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.

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.

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