Ditto; no email but order is pending.
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Name: Szarlej
As a GM who is close to wrapping up Return of the Runelords, I can confirm it's a very good AP, especially if the group has played through all or parts of Rise of the Runelord and Shattered Star. There's been sub-optimal and above-par APs throughout the whole AP run and the current state doesn't look better or worse than usual. A lot of it is also a matter of taste. Remember the massive arguments around the time of Iron Gods, which I would consider as one of the very good APs?
Name: Azriel
He was promptly brought back to life by the cleric with a timely breath of life. (And that's not counting the death that was prevented by the steward of Stethelos a minute later.) Name: Akkumsah
(She benefited from Pharasma's divine favor cast upon the group after they took care of the Pharasmins remains one level above.)
Not that I feel the need to defend myself (although I guess I do), but I never said it was Xanesha's stat block that was. The tactic is listed in the tactics of a Hell's Vengeance NPC. Return of the runelords:
Maybe it's not legit but, honestly? It's a very nice way to have an effective and memorable NPC. Xanesha being ineffective isn't fun, it's anticlimactic, and it's boring. If you bring back the memorable NPC from that campaign from 10-years ago, you don't want them to be toothless. Given that the point of memorable NPCs is to have over-the-top abilities that aren't part of the normal rules, why not? Have of a ghost's abilities are made up anyway, and that could always be a special corrupting touch just for her that does double damage. Especially when the character are over optimized. It only cost the group a scroll of breath of life and it sure was a nice entrance into the module. And, anyway, cool/fun/tensed always trumps rules.
I'm kind of surprised you managed to survive even two books with merfolk ._. I mean, thats long time on land on aquatic race Oh the merfold is doing perfectly fine. Fins to feet sorts it out without most of the time. My group is heading to the Gecko next session. I have no idea how they are going to survive, even kited out with ghost touch weapons. I think their best best is the party necromancer and command undead. My group dealt with Xanesha thanks to the dirge bard merfolk who is able to use mind-affecting spells on undead. It took her something like 5 or 6 attempts but she eventually landed a terrible remorse that allowed everyone to pile up on poor Xanesha. Hopefully, your PCs think about fleeing if it becomes too much for them. Their obvious benefit is that they all know Xanesha is around and is a ghost, so they can come buffed to the gills.
Name: Akkumsah
Name: Ice Cracking in the Sunlight
Before the end of the night, Ice was raise from the dead at the Temple of Abadar, with costs entirely covered by the Sihedron Council as an apology for having booked them in the Gryphine in the first place.
For those interested in this campaign journal, we just started Return of the Runelords. The journal for that campaign will be here in case you'd like to have a look.
Glad you liked it, magnuskn. I hope you campaign goes well!
It's time for volume 3 of the Runelords' trilogy! Six years after starting Shattered Star, Varisia is at the forefront again. The marks the 7th AP I've GM'd with more or less the same group (Rise of the Runelord, until the end of "The Hook Mountain Massacre"; Legacy of Fire, Kingmaker, Shattered Star, Mummy's Mask, until the end of "Secrets of the Sphinx"; Hell's Rebels). The group of players is the same as for Shattered Star, with one addition. We have all played at least half of Rise of the Runelord (most of the players with me) and we obviously finished Shattered Star. The Sihedron Heroes will build heavily on the group that finished Shattered Star. The heroes of Roderic's Cove are:
The characters' point of view on the events of the campaign are over here. What follows are Audrahni's notes as things stir in Roderic's Cove…
My DM already has the first module’s PDF, yet still no Player’s Guide. The lack of Player’s Guide is literally blocking us from playing the game now. :( As your DM, you know that's literally not true, right. Just be patient, it'll come when it comes. Website being down and all. And if it's not this week, it'll be the next one! :)
Yes, the rebellion rules are simpler than the kingdom rules but I find they suffer from the same problem. Namely that you'd want to use them in-game so you can more easily mesh them with roleplaying, playing through the random events, but, at the same time, they correspond to so many "boring" rolls, they are so abstract, that they don't bring much to the table and you're much better off doing them offline between session. I still haven't found a way to reconcile these two facts.
