Krathanos's page

It took us almost two years this time, but last night we wrapped up Hell's Rebels. For me, this was the eigth Paizo AP I ran from start to finish.

As usual, thanks to all of you guys. Even for a 20+ years veteran GM, this place remains an invaluable resource.

So, how did it go? Pretty good, I'd say. Even when compared to Shackled City and Curse of the Crimson Throne (the other well-beloved city campaigns), Hell's Rebels is a blast. Rebel against the Evil Empire? That's always cool! Murder Mysteries? Why, yes, take three of 'em! High-Level diplomacy and politics that actually work? Sure Thing!

And, above all, Barzillai Thrune. I love that magnificient bastard and my players loved to hate him. In a world where BBEGs tend to be vague threats up until the boss fight, Barzillai steps up to the plate on day one, being a constant presence in the campaign. He is an imposing overlord, a petty little troll, and a deeply flawed character all in one package. Fearsome, ridiculous, well-rounded. For me, he's the best AP BBEG ever, bar none.

Barzillai put up a good fight in chapter four before getting his butt kicked in chapter six, but I didn't mind. It was a fun ride with ol' Thrune and I will always remember him fondly.

Up next: Starfinder! Super excited.

Greetings, Hivemind!

We're three gaming sessions into our brand-new Hell's Rebels campaign (it's awesome so far). Here's a question of mine that popped up:

Morgar Manthai is the "traitor" in the early going, being basically a nobody in the resistance who is unlucky enough to get himself charmed by the imp.

Forvian Crow is an old friend of Laria and the guy the PCs are supposed to rescue from the salt works. After that, he doesn't do anything of note (if I didn't miss something).

So my question is: Are there any reasons NOT to replace Morgar with Forvian? Being "betrayed" by someone the party saved earlier surely would make more of an impact than going "oh, it's that guy over there, whoever he is!".

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

After a year of weekly play, my group defeated Karzoug and saved Varisia from the Rise of the Runelord. This has been the 10th Adventure Path I ran from start to finish, and once again I have to thank the mighty Hivemind for providing me (and countless other DMs) with cool ideas, hints, clarifications, and general awesomeness. Keep being amazing, you guys!

Since I love reading those stories myself, I'll give you a short recap of the final battle:

In the early going, Karzoug put up his defenses, including a Prismatic Wall. Then, he took the dangerous fighter and the EXTREMELY dangerous brawler out of the equation via Forcecage and Maze, respectively.

Meanwhile, the party's arcanist was busy taking over the storm giants with Dominate Person und the hunter did some respectable damage with his bow (which was a first, but better late than never). The arcanist also managed to telekinetically disarm Karzoug and Teleport (Any Object) his glaive away. Ship got real when the cleric got snatched by a Crushing Hand spell. The hunter dispelled the hand just in time for the cleric to save the arcanist with Breath of Life (she got shot by a storm giant). The brawler came out of the Maze and together with the rogue tried to attack Karzoug. Too bad Karzoug had Repulsion on him.

Karzoug cast Wail of the Banshee and killed the hunter's animal companion. Enraged, the hunter cast Greater Dispel Magic twice and shattered most of Big K's defenses. At the same time, the brawler and rogue freed the fighter from his Forcecage. The fighter, after being imprisoned for a good while (about two hours of real time - that poor player!) put all of his frustration in one mighty blow - a critical hit with Power Attack and Greater Vital Strike! Karzoug was hurt ("how is this possible...you are merely insects...") and used Limited Wish and Dimension Door to heal and regroup.

The arcanist delivered the finishing move - and what a finish it was! Here's the transcript (disclaimer: rules-wise, this might not be kosher):

Player: "I'll cast Mass Charm Person on Karzoug."

Me: "Okay"

(player overcomes SR, Karzoug bombs his will save)

Me: "Oh, well, he's charmed, not a big deal..."

Player: "I'll use a hero point for another action!"

Me: "Uhm, okay..."

Player: "Since he views me as an ally now, I'll cast Telekinetic Charge on him..."

Me: "I guess you're right, he won't resist that now..."

Player: "...so I'll send him charging through his own Prismatic Wall."

(insert sound of record needle coming to a screeching halt)

Long story short, Karzoug got turned to stone by his own spell and fell OF COURSE directly into his own Runewell, his stony eyes full of hatred while he sank.

