In regular play, probably several dozen, and that's only counting when my character was the one to have dealt the final blow. Haven't bothered to keep track any more precisely.
2. hijack the surprise round because you are awesome
3. cast Mythic Time Stop, which, when augmented, lasts for 20 hours.
4. Spend those 20 hours covering your enemy in a giant pile of gunpowder
5. as the spell ends, throw a delayed fireball into the mix
6. win
1. Okay.
2. Deity hijacks your hijack of the surprise round, and goes first.
3. Deity either counterspells and negates your casting of Mythic Time Stop (whether or not the rules allow it), or proceeds to act normally during your supposedly stopped time.
4. Deity is immune to gunpowder.
5. Deity is immune to fire. (For that matter, a lot of things that aren't deities are immune to fire.)
As we are handwaving away physics here almost completely, I'm not really sure we should make any predictions.
We're not handwaving away all physics, just the parts that say magic can't keep things cold.
Actually, yes you are. If you assume you are maintaining a 30' ball of 10-40F temperature you have issues of boundary layer conduction and blackbody radiative heat transfer to consider. If the brown mold can maintain that temperature no matter what, it has to be either an infinite heat sink, or somehow there is a perfect adiabatic layer at that radius (which would prevent all radiation, including light from moving back and forth).
No, it doesn't.
Brown mold lowers the temperature of things within a 30 foot radius of itself.
It has no effect on anything 35 feet away.
It has no effect on anything 31 feet away.
It has no effect on anything 30.0000001 feet away.
It has no effect on anything 30 feet + 1 Planck length away.
There is a physical discontinuity of temperature created. Heat SHOULD flow from the lava outside into the brown-mold-cooled ball, but it doesn't. Why? Because the brown mold entry specifically says it doesn't. That bestiary entry is the salient law of physics, not the heat-transfer equations in your textbooks. It contains no mathematical equation other than "for r <= 9.144 m, T = 277.59444... K."
Why does it still reflect light? Because the entry doesn't specifically say that things become invisible, nor does something typically become invisible just because it happens to be at 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
1. Where is the line when it comes to indirect or unintentional harassment of other players?
Depends entirely on the group. My line is not your line. Heck, my line with Group A may not be the same as my line with Group B, even if I'm in (or even GMing) both.
2. Who's responsibility is it to enforce the non-harrassmemt aspect of the campaign?
In regards to ecology or economics, not at all. In regards to sociology though, yes.
I don't need to know how it is that Goblins haven't been driven extinct despite relentless hunting for centuries. I don't care about whether the discovery of a rich silver mine will affect the market. I do want societies that behave in a somewhat believable way though.
It should go without saying that I don't require strict adherence to physics either. :P
Just my preference.
I agree almost entirely with what Scythia said, except that I do care a bit about economics (at the very least, you won't be able to buy a set of, say, scale mail for exactly 50 gp anywhere and everywhere just because "that's the price in the book").
But I don't care one bit about why there is this massive subterranean cave system that gets no sunlight yet still seems to be teeming with life. What bugs me is not so much "how can there be all these drow here where there's no sunlight for photosynthesis," but rather "where does Menzoberranzan get new noble houses from if every so often one of them annihilates another, and the punishment for incomplete annihilation is for the instigating house to be itself annihilated?"
Mark Hoover wrote:
I'm also modifying settlement of the area saying that the "empty plains" of the interior to the west are open steppe, moors, and grasslands as well as tiny forests so small as to not be recorded on the overland map. This area then is sparsely inhabited by settlements no larger than a Small Town under the protectorate of Endholme.
I do this too with maps. If I'm showing you an entire continent - say, North America - it'll be in broader strokes: Desert in the southwest, forests in the northwest, mountains east of that, then plains and prairie in the Midwest and Great Lakes region, then forest again in the northeast and southeast U.S. (add patches of swamp in parts of the southeast), all surrounding a swath of smaller mountains/large hills, jungle in the Yucatan and Central America. As for rivers, at continent-level you're likely getting the Mississippi, Missouri, St. Lawrence, and Ohio - that's it. Smaller "anomaly" features like the Ozark Mountains in Missouri/Arkansas, the Black Hills Forest in western South Dakota, and all the smaller rivers are subscale and don't show up on the full continent map.
1. The only reason gnomes exist in my personal campaign setting is because they're a core race and there is a player in my group who would absolutely mutiny if they were removed.
