We recently had a campaign where the PCs were thieves, so I think I'll file the pirate one for later.
I went to buy the first part of Hell's Rebels but I seem to actually have the pdf from some Humble Bundle, so I guess I'll finally read it and see what it's like. Thanks!
Hi, we've played through Kingmaker and it was mostly great. I picked up the first parts to a couple of other APs (Iron Gods and some other that I forget) and they seemed like slogfests of dungeons.
Which AP should I buy for more open ended or non-linear settings where the characters are not just guided from one "dungeon" (or equivalent) to another? To be clear, I don't mind the *plot* being a bit "railroady" if its good, but the environments should allow the characters to wander about and interact with actual people rather than being walled in with "monsters" much of the time.
I'd especially appreciate it if most of the pivotal plot points were not set in dungeon crawls, since any side-questy type content I can easily cut out or replace as needed.
I did stat out the populations, but ended up not doing anything more detailed, as the campaign went in other directions.
My hex counts were quite different from those of the other thread, estimated from map area based on borders I drew myself. I also did not assume everything was settled – if it was they'dve pushed into the Stolen Lands earlier.
Below is my population spreadsheet. I added a second sheet where I simply replaced the hex counts with those from the other thread. It changes the balance between the houses somewhat, but the total population still falls within 400-450k as it should.
1. In my experience you don't really need a lot of random encounters to match the XP progression, as long as your PCs want to explore most of the maps. Hence the loot from them also doesn't matter much. However, my party was slightly below guidelines for most of books 4-5, when I basically stopped running random encounters. Not that it really mattered.
2. Correct. There are a lot of good threads here about ideas. Personally I ran the campaign so that House Rogarvia hadn't yet vanished when the campaign started, had it happen in the background and then brought the politics into the forefront midway through the adventure path, leaving an actual civil war for after the campaign (haven't run it yet, switched GMs for now).
3. Not as far as I recall.
4. Standing armies are sort of "modern" for the setting, IMO. Real world history had levies as the bulk of most armies. However, I houseruled that a time to raise an army anyway.
Got my hands on Clash of Kingslayers and still looks good. I'll probably tune down the highest EL encounters slightly and run it for five 8th level characters.
I would be running this as a side quest with a trouble shooter party of newly generated characters, so level can be whatever, but I'd prefer < 10 to leave the original characters as top dogs in the realm.
I'm looking for a module or other published adventure that would fit the plot hook/mystery of the Golushkin dwarves, perhaps with minor reskinning. The idea is that the PCs would secure an alliance with Garess by figuring out what happened, and perhaps reestablishing the profitable trade partnership or finding the Garess heir alive.
For reference, the issue is that House Garess used to have an alliance with Golushkin dwarves but "Grayhaven lost all contact with the dwarf hold of Golushkin during the same winter as the Vanishing." (From the Garess description from the back of part 1.)
Optimally, some Paizo product would fit, but any suggestions are welcome. I'd prefer something with significantly more than one session's worth of content, but anything's better than nothing.
I'm not using the mass combat RAW, but in my campaign I've ruled that pillaging a hex takes a week, provides the army with some supplies (paying e.g. 1d4 Consumption for a farm hex), and destroys the hex improvement. I might halve the time if you aren't actually taking any supplies, just burning everything.
There's a lot of this module that consists of the designer thinking that six or ten CR3-4 guys are a match for 10th level PCs. Rewrite those encounters to be more challenging.
The book explains at least some of the encounters being easy on purpose to showcase the PCs power. Whether you think it's a good idea or not, the designers didn't think those encounters would be balanced.
In my campaign, I decided that mapping the side with most of the hex was enough, since you'd see significant landmarks over the river. If the hex is about half and half, however, you need to do both sides, though not on the same trip.
#1 makes the most sense. But I am having an issue of why he would go for a simple land grab. How does he benefit from expanding his holdings with a costly war, even if the land is both prosperous and developed? How does a larger kingdom benefit him?
How about fear?
There was no reason to take the land before Brevoy got interested. Now the settlers quickly expand to take most of the Stolen Land, pushing out or subjugating the natives. With theoretically around three times the resources Pitax has, the only questing is whether they have the time to develop them. He has to do something, so he uses pawns to turn the settlers against each other. That doesn't work so the PC's realm starts to look like even more of a threat.
