azsteven75's page

I added the first level of troubles in Otari to get everyone used to their characters and introduce the town before jumping them into AV. This was our first run in Pathfinder 2E having been pretty committed to first edition for a while.

This made the characters 2nd level when they started AV so they had a slightly 'easier' time with the top level.

I've kept them at 2nd level to start the 2nd floor of the vault. I'm not giving XP but am instead leveling at the speed of plot, aka the idea per the adventure path of what level they should be before starting the next part.

It's made them feel like they're L2 for a bit, so I likely won't use the rest of troubles in otari. If you do, my guess is that will be the only issue you run into is they may out-level AV if you do both at the same time.

Looking at the map (in various copies) of the environs of Otari, where is this fish camp?

Troubles in Otari lists it as six miles from the city / fishery. I plan to put it to the east as that's where one of my players has a farm. Pretty sure you can choose east or west from the Otari fishery to choose from.

So this is my first foray as a GM.

I was able to convince the group (as Paizo has sort of led this charge anyway with the adventure paths) that rather than worry about Xp, we will level up at the speed of plot. Hopefully, if I do a good enough job keeping things fun, they won't notice that they're Level 2 and 3 for a while.

So as a lead in I set up a storm for the town so rather than work they were all in the Rowdy Rockfish when Tamily came in and let them into the Beginner Box content. We're doing the beginner box first and as they came out from the Menace Under Otari for their first visit, the town is under attack by sea devils.

This week will be our third session and we SHOULD finish Menace. This will lead to them going around the town to help out the many NPC's and get to know them as they try to help recover from the storm and the raid to repair damage, etc.

This all will lead in to them sitting down at night with Wrin and she'll tell them about the Gauntlight. I plan to have Tamily there to offer up her old fishery to the crew as a base of operations, and they'll get to decide to head towards the Gauntlight or set up their base first.

I realize this isn't all that original, but I'm very excited that Paizo gave us such a robust little area to pull multiple bits of material from while also taking people through the AP. There's plenty for them to worry about, relationships to build that will matter (one of the player chars is a dwarf so Brelda has already expressed interest!)

But yeah, having Troubles in Otari, the Beginner Box -and- this robust AP to play with made the start simple, with the ability to throw in other things if the AP ever starts to feel stale or too on rails. Ideally by the time they hit level five, they'll be so invested in the vaults and the menace they pose that they won't need any more fluff to start.

Excited to have all of this to work with my first time out of the chute as the GM.