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It's alright to be affiliated with the Guard, but working directly for the Guard as a "street cop" for a PC would mean they'd have other responsibilities for most of books 1 and 2 (and likely 3 as well...), namely riot control.

That said, a really good idea would be for the player to be a detective or independent investigator (as opposed to the equivalent of a beat cop) investigating Gaedren Lamm as one of their first major cases. That gives good reason for the detective to be working with outside informants (the other PCs), be reporting to Cressida directly, not need to be responsible for things like riot control, and to go back to Cressida when Gaedren is dead (which is *really* what the AP wants the players to do). It also provides a voice in the party immediately telling the others to trust Cressida and take her instruction, which really doesn't hurt either.

If you take the common track and extend Gaedren Lamm's story be the whole of Book 1, it makes even more sense for the detective to then work with the party afterwards. The other PCs helped the detective solve their first major case, and (depending on how you run it) might be directly related to plague case that happens immediately after.

In short, it can definitely work, you'll just need to make sure that working with the party is one of the paramount principles of the Guard PC.


Welcome back Inspectre!

Indeed I have a very interesting Curse of my own running now, though I've been plagued recently by large gaps in play sessions as well.

I have to skip over quite a bit, as I don't have the time for a full in detail write-up, but here is my rough outline:

my book 2:

Before starting my second book, I took a page from your book and spent a few sessions in an interlude. I spent a session with each of the players interacting with their own plotlines, including the Arabasti bastard meeting Venster for the first time. One of the other players' contacts wanted to escape the city with all the riots, so I had Vencarlo approach the party wondering if they could get Trinia out as well. Trinia isn't as important in this run as she was in the as-written version, and I just had her not be involved in any murder investigation at all. The whole city was more incensed about the massive crystal located at the bottom of the amphitheater and rebuilding after Gaedren.

Leaving the city by boat, I had them encounter some Hellknights who had some friend-of-a-friend connection to one of the players. The Hellknights had not forgotten about the murder investigation, and really wanted Trinia. The players didn't really understand why they wanted a painter of all things, but did understand that they hated the Hellknights and didn't like swords in their face. The battle was pretty epic, I had the PCs on a riverboat fighting the Hellknights on a low stone bridge overlooking the river. The PCs couldn't quite get up past the Hellknights' polearms, but the Hellknights were also unable to get into the boat for fear of falling into the water and drowning. Eventually the PCs prevailed, but killed 4 Hellknights in the process. This would start a period of lasting enmity that would end up with the Hellknights entirely leaving the city.

The coronation was, as I mentioned last time (months ago...) more to get the party interested in the city politics as a whole. I introduced all of the noble families (all of the Big Families in the Guide to Korvosa) as well as some of the notable non-nobles, like the leaders of the Hellknights and the Sable Company. I introduced Reiner Devaulus here as the Queen's new Head of Intelligence, and he thoroughly freaked out most of the party. They were also a little terrified of Lord Ornellos, who I let slip was a very high level wizard (as is mentioned in the Guide to Korvosa). The PCs meeted and greeted the upper crust, gaining a look into how the non-Underworld did things.

The coronation's peace was broken by an attack by Bloodveil Zombies (yes, the same ones you used :P) assisted by Urgathoan Cultist/Alchemists. I held the coronation high up in one of the outer gardens of Castle Korvosa, which meant the zombies could use their climb speeds to attack from all sides. The Urgathoans hurled Smoke Bombs and really did their best trying to keep the more combat-capable from massacring their zombies. I even had Andaisin show up, though she was offscreen the entire fight killing nobles and dueling with Blackjack (Vencarlo got in as Kroft's "+1," which is a whole other bag of worms). The PCs fought off zombies and cultists in their corner of the gardens, representing the entire battle which was being fought offscreen. They were defending the head of Jeggare house, who I painted as an elderly archaeologist/professor type, and the head of Leroung house, who I painted as a stereotypical over-enthusiastic bubbly scientist.

Once the smoke cleared (literally), the PCs were left in a battle-scarred garden with Sabrina, Reiner, and Queen Ileosa. I left a lot of evidence of death around the three of them, so the PCs would understand that Reiner == Sabrina in terms of power level (and they were already terrified of both of them, already). I had been representing Ileosa as a little anxious and nervous about her new role and seeing her local heroes covered in blood and smoke was enough to nearly push her into a mental breakdown. As she tottered backwards, she brushed her hand against the Crown of Thorns, which she hadn't had a chance to put on yet. I made the CoT the main actual crown of Korvosa in an effort to explain why the previous rulers had always been iron-fisted and kind of evil, but of course all of the PCs failed their checks to figure out there was something off about the crown. As she touched the crown, Kazavon buttressed her mind, soothing her fears and anxiety, and gave her the resolve she needed. She put on the crown, and all of the worry in her face changed to firm, hard resignation as she realized what this attack meant (she had seen Andaisin flying around too).

