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I noticed that there were a few copies of the CMR (OGL) on the Paizo blog. I know I've had a request to have one shipped for a while (replacement for a lost shipment, but CMR was never in stock). Any chance of getting that into my next order?
All, My group just finished the 2nd Darkness AP, using Beta Pathfinder rules (plus ample sampling from daemonslye's conversion thread). We gamed about every 2 weeks for 4-5 hours from 31 August 2008 until today, 26 July 2009. Our gaming location was our FLGS (except for the last session). Three core players went from beginning to end. Two additional players dropped in/out at different times. Main Player Characters (ending at 16th level):
Other PCs included:
Hats off to the authors, Paizo, and the fan base for creating wonderful resources, great adventures, and keeping us gaming for the past year! All feedback given below is meant to be "constructive criticism" (but raw notes) of what went well and not-so-well. Overall impression: we all had a blast! Despite the need for some heavy rails to keep the train on track (especially for the "only slightly good" party), the group highly enjoyed the modules and the flavor in each of them. Fortunately, the players wanted to play through the path, so they contrived reasons for their characters to go along with various plot directions. The path's general feel was that of a "Grand Tour of the Elven Realms" of Golarion. My impression is that although there was great depth available for the first adventures around Riddleport, the adventure quickly moved away from there with no intent to return (even with teleport - distances involved were huge). Knowing up front that this was to be a grand tour without return to a common base of operations would have helped the players to build character concepts better suited to that style of play in the first 5-6 levels. Also, betrayal is a key (and possibly too frequently used) tool in this Path, which, in the end, ended up really hurting the motivation of the characters to want to help. Fortunately the PCs always went the heroic path... mostly. The betrayal aspects needed stronger positive influences to maintain the proper motivation of both the PCs and the players. That was the major reason for the lower scores for some adventures: the motivation to help just wasn't there!. Production Suggestion: really make obvious the transition between 5' and 10' scale combat maps!!! Especially within the same module!! Many times on a 10' scale, I ended up drawing by squares rather than translating to a 5' scale because I hadn't checked the scale before drawing the next map mid-session. Fortunately we made due, but this was still a minor annoyance. Here are a set of reviews of the main adventure path materials: Second Darkness Player Guide: Overall Score: 3/5
Traits were generally useful, but the player who joined after initial session had to really dig to find useful feats for a wilderness themed character. Generally traits gave some initial flavor, but the book was generally not used after the group left Riddleport. Shadow in the Sky: Overall Score: 5/5
Players were immensely happy with the mini-game, participating in the running of the casino and the various casino games. Overall, this adventure went flawlessly with rational flow between the encounters. NPCs in the adventure (Sam, Lixy, and others), were motivating to the players; as well was the Cyphermage and other factions of the city. The set-up for the second adventure was obvious (a good thing here) and the players were relieved that we got the second module in time to start it as soon as we played the first one. Children of the Void: Overall Score: 5/5
Again, immensely happy players. They loved getting booty, especially rare metals booty. The alien nature of the monsters and the unusual encounters (including the falling tower) outside worked well. They enjoyed playing rescuers to Sam and her party (as Aram quickly took her on a a cohort when legal). In the underground, things went well. One thing that frightens my players to this day is the shout of "Orca Attack!" It was a blast! One nit was that it was unclear how the players should set their motivation by the end of the adventure. On the one hand, they were really getting engaged with the politics of the city. On the other hand, this was really the final adventure with easy access to Riddleport. We had an OOC conversation, and decided to follow the path (based loosely on the notes release so far) rather than wing our own campaign in/around Riddleport. Personally, I would have been happy staying in the city and adapting other adventures (or building our own); the PCs had quite the base they could establish for themselves!
Armageddon Echo: Overall score: 3/5
With only minimal motivation, and highly arrogant "friends", this adventure was hard to get the players into. Early on, they wondered if they should just join with the Drow and eliminate their untrustworthy elven allies. Fortunately, Shalelu made an appearance here; the three main players were engaged in another path for Rise of the Runelords, so they were amused to see her again. This alone probably convinced them to help the elves (which isn't a good reason, since it was a player thing, rather than a character thing). However, once the battle was joined, the players never looked back and enjoyed all the various encounters and the large scale gorilla war being raged in the city. They even enjoyed going into the echo, but didn't explore as much as I hoped they might (these players were very mission focused). The players were satisfied with beating the "improved invisibility, flying Drow mage" and his pet dragon and with the closure of the adventure and intreagued to see what we were going to do with an open Elf-Gate into the Darklands. The only nit was with the boots of spider climbing, wands of levitate and other climbing/flying resources available in the path, several of the encounter areas gave the PCs opportunities to have distinct tactical advantages not obviously considered by the authors. Eviana should have recurred more as a friendly ally. I tried, but with so few opportunities for friendly faces in the path, it was a hard at times. The best time was with Eviana and Shalelu during A Memory of Darkness, convincing the PCs to continue on the path and trust the Queen. Fortunately, the interaction with Eviana in this adventure made her useful later, if not as big an impact as Sam from the first adventure.
