...what other work do I need to do to set up the beginning of Skinsaw Murders while they're in this homebrew phase?** spoiler omitted **...
Important plot elements:
From memory only 2 things are really necessary:
- Introduce Aldern as soon as you can, in whatever positive way works with the group. This is important because it is where he establishes his obsession with a party member.
- Build up some level of attachment between the party and Sandpoint, or at least the farmers of the region. This really drives the initial engagement in the adventure - puts some emotional drive behind it.
OK, here is my current plan. Love to hear feedback especially if I'm wandering into unforeseen problems.
Modified plot progression:
The party are just about to encounter Barl Breakbones.
1. Barl Breakbones encounter proceeds as written, however I'll GM it in such a way that Barl is captured and talks. He'll be quite specific about M's plans and ways that the party can get into Jorgenfist undetected.
2. The raid on Sandpoint proceeds as written because it's a great piece.
3. I'll make the trip to Jorgenfist fairly uneventful. If the party follow Barl's directions and travel via Turtleback Ferry, then Storval Deep, they will be either in civilised-ish areas, or ones they've recently "cleared".
4. At Jorgenfist, Barl's directions will allow the party to avoid all the above-ground parts and also be able to go direct to M and the library. M will not have purged his notes of how he found Xin-Shalast. I'll have to ensure any info they get from the library doesn't conflict with other changes below.
5. I didn't much like the Scribbler and the "riddle". So the second level of the Catacombs will be populated with the undead remains of the inhabitants - trapped when earthfall buried them. Instead of a key to the Runeforge, the complex will contain a portal to the entrance to the Runeforge. The entrance will now be in an obscure mountain in the west of what was Bakrakhan. The area between where this portal opens, and the actual entrance to the Runeforge, is now the lair of Arkhryst. When earthfall created teh cavern the dragon uses as its lair, the entrance to the Runeforge was buried. The party will have to get past the dragon and clear away the Runeforge entrance. I might have to nerf him a lot, or replace him with a good dragon and make it a negotiation style encounter.
6. The Runeforge is now a facility that was run entirely by Alaznist to research and create weapons to fight Karzoug. I think I'll use a slightly expanded version of the Wrath wing - maybe a series of novel combat vignettes - and vastly simplified rules for making Dominant weapons (e.g. stick whatever weapon into this pool and done).
7. The party should now be armed with dominant weapons and in possession of M's notes of how he got to Xin-Shalast. At this point, I think a little fey help in the form of a grateful Svevenka might cut out the need for a long travel piece by transporting them straight to her frozen lake. Maybe after a wild First World travel montage. You need a montage.
8. Next, the skulks of Xin-Shalast, more than happy to get rid of Karzoug and his minions that are currently overrunning "their" city, will help the party travel through Xin-Shalast unseen - direct to the spires.
9. From there on largely unchanged *except* that I'm going the have to account for the party being well below level. My current plan is to get quite Monty Haul on the magic item front in the previous stages and also to wind encounters back a little (removing advanced templates and reducing numbers).
10. Karzoug will have to have a whole bunch of negative levels or the party will get creamed (I estimate they'll be around level 14) so I'll "encourage" them to hunt down his projections. I might also replace the giants in the Eye with animated statues of Karzoug - stats crafted to adjust the encounter difficulty as required.
Workable?
I still reckon that's about a year of play for us. But the plot is simple and linear. I can tweak difficulty as I go.
Questions of how much energy you have to GM, how much availability the players have, how much tolerance they have for the plot moving slowly, and how interested they are in seeing all the bits, are all questions we can't answer.
Yes, true. But I wanted a sense of what would retain the essence of the AP. Seems like there really isn't that much required except the ending.
How are you assigning XP? If you're using the story milestone method you can cut sections but if not, your pc's might start trailing the needed expected character level. ...
I'm using XP on the fast track. They're massively overpowering things as it stands though (20 point buy, 5 players) so I think they could stand to fall behind a bit. Point taken though.
