I think I'll be going with Mark & Rob's ideas, since I have a few people joining who know exactly nothing about Pathfinder beyond what they heard when I was talking about it with one of my more regular players.
So, it needs to be fairly rail-roady, since my other players requested it like that while they get used to it. After this gets my players all up to speed and whatnot, I'm planning on running a sandbox campaign then, so I'll likely steal the rivals idea too, lol.
I particularly like the idea of starting from the BBEG's goal, given that that's really the easiest link Ihave between the three parts of this campaign. (Murder Mystery links into Evil Cult links into Devilish Plot links into Devil's Invasion, if I can get that far.)
So, I've been running a few games for some friends, and decided to write up a homebrewed campaign. Problem is, I've never done this before, and I'm not sure how to get started.
It's not a sandbox or anything, so it's going to be fairly straight-forward, but other than a few set-pieces, the BBEG, and a general plot-idea, I've got no clue how to start writing this.
Two ways I can see it working would be to write the set pieces, the main encounters, etc, and then link them together with logical connections, and add in a few random encounters or something.
The other way would be do it step by step, writing each part as it would be played through.
Any opinions, help, advice etc?
What's the reason you're playing the game? I'd assume it's for fun, right? That turns making sure your players are enjoying themselves into Priority #1. The rules are there for two reasons; 1, they make things fairer, and 2, they stop you from having to make up a set of rules (be they more or less restrictive than the ones you're using now), as that takes ages.
Reasons and ranting?:
That said, if a player isn't enjoying themselves, you've gotta work out why. I've rerolled a 4th level Rogue into a Cavalier at no loss, simply because the player was just not enjoying playing a Rogue at all, the combat style he didn't like, having to be called upon so frequently for skill checks bothered him, and he'd stolen a boarlet named Squealy Nord a while back and thought mounted combat sounded cool. From being listless and generally uninterested at the table, he's gone to being the first into the fray (CHAAARRRGE), making double-meaning jokes about his unofficial title of Boar Rider, and attempting to feed defeated enemies to his mount. As a result, both he and the rest of the group are enjoying the campaign much more, to the point of calling it the best they've played.
If it's just occasionally being bored, because they dislike, say, murder mystery-type puzzles or something, try compromise, and have less of them, or make them easier to solve, or take less time. If it's an attitude thing, such as being mocked for making small mistakes, it's a problem you need to sort out with your players, out of the game.
Or, if as suggested above, the dice hate them and they always roll natural 1s, DM fiat. Make all their rolls succeed for a while, or something.
If they grabbed an ability recently that they thought would be really cool, but aren't getting any chance to use it, change the encounters a bit to let them perhaps? When our Barbarian took Cleave/Great Cleave, I swapped out a few fights that were stuff like Gelatinous Cube or 2 Goblins w/Slings and a Goblin Dog for things like 15 Skeletons in a Tiny Corridor.
That's the end of reasons they might be unhappy and what you could/should do about it, in my opinion. There might be other causes of unhappiness, if there are, I haven't found them yet. D:
At some point, I got sidetracked. Sorry, it's something of a problem with me. :( Some of the above is how to turn boredom into a sense of accomplishment, some is random ranting, some is listing reasons players might be unhappy and ways to fix. I think my point was "If you're going to watch players be unhappy and do nothing about it, you might as well not play." Just my opinion. :3
Though I'm hardly a pathfinder veteran (only been playing for about 8 months >_>), I've found similar situations in other games. My advice would be to pick either non-scaling spells, or spells which scale with either character level, or stack both classes to determine caster level.
Also, attempt to grab your second class as one which has the same main stat as your first class (so, Sorceror uses Cha, so to add more supposrt, try maybe an oracle aimed at cure spells & life or lore, maybe waves mystery; or a bard? I wouldn't really suggest the druid, since you'll be splitting your main stat up too much (imo), but it could still work.
Ah, I see. I knew something didn't seem quite right, but I figured it was just inexperience. Figures the rule I forget would be one of the more embarrassing ones; no more ranks in a skill than your total number of Hit Dice.
So the druid will meet the requirements at 9th, and can take his first level in mammoth rider as his 10th, while the fighter just needs to be the one that deals the finishing blow to the devil in question?
I'm definitely nicking Mark's ideas for a campaign, by the way. You guys have been awesome, many thanks for the help. <3
So, I have three questions, and hopefully I'm posting in the right place.
First up, I've never had to deal with prestige classes in games I've run before (not like I've run many games though).
The druid in my group wants to become a mammoth rider, he's got a wolf companion, 9 ranks of handle animal, 9 ranks of ride, 5 ranks of survival, and believes he'll have a BAB of +6 by 8th as a druid. I can't see anything that says he's wrong, per se, but I'm pretty uncertain, since like I said, I've never dealt with prestige classes before.
The fighter in my group has a similar problem. He's LG, wants to beome a Hellknight, has 5 ranks in intimidate and 2 in Knowledge (planes). Since a bearded devil has 6d10+24 for hp, he thinks he can kill one at level 6 (provided he can find a Hellknight to watch), and thereby qualify for the class. Again, I'm not entirely sure, since it's got HD equal to his own, and a flat amount extra, but not definitively greater. Would killing that on his own count?
Other than that, my players would greatly enjoy a campaign with demons, devils, planar entities or similar, but I'm having trouble finding free ones suited to the levels they are/will be soon (5-12ish?). Other than making one up myself (which I'm nearly resigned to doing by now, having scoured paizo.com's free pdfs and such), could anyone recommend something? I don't have terribly high hopes for this one, lol.
Oh, and just in case it's important, I'm using d20pfsrd.com for most of this info... the bits I can't find in the books, at least.
