For those complaining, It's an option and if you own the PDF already you only play for the FG add on. On roll20, that popular 'free' option, there's a number of games that use illegal copies. Roll20 has its strengths and it sounds like the licensing deal is in their court.
There's community made libraries of almost all of the items and bestiaries for the books not released, but if you get the official ones you get hi-res artwork and a interconnected reference manual.
Is it for everyone? I think a bunch of prior posters have already made their point. It's really a 'how much is your time worth' question. Much of the Pathfinder ruleset is OGL yet I still own the physical CRB as well as the PDF. Some GMs will find it worth while to use the drag/drop links from the CRB as well as class drags compared to manual creation.
As for an economy, everything is based off Scrap Worth. If you don't have any no one cares assist you or even really talk to you. No one wishes to barter with you or trade. Etc etc. Once the Players earn some RESPECT they can try to get normal goods, food/water/somewhere to sleep, relatively easily. Though again don't allow any gold transfers. Forcing the players to barter with what they have or can find is much better. 'Oh we have these broken pistols from the Smilers we killed in the Fort... Lets trade with these." Trust me its rough at first but once the players get the system they really feel part of the community and not so alien, even if they felt alien at first.
Spoiler:
Dinvaya is probably the first friendly trader they'll run into. My first group ended up sleeping in a ditch the first time around after taking back hawk-palace. Trading involved doing diplomacy checks to find people to trade with. The lower the scrapworth, the higher the DC with the initial DC of 30, -5 for each scrapworth they had. Even if they got a trader, the goods they'd have I rolled randomly on a table I made with a few things here and there as needed.
Once they found Dinvaya, food,water,shelter become trivial, but she's still bartering for scrap. Robot parts, items, whatever fits her fancy at the moment. Each trader I had a 'values' metric for scrap, weapons, tech, pharmaceuticals, armor; as each person values things differently. For instance, Dinvaya doesn't value weapons as valuable compared to a disabled robot.
Heh, Power gamers can be the biggest ***ks on the scene, murder hobos are up there in terms of tearing up game immersion, but in the end it's what your group is comfortable with.
Here it sounds like it's a group of friends and they're just having fun being malicious cupcakes in a fantasy world. I don't see anyone else in that situation being offended other than the imaginary NPC. Now knowing this group, should you interject and stop their fun saying "no, you can't do that!" ?
In my opinion, the world simply reacts either by the priesthood rejecting their aid. Shops and services refusing to serve them, and generally ostracizing them from normally open markets. So sure, they can be immature in character, I'm not going to take that away from them if that's what they all agree to do. However the world doesn't bend to their needs, and it punishes them, I don't. "Well.. you did kill a priest in cold blood, what did you expect them to do.. lend you aid?"
I generally only have this issue in my one-shot groups as I can't GM a game for power gaming murder hobos for any extended period of time. My groups, including my MM one are pretty much neutral and good, and great roleplayers; except for S&S obviously (well the good alignment that is).
Thanks Robert, that is another good suggestion to add to the mix.
Ayanzo, that wasn't really helpful. If you have any ideas on how you would "Rule 0" it as you say, I'd like the creative input.
Thanks.
C'mon! it was supposed to be easy! how is asking a bunch of questions making it easy! C'mon!
I'm kidding of course, i have no idea what rule 0 is either, i have theories, but none of them make any sense at all
i would have it not work, being an Artifact tied to the destiny of a Mummy Lord:-)
but if it makes it more entertaining for you, Robert has some good ideas:)
Generally if it's going to be a large game breaking issue, You can easily hand wave bits with rule0. As far as practical application. It's an artifact, they have pretty specific destruction requirements.
If they did the bag-o-holding thing, the mask actually wouldn't be destroyed, but it would be sent to the astral plane, which would be an interesting locate-object infused side quest in the future towards book 5->6. If they do it or don't you're fine, they essentially just did an expensive plane shift. There's always this allure of destroying epic creatures using this method, but it's really just an aggressive, expensive form of planeshift/greater teleport. You won't even have problems with bags of devouring as being an artifact supersedes the 'destroys anything' clause, so frodo would still need to climb mount doom.
@Robert Well yea, for those who abuse it. In the end it's meant to bring fluidity, for an AP going off the rails that far.. well I'd vote that up there in terms campaign sidetracking. Now if you have the creative energies, it's easy enough to invent places, planes, locations (planeeee shifffft because I can!); but if you're struggling in this, then that's the point of the AP books, or if you lack the prep time for world building.