He sees himself forced into action by Brevoy's greed, protecting what's rightfully his. He may even rationalize it as a service to all the River Kingdoms, if the PC's realm doesn't fit the ethos of the River Freedoms.
Basically, any land he takes is only to keep it off Brevic hands. He may not even care about developing it, but may plan to just loot it and draw back to Pitax once the threat has been put down.
I could really use some input on, like, anything. Any ideas on specific adventure sites, on arcs that could replace one of the Kingmaker books, other plot elements I'll need to consider, or where to go after the wars break out?
In case you didn't know, there's a character in Book 4 (Baron Drelev's mistress) who is a spy for Daggermark. If you have the book you might want to integrate her somehow or just look her up for inspiration.
I'm going basically a similar route of focusing more on the politics, scrapping the hexcrawl after book 2 etc. However, my starting point is very different - Urzen I is still king of the Dragonscale Throne of Brevoy and the Rogarvian Vanishing only happens at a later point in the campaign (between books 4 and 5 according to my plans). Still there will be a time when they need to pick sides in the Brevoy civil war. If you are interested, some of my early notes are here, with an update at the end of the thread.
Has anyone invented or are there canonical sources for Brevoy's ruling family, the one that was disappeared?
Anything you people have invented would be great. Names, stats, relationships. Especially a line of succession that might be followed if some of them happened to be found alive...
How it works depends on party size. If you are running with up to four PCs, it's a welcome addition most of the time. If you have more, it may just bog down things.
IMC, I replaced followers with a kingdom bonus based on the character's role. For example, a court mage would get a discounted mage's tower, while a baron/king would get a Loyalty bonus.
The cohort will either fill a kingdom role or follow on adventures. Plus I keep the right to say that the cohort is sometimes sitting one out.
The party got in disguised as bandits and with passwords. The dwarf challenged the Lord to a drinking game, knowing that the drink was spiked with sleeping poison. It was a draw, with both out of the fight that ensued (definitely a success on part of the dwarf). Akiros joined the fight when the party had practically won already.
Not much of a spoiler to say that Irovetti keeping control of Pitax won't interfere with book 6.
His personality may not be easily bent, but it's not like he would throw his life away for the sake of pride as long as he has a chance to rebel later. He might ask for some sort of concessions, though, honorary titles or whatever would save face.
In any case, while he has hundreds of k in resources, he won't use that much to reacquire a 60k item. He is smart enough that his first plan should be something cheap with a reasonable chance of success and little chance of backfiring.
First up a divination to see who has it, but he won't let just anyone know he's been robbed. He'll use personal spells and scrolls before going to a cleric for commune - always an info leak. He'd probably use expendable assassins that don't know who they work for - mortals so there's no debt if they die. If it fails he can bide his time until he can use it as excuse for war.
I'd make the initial assassination event hard enough that the party may all die unless they flee or use up most of their resources. E.g. assassins equal to party size + 1, each with tough CR.
Sound of a Thousand Screams does offer a possible explanation to House Rogarvia, but nothing for the other two.
2) Skywatch is Rogarvia's "panic room". Rogarvians are trapped there in stasis to wait for the all clear signal.
Hey, this thread gives me an idea. Combine this Choral plot with Nyrissa's stolen Nobility, and rather than her Nobility being stripped by a Summer Queen it was taken by Choral in exchange for Nyrissa's life. The bargain also gave Choral a 200 years' head start during which Nyrissa was prohibited from influencing the mortal world.
Choral was a mortal human (high level adventurer) in this plot line and only gained control of a conquering army and dragons due to the stolen Nobility. He would have died of old age, but not without setting plans in motion to protect his issue. Choral used his life to power a bloodline curse that transfers the Rogarvians to Skywatch (his heirs have strict orders on its construction) to wait for Nyrissas demise.
I'm drawing a blank at the moment on how he would ensure Nyrissa gets dealt with. It should probably involve the Winter Court somehow...
One piece of advice I have is to leave some (or as much as possible) of the background stuff to be introduced later. That will 1) make it easier for the players to grasp the initial situation and 2) make the world around them seem more dynamic if they hear about stuff happening while they play through a couple of years of kingdom building.
For example, if you plan to make Choral a "Book 7" (it should be titled "My Kingdom for a Dragon") you could make the 200 years only come up a few years into the campaign.
