PJH's page

I think Quick Preparation is a good move overall. For folk who think it's broken something, it's worth remembering it was already in the game and Wizards were already taking it at 4th, so this is more gaining a feat than gaining a power.

The idea of a Wizard who can sit down (out of combat) and find the right spell for the job is thematically a good one, certainly moreso than having to stick a pin in your spell list in the morning and hope you made the right choices. "Yes, I do have a vast repertiore of spells, and I do know how to cast a floating disc, but not until tomorrow morning, sorry!"

Beats carrying around a backpack full of utility scrolls which did the same job.

I think a few posters have already pointed out the problem isn't Wizards, it's more that Sorcerors need something to give them more of a niche, they do feel a bit flat right now.

I love that Sorcs can choose multiple spell lists, but it's a thing that seems to go away at character creation. Perhaps opening them up to more spell choices would be the way to give them a strong and distinct flavour?

Either 1 of their spells per level known from any spell list, or perhaps +CHA of their total known spells from any spell list would give them a very nice versatility that other classes couldn't replicate, and make Sorc players feel like they had something to offer?

I also think that they should relax the Sorc heightening powers. Given their main theme is 'natural fountain of magical power', the ability to heighten more spells doesn't feel like it would break the class, and once again, it would give it some variability.

Overall, I liked the update. Not sure how Alchemy multiclass works with the new infused reagents though. Half what standard Alchemists get?

I think True Strike is a good example of a spell that could be expanded by the action system.

The spell as written is fine, but going up to 2 casting actions could be 'target other - range touch' and 3 casting actions could be 'target other - range 30ft'.

I think what they did with Heal and Magic Missile is great, and would love to see it expanded out to give a bit more flex to the system.

True Strike.

I just ran the Ruby Massacre (half way through actually), and I found it worked well using the 'terror strike' approach that we've discussed above.

1 - Having the devils disguise as PCs instead of Azatas made more of an impact on the group. Also they had fun seeking out and attacking versions of themselves.

2 - It immediately sparked efforts from the players to try and counter what they felt was a propaganda attack by Cizmerkis, so as well as fighting and saving people, they've been loudly trying to show that it's not really the Silver Ravens who are attacking, while Cizmerkis has been equally loudly shouting about saving the citizens from these foul terrorists (all while pretending the fight the other Bone Devil who was disguised as our party's strongest front line fighter).

3 - The players are already starting to plan how to deal with the P.R. battle they expect to happen after the fight ends, so this angle seems to have engaged with them fairly neatly.

It doesn't take a major rewrite. A bit of a change in speech from Cizmerkis, with him being interrupted by the Eyrines who flies in disguised as a PC and starts firing arrows at the stage, followed by Ciz screaming 'Lock the doors! Don't let the traitors escape! Protect the citizens!', and then all hell breaks loose.

Overall I think it worked fairly well as an alternative approach to the Massacre, especially when realistically we all know that some NPCs are very likely to escape alive, unless the players really mess up badly.

edit : I did one other thing. When I did the Barzillai Thrune 'gifts' back in book 2, I replaced the somewhat generic +2 stat items with more visual items, for example, one of our lot got a big black 2-h Warhammer with silver runes all over it. While quite a few of the players ditched the items as they didn't trust them, by arming the disguised devils with duplicates of these items it immediately clicked with the players and they've assumed that those items were a setup for this Massacre, which helps make Barzillai look a little smarter and sneakier as well.

Just about to hit the Ruby Massacre. So far everything has been going pretty good, players are having fun etc.

But as I'm prepping this, I realised I have a bit of a problem with the idea of disguising the devils as azata.

While I can see him wanting to pin the whole job on the Silver Ravens, Cizmerkis kind of blows this angle by standing up and giving a great big evil plan speech, after which his guards then lock everyone in to the room. So I don't get the point of the illusion spells.

Presumably he doesn't expect anyone to escape (hence the speech), so why bother disguising the devils?
And if he does think there will be witnesses (which explains the illusions), why confess up front to the entire crowd?

I'm leaning towards dropping the confession speech and instead have Cizmerkis play this up as a terror attack from the very beginning, so that just in case anyone does escape, BT can try and stick with his plan.