2. Regarding martial/caster disparity, I would rather take nice things away from casters than give them to martials.
3. Notwithstanding #2, I don't see anything wrong with "death is cheap"/revolving door resurrection, and don't think permadeath/super-gritty/"dead is dead" is a fun way to play.
4. As a player, I prefer to stay on the rails more often than not, with only minor deviations. Wide-open sandbox style is difficult for me. When I played Skyrim, the first thing I did was the main quest, with only a few minor excursions into nearby areas or dungeons.
5. I don't see anything wrong with the "standard fantasy setting", nor with having technological (near-)stasis. Technologically speaking, my campaign setting is stuck roughly in a time loop from 8th century Europe to 18th century Europe and back again.
6. I would honestly be fine playing in a campaign where the only allowed races are human, elf, and dwarf. Actually, I'd be fine playing in a campaign where the only allowed race is a single one of those three.
7. It has always bothered me that devil-spawn tieflings have a -2 on Charisma. I would swap their bonuses/penalties with the kyton-spawn.
8. Just because a new book, supplement, or even errata has been published does not make me feel obligated to immediately allow/account for it in my games.
9. I still haven't decided whether my female dwarves have beards or not. Maybe I'll settle for stubble?
Let's suppose Sheriff Hemlock does send guards to check with Thistletop. Sandpoint's "army", for lack of a better word, consists of:
- Sheriff Hemlock (fighter 5, CR 4)
- arguably Vachedi (barbarian 3, CR 2)
- 12 guards (warriors 2, CR 1/2 each)
- 62 militia members (officially, warriors 1, CR 1/3 each).
This makes the entire Sandpoint "army" effectively a CR 11 encounter. On the surface, this would be more effective than sending in the party (who, assuming four 3rd level characters with PC wealth by level are effectively a CR 8 encounter), but:
1. A stealth approach is all but useless. Sandpoint Guards have -2 Stealth or must discard their armor to reach +0 (with AC 10).
2. A sea approach is all but useless. Sandpoint Guards have -1 Climb or must discard armor to reach +1 (with AC 10), and would have to make multiple DC 15 Climb checks or risk plummeting.
3. The bridge is trapped, and I wouldn't put it past the goblins to, if the alarm is raised, intentionally trigger the trap (by untying the rigged rope completely) to make the bridge impassable except by shimmying across on the rope (same Climb check issue).
4. No magic or AoE/battlefield control on the part of Hemlock and his posse... unless they conscript one of the few NPC wizards, who will probably not be happy about that and may not necessarily even have combat-optimal spells in their spellbook, let alone prepared.
5. The militia members are part-timers and Sandpoint natives who would be willing to defend Sandpoint if attacked, but probably will be reluctant to do a pre-emptive strike... and if forced into it, might grow resentful of him and/or the "outsider" PCs for not helping along.
6. As Latrecis mentioned (their point 3), until Tsuto's journal is brought to light, by which time Hemlock has left for Magnimar (and there would almost certainly not be any such expedition approved without him present), they have no idea where to go. They could try to follow the tracks, but Sandpoint has a wet climate and the DC to follow increases by +1 for every HOUR of rainfall.
If the party still insists on having them take care of it, some possibilities:
1. If Hemlock is still in town, he and a handful of guards and militia, including at least one named NPC that you think would reasonably be a member of the militia, go off to Thistletop. Hemlock survives, but is badly injured, but 2d3 guards and most of the poorly-equipped militia (including the named NPC) die in the failed assault.
2. NPCs will start treating the PCs as bums or layabouts. Ameiko will likely rescind her freebie and may well shove a broom into one of their hands, making a comment about "maybe my father was right about you all along". Start tracking everything's price (food, inn stay, etc.)... every last copper. Have businesses start hiring for 1sp/day positions... the shipyard needs more dockworkers, Gorvi could use another cart-pusher, perhaps even have Crade Hambley need a few more field hands for the upcoming harvest....
3. As a corollary to point 2, is Lonjiku still alive? If so, he can always show up and reinforce point 2. If not, the Scarnettis are likely to be equally as unfond of "filthy vagrants", and might well want to use their Sczarni contacts to e.g. implicate them in petty crimes and generally paint the PCs as no-good troublemakers.
