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I'm going to launch a new CotCT campaign soon, but two of the players aren't available for 6 more weeks. So I want to run some fun scenarios/modules for the other 2 players until the official launch.

Any suggestions of what to run? Things that help flesh out Korvosa would be awesome, but even fun ones that fit the mood of CotCT but aren't within Korvosa are cool too. Or ones that can be adapted.

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Her ghost is attached to her home.

If you do that, you'll need to either come up with a reason for the PCs to keep coming back to her home (which I guess could work if it sets them up as a headquarters, but it'll cause trouble during Chapters 4 and 5 when they're out of the city) to see her and get their Harrow readings and the associated bonuses, or give her a LOT more traveling leeway than most ghosts are assumed to have.

As written, she's bound to her cards, which is what allows her to be able to travel with the party.

True. I meant bound to her home until the cards can be retrieved, then she's bound to the cards. Of course I'm just digging into the AP, so there may be other things I need to fix there.

I'm considering extending the beginning a bit as well, and I like the idea of the PCs helping her find him. I think the solution I'll use is that Gaedren simply killed Zellara and took her head from some other location, so Zellara has no idea where her head is. Her ghost is attached to her home.

As much as Shattered Star is grabbing me, I think I'll try to do the whole run. Run CotCT now, and then hit Second Darkness, and then SS. They are all nifty.

I tend to cut out a fair amount of the dungeon crawling, keeping only meaningful combats/encounters, so I think I can run them on a decent timeline and not take the next decade doing it ;)

While I haven't read it thoroughly to be sure, I believe Kaer Maga does show up in CotCT.

That said, having read all the way through SS, it was the AP I started my subscription to get, the reference to Second Darkness is minimal whereas the reference to CotCT is, effectively, an entire chapter, more if you count the time spent in Kaer Maga. The entire second chapter is essentially one long ode to Crimson Throne.
This is not a complaint by the way.
If you intend to run Crimson Throne at all I would recommend running it before SS. If you run it after, there is significant risk that your players may feel 'cheated' of some of the events in the AP, I.E.: They will already know that Queen Ileaosa is the 'bad guy' when they first are approached by her agents and other things.

Ah, that's the kind of info I was looking for, thanks! I'll have to read my CotCT stuff again, I missed Kaer Maga.

I don't know much about SS, but COTCT is one of THE BEST APs - if not THE Best - that Paizo has ever put out. I HEAVILY recommend running it. It has some of the best plots, some of the best story, and some of the best characters in the entirety of Paizo's history. You will not regret it.

To be clear, I'm not asking if the prequel APs themselves are worth running, but rather it is worth running the prequels *before* SS. How much does running them add to SS?

CotCT is probably what I'm going to run, but SS looks really neat too (Magnimar and Kaer Maga are two of my favorite cities, whereas Korvosa doesn't grab me at all.)

So I find it interesting that Shattered Star takes the events of RotRL, CotCT, and SD into account. They all look interesting, and I'm trying to an AP to run for my group. I've run a heavily modified RotRL for them - is it worth it to run CotCT and SD before SS? Does it make SS more fun? Or are the connections only slight and rather superficial?

What's a good AP that uses bunches of "funky" monsters? And not in a "here's one in a room, kill it" what, but weaves them into the AP so that they make sense. Bullettes, Intellect Devourer's, anything beyond the standard.

I've asked this elsewhere, but I want opinions directly from those that most use the system. How is Pathfinder faring with caster/martial disparity these days? The "Linear Fighter, Quadratic Wizard" issue, or the fact that at higher levels (even at mid levels) casters dominate. Another name is CoDzilla (Cleric or Druid). Basically casters can perform as well as martial classes, but then have a whole toolchest of spells on top of it (teleport, fly, Ddoor, etc). Plus a lot of martial functionality relies on full attacks, but a moving opponent prevents such things (a big blow to Monk in particular), whereas a caster has no such issues.

D&D 3.5 had big problems with it, and PF core rules alleviated the rules a bit. But now with the Advanced Players Guide and other mechanic additions, I just wonder if things are better at all.

I'm curious both hypothetically (from a build perspective) and practically. In your campaigns do optimized casters run roughshod over the martial characters?