Endless Night: Overall Score: 4/5
The players really began to wonder if the surface elves were worth saving when the grey elf necromancer put Drow skins on them. Of course, the novelty of becoming Drow was more than enough - that plus getting away from these insane surface elves was to be a benefit. Their main reason at this point for the adventure was to save (and eventually return to) Riddleport after the Path ends. Zirnakaynin was everything these players could want! A bustling metropolis of sin and the ability to be good guys sneaking around! The mini-game about gaining status with the family went over rather well. A bit dry at times, as I really only prepared 1-3 distinct role-playing events for each type of job in advance. After a while, the mini-game devolved into just a series of checks (which wasn't bad, but I should have had more structure to encourage more branching out into the city in their off-shifts). The combats were great, but again, with their flying/spider-climbing abilities coupled with copious invisibility spells, the PCs were tactically superior to all their opponents preparations. The eventual fleeing from the city lead the players easily into the next module. Again, the players and I could have stayed in the Darklands and Zirnakaynin for the rest of the campaign. Another (very brief) OOC conversation ensued and we decided to proceed with the path.
A Memory of Darkness: Overall Score: 2/5
Again with the insane elves!! For a bit of time, the characters really considered just going on an elf-killing rampage. Fortunately, the cleric was foresighted enough to stuff a few Drow heads into his backpack. Presentation of these heads quickly ended the rantings of various elves ne'er-do-wells. After the assassination attempt and getting imprisoned by the crown, the players really did consider joining the demon's siege of the Winter Council (portrayed as misguided elven advisors to the Queen). Fortunately, the jaded nature of the elven priestess of Calistra appealed to the party, so they joined the defenders and kicked much demon and "new Drow" butt! The limited and confined space of defending a castle removed most of the maneuver advantage the group had and leveled most encounters. At the end, even with the "reveal all" by the Queen, the party again wondered if it wouldn't be for the best for the elven nation to be destroyed. Fortunately, they still liked their memories of Riddleport, so they went on with the final module.
Descent Into Midnight: Overall Score: 3/5
Titanic battles and interesting non-combat encounters with some evil NPCs abounded here. The party's access to travel magic (air walk, teleport, etc.) rendered most of the terrain information about the Land of the Black Blood useless. The players really just focused on scouting out the various sites via air walk (which, DR 10/- and up 60mph speed, coupled with invisibility spells in advance, gave them limitless scouting ability) and hit two sites in short order (via teleport) in the same day. Most sites were very vulnerable to the "death from above" tactics they group had perfected and generally seemed poorly set up to deal with high level/magic heavy assaults. Air walk (in gaseous form) made quick penetration deep in to the Throne of Abraxas easy for the group (although the 5 round "re-materialize" had them getting hammered by a demon while they got ready to battle). The top battle was practically epic between the party, with disintegrate spells, spell turning, and much hacking being done from both sides. The minions were unable to really damage the PCs, but did their job of being roadblocks and distractions. However, eventually the players won (a 10+ round battle taking about 2 hours). In the end, the PCs kept the notes about how to summon the meteor, with the cleric of Nethys muttering something about "summoning a smaller meteor to strike the elves, but not cause a whole second darkness"... Really, was anyone supposed to like any elves at the end of this?
We also used the following items (ranked from 1 [barely useful] to 5 [essential]):
Hi, I'm thinking of starting a family friendly gaming session in Chantilly, VA (just South of Dulles Airport). I'm fairly open to system, can do AnyE DnD or Pathfinder (can also do Traveller if anyone does that anymore); willing to let others DM/GM as desired. We have 2 not-yet-old-enough-to-RPG girls, so bringing kids to play with them would be welcome. My thoughts on style: Pizza and drinks style gaming, with continuity and flexible "Oops, can't make it" contigency options to keep the game flowing as Life Happens(tm). If there is any interest, let me know.
Just checking in - haven't seen order 935690 arrive yet (sent May 6). I've been moving, hence my delay at getting around to reporting this. Was it returned?
Found in my inbox today:
Still getting this through Paizo's subscription. I'm beginning to like digital versions for travel. Just thought you'd Paizo people would like to know that Amazon's direct marketing emails are matching your products.
