Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber. Organized Play Member. 232 posts (417 including aliases). No reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 4 Organized Play characters. 1 alias.
I am working to close on book 2 of the AP, and am looking forward towards book 3 while laying down my plans. Some things that I have thought of when dealing with book 3 is that when the PCs are traveling into
Spoiler:
the Dreamlands
that they would take on traits that were more an idealized version of themselves as they wish to be.
The idea initially came from the Fighter/Barbarian of Ragathiel that we have in our group. I have thought for a long time that I could see him developing into a paladin based on the way that he plays. As I thought more on it, I realized that it could be accomplished during those adventures, to at least show him some of what he could be.
One of the players was a replacement for an early PC death. He had been committed because of his belief that he was a dragon (Dragon Sorcerer). So during this section of the adventure, I am pondering letting him instead be a Dragon with the group.
Are there any rules in PF for support of PCs that are actual Dragons?
Given the nature of that section, I'm not as concerned with being perfectly in balance, and so might just give him an appropriate dragon, but was hoping there might be some resource.
Other than give more characters to deal with, what do the mercenaries do?
What was the plan in coming out to this place without the party who are going to do all the heavy lifting?
I have been trying to figure out what is going on and what the thinking was.
The answer that I have been able to come up with is that the mercenaries are hired to guard the camp, the personal guard are to guard Almah. There was at one point another group, but they turned on the Princess in the wilderness. The mercenaries served admirably in defending the Princess, as did her guard and defeated the group of swindlers and highwaymen that Almah had taken up with.
Perhaps even Dashki did something notable, which has allowed her to think well of him.
The problem was that at this point, she had no one who was to claim the city. She dispatched Garavel back to hire some new adventurers whose mission it would be to clear the town for her. That is where he hires the group.
No one openly speaks about the previous group, as it is a bit of a dishonor that Almah would have hired such men. But if some poking is done, folks would mention a few things about a previous group that was in their company.
Thank you Paul. That is what I had seen referenced in many posts, but very clearly stated in your comment here.
I sadly don't think that the AP is for me and think it is very sad that they didn't make the circus the story.
Time to look at others...
A game that I was in the GM doesn't have time to continue, so I'm looking at trying to step up to runn something. The concept of the Circus AP excited me greatly, and so even though I would be converting it out of PF2, I wanted to take a look at Extinction Curse.
Minor EC Spoilers:
I have heard that book 1 is the most circus oriented of the books, and the only one where a performance is built into the story.
But book 1 has nearly nothing to do with the circus. Most everything in it is just a light atmosphere of circus during the first chapter, and after that it feels like the author just went down the road of very standard D&D adventure.
Do the later books actually involve the circus that much? I have heard that this was an unfortunate bait and switch (comparable to Second Darkness) where the Circus isn't very important and could be completely dropped and the rest of the game would continue normally.
I guess I have answers to the my concerns from other reviews, but kinda hope someone can save this thought and tell me that EC becomes a wonderful and circus filled game, rather than false promises.
Yeah, and every game has the need for the group to accept that they should stay together. This one just had a bigger buy in on that aspect to me than most.
I think part of that goes to the City adventure part of it, and that these folks seem like they should be natives to the area, and so have regular lives.
I was thinking of possibly having the PCs do a mission before the adventure starts where they are kinda forced into it by GL because of the history that each of them has with him. Perhaps blackmail or something like that, but something that invests them into the idea that they need to get this guy and that there isn't going to be an end to him using them like this, then they get the tip that can pull themselves out of this situation.
Anyone have any short adventure (PFS would be fine) that might fit into the kind of stuff that GL might make a group do for him?
I have been looking at a lot of the different options for an AP to run for my group in the coming weeks. Having looked through a lot of the reviews that people have up and doing reading, I settled on Curse.
The intro of this seems a little weak to me, though I do love the specific way the group is pulled together. Once the first mission is completed, it just seems that the characters have little reason to stick together.
I was wondering on others experience regarding this, since some folks might just want to return to their regular lives at that point.
My group just recently started. Have 5 members, an Elven Rubato Bard from Path of War, a Gnomish Grenadier Alchemist (using Entrapta from She-Ra as her art), a Human Cleric of Abadar, an Elven Falconer Ranger, and a Human ex-knight Cavalier.
We have just finished up the encounter on the bridge in Trail, and they are just about to leave Phaendar behind. Due to 5 people, I have buffed up some of the encounters and most of the PCs are ready to take level 2 at this point (folks do not earn full XP when they do not attend game).