I remember in one high level (15ish) campaign of 3.5, 4 of the PCs (Monk, Warlock, Paladin, and Ranger) took out 2 Vrocks while the Cleric took out 4 others by himself. That kind of stuff.

Thanks!

Pick a fitting organization that doesn't want Cheliax to get a foothold in Shackles, have them hire the PCs to go become "pirates" and find out what Cheliax is up to and find a way to stop them. Thuvia or Rahadoum or even Absalom all would potentially work. Absalom is probably the easiest.

Legacy of Fire basically has one.

Things have been going well - although I ended up changing things greatly to fit the setting and the characters more. RotRL basically became a toolbox to plunder for things I need.

Savage Worlds has been working very well, overall. The group largely enjoys it and it moves along smoothly. A big thing difference, however, is that Savage Worlds does not do Big Bad Guys well. Savage Worlds is more about lots of opponents, so you need to "layer" your Big Bad Guy because if 4 adventurers step up to that BBG, the BBG will die *fast*. At best the BBG has 3 Wounds and 3 bennies, and not a big ole pool of HP to wade through. So I have to change encounters for this - basically once the group engages a single foe, that foe's time is done.

I'm thinking of switching to Fantasy Craft because I miss the 1-20 progression. Savage Worlds has a Novice to Legendary progression, but it doesn't feel the same as d20. Overall I really wish I would have set it in Golarion instead, because switching systems proved relatively easy, but switching settings was really annoying - you constantly have to fiddle with locations and distances, names often feel "wrong" (my group still find Shalelu to be a funny name in a Nordic setting - they call her "Shanaynay"!), and just all kinds of things are off.

Shadow Absalom

Awaiting-Consumption

What are these?

Quantium sounds interesting - is there anything about it anywhere but the Inner Sea guide?

Shoot ... I went and bought Katapesh, which is awesome, and now I'm split about which one I want to go with for my next campaign. Maybe it is fortunately Magnimar isn't out yet ;)

Read more Kaer Maga last night, and man that place is awesome. The on thing that doesn't make sense to me is that Kaer Maga only has 8,000 inhabitants. Square footage wise, the city is at least the same size as Korovsa, and definitely bigger than Magnimar. Plus the place is described as being very dense. Seems like a population of at least 20k would make more sense.

Meh, it's my world now, and so I'll just boost the population anyway ;)

I wish the Magnimar guide was out *now* (insert petulant whine here), because that city is also nifty. However, for the campaign I'm thinking of (kind of like Terry Pratchett's Night Watch stuff) Kaer Maga fits really well. Well, except for the lack of a night watch, of course ... have to figure that part out ;)

How's Katapesh? Worth getting the guide? Arabic feel would be a nice change...

I'd go Magnimar, Absalom, Katapesh, or Goka depending on what particular style you want to go with.

There's nothing on Goka really, is there?

I'm leaning towards Kaer Maga or Magnimar currently. Kaer is a touch small, but very cool. Magnimar seems cool, but I'll know more in July ;)

The next campaign I run is going to be city-based, although probably not an adventure path (I may steal from one or more, however). I'm scanning through the various offerings in Golarion, and was wondering which ones are favorites, and why people like them.

Thoughts?

I'm very much interested in this as well - as I'm considering running one for my wife.

Any thoughts Paizo Veterans? :)

Are the NPCs well described in a single location? One of my complaints about RotR is that while there are NPCs, they are haphazardly described here and there, so if you have to look up information on them, you need to scour the document, and much of the time the info isn't even there.

CotCT comes up a lot as people's favorite, but it makes it more appealing to me that it is because of the strong RPing potential. Is the first book of that series a good example of the kind and quality of NPCs for the whole series?

This is a variant of the "suggest an AP" thread. My group loves interacting with NPCs, it is undoubtedly their favorite part of RPGs. I'm on Book 2 of Rise of the Runelords with them, and so far I've been a bit disappointed with the NPCs - they're ok, but a bit dull. I really like the AP format, though, and it's proven a great springboard for my own style of GMing (which is largely improvisational).

So I ask, what AP (beyond RotRL) has the best NPCs? As in the most fun for players to interact with, and fleshed out in the AP itself.

