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So I had a question about PCs learning early on about Xhamen-Dor. As far as I am aware, the first opportunity they have to become aware of the Great Old One is in book 2: The Thrushmoor Terror. There is a painting on the cave wall in Daridela's Grotto, and PCs can make a DC 25 Knowledge check to know it is a symbol of Xhamen-Dor. It seems to me that gaining awareness of the Great Old One this early on kind of spoils things a bit. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I got the sense that knowledge of the X-D was pretty rare, and in fact, knowing about him sort of plants the seed (literally) of infection.

I know that it explains in X-D's bio that if someone is actively pursuing knowledge about the Great Old One, there is a 1% chance over a year's time that he could reach out to the person in their dreams and corrupt them that way, but that's an almost insignificant chance that doesn't lead to one being very concerned of the risk.

I guess my question is, if a PCs makes that Knowledge check to identify the symbol on the grotto wall, what does that PC learn or know about Xhamen-Dor, and what does that revelation do to the PC?

Perhaps I am reading it wrong, but it sounds to me like using the Sanity System from the Horror Adventures book, the only way to actually cure oneself of a madness (not just make it dormant) is via a Miracle or Wish spell. Does that mean you're pretty much stuck with all your dormant madnesses for basically the entirety of a campaign, or until you get access to 9th level spellcasting? That seems overly harsh.

Is this supposed to be used along with the rules for Madness in that same book? According to the rules under the Madness section, one can slowly cure their madness through rest or magic (much along the same lines as what is used to heal sanity damage in the Sanity System). So, does resting and casting these spells both heal sanity damage as well as decrease the DC of the madness towards curing the madness when it reaches DC 0? Do you have to do separate castings and announce beforehand whether you are healing sanity damage or trying to cure a madness? Can you only cure a madness when it is dormant?

I'm trying to determine what the connection is between the two systems and how they interact or relate to one another. Can anyone provide any insights or opinions on the matter?

So, short answer, is that by the book Strange Aeons is pretty much guaranteed to be the shorter of the two if you do everything at the table, and you don't cut stuff out.

Kingmaker has a kingdom building system that will take up whole sessions if you handle it in person only. Doing it over e-mail does knock some time out of that, but there's a LOT of exploration and mapping involved. As a player in one Kingmaker campaign and a player in another, it's several years to complete without cutting a lot of the exploration and kingdom building, and events out. The campaign I'm running is going on about three and a half years, and we meet three times a month or so, playing for about 4-5 hours. We're just now entering the sixth book. A little bit through, we've moved Kingdom building entirely over e-mail, and with the exploration, it still takes a while.

The less sandboxy APs like RotRL and (from looks of it) Strange Aeons, run faster because there's more rails to ride. I've been running RotRL two times a month, for about 4 hours per session, and we've completed the first two books in about 4-5 months? Later books might take longer but that puts AP time at about 1.5-2 years?

Thank you, that is very informative.

So I am wavering between starting one of two different APs for my next campaign, and given that my group only plays two Sundays a month, our campaigns tend to have a lengthy run time (about 2-2.5 years). Because of this, I am trying to get some vague idea as to the run times of the APs I am considering, and maybe trying to run the shorter of the two first. There may not be a clear answer on this, and I know other groups might have different play schedules, but I was wondering if anyone might have some idea of which AP would be faster to run through. Even if you just have an opinion rather than actual experience with either AP, I would appreciate hearing it.

The APs I am considering are Kingmaker and Strange Aeons.

Let me know what you think. Thanks.

Chiming in a little late here, but I'm going to have to disagree with Rynjin. I have a player in my group who runs a Fighter/Barbarian/Shadow Dancer with the Whirlwind build and it has been quite effective. Anytime there's multiple enemeis its been a very successful attack feat, especially when its a mob of badguys with low AC.