4. Sometime in Lamashan, the full-force goblin attack transpires, with Nualia and quite possibly a freed Malfeshnekor present. If Hemlock is back by now (which he probably would be, with some men-at-arms from Magnimar) he might very likely draft the PCs into this fight. Once about thirty combatants on either side of the conflict are killed, the have the runewell surge and Nualia transform into a half-fiend, gaining the template and all its benefits immediately.
5. If Sandpoint survives, the PCs - particularly Aldern's mark - should be suspect number one for the Skinsaw murders.
I do pull punches, allow the occasional take-back, and various other mercies.
I do allow characters to leave the party without dying if the player's interested in switching.
In the group I've DMed the longest, the players all had greater system mastery than I did.
I tend to lean more narrativist than simulationist: the Protagonists aren't supposed to die. I have gone so far as to bring resurrection magic into game systems that don't otherwise have it.
Greed points all around... this should go without saying. And what are their alignments? If anyone in that party has a G somewhere in there, that G really needs rethinking. This won't cause any mechanical drawbacks, since you have no characters that will lose class abilities from slipping toward Evil, but...
I would run Thistletop as normal, unless the party delays more than, say, 7 days (one day retraining each of Brodert's hit dice), in which case an Evocation Sin Mage 7 Brodert should toddle off to Thistletop, meet up with Nualia, possibly help release Malfeshnekor and advance the timetable of the larger Sandpoint raid. Where the Brodert decision should really come to roost, especially if the Runewell remains active, is in Skinsaw Murders.
Brodert will be seen as a likely early suspect at least by Father Zantus, who (along with former friendly NPCs like Hemlock) is likely to behave a bit more distantly than he has in the past. Because you have several new players, I recommend against going as far as Latrecis suggests, but people like the Scarnettis in particular (especially if Ironbriar is in town) should strongly push for detaining the PCs (in particular Foxglove's obsession) along with Brodert as a "precautionary measure" until it becomes clear Brodert isn't to blame at least for this set of murders.
I wish you the best of luck. Am curious to see how Runelords plays under 5e rules, particularly at the higher levels where the system assumptions differ the most.
Simple: The bandits don't know of Jubrayl's involvement directly. Truth spells and speak with dead can't reveal what they didn't know.
So have it that the bandits didn't get the order directly from Jubrayl. They were paid by one of his lackeys using an alias, and by the time the bandits are interrogated, said lackey is laying low in a Sczarni safe house in Magnimar, not to emerge until "The Skinsaw Murders" is well underway. Kylan and Sheriff Hemlock may suspect Jubrayl, but there's not enough evidence to convict. (Not to mention that Jubrayl can always call in a blackmail "favor" from the Scarnettis to get him out of the jam.)
Consider also not having Foxglove stay in Sandpoint after the hunt for at least enough time for Kylan to share her suspicions on Jubrayl with him, before he returns to Magnimar. (This is fairly easy to do without messing with the plot unless your players are itching to raid Thistletop, since you control when Ameiko is kidnapped.)
The magic item availability is simply "what's already at market" when the players show up in town. Base value and purchase limit do not prevent the party from hiring the services of an NPC spellcaster to craft custom items for them at standard market value, provided there's a spellcaster capable of casting Xth-level spells in that city/town.
What does tend to prevent them? The time investment involved (though if your campaign's on that tight a timeline, you're not having any PC crafting either), the possibility of PCs being unfriendly with the locals, etc.
GM says, "The local speleothems in the cavern indicate that this particular cavern is likely a solutional cave system, you note the presence of red streaks in the smooth limestone surroundings. And oh yeah, there's an orc here."
GM means, "I just read the 1e guide on underground caverns and thought it was really neat!" or "I did my research and I'm going to show you."
Alternatively:
GM means: "Can you believe there's a Pathfinder table at this geologist convention?"
Fighter - versatile (through feats) fighter-type, more military/"trained" in nature than the barbarian (d10, 2+Int, full, mundane). Better if you give them 4+Int skill points.