I'm happy to say that I think I'm avoiding your cons. I decided to not use the rebellion rules (but kind of have them running in the background), and I plan on having the effects of the Soul Anchor be more obvious, which I'll be using Mangvhune for. (I've already hinted that something's up by using Blosodriette at she kind of remembers her life and I've made it so that she, herself, isn't evil even though she has the evil sub-type.) That may just work! I must admit that there is so much going on in this AP, sometimes, that I didn't pay much attention to the Soul Anchor until the final book.
Mangvhune though in the end of book 5 was one of the better sessions. After book four it started feeling like a slump and the interest was going down the drain. He kinda revived the campaign, hes irrelevant but at least he fires things up. Your players didnt care? Or you found him irrelevant? I found him irrelevant. I don't think the players grasped all the background about Mangvhune but they seemed happy to follow the bread crumbs and eventually fight him (he escaped in the end).
During the Ruby Massacre, at the end of book 3, a disguised bone devil pretends to be Barzillai. So it's not really him, but the PCs can think it is until it's revealed it's a mere devil. That scene also nicely segues into the final liberation of Kintargo. As for the rebellion rules, yes, you can easily do without them. I still assumed the PCs mounted a rebellion but just didn't use the mechanics after a while. There's only a couple of places with requires rebellion checks in game and they are easily replaced by PC skills (Diplomacy to gather information, Stealth, etc). Regarding your choice, I'd recommend Hell's Rebels over the two others. :) To me, Rise of the Runelords is nice but too dungeon focused and somewhat disconnected between modules (it's the first AP after all, despite the revision). That's why we stopped after book 3 all those years ago. And Carrion Crown, which I haven't GM's or played, feels way too episodic and gimmicky with its "one horror trope per book" premise. On the other hand, Hell's Rebels is crafted as one single story and campaign, which I feel isn't the case with the other two you mention.
After almost 2 years in real life, we finished our Hell's Rebels campaign yesterday. It probably took us about 200-250 hours over ~50 sessions. That's the sixth AP we finish, at least partially (after half of Rise of the Runelords, Legacy of Fire, Kingmaker, Shattered Star, the first four books of Mummy's Mask), and it's always the same long-term commitment and the same enjoyment to build a long story together with a group of friends! As usual, it was a lot of fun and both the GM (me) and the players had a lot of fun dealing with Barzillai Thrune. Thank you Crystal Frasier, Mike Shel, Richard Pett, James Jacobs, Jim Groves, and Amber Scott for writing these 6 parts to the AP, and most certainly to James Jacobs for designing and developing the whole AP! It's interesting that Paizo can still be more and more daring in their APs. This one was particularly well crafted, with the different parts echoing each other. It's really obvious here that the campaign was developed as a whole and that it's larger than the sum of its parts. We particularly appreciated the (mainly) single location, Kintargo, and it makes it so much easier to care about the story and freeing the city from the madman Barzillai. It also means that the AP has a very prominent cast of non-player characters who stay around and provide a solid background for the life in the city (Laria, Rexus, Lictor Octavio, Jilia Bainilius, Shensen, Captain Sargeta, Molly Mayapple, etc). The Lucky Bones are also pretty neat and help the PCs feel home… never mind the fact that it's one of those "secret" hideout everyone seems to know about! Barzillai Thrune is a very adequate Evil Bad Guy™️ and the fact that he's present from day one of session one is quite a change from the usual AP. What I found surprising is the ability of the campaign to not make him feel stale after being the BBEG for the whole campaign. It certainly helps that he's dealt with at the end of book 3 (at least it looks that way at first), 4, and 6. It's as if he'll never keel over! The rhythm of these encounters with Barzillai is really balanced and works well with the overall flow. Overall, the campaign was really nice and among the best