This also helps with the next book, because assuming nobody else knew about the massacre, I can't believe the various noble family heads wouldn't attend the party, and that means that he openly attempts to murder the heads of the families that do support him (Sarini etc). This way he gets to keep some plausible deniability going into the next scenario, so I can help justify why they don't abandon him in book 4.

Curious if any GMs who've gone past this point had any problems with this, or if I'm worrying over nothing and it just got brushed off by the players as a minor thing when there's more important stuff going down.

CRB wrote:

Fire: Nonmagical fire (including alchemist's fire) does not burn underwater. Spells or spell-like effects with the fire descriptor are ineffective underwater unless the caster makes a caster level check (DC 20 + spell level). If the check succeeds, the spell creates a bubble of steam instead of its usual fiery effect, but otherwise the spell works as described. A supernatural fire effect is ineffective underwater unless its description states otherwise. The surface of a body of water blocks line of effect for any fire spell. If the caster has made the caster level check to make the fire spell usable underwater, the surface still blocks the spell's line of effect.

Spellcasting Underwater: Casting spells while submerged can be difficult for those who cannot breathe underwater. A creature that cannot breathe water must make a concentration check (DC 15 + spell level) to cast a spell underwater (this is in addition to the caster level check to successfully cast a fire spell underwater). Creatures that can breathe water are unaffected and can cast spells normally. Some spells might function differently underwater, subject to GM discretion.

So he should be able to cast it without a problem since he can breathe water. You could maybe do some stuff with the electricity damage arcing more because of the water, or doing more damage, but that falls under the GM discretion bit.

I swapped it out for a wand of Diamond Spray. Slightly less generic and it felt like a better choice.

All good stuff above.

From my game (and some of the fixes I used) :

1 - Vary how the NPCs get introduced, far too many people just turn up at the front door. It's a running joke among my players that the Coffeehouse might as well have a neon sign outside the door saying 'Secret Rebel Hideout'.

2 - Consider tweaking Barzillai Thrune's plan. As it stands, this very intelligent villain has no need to take over the city. He'd be much better off just quietly buying an estate in the city, doing the ritual and settling down to a quiet life while he awaits godhood.
If you add a section to his ritual that means his power on ascension is directly based on his power inside the region while he was alive, he has a good reason to want to take over the city and crush all opposition.

3 - Rexus's early story needs a little tweaking as well. If he knows about the Monastery, why didn't he bloody well say something? If his parents left him a key to the place, you think he'd bring that up. I added in an external Archivist NPC who escaped and fled the city, returning to find Rexus and hand him both the key and the knowledge that there was a secret Archivist lair below Hocum's.

4 - Create your teams up front. Give them NPC names and basic personalities so that the rebellion feels a bit more fleshed out. I used Forvian Crow as the anti-hero rebel, he's the harsh CN mercenary who believes the ends justify the means, and he's a good contrast to Liara, Rexus and Octavio. Turned out to be one of their favourite NPCs so far.
Consider having each NPC represent a 'face' of your rebellion, be it revenge, idealism, freedom, desire for order etc, and let your different PC's get close to different ones that fit their philosophy. It can lead to some good RP.

5 - Tweak the Bleakbridge tolls. They get crazy, fast, and would in reality cause the city to completely collapse.

6 - I increased some of the early follower requirements for levelling up the rebellion, as otherwise a lot of GMs have found it goes a bit too fast.

7 - Try and introduce characters more, and earlier. BT's Lieutenants are basically faceless NPCs until the very end, so try and give them a bit of face time so the party has a bit more of a grudge going on.
Introduce Luculla, Hetamon, Setrona Sabinus and a few others earlier if you can so they don't feel quite as opportunistic. Luculla especially can be a good, slow burn for a betrayal NPC.

8 - My players keep wanting to map the sewers, and are paranoid about the open dock in the Wasps Nest. Consider some high level sewer maps or put a collapsed ceiling nearby to block it off. Given how hard it is to move around at night, your players may decide to make a raft and go exploring.

9 - I bought a few of those flip-scoreboard things you see on quiz nights, and set them up outside my GM screen. The first is for Notoriety, the second is for Followers. The players really seem to appreciate seeing those numbers move as they do things around the city, and it keeps the idea at the front of their minds.