Bard - versatile buffer/healer type who's still competent in combat and stealth. (d8, 6+Int, 3/4, arcane 6 spontaneous)
Magus - archetypical battlemage, Int as primary stat helps mitigate low skill points. (d8, 2+Int, 3/4, arcane 6 prepared)
Warpriest - like the magus, but with divine casting. Low skill points mitigate duplication with bard and encourage greater combat focus with warpriest and skill focus with bard. (d8, 2+Int, 3/4, divine 6 prepared)
Sorcerer - archetypical full arcane caster. Lack of versatility of spells known plus squishiness (d6 hit die) helps mitigate overwhelming power of certain spells. (d6, 2+Int, 1/2, arcane 9 spontaneous)
Oracle - divine equivalent of sorcerer. Mandatory flaw and limited spell selection help mitigate overwhelming power of certain spells. (d8, 4+Int, 3/4, divine 9 spontaneous)
For a "no 7th- and higher level spells" game, replace sorcerer and oracle with inquisitor (divine 6 spontaneous to mirror the bard) and brawler (unarmed combat fighter-type to mirror the slayer).
Not having Profession (Miner) doesn't mean you can't mine, it just means you probably won't do it that well. Which is reasonable, as Sandpoint isn't a mining town. I also hope they realize that they're probably dispatching close to Sandpoint's entire guard retinue to this - from Medieval Demographics Made Easy:
Quote:
A settlement [Sandpoint's] size with typical law enforcement will probably have 8 armed agents of the ruling authority (guardsmen, watchmen, etc.).
...which would likely include Sheriff Hemlock, and possibly Vachedi as well.
#2 while bulbaquil is correct that her perception is not good enough to find the door unaltered, he is incorrect that there are not spells to help. Owl's wisdom will boost her wisdom by 4 and her perception by 2 which gets her to +7 and she can cast 0-level guidance repeatedly. That gets her to +8. With days available, she finds the method to open that door. And she should have found it long before the players get there.
I will admit I feel very sheepish for having forgotten about owl's wisdom.
But yes, it makes sense that she should know about the vault, and she certainly has the gold coin necessary to enter it.
She actually can't find the secret door that leads to the treasury, unless she already knew about it. Her Perception +5 can't make the DC 28 needed to find the mechanism, and at her cleric level of 4 I can't think of any spells that would boost it by 3.
You cannot change your creature type (although you can appear as another subtype).
I've never liked that restriction. It is clearly intended to keep PCs from doing something like impersonating an angel or a vampire lord, but I think it's silly that it is more difficult for the illusion to make a zombie look human than to make a devil into an angel.
(Or make an aasimar to look human than make the same aasimar look like a janni.)
Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of GMs houserule (possibly unknowingly, in a de facto sort of way) that native outsiders count as humanoids rather than outsiders for things like disguise self, enlarge person, etc., unless you really would rather your undine disguise himself as a balor rather than an elf.
Cleric: Prepared spellcasting and the fact that there seldom is a deity that happens to match the character concept that matches the alignment I want to play.
Monk: Far too MAD for my tastes and restricted to alignments that don't match my preferred playstyle (I tend towards chaotic characters).
Ninja: Unless the game is actually in an "Eastern fantasy" setting (e.g. Jade Regent), I'd rather play a rogue, mechanically imbalanced or not. I'd be okay with playing a ninja refluffed as a rogue, but I'm writing "rogue" on the character sheet and calling the ki pool something like a trick pool.
Oracle: Oracle curses. While I like the idea of having a divine-caster version of sorcerers, I would rather have the option of not taking an oracle curse, forgoing the benefits as well as the drawback.
Paladin: I'll play one for something like Wrath of the Righteous that practically begs you to play one, but I'm not interested in having to deal with the goblin baby problem and having to guess which answer, if any, will have the GM not make me fall.
Samurai: See Ninja.
Wizard: Prepared spellcaster with the added tedium of spellbook maintenance, and the feeling that by playing one I'm somehow obligated to bend reality to my whim even when I have no desire to do so.
Perhaps a good choice would be an AP that’s fairly episodic (for example, one where each book is set in a different location) and one that other GMs have been happy to run without making significant changes. (I don’t have any suggestions though - our group hasn’t completed any other APs yet.)
Reign of Winter might work well for this. For the most part, each book is in a new location with very few recurring NPCs and minimal foreshadowing - there may be some issues with the transition from book 1 to 2, though, as the area transition there takes place mid-book 1 rather than at the end of the book.
Others have mentioned Shattered Star, which I think would probably also work well.
GM says: "Hey, can you guys tell me your Fort save bonuses real quick?"
GM means: "You will be exposed to diseases."
GM says: "Hey, can you guys tell me your Will save bonuses real quick?"
GM means: "You are being scryed upon."
GM says: "I recommend against playing a paladin in this campaign..."