So that was fun. Campaign's wrapped up and my group will lose some players and get some new ones. Hell's Rebels is up next, see you in Kintargo.

Dear Hivemind,

my players just arrived in Magnimar to investigate the leads they stumbled upon at Foxglove Manor. They quickly met Justice Ironbriar, since I wanted him to have an appearance before the events at the sawmill. Ironbriar left a lasting impression on the PCs with his professional demeanor, something they found sorely lacking with Sheriff Hemlock.

So the PCs immediately spilled their beans about everything they discovered so far, while Ironbriar listened attentively. He knows now they're on to something. So when they mentioned Foxglove's town house, he encouraged them to investigate it, "since sending my own men would be too obvious".

The party went to Foxglove's house, killed the two faceless stalkers after a tough fight und turned the place upside down looking for clues. After finding the documents, they decided to stay the night in Foxglove's house, although they had rented rooms in an inn. That's when we called it a night.

So here's where you come in: Ironbriar will know about the party's whereabouts, but how will he react? Send more stalkers? Skinsaw cultists? Send the guard to arrest the PCs? If so, on what charges?

Thanks in advance!

After 15 months of bi-weekly gaming, my group defeated the Evil Snake God and his followers in an epic battle. Hats off to all the fine folk on these boards, I couldn't have done it without you.

No, I'm serious, I couldn't have done this!

If you are reading this, chances are that you're familiar with the manyfold weaknesses of Serpent's Skull. So to salvage a campaign with a terribly underwritten centerpiece and some questionable plot twists (looking at you, Mr, Kline!), I had to liberally rob, steal and borrow from the excellent brains I've collected in jars in my basement encountered here.

But if you're willing to put in the work (and have a group of excellent players, I might add), Serpent's Skull is a blast. The sandbox structure of Saventh-Yhi allowed me to play with the five factions, integrate the personal character arcs of the PCs, and add more dinosaurs to the campaign (seriously, where are the dinosaurs in Serpent's Skull?).

So this post is a celebration of the fine folks at Paizo, my fantastic group, myself, and you guys. Give yourselves a round of applause!

Hey all!

Last night week my buddy's homebrew campaign ended, so DMing is up to me again. Time to give that beautiful Anniversary Edition a whirl.

Since this section of the boards is by far the most active AP forum, it's kinda overwhelming - even to an old hand like me (RotRL will be the 10th AP I run).

So, in short, is there some advice the hivemind can agree on that I MUST know about? Are there any devious pitfalls for the hapless DM who dares to run this AP?

My players are a mix of experienced Pathfinders and relative newcomers. There are six of them, and the character classes will be: Fighter, Brawler, Hunter, Rogue, Arcanist and Cleric. Most of them know Sandpoint already, since I ran Jade Regent with them before (but RotRL will be a prequel).

I intend to play RotRL mostly by-the-book - I'm running Serpent's Skull with another group, so I've already got more than my fair share of customization work. But some things always need changing, and the fact that I let the PCs level up by DM fiat allows me to skip some boring combat encounters.

So hit me: What do I need to know? What do I need to change? And what's the deal with chapter four, it looks kinda grindy?

Thanks in advance!

System Shock 2 reference. <3

So my buddy's homebrew campaign (in which I am a player) comes to an end soon. It will be my turn again to DM. Now I've already run five Paizo APs to completion, so I consider myself an experienced hand at this. I've never run RotRL before (played it, though), so I already decided to run the Runelords AE, because it is arguably the most classic AP and the AE hardback tends to sing my name at night.

Then Hell's Rebels got announced.

You see, my friend's campaign takes place in Isger and heavily features Hellknights and the like. Running Council of Thieves now would possibly be a good centerpiece for some kind of "Cheliax Trilogy", concluding with Hell's Rebels further down the road.

So I've got the beloved champion in one corner and the not-so-beloved but possibly continuity-creating challenger in the other corner. My players would probably be fine with both options. What would you, mighty Paizo Community, recommend?

Another year (well, plus a few months), another adventure path finished. Xin's clockwork reliquary and his armies are no longer a threat to Varisia.

Once again, thanks a lot to all of you guys for this extremely helpful community. Without you, finishing an AP would be so much harder.

In retrospect, Shatterd Star delivered exactly what was promised: An old-school, artifact-hunting, dungeon-crawling romp. Sure, it got a new paintjob and lots of cool new ideas and locations (the Irespan! Kaer Maga! Doomsday Doors! Lovecraft!), but make no mistake - this one is even more old-school than Rise of the Runelords.