10 - Give Octavio an Amulet of Non Detection, otherwise the players may feel paranoid that he'll get tracked and blow their cover, given his profile.

11 - A little foreshadowing is great. My Milanite has been having prophetic dreams about the Devil's Bells (which in my game are being used as a soul repository for sacrificed Milani worshippers, every time one is killed, the bell rings).

There's probably more, but those were a few of the obvious ones. Hope you find it helpful.

It's a great campaign, I think it's one of Paizo's best, with a great flavour and a good storyline.
But like most urban campaigns it needs a bit of legwork from the GM to get the very best out of it.

I made it an actual finishing school for girls.

More seriously, the Lacunafex bugged me, both in concept and in usage (or lack thereof) in the plot, and I wound up removing the organisation from my game. Instead the school doubles as a finishing school for noble girls, and an orphanage & school for elven and half-elven girls, who are trained as servants and staff for the nobility.

What Lady Mialari Docur is, is an old elven woman with a lot of connections, as her "alumni" are found among every major and minor power in Ravounel.

Pretty much the same here, I felt that she doesn't add anything to the storyline, and just kind of magically appears when the council is put together.

I sort of got the feeling that there might have been more to her arc originally, but it may have been put to one side due to space constraints.

PJH wrote:

Misroi wrote:

By the rules, yes. As you note, though, that's a terrible benefit, so I had it work anytime the players take the Recruit Supporters action. I don't think that unbalances things at all.

Same here, and it's working out fine. Although I did increase the supporter numbers for each rank based on other GMs finding that the rebellion tends to level too fast.

Is the rebellion going to count substantially everyone in the city among its supporters by Book 4?

No, I mainly upweighted the earlier levels slightly, tailing it off a bit more towards the end. It ended up being a small overall increase.

I also increased Kintargo's population a bit, partly to help make it a bit bigger than Vyre, and partly to allow the pop to drop off more as Thrune's presence has an effect. Given Kintargo's position, you'd expect a bunch of people to either move out to live with family in the villages as the proclamations bite, or if they are more itinerant workers to jump to Magnimar or Vyre where there is no Martial Law in force.

By the rules, yes. As you note, though, that's a terrible benefit, so I had it work anytime the players take the Recruit Supporters action. I don't think that unbalances things at all.

Same here, and it's working out fine. Although I did increase the supporter numbers for each rank based on other GMs finding that the rebellion tends to level too fast.

I would say no, because it states the bonus comes from special training in fighting Humans, rather than just pure dislike.
If it was a Morale bonus I would go with yes.

Although it's only a +1, so chances are it won't make a material difference to your fight either way, especially as if Scarplume sees through the disguise she's likely to prioritise Human targets instead. Good luck!

Anyone else's party end up recruiting the Faerie Dragon Vendalfek and have him move into the Wasps Nest *before* they uncover Blodrisette the Imp?

Vendalfek has Greater Invisibility, but only 3 times per day and cannot sense invisible creatures.
Blodrisette has Normal Invsibility at will, and can cast Detect Good.

My party did this last session and I'm just about to go into tonight's game and work out how this plays through...

Read and try your best to understand the final section of Breaking the Bones of Hell. Politics and mannerisms are easy enough to tweak if all you want to do is make a cheap point, but here we get into very particularized aspects of this specific character's personality, that color Barzillai's motivations and inform his actions. If you're really going to change the character, those changes should be reflected here, and reverberate in appropriate ways throughout the AP.

I would agree with this. During the Aria Park Protest I did have a few loyalists waving 'Make Kintargo Great Again!' signs, just as a throwaway chuckle, but that was it so far.

The proclamations et al are fairly anti-populist, I think it would be quite a rewrite to try and portray BT as more of a demagogic figure. I feel that BT is much more focused on crushing dissent and targetting internal enemies than in courting public opinion.

I have exactly such a beast in my current Hell's Rebels game, he's a Paladin of Cayden Cailean.

So far it's working really well. To be honest the game does not suffer if you treat Paladin as a class who dedicates themselves to the tenets of their faith and gains appropriate blessings and powers, losing those benefits if they stray from the path.

It's just a question of swapping out the generic Paladin Code for a set which matches the religion they have chosen to follow.

