Nimyue's page

I'm hoping I can get some suggestions for a short-duration campaign.

I want to run levels 5-10ish, something that's around 2 pathfinder AP books.

Are there any 3rd party adventures that come to mind? I saw the Tales of Old Margreve and thought to make a campaign from some of those adventures.

Are there any APs in which the first book can be fairly easily thrown out/summarized and begin in book 2?

I have players who have already done Reign of Winter, Jade Reagent, and Kingmaker... so I'd prefer something else.

Thanks in advance for any input!

I noticed it right way. The Librarian in me was flabbergasted. Ah well... so it goes.

I'd rather Paizo saved the money, than delayed and corrected it.

Yes how we play is:

If you only move 5ft total: No AOO

If you move 10ft, you provoke at the initial movement if it's a threatened square.

So, in this case if the monster moves 10ft, his first 5ft movement provoked.

I've read through Carrion Crown and it looks AMAZING.

I'm running Reign of Winter, and I really like it, but that's because me and my group is really into Russian themes.

If it's your first AP Rise of the Runelords is nice because it will only pull from the Core Rulebook and Bestiary 1... it's rather annoying how many supplement books RoW pulls from.

If Rise of the Runelords doesn't appeal to your group, I'd go through them and decide which one has themes that draw you in. Does working with Baba Yaga excite your players? Does running through a horror themed campaign excite them? Do they want to play Pirates? run through the Jungle? etc etc...

Essentially, pick an AP that everyone at the table can get interested and invested in.

Reign of Winter is pretty alright for a mount. I'm guessing Kingmaker is better, but Reign of Winter is on a very large scale. Many of the dungeons/buildings are really very very large.

We have a fighter who is on a large mount, and occasionally he has to walk on his own, but it hasn't been a huge issue.

Back to the OT, I actually prefer 15 point buy. I can see why PFS uses 20 - in a group of basically random composition, you need the extra power to compensate for possible lopsided parties. But a group that works together well magnifies their power, and 15 points is plenty in that case.

This basically!

As a gaming group we usually end up being very well rounded. We naturally all want to play something different than anyone else in the group. So our groups end up being very balanced, and when working together we are quite powerful. We recently played a game where our arcane caster was missing, and the difficulty was much much greater. So, if I had a group that was obviously unbalanced, I'd probably do a 20 PB to give them a bit more power to compensate.

My gaming group started out doing 25 PB or stat arrays. We've sinced moved to 15 point buy.

For one, it's nice fight encounters of equal CR or 1 higher rather than 2 higher to give players a challenge. There are a lot of benefits to this. When we had 25 PB characters the DM had to pit us against CR2 or higher encounters to even challenge us, but at that point if the DM crits on 2 attacks, they have just killed the fighter. In order to have challenge at all, the challenge becomes very steep. With a 15 point buy, we can go up against CR equal or +1 and it takes a monster at least a few swings to kill us, and cannot just kill us outright. It's more difficult to defeat the encounters, but there is enough time to retreat at least.

Also, I like stat dumping or at least characters that are only good at one or two things. I like having a varied group and when we need to accomplish something, we have to work together. Also, when you are the only one who can identify and item, have knowledge skills etc your character gets to really shine. This also makes the Barbarians and Fighters stand out in combat.

I guess it depends on how you run the game as well what PB you use. But for our group, a 15 PB has increased difficulty enough to create challenge without creating an opportunity for a monster to kill a fighter in one round, and has simultaneously made it easier on the DM to plan encounters without having to tweak so many things.

As far as stat dumping, we've really had fun RPing out our weaknesses, and it has made for some hilarious moments.

Inner Sea Magic. I swear there are so many monsters and NPCs that use it that I wanted to pull my hair out not having it. You could just get a pdf online though, that would do it.

I was going to build a model of Spurhorn for my players to use (I have lots of time between sessions), but I just did the math and just the fortress is 4 feet by 7 feet. HOLY MOLY! Ok nevermind...

I guess it's cool for scope for the players, but if it had been smaller I would have built it.

How did everyone deal with these huge maps on the table? (We don't use a projector or map programs)

I don't think I have a battlemap that big and I think it'll take a whole roll of gaming paper. I'm thinking of printing it on a smaller scale, and using a combination of push pins on the small one and the battle mat for combat encounters. However, I really want them to feel the scope of this place.

Skeld wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

That said... it's not a reward for doing nothing. A DC 8 Climb check might soudn low... but at 1st level, it's not going to be an auto success. Hell, when you factor in no class ranks + armor check penalties, it's hardly an auto roll for higher level parties. I've seen plenty of paladins and fighters at 8th level or above have negative scores in their Climb skills.

In "There Is No Honor" (the opening chapter of the 3.5e Savage Tide AP from Dungeon mag for those not familiar), I had to throw a PC a bone when she failed on 3 consecutive rounds to climb the DC5 knotted rope from a rowboat onto a larger ship. Level 1, heavy armor, not terribly strong... it makes that DC5 a lot tougher than you'd think.

-Skeld

Indeed. I had a 5-foot high platform in a game I was running that pretty much shut down the group's paladin, who lacked both any ranks in Acrobatics and Climb and was wearing full plate armor. He was about 9th level at the time, but still had a penalty on both checks.

Yeah I have to tell you, those seemingly low checks... were very interesting for our party.

As a player, I loved the story awards and getting to level a character from 1-7. There are a ton of modules already that go through 1-2 levels. This was a nice change of pace. When you take a character through that many levels, you become attached to them and the role playing is better.

I had a blast playing this module.

If you were going to use it to begin a campaign, I can see making it more difficult and adding more story hooks; but if you are just playing it as is, it's great fun.

Use this.

That is excellent.

Thanks all! Those are really good!

I'd love to at least be able to purchase a pdf where the computer nonsense is done for me! For example, I buy interactive maps and in the pdf there are maps included at 1" scale so I can print them, that'd be wonderful. Although, I guess it doesn't hurt for me to try to learn some photoshop skills :)

For reasons that will take a long time to explain, my PCs are doing the celtic knot configuration when the hut lands in Iobaria at level 10. Because of this, for the test of strength, I'm putting in an adult White Dragon (now it won't be burrowing or flying so the CR is effectively lower I know). However, I need a new riddle.

For anyone not familiar, they need to recover a piece of the monster and the answer to the riddle is that piece.

Does anyone have any ideas?