So, I just finished running the first book of the AP and my 4 man party of characters are still mid lvl 3. They explored the whole region, they didn't miss a single encounter, they even had some random ones and still they didn't make it to lvl 4. I don't really want to start adding personal content yet and just saying "here are some xp because u need to be lvl 4 for the second book" sounds kinda lame. :(
Did you use the correct advancement track (medium)? Did you remember the 100 XP per hex mapped?
Although you don't really need to, you can easily fix it in-game, since RRR starts with kingdom building. Just let them build the kingdom in peace until the awards from that take them to 4th level.
(As an aside, I still use 3.5e XP tables; one advantage is that they "fix" such discrepancies much better since the party will simply gain more XP from the encounters if they are behind.)
One thing I do is use a spreadsheet to generate the events. That means whenever an event comes up that I don't want to see again too soon I can just tweak its weight down, as they don't need to add up to 100.
You can also generate keywords or other data to customize the events. For example, I have a list of deities from which the spreadsheet picks one to go with the event - if it fits and seems interesting that deity has a hand in the event (e.g. one of the NPCs is a worshiper).
Even if you don't play with a computer, you can use a spreadsheet to pregenerate a list of events that you use in order.
(I won't post my list since I don't play in Golarion and most of the additions are specific to the setting or depend on previous events.)
1) Trapdoor spiders. Advanced giant spiders (I dont care how many, are not a challenge for level 8-9 characters. The spiders have 22 hP and a to hit of +4. They would need to roll a 20 to bite any melee guy and cant bite the caster (as he will probably be invisible and flying at this level). This whole encounter seems to be a waste of space. What am I missing?
Neither four ettercaps (CR 7) nor six giant trapdoor spiders (also CR 7) are *meant* to be great challenges for level 8-9 characters. That's to be expected, since it's how the encounter building rules work.
Kildaere wrote:
So my real question I guess is: Are these supposed to be challenging? They give XP some of them a lot. The Mudmen are listed as a CR 9 encounter....the soul eater a 7. Something seems wrong. Are you DMs that...
Personally I don't think the CR equivalencies table works very well for over 6 enemies. They will often have trouble coordinating attacks, especially if they are all the same/similar. However, the mudman encounter can actually be a bit of a challenge depending on the party - they can likely grapple many non-"tank" characters, and Dex damage is a cumulative spiral that makes further hits more likely.
As far as the soul eater is concerned, part of the reason the CR is relatively high (but again CR 7 is easy for level 8-9 characters) is the stakes: if it drains its target's soul its mission is complete and it may attempt to flee, in which case the target is permanently gone.
Hasn't really been a problem IMC, but I consider all the other rulers the eyes and ears of the king - anything significant that happens in the kingdom gets reported to one of them, who can then decide whether it needs the king's attention.
Examples: A smuggling operation is going on: the spymaster gets the word, but maybe she decides the king doesn't need to know. Bandits are terrorizing a rural stretch of road: the guards push the ball to the warden, who may just send a patrol or ask the king if the party should intervene directly.
Sure, in a negotiation with a rival kingdom it is the king who does much of the talking. However, the treasurer will get appraise checks for any trade deals offered, while the marshal is most likely to know if claims of military power are just boasts.
Regarding random encounter distance, I don't use a table, but instead have opposed Perception rolls. The side that rolls better gets to choose distance, depending on terrain: in forest you get an ambush or can hide and wait it over; in hills you get to choose a short distance, a long distance or escape without being seen; in grassland you either get a long distance or can escape (unless some sort of invisibility or burrowing makes an ambush possible).
Can V call more than 1 of them? There's nothing in the text of the item that says how this works. Maybe he can do 1/week? Month? Year?
Err... Yes there is. Page 52, fourth bullet point in the right column: "Planar binding once per week (only to summon natives of Abaddon, such as daemons or soul eaters)"
Yes and no. The ability triggers when the soul eater has used its claw attack to drain the targets wisdom. Protection from evil would protect against that claw attack if the creature was summoned, which it in the adventure is not.
Just in case you want to reconsider or do things differently next time... Unlike Clerics, Druids don't (according to the RAW) lose their abilities for just going against their deity's dogma.