Am I missing something, or is the answer to the Mystery of the Devil's Bells just, "they ring every time an insane undead cleric decides to ring them"? Because my player who is building a character around the 'Pattern Seeker' trait is going to be mighty underwhelmed when he discovers that, many play sessions from now. The Player's Guide certainly plays them up as a more important mystery than that.

I suppose I could keep it that way to mess with him, and show him that sometimes there really just is no pattern, but it still feels unsatisfying. I'm also considering that, as a corrupted priest of Aroden, he can feel whenever a piece of Kintargo's knowledge or culture is lost, so that every time a book is redacted or a citizen dies, he feels the need to mark its passing.

Anyone else have ideas on how to RP this?

If you're not above a bit of side exposition, have the bells as an artifact item that was corrupted by the Church of Asmodeus, and Grivenner has been 'feeding' them with sacrificial souls of people who have transgressed against the church.

Repurpose one of the rooms in the Temple as a torture/sacrifice chamber, and maybe give the player some kind of artifact-style sidequest to either cleanse the bells, or to crack the bell and set the souls of the tortured people free.

Something like that, maybe? You could potentially build it up earlier in the campaign if you liked, maybe a divination that indicates that the soul of someone they know is trapped inside the Bell.

Just finished the first few sessions, which were my re-written expanded front end to the game. My players have been working as caravan guards for the Victocora who have been gently sounding them out as possible recruits for the Order. Now that Thrune is in charge and the estate has been burned down, the next session is the Aria Park Protest.

I have 5 players :

Camillus : Male Human Divine Agent of Milani, his family fled Kintargo when he was 10 years old due to religious persecution and he grew up in Andoran. Recently returned to Kintargo to fan the flames of internal rebellion in his old home city.
Passionate and forthright, he represents the pure heart of the team.

Severus : Male Human Alchemist, born and bred in Kintargo he is a city boy who graduated from the Alabaster Academy, and recently took out a large loan from the Temple of Abadar to buy his old Master's Alchemy Shop in Redroof (his 85 year old Master having sold up, retired and moved to Vyre to spend his considerable savings and remaining years on drugs and prostitutes).
Has a 'flexible moral approach' to business, Alchemy in general, and human experimentation in particular.

Aldo : A male Half-Elven Magus of House Jhaltero, he grew up both in Kintargo studying advanced Arcane theory at the Academy, and back home in Korvosa, where his Elven mother is an Arch-Druidess of considerable age and power. He has at least 20 brothers and sisters of varying ages, species and power levels (his mother is a real fertility type), including a Half-Orc-Half-Elf Barbarian, and a Half-Elf-Half-Badger Druid.
Intelligent and with a naturalistic understanding of magic theory, he is the most curious of the party members.

Montego : A male Aasimar Paladin of Cayden Caylien (yes, you read that right). This Charismatic but somewhat rogueish character is one of that most rare of breeds in the Inner Sea, a Paladin who follows Cayden. He has travelled with Camillus to Kintargo to help the downtrodden people of the city, and to strike a blow for his god against Asmodeus and the Infernal Church.
A truly good soul who is following prophetic dreams from his god, Montego sees the Paladin's Code as more akin to 'guidelines', but focuses on bringing the light to opressed peoples wherever he can find them.
(My game is fairly extensively houseruled, I allow Paladins more leeway than standard provided they Lawfully follow a code of behaviour that is acceptable to their god).

Alecto : Female Tiefling Ranger. Recently released from Deepmar Prison following a naval disaster, this monstrous and terrifying Tiefling is as Strong as an Ox, as Tough as an Ox, as Smart as an Ox and as Charismatic as a Gelatinous Cube.
Bitter and disillusioned with her treatment at the hands of the racist Chelish Military and her rejection by her Hellknight father, she is down on her luck and scraping a living working claw to mouth as a dockhand whenever the opportunity arises.
Recently reunited with some of her old friends, all she wants right now is coin and a warm bed, but once those are sorted, she may turn to settling a few scores....

My game is a fairly heavily modified 'Flintlock Fantasy' version of Pathfinder. It's set in a slightly more advanced timeline where society has moved towards the end of the Medieval period, so there are elements of gunpowder, industrial scale Alchemy and other similar advances, offset by the manufacture of non-consumable magic items being a dedicated full-time craft that is outside the remit of PCs.
Somewhat similar to Pirates of the Caribbean in terms of overall technology level, basically a re-imagining of early Renaissance society with Magic and Alchemy added to the mix.
My version of the Chelish Empire draws heavily on the worst aspects of the British Empire from the Age of Sail and the colonial period of the United States.