I'm about mid way through the first book of Rise of the Runelords (run using Savage Worlds) and I really am happy with the choice. The material is top notch, even if on the verbose side. However, one thing that bugs me is there is no NPC list, with personality traits, physical descriptions, etc. NPCs tend to be described rather haphazardly (except for the Kaijitsu family), and I really wish there was an easy-to-use GM chart that laid all the major NPCs out. I know RotR was one of the first - do the later ones get better at NPC descriptions and compiling the info in one place?

So I started by "Rise of the Runelords" AP set in Hellfrost using Savage Worlds on Sunday evening and it was a good start. I've been trying out all kinds of game systems over the past few years, and I have to say it feels good to be back to Savage Worlds. To me it actually feels like AD&D2 done right ... or something ;) What I mean by that is in hindsight, AD&D2 was the system my group had most fun with. I'd say five out of the top ten campaigns we've played were in AD&D2. However, looking back over the rules, there are things now available in "modern" games that I enjoy that are absent. Savage Worlds seems to catch a lot of the flavor and fun we had in AD&D2, but adds to it.

As for our first game on Sunday, it was rather short for various reasons, but we still got through about 3x as much stuff as other games I've run recently. My wife glared at me when I started a combat with only 15 minutes left before the game was supposed to end - 10 minutes later we were done, and it was a fun combat! 6 monsters (furies) vs 4 PCs and 7 NPCs.

As for Hellfrost itself, all the players really took to the setting. It's the first "vanilla" fantasy setting I've run in many, many years. Besides a very small campaign 6 years ago, I don't think I've run vanilla fantasy since the late 90s.

The group is:
- Human (Saxa) man Road Warden swordsman with a ghost following him around.
- Human (Saxa/Tuomi) man Grey Legionnaire priest of Rigr - (think "Rooster" Cogburn from True Grit)
- Human (Saxa/Finnar) woman Ertha Elementalist of the Reliquary.
- Frost Dwarf crossbowman/Rune Mage (arrow rune, of course!)

I ran a prelude adventure from the Hellfrost Encounter Book 1 ("The Price of Sin") as an opportunity to get the characters together before getting to Sandpoint, and to introduce an NPC capable of magical healing. That worked out great, and next session will have them getting to Sandpoint.

As for Rise of the Runelords, well I haven't really gotten them into it yet, but it is really nice having a well developed campaign "at my back" so I don't worry about what the campaign is about, and instead can just add customization for the group and figure out how to make things more fun.

All-in-all a great start!

Is there a list of organizations/power-groups that exist in and around Varisia? I started building one up myself, but decided to see if anyone has already done the work for me. Mostly it is for character creation - I like to give my players options so that they don't just make a "half-orc fighter" but rather "Shoanti warrior of the Clan of the Moon", or a "half-elf Rogue of the Gargoyles."

Thanks!

One idea I have for my soon-to-be-run Rise of the Runelords campaign is that all of the characters come to Sandpoint to help setup/re-establish some sort of mage tower. This would have all the characters associated with some organization that would want such a tower in Sandpoint. Most would be spell-slingers of some sort, but there's also the option of warriors to protect them, rogue-types to deal with people, clerics of faiths friendly to mages, etc.

Unfortunately I'm a total newb to Golarion, so I look to you guys - any suggestions for organizations that would fit?

I went a slightly different way. All of my players came in sort of in the hodge podge way they do, but as the story went on, they found that they were not who they thought they were.

In a sort of "deep cover" way, they found that they were:

** spoiler omitted **

Ok ... that's a cool idea. I may have to use a variety of it, thanks! ;)

I'm looking to start up a RotR campaign shortly, but I like to have a strong "glue" between the characters, rather than "you stick together because ... well ... you do". Anyone have any suggestions how to do it that fits in well with RotR and/or Golarion? One thought I had was make them all part of a military group that just got done fighting some war in a distant land and have come to Sandpoint to get away from "all that". But I don't know Golarion well enough to find where such a war would have occurred. I can make stuff up, but I like embedding it in the setting as it exists.

Thanks!

I'm looking for conversion notes and suggestions for anyone that's run this adventure path using Savage Worlds or Fantasy Craft. I'm gearing up to run it using one of the two (although PFRPG is still in the running, as is AD&D2) and looking for experiences...

Thanks!