Bumborro's page

The OP question is a bit open-ended.. did you want advice about something specific?

I agree about not handing players the Technology Guide. Part of the charm of this AP is to relive the whole "I didn't know that existed!" cool we once had on finding new magic items, but which we lost by reading all the books.

Apart from that: don't be a slave to the books. My take is, read them all, see how they're tied together, and now you can put your own spin on them and embellish the things you like best. The Numeria sourcebook is also highly recommended for fleshing out the backdrop of the AP.

Agreed, quite open ended. I suppose i just wanted some quick insight from those who've already run this, I figured it might be useful. :) I appreciate the advice so far!

Interesting! Maybe i could have them encounter less sludge later on as a sort of compromise?

We are going to start in a couple hours. Thanks in advance for your help!

Awesome idea! And one I hadn't considered. Thanks, Adam.

Just about to start running this and the (only?) books i have are the Ap, the corebook, Adv players guide, Bestiary I, Ultimate Magic (which we rarely use) and i think one of the players may have ultimate combat but Im not certain.

On a budget here, so I'd prefer to just get one more, which would you say I should pick up?

Thanks

Any tips on running the giant/dragon attack on Sandpoint? It seems like it could get overwhelming...If its already been discussed somewhere, please point me in the right direction. Going to run that real soon here.

Thanks

Any tips on running the giant/dragon attack on Sandpoint? If its already been discussed somewhere, please point me in the right direction. Going to run that real soon here.

Thanks

What level are the characters supposed to be at the start of Fortress? I cant seem to find it....

Bumborro wrote:

Nauseating. Indeed. People are trying to eat dinner over here during our game!

Ah! But, since you didn't say why you objected, people gave you the wrong advice. :(

The reasons why I didn't like them wasn't the issue initially. The conversation just evolved into that over time.

Nauseating. Indeed. People are trying to eat dinner over here during our game!

Ok, so at least its not just me and my group that doesnt or didnt enjoy this style of opponent....

Bumborro have you read up much on Pathfinder ogres? Along with Goblins they are one of the races That had a good deal of re-working to make them more interesting.

Wow, you folks really love your ogres! Haha. Trying to give them a chance here. Any recommended reading besides the Bestiary and the AP?

Thanks, all. I'll read more and more and hopefully figure out what's best for my players....in the meantime, more feedback is certainly welcome though.

I would say as long as they are giants you should be fine......but how would you want to do the Ogrekin stuff? Keep them as Ogrekin and then for Hook Mountain have the Cyclopeseseses?

I'm not sure. Like i was saying, i havent even read the whole chapter, but so far it just doesnt seem to flow smoothly. There is at least one old thread: http://paizo.com/forums/dmtyzelu?Wrestling-with-logic-in-Hook-Mountain that seems to support this view. So I a considering chopping out entire sections and changing alot of stuff (for this chapter only if possible.)

As far as them being not normal, i get that. But my players wouldnt be amused (not for long at least).

Once again, I seek advice: As someone who hasnt read this entire AP yet, or even all of Hook Mtn Massacre, is it possible to replace the Ogres with a cooler (imho) enemy? Cyclops maybe? The ogres just dont really do it for me.

I realize this would require some re-writing of this chapter, but what about the rest of the AP? Am i shooting myself in the foot for the entire AP?

Your thoughts and suggestions are appreciated.

Bumborro

Well. How did the Xanesha encounter go?

It went pretty well. The part ended up consisting of 3 PCs and 2 NPCs. 6th and 7th level. They were surprised by how tough the scarecrow was at the bottom of the tower was; he really dealt the fighter some serious blows. The party's cleric had used a good deal of his spells up by the time they had actually reached Xanesha.

I ended up using a custom set of stats for her: somewhere in between the original stats and the generic Lamia Matriarch. I'll admit I was disappointed when the ranger of the group made her save (Nat 20) vs the medusa mask...I really wanted to thin the party out and instill some fear into the group. There was some fierce melee combat followed by Xanesha casting deep slumber on the fighter as he was climbing the outer stairs. Basically i was using the same tactic of trying to thin their numbers... at least temporarily. But the fighter barely hit the save DC (dead on the 18 he needed) and i was foiled once again! Darn meddling kids! A longbow crit by one of the PCs really helped them out also.