GM means: "This campaign is going to be shades-of-gray. I really don't want any big alignment concerns."
GM says: "Sure, by all means you can play a paladin."
GM means: "Goblin babies."
Player says: "I want to play a dwarven bard."
Player means: "I want an excuse to sing badly at the table."
Player says: "I want to play an aasimar."
Player means: "I want to play a human, but with a bunch of free bonuses."
Player says: (while reading/discussing the house rules) "You nerfed <ability/spell/power>?!"
Player means: "But my build relies on heavily abusing <ability/spell/power>!"
Player says: "I spent hours upon hours developing my new character's backstory."
Player means: "So don't have him/her killed in the first encounter."
What happens in Pathfinder Society stays in Pathfinder Society - nothing you do there carries over into the regular game. Similarly, what happens in the regular game stays in the regular game - it doesn't carry over into the Society.
You would need to create a new character. Odds are you would probably still be able to create a character similar to your Society one, at least in concept.
The rules for character creation (what's allowed, what's not allowed, etc) in a regular Pathfinder game are determined entirely by the GM. The Pathfinder Society rules on character creation do not apply. Your group might use some point buy other than 20 or even roll dice for your characters' stats.
Leveling up is similarly determined by the GM - most will either (1) follow one of the XP progression charts (Core Rulebook page 30), or (2) level based on story progression. If you use XP, it's generally awarded after each encounter, though some GMs may wait until the end of the session to award XP.
As a corollary to this, there is the possibility (especially if you're not playing an Adventure Path or if you're joining a game already in progress) that you may have to create a character at a level higher than 1.
Most GMs have house rules of some sort that may deviate from core. If you have the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play, you're already used to this - that booklet is the "house rule list" of Pathfinder Society.
There is continuity and carryover from one session to the next! This means you might end a session with less than full HP, unrecovered ability damage, persistent status effects... and retain them when the next session starts. They do not need to be "resolved" at the end of the session; they carry over into the next. As a corollary to that, you may not necessarily end a session in a "safe" place - you may well be in the middle of a dungeon, about to fight its boss monster!
There are no faction missions. Indeed, odds are your character isn't expected to be a member of the (in-universe) Pathfinder Society. It's entirely possible you may be in a different campaign setting from Golarion altogether.
Note that occasionally (per Blood of Fiends) a tiefling's heritage isn't manifested at birth but in adolescence. If this is the case for your tiefling, he/she almost certainly has an ordinary Chelaxian human name. Even if he/she's a foundling whose heritage manifested at birth, if they're from Cheliax odds are it was a Chelaxian who took them in.
Several Chelaxians appear to have vaguely Greco-Roman- and/or Italian-sounding names (Titus Scarnetti from Runelords, for example), though perhaps with a greater likelihood of an "x" somewhere in there, and this is certainly not restrictive (there are several counterexamples).
I prefer to play non-casters or low-casters (rangers, paladins etc), no matter how high-magic a game it is.
If I happen to be playing a magic user, it'll almost always be a spontaneous caster, and most likely a blaster at that.
I don't pre-plan builds to 20, even if I'm aiming for a prestige class. Most of the time I won't even start thinking about what options to take next level until we're closing in on the XP threshold.
I will only play humans, elves, half-elves, dwarves, ifrits, sylphs, tieflings, undines, and occasionally halflings. If playing a tiefling, I tend to prefer a variant heritage.
Much like Adjule, I hate having less than 10 CON. I hesitate to even have less than 12 CON, and will sacrifice primary stats to mitigate this.
The more options for character creation that are allowed, the more likely it is that I'm going to want to play a human fighter.
I prefer to be kept on the rails more or less, but with some opportunity for sidequesting. Despite this, I hate being geas/quested, and tend to play chaotic characters...
The adamantine door is a set piece. It is not loot and is worth nothing. Even if I'm playing a CN rogue.
I like cliches, and there is no such thing as an "overused" trope.
(when GM'ing) Odds are, that door isn't trapped, that treasure chest isn't a mimic, and that awesome-looking magical belt isn't a girdle of opposite gender. You don't need to make nearly as many Perception checks as you'd think in my games. Also, "critical fumbles" are not a thing.
What does all this mean? I guess that I play Pathfinder almost as if it were Zelda or Final Fantasy, that I prefer things to be relatively simple and straightforward, and that I barely have a simulationist bone in my body. Also, that I don't like seeing a vanishingly small number in the denominator of my hit points at level 1?