In my current game I wrote up a bunch of 3-stat, 11 point buy arrays (e.g. 14,13,13 or 17,10,8).

I wrote them all on pieces of carboard and put them in a bag. Each player picked out 3, kept the two they preferred and allocated the stats accordingly.

So everyone had 'random' stats, but everyone was 22 point buy. Nobody got quite the stats they wanted, and everyone had at least a couple of flawed stats, which as a GM I always like to see.

It seemed to work out pretty well, and the party are happy that nobody is over or underpowered, and everyone has a few interesting stat quirks to deal with as they level up.

This may not work for your game, but I (like a lot of other GM's) ignore starting ages and maturity speeds.

If you're an Elf then you're still 20ish like everyone else, you've just got a lovely long lifespan ahead of you. Otherwise you get into the whole strangeness of 30 year old elven toddlers, or 125 year old Rangers who for some weird reason haven't managed to progress past 1st level or pick up any meaningful skills.

Plus just have a chat with the player. Explain that one of the Campaign themes is the fact that Cheliax supresses its history so many people are unsure what actually happened, so for narrative reasons it would work better if his character didn't have an in-depth personal knowledge of Kintargo's past.

Most decent players will nod and work with you on making it make sense.

The difference is that when the PCs meet Rexus, he is revealed to have received the same note. Essentially, I plan to have the Rose of Kintargo being the one who has put this entire thing together and unless the PCs seek him out, he will never reveal himself. I would like the Rose to always appear to be one step ahead of them until the time has come where the PCs are so powerful that they can no longer hide.

That's a nice idea you have there. I went a slightly different route with this one. My game actually starts before Barzy shows up. This is partially to give a slightly better lead-in to the Protest, but also to help highlight what Kintargo was like before Martial Law, so the players have a chance to bond a little better with the city and get a positive feeling about it, the hope being that they'll be more invested in wanting it to go back to 'normal' after Thrune takes over.

Anyway, I have a Kintargo that is already on edge due to the events happening elsewhere in Cheliax, and my party are hired as extra hands/guards by the Victocora to help ship some books out of the city to a secure location a few days by cart to the North.

After the delivery (which includes a small goblin attack that I won't detail here), the players are paid in full, well treated and it's hinted that more work (and more money) would be forthcoming from their new possible patrons.

Events continue, and when the Protest finally arrives, Rexus's approach to the PC's includes the fact that his Mother had earmarked them as possible future allies, and given everyone else has just been burned and murdered, they're his only hope.

So we get a bit less of a cold open with Rexus, and hopefully the players are already feeling somewhat anti-Thrune, having seen their friendly meal ticket go literally up in smoke. And things proceed from there.

I've had similar thoughts. Thrune has a bunch of high level advisors who don't really crop up until the end, and I'm never a fan of having villains who only appear just to get killed.

So I've scripted up a bunch of non-combat encounters and rumours with Zella Zidlii, Grivenner, Kyrre Ekodyre, Trex, Izoni and Regegious to try and get them into the frame earlier in the campaign.

I may even sacrifice one or two of them as we go along if it feels right, rather than just have them all appear in a big lump in Song of Silver.

You can also take care of the home delivery questgivers by having them approach the Rebellion, rather than the PC's directly.

Let word soak back that someone has been asking questions, or have a minor rebellion NPC say that they were approached (or bribed, or threatened) by someone looking to get in touch with the leadership.

You can let the players set the meeting up on their terms, do the whole 'bright lights and shadowy figures' trope, but in reverse where the players are the ones being hidden.

I agree about the BT 'gift' piece, it sticks out a little bit for me and I'm still trying to work out how to tweak it.
Currently I'm thinking I may try and tie it into some kind of holiday observance or other ceremony where BT issues 'The favour of Thrune' to a much wider range of citizens, flunkies and the like, framing it as some kind of transparent and obviously biased PR exercise. Maybe he throws some kind of ceremony to celebrate his own (x) anniversary as Mayor, doling out gifts to notable citizens.