Feel free to ignore:
Quote:
Ex-Clerics
A cleric who grossly violates the code of conduct required by her god loses all spells and class features, except for armor and shield proficiencies and proficiency with simple weapons. She cannot thereafter gain levels as a cleric of that god until she atones for her deeds (see the atonement spell description).
Quote:
Ex-Druids
A druid who ceases to revere nature, changes to a prohibited alignment, or teaches the Druidic language to a nondruid loses all spells and druid abilities (including her animal companion, but not including weapon, armor, and shield proficiencies). She cannot thereafter gain levels as a druid until she atones (see the atonement spell description).
Since the druid didn't cease to revere nature or teach Druidic, he would have had to change into a prohibited alignment to lose his abilities. The actions were arguable evil, but even if he moved two steps to NE, that would still be allowed for druids.
Anyway, there's a statue of Erastil in part 1. Maybe that has been taken as a home by some monsters and needs to be restored?
Also - don't forget that magical items - the same as anything else need to
'save' against damage or be destroyed...
Roll your dice a few times & say 'oh dear, the magical ring he seems to
have been wearing didn't make it's save...'
pfsrd wrote:
Unless the descriptive text for the spell specifies otherwise, all items carried or worn by a creature are assumed to survive a magical attack. If a creature rolls a natural 1 on its saving throw against the effect, however, an exposed item is harmed (if the attack can harm objects). Refer to Table: Items Affected by Magical Attacks. Determine which four objects carried or worn by the creature are most likely to be affected and roll randomly among them. The randomly determined item must make a saving throw against the attack form and take whatever damage the attack dealt.
First a natural 1 and then the chance to make a save. One item per 40 such attacks is an approximate rate that worn items get destroyed. If you fudge it, don't do that too often.
the ranger is just destroying encounters with gobs of damage. I have checked to make sure we are running it correctly (I think we are but it just seems crazy) but if he full rounds with the wizards Haste on him he is getting the equivalent of 5 attacks (Iterative for (2), Manyshot for an extra (1), Rapid for (1) and Haste for (1).
Is this legal? I'm only familiar with the 3.5 version, but I don't think you can use iteratives and Manyshot at the same time. You also can't use Rapid Shot and Manyshot at the same time.
Yeah, in 3.5 Manyshot is a standard action, not an attack action. 2 + Rapid Shot + Haste works, though. In PF even Manyshot works in the mix.
I like the leathality of many of the random encounters. The only problem is that they can make some of the setpiece encounters seem almost too easy in comparison.
IMC the reward for killing the trolls was offered by Varn (seeing the trade route to Mivon open is also in his interests). Too late for that in yours, but maybe some trolls escaped and are camping just a hex or two to the east (e.g. the shore of Lake Silverstep) and Varn proposes a joint mission.
* I use homebrew modified rules, which the players have (with the exception of kingdom events).
* I'd like to see more kingdom events, especially expanded adventure-like events, like the ones in Part 1 of RRR. They are fairly rules-agnostic and can be used with any published or homebrew rules with little modification. Definitely no more buildings.
* 4/5 participate actively in kingdom building. The one rarely participates in any non-combat situations, partly because of his character.
* Unrest is a threat, since the PCs quickly ruled out having an assassin or declaring martial law. Not due to the mechanics, but due to their characters' morals.
* Magic items were ripped out in our system. They were easily the worst part of the rules.
If I roll this in my game, I plan to arrange it so it was a one on one melee
Ditto.
I gotta say that it's a pretty STOOPID assassin who chooses to attack
when you're at full power & surrounded by all of your friends...
(i.e. The kind of assassin who doesn't survive to be a challenge to you
when you're at level 10...)
OTOH, is the assassin likely to get to the target a) when he's alone in their castle going to bed, or b) when he's taking a stroll of the outlying villages with only his fellow leaders?
The CR+1 thing makes me think it is meant to be against the whole party. Personally, that's how I run it, but that doesn't mean the assassin is stupid. E.g. a surprise round + one more against only the target when he's on his way to relieve himself. Escape routes prepared in case things go sideways.
Cleric or Bard. Paladins just end up stealing too much limelight, whereas the others can help the group out of a lot of sticky situations without taking up much room on the stage.
You have to ignore the bard completely to avoid stealing the limelight. That's like their purpose in life. ;)