Which, when all is said and done, has moments where it works splendidly (the Irespan! Kaer Maga! etc.) and moments where it doesn't (extraplanar forests under Kaer Maga? Evil Sexy Demonesses? Billions of filler fights against constructs?).

So, next I'm gonna be a player in Mummy's Mask. I'm also halfway through running Serpent's Skull and might start running Rise of the Runelords. No rest for the wicked. See you there!

After 13 months of bi-weekly play, my players finally defeated Ileosa! Just wanted to say thanks to all you guys, these boards just plain rock. Special thanks to Steev42 whose conversions were extremely helpful.

Bottom line: There's a reason why CotCT wins almost every "Best AP" poll. The reason: It's top-to-bottom awesome. I modified the linear quest chain in History of Ashes, removed some filler fights in Scarwall and made some substantial changes to Crown of Fangs. Other than that, pure perfection (although the Gaedren Lamm storyline didn't go over too well).

Ileosa, as others have stated, is an unusual enemy for the final fight. She's got almost no way to inflict direct damage. Instead she relies on enchantment spells to make the PCs fight each other. Sounds good on paper, but with Protection From Spells and the like, my players made all important saves. It took them some time to wear the Queen down, but the party was never in real danger. You might want to change her build (there's a thread here) to make her more of a direct threat.

Anyway, that was fun. My players are in the process of voting for the next AP. Right now, Serpent's Skull looks like an early favorite. See you there!

After 14 months of playing almost every monday, my group finished the Jade Regent AP. Thanks to everyone at Paizo and to everyone on these boards. You people are awesome.

Some campaign notes:

- Started the Campaign with We Be Goblins! My players loved it and I recommend this to any DM who's going to run JR.

- In retrospect I would have one of the player characters take Ameiko's spot. It was kinda irritating to run a campaign where an NPC is the protagonist. Especially in chapter six, where she couldn't just let the PCs do all the heavy lifting.

- Got rid of the relationship score, caravan combat and discord subsystems. Never regretted it.

- One thing I love about JR is the epic feeling of traveling around the whole world. To emphazise this, I banned long-range teleport spells from my campaign. Should've done this way before. I also banned any kind of resurrection except Breath of Life and the Amatatsu Seal.

- Since the story didn't really do anything with Sandru, Koya and Shalelu, I killed off the latter to raise the stakes.

- Fighting ninjas on a burning viking ship was pretty damn awesome.

- The party's bard defeated Katyana by using a...Quaal's Feather Token (anchor). Yup.

- The Prince Batsaikhar storyline was hilarious. He proposed to the party's witch. Good times.

- The party's cleric came from Minkai to Sandpoint when he was about three years old. He didn't know anything about his family. So I did what every responsible DM would do...made Kaibuninsho his Evil Twin. He even managed to take the cleric's place without anyone (not even the cleric's player) noticing.

- I had to level up the Jade Regent and his buddies to make the final battle any kind of challenge to my players. YMMV.

I've run six adventure paths so far (SCAP, AoW, STAP, LoF and KM before this) and I think JR is top three material. Thanks again, folks!

I'm sorry if I missed it, but late in Jade Regent it is said that the GM should come up with some stats for Ameiko and the other important NPCs. Being a lazy bastard, I wonder if someone did this and posted it here.

Hey guys,

add me to the list of folks whose order is damaged (pages bent & sticky).

Thanks in advance for any help!

Hey Guys,

I´m still waiting for this order to arrive. It shipped on 10/12/09. Now I know that the estimated time span of 9 to 36 business days isn´t over yet, but Order #1315278, which has been shipped on 12/17/09, is already here. Just saying. :)

Greetings from Germany!

Edit: Whoops, both shipments are from the same order.

Hey everyone,

I´ve been visiting this board regularly over the last few years, since I ran all three Dungeon Adventure Paths and found the resources here to be incredibly helpful.

Since our Curse of the Crimson Throne Campaign came to a crashing halt last night when my buddy TPK´d us for the second time, I return to gamemastering duties. And I´m looking forward to running Legacy of Fire (Pathfinder ruleset).

I got the Player´s Guide and the Guide to Katapesh, but is there anything beyond the sticky reference threads that a DM absolutely needs to know or take care of when starting LoF? Looking forward to your input!

Greetings from Germany!