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I've been running a campaign for about a month now that is 4d6b3 in order, and we're having a really good time. It can create some really interesting character concepts because of this generation method that you wouldn't see otherwise (17 Int). For our fighter (whose player wanted to play a melee fighter regardless of his 12 str), it changed the way he goes about the game. Instead of standing still making full attacks, he spends a good half of combats looking for ways to interact with the environment to help out: dropping chandeliers, shoving creatures into toilets, forming chokepoints. This method can also make some prestige classes (like mystic theruge or eldritch knight, or heck, monks more viable. As folks have said above, it works if the players are into it. If everyone is for it but one or two players are against, you could always offer them a different generation method. After all my players rolled their stats, I offered to let them place them in the order they want: no one has taken the offer yet. It also helps with this method if you lean towards being lenient with what the characters can do. For example, if our 12 strength fighter wants to climb a chain, I let him do it without rolling climb--this prevents some of the problem of someone with lower scores failing at the most basic tasks. During more difficult activities, like climbing a chain in a windstorm while having boulders dropped on you, I still ask for a check.
Name: Marshal Toof, son of Howl-of-the-North-Wind
The gory details:
The PCs had been cleaning up the fort with no major problems, when they ran into Hargulka and the rock troll at the same time. Hargulka's necklace made his first save against the alchemist's bomb, but not the second--which spelled the end for Toof, who had already been softened up by Hargulka, the rock troll, and the biggest of the fireballs from the necklace. Now whenever the alchemist throws a bomb in combat, all the other players wince. The party did decided to resurrect Toof using their scroll of reincarnation. Toof's player was nervous about rolling a new body that didn't have a bite attack, but the bastard lucked out--he came back as a new goblin. Name: Grand Diplomat Laurent Liacenza
The gory details: I played with the giant owlbear to make it more epic--making it a colossal, climbable monstrosity a la Shadow of the Colossus. Laurent readied an action to climb the owlbear's arm when it attacked, succeeded, and nearly made it to the owlbear's head for a good ol' eye-stabbing before he failed his acrobatics (by one!), fell a good forty feet, and was then picked up the owlbear, thrown across the room, and died. Like Toof, Laurent was resurrected, although raise dead was used this time to avoid any race shenanigans.
Name: Stone
My group is currently engaged in their third playthrough of KM. In the first playthrough, Bokken was fairly by the book--hermetic, a little redneck. Our third playthrough had Bokke (for he was now a she) as a hyper-active gnome who had built trapdoors all over her hut to pop in/out at odd times(turns out fangberries are quite the stimulant). This time I'm thinking of doing an older, mellow Willie Nelson-esque character. Has anyone else noticed that Bokken has enough adept levels to have a familiar? Not that it affects play much, but I was just curious if anyone did anything with this.
An awakened rat could make a really cool (if somewhat comical) BBEG. I could see it being a rogue (naturally stealthy as all get out) or some kind of caster (imagine the PCs trying to find who's blasting them with stilled, silent magic missiles)! I think this is a really cool idea. What led you to it?
1. Based off personal experience, I'd say go for it. May 1-1/2 times the regular wealth or so, to not make them uber-broken. I played in a campaign recently where the GM gave us far above our starting wealth, and it was fun as hell. And, it is a game after all, so fun is the goal. You could always up their APL a little to account for their extra cash. Plus, it sets up for your second question, which I think sounds like an awesome way to get your players to care about a storyline. Nothing motivates PCs like their wealth being stolen. :) You might even consider giving them the regular starting wealth, and then a pool of resource money, kind of like Kingmaker's BP that they can spend on bribing contacts, equipping contacts or thieves under them, paying for distractions, improving their base of operations, etc. 2&3. See above. I think that would be an awesome storyline, as long as you didn't force it, so the PCs felt cheated. I'd wait a few sessions so the PCs can get attached to their wealth before taking it away. Maybe drop some hints about the syndicate before then. 4. Also think this would be a cool idea. Building PC-NPC connections is a great way to get players involved in a campaign. 5. Heck yes. 6. Yes, but you might want to leave this mostly to the PCs. Maybe the NPCs give them like 40% of the info needed for a heist, and the PCs have to figure out the rest. A lot of fun of heist games is the stakeout!
This is a really neat idea. I'm yearning to try it out now.
I totally understand where you're coming from here, but I personally think the Paladin should be allowed once Vice. Imagine that nice meaty roleplay of the Paladin who is good-hearted, but full of himself or who accepts rewards a little too quickly. Now we've got some nice dramatic tension a-going-ons.
I have a session coming up soon where the PCs are about to encounter a dragon. I keep dragons extremely rare, and therefore, try to make encounters with them extremely memorable (read: challenging). The dragon in question is a Wyrm White Dragon. The party will encounter it in an enclosed space, so Fly-by tactics are out the window. I think it'd be cool to make it a caster, but I'm not sure how viable it is at this level. Does anyone have any advice for spells and feats? Here's the party line-up, if it affects things
Spoiler: Half-orc Barbarian
Human Ranged Fighter Human Zen Archer Half-Elf Sorcerer (pretty blasty) Dwarf Cleric Gnome Summoner (quadraped pouncy-style Eidoleon)
Funny story. I had a Clint Westwood gunslinger in a game once. The player was notorious for being unoriginal with names, so I was very impressed with this one that wasn't "Tim" or "Tom". It took me about ten sessions to finally realize (mid-game) where the name was coming from. Epic facepalm ensued.
