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I am in planning stages to run this AP for my group after we finish the last chapter of Rise of the Runelords (we're running the Spiritual Trilogy in order now). I like to read folks' commentary on how the book is laid out and how different groups react to the story. I saw (somewhere) that maybe one or two people were commenting on the initial story hook being a bit boring - i.e. a note from Sheila and then she leaves them in a room to open a puzzle box with a monster trap. Based on other intros I've seen, I can kinda agree it's not fabulous, so I'm looking at other ways to spice it up for the team. I'm keeping in mind that I won't know what's best for them until I have a better idea of what characters they come up with, but I'm leaning toward integrating Rise of the Goblin Guild as their intro spice instead of the puzzle box. It can be run for 1st level characters and it's literally started right out of the same place (Heidmarch Manor). Has anyone else modified the story intro? Has anyone here run Rise of the Goblin Guild and have thoughts?
Ahh my friends, but you forget the Fort Save needed to ensure a garden dragon. :-)
So....any word on the next Series and what it may be? I really enjoyed listening to these, but my group is still playing the game and can't actually listen with me.
What we have going on: Rise of the Runelords Book 2: (me as GM) 3 players, all shorties (Halfling Slayer, Gnome Bard/Summoner, and Dwarf Oracle). They've done a pretty good job of staying away from this storyline, and my fiance has only played to about the point we are now so from here on out it's a surprise. Legacy of Fire Book 3: (Friend as GM) Having 3 GMs in our 'core' group makes for quite the variety! I'm playing an Elven Arcane Archer (Wizard/Fighter), we have a pair of human Rogues (one part fighter the other urban barbarian), a Half-Orc Barbarian/Fighter, and a Human Bard/Oracle. Way of the Wicked Book 3: (Fiance as GM) This one is quite fun if you haven't picked it up yet. It's not every campaign you get to play a vampiress Antipaladin/Ninja! We're on a bit of a hiatus though due to the 4th player. We have/had two 'core four' games that we played when others were unavailable, but now we're on Runelords so we're just doing that one. They were a Mage game, but in the Harry Dresden world, and a Mythic Kobolds game to test the mythic rules. I don't think we'll get back into our Rifts game... more likely if the fiance gets the hankering for something 'space-like' he'll pull out his Star Wars books. Then we have another friend who is very into 'realism' games and has us playing Warhammer characters, which we hate, but we're somehow surviving. It's honestly amazing none of us have died and run out of fate points yet. Nobody'sHome! I can't read your Wrath of the Righteous campaign log!!!! We want to play that here eventually, and I wanna play in it vs run it so....no spoilers! That, and we've got other games to complete before we're allowed to start any new ones....so it could be a while.
Man, you guys are going to make me do work on the NPCs who'll die mercilessly at the hands of my party? Poor form.....I agree mammy Graul with the cook people hex sounds pretty snappy though. Darn you!
It ended up ok. I think I did surprise them that he was a useful NPC, and they were all like, "stay back stay back it's undead", and he's like "not in my graveyard! Sarenrae says git!" I totally blew making a certain noble look like a tool though. Two of the characters were raised very poor, so him running around with menservants carrying his gear was novel to them. I apparently don't play creepy well. Moving on!
If a player is in here reading about Nualia, shame! Shame! I've seen the Misgivings question before. I plan to treat it as a don't ask don't tell kind of issue that won't appear until 2nd chapter. "You didn't ask, I didn't tell!" They have other things to think about at the time so it's entirely plausible they won't care. Or if they only ask people like the Sheriff or Ameiko, they call it by its proper name vs the nickname.
Our group always plays gestalt, so they are equal in both classes. Right now they're first level, but a combo of both classes listed (with the exception of the preparation for my sorcere to take a 1-lvl dip in oracle for some cha advantages). Does that help?