Thanks for the suggestions, looks like the hardest decision will be how short to cut things.
Ships. Well if they aren't of the Spelljammer variety based (very loosely) on water-based vessels flying through space, I would hope for the Star Wars/Star Trek variety where science, reason, and careful design are thrown to the winds in preference for cool factor and aesthetic whim.
Or better yet, something new and surprising (but still cool).
If the game came with stats for the Liberator (from 1970/80s BBC sci-fi show Blake's 7, for younger readers) I'd be happy. Ecstatic. Classic "characters fly an alien ship they barely understand". Adventures abound right outside your cabin door. It was also a character in its own right.
My players romped through the Grauls too, until I used that guide to beef up the Mammy encounter. They all survived but they certainly worried at a couple of points.
What should Aldern tell the PCs about his marital status...?
Spoiler:
There is absolutely no way he would reveal that she is dead.
Given that he's flirting, he would of course be evasive about being married.
If pressed, he might admit to being married but concoct some excuse. Trivialise his behaviour most likely. Nobles flirting (or worse) when married is hardly unusual.
If found out, he would come up with another excuse, and another. It wouldn't take long before he simply removed himself from the party's presence to end the interrogation.
Calling the guard is absolutely on the cards if things got physical. That early in the story, Aldern is likely to have the Sheriff's ear far more than the PCs.
First decision is if you, as the GM, want to let things get off the rails.
Pacing is often how I make these decisions. If the game has been running too quickly and the PC's are behind in XP or treasure, the extra "content" of going off the rails can help. However, going off the rails a lot can really dilute or confuse the plot of the AP and in that situation, the PCs get the benefit of "luck" and their plans go as they wish.
If you want to stick to the AP, have the stalkers hunker down, Ironbriar doesn't check on them in time and the PCs have a straightforward second go at the townhouse. The stalkers will be expecting them though, perhaps with a few more traps set up.
If you're happy to go a little off the rails: Ironbriar is actively keeping an eye on the townhouse, perhaps via legitimate reports from the city guard. A bunch of skinsaw cultists take up hidden positions nearby, ready to storm in when the stalkers raise the alarm that the party has returned.
If you really want to shake things up: The Stalkers re-assume their disguises and immediately raise the alarm with the city guard, maybe before the party has. Aided by Ironbriar behind the scenes, the PCs could be wanted criminals in Magnimar (burglary and attempted murder of a noble!) within a matter of hours. Suddenly the hunters become the hunted...
(by "off the rails" I mean deviating from the events described in the AP)
I have to be very careful about how I portray the mayor. If I make him too offensive and corrupt, the party will focus on him and we'll be off the tracks for a long, long time.
Plus, I'll ultimately end up in a choice between a TPK and needing a new mayor of Magnimar.
So, I plan on portraying him as a man with a greed for power rather than coin. His grasping for coin is simply a necessary step in supporting his power base and keeping the noble houses in check. I'm sure it's all much the same to Karzoug.
That way I can show how the mayor's lust for power keeps the balance with Korvosa and the many threats throughout Varisia. If I play that right, he can be offensive yet necessary. The Paladin will hate it but if taking out the mayor will result in the death of innocents, I think he'll have to tolerate it.
I can even have the head of the Paladin's church step in to support the mayor:-)
If you haven't already, check out the thread where I asked almost exactly the same question: Bringing Sandpoint to life
In the end I realised gimmicks are just gimmicks - in the end you just have to weave encounters with the locals in between the rest of the AP. Every chance you get.
And to make those really sing, write them ahead of time so you can rewrite a few times to work in the flavour. Or, use all the pre-prepared stuff available on these message boards. The stuff on here is gold.
G O L D !
I thought I might relay the fairly surprising end to my groups foray into the Manor.
