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I'm a new GM running Rise of the Runelords with basically four new PCs. We had four PC deaths in the first chapter and one PC came back with a NG Half-Elf Ranger, but he wants to have Multiple Personalities (not per the Insanity rules) so that when his character gets druunk, he wants to randomly pick an alignment from: NG, CN, NE & LN. My first concern is that when he first did this, it seemed to bog the game way down as he punched the Sheriff and I ended up locking him in jail for the night. I feel like it might be too much, but might consider letting him have two personalities and requesting that he doesn't have his character drink very often.

Does anyone have any insights/concerns/suggestions?

All - Thanks for the advice. I brought in some reinforcements, maybe 5 extra goblins total in the Glassworks and no extra baddies in the CoW, but thanks to terrible rolls on their part regarding crit misses (we're using the random crit miss generator), the party has already used half of the charges on the Wand. The Barbarian was kissed by the Vargouille, but made his save and the Monk drank some of the Waters of Lamashtu.

I have a couple of quick questions regarding Thistletop (basic GM questions):

1) If the PCs approach by boat, it is a DC 15 climb. In the skills climbing section it states that you move at 1/4 speed, so a PC with movement of 20 would move 5 on a successful check. So the PC would need to make 16 successful checks to make it up the wall? One failed check and they would fall all the way down, unless they get lucky with catching themselves or another PC catches them.

2) How does hacking through the briars work? I see that it has a hardness of 1 and 40 hp - no DC for the PCs to roll against? They just do damage with each attack?

Ok, thanks for the replies. Being a new GM I'm spending time trying to learn the rule sets so things run smoothly and everyone has a good time and made a bigger deal of this than I should have.

I'm running Rise of the Runelords and didn't realize that the loot is doled at during certain encounters. The campaign book tells me exactly when everyone levels up, so I don't need to track and count XP. The PCs are level 1 and are well within the WBL charts.

My plan was to add reinforcements if the PCs blew through the original guys, so I'm glad I was on the right path.

Alright, so after playing two sessions, I decided to try my hand at GMing as the GM was moving to Germany. I bought RotRL and started brushing up on rules, etc. However, I neglected to look into what to do with loot and started handing out loot to the players, perhaps too freely. The PCs demanded payment to watch over the town while the Sheriff went to get reinforcements. The group likes battle and I felt the Shayliss, Monster in the Closet, etc. section was a bit lacking in session 2, so I mixed in some Dwarven miners going missing that they investigated and stole the unconscious Dwarf's GP (Sin points!), etc.

Anyway, they are saving up to buy a wand of Cure Light Wounds and they almost have enough money (and we're just entering the Glass & Wrath section). I have 7 PCs, but not everyone makes it to each session (being an adult and all with kids), we just suspend disbelief and roll with it. They each received 50 from Aldern, so that's 350 alone. I'm thinking I need to reduce their gold somewhat and am looking for advice/feedback so that they aren't swimming in gold.

I was thinking of having the dwarves they stole from confront the PC Dwarf (whom is keeping all of the PCs gold) and stealing the gold back, plus a penalty. I would play up the kinship of being fellow a fellow dwarf and could you go along with that, etc.

Or I could let them get the wand, beef up the encounters so they take damage and make them use the wand. I've been lenient with healing and not strictly abiding by 1 point of healing per night (they are level 1 until after the Glassworks).

With 6 PCs in the next session, I definitely think I need to had more goblins to the Glassworks and maybe another Vargouille and a few sinspawn to the CoW.

New GM here. Thanks everyone for the great ideas. One quick question regarding the Tug-O-War. They players are pulling against the shipwrights and must win 2 out of 3. What stats would you use for the shipwrights, whom I would be rolling, correct?