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I'm about to start GMing a playthrough of CotCT with my usual group, meeting weekly, this week. It's a 5-man party, but one player can't always make it (so far, we've got a Swashbuckler, a hunter with a dog, and either an Arcanist or a False Priest Sorcerer.) Any GMs who've already run through this got any advice about portraying Korvosa, any spots in the campaign they had "trouble" with, or just advice in general for making the campaign as enjoyable as possible?
So, I was glancing through the Ranged Tactics Toolbox when I came across the Juggler archetype. Their level 2 ability particularly caught my eye: Combat Juggling: At 2nd level, a juggler can hold and wield (in other words, “juggle”) up to three items or weapons in his hands. The juggler must be able to hold and wield an object in one hand in order to juggle it. . . . As long as he is juggling fewer than three objects, the juggler is considered to have a free hand (for the purposes of drawing a weapon, using somatic components, using Deflect Arrows, and so on) . . . It got even more interesting when I recalled the Firearm reloading rules. Firearm Reloading: You need at least one hand free to load one-handed and two-handed firearms. Is Revolver Ocelot a thing for anyone who does a 2 Bard dip now?
One of my players seems to be really strung up on prestige classing into technomancer eventually, to the point of them really not seeming to want to play much else besides it. I have to ask, though, is it a good idea for me to greenlight this? We've already received word that technology crafting won't come any sooner than Book 3, and the Player's Guide mentions it being a bad idea to take crafting feats. I don't want to shoot the player down entirely, but the Technomancer PrC seems to be pretty heavily focused around tech-crafting, and we've heard little in regards to the AP being friendly to that so far.
So, yeah - my party ended up biting the big bazooka midway through The Skinsaw Murders. Details on exactly how it happened below. The Details:
Suffice it to say, the entirety of The Misgivings was just a handful of bad decisions after another. Each party member managed to accrue some form of disease or ability damage, so they were down a bit there. They provoked Iesha Foxglove into a fight (even AFTER being given 2-3 warnings that what they were doing was a bad idea), but I had her run away after Aldern once the party scattered (partially because of the respectable amount of damage a revenant can kick out in one round).
They also ended up fighting ghouls next to the Yellow Mold. I decided to be nasty and take advantage of the fact that Undead creatures don't give any hoots about constitution damage, so the ghouls repeatedly triggered the spore clouds, and tried to drag smaller PCs into them - it took them 1-2 rounds to realize they should fight on the other side of the room, now that they'd given away their presence to the entire floor by shouting. So with each of them having Constitution + another ability score damaged, they decided to soldier on and try their luck clearing out the subbasement; cue several failed checks vs. Paralysis, and one TPK. So. Yeah. That happened. But I spent a pretty penny on this Anniversary edition book, so I'd like to get my money's worth out of it - I decided to throw away my usual rule of "a TPK means the campaign is basically over." Below are my ideas on how to continue on with the campaign at this point: Continuing the Murders:
The new party of PCs will be traveling to Sandpoint - together or individually - through the hinterlands, about a month or so after the original party died. I'll make a point of impressing on them how several farms they pass by seem deserted, and those that aren't are full of hardfaced men and women who stare them down while nervously fingering spears, dented old swords, and crossbows they carried into their fields with them.
They'll arrive in Sandpoint just in time to catch a memorial service for the Heroes of Sandpoint, who vanished a month before investigating a spree of as-of-yet unresolved murders; a great deal of hubbub is created, though, as Sir Faust (the object of Aldern's obsession!) appears! He proclaims that he was the only one of the party to escape, and he'd been quite busy tying up loose ends elsewhere in the region. Some of the townsfolk are leery of this upset, but the vast majority of them are overjoyed - "Faust" is, of course, Aldern Foxglove, scoping out his next marks. During the night, the fun begins - I'm thinking of running it similar to the "Night of the Ghouls" development; Aldern Foxglove, and then 2-3 seperate groups of 3-4 ghouls apiece, causing big trouble in little Sandpoint once the sun goes down. Once the heroes take him down, they'll find Xanesha's note and the keys for his townhouse in Magnimar on his corpse; but they'll have to act fast! A month before, they would've had plenty of time to save the Lord Mayor - now, he'll be dead within 4-5 days of their arrival in Magnimar, unless they do something about it. After that, the game continues as planned. Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?