Before we got started with the adventure itself, I ran the group in town for a while during the festival. The players were joking around that this place was doomed because it was an AP and the town was having a festival.
During the festival I tried to let them each have a moment to shine, and they all did really well on checks they chose to get involved with.
They were also able to meet Rhyna, Vane, and Kining. Rhyna the Cleric talked to for a while and I tried to hit on her very good natured way, the cleric also talked to Vane. The Cleric had offered a 10 gp prize for a crossbow competition and was encouraging everyone to use the "weapon of the people". Vane engaged with him and offered him a discount at his store if he came by later because of it.
The grenadier and the ranger tried the archery contest (real bows) and met Taidel and Lirosa there. I described the targets being Molthune guards where the targets were on 3 cut outs. One of them was a soldier who had a cartoonishly small genitals and was kicking a dog, another was a normal target with the target over his chest, and the last was a big target of an overweight guard bending over to pick something up and the target was on his behind.
The Elf took the high ground and went for his shot on the normal target, but the Grenadier decided to perform hijinx on the small genitals with her bow. The elf rolled a 20, getting a perfect shot on the normal target, while the gnome rolled 19 on the small target and ended up breaking the guys genitals target off. The crowd roared and cheered for both, and so they were the winners of the day.
The same two had to head over to Kining for prizes, which were masterwork arrows. Kining grumbled a lot about suddenly there being 2 winners when there was only supposed to be 1, and was generally disagreeable.
When the attack started the group was in the Taproot and quickly pulled out of the inn when the attacks happened and moved folks up to the copse of trees to the NW of town. They didn't do much searching of the inn, and even left the businessmen up in their rooms because they didn't ask about folks that might be upstairs. The cleric decided to stay with the NPCs they left in the copse of trees while the rest of the group went to the key points on the map to try to save some people.
On their way, they had a few encounters with some random hobgoblins (1 random encounter when they first left saying they were looking for trouble, and 1 in a house that they went to check on [which netted them 2 more commoners]).
When they got to the temple, they avoided the growling wolf and got into the fight inside. The scout beat the Cavalier pretty bad and the Alchemist in the end won the fight with the scout by a bomb hitting the falcon as well. They once again did not search the temple even though I had multiple NPCs talk about how they will need supplies.
They retreated back to the copse to leave the NPCs and talked with the Cleric. Aubrin talked about how things were progressing a lot and if they were going to head to another location it might be the last one that they could really go and check out during the chaos of attack.
The team decided to head out, though the Cleric of Abadar stayed behind again.
They ended up hitting Kining's shop and saving the people, killing the hobgoblins, and making a high diplomacy with the earth elemental even though they couldn't speak its language. At this point it is traveling with them nervously because it is scared of its other options. They did a quick search of the shop, but not a big one because they never tried to stop the fire.
They pushed their luck and finally hit Vane's up to find him dead on the floor. I was surprised they put the shop to last with an alchemist in the group and people having talked about him being a doctor. Vane's they actually searched and the bodies in the shop were some of the first that they checked out.
When they left his shop, I realized I had forgotten to bring in Taidel and Lirosa back in the smithy, so set up a random encounter with a few groups of hobgoblins. The party decimated them (it was rolls of like 16 up for 2 rounds) and the elves were coming on round 3! So I tossed another group of the same into the mix and had the half-elves join in on that. They convinced the two to come with them, and the half-elves showed that they can be useful, which I thought was good since unlike most they were not hiding and cowering.
They gathered everyone up and headed back to the copse of trees and then set out for the bridge. I added a wolf and some more hobgoblins to the encounter at the shed, and the stealthing gnome rolled on 4 Perception checks in a row - 3, 2, 1, 3! The dog picked up her trail and she couldn't see it, when she crossed back across the yard it was there growling at the space she was in. She tried to move away, but told her it was obvious he moved his head after her as she moved.
Her last bomb of the day was thrown and the wolf savaged her. The rest of the group came running in but got caught up with the hobgoblins coming out of the shed. The gnome popped a smokestick, and was amazingly missed by the second attack of the wolf! Cavalier dispatched the thing and started taking fire from Kergi on the bridge (though he was never hit).
The hobgoblins in the shed were taken out and so the bard moved up and called Kergi out, so Kergi obliged him by sinking a bolt into him and dropping the guy!
Cavalier rode up to him and crit Kergi with his bastard sword and the group was in awe when the Hobgoblin was still standing. So Kergi grabbed his Bastard Sword out (swapped it since no one uses Scimitar) and crit the Cavalier right back! Damage roll was low, so luckily the Cav survived.