Real world it would be Japanese. ;-)
I can see the conundrum. Being a follower of Desna, it is likely she met Father Tobyn when he was there. I would start with how old is she at the start of game? It could be the two knew of each other but ran in separate circles, as I imagine Nualia being around 17 or 18 at the late unpleasantness five years ago. This way, they would know of the other, but Nualia being mostly shy and perhaps even a bit cold due to her treatment over the years she likely was hard to make friends with herself (just my interpretation of how she would have shut the world out for being cruel to her) and therefore wasn't close with the PC. I would however play up quite a bit of superstition from the townsfolk (growing up and even today) in how they treat her in town. Make her feel like she's never quite fit in, but that she has enough allies/friends she doesn't ask herself why she hasn't just left for magnimar, or joined an evil cult. Play up the dichotomy of how her reaction to her upbringing is so different from how Nualia reacted to hers. Makes Nualia a sympathetic character later for sure.
One of my players is good friends with the Sheriff, so it wouldn't be too weird for him to approach them as a favor while he and his men make sure the rest of he town is safe from gobs, but I will still have Vosk approach while the sheriff is thanking the PCs so it looks like they were just convenient to deputize vs "my men are afraid of dead things". Then Hemlock will go elsewhere while Vosk accompanies them to the cemetery. I haven't mentioned he's a follower of Sarenrae, cuz the book plays him up as a creepy feller who maintains a graveyard (hence creepy). I plan on playing him up a bit "redneck" then when the skeletons attack he whips out his holy symbol and tells them "varmints" to go back to being ded like they's suppos'd teh! Wish me luck on playing it up right that they get a kick out of it vs a "what the heck is the gm on?" type response. ;-)
Gnomish Bard (prankster)/Master Summoner with a dip in Oracle so he could take the mercurial curse. (Changes his appearance daily) Halfling Warpriest/Knifemaster rogue (Cayden Cailean) likes to drink but only in moderation. The most frontline party member we have. Dwarven Sorcerer (shadow)/ Oracle (haunted, stone mystery). Made him a bastard nephew of a pair of dwarves named Vekker. He goes by McGrundel. Oh this is going to get interesting.
Fun! At their higher level, they should be able to be fairly effective. There's also the possibility due to poor goblin tactics, that the prisoners may be left 'unattended' for brief periods of time that roll with a rescue attempt. They are pretty disorganized and Nualia has other important things to distract her from keeping them in line.
Ok, next question. Investigation of the Desecrated Vault (where Father Tobyn's bones are interred). Did anyone find it odd that Naffer Vosk the graveyard caretaker was not the obvious choice to report the door being open? I'm just wondering if anyone else noted it or not, I think I will already play it as Naffer goes to Zantus who then goes to the Sheriff. Just seems more likely. That or 'creepy' Vosk goes straight to the Sheriff since Zantus may be busy...
I would be interested in this answer, as I have a summoner in my game as well.
Our group has gone almost exclusively eliminated giving xp anymore for several reasons: 1) it eliminates the idea that the players have to kill everything to level up. If they miss an encounter, no biggie. And they're more likely to use diplomacy to get out of the situation too.
It's actually worked really well for us the last few campaigns.
Spellslinger is a wizard archetype for gun use. A bit like a magus or arcane archer in that they can do a bit of casting or magic through their bullets. Gun Mage I think was its name in Iron Kingdoms. Our group has actually mostly banned gunslingers altogether, and most summoners. We're going to give summoner one more shot in this next campaign, but my last gunslinger ruined it for the group so it's an unwritten no-no now. Best advice I can give is you don't want to necessarily punish the players for making a good build. As long as some of the encounters are a challenge, don't take it too hard if the rest are mostly a cakewalk. As long as all the players are still having fun is the main goal. That and being engaged in the story. Oh, and because sometimes the players walk all over the bad guys you thought would be cool, try not to get too attached. They are meant to get in their way on the path to greatness, so they are predefined to be terminated.
There's a certain number that actually show (11 plus PCs), and the mechanics of how each will vote and DCs of the several checks (bluff, diplomacy and intimidate) they're allowed to make to sway the votes are all in the book. They can also spend Disrepute. Issue #2 is the hardest of course, but most are 4 to 7 so four votes would sway the result. So yes, many will be relatively easy, but the biggest one is issue 2, which my group only made a draw. Well, at least the cash will still be there later to make statues of the new Hurricane Queen!