I'd like an AP located primarily in Andoran and/or Taldor. Much potential unexplored lore - Reign of Winter technically started in Taldor, but very quickly left it...
For our group, Burnt Offerings took 8 sessions of gameplay over 4 months running about 40 hours of table time, but our group is heavy on the table talk and rules disputes, so that's probably about 20 hours of actual gameplay. We didn't continue on to Skinsaw (and if we did, we'd still be in the middle of it now), but I'd imagine it would be about the same length.
Depending on the length of your sessions and your policies on OOC conversation, this may vary, but 6-8 sessions is probably a reasonable estimate unless you have "marathon" 8+ hour sessions.
Good-aligned societies may have problems with recalcitrant spellcasters as well, and are likely to balk at a "solution" which is painful and evil. Moreover, by RAW, a single casting of regeneration, even assuming 13th-level NPC clerics/oracles/witches are readily available in the setting, costs 910 gp.
I'm not sure there is a hard and fast style rule on whether material comes first or enchantments do. It shows up both ways in Paizo sources: the paladin-wielded holy avenger is described as a "+5 holy cold iron longsword", but there's an enemy in Rise of the Runelords Book 5 who wields a "+1 cold iron returning dagger".
I think the first way makes more sense as it separate the "magical" half (bonus and special properties) from the "mundane" half (material and weapon/armor type).
Enhancement bonus comes first for weapons/armor/ammunition (+2 chainmail) but last for wondrous items (belt of giant strength +2). Composite bows' Strength rating follows the weapon name and is explicitly marked as such (e.g. "masterwork composite longbow (+1 Str)").
You italicize all of it, because the whole thing is a magic item. You don't italicize parentheticals (e.g. "belt of physical might +2 (Str/Con)".
If you're using normal adjectives with no mechanics meaning to add flavor to the item, they precede the entire description including the enhancement bonus, and are not italicized: "This ruby-pommeled +1 keen scimitar transforms into a dire tiger when bathed under the light of a gibbous moon."
I always understood it that a fully-filled bag of holding would resemble a (somewhat squished on top and bottom) cylinder with a diameter of 2 feet and a height of 4 feet. On the other hand, I can see the arguments for and against both depictions, and our group plays fast and loose with encumbrance anyway. This is probably a "GM's call" issue... I can't think of any relevant rules that explicitly clarify it.
That said, the interior volume limit is largely irrelevant, unless you're filling the thing with balsa wood or styrofoam. It's only if you fill it with objects less than 10-15% the density of water (depending on the bag type) that the volume limit will be hit before the weight limit will, and most of the time you're going to be filling it with treasure, much of which is made of precious stones or metals that are more dense than water, let alone than 10% of water.
Though my party fought Tangletooth to the point of retreat on their way into Thistletop, I forgot to bring Gogmurt into the fight until they were already well into the structure, and I didn't want to deprive the group of the XP for a CR 4 encounter out of inadvertence.
Fortunately, they provided me with an excellent opportunity to reintroduce him: They decided to rest in the courtyard with Shadowmist, without having killed or disabled the pickle thieves on the watchtower. In broad daylight, not that that would really matter for goblins. So I had Gogmurt and a partially-healed Tangletooth show up while they were trying to rest.
Does the Arcane Surge mythic ability stack with the Persistent Spell metamagic? That is, if I expend one use of mythic power to cast, say, persistent lightning bolt on a non-mythic target, how do the saving throws work?
I think it would be something like:
target rolls two Reflex saves and takes the lowest (as per arcane surge)
if the target still succeeds, it must reroll only once, and suffers the full effects if this reroll fails,
but can also see the case where the Persistent Spell applies to each of the Arcane Surge rolls (roll twice taking the lowest, if that succeeds, roll again twice taking the lowest) or not stacking at all.
As someone who's also going to have to change the sawmill murders, I believe that shouldn't affect things too drastically, unless you've already brought up the Banny/Katrine relationship in which case you've got to deal with that ahead of time.
And drawing suspicion on the PCs is a good way to get them invested in this plot.
It'll make things... interesting for the next chapter which involves Harker. Though things could still tragically play straight I suppose....
Yeah, actually as we went through this the thought of "Okay, now what sort of ramifications does all of this have for Book 2?" kept entering my mind.