So, I have J1 and J2 I really liked the adventures (J1 is my favorite of the two). Both give the chance to dislocate from one place and explore another place. However, I am a little confused on the concept. When I originally read the J-series concepts, it seemed that there would be lots of travel (the journey) in the adventure. But both adventures seem to be primarily site based adventures. Spoiler:
For example, J2 pretty much teleports the PCs to the site immediately. There is a short (a few mile) trek on the mountain, but no real sense of journey. Indeed the PCs are immediately teleported back to where they came at the end.
In J1, there are some events (such as the auction) that proceed the journey. However, the journey itself has very little material. Almost no information on what to expect traveling across the desert, during any sea voyage, etc. Pretty much there are some setup events in a mostly arbitrary city and the pyramid site. So, maybe I'm just missing the point of what a Journey adventure is. By counter example, the quintessential travel adventure I've read in the past few months is "The Earl's Progress" (http://www.lythia.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=i ndex&req=viewdownload&cid=8) (okay, it's isn't D&D/OGL - heck it's Harn, which is a very different kind of RPG from 3.5). DnD treks... "The Sea Wyvern's Wake" (Dungeon 141) is recent and fits the bill. There are more but my memory isn't exactly working at the moment.
I loved the feel of the adventure. After a quick on screen read from my download, I had to print out to curl up with a cup of hot chocolate to get a better depth read. My question contains some spoilers, so if you're going to be playing, now is a good time to stop reading . . . Spoiler:
So, we measure success in how few people are killed. People are killed per hour each event is left unbeaten. However, at the rates of killing, what can the PCs do that takes any significant amount of time?
I'm assuming:
I may have missed something, but it doesn't seem as if there are too many tactical options that consume medium-scale time (10's of minutes or low number of hours). I didn't see any strategic options presented in the adventure for players that would consume medium-scale time either. My concern is that the adventure seems to be either "the players win" (defeat everything before 60 minutes elapse) or lose (because they have to rest). I'm not sure how the intermediate solutions would ever really occur in play. Don't get me wrong, I like this adventure - 'A' for evocative writing, great encounters, reusable material (the fair before the change is great source/inspiration material for home brewing). For me, the dark fey encounters are great, because I'm not good at creating that type of material.
I got my physical copy of PF#3 today! I love that the characters get a chance to become lords of a castle and built in to the adventure. However, I'm distressed that there is not much really on being lords of the castle in PF#3. I like that "Keeping the Keep" presents a list of events for the castle owners, but there is almost nothing on really developing the keep. I haven't seen anything like a set of repairs needed to be performed. Even the entires for the castle didn't really give me much of a sense of the extent of damage to structures (implied in the tower collapse event). Compare this with building the manor in Diamond Lake at the beginning of the Age of Worms AP, which gave a great sense of not only the extent (cost/effort) of repairs, but potentials for going above and beyond (extra fancy furnishings to improve diplomacy checks). Further, I'm going to contrast the keep section with the wonderful work done on developing Farshore in "Tides of Dread" in STAP. In that backdrop, the characters had a chance to build up the town in a way that seemed to engender them to the town and impact the campaign. I liked having some canned developments presented. Of course, developing Farshore was central to that adventure. Ideas for Fort Rannick as finding new eagles for the aerie, patrols to protect various resource/development areas (which in turn costs soldiers/effort/money to generate future revenue), etc. Maybe I just missed the details in my first read tonight. To what extent is the area around the fort planning to be developed in future installments?
Trying this without spoilers... Just some general thoughts on the XP progression for D1. Seems that the intent is to go from 2nd to 5th level, based on the encounter CR makeup and a 4 PC group. 6 PCs would be 4th by the end. Without counting random encounters and assuming 4 PCs, I calculate that would put the party as 3rd by early/mid level 1 of the dungeon, 4th sometime early in the 2nd dungeon level, and 5th by the final encounters. Due to the (excellent) plot device, the players have to explore the dungeon almost completely and overcome virtually all encounters (to achieve all the plot devices) in the dungeon. The final encounters (EL 7s) would make sense for a partly depleted 4th/5th level party. I'd even go as far as to say that the EL make-up of the 2nd level of the dungeon seems to assume that the characters have advanced. I haven't noticed any game designers comments on what is the anticipated make-up or in-progress level gains expected of the adventure. Is the above (start at 2nd, end at 4th or 5th) the general intention?
I'm probably just blind, but did I miss the description of the Usi clan in the article "Braving the Isle of Dread"? I see the other six clans have descriptions on page 71. There are feat features for Usi tribe members, but no description of their tribe that I saw. Maybe they were described in another issue? |