Anyway, with the dice favoring them, it ended up being a bit on the easy side if you ask me. I mentioned this to my buddy who plays the fighter and he didnt at all agree though: twice he was down to exactly 0 hit points.

All in all we had fun and thats what was on the agenda.

I appreciate it Douglas, but we had just finished running the Xanesha encounter an hour before i read this. Thanks though.

Sounds like the right idea...

Well, there are three cases of skipping ahead now that I think about it: the two above, and, when they actually reached Foxglove Manor, one of the players had his character look for footprints. He made a great roll (and there were muddy conditions) so next things you know they are breaking out their grappling hook and rope to climb down the well!

At Thistletop our fourth player (a part timer due to RL time constraints), had his barbarian angrily opening/breaking down doors left and right while the other PCs tried to cover his back. The other players grumbled a little, but did their best at this, realizing that he's just playing in character. When he found the stone stairs leading downward he figured (rightly so) that he was on to something and charged down them angrily. Eventually they had half of Thistletop on their heels and said barbarian almost died fighting that horde. They won that fight but our session ended soon after. This part timer couldnt make the next game night so I tried my best to gloss that over by having his character sort of come to his senses(his rage being over), gruffly apologize and devote himself to running interference behind the other PCs as they delved deeper, searching for the greater threat. After the PCs defeated Malf and Nualia (spelling), what remained of the upper levels seemed anti-climactic, so again i glossed over things, telling the players that the other occupants had either been 'barbarianed' or had hastily abandoned Thistletop altogether.

As far as the scarecrow encounter, they heard about the problems at the farms but reasoned that they'd go straight to the source of the problems as best they could. Which makes sense. At least this one i saw coming a mile away. Haha.

Thanks for reading.

We are running fast XP track. The PCs missed the entire farm/scarecrow encounter thats supposed to occur before Foxglove manor and also missed out on a part of Thistletop (long story). So we kinda dug our own hole there. Thanks for asking though.

Thanks for the tip. I'll check that out.

Hello.

My PCs (two are 6th level, one is 7th) and their NPC ally (6th level) just captured Justice Ironbriar in the Seven's Sawmill. So it probably wont take them that long to reach Xanesha from here.

<<Quick side question: Would their detect magice spell cast on IronB detect the charm spell affecting him?>>

My main reason for creating this thread remains this: they arent high enough level to deal with Xanesha and the shadow clock encounter. I believe that they are about 10.5k short of leveling the two 6th level characters to 7. I can (and will) bring the NPc to 7th arbitrarily, but they are going to need more help than that. Any suggestions/ideas for encounters to at least get the 10,500 XP?

A. Hamon makes some good points. I would like to mention another advantage or two to running an npc in your party; mainly it allows you to give the party some direction if they are otherwise clueless. Of course, never let on thats what you're doing or that you'll ever do it again ...

That is all.

Bumborro

Instead of valeros, I would use the npc making rules in the core book; give the party a 2nd or 3rd level "warrior". These make a great meat shield: simpler to run since there aren't any class features to consider. His/her personality and backstory could be as simple or as complex as you'd want of course...maybe he is simply one of sandpoints guards or militia?

As far as not having a healer, I would just throw in a few more potions than what's presented.

@ Graywulfe and Kimi: thanks for your input also!

Thanks, Doug, just the sort of thing i was looking for. I think i will go with your advice, mostly. Definetly keeping Ameiko as is but think i will change the Shalelu situation and add her cousin or something to the mix. I will use the cousin or whatever(still have to flesh this out) in any sort of appearance that might get shalelu killed. Hopefully i wont have to do this that much and my players wont see through this thinly veiled plot device.

Greetings.

