DanP's page

My 4 players and I finished the AP last night and we all enjoyed it. Besides having the opportunity to level all the way to 20, there is just a lot in the AP for the players to latch on to from mongrel men to demon lords to goddesses.

As a GM you need to have fun, too, so relish the story and do more of what you like (role playing Galfrey) and drop what you don't (army combat). Beef up the bad-guys, try to split the party, use new maps for all the cool locations, paint up the minis for the big encounters(chimera, Deskari).

I agree completely with the advice to learn the swift/immediate action rules - I started landing hits when PCs didn't use mirror dodge so that they could save the action for offense (fleet charge, smite evil, etc.) Pepper them with saving throws so that some actions have to be for defense.

Be okay that some combats will be cake walks, cut out the 25% of encounters that you don't like, and spend your time improving the other encounters (I like the mythic templates and I did reference the statblock document) and making sure that you understand the monsters powers (which is a big challenges in this AP). Having a player remind me to Surge was helpful!

Start with the end in mind, and have the right group of players. Our goals were to tell a shared story, have fun, and learn the mythic rules. If it is not fun, or the rules are not working, talk with your players and see what you can do. One thing I had to do was get comfortable with really challenging them by winding up and not pulling any punches.

My party killed Staunton Vhane last time and will also enter the dungeon level next time. Looking over the monsters, it is hard not to see the dominate ability that the vampire spawn, vampire, and shadow demon (effectively) have. My guess is that I will be able to get control of one of the big damage dealers and mess up the rest of the party before they start catching on to protection vs. evil, since the bad guys have not tried to do it previously. My question is how did this level go for others? As always, want it to be fun and challenging.

At 6th or 7th level there shouldn't be any save or die spells:)

But in general I agree, my PCs are in the middle of Demon's Heresy and it is very hard to challenge them consistently. I'm pretty sure that CRs and APL breaks down sooner and harder with mythic play. I was hoping that Mythic Adventures would include a 'how to run or challenge your group' chapter.
But as time goes on you will see what strengths and weaknesses your group has and should play to those. I'm also cheating and having more NPCs start prebuffed rather than spending so much time to get there.

Archmage uses enchantment spells so I do try to use protection vs. good spells. Will make sure S Vhane is buffed and throw in 1 or 2 more fiendish minotaurs. Hopefully they can get some attacks of opportunity on the archer with their reach. I am not worrying too much about CRs being high but good to know others are punching things up as well.

My party of six just killed the Chimera last time, fairly easily even though I bumped it up with the giant template. After finishing the siege, they entered the Citadel and killed the Vrock. That is where we finished for the night. We play 3 hours every two weeks, so I have to make every combat/encounter count. I am taking out some of the encounters to move things along, and will combine others - the Vrock did shriek so that is a good point that everyone left is on alert.

Similar to some other comments here, I have a barbarian that the monsters hit everytime but he has so many hit points and does so much damage that he is hard to put down. I also have an archer that never misses. Worried that the clerics will tire of support role. Most dangerous PC is the archmage due to his save or die spells with high DCs. My general strategy vs. the party is to make them make saves plus combining encounters. Interested in other ideas to keep them challenged.

Sc8rpi8n_mjd wrote:

Well for me having to go through a lot of easy encounters (no only those inside the citadel) is a waste of time. I prefer to have less encounters, but more challenging.

In previous APs I have axed many encounters and where possible I have added them together into a more fluid encounter environment.

Take the Lost Chapel en route to Drezen.... instead of having lots of small encounters, which as noted for a 6th level mythic party are ridiculously underpowered.

I am going to look into reskinning this encounter into 2 or 3 parts:
1) the stairs up to the gates/ gateway/ courtyard/walls
2) the final courtyard and rooms

any advice from anyone appreciated. Will post again when I have had a go....

I used this approach with the Lost Chapel last night and it went really well. First encounter, 4 advanced gargoyles fought while party climbs the stairs (split the party). Second encounter, 6 ghasts, 2 clerics, and Inquisitor bumped to 7th level and buffed up and now has minions to flank with (outflank feat). Third Encounter, the Nabasu right after emerging out of his deeper darkness to hold/gaze the party. Kudos to Neil for making the monsters all fit well together and by stacking them up the party was challenged and had to use all their mythic power points to win.

Not using Army rules either, so comments here about having party face-off vs. various leaders are helpful, along with improvement ideas for Chimera. Thanks to all.