Part of The Skinsaw Murders:
To set the scene, the 5 character group has managed to work their way into the bowels of the Manor. One of the group died by their own hand as a result of the suicide haunt. The rest of the group sustained a fairly constant level of small wounds, leaving them feeling quite battered - though in reality they were not doing too bad, except for the Paladin who was badly injured and almost out of Lay On Hands. The Sorcerer was out of spells entirely.
I've allowed the dead character (a monk) to continue as a spirit, trapped by Vorel's spirit in the house. He can attack undead normally but can only interact with the group via a limited poltergeist ability. He uses this to scrawl out messages using a quill.
They have just finished an epic battle against the goblin ghasts and 4 ghouls in the large cavern just outside Vorel's lab. They decide, to my horror, to camp. In that room. I think the seawater made them feel it was somehow less dangerous than the rest of the house.
They set themselves up on the limited space on the ramp near the water, with the Paladin on first watch 20 feet down from the door.
My hints that this was in no way a good idea go unheeded. I think they need a lesson, and also think when Aldern emerges for his killing this evening there is NO WAY he would just ignore the fact that the target of his ire is camped right on his doorstep.
Aldern stealths right up to the paladin with an insanely high stealth roll and makes to backstab the paladin who has all of 12 hits.
I, of course, roll a 1.
Aldern's Initiative roll is good however so he gets an attack round before the paladin. Only the bite lands leaving the paladin on 6 hits.
The paladin rouses the party with a cry and the combat proceeds.
Even though Aldern looks exactly like the paladin (Stalker's Mask) the paladin uses Lay on Hands on himself, which is a dead giveaway.
The paladin also uses Smite Evil, which really hurts (I didn't notice until later that Aldern is CN. Is that a misprint?).
Aldern lasts 4 rounds before dying in ignomy. The spirit monk successfully trips him, and when he tries to rise the paladin's AoO crits and takes Aldern's head clean off.
So, what should have been a lesson in "don't camp on the Big Bad's doorstep" becomes "hey camp where you like and maybe it will save you the hassle of finding the big bad".
Then, when they found Vorel's lab, they took one glance and just razed the whole room with a scroll of burning hands.
They think it's all over and done with, so they leave the manor. Leaving their spirit friend still trapped in the house - he knows the house is far from cleansed.
They will be back, though, when a Raise Dead fails to bring him back, because his soul is effectively trapped. But there again, a cunning plan of mine has been turned back on me - instead of helping the dead character by allowing them to continue to participate NOW they are in an awkward spot if I play things through logically.
This group have an uncanny ability to turn my cunning plans back on me, even when they don't know what those plans are!
Just a note, Tsuto also has the option of residing in the basically abandoned Kaijitsu(sp?) family manor in Magnimar. That's a far better "base" for a large group than a small townhouse.
So my party succeeded in capturing Nualia - despite my best efforts to let her escape. How do I roleplay her?
Angry, unbalanced, fanatical. She's part way through a transformation bestowed on her by an evil god - she's committed to evil in a very real sense. I dare say Lamashtu would make sure redemption came at a very high price.
Elvirais wrote:
They might try to take her to Sandpoint and throw her in prison and interrogate her.
I doubt she'd be safe there if it becomes widely known the fire, and the death of her father, was her doing. Could be an interesting sub-plot - protecting her from the angry townspeople.
Elvirais wrote:
Will she talk, at all?
I think she would - she wants her story known, how she was mistreated and misunderstood. She might be more vague about just WHO helped her out in Magnimar, which might make for good foreshadowing.
Elvirais wrote:
How insane has she gone?
Doesn't the AP mention somewhere that she's given up her womb to Lamashtu? That's a genuine and special kind of crazy. In fact, a human treating with Lamashtu at all is a kind of crazy.
In technical terms...she's a loon ;-)
Elvirais wrote:
Will she try to strike a bargain, or just try to stay silent and seek a way to escape?
My guess is she'd bargain in bad faith and escape at the first opportunity. She'd be happy to use whatever wiles she could. She's clever and patient enough to play along for a while though, to lull the party into a sense of security.