I am running RotRL as a prequel to Jade Regent (not by design, mind you) and the fact that they share more than a few NPCs (Ameiko, Shalelu, and so forth) might be a problem. The fact that they 'have to survive' and other metagaming hijinks could be tough on me. Seeing how I have only read half of the first AP, I'm not sure if it is possible to write them out of the story, replace them with other NPCs, or not...is this even an option?

Okay thanks all. Good to know!

i see it as more sue-shen, but i could be wrong (i don't have linguistics as a skill)

Okay thanks now I am even more confused than before haha.

So just wanted to be sure: is it swee-shen or sigh-shen? Or neither? Thanks

Thanks. I think i would have been a bit hard pressed to give the characters much in the way of exciting doing it the right way. And I dont even have that many PCs!

How would those of you that have run the Ravenscraeg "dungeon crawl" enhance or edit the experience to make things (even) more interesting than they are as written? I know everyone's game is a bit different, but I'm figuring since alot of you reading this have already run it, you may be able to give me a few pointers and the like.

Oh, and yes i have read the stickied Frozen Shadows thread already...

Treasure totaling 9k? Whoops. I thought it was 9k per character!

Maybe it has something to do with their fear/respect for the Ulfen powers-that-be in Kalsgard?

With The Brinewall Legacy in particular , and Jade Regent in general under the microscope in this forum, I just want to say something positive because so far this is a wickedly awesome adventure path! A big shout out to James Jacobs!

The other night my group played part one and everyone had a blast! My group consists mostly of players who have played for about an eon and one went as far as saying that it was the most fun he's ever had roleplaying.
They are really dying to continue as soon as RL permits.

I'd love to hear some other feedback along these lines....or otherwise, even.

Anyway, just had to throw in my two copper.

I am about to run this tonight.

I also found the drowned Menagerie to be rather confusing. I'm going to take another look at it before the game but as of right now it's bad enough I might "forget" this building even exists for our game. So, I'm no help there, sorry.

As for the the lightning tower, hopefully your party obtained the rope of climbing from book 1; I know mine did. Also, hopefully the homonculus, Waxwood, in area L2 will successfully warn them to be careful of the promethean above and they can use the rope to avoid this floor. I was even considering "installing" some good-size windows in the tower, but maybe that is making it too easy on them.

Just my 2 copper...

I noticed that the Beast is said to have memorized the verses in an old book of Taldan poetry. Interesting.

I wanted to have him recite some when I run this (my game starts in about 9 hours) but I am no poet.

Any ideas? Maybe I missed something in the back of the book? Maybe you are feeling creative as you read this? Maybe you could point me in the right direction of some RL poetry or lyrics I might use?

Like the thread title says, a tall order to be sure, but I figured it couldnt hurt to ask and would really add some flavor to the game.

Thanks

Bumborro

I'm forced to agree....there were some redundant parts in the books; some "fat", as you said.

What I did as GM was to gloss over or even outright skip several parts. For example, book 6 went from a dozen or so encounters to three or four. That was the most extreme example out of the campaign, thankfully.

So, did we slog through everything as written? No. Did we have great fun?
I'd have to say yes...

And not to worry -the monsters from Bestiary II were just added to the PRD here. Enjoy!

Thanks to you both.

Do I need the 2nd Bestiary to run this?

Thanks

I'm not sure exactly why, but the Blood for Blood climax just isn't looking too promising to run. My group just captured Drelev, so I have some time to come up with something else.

Anyway, I was hoping someone could offer some alternative ideas?

Thanks

Maybe the volcano isn't dormant, and the objects from the forts are needed to prevent an eruption?

for fun Try this which does seem to match up with whats in the book

That sounds workable, thanks! Now I'm just curious about the meaning IRL. I couldn't seem to make that part work.

Just throw some caltrops at me if I'm starting to push my luck here...

I was curious about the Goddess Iomedae,from the core book, how do you say her name? Every time I try to pronounce her name it comes out sounding like some over-the-counter medication! Could somebody possibly type it out for me?

Thanks!