My players really liked the Mongrelmen. I am thinking of opening the race up for replacement characters. It looks like they would be about 12 RP based on 3 monstrous humanoid, 3 natural AC, say 4 for the racial skills and limit them to +2 stealth/sleight of hand, 1 for slam attack, maybe 1 for the mimic ability. I am thinking standard stats (+2 CON, +2 WIS, -2 CHA). What do people think?

I started the AP last night with 7 players starting at level 2 and want to share how I handled it in the hope of providing some ideas to other GMs. The PCs started in Old Kenabres where outside the cathedral they gave their names to the clerk and were told to come back on Sunday for the ritual taking of the Crusaders Oath (the demonic looking PC was hauled off by Liotr Hawkblade for questioning, but found to be an aasimar). Each PC was given a choice of something to check out in Old Kenabres - the wardstone, a statue in the plaza, or the view of the crusader camps.

The wardstone PCs got an up close view of the crack made 20 years ago by the Storm King and saw the Iomedaen priests bolstering the stone with prayers. I also placed Shaunton Vhane here ('there is a dwarf commander') so some PCs can see him and later will realize that he blows up the Kite to provide a straight shot for the Balor. The Priests of the Iomedae are portrayed as the steel backbone of the Crusades and they bless (cast aid on) the PCs there.

The PCs that went to the plaza visited the statue of Prince Zhakar of Mendev and could learn his identity/history if they made knowledge checks. In any event, Terendelev in the guise of a silver-haired veteran warrior approached and filled in the story gaps, thanked the PCs for joining the Crusades, etc. After casting detect magic on the items thrown into the fountain, the PCs also discovered graffiti on the fountain in the form of (an arcane mark of) the old symbol of Baphomet.

The PCs on the walls see the crusader camps which were described in a way to suggest that they don't work well together, national rivalries from other areas of Golarion also exist here, etc. They were joined by a local (i.e. a non-crusader in my case an iobarian centaur) who again filled in the Knowledge roll gaps but whose real purpose is to reinforce the bad blood between the local pagans and the occupying crusaders when 'the spys' were all chased off the walls by guards.

At that point, the Kite was blown up, the Storm King burns in and destroys the wardstone with 'a black chisel', the nearby PCs were blown to the rest of the party and healed by the positive energy released by the stone (setting up the similar effect at the end of the book), and a rift opens and fiendish goblins spill out (a tip of the cap to ROTR) and fight the PCs while chaos ensues around them. The party saw the silver-haired warrior step up to challenge the balor, witnessed his change into a dragon, and a short but fierce battle. Much of it was in the air, and Terendelev had cast repulsion, so I was not worried about PCs getting involved. Just as the balor was about to deliver the coup de grace, another rift opened and the PCs plunged into darkness.

Sorry for the long post, but there was good energy at the table and it felt like a big start to an epic adventure so I encourage others to break open the boxed text as well.

Add me to the list of AP subscribers who has not received their product. Order 2692321 says it shipped 8/13 but I have not received it nor have I gotten any responses from emails to customer service asking about it. I realize Paizo has a lot going on, but I am losing patience rapidly. I am not asking for special treatment because I have been with Paizo from the beginning, have a low PFS #, am a two star GM, have made over 100 orders, have spent money to attend PaizoCon, and am eager to run the AP for seven players; I just want basic customer service which in the past Paizo has been able to provide.

Lastwall (almost by definition) has built quite a number of walls and fortifications to keep out the orcs from the Hold of Belkzen.

The first was the Sunwall, the next was Hordeline, both of which fell. The current wall is as of yet unnamed. See here for more details: http://www.pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Lastwall

Thank you, that is good information. I always took the nation's name as a metaphor, and my old Pathfinder Chronicles does not mention them. Thanks again.

they are a good source of conflict in real world (Hadrian, Great Wall, Berlin) and fantasy (Martin's The Wall, Howard's Picts) settings, but I am unaware of any in Golarion.

Our group finished the adventure path last week; it took a year playing every other week for six hours. In my view, book six was one of the better books in the series (with 1 and 3 being the others) since the monsters were interesting (esp. Horned Hunter, treants, linnorm, dragon, wriggling man) and the material needed much less revision than some of the others. Some points I would make relative to previous posts are that the book continued to have a sandbox feel, as the PCs have some flexibility on enduring blooms, or taking the offensive into the First World, what glades to visit, and how thorough they are in the House. Nyrissa is tough on paper, but bad rolls, cramped quarters, needing to make concentration checks, low SR, and smart players all worked against her. Overall, the adventure was refreshingly challenging after some of the other books, but not overwhelmingly so because the players are really ramping up in power by then, too. I did take out the lesser Jabberwock encounter due to time, the fact that there are three “dragon” encounters in a row as written, and the creature is either really powerful (CR20) or too easy (no SR), depending on how the dice fall.