Then let the PC's get included in that, not realising the whole thing is just a cover story. (Not that they won't be paranoid anyway).

I had a couple of queries on the secession negotiations that I'd like to get a view on.

Firstly, the status of Anchor's End in Arcadia. I would guess that Cheliax does not want to let this key colony go, and that Ravounel doesn't have the resources to claim it, quite apart from the fact it's not in Ravounel proper.
Does this have any impact on the Vashnarstill family? The party seek their support in part 3, but the potential loss of their holdings doesn't come up as a factor.
I was going to assume they'd withdraw support if they weren't suitably compensated? How much would that Barony be worth?

Secondly was the status of Vyre. I get the impression it'a Free City, but it does fall into the borders of Ravounel, and it's actually bigger than Kintargo, but it doesn't come up in the negotiations.
Is the view that it's essentially a Free City state and therefore Ravounel has no claim on it, nor does Cheliax? Or is it meant to stay with Cheliax? If it goes with Ravounel I feel it would be a fairly major point, and the leaders of Vyre would have a lot to say on the matter as well.
My current planned solution is for Vyre to approach the party and demand they be given full Free City status inside Ravounel as a part of their support, and for Cheliax to demand free access to the city as part of their negotiations.

PJH wrote:

captain yesterday wrote:

Now I want to see if I can draw it on my Chessex Megamat. :-)

For the really big maps I pick up a few A1 sized 1 inch grid flipcharts and tape a few pages together.

Most of the Pathfinder maps will fit on an A1 1-inch flipchart grid, these days I prefer to draw mine out ahead of time rather than have to draw and erase on the Chessex mats.

This is basically what I do. I got a 27x30, 50 sheet pad off amazon (~26 bucks) and its lasted me from the end of book 2 to almost the end of the AP.

Way cheaper than gaming paper, and it doesn't have that clay coating that gunks up my sharpies.

I also found a few places online that sell very cheap 2D pdf drawings of furniture and other dungeon accessories in 25mm size. I print those out on adhesive label paper, stick it onto a sheet of 5mm foam and cut them out.

That gives me a bunch of reusable furniture counters that I can throw down on the map for chests, tables, chairs, bookcases and suchlike. It's very handy.

Now I want to see if I can draw it on my Chessex Megamat. :-)

For the really big maps I pick up a few A1 sized 1 inch grid flipcharts and tape a few pages together.

Most of the Pathfinder maps will fit on an A1 1-inch flipchart grid, these days I prefer to draw mine out ahead of time rather than have to draw and erase on the Chessex mats.

A few possible options :

a) The second in command returns from his/her mission outside the city upon hearing word of Octavio's death, the players now have a more committed (but more aggressive) personality to deal with who probably wants revenge against the Dottari and Thrune.

b) One of the churches or a similar powerful ally of Sabinus wants him brought back, and they have the resources to do so, but they need the body returned, setting up a recovery/exhumation mission for the players.

c) Same as (b), but without a powerful external ally, the other members of the rebellion drop hints about the loss of Sabinus, and how bringing him back would add the Order of the Torrent as a powerful ally, hopefully pushing the players towards attempting the recovery and raise dead plan themselves.

Hope that helps. Good luck!

I've put in a small flavour tweak to the Genius Loci ritual, adding in the element that the eventual power of the Genius Loci is in part based on the importance and influence of the individual to the area in question while they were alive.

This helps give a further justification for Barzillai seeking power and authority in the region, rather than just focusing on his ritual plans, as he'll become a more powerful Loci because of it.

I went the other way. My Cheliax is more of a diabolically influenced, evil-leaning version of the British Empire, so the names, attitudes (and NPC accents) tend to be reflective of that.

So in my version of the Inner Sea, their rivalry with Andoran and the Shackles plays on (and emphasises the worst traits of) comparisons to the British during the American revolution, and the situation in the Carribean during the Golden Age of Sail.

Anyone had any interesting ideas of punishment levels for getting caught breaking the curfew?

I'm running for an experienced group of 5, so I'm tweaking things up in most areas.
The odd extra enemy, a little bump in hp/damage for some of the monsters, etc.
I also shamelessly steal the 'legendary action' mechanic from 5e to help balance the action economy issue for single boss fights. I give Lieutenant fights an extra action, and major bosses an extra 2, at different initatives.