You got TWO of them to post! The internet is won!
Yeah, I may pull them out a cinematic for the ending. I feel bad as I connected one of the characters to that aquatic elf settlement, but never got to the actual role play in game. (Essentially the bard is an aquatic elf that ran away after her sister was married off to that tribe, but she's actually doing quite well despite her circumstances of arrival.) And getting my players to remember what they did the session before is bad enough, they didn't even remember any former crew mates of the wormwood, they likely have also forgotten the loot I posted on the items wiki for them. It may warrant a reminder. I think the cinematic will involve several sea monsters, a fleet of the Master of Gales' ships (as they are fairly close by) and a few others that just had the bad luck if being further away., plus some sea elves riding something other than sharks (the barbarian hates sharks). I will have to think it up ahead of time so we can get to the action!
I just ran the fleet battle for my PCs tonight and i have to say its brutal. First, through diplomacy I allowed them to take control of Harrigan's fleet after his demise. Once they found Scags Rotgrams notes about taking the fight to Harrigan's fortress they made a beeline there before Harrigan's fleet was ready. Seeing as the book says no one on those ships knew he was a traitor, I figured they had the chance to win them over once they had the proof. Good thing too, as they entered battle with Druvalia's 8 squadrons to their 11, with just over 50 ships to her 47, and she just started wiping the sea with them. Given, they were rolling like crap and I couldn't roll under a 13 on my attacks. Next session, we're going to skip straight to the flagship battle, as the rules don't even have an advantage to them winning or losing the fleet battle: it all hinges on their defeat of Druvalia. If I were to do it again, I'd have had them gather a few more squadrons to their banner, or add some sea monsters as suggested in these posts, or give them a few more "special NPCs" to add to their bonuses. At least to try to make it feel a bit more evenly matched instead of a complete one sided ordeal. The only inherent saving grace I see is the special NPCs with Overwhelming. Read it, it literally says if they are lost, one squadron automatically routes. No rolls, no nothin. And there's four of them in Drvalias fleet. If they're lucky, they could kill four squads and the other four would auto-crumble. Not that it's helped so far..... Easy come, easy go!
Ok so I'm more dotting so I don't lose track of this Journal. I just have to say though that I'm really loving it. I've laughed out loud a few times, and having played through the first book myself, I love how your group has met with the various challenges. I'm trying to get my group more into writing the campaign journals from the players point of view. The story is yours after all. Can't wait to read what happens next!
We have several GMs concurrently running campaigns. The GM we want to run WotR won't be ready for some time though (he's currently running Legacy of Fire for a group of 5). I'm almost to the end of Ch5 in Skull & Shackles, and am prepping for RotRL after. Third GM is running us through Way of the Wicked. Boo! I probably shouldn't read through WotR, but maybe I'll just keep reading Second Darkness since I don't see us running that one for quite some time. ;-)
The adventure however clearly starts with Tessa noting to the PCs that Harrigan is assembling a fleet against them, because he's sore they beat him in the race as well as the fact that they mutinied against him and stole one of his 'prizes'. It has nothing to do with them suspecting him as a Chelish agent. The fact of the matter is, once they go to Dagon's Jaws and retrieve the information Scag's Rotgram has on Harrigan, they already have all the intel they need to launch the offensive. It seems like a foregone conclusion. There's nothing stating that Free Captains can't fight each other. It's the Shackles which is pretty much dog eat dog. If Harrigan had friends among the Pirate Lords, they could perhaps make reprisals after the fact, but Bonefist's reaction at the beginning of Chapter 6 shows what he would do: absolutely nothing. He doesn't care what two groups with a grudge do to each other, as long as the gold keeps coming into his coffers. Honestly, they used the journal and strolled right into the secret exit, not even batting an eyelash at the fleet gathering on his doorstep. A fleet I'm still wondering what to do with, since they are preparing to launch their assault on the Island of Empty Eyes (aka Monkey Island in my game). If I'm mean, I have them run the fleet battle with one of the other NPCs as the Admiral since they're hanging about in the Fortress. Unfortunately, that isn't likely now due to timing constraints since I said they were still there readying to depart. It would take several days for them to sail to the Isle from Gannett so best case I could have the fleet sail now and have maybe a day or so head start, so they could rush to catch up and arrive in the nick of time to aid their fleet in the attack....we'll have to see how long they dally.