First off, props on using the random encounter distance table. I played Kingmaker under a GM who did NOT use this table, and as a result we loss several party members to trolls and shambling mounds that spawned 20 ft from the caster (in plains). With this experience, I suggest leaving things mostly the same. Let the PCs reap the reward for being smart enough to outfit themselves with bows and horses. You could adjust the CR by a little to account for the ease. You could still include a few encounters that have been suggested here (hunt the players, encounters at night), but if they become the norm things become meh. After all, shouldn't the challenging encounters in Kingmaker be the stationary hex ones? Plus, as a player, it's fun to steamroll things every once in a while.
A lot of people seem to feel Assault on the Kingdom is a good pick-up-and-runner, but from my opinion, that scenario only works with prep. 0-5 Mists of Mwangi, 0-23 Tide of Morning, and 1-35 Voice in the Void are all good pick-up modules I've ran. Mists is probably the easiest to just pick up. I've also played in a game where the GM played 1-39 Citadel of Flame of his cuff. It was a little more difficult for him to run than, say Mists or Voice, would have been, but it was a lot of fun. A lot.
I've done this exact thing before in my campaign several times, and it has worked great. What I do is type up a specific script for the cut-scene. When it's time to whip out the cut-scene, have every player pick a role, and then let them act out the scene instead of you. Despite how much they hate them, my players LOVED getting to play the bad guys, and it was really fun for them afterwards: they knew the NPC was evil because of OOC knowledge, so they had to act like they didn't know in game, even though they knew (OOC) he was scheming against them. Very diabolical.. Hope this helps!
My players and I are taking a break from our campaign that's been running since late July. I'm leaving the country Sunday, and didn't have time to get everything ready for our weekly game. We'd still like to play, though, and our campaign is pretty serious, so something more light-hearted and easy was desired. Someone suggested I ad-lib an endless dungeon, starting at level one, and see how far the PCs can make it (leveling up along the way). I love the idea. My questions are these: How should I prepare myself for this? What tables, books, and other things should I have ready? Does anyone have any ideas for the actual structure of the dungeon? It need not be sensible or realistic, just fun.
James, what do you think are the five most important skills for someone aspiring to work in the table-top RPG industry to develop/have? Neat. I hadn't really thought too much about number three, but it makes total sense. Thanks James!
Very interesting. So if you're keeping track at home, this is what we have so far: Barbarian: 19
So far the winner is Fighter, followed by Barb, Rogue, then Monk/Sorcerer. I think it's interesting how popular the Monk is, in 3.5 I bet there would have been far less monks. And I'm surprised at the number of clerics, I expected more (although this is a small portion of the populace of PF players). Does anything else surprise anyone?
I was inspired to do this by another thread in this forum, which had a less numeric approach to this method. I want to see how common certain classes are, so I propose we take a tally of all the classes you have played, or all the classes that have played with you. I'll start: Barbarian: 5
Clerics, Barbarians, and Fighters are most prevalent in my campaigns. In fact, I think just about every game I have played in has a barbarian. What are your findings?
Thanks everyone for the input, I've stolen some ideas from all. In five years of playing Pathfinder/3.5, I've never actually played a ranged character, so I'm not quite in my element. However, I don't think my first post was clear enough. This is a character already made. When I made him, my intention was to make the regular cleric who might very rarely fire his bow (meaning he was built as a cleric- high Wis, not Dex). This is him. His feats are Extra Channel and Selective Channeling (once again, did not plan on him really being a ranged combatant). I'm definitely not an optimizer, but if I sprinkle Ranger into this build am I going to be able to contribute (meaningfully) to combat at all? Thanks again!
Last month I created my first PFS character, a cleric of Erastil named Tarius. Role-playing-wise, I have him all worked out. He's a very hands-on practitioner of his faith, going into the wilds to fight the unnatural and help the innocent, etc. The problem is, I have decided I want him to be a ranged combatant with a little bit of support. I was thinking of having him taking levels in cleric and ranger (maybe Guide or Falconer?). I love the flavor of the ranger. I know they're not the best classes to multiclass (and I'm not new to Pathfinder; I know it's a system that already doesn't help multiclassers). Does anyone have any advice about the feats, levels in each class, skills, etc. I should consider taking?
I am planning to run the three First Steps scenarios for the first time, one per week, over the next three weeks. My need for clarification comes here: If the characters have not picked factions yet, how do I report them? Do I just have to wait until the last one to report them all, or is there something I'm completely over-looking (as I'm sure there is)? Thanks for any help.
I've run into a bit of a conundrum. The setting my characters play in consists of dense forests, swamps, and other terrain that makes mounted travel difficult. One of my players wants to play as a Cavalier, but wants to switch the Cavalier's Mount ability for a more useful one and flavor appropriate one, namely the Inspire Courage Bard class feature. Is this an equal exchange? I was thinking Inspire Courage was a little more powerful, and could perhaps be remedied by also taking away a bonus feat or the like. What are your thoughts on the matter? |
