@Geruvurrda: I certainly see this side of things, and that's part of why I'm on the fence about it. I don't think anyone would really cry OP in our group either. The main issue I take in the much bigger picture is how much less appealing playing a Rogue tends to be when one of their main niches is reduced to just a feat that anyone can have.
Without this one specific campaign trait I've found that gaining Trapfinding is actually pretty difficult and usually involves taking at least a one level dip into another class if not 2 or 3. To compound this I feel like it's even more out of line that the player's Eidolon gets the ability without the character even to have to burn a feat to gain Trapfinding.
@Everyone: The last thing I'm thinking about is how this will affect the overall game. I kinda think there is a certain amount of opportunity cost that players pay when they pick which classes they want to play. If for instance everyone wanted to play some kind of marital character, and no one picked a spellcaster then around level 10 or so, overland travel is going to generally be harder. Maybe not gamebreaking or anything, but it will be a problem they have to solve. Where as with a Wizard in the party it would literally just be a one night rest and they potentially have the problem solved for almost no cost.
If a group decides to go without a Rogue or Sandman Bard or something then Traps become a somewhat more difficult challenge that will force them to think of alternative solutions because they don't have that one character who can walk up and make potentially a single roll to overcome the challenge.
In the end I realize it's probably not going to be that impactful either way. Not counting Trapfinding's Disable Device bonus, it just allows the ability to disable magic traps. They already can disable normal traps with a good Disable Device and magic traps can be dealt with a Dispel Magic spell or in a number of other ways. It seems to me that Trapfinding ends up just being a sudo at will Dispel Magic that is specific to magic traps.
TLDR: Does Academy of Secrets spoil the story in Curse of the Crimson Throne?
So I've been running a Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign for my group for the last 2 years or so. We're about the finish the 3rd chapter, Escape from Old Korvosa, and one of my players has suggested running a one shot module to give me a break and a chance to join the rest of the players. While talking about this he had an idea I thought was pretty good. He suggested the module be set in the City of Korvosa and that the characters everyone builds could be the rest of the players backup characters in case someone had a player death. I thought this would work pretty well and that we could slot these new characters in as NPCs that could easily be called upon if ever the need arose.
So looking through the adventures set in Korvosa I found the Academy of Secrets. I have already been doing my best to really make the Korvosan setting as detailed and rich as possible, so all the players were already aware of the Breaching Festival. We have even been keeping pretty close track of time passing in our campaign with a Golarion calendar, and I have even made it a point to insert some of the other Korvosan specific and general holidays into our game (such as, the King died while everyone was celebrating Merrymead, and the plague in chapter 2 started spreading right after Taxfest). So everyone generally knows that the annual Breaching Festival is coming up, but considering everything that's happened in the city it makes since that the festival wouldn't happen during the events of the campaign. Instead the idea is that they will do it as a sort of flashback to one year ago where all the backup characters will be introduced.
Ok, so here is my question. Are there any spoilers for the Curse of the Crimson Throne Adventure Path in Academy of Secrets that would ruin my players experience if he ran the module? Since he has offered to run it and invited me to play as a PC in the module I can't really look for myself without spoiling the module. So I'm in need of some advice from someone who has run both who can help me and my player avoid the story spoilers of both.
Specifically I want to avoid spoiling the main plot of Curse of the Crimson Throne and all the things relevant to the Queen. I'd be more open to some spoilers for Lorthact as long as they don't give everything away (preferably just some tantalizing tid-bits that would make the players aware of the existence of other evil forces in Korvosa). I had thought of trying to incorporate his presence into the main plot, and perhaps use the suggestion of Lorthact as a story hook for a short post campaign adventure. If the spoilers are very expansive then we may need to look at some of the other modules, but if they are pretty limited then I was hoping to create a modified document for my player with the spoilers omitted (hoping that I can do so without spoiling the module to much for myself).
I'm trying to balance not spoiling the rest of Mark's reveal blogs with my sensitivity to your concerns regarding not wanting to buy in on the case when you don't know what's in it. So here's the list of the remaining figures and their sizes (I don't have access to their rarity or I would list that as well). I know that a list isn't the same as seeing the minis but hopefully this will give you enough to make your decision.
