How would a GM approach a PC wanting to stay a ghost but continuing on the campaign? For context, Contains Spoilers:
before switching to SOG, I was running Reign of Winter (RoW). During book 4, we switched to pf2e (before they entered the alien planet proper), and after a session or two, the PCs found their new 10th-level pf2e PCs too much to handle. So I suggested we play SOG so they get used to the rules and have characters that they have built gradually.
One of my players was playing a ghost cleric in the RoW campaign, and I know she will want to go back to that character, but it also occurred to me that she could stay a ghost with her current character - a witch doubly so because her witch's patron is fate, which all ties in nicely with RoW (a witch-heavy AP and Baba Yaga's original patron was a Norn - fate-related). Open to suggestions :)
Hi all, My group will enter the monastery in the next session or two. As the statue purification is a big part of progression, I wondered how heavy-handed I should be with letting the PCs know they should be doing this. They must do at least one before the ghost appears and explains anything. How did other GMs handle it?
Souls At War wrote:
I get what you are saying, but none of the activities (like getting crops, fixing the teahouse, etc.) cost the PCs anything. The most anything costs the PCs is if they want to be a 4gp or 40gp teaset - which the inventor they have in the party can actually make. And even this is optional.
Synapse17 wrote:
I think I will do this exactly the next time it comes up. Thanks. James Jacobs wrote:
They are under-equipped, actually ( I did an audit), and there are 5 players. So I will add loot during chapter two to make up the difference. So maybe that is the issue, but I think it's a "heart issue" - they are used to 5e where gold is meaningless, and most adventures revolved around mercenary-style work. Which is fine, but SoG is a bit of a change of pace. I'll make sure to add more loot but also make it clear (again) they ain't getting rich playing this AP and if the town dies, so do they. There isn't anywhere to go. Sibelius Eos Owm wrote: To be clear, by the end of Chapter 1, you mean they have not yet ousted the threat from the town? Or perhaps they've cleared to the end of Chapter 2? There is no threat in the town in Chapter 1, and it's about preparing the town. It's week 10, and they just started the Pilgrims Path. Thanks everyone for the feedback. I think this is a great AP as its a bit different to "save the world" type adventures.
My players just finished chapter 1 of "Let the Leaves Fall", and they are complaining about how poor they are and how they did all this work in town and didn't get paid. My counter has been that this is your town, and not everything is done for pay. If the town is destroyed, you die too. I also pointed out they can sell loot they have found if they need money. So, I'm not sure it's a money issue. Am I being too strict? Should they are paid for their work to some degree? 1 GP a task, at least? Thanks.
So I ended up turning downtime into a "worker placement" type boardgame. Though I gave my PCs the option to skip ahead to Pilgrims Way before the research was complete, they were having fun just doing the town activities and RPing, so the entire session only had 1 combat (the one with the vipers, but the snake-man managed to talk them into fleeing when they were bloodied). Here are my notes and pictures of the setup if anyone ever wants to use it: https://www.electric-rain.net/2025/01/05/downtime-activities-as-a-worker-pl acement-boardgame/
Hi all, My players just finished book 1 with about 1.5 months to spare, so only downtime activities left, and the first chapter of book two is all downtime. Since I have a new player who is just here for the subsequent two sessions, I am not sure that playing downtime for those sessions would be very interesting for him (and probably not a good reflection of what pf2e is).
Thoughs? PS I have 6 players so I expect at level 4 they could handle the initial challenges of the monastery without needing them to level up again.
Hi all,
Thanks.
It's a very minor quibble, but 250 seems way too low given the infrastructure of the place. It seems more like a town (or a village very close to becoming a town). My players won't notice, but it's just a minor quibble from me. It seems like the town would be closer to 1,000 people strong (or at least somewhere between 500-900). YMMV.
Hi all,
Since I use my own setting, which is a Dying Earth-type setting (magic is technology, and laser pistols are not unheard of, just not called that). Can I use Starfinder as a source for future tech gear in pf2e or its not really computable? In 5e/pf1e I used the Technology Guide extensively for my setting, so wondering if I could do that with Starfinder books. Thanks in advance.
Thanks Sibelius! I did jump onto the discord you mentioned, but little progress has been made on the conversion of RoW. If I end up converting books 4, 5 and 6 along with "Witchwars" and "On the Siberian Railway," I would be the main contributor, it seems :} At the moment, I am going through book 4 and just mainly converting stuff that doesn't already exist in 2e (mostly the NPC stat blocks). I don't expect the first batch to be great, but, as you said, I will learn as I go (even with DCs). I have a lot of experience converting between other editions, so I am looking forward to it. Treasure is probably going to be the hardest and most time-consuming. But let's see.
