SuicidalSkydiver's page

Hello all,

I've taken a group of 5 NPCs through all of Kingmaker up to the beginning of Fort Drelev in book 4, and as of late have run into a bit of a GMs block with regards to encounters.

The campaign so far hasn't been non-lethal: The rogue died when she got stuck between an Owlbear and an angry Bandit King, the Fighter and Cleric were both crushed by the same shambling mound and the Magos got torn apart by trolls by the end of book 2, but it's now gotten to going through most of book 3, and the start of book 4 and I just don't feel like any of the encounters are challenging anymore.

Vordekai's Tomb had the only moments I would call even moderately close to taxing in the entire book (versus the PiscoDaemon and the Water Elemental respectively, and even then the big bad just felt like such a pushover in comparison). This led on to the start of Blood for Blood, where I decided to power up the Troll encounter slightly to give the party closer to the experience they would have gotten as a group of 4 in the interests of pacing.

I made one of the Trolls an Advanced Troll Acolyte, and one of the others a 2-headed Troll. The party still demolished the encounter with minimal injury. This has put me in a bit of a slump, because running encounters where my players don't even break a sweat is unenjoyable for me, and unfulfilling for them.

This led on to the party deciding to head straight for Fort Drelev to sort out Baron Hannis, and as they did so coming up against a random encounter of 7 Giant Leeches which they ignored, and the Boggard Ambush set piece. I don't understand why the encounter is there, because it just felt so depressingly easy. The boggards would be lucky to hit the lowest AC character on 17s, and even then the damage would be so pitiful that it wouldn't matter to begin with. This then led on to the Azuihotl encounter, a set piece which is 4 levels lower than the party in the first place which relies on the players to act like idiots to be effective.

Has any other GM felt like nothing in the adventure path is actually a challenge any more? Is there something I'm missing that should be happening with these encounters? At the moment I feel like I'd be better off ignoring the travel and exploration entirely and going to the main events of the book, because the fights are wasting both my time and theirs.

If anyone has any advice in general for running Kingmaker too, I'd love to hear it. I guess the past two sessions have been a bit dissapointing for me, and it makes it difficult to run something if you can't feel invested in it.

Doesn't matter what they were like before they got the helm. What you once were and what you could have been doesn't matter. What matters is what alignment you achieved when you died.

I think there's a slight problem with the fact that the judging of souls is never properly specified, and until it is neither argument is either right or wrong. At that point, it's completely down to who's GMing. after all, what they say goes.

SuicidalSkydiver wrote:

Anzyr wrote:

The LG person would not go to Hell and the Gods really don't get to much of a say.

I was under the impression that Pherasma judged a soul before sending it on its way. Is it ever specified how her final decision is made? As far as I remember, she looks upon every soul with an unbiased and calculating attitude. that doesn't sound much like she would simply say "OK, your alignment is X, of to Y you go"

While it doesn't say how she makes her final decision, presumably in most cases it really is as simple as "Well your alignment is X" or "Well your worshiped god X and they will take you".

I just doesn't sound very calculating, really. Especially if no consideration is given to what they were like before the hat was out on their head

The LG person would not go to Hell and the Gods really don't get to much of a say.

I was under the impression that Pherasma judged a soul before sending it on its way. Is it ever specified how her final decision is made? As far as I remember, she looks upon every soul with an unbiased and calculating attitude. that doesn't sound much like she would simply say "OK, your alignment is X, of to Y you go"

On the topic of Pathfinder afterlifes... I think a lot people have misunderstood how the cosmos is set up. Going to "Hell" isn't a punishment the way it would be in our world. People in Pathfinder end up in Hell because it is the place that most suits them. A LE person being sent to a LE environment is by no means a punishment, anymore then sending a Lawful Good person to Heaven is. Now some LE people may disagree that they are suited to a LE environment, but their alignment would respectfully point out that their wrong.