Its listed in the conclusion of the chapter. Based on their respect points after the party will determine their seat count.
My crew consists of a Tiefling, a Vanaran, an Aquatic Elf (bit of a hybrid, she's got some Nereid blood in her too), and a straight up Human (tried to convince him to play Half-Cyclops for the fun of it). My take is as long as each PC is balanced against the rest, let them have fun with it!
There are other 'dungeons' but the majority of them to date (we're mid Chapter 5 now) are fairly small, so you could likely drop them in a session and be able to swap out crew members.
Has anyone GMing this gone ahead and combined the Ch5 fleet battle with the attack on Harrigan's fortress? Ideas on how to do so? Thinking to myself, it can't be that hard to figure out where Harrigan lives. He's been pretty popular lately with all his Chelish 'prizes' and such. So why would they wait around for his fleet to come to them, why not go scrub him out? Suggestions? Comments? I'm really looking to speed things along and having a bit of fun while we do it.
And caught up! Man, your party should really help you out and write some counterbalance to Leilani's tale! We need the Mittean glare up in this thread!
I'm still working on reading this page, but checking back on RotRl I kept losing it! Now to continue reading about Leilani! ;-)
I know, I got a new job and went on posting hiatus for awhile! Now I'm all caught up on Your campaign journal I'll have to dig up the other ones I was following as well. Then of course I strolled on over to peruse the campaign journal for the Second Darkness and my you're right, Leilani is verbose! And adorable. My fiancé is playing a very naive aquatic elf hybrid in our Skull and Shackles campaign. Similar feel, and he takes notes all from "her" point of view! If only I could get him to post to the campaign journal it would be hilarious as well.
I've actually kept pretty close to the story. I gave one of the characters a link to the Aiger line, so she wanted to go straight to the black tower as well. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your perspective) my group is a 3-person gestalt party with one NPC so they did pretty well. I can't even remember if the shrouded queen was much of a fight, since she was in such a tight space. I am coming up on some GM fatigue though and want to finish them up, so I'm looking to more role-playing through Dagon's Gullet (hand-waiving the combat) and finding a way to combine the fleet battle and their attack on Harrigan's base. It can't be that hard to find, and why wouldn't they want to take the fight to him early? Seems like it could feel a bit more "epic" as well. We level based on the suggestions in the book vs xp anyway, so it's not a problem to gloss over to get to the meat and potatoes (I.e. An epic battle vs Cheliax and claiming the Crown for themselves.)
Oh noes! I reached the end of the internet! Wait, it's just the end of the campaign log so far ....no wait that's bad! Where's the rest? What happens now? Oh gods I must know now! Man I've been on long posting hiatus! I'm getting excited to run this campaign next (we ended up doing Skull & Shackles instead, we're in the middle of book 5). Also I'm extremely jealous of your party.
Go to the adventure path message boards there is one specifically for Runelords and will have lots of great discussion, by chapter, from lots of other GMs who have run the adventure before you! My advice for a first time GM is, read ahead as you want to know where the story leads in case your players go a-wandering. It's also interesting to read the Obituary log to see where a lot of groups end up running afoul of the bad guys. Good luck!
I too have a rotten Zen Archer. Damn monkey. I will have to consider arrow attraction. Check!