A friend and I have been thinking of trying something silly - a pair of towershield-and-shortsword wielding Tower Shield Specialist-archetyped fighters. IE: Roman Legionaries. At first I was pretty hyped about the changes it makes to Armor Training - who wouldn't want an even higher maximum DEX score, and even lower ACP? Then I realized that the accelerated Armor Training doesn't matter at all - your max DEX is capped at +2 when you're wielding a tower shield. Is there any way to improve the max. DEX bonus for tower shields, and reduce the ACP? I've already upgraded it to Darkwood (which was a fairly big upgrade), but I'm not seeing any way to improve shield use further.
Now here's another weird thing; Samurai can select Weapon Expertise (Longbow) to gain some pretty nice bonuses and open up some good feats for their longbow use (this being a reference to the fact that Samurai served regularly as mounted archers) - they also get a free feat that reduces the penalties on firing a bow from horseback. However, you can't actually fire a longbow from horseback, negating (at least what I believe to be RAI) the reasoning behind both of those bonuses. Is there some sort of hidden longbow variant I'm missing here that allows them to fire from horseback, or should Samurai have instead gained Weapon Expertise (Shortbow) as an option?
The wording on this feat is a little wonky - it makes perfect sense for Oracles and Sorcerers, who are limited by the number of Level 0 spells they know. It adds another 2 L0 spells for them to cast an infinite number of times per day. But what do you do when you get to Clerics and Wizards, who already know all L0 spells by default? Are they, RAI, allowed to prepare another two L0 spells each day if they take this feat?
Is taking the Combat Casting feat worthwhile as a Magus? I'll be using a 20-point buy, so I'll be starting the game with 16 intelligence - that means to cast defensively, I'll be getting a +4 Bonus to beat a DC 17. That's only a 40% chance of successfully casting a spell defensively (like, if I'm in the middle of Spell Combat). With a measely two L1 spells per day, I can't really afford to lose a spell (I already know I'll have all the magic I'll ever want after L4, but I have to survive up until then first). With Combat Casting, my bonus to Defensive Casting doubles, making it a much more likely prospect that I'll get my spell off without being AoO'ed (which, with low level Magus AC, is a somewhat -bad- prospect). Now, I suppose I could just position myself 5' from a fight, wait a turn, declare spell combat, cast Shocking Grasp, 5' step in, get the free touch then swing - but that's overly complicated, results in me potentially wasting turns, and won't work every time. Anyone got any opinion on whether or not it's worthwhile for a Magus to take Combat Casting - or, any alternatives to help deal with the Concentration Checks for Casting Defensively early on?
Can Alchemists gain the benefits of Metamagic feats? Alchemists as "casters" kind of fall into a weird area that no other spellcaster does. They can't get crafting feats, but they can brew potions. They can make use of wands, but not scrolls. Then the natural extension of this question is: If so, can Alchemists make use of Metamagic Rods?
So, out of all the people who've started to run this, how many others have already had some (whether intentional or not) whacky stuff happen? Post yours below (with spoilers, out of respect for people who haven't gotten to play around with this stuff so far). Horgus Gwerm, Kenabres Shot put/Longjump Champion 4713: So, my players rather disliked Horgus right off the bat. Which is exactly what Paizo was going for. So rather than arming him with their spare club, the dwarf wandered over to the rubble pile and picked up some hefty rocks, depositing them in his hands with a half-sarcastic "Enjoy!"
Horgus proceeded to roll four critical hits with his rockthrowing. In a row. I mean, that's still only 2-4 damage, but the sheer luck of it impressed the players enough to give him an actual weapon. Unfortunately his luck didn't keep up, and after accidentally beaning a player in the back of the head with a rock, almost splitting the group apart by arguing with Anevia, and then delivering several disparaging comments to the "molepeople", the players were pretty sick of him again. Sick enough that when it came Horgus' turn to jump over the 10' chasm blocking their path on the way to Neathholm (after seeing the four players jump the gap easily, Horgus was convinced he could top these plebes without breaking a sweat) several of the PCs stated (out of character) that they hoped he failed his check. Unfortunately for them, he rolled a natural 20. The Oread Ranger shed a single stony tear at the glory of Horgus' paunchy middle-aged self launching himself gracefully over the pit. Horgus Gwerm. Kenabres Longjump Champion, 4713.
There're a few classes who, while lacking Martial weapon proficiency, specifically have proficiency with bows (shortbows for the bard and rogue, longbows for the inquisitor). Elves also gain bow proficiencies no matter what - but they specifically gain proficiencies with Composites as well, whereas the Bard/Rogue/Inquisitor make no mention of this. I also think I saw in one of the Kingmaker AP books, a creature that specifically had "Weapon Focus (Composite Longbow)". Just to clear everything up - for the purposes of Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, crit. feats, and Proficiencies, are Composite Bows counted as entirely different weapons from their base counterpart? |