While that certainly is true for a LE person, I'm trying to point out that for a LG person it would certainly be punishment

That would have been part of the problem, as the rogue was also the one with the best social skills and the most languages, and was designed to be the ultimate diplomat/spymaster. Luckily, the knight is also good at diplomacy, and at least one of the spellcasters tries to have 'comprehend languages' prepared at all times just in case. Again, I'm probably getting too badly worked up over traps that aren't as bad as they seem.

Personally, I'd rule that forcibly changing a persons alignment from evil to good is an evil act. If the helm were to be used to force a once good man to become evil, it's evil. Switching the alignments doesn't switch the alignment of the act itself, in the same way that an evil character acting altruistically doesn't suddenly become evil because it's an evil person doing it.

To worsen matters, you have no way of knowing how the act will affect things further down the line. Should the now-good person die, the gods may deem his acts evil, no matter what alignment he is when he arrives, so he goes to hell. A good man has now been doomed to an eternity of suffering. They might take their alignment at face value, and send him to heaven. The people that lived good and honest lives, and earned their place in heaven have now had that challenged by a man earning a prestigious spot in the afterlife despite the murder, subjugation and torture of many, all because he had a magic hat put on him.

On a more short term concern, let's say our fictional baddie, the worst of the worst, has now become the paragon of all goodwill. His memories and personality still exist. This good man will forever be tormented by this. He may even be driven to suicide by the constant reminder to him that he was once the most horrible thing around. you simply have no way of knowing.

My final note to make is more on the subject of forcibly changing someone's being our nature, whether it be by domination spells, a hat of change alignment, or generally taking the quick way to force someone to follow your way of thinking. I'd define that as subjugation, and the one god that champions subjugation is Asmodeus.

Ah, okay then. I'll have to hope that he still does, it should make for an interesting read at any rate

What does 'Jason's drafts' refer to? I've seen it mentioned a couple of times, and if it's something useful to read when running kingmaker then I'd love to give it a read.

In book 1, there's bear traps which are actually pretty punishing at level, and there's one or two big traps per book as well. They aren't a major part of the campaign, but unless I'm misremembering the set up, the trap in book 3 is pretty deadly.

I'll see about doing that then. Other than that I'll just hope that that if and when traps go off they don't completely debilitate them. Thanks for the advice.

Maybe I'm just over-anxious about the possibility of further traps. The fighter got his leg stuck in a bear trap, and after several failed checks to remove it he nearly died twice over. I might also be misremembering how many traps there are throughout KingMaker.

For starters, I'm going to be including spoilers for KingMaker 1 in this post, just in case anyone who doesn't want it spoiled is reading. Better safe than sorry.

Anyway, my party has just gotten to the end of book 1, with a little bit of exploration left to do before their reward arrives. In the heat of battle however, the rogue and soon to be master spy was instantly killed by a maximised damage roll. And poor decision making.

Anyway, this has left the party short of their trapfinder and disabler. The player intends to next play a Summoner, and the only other party member with disable device is the gunsmith, who does not have it as a class skill, and has also dropped ranks in it in favour of ride. With this being the case, I've been trying to work out a way that I could resurrect the rogue, or otherwise replace them reasonably. I can't GMNPC a rogue, as I'm already having to fill the 'Healer' role.

I also wouldn't mind advice on how to handle traps if there is no trappers. I don't want to remove them outright, and lowering DCs would just feel like cheapening the challenge.

Thanks in advance.

Ah, right. That makes sense. Thanks very much for the input everyone. I'd gotten my hopes up for a proper PF Blackguard for a moment.

I was reading the 'Gods and Magic' book just now and was reading the entry for Asmodeus, when I noticed something odd. His specific spell, 'Infernal Healing' is noted as being available to Cleric 2, Wiz/Sor 1 (if a worshipper of Asmodeus) and Blackguards of level 1. As far as I was aware,the closest thing Pathfinder had to the Blackguard was the Anti-Paladin, which really isn't the same.

Considering this, why does 'Magic and Gods' mention them? Were they a 3rd party addition, were they simply an oversight of the author, or am I just missing something really obvious?

I'm an unashamed lover of Blackguards despite my own crushing inability to play evil characters, so any input on the matter would be great