I've GM'd for Pathfinder. There were quite a few tensed and difficult moments, but not quite insurmountable for our group of 3 very experienced players. In the end, we ended up with 4-5 deaths, but at levels for which it's more a hassle than game breaking. The group (cleric of Milani, swashbuckler, and unchained summoner) was quite powerful and ended the AP at level 16 and 1 mythic tier. Unfortunately, the final Barzillai went down in 6 seconds with a whimper. That would have been frustrating for another campaign, but since it was the third time they were encountering him or someone pretending to be him, it wasn't as problematic as it could been. I very much feel this AP is more about the journey than the destination. It's funny but I never felt that GM'ing any other Paizo campaign that all tend to build towards a final, epic clash, and I'm not quite sure where it comes from. Maybe from staying in Kintargo for so long that it kind of feels home, maybe because Barzillai has been around since the beginning and changed about as much as the PCs during the period of the AP. There's a few things I would do differently if I were to play it again (not many) but there were mainly a lot of enjoyable parts to this AP. So here goes for the pros and cons list… Cons:
Pros:
As for the specific volumes, here's what I thought as the GM:
So that's for the last two years of GMing. Soon we'll likely relocate to Nirmathas and my players will face the advance of the Ironfang Invasion. That should remind us of our past Kingmaker campaign!
That's exactly what my PCs did, which unexpectedly ended the campaign. But I liked it since it was a beautiful way to show that the story changes from the PCs' actions. That makes them feel important. Overriding their actions to get book 5 to trigger irrespectively would have felt like a cheat to me.
Books 3 and 4 are turning out quite deadly for our group. The obituaries so far, half-way through Secrets of the Sphinx… Name: Nekepti Balāt Aššarratum
The group was not particularly secretive about their search through the city's libraries so the Sacrosanct Order of the Blue Feather made their move and sent assassins after them. They struck in one of Tephu's busy markets as the heroes of Wati were stocking up on well-needed ressources. Before anyone could react, the frail Nekepti was brought down by the numerous stabbings of two assassins. As she lay down on the floor, bleeding to death, one of the assassins sliced her throat before attempting to flee. The vengeance of the group was terrible and not one of the paid killers survived. Nekepti was later raised from the dead that same day at the temple of Nethys. The assassins only succeeded at stalling them for a day.
Name: Uššannar Haptessu
The group had dealt with the bodaks with great tactics, triggering them one by one and destroying them swiftly. They were getting ready to cautiously proceed further into the Sightless Sphinx, where they had heard some incanting seconds ago. The invisible cultists of Areshkagal attacked before they could get further, though. Swift as the wind, they cut down Uššannar before anyone could react. Before Uššannar's soul could depart for Pharasma's realm, the group's Oracle, Sharifa bint Hasina Fal'as ad-Dīn, breathed life back into him.
Name: Nekepti Balāt Aššarratum
Empowered by the destruction of her bodaks, the undead priest of Areshkagal burst out of her tomb to meet with the heroes of Wati buffed to the gills. Her first move was to cast destruction on the bard, Nekepti, who proceeded to fail her save. Unholy fire consumed her completely and all that remained of her was a small pile of ashes. Her bodyguard, Uššannar, carefully scooped up what was left of her and the group, beaten down, retreated back to Wati to get her true resurrected.
Should I be worried that I never received the email spawning the order for my December subscriptions? There is a December subscription order showing as pending in my history, though, so I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Thanks Sara, and sorry about that, I did find it in my spam folder. First time it happens, which is why I didn't look there in the first place. :)
Should I be worried that I never received the email spawning the order for my December subscriptions? There is a December subscription order showing as pending in my history, though, so I'm not quite sure what to make of it.