It does depend on your party. Class mix, system familiarity and RP vs Crunch bias will all move them up and down the power scale.

Best advice is to start slow and see how easy they find the fights, especially at low levels where it's easy to overbalance and players have little to no ability to recover from a death or a bad encounter.

If everyone is having fun, great. Otherwise, a gentle tweak upwards until you're happy with the combat balance is best. Try adding a level or two to the bad guys before upping the numbers, because extra bodies will slow down the combat turns. But given your party have 25% more actions per turn, sometimes you'll just need to give the bad guys some reinforcements to even things up.

Talk to the players too. While it's tempting to be an omnipotent GM, a casual chat and a bit of player feedback can be invaluable in getting the right tone for the campaign in the early days.

Actually they're really lucky he's as dumb (or crazy) as he is. A smart/sane villain would have avoided becoming Lord Mayor of anything and just moved out to Kintargo and lived a quiet, unhealthy life as a minor noble until they died of natural causes...

Less fun, of course.

I like the idea of minimum notoriety. I wish I'd thought to use that. My group has a notoriety under 10 nearing the end of book 2, and I'm starting to wonder if I've missed places their notoriety should have gone up.

What are you using as the minimum, PJH?

3 per rebellion level, with an eye to modifying that as we move up through the scenarios if need be.

I think 4 is doable in the later game. If you're on rebellion rank 15 with the city on the verge of open warfare, the chances that any citizen or Dottari guard in Kintargo is going to take a look at a bunch of lightly glowing PCs dripping in magic items and go 'Nah, no idea who you are, Guv' seems a bit unlikely :)

PJH wrote:

I made a modification, adding in a minimum notoriety score for each rebellion rank. If you have 800 supporters in the city (and more than that who will at least have some sympathy), there's going to be some talk, no matter how secretive the party is. Husbands will talk to Wives, friends will confide in friends. Arguments in bars about the merits of resistance, and of course counter-rumours from the Thrune ascendancy.

I think this misunderstands what Notoriety is. It's not how well the group is known generally, it's the group's profile with the government. A high-support, low-notoriety group would be one that is very good at keeping its supporters and members disciplined in how it spreads its message.

No, I got that, although I also use notoriety with non-Thrune citizens. Players have the ability to try and leverage their rebellion profile with sympathetic NPCs for advantages in social encounters.

Purely mechanically, the idea that you could have a rebellion with 2000+ supporters in a city of 11,000 and a notoriety score of zero didn't really work for me, not when the 'enemy' is mainly made up of locals who have families and friends in the city, rather than outside mercenaries or faceless Stormtroopers.
Plus the scenario itself is predicated on the idea of a slowly growing sense of awareness from Barzillai. He starts off ignoring the Ravens, then denying they exist, then grudgingly rewarding them, trying to frame them and finally outlawing them completely.

Using the system as written you could potentially have a notoriety score of zero all the way through those events, which I'm just not comfortable with from a narrative standpoint, so I added in a slowly rising minimum score, which represents the growing awareness of the Ravens among the Thrune forces at large.

Also like p-sto I modify for individual players. I have one shadowy vigilante type who is very low profile, for example. So he's not as widely recognised or associated with the Raven's activities.

I was a bit concerned about this too.

My group has a secrecy focus and they have been REALLY good about not drawing attention to themselves. Currently their notoriety is at 12 at the end of book 2.

I made a modification, adding in a minimum notoriety score for each rebellion rank. If you have 800 supporters in the city (and more than that who will at least have some sympathy), there's going to be some talk, no matter how secretive the party is. Husbands will talk to Wives, friends will confide in friends. Arguments in bars about the merits of resistance, and of course counter-rumours from the Thrune ascendancy.

Besides, a heavily secretive group is going to have trouble gaining supporters. People have to know about the Silver Ravens to be able to be recruited to the cause, after all.

The way I saw it, you've got :

Members (works directly for the Ravens)
Supporters (actively supports the Ravens)
Sympathisers (knows of and somewhat approves of the Ravens)
Neutrals & the Ignorant (Doesn't know or doesn't care)
Disapprovers (Knows and dislikes the Ravens)
Opponents (actively dislikes the Ravens and/or supports Thrune)
Enemies (actively works for Thrune)

You need sympathisers to get more supporters, so as the first 2 ranks get bigger and more active, the number of people who just don't know about the Ravens is going to shrink, and their minimum notoriety is going to increase.

