Steve 'Taz' Cansdale's page

Well, my low level group went through Pt3 last Friday night... by the time they reached the final sanctum, they were tired of traps and getting hurt... They had taken both Aspis Consortium Agents alive and, thanks to being able to heal them (a little), had convinced them to join the Society... So the Topaz Jewel was safe.

Come the 'debate' between Sapphire and Diamond Sages, the team listened intently but didn't interject. They were more than a little surprised to be asked to vote and this generated a good debate.

After a bit of back and forward, they came down on the Diamond Sage's side and the Sapphire Sage took that with good grace... The new leader of the Sages took ownership of the Topaz jewel until a suitable bearer could be found... she also asked the Sapphire Sage to look into recovering the Emerald Jewel from Torch...

Would you mind sharing the experience tracker?

I've worked the kinks out of the XP tracker sheet (it now tells you what level the characters are for all three advancement rates), now how do I post the darned thing up here? :O

Part of what I like about running AP's is that you don't have to track XP. Every module tell you what level the party is supposed to be at each milestone. I've switched to purely story awards and it works fine.

Y'know, there's no fool like an old fool... SHEESH! Why didn't I see this before... I can just announce - at the appropriate juncture! ;-) - that they have leveled up. That would solve all sorts of problems.

However, I'd still like to understand how the XP awards *should* work to meet the requirements of the AP...

Would you mind sharing the experience tracker?

I'll second the question about paper minis for Carrion Crown. That would be a great resource.

Sure, as soon as I get the last few bugs out, I'll happily post it here...

Thanks for the responses...

So, FOUR PCs on the MEDIUM XP track... Okay... Well, I reworked my XP Tracker and, even with the assumption they make EVERY research DC before moving towards Harrowstone, then the numbers still do not work out...

So what am I doing wrong??

Also, if I have to scale the encounters up from four to six PCs, any guidelines on how??

Hi

I suspect this has been asked many times before (but I've not managed to find it!) but how many PCs is this AP designed for?

I've built an XP tracker in Excel and loaded all the monsters/etc they encounter and I cannot make it work out so that they meet the guidelines in the module. To whit:

“The Haunting of Harrowstone” assumes the medium experience point track, detailed on page 30 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook. Characters should be 1st level when they begin the adventure. The PCs should be nearing 2nd level before they attempt to venture into Harrowstone itself, achieving 3rd level before they delve too far into the dungeons below Harrowstone. By the adventure’s conclusion, when they exit the prison, the PCs should have reached 4th level.

I am liable to have 6 or 7 PCs playing this AP and I want to know if I have to scale the encounters up to provide a challenge to them and, if I do, what is the recommended approach.

Thanks

Taz

PS Has anyone complied a set of paper minis for Carrion Crown?

I'm prepping this for a newbie group to play in 8 days time (to be followed by the other two in the series)... I noticed that the area maps do not (in the main) use available flip-maps or map packs. For those maps, would it be possible to get these (w/o any GM info of course!) as a download at high resolution so I can print them to scale to play on? The cartographers have gone to great lengths to produce nicely detailed colored maps and it would be a shame if only the GM sees them!

You *can*, of course, select the maps from the PDF and then paste into a paint program then scale up and print... but the resolution sucks and this is a painful and very time consuming process!

I'm going to have to disagree here. While it flies in the face of common sense, lots of things in this campaign do - for example, it's in theory entirely possible for six months of real time and up to 20 adventures to pass between going on part 1 and part 2. Unfortunately for common sense, consistency of rules has to triumph in this case or it's not fair to the players who play them back-to-back.

Chris, if you apply the rules as defined in the Guide to Organized Play, then it clearly penalizes those players that play 2-01 immediately followed by 2-02 as, clearly, those players that are coming into 2-02 from another scenario (not 2-01) are very likely to have been able to shop at the end of that session...

All in all (and in the absence of 'official' guidance), I think I'm going to allow them to have shopped (and have the goods sent to Scavola) before they rushed out of Bloodcove.

Taz

The part I always struggled with is how did your Faction get you those missions in Part 2 as you are running for your lives from the Consortium...

Well there is a Chapter House in Bloodcove... Secret messenger squirrels could have delivered them to the players... ;-)

You both seem right. The time I played these we agreed unanimously to refrain from purchasing anything, since we were going to play the second part right after the first one.

With a team of newbies or similar 1st-level characters a traveling (maybe lost?) salesman offering a bunch of necessary magic items would probably be the convenience they need.

Hmmmm, that might be an option I guess... but the start of 2-02 is very frenetic with the Apsis in hot (and close) pursuit so I'm not sure it would make sense for them to be able to find time to dicker with a traveling merchant.

I think that if the 'official' position is that they CAN shop between 2-01 and 2-02, then I will allow them to have shopped on the way to meet with their caravan master (but that their goods were on the wagons during the final encounter of 2-01).

Taz

This is not an official reply. I say no, the point of the series is the whole affair is a rushed job. If they don't buy equipment in Part 1 before the heat is onto them, then they have to make it through Part 2 without any purchasing (unless it's equipment they got access to in Part 1). Really, you should put this on the players to voluntarily not buy anything to contribute to the spirit of the scenario.

Thanks Doug... That's the way I was leaning as well and would surely go that route if this was a home campaign, but this is Org Play where the players that played 2-01 may not go on to play 2-02... so I'm twisting in the wind a bit...

I am leaning towards saying NO but they are all newbies and are desperately short of CLW potions/wands/scrolls (though they do have a Cleric in the party)... What I'd hate to happen is for a TPK to happen in 2-02 and the players get put off playing Pathfinder...

Taz

All

Just a brief question and request for guidance...

I have just started a new Chapter off with 2-01 (which they enjoyed immensely!) and they will be rolling straight into 2-02 next week.

Now, the Guide to Organized Play says (on pp24): "For the sake of ease of play in Pathfinder Society Organized Play, players may always buy gear, spells and so on that are available to their characters so long as their characters are in a town of more than 5,000 residents. Pathfinder Society Organized Play assumes that every faction has at least one representative in every small city or larger on Golarion. If outside of a town, PCs may be restricted from buying anything, though this will vary by scenario."

At the end of 2-01, they are running for the hills on their way to deliver the supplies.

So, the question I have is this: As they are no longer in Bloodcove when the scenario ends, are they allowed to buy equipment??

Thanks

Taz

A new Pathfinder Chapter House is being established at Heroes Headquarters (see Heroes Headquarters or HeroesHQ on FB) in Mocksville NC.

A kickoff meeting is scheduled for Thursday 7th July starting at 5pm to agree what is run and to shake out interested players.

Games will be run on a Thursday evening starting at 5pm starting July 14th.