James Jacobs wrote: Another way to think of that (and my preferred way) is that a primary design goal of Pathfinder 2nd Edition was to fix how onerous and complex it was to build monsters in the first place. So just wanted to say, this comment made me start looking at pf2e. I had previously dismissed it as I got the sense it was 4e 2.0, and though I think 4e had some brillant ideas, as a package, I didnt like it (not that I hated it, I just prefered 3e/pf1). So I started watching some videos, reading the Archive links on classes, DMing etc. and I have come full circle. I ran the beginer box last night for my group and they were ALL happy and KEEN to convert over from 1e to 2e. So now I have the reverse option - converting Reign of Winter (my current AP) to 2e. I also picked up all the core books and couple of others needed for my group (we have a magus and a ghost for example). I just thought you may like to know that your comment gained you a new 2e customer :)
Hi all, my PCs just got to the garden hut and encountered the moon beast. The moon beast has charmed/dominated 3 of the party members and the party is a little frustrated as they don’t know what to do. They are no min/maxers so they don’t have a really deep knowledge of the rules. They have also come from 5e. Any advice I can provide them? At this stage as soon as the moon-beast can plane shift he is taking half the party with him as slaves. They also found most of the plants in the garden pretty brutal. In particular their high CMD/B numbers. They just couldn’t resist or escape the grabs. Any advice here apart from buffing? For context my PCs are under leveled but their are a lot of them - fighter 9, cleric 8, thief 8, magus 8, bard 7, fighter 5 (henchmen), and a yeti (long story but basically a henchmen to the magus). Thanks.
Finsihed this off on Saturday, game ended as PCs teleported to Frozen Star. I ended up using a deck of oversized cards for the dungeon. This worked well to abstract it without completly removing the dungeon crawl feel. I have done this before for large dungeons. For posterity sake I did it like so: Diamond (1-10): Maiden dungeon. Room numbers mapped 1 to 1 with cards (so draw card 2 its room 2). Though the entrance was fixed. Cards are shuffled with 1 joker. When a joker is drawn it means a random teleporter is encountered to one of the other dungeons (roll 1d4 to determine which one). I also rolled a 1d6 for each card drawn and on a 1 Jadrenka would appear. Repeat for Mother and Crone using a different suite each.
Thanks everyong, very good advice. James Jacobs wrote: 1) Don't sweat it too much; remember your players aren't going to be checking your work. If there's a monster in the adventure that has a close approximate stat block in a 1st edition book or source, use that. Even if it's not EXACTLY the monster you need. Reskinning monsters is a big timesaver. This was going to be my approach. I wasn't planning on making everything perfect down to the individual DCs, reskinning where possible, sense-checking it, and then letting it go. But lets see what happens when I try :)
Tangent101 wrote:
I like this idea! My players arrive in Artosa this week. However, they are not big on dungeon crawls. Any advice to shorten this adventure without destroying or skipping it?
So, my PCs just finished book two, and Nazheena got away. I would like to make her a recurring villain; however, the way the adventure path is constructed, I would like it to make sense that she turns up in these places. Knowing her mother is in the Hut the entire time (or at least has access through the AP), I thought this was the "head cannon" for me as the GM. But any specific advice on when/how to add her to the following adventures? Thanks.
Currently melee heavy, they depend on spells for range attacks, though the fighter (my wife a veteran D&D player) knows I will exploit weaknesses like this from years of playing with me, so her character is good with range as well (but not as good as melee). IE, she hasn't neglected range like most of the other characters have. But I am guessing Rasputin is probably 4 to 6 months away, so let's see how it plays out. Did you have Anna with Rasputin from the get-go, or did she turn up as a reinforcement or some other setup?
Solomani wrote:
Played this out last session, worked really well. Thanks for the idea.
Richard Pitt wrote:
I like these ideas, did you flesh them out? How did it go?
zimmerwald1915 wrote:
Looks like it's a broken link. Does anyone have it by chance and can reshare? Thanks.
roll4initiative wrote: Can anyone suggest some good 25-28mm miniatures of Russian soldiers for the scenario? Wouldn't imperial guard unit work? That's what I am planing to use. Or you specifically wanted Russian ww1 troops? Akiosama wrote: Question to all you GMs out there - How do you handle the language barrier when your PCs come to Earth's Russia? As I don't use Golarion but Earth (future Dying Earth) I just said Irrisian is Russian. Same language, though one would be archaic. If you are in Golarion, you could assume that Irrasian is Russian as Baba Yaga brought Russian peasants with her to rule/run Irrisien.
Solomani wrote:
So still in book 2 but looking forward to this adventure. Here are the changes I have in mind to make it Barsoom/Mars:
Will update how it went once done (so at least 6 months from now).
Lanathar wrote:
I don't bother trying to justify this in world. It is ultimately a game, and game mechanics will seep through. I just have regular players who skip a session in the "NPC Cloud" They are there but do not affect that session. Gameplay > Verisimilitude. YMMV.
Warped Savant wrote:
I misread the way you did it. I thought you had Elvanna flee in book 6 and the group catches her in witchwar. But, it's cleaner to have her die/captured and witchwar is Kostchtchie/Rasputin focused. Did you have them fight with Kostchtchie directly or it was Rasputin only in that last "boss" room? Just thinking a demon lord fight may actually be pretty cool.
Haha. I’m thinking it’s purely a test/trial for her adopted people (Irrasians could even be Russians). She seems to be the type that believes strength comes from trials and suffering and overcoming said suffering. She is expecting them to rebel and is unimpressed they have not done so successfully yet. I also won’t have her consuming Elvanna. Similiar to her other sisters rebellion Baba Yaga admires the ambition but isn’t impressed by the execution. So she will free her on her own world/semi plane where she can’t interfere with Baba Yaga’s plans.
I have not read this entire thread yet, but I have read the adventure. I was toying with the idea of actually making this a desert world or even Mars/Barsoom. Or potentially a Dark Sun visit. I thought it would be a nice change from all the winter, and both Barsoom/Dark Sun are interesting settings. For context, I run my games on Earth (Dying Earh-type setting, distant future) so Mars is an option as are any other planet/moons in our system. |