Reports of a new disease had been floating around the city the last few days, but they had been put down to just colds caused by the chaos of the riots. Simultaneously with the coronation attack, zombies appeared all over the city and attacked citizens in the streets, causing a mass panic (again). Reports from Sable Company members were coming in even as the last zombie fell at the coronation. Andaisin magically enhanced her voice as she flew above the city, announcing to the city that these attacks and the plague to come were intentional and all caused by Ileosa. Andaisin went on to explain Ileosa knew what had to be done to make them stop, she just wouldn't do it, and that she wasn't loyal enough to Korvosa to do everything that was necessary to make the attacks/plagues stop.

Ileosa heard this and knew she would have to act quickly. She took the party and asked them who to give support to, and who to withhold support from. I ran this as a minigame, where the PCs could choose which groups to "save" and which groups to "doom." They could get extra "saves" if they also used extra "dooms." Groups had a base 60% chance to survive the plague if they weren't interacted with, and a +-40% modifier for save/doom. Named NPCs like leaders usually survived the plague, but I had a few die for cinematic effect. The PCs couldn't really choose who to save and who to doom, but finally made all the hard choices. The crux was that the entire Underworld died off, leaving a huge power vacuum, the Hellknights died off, the Jeggare family lost quite a bit. Several named NPCs also got the plague but didn't die from it, like Vencarlo.

I'll skip describing the "deal with the plague victims" encounters, because they mostly amounted to running around the city, looking for Andaisin. They did end up fighting a suped-up infected Girrigz with a massive silver earthbreaker while zombies tried to swarm them, which was a load of fun.

The PCs eventually figured out that Andaisin was in Old Korvosa, trying to reach through the Planar Boundaries to get to Scarwall (which remember, I put in the Shadow Plane floating over Castle Korvosa). The PCs raced through Old Korvosa while that part of the city burned -- they were running away from fires started by rampaging zombies. They came to the lighthouse Andaisin was atop of and charged/climbed up it, wading through a horde of zombies in the process. Andaisin succeeded as they came up the stairs, fully pulling Scarwall into the Material Plane, but was unable to use its power to supercharge any spells before the PCs interrupted her. An epic battle ensued, and I ended up using her tactics and statblock almost verbatim from the as-written part of the AP. They almost died to her negative channels multiple times, and Phase 2 dropped 2 players below 0. I feared a TPK, but the rogue got a couple lucky hits in and dropped her.

For now, the city became at rest. The PCs figured out a cure working with Reiner and Rolth and got it spread through the city in time to save roughly 50% of the population. Yes, they worked with Rolth, who they freed from prison specifically due to his expertise with diseases. I had Ileosa trade him a pardon to work with Reiner on curing the disease. Reiner was a good guy in this run, and will continue to be one (for now :)). Old Korvosa burned to the ground, leaving only the stone structures still standing. Much of the city was decimated by the riots followed by the plague in quick succession, and I intend the interlude between Books 2 and 3 to be a recovery period.

My Book 3 is going to be the final chapter. I'm going to run a politicking minigame with the PCs supporting Ileosa versus her various political enemies, like Glorio. We've got 2 big megadungeons for the PCs to run through, Castle Korvosa and Scarwall itself. Scarwall is still hanging in the air above Castle Korvosa, but nothing has come out of it yet. The PCs all chose to back Ileosa, who had to make quite a few hard choices about dealing with plague survivors. She had to implement rationing enforced by the Gray Maidens just to keep the city alive, which didn't win her any favors.

I've skipped over quite a lot, but thats the rough outline. My players are chomping at the bit for more Curse, and I have to say that so am I. We'll probably finish by next summer. Looking forward to seeing more posts from you again!


@Lanathar:
Maybe at your table. I assure you, I am no antagonistic GM. My players and I both desire realistic fights -- if an enemy has access to something as written, they will use it to their full advantage. My players do not expect pulled punches and in fact lose all desire to play if they think I am doing so.

Rohkar uses negative channeling to heal the zombies, yes, but can also use it to harm the living. The tactics given in all statblocks are a rough outline of what they might do, not a hardlined "Rohkar MAY ONLY channel energy to heal the undead." It doesn't say he uses his Murderous Command or Hold Person spells in the tactics statblock, would he not use it at your table?

Even if we were to play at your table and only run things exactly as written: the frost skeletons are super deadly. I had forgotten about them until I pulled up the PDF to check Rohkar's tactics, but the skeletons in the lodge are frosty and they will absolutely murder a party. Extra damage on hit and then an explosion? This is versus level 1-2 characters, a high chance of death is putting it mildly. Even with no tactics beyond "the frost skeletons run at the nearest opponent" PCs are semi-likely to die to them.