I just ran this encounter a couple weeks ago and I was expecting some of the same concerns, but my players proved to be very adept at planning for just such a possibility. They know they're going to go to the lake bottom in the submersible, and they know there may be skum down there. If they don't plan for a potential underwater fight, they're not very good adventurers. My party took the time to ask the owner of the apothecary to brew them all potions of touch of the sea which gives them a swim speed and their cleric prepared waterbreathing that morning before setting out. With those two spells, there was little hindrence to them fighting outside the sum, and in fact two of them rode outside the sub as it descended. I think it's meant to be a pretty difficult fight, so I'd enjoy it as a DM, since your monsters have a home turf advantage and are better geared towards fighting in that terrain. The PCs are a high enough level at this point that they should have the resources and abilities to survive it.

Yeah, I don't ever recall a summoning trap being tripped and then PCs getting a fullround before it actually summons a creature. I definately think the creature would appear the moment the trap is triggerd, I'm just trying to determine if it gets any actions prior to the first round of combat in the initiative order.

I have a question regarding traps that summon monsters (as the spell) and initiative. When a player triggers a trap that summons a monster, what kind of actions does the summoned creature get in relation to the start of initiative. Does it appear and then you roll initiative before taking any actions, does it get a surprise round, does it simply act first in initiative? Is this written anywhere or does anyone have any insight on this matter? Thank you!

I'm taking a different approach than trying to redraw the whole Schloss.

I'll be using verbal descriptions only to set up the rooms as they explore, and am going to stick to generalities such as "large room", "corridor wide enough for 2 men to fight abreast", etc., until they actually get into combat. Then wherever they are I will map with the teeny map as a guideline, and generally applying a 1.5 to 2 x multiplier.

I don't think there's a good way to convert the whole map, as some places don't need conversion (the living quarters or the alchemy lab) and some places are obviously in need of at least twice the space (the musuem), though they abut areas that are fine at current scale (the landing).

As they are unlikely to return to fight in any location after passing through, I think it will be fine to eyeball it on the go with what seems appropriate for the stuff that's described as being in the room.

You know, I kind of like that idea. Plus it saves me on having to draw out the whole map including spaces they won't be fighting in. I agree that there doesn't seem to be a consistent size multiplier that can be used over the whole location, so perhaps just sticking to drawing out combat areas might work best. Thanks for the feedback!

I know this was touched on briefly in the DM Reference thread, but I'm still questioning the dimensions of the Schloss Caromarc map. In the other thread it was argued that based on the dimensions of the map, certain areas would present cramped fighting areas with certain creatures in this part of the AP (mainly the gatehouse, or the museum, or the tower). For the gatehouse, I agree it makes more sense to have 1 square = 10 ft., but for other parts of the map this seems like rediculous proportions. Area H2 for instance would be HUGE with those dimensions, not to mention places like the master bedroom with it's 20 ft. long bed seem insane. What has everyone else done for map dimensions in this part of the AP? I wish I'd brought this up sooner as I'm starting this half of the AP on Friday so I need to figure it out quickly before I start drawing the map.

This was a problem for me as well. I had to actually prod and argue with my players to follow the lead of evidence pointing to Vorkstag and Grine. They'd tracked down the surgeon's tools to the Chymic Works before hand, but had written it off mostly when the were told to bugger off by Grine when they visited. None of them had training in Linguistics, so they couldn't find the writing on the burnt papers and only have the vial to go off of. The argument went pretty much like this; Players: why would we track down the manufacturers of some bleach found at a hospital?; DM: Maybe you shouldn't throw out any possible leads...; Players: Well then, maybe we should also investigate who built these water barrels, or the carpenter who installed these wooden beams? Apparently any names or business names you find at a crime scene are automatically suspects.
Heh, it was like the opposite of metagaming. Once they used speak with dead on Dr. Brada's head, they had enough to actually put some thought into investigating the Chymic Works. Problem was, they didn't feel they had enough to actually bust into the place or even tresspass (darn paladins!) Finally I had to have Gustav, who I presume was desperate to win his case, suggest that they tresspass with the hope that they'd find evidence that would justify breaking and entering.