I bought all the APs and I ran about a quarter of them. But I've read almost all of the ~100 volumes published by Paizo. The pleasure I get in reading the AP volumes is a major reason why I am still a subscriber and happily buy them each month. So I fall straight into the category James describes. More importantly, if they weren't enjoyable to read and get into, I probably wouldn't run them either! So making them easy to read is certainly important to me. I tried reading some more structured modules from other publishers and, more often than not, I can't get beyond a few pages because the very structured and supposedly helpful format makes them boring to read, even with the goal to run them. And if the GM is bored when reading the module, I can't imagine a good outcome at the table later on…
With my group, it usually takes us 150-200 hours of gameplay to wrap up an AP. We finished 3 so far.
Hey Moonbeam! I fondly remember this fight with my group too and how many problems confusion caused to them. Lost the barbarian to it (see above in the thread), which turned into an incredible race against Ashamintalu all throughout the dungeon so the group could recover his body and the loot! Any chance you're doing a journal for this campaign? :)
Yep, looks like you should talk to your GM instead of blaming the writers. :)
Okay, great! I guess I really wanted to get the free pdf as a subscriber… ;) Thanks for the quick reply and for sorting it out!
I see two Strategy Guides listed for my March order but I'm pretty sure I only pre-ordered one. Is this a bug in the display or a double confirmation when pre-ordering? Either way, is it possible to correct this so I only get one Strategy Guide? Thanks!
Yes, Kingmaker looks like a good fit for your needs. Most of the AP takes place outdoors and mounted PCs can have a real good time! There's also a few very mean dragons or dragon-like creatures towards the end.
Well done wrapping up the AP! It's one that I'd really like to GM for my group but, unfortunately, most of them already played it.
Except that WotC will never allow it. They already didn't allow Paizo to release the pdfs of these Dungeon issues. So the only option we have is to go back to the magazines. :)
Yes, that's correct.
Got it, thanks! :)
I played this AP with 4 players and a 15-point buy. It was sometimes a little tough at times in the first book or two but it worked great overall, especially since this AP is set up to have a lot of one-encounter days for which the PCs can use most/all of their ressources. That de facto makes them more powerful than in a regular game when they'd likely have to manage their spells and abilities more cautiously.
I'd be interested too, if you don't mind (nmartin at mac dot com). :)
You should probably contact customer service, Lisa. Dropping a message in the customer service part of the forum is usually quicker than sending them an email.
Thanks for the quick reply and replacement! :)
Hi Paizo! It's been almost two months, now, and I still haven't received my September subscription package (AP#86 and Undead Unleashed) so I fear it unfortunately got lost somewhere. I did receive my October subscription which was sent a month later, though. Can anything be done about this? Thanks! :)
Have you thought about simply keeping them on the Medium experience track instead of the planned Fast track of RotR (or the equivalent if you're not using XP)? That should keep them about one level below requirements after level 3-4 and could well compensate for you having 6 players with a 20-point buy.
You can run Shattered Star without having ran the other three APs. It helps to flesh the background and the main NPC's motivations, but it's really not an absolute necessity. When I GM'd ShS, we had only ran half of RotR and I roughly explained the outcome of CotCT and SD, keeping it vague enough so that we could play these at some point if we want.
Well done! How did the final fight against Nyrissa go?
Let me join the chorus and congratulate you on finishing this campaign! :) I still hope to run it myself, one day, maybe using Mythic Adventure to convert the final NPCs to Pathfinder… One day… Maybe…
Is the "Strong Life" ability of the spiritualist investigator archetype supposed to be a level 2 ability? Contrary to the usual format, this ability does not have the "At x level,…" phrase.
Or closing your eyes and fighting blind. One chance in two to hit instead of one in number of images.
Well done! How did it go in the last book and encounter? My group and I found it was a little too easy towards the end but we still had a lot of fun throughout. :)
Well done! It's always quite an achievement to finish an AP, especially Kingmaker! :)
If I'm to GM this campaign, I would likely only be giving half the planned Mythic tiers so the PCs end the campaign at level 20/tier 5. I would also likely tweak a few feats, like Mythic Power Attack so it's doesn't yield additional damage on a critical hit.
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