Horse did a swing and a miss on Kergi, and then he nailed the horse right back with a crit threat (but it did not prove.../sad!).
The group was in a lot of fear of this guy seeing him drop 2 of them and nail the horse really good. Alchemist jumped up and tossed an Alchemical Fire and hit the Hobgoblin boss in the splash dropping him.
We stopped right after they got their 2 that were downed stabilized, though the Cav is still unconscious.
It has been a great time, and this is the specific encounter that made me fall in love with Ironfang in the first place! So glad to be running it and having a fantastic time.
The Babies with Knives (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCivd5SX9samzW6f-KkaKk_A) are talking about getting a Pathfinder 1E game going on Mondays during the day. 4 hour session or so, with a start time of somewhere between 9 am and 11 am UTC-7 (Noon to 2 Eastern).
Interested in looking for players that have a quiet environment that is suitable for recording, are able to give the game attention, role play, and can run Fantasy Grounds Unity on their system.
Decent web camera preferred for the recording.
Come check out our Discord to get involved with the the BwK community! https://discord.gg/NPuhA5
As referenced in https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42mrf?PF2-Rulebook-Subscription I have placed my order for PF2 on subscription and the AP. This did not come to greater than 100 so I was paying shipping, however, the Bestiary should come as well with that.
I want to make sure that the Bestiary does come and that the money put down towards shipping would go to the price of the Bestiary.
This morning I have tried to get this order in 3 times. I select that I want to start with the 2E Core Book and the AP for PF2. By the time that I get to step 4 of the checkout, it has changed what I want to Planar Adventures and one of the older APs.
Additionally, it is telling me that I will get billed for shipping, but I think from what you are saying above this will get changed because the Bestiary will be added after the sub starts and the 6$ will get credited to the Bestiary price.
Looking at adding the Rulebook Sub back on. It is offering the Core Book and the Bestiary, but the price it quotes only seems to be for one of those books and not both.
Wondering on how to get both, and if that will qualify for the reduced shipping price.
Thanks Adjoint.
Kinda missed that, and it makes much more sense.
Going through and prepping everything and was caught off guard by them since it didn't fit with my memory but didn't look at the encounter enough!
The monsters that X has with her I just don't really follow why they are there and thinking of changing them because I think they play an important part in another AP that the same group is playing in.
Spoiler:
Faceless One
They just kinda seem like a throw away from what I am seeing. I didn't notice them coming back up in later books or anything (may have missed them) and for such a monster it seemed like a weird throw away.
Other than just leveling up some humanoid assistants are there any monsters that might make a good fit for this?
I look forward to seeing those. I finished getting book 1 into Fantasy Grounds today.
Starting on Book 2. Want to be done with it before I start running so that way I don't have to worry about keeping up as much while they going through the adventure.
Very nice job! Have you done any of the maps for the other encounters as well? Currently programming this into Fantasy Grounds for online play and thinking of borrowing your work so that I don't have the "double grid" effect.
Not a fan of monsters following different setup than the PCs. Miss seeing feats associated with the monsters, Ability Mods versus Ability Scores are not my thing.
So very tired of small races being Charismatic. I follow that it comes from 3rd edition ripping apart the Gnomish race that we were presented with in 2nd Edition, but I wish that Paizo had done something better in the first edition of Pathfinder, or corrected it in the 2nd edition.
Gnomes used to be Int boost and Wisdom neg or Wisdom boost and Int neg depending on the type of Gnome that they were.
Goblins Charisma bonus is similarly horrible.
Starting up a Rise of the Runelords game on Fantasy Grounds and looking for a few more interested folks.
Rise of the Runelords Saturdays
FG License: Ultimate
Time Zone: GMT -8 (PST).
Day(s) of week, frequency: Weekly on Saturday
Length: Long Term
Voice: Discord
Game System: Pathfinder
Fantasy Grounds Experience: Medium low
GM Experience: 30+ years.
The specific time of day is still being figured out but will be looking at 6-8 hours or more for a session in most likelihood.
Would like to talk to folks who are interested and will be available most nights this week to do so. Hoping to get started on the 14th if possible.
Players must have a headset, decent audio, a reasonable internet connection.
Like folks that are going to role play, have a backstory, and have a good time.
Think start time will be around noon Pacific and go for 6 to 8 hours.
Adowyn has an ability that reads "Before you would discard an ally for its power, you may recharge a random card from your discard pile."
The Mastiff makes you display the card, and later in the turn you have to discard it.