If you know what it means to ''get the Brendan card'', don't click:
I'm thinking about basically swapping Harker and Thorn's roles in this. I've stated Harker is a penny-pincher, yes, but I haven't really been portraying him yet as greedy - it could simply be because he's been trying to frugally save money for a future life with Katrine. Very possibly after this, Katrine tries to start a relationship with Ibor Thorn - the mill is still a good spot for trysts, after all. In this case, Banny Harker lives and is the one who discovers Katrine and Ibor's dead bodies in the morning.
This would provide a reasonable motive for Harker to have committed the murder himself. He woke up in the garrison after the drunken night out with a Wisdom score of 5 and no memory of anything that had happened since he stepped into the Hagfish, and might well think Katrine is out to spite him. Since both Harker and Vinder have already been in trouble with the law in my game, that's a lot of tasty red herring.
I present to you: the Banny Harker Affair, otherwise known as the convoluted conclusion to the Shayliss Vinder aftermath. It may not seem particularly "funny" while reading it, but it was quite hilarious at the table, full of cross-referencing NPCs with their tendencies and PCs with their backgrounds and were amused by how unexpectedly apropos some of this was.
Player W is playing a male aasimar inquisitor of Calistria, who actually started looking for eligible bachelorettes in Sandpoint before I sprang the Shayliss encounter on the party. Needless to say, he was the Shayliss-bait and easily accepted her invitation, knowing full well what she wanted. He got caught by Ven Vinder and managed to escape provoking only one failed attack of opportunity, fleeing naked into the Hagfish.
Well, he wants to make things right with Ven because he's still attracted to Shayliss, not to mention the party might feel the need to shop at the general store occasionally. Upon him asking around about how to do this, I bring up the Banny/Katrine relationship - Ven might be more inclined to be nicer if he "deals with" the issue.
Plot events interfere in the form of a kidnapped Ameiko, and the Vinder reparations are put on hold while the party delves into the Glassworks and then the Catacombs of Wrath, but when they emerge to the surface, so does the thorny Shayliss issue.
At this point Player M, whose character is a fetchling rogue with the Family Ties campaign trait and a pre-existing backstory relationship to Kaye Tesarani, decides to come up with a scheme to effectively end the romance between Banny and Katrine, involving a trip to the Hagfish for inebriation and getting Banny to become internally conflicted on whether or not Katrine really loves him or only wants him for his money, and then taking an extremely drunk Banny to the Pixie's Kitten, Kaye having been paid off to make sure everyone there referred to the nocturnal establishment as "the inn".
So after seven drinks and seven points of Wisdom damage, on the night of 27 Rova 4707, Banny found himself at the town brothel having very little idea of what was going on, and ended up involving himself with six different women, thinking all of them were Katrine. Meanwhile, W was upstairs in the Rusty Dragon involving himself with Shayliss, who had snuck into his room awaiting their return.
They get done and Shayliss gets dressed, and bumps into M. M tips off Shayliss that something is happenin with Banny at the brothel; she, being jealous of Katrine, goes to investigate and brings Katrine with her as M returns to the Rusty Dragon. Somehow Ven finds out about the event, and Banny gets into a drunken brawl with him; the party wakes up the next morning to find that both Banny Harker and Ven Vinder are now behind bars at the Sandpoint Garrison. Sheriff Hemlock is at this point still out of town, having not yet returned from Magnimar (he wouldn't until the subsequent day), and the deputy in charge is uncomfortable with the idea of running something on the order of a trial without the sheriff there. All involved parties certainly don't want to take this to Magnimar - it's a local issue and should be dealt with locally.
Enter Player A, whose character is a tiefling oracle. Of Asmodeus. Who is a lawyer by trade.
The aim of the party is, of course, to get Ven Vinder to let them shop in the store, and for the normal price rather than double price. A heads down to the garrison and proposes a deal with Ven that she'll defend him in the trial if he removes the bans/restrictions on their shopping. He accepts (and, being lawful neutral, intends on following through with the agreement), provided that W refrain from doing anything at all with Shayliss without his consent.
A spends the rest of the day basically gathering evidence against Banny Harker. But this trial actually does have some political ramifications, because of Ven Vinder's generally well-regarded nature in the community and Banny's relationship with the Scarnettis. A Scarnetti representative actually visits A over dinner and advises her for leniency - but not too much leniency - in the sentencing phase (there's just too many strikes against Banny for him to be found innocent, plus he had been effectively patronizing a brothel and the Scarnettis think he needed "a bit of reminding" that contracting such services is unbecoming of an upstanding citizen).