Ooo, I like the idea of having the brown mold spread. Excellent.
Given that they're likely to be adding a party member or two next week, it's definitely a good place to shoe in some town encounters that I can tie their introductions into before they have a chance to head back down. I don't think they're likely to prioritize investigating any other rumors at the moment, but I can probably tailor some of those sidequests into events that run into them while they're about town. I'm also planning on placing their invitations to Silverdisk Hall and their first encounter with Sanvil here, so hopefully between all those things, they'll wind up with plenty.
Might also want to take that opportunity to introduce them to Sanvil Trett, possibly curious at what they found from under blackhill. Given this is the only party to return other than Khonnir, he'll want to perhaps arrange a premium price for goods. More or less he'll plan to backstab as noted in torch event 3 after or before they sell anything to him. Makes it more than 'just a random theif/greedy-person' if it's a face they look forward to meeting (ie.. perhaps 75% sell value on tech equipment or silverdisks)
Has anyone fleshed out any of the sidequests as described in the rumors? 4 of these rumors technically are false, but they're a good plot hook.
I'm currently fleshing out the following:
1. For food and country! (rumor 12)
- Easy quest, 1d3 repair drones trying to 'fix' something, either malfunctioning or fully functional pending on PC level. Scattered about the many farms so they could encounter 1 at a time or all at once pending on how evil you feel. tracking DC 10 to find the tracks, insert generic NPC complaining and have some kind of recent crop attack she/he can lead them to. I currently have them with a makeshift camp trying to fix another robot that came with them but burnt out. They're somewhat malfunctioning themselves and resolved to picking the greenest looking lettuce and stuffing it into the downed robot's chest cavity for an amusing scene. They may or may-not be at their little shed pending on wither they're foraging.
2. The Merrymaid killer! who dun it? (rumor 16)
- Someone knew Wrennie's secret, and tried to blackmail her with it. Tired of having to deal with Garmen, she didn't want another cloud to hang over her so she killed him with a poison (DC 15 heal to determine). Talking with 'the working ladies' say that that nothing happened, Sense motive DC (17) says otherwise, (12) says they're simply scared. The girls bring up Garmen's frequent contact with Wrennie but not much else if helpful (from friendly). Wrennie claims he smelled of booze, and if confronted with poison and the PCs can stick it (DC 18 diplomacy), will point towards Garmen and tell some information about Garmen blackmailing her. Else-wise she'll claim that some have been taking a liking to creating their own booze with limited success, perhaps he had spiked it with sludge from black hill. If she speaks about Garmen, she'll say that he may have spiked it for fear of competition. <insert warehouse encounter here, may even have this as a prelude to it>. Garmen will deny it if confronted about it, delay by talking until his thugs are in position to attack. If subdued he'll claim he doesn't know what Wrennie's talking about... If the PCs get this information they can return to Wrennie who finally comes clean (The entire warehouse encouter can be avoided with a DC 25 diplomacy where she tells everything off the bat). In this scenario she'll agree to turn herself in and the town will pay a 200 gold bounty. Another one of the girls will take up running the estabishment.... If Garmen's killed without divulging anything, Wrennie's overjoyed and offers her establishment's services free of charge for the party's stay as well as an interesting night which she'll personally choose the most charismatic PC to 'entertain'. In addition to this, 200 gold for their troubles.
3. Scrappers! (rumor 18)
- Standard Encounter, 1d4 Ratfolk scrappers, remove their crossbow and screaming bolts, replace with shortbow/arrow. Perception DC (15) to notice signs on the road, DC (12) Survival to follow them about 1/4th of a mile to a hidden camp around a rock outcrop. If at night, they're at the camp with a subdued fire, DC 12 perception to spot from the road if the case. Else-wise they'll stealth right at the road to ambush anyone including the PCs (lowest stealth vs highest perception). 100 gold bounty as well as minor treasures from the campsite (if found).