Don't go around throwing WRONGBADFUN accusations at people if you have no context.


Reign of Winter:
The lodge in book 1. Likely your players will reach the lodge on the first or second day of travel, weakened from travelling in the snow and fighting off the encounters. The lodge is essentially a large empty room with a bunch of baddies, including skeletons with DR. The party might not even be level 2 yet (though on both times I've run the lodge, I've bumped the party to 2 in advance before the lodge to not TPK them) and they'll be fighting a cleric who can cast level 2 spells and channel negative energy.

Very very deadly, I've lost 4 player characters there over the 2 times I have run it, and 1 run only wasn't a TPK because the last member of the party dove out a window and hid in the deep snow.


Session 1:

Spent half of this session getting everyone's characters ironed out and describing Numeria/Torch. Golem ran an as-written version for me, Reeves, Wheezl and Punz in the past, so the majority of us were familiar with the concept of Torch already. Main differences were covered in the main post, but were mostly about making Torch larger and more important. I want the party to come back to Torch in the future and use it as a hometown, so I wanted to make sure the town was big enough to support anything I could anticipate them wanting while also being realistic in the setting.

The party met up in the Foundry Tavern, all except Mercer finding the flyers that Val had posted up around town. Val was steely-eyed and not hopeful at seeing the ragtag crew who showed up to answer the flyer, especially Fritz. Val had posted a reward, which is the coin for rescuing her father, Khonnir Baine. Mercer, of course, lived with Val and Khonnir and so was already down to go rescue his father. The party meets and greets, eating some delicious hot sandwiches and drinking (well) booze from the bar. Ript and Fritz immediately begin playing a rousing game of "Rocks" while Gutgash meticulously pulls all the meat out of Ript's sandwich.

Shouts and the breaking of glass are heard from the workshop next door, along with Val's hawk shriek of anger. The party scrambles up and out of the tavern from both the north and south ends, grabbing their weapons as they do. They see 4 Ropefist thugs attempting to steal the 2 repair drones Khonnir and crew returned with in their first excursion.

Val fends off two trying to subdue her, just in time for Doc to turn up and Sleep them both. Mercer and Fritz battle the malfunctioning repair drones, both of whom were activated by the Ropefist thugs in their ignorance. The two robots flail around the shop, one throwing an anvil through the large bay window facing the road. Gutgash, Ashad and Ript end up climbing the building itself to chase the other half of the burgling squad, killing them as they try to escape off the northeastern end of the Foundry tactical map.

The party decide that they might as well get started at this point. Most of the party knows that the previous expeditions have all had to enter via the underwater passage underneath the Black Hill and that Joram Kyte could probably help. Mercer himself has met Joram many times before, as he learned the art of mechanicry from Khonnir and Joram's many projects, arguements, and debates. Ashad is puzzled why the Ropefist gang wants the robots at all, since they were obviously damaged and worth little to anyone in town with the troubles going on.

They decide to group up and olly over to the Temple of Brigh, which I have transformed into something resembling a cross between a modern-day mechanic shop and the pile of steering wheels in "Mad Max: Fury Road." I have also transformed Joram into the stereotypical old-man mechanic, reminiscent of characters like Cid from Final Fantasy. He greets them from the undercarriage of a war rig, covered in grease and futilely trying to get the worst off with a rag covered in more grease than he is. Joram talks tech with Mercer for a few minutes, and ends up giving the party 8 "rebreathers" which he "just got working the day befo'." The rebreathers are ramshackle and covered in grease, but Joram assures the party that the grease is actually integral to their function. The devices themselves only work when water is being pushed through them, but aren't waterproof: a design flaw that doomed them to obscurity in their past life. In modern-day Numeria, they're not very useful, but Joram figured that by coating them with a liberal layer of grease, you could get "oh, a couple uses out of each o' 'em. Mebbe three each?" Ashad also managed to score a waterproof jar of the grease, giving them 10 additional charges. Joram wishes the party well and sends them on their way, imploring them to come back "iffin you need a tune-up."

I made the decision to transform a lot of the aid that Joram gives from magic to tech to really get into the flavor of the area.

The party secures a rope outside the Brackwater Pond and sets to swimming down without much event. Gutgash surprises the majority of the party on the other end by abruptly revealing his other two arms. The party almost ends up dying to the Blindheim, all but Fritz and Ript being blinded while Ropefist thugs seek to ambush them during their blind-spot. They take a break to let their vision clear and get Doc to heal them up as best he can.