The whole affair takes us about 2 hours 45 minutes of real time, after the trial is all taken care of, it takes us about 15-20 minutes to calm down enough to progress with the main plot when someone is like "Oh, yeah, what about the whole goblin thing?"
...Now the operative question is whether an echo of this event will arise around, say, Sarenith 4708....
I would say that an NPC "tough guy" with 14-16 Con, 2 levels in a single "good Fort save" class, and something that hikes Fortitude (Resilient trait, Great Fortitude feat, or dwarven +2 vs. poisons) should have about a 1-in-50 (p = 0.02) shot at winning. At that point you're looking at about a +7 Fort save.
It turns out that 0.45 * 0.3 * 0.15 comes out to just about 0.02. What this means is that a 3-save progression in which the +7 Fortitude player needs to roll at least a 12, then a 15, then an 18 on the die gives you about a 1-in-50 chance.
So you basically have 3 increasingly more difficult Fort saves - DC 19, DC 22, and DC 25 respectively.
How does this fare against a PC specifically optimizing for the contest, assuming they are doing it at level 2 - say, a dwarven (+2 Fort vs. poisons) barbarian 1 (+2)/fighter 1 (+2) with 20 Con (+5), Great Fortitude (+2), and the Hagfish Hopeful (+2 vs. poisons) trait? Well, they're technically at a +15 for this, meaning they need a 4 (p=0.85), 7 (p=0.7), and 10 (p=0.55) on their dice rolls. Their overall chance of winning is 32.7%... about 1 in 3.
Try to be as familiar as possible with Sandpoint in particular before starting out the AP - especially if your players are more roleplay-oriented than combat-oriented. You want to get the party invested in Sandpoint by whatever means possible - play to their character goals, classes, and playstyles to do this. (E.g. the Sczarni/Scarnetti "war" may be a good way to involve a rogue-type character, though it isn't played up much in the AP itself.)
Mechanically, will saves are likely to be a big issue as Mudfoot mentioned. You do have a sorcerer, so you'll at least have one "good will save" character, and in your case I'd be inclined to treat the haunts as fear effects that your fighter's Bravery will apply against. Maybe drop a headband of inspired wisdom shortly before you go to the Misgivings.
Inquisitor of Calistria in my game - even though he technically didn't have the highest CHA, there was really no question about this, given that he had already been looking for eligible bachelorettes.
The inquisitor failed the perception check with an 11, and tried to actually tell Ven that they were "killing rats" when it was really very clear what was going on. Needless to say, massive penalties on that Bluff check, and after the first swing he felt it would be best if he just picked up his clothing and fled, still nude, looking for the nearest relatively safe place... which happened to be the Hagfish.
The players found the entire thing hilarious, and "rats in the basement" has already come up as a euphemism for, well..., and my homebrew setting now has a "Shayliss's Nightclub" in one of the port cities. I don't know yet how the diplomacy penalty and follow-up effects will play out - we called the session immediately after the encounter and haven't played Runelords again since then due in part to weather and simply the scheduling issues inherent in December gaming.
Having a "NPC cheat sheet" sorted by function (e.g.: Alchemist, Blacksmith, Brewer, etc.) is likely to be just as useful as one sorted by name, and is worth making one. The sheer number of NPCs, buildings, etc. - not all of which are necessarily plot-significant - can be overwhelming for the players, let alone the GM.
How familiar are your players with tabletop roleplaying in general? If not at all, you should definitely make full use of the Swallowtail Festival to help familiarize your players with the concepts of skill checks, attack rolls, saving throws etc. in a low-stress environment. Tempered with this, of course, is the need to keep any spellcasters in the party from using up their limited spells per day before the goblin fight!
I highly recommend, especially for a new group, awarding XP for roleplaying the festival, because doing so encourages roleplay - not to mention that with the time-consuming process that is character creation for a new party unfamiliar with the system, depending on the length of your session it's entirely possible that you may not get to the goblin fights (running RotR with an experienced party who walked in the door with their characters basically finished, I got to about the end of Part One of Book One after a 5-hour session that included 1 hour of pre-game "table talk"). You probably don't want your players leaving without having gotten any XP that first session.