How have other GMs handled the island exploration itself? Do you play out all the encounters or just talk them through some of them? How easy did you play their encounter with Bikendi or Paeta? One of my PCs has such a ridiculous Diplomacy she could talk a fish into living out of water. She convinced. Bikendi not to attack ( because let's face it he only cares about getting his precious stone back to finish his ritual he's gonna play nice at least this far) and they're now going to help him. Coming back up the stairs Paeta attacks and she convinces the phase spider the best thing would be for her to help them retrieve it and everyone wins (which is strictly true). So now they don't fight anything in the fort but undead hands, and both their new "allies" (term used loosely) want them to assault a Cyclopes fortress. And they're still level 9. My second conundrum is my party is not very....front line focused. 2 ranged casters, 1 archer, and the only front liner moved so his char is played but not present. A full assault on Sumitha I fear will be suicide. Has anyone else worked out a diplomatic solution? I am considering the warriors sent off-island to find food come back badly wounded, giving the PCs the opportunity to feed and heal them as well as make them friendly and then find a half-diplomatic tie to the ruins, possibly ending in a smaller battle and retaining a hungry cyclops presence on the island, a tenuous relationship where the PCs must help re-stock them with ample food supply to survive or be once again threatened by the once noble now savage race? As a side note, my group doesn't award Xp. We just level based on suggestions in the book.
Serpents Skull is in the same area, but aside from the first chapter is completely landlocked. If you're looking for pirates there are plenty of smaller supplements for a game, but I would advise against SSk.
I had 3 PCs, Gestalt, with two Cohorts, also gestalt, and Majenko as an NPC. I made Ileosa a level 20 Court Bard/ Destined Sorceress, with a ridiculous stat block to challenge my group. We have slightly modified meta magic rules, but she had a bunch, as well as access to Time Stop. I had her utilize a projected image and deemed she could cast from within the blood pool due to the attunement process. This left them ferreting around with a gaggle of fake queens and Mavrokeras, who they hadn't encountered in the castle and came here. The wraiths went for the paladin, but he was wearing the scarab. We got in at least 6 rounds and had at least two hero point usages to avoid certain death before they used a Wish from the deck of many things to change the table on Ileosa. Then she had to face them more directly, still gave it her all, then ignanimously got cleaved by the sword. All in all that build was pretty hardy. Get rid of aristocrat. Gestalt her. Make her stats better than the players'. She is omniscient in the Sunken Queen so buff the crap out of her. Spam the minions. It's worth giving them a tough last run.
Very detailed, dot.
Nah, it gets up to about 16. Your group should be 12th starting Chapter 5.
I'm kinda reticent of having everyone in town against them. Adding the rats as well is going to start piling up all the bad stuff and they may start wondering if this town is worth saving. Going against the maidens now though, I would play it up as they've now 'defied authority of the crown' and are now considered outlaws. Having a price on their heads a little early isn't all that bad. They will just have to really lay low. I'm wondering how that will work out for them in Chapter 3. Though with the Quarantine it wouldn't be hard for them to hide out there to let things cool down, they'd just have a harder time collecting any reward money for saving the citizens during the plague. Unless Cressidia, maybe through Ishani, contacts them on the DL and offers aid if they ask for it, in return for checking on a couple things she can't do with the Maidens in her face. Common enemy always promotes cooperation?
Were there any ideas in the (sticky) thread for Seven Days? I think a few groups figured out the coin thing early, so there may be some suggestions as to what to do. My group didn't figure out the coins, but wanted to hit the ship early for clues and I had to really keep them off it. They were all about following the rules though. What you don't exactly want to happen is have them directly confronting the Grey Maidens as a whole. Even the lower level ones currently will pose a challenge to them in force. The PCs would be seen as inhibiting the lawful actions of the crown and get annihilated, especially since they hate your city's government currently. Perhaps you could play it off as some citizens wish to riot, but others who know the PCs have helped out in the past beg the PCs to diplomacize the riotous citizens down or the Grey Maidens will begin to slaughter needlessly to keep Order. Play them up as similar to the Order of the Nail in that Law and Order are the end-all be-all and anyone against the Law is bad. Have it so the PCs encounter the angry mob and have to calm and scatter them before the Maidens arrive. Maybe they have to do it a few places. Then, the last place turns out to be Eries Yellow-Eyes asking them to talk down Girrigz since they're so good at it? Perhaps instead of telling them about the weird ship (since they've already deduced it) maybe the rats saw someone in a robe onboard the ship right before it sank, and they think there may be clues to helping them determine who was responsible for the plague there...kinda throwing them bigger crumbs to be interested in investigating it. I tied the Mirukovas into my PCs backgrounds so she was easy for my group. If your group has an NPC they check in with vs Cressidia, I'd have her begging for their aid next time they show up. Or have her wandering the streets begging for anyone to help her. Then when they emerge from there or from the sewers thing, they can find out about the Quarantine. It should happen in the background.
