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So, my CoT campaign took a few turns that were unintended but we are now back on the storyline. They just finished the Maggot Tree siege and are prepping to delve into Walcourt. They just made level 12 (yes I know, ahead of the curve.. i'll explain). Let me first explain the party makeup. There are 7 Players, consisting of: Paladin of Desna
First off, the party FAILED to recover the Morrowfall from Delvehaven. They were defeated soundly by Jhair, the Mazeflesh Man and Vahnwynne, retreated, and then decided to head back to the safehouse and rest for two days. The vamps, in the meantime, were able to discern from the battle that living creatures could handle the Morrowfall. So they went into Westcrown while the PCs were away, abducted one of the Children of Westcrown, dominated her, and made her take the Morrowfall with them to Walcourt for Ilnerik to decide what to do with it. Next, they have YET to kill any vamp in this campaign.. Jerusen killed one of the former party members, a Sorceror, when he lagged behind in the far back during the fight with the Erinyes in the crater by Aberian Folly's ruins, and dragged him off to become a vamp. They then entered the Nessian Spiral only to leave for a few days to replenish resources. Obviously I just can't leave the dungeon as they left it. When they came back, the Order of the Gate had quarantined the entrance to the Spiral, erecting a magical barrier and laying magical traps (the landmine force-field, swarm traps like around delvehaven). The group decided to try and teleport through the barrier, but since the magic used to create the barrier is from the Order of the Gate, I said there was a 20% chance of a botch taking them to Hell... Well, go figure.. The Party didn't have the focus for Plane Shift to take them back to the Material Plane, so they had to wheel and deal in Erebus for one. Now they are back, higher level than the normal progression, but I can just adjust the levels of the encounters accordingly.. However, there are about 15 vampires for the party to deal with now in Walcourt. There are two former player characters that were taken and turned (one after a player quit and the other from being turned by Jerusen), one child of westcrown (Yakopulio), Zol, the Medusa and the Vulpinal from the Spiral (the party never got into the Spiral, they spent a week in Material Plane time in Hell.. Liebdaga got loose as a result, another problem). So with Sivana, Thessing, the leader of the Bastards (the party decided not to waste their time with the bastards, so they flourished and Ilnerik 'rewarded' him), Jerusen, Jhair, Vahnwynne and the Mazeflesh Man and Sivanshin, that's 14 vamps they gotta deal with in Walcourt. My party likes to go against the grain and do what they please. I can't force them down a linear adventure as a DM, it just takes the spontaneity and fun out of the game if everything is pre-decided and laid out for them in a line. So I bend and flex and try to bring things back to the line eventually. Should I pack them all (the vamps) in there, with no Morrowfall for the party? My party is nothing to sneeze at.. They literally wiped out half of the Maggot Tree siege army in battle. Stiglor got put to sleep via Cloak of Dreams by the witch, caught, flown 180 feet into the air and freefell to his death. The Witch single-handedly handled Madjaw, and the Rogue coup de-graced him. These dudes can take on very hard battles and be fine.. It's tough trying to make things challenging without A. being overwhelming or B. totally undercutting their capability and having it end up with them walking through the encounter on a relative breeze. Thoughts/Suggestions?
Right before the party reaches the exit in the sewers I threw in a hazard, a 40 foot deep crevasse filled with 10 feet of water at the bottom, and the bridge that crossed it had been cut on their side. They had to pull the bridge up with rope and grappling hooks, and after three of the seven fell into the water below trying to pull the bridge up, the four up top were put to sleep by some brown mold that has grown on the middle of the bridge. In short, they nearly got killed by a bridge, and so I stand by my floating +2. After a few hours Morosino and Janiven came down and pulled them out with the rest of the Children of Westcrown and that was it for the session.
I will have 6 players in this group. Two of these players also play in my Council of Thieves Group, which I will be starting tomorrow. So far only three players have come to me with character ideas:
One of the players asked me how I felt about him playing a 40 year old gnome. I haven't responded yet, but I'm leaning towards No. I would suspect 40 year old gnomes don't travel around Katapesh alone freely; they most likely would get picked up by the slave-traders and sold into a life of servitude. Anyway, does anyone have some advice as to what to expect with this AP? Most of the players like to role-play more, but they all enjoy combat.
I wanted to post on this earlier but with starting a new job I haven't had the time to post here yet. So I have a group of 7 for this group, that is broken down into the following: Half-Orc Barbarian
Note: this group is aware and OK with not having an arcane caster. I decided to give the rest of the group a floating +2 to offset the advantage the Aasimar has right off the bat instead of nerfing him. I should also note that this will be my first Pathfinder game, and the same goes for all my players. Everyone leans more towards Role-playing than combat in their style of play, so I thought this setting would be the best fit for them. I plan on developing my own content to add to this campaign as well as adding to the existing content in the AP. Does anyone have any advice regarding this AP? I plan on linking one of the Children of Westcrown to each member of the party to give them a vested interest in their plans and a reason for Janiven to seek them out. I know that's a lot of work for footnote NPC's with such a large group, but I plan on whittling them down over the course of this adventure, either by arrested or worse by the Hellknights or by some other means of making them fade into obscurity. I'll keep one or two around maybe as contacts if I feel it's worth it or if the party keeps a strong interest in one of them, but I will mainly use them for transitioning the party into the storyline of the AP. |