That was my theory anyway :)

Rise of the Runelords, certainly. It's traditional in feel, has plenty monster variety (albeit a bit heavy on Ogres/Giants) and a ton of different dungeons.

Skulls and Shackles is very humanoid based and doesn't have a lot of dungeon crawling in it, I wouldn't recommend that one based on your criteria.

Avoid Hell's Rebels. It's a fantastic AP, but it's Urban and Social. There are dungeons, but not so many in the traditional sense and it's very heavily skewed towards Human opponents.

Runelords Anniversary edition was a fun run, but Hell's Rebels is far and away the best one for me so far. No contest.

Skulls and Shackles has a great concept, but the middle third is just a bit swampy and unfocused for my liking.

A question of sorts.

If you have a player who is a Milani worshipper, how much are they supposed to know?

The identity of the Rose of Kintargo seems to be more of a secret reveal (as well as a minor event in the first scenario), but is it intended that a PC Milani supporter resident in the city is 'in the know' about Haace and his activities?

I've made a few changes and expansions to the city, among other things.

First off, I've added in a significant businessman, a dwarf named Haak Gundersson. Starting off as a Blacksmith. After some success he got into the mining business to get his own ores at cost, and that then led to him operating his own freight business to move the ore to the city.
Once he had a reasonable number of employees, it became sensible to open up a couple of resthouses to provide overnight accomodation, and then that led to a tavern and eatery.
By now, Haak owns a shipping company, a hostelry, two resthouses, a tavern, three general goods stores and a smithy in the city, all under the name 'Gunderssons'. He's considering opening up a coffeehouse, given Kintargo's love of the new Arcadian import.

Known for his ever-present advertising slogan, "Is it Gunderssons?", this hard-nosed and hard-bearded businessdwarf is a potential ally for the Silver Ravens if they can convince him that his pocket is ill-served by the oversight of the House of Thrune.

Also, because my game has slightly more advanced gunpowder rules, there is a trading enclave from Alkenstar set up in the dock area. Heavily guarded and strictly neutral, the Alkenstar Warehouse is one part embassy, one part gunsmiths, selling high quality powder and carefully restricted firearms on behalf of the Alkenstar Gunworks.

My Dottari carry what are known as 'Riot Maces'. These round, studded metal maces come with a drawstring leather cover that goes over the head and turns them into nasty, but non-lethal subdual weapons in the case of unrest. The sight of Dottari guards taking out the leather covers is a sure sign that the situation is about to escalate into violence.

Finally, I also added in a Thieves Market that operates secretly out of the back room in an obscure fish-gutting factory known as The Red Mullet. The mullet reference is a running joke amongst the criminal classes in Kintargo (business out front, party in the back), and this is a good place to shift stolen goods or pick up items that aren't available through the usual channels.

Same here, I'm using it to cover things like the Glorious Reclamation, news of Martial Law in other cities, the repression of Iomedae worship and various other things.

Plus I feel the campaign pre-timeline is a bit squashed, so I'm stretching it out a touch to give time for Thrune to actually get himself established.

The biggest problem you'll have is with Boss fights, because of action economy. They'll get 6 turns to your 1, so either

a) Beef the bosses up with some LTs or other henchmen, or;
b) Steal a trick from 5E and give the bosses some extra actions so that they can do more than just heal or hit during a turn. (I tend to give 'Boss' characters 2 actions a round just to balance things out a bit more, without having to always add in backup mooks. It's always worked pretty well in practice).

For the normal stuff, just add the odd extra monster, or scale hit points up a touch and maybe add a few points of damage. I'd always recommend tweaking encounters by feel anyway, 2 groups of the same size can have very different power levels depending on class, gear and mostly the players involved.

If you aren't using the rules (or even if you are), a fun prop is to get one of those number flipcharts that people use for scores in quizzes and set it up next to the GM screen.

Flip the numbers as the Rebellion supporters go up and down so your players have a constant reminder of what they're trying to do, and how their actions are impacting the rebellions progress.