Sionn Pollivosh's page

Heya guys! My group recently decided they wanted to give CotCT a go after feeling a little too combat heavy with Wrath of the Righteous. So as I usually do, I came here and started browsing; seeing how other people ran it, changed it, and what they added and took away.

I found Inspectre's rewrite and felt rather inspired! Amazing stuff there and I'm loving the vibe of Book 1 in comparison after reading both the original and his changes.

So I find myself doing what I did with RotRL for this group... adding tons of details, pushing for roleplay heavy interactions and drawing out the campaign by quite a bit!

One thing I did add, and figured I would share here, was a mocked up a Newspaper page for my players, the Korvosan Carrier.

Link to Google Drive Download: Korvosan Carrier

A few changes I made that might matter if someone decides to use it...

-I changed the starting year and date due to my RotRL campaign being stretched out previously for my players and I didn't want the game to feel like the next world ending catastrophe was just waiting on the one before it to end.

Anyhow! That's about it! If people want to see more of them as I go along I can post links or any suggestions/ideas!

So after having run three-quarters of the RotRL before with a home group before and finding myself itching to run the game again for my new online group with whom I've been gaming with for a year, I have decided to do something a little different.

My current group is very interested in exploring more of the game than just the 'rails' of a campaign as well as stretching their roleplaying chops so taking that into account when we talked about running through RotRL, I suggested a much slower version of the AP
than what the original campaign allows for.

-The experience track has been adjusted from Fast to Slow.

-Using various aids from here and other places, as well as many of my own ideas, I am fleshing out all of the various NPCs that could be encountered or interacted with. This includes giving more on stage time for interesting characters down the road. (I.E. Lyrie and Orik both have already made an appearance at the Swallowtail Festival. My reasoning being that my Nualia already had them in her employ and sent them both to Sandpoint to see how things went down as well as to provide support to Tsuto if the need arose... otherwise they were to see if there were any possible threats to her plans.)

-The Hinterlands and its surrounds are being fleshed out further. Bounties will be posted at the Sandpoint Barracks for various issues that the town guard can not deal with themselves. (I.E. A rash of undead running around on occasion *cough cough Experiments from Habe's cough cough*

And more things along those lines of thought. I just thought I would see what other people thought of doing the campaign like this? And if interested I can always share my notes and perhaps even one of my player's journals as the game goes on, in case anyone would like to do something similar at some point!

Cheers!

First and foremost! If you are playing this adventure path and named Kethne, Bloodtusk, Aden, Alden, Hinata, or Locke turn back now for the sake of your crunchy crunchy soul!

For those interested, I have been running the Savage Tide, converted to the Pathfinder rule set from 3.5 for a group of fellow Critical Role Critters. Most haven't ever played Pathfinder before and are working off of knowledge from 5e so it has been fun teaching the much crunchier system to those interested in trying it out!

On to the good stuff!

After fighting their way to freedom from the depths of the tunnels beneath Parrot Isle, they rest and recuperate as much as possible while setting to finding out what they can about this Lady of the Lotus, mentioned in Penkus' note. -Important Note: I changed the mention of the Taxidermist's Guildhall written in Penkus' last words to what he knew it by, the Stuffer's Hall. (I felt that the previous was kinda ham handed and obvious while calling it the Stuffer's Hall still is a good hint while allowing the players to explore the city and feel like I'm not just pushing them down the path.)

Soon afterwards, the cleric of Sarenrae finds in her pack the warning message from the Lotus, having not noticed it being placed in her pack as she was searching the various docks for ships named "Lady of the Lotus". She quickly found it disturbing and set out to gather her other allies, running across the city gathering everyone to inform them they may be in danger.

At this point it was late evening, and a few of the more 'enterprising' members of the guild decided to attempt to attack them on their way back to the Vanderboren estate, seeing the night to be their best chance. (Cue the attack by the rogues on the roof in the alley).

They found themselves facing 3 rogues and a 3rd level rogue/cleric of Norgerber, adding a bit more deity flavor and depth to the Lotus Dragon guild members.

After surviving the fight, many going unconscious or to very low digits, they tied up the last survivor, and started to interrogate him.

As they interrogated him, and based on what they said and their rolls, I found out that this particular brute was more afraid of the Lady of the Lotus than of what a few adventurers could do, so after answering a few vague questions he shut up.

The best part though, was when one of the PCs asked the best question I could have ever heard a player ask as they went through this portion of the adventure path....

"Is the Lady of the Lotus Lavinia Vanderboren?"

Absolute silence before everyone freaked the hell out, the level of minds being blown was out the roof, including my own! It was an amazing question that they realized that regardless of if she is or isn't will have really big complications depending on how they handle this level of doubt they just placed on themselves!

And as any good DM does, as they planned to confront Lavinia in as careful and sneaky manner as possible, I ended the session for the week there!

I just had to share this, it was the most awesome single question that turned everyone's viewpoint on a campaign I have ever run!

Background

I have been hosting DnD 3.5 and then more recently Pathfinder for the last few years fairly consistently on a weekly basis for a group of in person friends. We have run through some personal homebrews (many of which did not continue after a period of time for one reason or another) to Adventure Paths such as the Savage Tide and now currently a little over halfway through The Rise of the Runelords.
As the Always GM I try to keep my ideas fresh and put spins on things the players would enjoy thus was born the idea for my next campaign.

Caveat

I tried posting on Reddit for help with the idea but most everyone instantly took it the wrong way and began ranting about taking away player angency. All the ideas when it comes to the player's characters have been talked about and explained to them and they have agreed that they like the idea of this.

The Concept

We start with the epitome of a fantasy trope.... all the PCs wake up in a room together with amnesia.... yeah yeah I know it is over done, most often in video games or with players that just don't want to spend the time to create a back story!

What I am doing differently though is that I will be compiling a list of 'Memory Snippets/ Flashes of Insight' that when a PC has done something that I as a GM feel could trigger a hidden memory that player will randomly receive a Snippet which is actually a very brief flash of memory of their unremembered life. All of them will be drawing from the same list of memories, I won't be tailoring memories to each character as if I have written their histories for them, the memories will be totally random.

What I'm looking for is constructive critiques as well as help compiling a list of compelling, interesting, bizarre, and even goofy memories that the players could draw from.

Obviously this is sort of an exercise as well as a game for me as a GM as well as for my players, memories cropping up that go against their current view of their character's morals could definitely make things difficult but I feel that having to riff off of and work with these ideas could help me as a GM and my players get better and developing deep and thoughtful characters!

Thanks for the suggestions people!

So tomorrow I'm running the next session of ROTRL. My group has already alerted Gogmurt to their presence by spending an hour attempting to set fire to the briars even though they were told it looks too green to do so and then attempted a sloppy recon attempt before dragging all the hungry little refugees out after the tasty looking kitsune.
I have a party of 6-7 level 3s and after rereading Gogmurt again it clicked in my head just how nasty he is. Correct me if I am wrong, but after he casts Entangle, any PC that is caught in it is considered flat footed and thus would be subject to his Sneak Attack bonus with his Produce Flame wand (within 30 feet of course and only if actually having failed the save) since the spell acts as a ranged touch attack.
Has anyone else used this approach with Gogmurt before? I'm not trying to wipe my party but I have told them since the beginning that I'm not going to play with kid gloves on this time and they needed to play smart.

tl;dr. How nasty is Gogmurt and Tangletooth when played to full effectiveness?

Edit: Words are hard! :P