Looking for feedback from anyone who has run the last encounter on how it went. Running this in a couple of weeks. Worried about the DR on the boss being too tough on the one hand, but also his missing a save and going down too early on the other. My group is 5 8th level PCs, including a necromancer (halt undead, command undead, etc. have been handy in the tomb) and an inquisitor with a holy slashing weapon (party's biggest damage dealer).

I finally ran this encounter last night, and both and I and the party were pleased with how it played. Thanks to those who supplied input on this capstone encounter.

I dropped his shield spell to reflect his 'arrogance' and swapped enchantment spells for necromancy, but that was about it. On round 1 he did waves of fatigue, round 2 ray of exhaustion and quickened magic missile, and round 3 'burning blood' from 3.5 to reflect his lost lore. His biggest unanticipated advantage was paralyzing reach related attacks of opportunity as party moved in for attacks.

The party's strength is spell-casting and the newly leveled Inquisitor was able to use searing light to strong effect, and the oracle had holy smite. They used 3 remove paralysis scrolls from the emergency trove in the Varnhold church to stay in the fight.

When he was down to 50 hp or so, he left and healed and party did the same; he then came back with fireball and cone of cold. Again, magic missile and sound burst chipped him down and party eventually took him down with the holy sword but not before he critted once with his touch attack.

Overall, pleased the encounter ran several rounds and his hp, dr, high will save, and undead immunity to fortitude save spells lent good staying power.

The sample army, Gargantuan Army of Kobolds (Warrior 1) is listed as CR4, implying that the kobolds are a -2 base modified by +6 for gargantuan. Should the CR be 6 (0 for warrior 1 plus 6 for size)?

Looking for feedback from anyone who has run the last encounter on how it went. Running this in a couple of weeks. Worried about the DR on the boss being too tough on the one hand, but also his missing a save and going down too early on the other. My group is 5 8th level PCs, including a necromancer (halt undead, command undead, etc. have been handy in the tomb) and an inquisitor with a holy slashing weapon (party's biggest damage dealer).

I think it has a certain dark, real-world feel to it that captures some of the tragic nuances during the Age of Colonization. Lots of folks got stepped on by people who would have considered themselves to be the "good guys" all in the name of progress. I understand if folks would prefer a less morally ambiguous game than that to cater to a more escapist style of play. But I like how it plays out, and I think a GM can provide the incentive for the Nomen conflicts to escalate or be resolved as best fits that particular gaming group.

My group was preconditioned to make an alliance with the Centaurs after successes with the kobolds and lizardfolk, but the years of distrust made it much more difficult in this case. The party managed to get over the difficult diplomacy DCs, but even then Silverfire the leader asked them to either retrieve Skybolt (a dangerous side quest I put in) or kill some marauding Cyclops (disguised ogre mages causing trouble) before she would permit them to enter the Valley of the Dead.

Of course, half the party wanted to just go to the Valley anyway, while the other half was determined to start a new era in Centaur-humankind relations. All-in-all very satisfying, especially when the "Cyclops" asked the PCs to kill Silverfire in exchange for the Dunsward lands and the party said no and shed blood for their would-be allies.

Along the lines of the above posts, looking for some perspective here. I am running Kingmaker for some experienced players, and the troll lair was anticlimatic since the party used hold person (trolls are humanoids with bad will saves) and then coupe de grace full round actions before they could recover.

There are more trolls and giants in the future books, and I guess I will make sure they all have clerics with dispel magic hanging around to make things a bit more challenging. More than anything, I am frustrated that the spell - instead of hold monster - works on them and am considering some sort of house rule (though that would feel like a takeaway).

good discussion here. My group is half way through book 2; for them locks of hair are too big a clue early on but I may weave it in later. For now the First World threat runs in the background (standing stones they find, Wild Hunt they hear, evil fey they fight, etc.) while they focus on threats from the Dragonscale Throne or trolls. I was also disappointed that book 3 did not continue with this plot line.

I think I have painted some of these. Got anything for a halfling Quadiran?