So, this pandemic doesn't seem to be easing up fast enough and vaccines arriving at snails pace in my country. Me and my girlfriend are social distancing pretty hard and all our usual games are on indefinite hiatus, so I kind of decided to start a solo campaign for Pathfinder.
I know this campaign is kind of old news at this point, but I would appreciate if anyone has the time look at my initial ideas, after skimming through the material. All feedback, criticisms and suggestions are welcome.
Spoilers for the campaign ahead!
Player heir
Why Jade Regent, you might ask. Well, because I feel it's the best campaign for solo player. It's not a unique observation that Jade Regent has kind of a problem with players being a sidekick to Ameiko's hero's journey and that's kind of lame for the players.
Well, in solo game I can flip it upside down. My player is going to play "Ameiko" (I'm letting her make her own character, obviously, just making sure few key background stuff is lined up to make things work). So now the game is centered around my player and few supporting NPC are the sidekicks.
Caravan and relationship rules
Gone. Bye. Absolutely unnecessary. We'll just roleplay that stuff.
Supporting NPC
Even though she is a solo player, my "Ameiko" doesn't have to go alone. I'm initially going to give her a few NPC friends who will accompany her, to make balancing easier.
I'm probably going to pick some good supporting classes, which are not too difficult mechanically, so they don't become too much of a burden to us during game.
Also I'm going to let "Ameiko's" character be made with probably 25 point buy stats, while giving the NPC 15 or 20. Also when designing loot, I'm going to prioritize her needs over NPC. I don't want them to overshadow our heroine, so they are going to be slightly weaker in comparison.
I'm going to initially make 3 supporting NPC and depending how many characters I think we can juggle, I might give more along the way. Just to give her options for group composition, kind of like in many DnD based CRPG. With caravan it's kind of easy to justify why some people have to stay behind to safeguard it or maybe they have some other errands to run, so we can keep some balanced sized group on ventures.
Story and villains
So now we're getting to the part I would most like to get some feedback on. Because I have some thoughts on the Jade Regent and the Five Storms as villains. I'm quite underwhelmed by them as written. And to be fair, I've only skimmed through the latter books, so there might be some nuances I'm missing. But it seems to me that the villains boil down to them being just despotic and power hungry would-be tyrants.
Don't get me wrong, it's not a *bad* motivation for villains, but I kind of expected more grand endgame from a shadowy coup by a cabal of fiends spanning hundreds of years.
So... Here's what I was thinking: Thousands of years ago, goddess Shizuru casted a exceptionally powerful Oni Daimyo down to the Well of Demons and sealed him with six magical seals.
Shizuru then gave her divine blessing to the five Imperial families of Minkai and bestowed each of them with a artifact that bind the Oni demigod to his prison. Sixth artifact of binding is the Jade Throne of Minkai. Shizuru made Laws of Golden Perfection to prevent oni from ever claiming the throne, thus preventing them from releasing their master.
Only way to open the prison of the Oni Daimyo is in collaboration with all five Imperial seals and the lawful Emperor of the Jade Throne.
So, I was thinking that the Five Storms are the army of the imprisoned Oni Daimyo and this whole scheme to claim the control of Minkai and placing Soto Takahiro at the throne is all done to free their master.
Also, I'm not sure if I'm making things unnecessarily convoluted, but I also wanted to make Jade Regent himself more interesting and not just a puppet ruler. So I was thinking that Soto Takahiro having already learned how his mother died and growing disillusioned by his grandfather, he secretly plots against the Five Storms. He has secretly amassed a number of wizards, diabolists and genie binders to work on a powerful spell to bind the Oni demigod to his will so he can rule Minkai as a truly sovereign, having defied both Shizuru's laws and the plans of Anamurumon.
I guess that's the gist of it. Thanks for anyone who actually read this rambling through.