S- Fey Dragon
S- Jubilost Gnome Alchemist
S- Linzi, Halfling Bard
M- Army Ant Swarm
M- Dwoemercat
M- Stolen Lands Bandit
M- Giant Frog
M- River Kingdoms Ruffian
M- Shadow Rogue
M- Pitax Warden
M- Web Lurker
M- Monitor Lizard
M- Ekundayo, Human Ranger
M- Valerie, Human Fighter
M- Trollhound
M- Stag Lord
L- Ankou
L- Smilodon
L- Frost Giant Jarl
L- Ahuizotl
Steam is the games distribution platform owned by Valve that is arguably the largest PC games retailer on the market at the moment.
GOG stands for Good Old Games and is a similar only retailer/distributor for PC games in competition with Steam, but they are more well known for releasing DRM-Free (Digital Rights Management) versions of games.
No, it was not sarcasm. I don't play a lot of video games, so was unaware of these things.
Then I'm certainly glad to help. :)
The reason GOG exists and why DRM-free is appealing is because to play games on Steam you have to download Valves independent Steam Client, which is a separate program on your PC. This allows Valve to exert a certain amount of control over the games on their platform. This includes beneficial things like the Steam overlay that allows some interesting features and functions within games that would not exist otherwise (things like Achievements and messaging between Steam users). But some people don't like Valve having this much control, and in some cases this prevents users from modifying their experience as they see fit. GOG has a similar client I think, but all of their games can be downloaded and installed independently of any other program, allowing users more freedom to install, store, and modify their games as they see fit.
Steam is the games distribution platform owned by Valve that is arguably the largest PC games retailer on the market at the moment.
GOG stands for Good Old Games and is a similar only retailer/distributor for PC games in competition with Steam, but they are more well known for releasing DRM-Free (Digital Rights Management) versions of games.
So Linzi keeps charging face-first into the fray, and when I try to get her out of there, she gets an AoO... There seems to be no 5’-step or Retreat, which makes this really deadly. I’m glad I didn’t go with my original idea of Rogue/Paladin; the flanking would have been super tricky to set up.
Has anyone figured out a good routine yet that allows combat to start with squishies staying back and firing ranged attacks?
So a few things that might help. I haven't seen a 5' Step or Full Withdraw option yet, but there is an action in the Characters Ability list that allows you to make a Mobility movement to avoid attacks of opportunity. And if I'm not mistaken I believe Linzi actually has a pretty decent Mobility Skill just for this.
As for Sneak Attacks and flanking, I haven't had the chance yet to really test the system, but I've heard that Sneak Attacks are actually much easier to setup because the system does not enforce very strict positioning rules. In fact I've read from some of the Beta Testers that it seemed like as long as 1 or 2 allies were attacking a creature (without the table top flanking of being directly across from one another) that characters were even qualifying for Ranged Sneak Attacks.
As for your last question. I would recommend using the custom formation option which allows you MUCH more freedom to have your party members positioned as you'd like. Also I've noticed that as long as the character has a ranged weapon in hand they will not immediately run forward, but will instead start firing their ranged weapons. Finally there is also two small buttons to the right of the Party members portraits. The bottom one enables or disables AI actions for the selected character. So if you have this option disabled that party member will take NO actions that you do not specifically give it.
While this game was not designed to be as rigidly turn-based as Divinity: Original Sin 1 & 2, you can actually enable a pretty close approximation since the game is entirely based around 6 second turns. In the settings there are two options you can enable in Pause options.
The first is "Pause at the end of each turn."
The second is "Pause after all allies actions."
Between these and the other available Pause options you can select everyone's actions, hit the space bar to unpause the game, watch what everyone does and then the game will pause to allow you to change characters actions.
Hope this helps get you closer to what you'd like.
One of each rare yet again! My doubles on dressing were the suit and the door.
Same here! I was super excited that those were my duplicate rares, I don't think it could've been any better.
SenahBirdR wrote:
Three of every large uncommons. 3-5 for small/medium uncommons. 2-3 for medium uncommons. Collation remains great on these sets.
Same again! (ok, almost, got only 2 of the Pugwampi Gremlin)
SenahBirdR wrote:
The medium brass dragon is very heavy in the wings. With care it can be stood up, but cannot withstand almost any vibration or graze.
And again! (my Copper Dragon's wings were bent slightly to one side, so its almost impossible to stand. Will have to try that boiling water trick)
SenahBirdR wrote:
My Portcullis has a pretty severe warp. The two ends have folded in, so they cannot rest flat on a table and the the thinner bars have a wave.
Ok, this is getting spooky...
SenahBirdR wrote:
In all fairness I live in Texas...