Name of PC: Woe
Class/Level: Male Human Monk 4
Adventure: The Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Suicide Compulsion Haunt
Story: Pretty average rolls on my part and decent rolls for the PCs had meant the haunts up to this point had been merely curiosities. Even so, the party approached this room with care. Though I'd previously read a lot about this insta-kill haunt, in the midst of all the excitement I didn't realise that this was the room until after I'd started reading out the description aloud. Applying the "go hard or go home" theory with reckless abandon, I continued as per the AP.
Woe failed every save decisively and even the nearby paladin failed thoroughly in an attempt to intervene. The Monk opened up his throat in spectacular fashion and promptly slumped to the floor. Being dead, there was little the party could do but apply Gentle Repose and begin dragging the corpse about, hoping to pay for a Raise Dead, or for a miracle.
It seems to me, however, that in a house full of haunts and restless spirits, even the recently dead would not rest easy. So Woe soon found himself stranded in the house as a disembodied spirit - trapped by the house. He can see a twisted version of the real world and has a much more "direct" experience of the remaining haunts in the house. He can interact with the party through a limited poltergeist-like telekinesis.
I've also allowed him to attack and be attacked by undead as long as he uses his body (so, as a monk, no problem at all!). I figure the insides of the house are a kind of pocket of the Negative material/Plane of Shadow/whatever.
He still needs to find some way to get himself back to the land of the living, and to avoid becoming a more permanent resident of Foxglove Manor. I also think he may have some strong competition in terms of potential residents of his corpse...
Since this will be littered with spoilers for The Skinsaw Murders and wrapping the whole thing in a spoiler tag seems silly:
*** Spoiler Alert ***
One of the characters died to Traver's suicide compulsion. It was a tragic, tragic incident involving rolls of 1, 2 and 1. Seriously. I was so flummoxed I simply followed the AP and pronounced the proud monk dead.
I rather regret that decision.
However, in trying to make something better of the situation, I wondered what being dead inside Foxglove Manor might be like. Clearly, the dead here do not rest quietly - so why would a PC?
Having a PC in the house as a spirit could be really interesting. I imagine things look completely different on "the other side", and the PC could very well then interact directly with the other spirits like Traver, Cyralie, Iesha and Vorel.
The first thing I'll need is to understand what a spirit PC is capable of, especially how they can interact with the rest of the party back in the real world.
Any suggestions/advice? Has anyone done, or seen similar done, before?
Really work on fleshing out Sandpoint and the connection the characters have with the people of the town.
Paizo could hardly have jammed more into the AE hardcover but the coverage of Sandpoint remains really bare-bones. However, making the town feel alive and getting the players invested in it is critical.
If you haven't already, read far ahead. If you don't, you can get blindsided by events later that character actions might need you to know about early on.
My 5 player party of moderately experienced RPG players (but Pathfinder newbies) absolutely steamrolled the encounters as written in Burnt Offerings (AE that is), so amping up the encounters (carefully!) might be worth it.
My reading of Lyrie is self-interested, mercenary and amoral. She doesn't do direct confrontation and she doesn't even understand the concept of a fair competition or fight. She has a scholarly bent and a "thing" (a creepy obsession where stealing locks of his hair as a memento seems sensible) for Tsuto.
I think she'd jump at any chance to save her own skin. She'd make whatever deal was required to survive but have no intention of keeping a bargain that was not to her advantage.
She would have little or no loyalty to Nualia or Orik.
Any Thassilonian knowledge in Thistletop would be of great interest to her, as would the chance to continue to study the ruins in peace.
I imagine she would guard her knowledge jealously, but not at the risk of her life. She would understand it's value and not give it up for free.
In the near term, if she found out the party had killed Tsuto she would seek revenge. I imagine she's of the "revenge is a dish best served piping hot and in the back" school of thought. Given her personality, intelligence and thirst for knowledge, if she interacts with Sandpoint at all she's likely to uncover Tsuto's fate in short order.