I'm a little worried my group won't have any planar travel memorized, and they wouldn't know where to go to find their friends. They likely would have a high enough save to counter (depending on the PC) but like I said before, a fail could jettison them from the rest of the session, or at least derail them for the rest of the session while they go searching for said PC. Good suggestions though. I will try to play it more on the hilarity side. My PCs love See Invisibility, so I will have to have Yzahnum use stealth with his invisibility so he gets a couple rounds of taunting in before his reveal. Then I completely expect one of them to duel him. I'm just not sure if the Paladin will allow the Rogue to do it in his stead. Nobodyshome: Gotta finish Crimson Throne First! Then we have to go back and finish the last 2 chapters of Serpent's Skull! Oh the APs!
I went trolling back through the posts and didn't see this mentioned, so sorry if it actually was and point me to the right thread. Ok, so the tactic of the Trifaccia battle is for Yzahnum to hide out and wait a few rounds for the Sczarni to throw insults and make 'wishes' that he can then make come true. The book has three examples. 1) How did GMs play this out? If you haven't, what do you plan to do? 2) I want to come up with more 'wishes' to throw at them. Did anyone here come up with some good ones? Maybe a few more...innocuous ones before hitting the "I Wish You'd Die" kind? I'm trying to figure out how I can roleplay them yelling all kinds of stuff, and not make it obvious they're linked to the 'strange occurences'. I also would hate to have one of them fail a save and get jettisoned from the rest of the chapter. Thanks
Thanks NobodysHome, I got crazy and ordered the super cool AE, and it hasn't shipped yet, so I haven't seen what's different.
Check out chapter 3: Escape from Old Korvosa. There are actually several paintings of Salvator's depicted in Pilts' Palace as well as the Arkona House. That should give you a few ideas. The color Blue is a big theme in Salvator's art (blue dragon, go figure). Piercing blue eyes, scenes of gruesome depravity, etc.
Second on NobodysHome. The fact that Tsuto wasn't Lonjiku's son caused a lot of tension in the household, and Lonjiku had Tsuto sent to the local orphanage in Sandpoint. Ameiko would sneak over there to hang out with him without her father knowing, and they were actually fairly close. After the reconciliation attempt, they didn't really see eye to eye anymore, and shortly after their mother's death Tsuto left town anyway (after his argument at the funeral with Lonjiku which ended with him beating Tsuto with his cane). Now I'm going to spoilerize this next part, because its actually big backstory reveal that I read in the original Runelords, but sounds like may not be right there in the AE.
Spoiler:
In the original printing backstory, one of the things it reveals is that during the 'Late Unpleasantness' when the Runewell was actually first activated, the night everyone wakes with nightmares, Lonjiku wakes in a rage. Prompted by the Runewell of Wrath, he finally snaps at being cuckolded. He calls his wife downstairs, goes out back with her, and throws her off the cliff himself. The fight at the funeral was because Tsuto insinuated Atsuii didn't fall/jump and Lonjiku was involved. My assumption has been that Ameiko had never truly believed her father capable of such things, and was another thing she didn't agree with her 1/2 brother on. Now as for the second part, I don't think its mentioned officially anywhere who she cheated with. I do know (and possibly it has something in Jade Regent #1) that Lonjiku was traveling a lot early in their marriage, and Atsuii was lonely. Also, Lonjiku perhaps was sleeping with Chelaxian noblewomen. We won't get into morality or anything, but she eventually sought solace somewhere. She never reveals who it was. Heck, she could have slept with the Mierani diplomat who lives in Korvosa. Perishial I think. Otherwise, I guess you could make it up.
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