4. Shiny Baubble in the Rough. (rumor 19)
- Garritt has found something interesting in a discarded chunk of technology. A smelter brought it in to use with flame upon black hill and extract skymetals, given that the torch is out, after a few days idling the merchant simply dumped it here and left. Inside the tangled metal and beams he found a crushed locker and within the only salvageable thing being a hard-light-shield (timeworn, cracks on the brace, 12 charges). He's used a charge and was fascinated by it. If the PCs investigate he'll try to hide the fact that he has it. Sense motive 10 easily tells he's hiding something. If pressed for information acting on the sense motive, a DC 15 diplomacy will have him show it, and use a charge to demonstrate the "Best looking bracelet a gnome can have!" He's unwilling to part with it, but will sell it for 1000 gp. If bargained with he'll be willing to part with it if the PCs can get Bazlundi Otterbie to grant him the land of the junkyard as his own. Currently he's junkmaster, but he does not own it, nor the land where it lays. Finding out (knowledge nobility 11, local 13), and going to the Otterbie manor, Bazlundi does not agree to this. She was the only hold out to agree to this mainly because the artisan guilds often go there to pick for scrap. She'll acknowledge that Garritt has helped in the organization, but nobody asked him to. If the party can find the other council members (DC 13 local) and convince them to overrule Balundi, (DC 16 diplomacy each) then in the next council meeting it'll be done. Garritt will go to the town hall to confirm this before handing it over... Another means is to go to the guild hall and convince the artisans that the scrap is useless and Garritt would probably still supply them anyway, they'd just need to ask. A diplomacy DC 18 or a bluff 18 will be sufficient, Balundi will withdraw her hold and the remaining events still occur.
5. Metal that flies (rumor 17)
- Scouting the area for 2 hours indicated reveals nothing but arid land, roll a percentile and if [30%] they find signs of a beast, not as large as thought, but also a strange amount of gears lying about a carcass of a large buffalo. The creature only comes out at night, and if the PCs stake it out, they can catch a glimpse of an attack (darkvision perception 15) or hear it (perception 13), but it's usually too far to make it in time. If the party uses bait (some medium sized animal) and stake it out, the creature will come to them on the following night. It's a night Wyvern, but it appears the metallic thing in its chest is of some mechanical design. This would normally be a TPK at this level, but the creature seems to be severly weakened by this object lodged in its chest and suffers a -6 Strength, Constitution penalty, as well as a -4 dexterity penalty. Blood oozes from where the metal object is lodged in its chest wounding it such that it only has 40 HP and it will not fly and attack (CR 4). If they choose to kill it, a DC 15 engineering (technologist) check will determine that the machine apparently is a gearsman, though mangled from the ordeal. The arm of it is jabbed in the wyvern's chest and if extracted, holds a timeworn chainsaw with 8 charges remaining (last use > 1 week so it'll malfunction on first use).
Has anyone had any particular plans for Val Baine? I've got her planned out to be a little bundle of 13 year old energy. She cares deeply for Khonnir who's adopted her and feels a strong obligation to go with the party should a player have the Local Ties trait, even stronger so if they're foster siblings.
"He's my Father too you know! You might be bigger, but I care just as much as you do, perhaps even more so!" Val grasps at a small trinket at her neck, a collection of bolts melded into a crudely shaped fox. "Besides.." forcibly shoving away a tear. "For everything he's done for me... for you.. I can't simply stand by when the only family that's ever cared for me is in danger as I sit and wait!.." Val visibly breaks down in tears as she clings to <player name>'s chest. "I....I don't want to be alone anymore.."
DRAMA POTENTIAL
Might even have her sass Meyanda to cause her to try and shoot her at the end. Man.. pulling the heart strings!
I modded it to add downtime activities such as exploring the city to reach those extra locations as well as using the notable NPCs and their motivations (such as Sebeti and Neb-at).
So far my players are enjoying the extra activities so it's not a rail road. I even put a catacomb at the bottom of the Ubracene Well and adding hooks for Divs rising from the darklands.
I'm still in the Half-Dead City, I've yet to prep for the Empty Graves, but I do think it's similar to RotRL in it takes awhile for the central plot to rise, perhaps even longer as you don't have any solid hooks until the second book and a bit at the end in the Euridite Eye with the foreshadowing.
RotW hits you with plot like a ton of bricks, RoW has a wind up but it's very fore-shadowy till 3/4ths of the book.
I actually like MM's way of doing it allows some exploration within the main arc as there's nothing pressuring to visit all the sites right away in the beginning. After the plague outbreak in book 2, it's mainly investigation which also isn't as time pressing as the other 2 APs.
I'm used to the "I'd love to .. but... gotta save the world here" So seeing an AP that allows some downtime rules to take affect almost anywhere in the first 2 books is a welcome interlude.
Am I the only one who made the malfunctioning deathtrap functional? Didn't end up drowning anyone, had a druid push in the door with a pretty crazy pony-charge along with strength assists when they were isolated from those inside. Where it not for that, the two inside would have drowned.