Lorian wrote:
I also experienced the portcullis issue, and am also in texas!
Me too!!! Ok, so apparently I've stumbled onto a nexus of parallel universes where different versions of me are all opening their cases of Maze of Death and posting about it across dimensions. :)
So my group just about to finish Edge of Anarchy. They are currently looting the Dead Warrens by email after a pretty long set of battles clearing it out in person. While we go back and forth in our emails I've been wanting to drop in some clues about what Rolth has been doing in the Dead Warrens and some foreshadowing for him and possibly some of the events that will happen in the next chapter, but I'm afraid of being too heavy handed with it. I don't want to give to much away and ruin some of the surprises. Here is what I was thinking.
Spoiler:
1. I wanted to drop some references to "The Patterns of Killers" paper written in Horror Realms Campaign Setting book since it has some interesting references to the Key-Lock killer. I mostly wanted to do this to reveal a little more about Rolth and set him up as a pretty despicable villain. Its a pretty interesting read and sets up a possible ominous evil force that might have been influencing Rolth. I was thinking about developing this into possibly being Kazavon the same way he influences Salvator, even suggesting that Rolth viewed his bloody tableaus as the same kind of artwork Salvator does as well as Rolth's attempt to solve the pattern, that is if Rolth does become a recurring villain.
2. One of my players is a Mesmerist and wants to use Psychometry on the broken key-shaped dagger. This is another spot I thought would be a good place to fill in some hidden history of Rolth to start characterizing him more. I wrote up short story a few paragraphs long about when Rolth was almost caught by the guards before he gave up being the key-lock killer. Pretty much him breaking into a house, killing someone and being caught by an unexpected family member who screams and alerts a nearby guard before he can deal with it. Even threw in a little explanation as to why his dagger is broken for flavor.
3. As the players are searching the Dead Warrens I told them they found a number of documents, letters and notes on Rolth's writing desk in his bed chambers, but described it as being scattered and disorganized with some of the writing in other languages that would require time to piece together (probably a linguistics check). This where I wanted to put the reference to "The Patterns of Killers," but I was also thinking of them finding a letter from a contact of Rolth's so they can discover that he has been making these golems to sell. I was also thinking of dropping some hints that this contact may be connected to a local religious cult and maybe drop some clues its a follower of Urgathoa and that he'd like to meet up to discuss some new "plans" to foreshadow some of the plot in the next chapter.
I like the ideas, but I just can't tell if I'm being too heavy handed with it since I know what happens later, especially #3. I don't want to ruin the mystery of finding everything out to easily, but do want to drop some fun puzzle pieces my players can play with. I'd appreciate any advice or suggestions.
Actually I started looking on the board specifically because my group has latched onto the key shaped dagger and a Mesmerist in the party has been investigating it with Psychometry. I wanted to see what ideas everyone else had before I wrote my own.
So far my party found the first key shaped dagger in Gaedrenn's trunk in the fishery and when he used Psychometry he saw a shadowy figure talking to Gaedrenn. Since then the party has made it to the Dead Warrens and found the zombified Gaedrenn (which they killed and took his head this time). This time though they've really got interested in the broken key shaped knife and now I'm not sure where I want to take them with it.
Cressida has already told them what she knows about Rolth in the Event 13: Missing Body mission briefing on Pg. 43 of the Anniversary edition, so they know his name, that he's Gaedrenn's son, that he was kicked out of the Academae, and that Cressida suspects him of a number of murders. As they search through the Dead Warrens I have plans for clues that will point to his relationship with the Derro being tenuous (notes in Vreeg's spellbook hinting at his plan to overthrow Rolth), and was thinking of them finding some notes and letters that points to connections with the cult of Urgotha and possibly some others who are the buyers of the constructs he's been building.
I even stumbled across a happy little idea when the Oracle in my game rolled a knowledge religion check on the dagger and while I was looking around for something he might find out was reminded that a key is the Symbol of Abadar. I ended up giving him all the details of Abadar's symbol, but only said that he didn't recall any specific practices, customs or rituals among the followers of Abadar that involved a key shaped knife specifically. That said, I was kind of thinking how I could connect Rolth's motivations to the church of Abadar somehow. Perhaps as some kind of act of blasphemy because of some dislike or hatred Rolth has for the church early in his past, but like I said, I wanted to see what ideas were already floating around before I committed to this one.
