprise, as well as just a machine to get from A to B in the plot.

So, I set about reading a lot of the threads on these forums and assembling some ideas I like to fix some problems I don't like. We'll start with the easier of the two, economy.

When I intend to run JR, the caravan part is going to have a lot of pit stops and towns along the way, both to resupply, possibly find adventures and bounties, but also to do some large-scale trading.

The system starts by setting out a list of classifications for every type of settlement, and you choose what the place they're visiting falls under. Each has a list with it of the amount of trade goods of each value tier it has to offer, and this makes up Section 1. (Sorry to whoever on the forums seeded this idea, I don't remember your name. You can have all the credit here.)

The goods themselves are basically just that, a "trade unit" of goods that would occupy 1 cargo spot in the Caravan. They come in different cost tiers, which means each one is a monetary investment on the part of the players. Due to the scaling nature of profits, the more they invest in more expensive goods, the greater the return.

Then we go about defining what goods fall into each tier. This is a quick list, and is by no means final. You can add anything you want to the tiers. This makes up Section 2.

Then we go into the sim-style trade route system, for determining what each settlement buys and sells. Since some people like less complex things, you can leave this out and just make profit a flat value based on, say, distance the goods were carried. But I prefer to have settlements be a bit more 'living'. So we assign different "classes" to each settlement, which seek to describe what general type of economic situation exists in that settlement and what goods they would have access to and thus export, as well as what they do not have access to, and thus would pay more to import.

These lists can be simple 3-4 item lists, or complex things that include all the available goods provided in Section 2. Up to you. So for example, a Farming Village 'class' would probably not have access to mining or smelting operations on any large scale, so logically that would be the place to sell any metal ingots, metal tools, and weapons/armor you brought from a Mining Village that had such goods to sell. Since Farming Village cannot make them on their own, it is an ideal place to offer higher profit for those particular goods.

As an addition, I had considered giving every settlement a "wildcard" in the form of a specific good type among what they export that they would be considered famous for manufacturing at a higher quality than other places. Meaning that specific goods of that type bought from there would sell for much higher profits in other settlements.

This post is already ridiculously long, so I'll leave it here for now. I'm still working on this, a lot of the classification here is largely dependent on the GM running the game to decide what the places his party will be able to visit are, and how he wants to classify them.

Coming soon will be some more in-depth ideas to address transporting cargo and mapping trade routes, as well as starting on overhauls to the Caravan rules that I feel could use addressing.

If you've read this far, please give me some feedback. Even if it's just to say it's a boring and stupid idea.

Hey guys. I did some searching, so I know it's weird to ask here, which is why I'm just checking interest. I'm a forever-DM, and while I do love Paizo's adventure paths (I'm running 3 right now), I also love dungeon crawls, particularly of the lethal variety.

And so I like giving people a chance to play one of my favorite dungeons, Gary Gygax's famous Tomb of Horrors.

Long story short, I just want to see if there's interest. I know not everyone likes the system, so if it's not your thing I respect that. The mod itself has a lot of re-writing by me to be as close to the original as possible, minus some of the instant-death.

As for players, I'm looking for experienced adventurers, this is not a newbie dungeon, who have not previously run the dungeon. Obviously it's plot-light, but that doesn't mean no roleplay. Teamwork and backup characters are the order of the day.

If it sounds like your cup of tea, leave a message and we'll discuss something. Or you can contact me on Skype as Askren-.

Thanks.

EDIT: I should add, I've been really meaning to start recording my sessions for the heck of it, but keep forgetting. This may be one I finally do, but that would only be if everyone was cool with it.