Does her healing ability trigger off of this discard?
I used to have my subscriptions all mailed out at one time (held for last item). Now it looks like you guys are doing it as they come up. I went into My Account to try and change this and the buttons are greyed out to let me make shipments go all at one time.
Can I have this changed, as I don't want to be paying for shipping multiple times a month.
Thanks much!
Hi there. Since we didn't have the Giantlslayer stuff for this weekend we ended up doing Rise of the Runelords. Can you please cancel my Adventure Path Subscription?
Thank you.
I hope this could take effect before the items are mailed, understand if it cannot.
I am hoping that I can get the PDF for order 3523136 this week even though the order itself is not going to ship for a while.
I just got put back in charge of my groups DM responsibilities. Between work and school I was uncertain what to do. Then i saw that Giantslayer was the current AP which combines two of my favorite things, meeting new and interesting giants and slaying them. So I reactivated my AP sub. Sadly it looks like I won't get the PDF until later in the month, but I start running this weekend.
Can you guys help!?
Thanks for any reply or assistance.
Ok. Our Zarlova has been destroying everything fielded against her since she got this. A D8 to her combat and recharge has been brutal.
Sure there are times when the ship isn't in, but it is still a +1 stat item at those times.
I am wondering about this item. It seems like it is really a crazy good tem from what I saw. It provides a frequent D8 buff to good stats, where nothing else seems to come near that. I checked the FAQ and nothing seems to talk about it. Even on the boards I see nothing about it.
Am I missing something on this Loot?
"Some characters are not suited" does not hold much water when we are talking about Dual Wielding and Finesse. The Dagger should have had Finesse and probably should have Off Hand. Finesse is there on a fair amount of weapons, but some others should have received it.
The Gunslinger example is very different, since they are a Skull and Shackles character. These characters are the character decks and supposed to work with either, however I don't think that the new Dwarf Ranger has any Off Hands to use which is a primary ability of her's. I don't even know if Hawkmoon's suggestion would work for her since her ability specifically refers to weapons.
My wife and I can easily go back an change the weapons if we wish so that they fit logically to our beliefs, but would be good for these characters that are supposed to be backwards compatible to have some of this addressed.
Should the Offhand and Finesse traits be added to any of the RotRL cards? After my wife and I finished up our old RotRL game, we were tempted to use some of the new characters only to be dismayed that these traits seemed to be missing.
Finesse is on some cards, but it seemed that many cards it should have been on it was missing from, and I think Offhand was missing entirely.
We were dealing with this the other day and as far as we could see it works. If the Collapsed Ceiling card comes up, you can Augury to either shuffle your deck or Augury for Barriers and put it on the bottom.
Is there an official interpretation of this situation?
The problem with it in Ezren's deck is not how useful it is, but the fact that it goes back in your deck. Anything that is not a spell that you put in your deck means that it will stop you from going deeper in your deck as you play through your turn.
I have been using it on Ezren, but am likely going to be getting rid of it when AP5 comes out for something else.
Totally missed that on the Necklace of Fireballs and it means I was wrong when I saw it and said "Now that would make Seoni more interesting!"
As it stands, it really feels like Ezren is a lot more powerful than her. Sad though, it seemed like this item was right up Seoni's alley.
My wife and I are doing 8 locations with 2 characters. She is Lem, I'm Ezren.
Both of these characters are recycling their deck pretty efficiently. We Augury/Scry location decks a lot. I cast Haste to take extra explores, Lem uses stuff and cures it back.
I think that the game has a problem with its non-magic using classes being able to do similar things (but am uncertain if that is true or not).
I used to use training in my games back in 1st and 2nd Edition of AD&D. the individuals would need to search out for trainers in their specialty and build a positive relationship with them. While this was an easy endeavor at low levels it would be progressively harder to find that person as you went up.
Generally people would not be required to train until they hit a certain level (3rd through 5th is my memory). This was to symbolize that they could learn things on their own up to a point.
I believe that it would take weeks of time to complete, possibly 1 week per level that you were advancing to.
The system was very nice in the many games that I ran using it as well as played in with it. However, when we converted to 3rd Edition it felt like it fit less in with the style of the game. I am not saying that to discourage you, but to provide insight into our feelings on it as we went along.
It can be a fun and rewarding aspect of the game. One thing I liked about it back in the old days was the question of when you would go for it. You wanted things to be settled down on your business, but do you take a couple weeks to train up when only you need it? What if 3 of 4 people need training? Produced some fun scenes and the downtime encounters that would happen at times were fun.