Longer term (say, months), I think she'd get over Tsuto and find something else to obsess over.
Um, you've barely even started!
They will have no investment in the story or possibly even their characters yet. Add to that the fact you are all learning a new game system so there is more to process and learn.
Give it time.
Remember, even a well crafted back story can take time to "click".
You may want to hold back on the detail in the early fights to give the story a chance to get rolling, then steadily re-introduce it as the players get more invested. Combat can really drag the story pacing down.
However, I really DO think that MMOs and video games teach awful, awful habits that take the fun right out of RPGs. Things like:
- Expecting NPCs to be moronic robots with limited and rigid behavioural capacity
- Expecting every bit of garbage the PC's pick up to be worth something. I'll never forget the look on one of my PC's faces when Ven Vinder refused to buy even a masterwork horsechopper because Ven figured no-one would buy "that evil goblin crap"
- feeling the need to check EVERY DAMNED ROOM even though the party has achieved their goal and they are escorting an injured and distressed NPC
- expecting the whole game world to just stop while they are off in a dungeon and decide they need to camp for a night in the middle of an enemy fort
I start with the PDF copies of the RotR maps, but use a desktop to export them to JPG images. Then I get them into SketchBookX via the iPad Photo library.
You could also use the iPad camera to take a picture of the maps but the hardcover and glossy images of the anniversary edition made that rather tricky.
With SketchBookX (and probably other drawing apps), you can add a layer on top of the map and basically colour-in over the whole map on that layer. Leave the entry revealed so you know where to start. While playing, switch to the erase tool and remove the "fog of war" as they reveal rooms. With a bit of practice, you can reveal the walls and doors without revealing much of the rooms beyond.
If you add another layer, players can draw on that layer if the want to mark rooms or highlight features. Or you want to prevent them accidentally erasing "fog" when they're pointing at the map.
It takes a bit of prep & practice, but it's faster than sketching and uses the lovely map art. Useless as a battlemap though - for that I pull out the Gamemastery mat.
I'm even considering a mini projector to connect to my iPad, to throw the map up on a nearby wall.
If the Sheriff is hard pressed, he might need the party to help breaking up brawls in the seedier taverns. Use that to introduce the party to some seedy but loveable characters in the Hagfish?
The local underworld are likely to want to take some measure of the party to see how their fortunes have changed. A staged bar brawl or the like to see how tough they really are.
Titus Scarnetti might try using the characters to get at Ameiko. Get them onside, to get her onside, to get hold of the glassworks? Then ditch the lot of them with extreme prejudice once he has the deed.
Ven Vinder isn't likely to be very happy about Shayliss doing anything with anyone, and as a respected vendor in town could make like difficult unless appeased by, say, making an honest girl of her. Nothing like a wedding to keep people busy(or running).
Shayliss herself might find herself more attracted to the underside of Sandpoint life and end up working for (or with) the Sczarni, just for giggles. Having the party find out and have to decide whether or not to turn her in for crimes might be interesting.
Cyrdak Drokkus from the theater is almost certain to want the party to help with his grand new show reenacting their heroic assault on the goblin stronghold! Might be an amusing way to riff off the actual events vs the tales the party might have told vs what Cyrdak considers "dramatic enough".
I'm GMing RotR and we're just past the Glassworks in RotR. I'm finding the work to sufficiently flesh out Sandpoint quite a burden. But I really want to "bring it to life" rather than simply leave it as a 2D backdrop to the story.
The community content provided here has been immensely useful, but not quite enough.
I've read that there is Sandpoint related content in the first part of Jade Regent. Is it worth buying that just for the parts that might be useful in RotR?
Any other Paizo products I could look into? (already have the Inner Sea Guide and the free RotR/Varisia players guides.
Any other suggestions to help me fill out my depiction of the town?