I'm kinda intrigued by the notion of serial killers trying to find a pattern with there murders to unlock some kind of evil power. I'll have to try to get a copy of Horror Realms to find out more. It does remind me of how a certain evil force in the campaign has been influencing artists and others for its own purposes. Perhaps Rolth was also influenced by this force much like some other characters later in the book which contributed to his direction down his dark path.
I have searched pretty extensively for an answer on this as well due to having a character in my game that took the roof running rogue archetype and really wanted to utilize this unique geography of the city. I had always hoped to find a heat map of some kind showing where the Shingles are most heavily concentrated and where the Shingles just doesn't exist, but to no avail.
Anyway to answer your question this is the explanation I've used for the players in my game. This is just my take on the material available about the shingles.
Old Korvosa - Heavily concentrated throughout this district, especially in the Bridgefront, Old Docks, and Fort Korvosa wards. Only on Garrison Hill are the Shingles more sparse.
North Point - The Shingles are present here, but not nearly to the extent it is in Old Korvosa or the Midland district. Specifically I've told the players that around major landmarks they would not be able to roof run and would not be able to cross main streets.
Midlands - This district is has the second highest concentration of the Shingles second only to Old Korvosa. They are atop each of the wards High Bridge, Pillar Hill, Slope and West Dock to some extent. I don't believe there are any atop or connecting to the Goldmarket or Eodred's Walk.
Heights - The Shingles exist mostly along the Cliffside ward of this district and only very sparsely along the border of the Midland and North Point districts.
East Shore - There is no indication that I've found that the Shingles are present in this district.
South Shore - There is no indication that I've found that the Shingles are present in this district.
The Gray - The Shingles are not present here at all due to there being no continuous structures, only graves.
One question I've always had is in what district/ward is Twitcher's (the bar actually situated in the Shingles). Never could figure that out.
With some great help from my sister we've been able to create some pretty nice maps that divide the various wards of each district that I have hung on the walls of the room I run my campaign in. Along with a laser pointer they have been a great help to visualize how my players have generally moved around the city during our games. I'll see if I can post a link them sometime on this message board.
Thanks for the great feedback! Craig, I think I'm going to take your suggestion and have both the Wererat and Ratfolk populations present in the city, both having separate origins and a short history of enmity, each for their own reasons.
This will be especially sweet because my player wants to take the Attached drawback with the objective of his affection being a Ratfolk girl, possibly with a bad history with Lem. They would have met when she had helped him get over an addiction to pesh or shiver after she found him dumped in an alley near Eel's End, him passed out from a recent bender that left him almost dead.
Unknown to him this girl is actually a native born Wererat who has tried to escape her life in the sewers by attempting to join with the Ratfolk community. She wants to escape the sewers and the violent culture of the wererats due to influence of the Rat's Teat Boys gang and her dangerous older brother Girrigz.
We'll see how he responds but I think this will really create a great story line for his character and depending on his decisions could have a great influence on both the Wererat and Ratfolk communities, building his connections to the city and possibly the formation of a new faction as I described above.
As for the lycanthrope, I think I'm going to rule that Beast Races are immune to types of lycanthrope that share their racial markers. So Ratfolk could become werewolves, werecats or wereboars, but not wererats and so on. This would also allow of interbreeding.
So the one idea I've been considering is making the warerats of the city Ratfolk and doing some lite rewriting of their backgrounds and storylines from both the Guide to Korvosa and the portions of the Adventure that features the warerats. Possibly set something up where my player has a chance to unite them into something of a new faction in the city once the party has dealt with Girrigz.
I'd probably make this mostly significant for when the party gets back to Korvosa in Book 6 as a faction that could actually oust and take the place of the Cerulean Society with my pm as the potential leader if he works at it.
Honestly I'm just looking for some alternatives that don't require quite this many changes.
Hi everyone, I'll be GMing CotCT pretty soon with my monthly game group and this question has come up.
One of my players will be Ratfolk, which I thought would work pretty well in Korvosa considering as a culture they are pretty heavily described as merchants and traders and what I believe to be quite comfortable in a city setting. But as I've read through the Adventure and seen that there is a pretty decent presence of warerats in the city with a nice little quest focused on this population in Book 2 this had made me second guess where Ratfolk would fit in the city and what their relationship to the warerats would be like if I didn't make any sweeping changes to the Adventure as written.
I'd like to ask if anyone might have some suggestions to how these to groups would exist and maybe some suggestions on how I can really give my Ratfolk player some great connection to those story lines.