Advancing forward, the party finds a large cavern blocked on one end by thick green-tinged steel with a 10' spiral set inside it 5' up. More concerningly, there are Small purple-skinned hairless humanoid corpses everywhere, along with the debris and ruin of 6 Large huts. A yawning, gaping hole seems to suck in the sight of anyone in the cavern. Standing amidst the wreckage are 5 Ropefist thugs, who immediately attack the party.

Gutgash, Ript and Ashad take the fight to the thugs, advancing and menacing them with their weapons. Fritz tries to get a few shots off while Mercer lobs bombs from behind. Doc mostly focuses on healing with their limited resources at this point. Unfortunately, the statblock I created for Ropefist Thugs are CR1 and rather lethal with the party at level 1. The party manages to squeak by, with only Gutgash going down and the whole party taking a bunch of damage. Mercer got grappled by one of the Thugs and ended up hitting the both of them with a bomb to survive.

The party decided to call it a session at this point, and their characters returned back to Torch to rest.

For those of you who know the story of Iron Gods, there are some things I definitely need to explain at this point, but I'll do that when I have a bit more time in the next post.


Wheezl, Punz, Corey, Reeves, Golem, Tombat:
I will make no (large) concessions to keep this thread spoiler free. If you truly trust yourself to not metagame, feel free to read. If you think you will even unconsciously metagame, you'll likely enjoy the campaign more without the knowledge ensconced in this thread. I'll mark huge story-arc chatter in spoiler tags and leave journal entries unspoilered. You should skip ahead past the first post.

This is my campaign journal for my Iron Gods campaign. I'm running it somewhat as written, though I've made some significant changes to incorporate "Mad Max" flavor and some Starfinder ideas, equipment and mechanics. Iron Gods was originally written with a lot of nods to Conan, but I and my group have no knowledge of Conan other than that it exists, so I chose a context we all knew and loved already. Unfortunately for me, "Mad Max" is more of a shared aesthetic than anything else, but I can adapt that pretty easily into Pathfinder.

I have a track record of making significant changes to Paizo APs, so I'm not sure how useful this will be to other GMs, but hopefully it will be entertaining.

My changes:

1. Numeria is a hot desert now. Rocks, sand, cactus, scrub brush, arroyos, mesa, a dull red tinge to everything, etc. I personally picture the North American Southwest when I describe things in Numeria. This was mainly for the "Mad Max" flavor, but also because I really love that part of the world.

2. Numeria is about 5x bigger and much more isolated from the rest of Golarion. I generally run APs completely isolated from the rest of Golarion unless its very necessary to take the story to a global scale. I find that games getting too big in scope very quickly lose track of the scale of gameplay and get stale, so I try to limit it. Numeria is physically bigger to give a lot more room for desert raiders, make transport and trade more important, make resources like water and food more important and lessen the stranglehold any organization like the Technic League can have on the country as a whole.

3. Numeria has a lot of technical vehicles in it. This is my main source of "Mad Max" flavor, as the scrappy vehicles and war rigs are very memorable to anyone who has seen any of the movies. My players and I both love the idea of fast-paced vehicle battles, and I need vehicles to make that happen. The much larger size of Numeria is partially to give me more room to both have and hide vehicle battles in the countryside. I go into more detail into how I integrated vehicles down below.

4. I made the Technic League less "moustache-twirling EVIL" and more of a cross between a mercantile union and state troopers. They still have a penchant for Evil deeds and have a lot of room for corruption, but the organization itself is theoretically not evil. They also haven't completely restricted all technology, but do posses the vast, vast majority of it as well as control all of the big flashy technological artifacts.

5. Torch is the place to get skymetal gear. I bumped the size of Torch up to a small city and made it the premiere place to get adamantine and mithral arms and armor. Its a famous place both to learn metalcraft and to shop around for deals, due to all the smithing competition. The Technic League makes a tidy profit on the logistics of Torch, importing skymetal both internationally and domestically and exporting bulk skymetal goods mainly internationally. Torch long ago made a deal with the Technic League, trading autonomy and a lack of large Technic League force within the walls in return for a large portion of the profits. The Council of Torch and the Technic League are both aware that any major incidents would result in the Technic League needing to both protect and "protect" the city, giving away much of the freedom, power and influence Torch enjoys. The two groups are also both keenly aware that with no Torch, the city of Torch is going to have an economic die-off, and also likely a literal die-off. Living in Numeria isn't cheap or easy.

Vehicles and Energy:

Power Woes:
I knew I had to have vehicles in my game, and for that I needed power. I didn't want to have to rely on super-expensive magic vehicles, which would be both out of flavor and out of reach for the desolate wasteland that I made Numeria out to be. The pure-tech energy options in the AP as written are very limited, especially in the first few books, and would be out of reach for anyone except the Technic League.

Instead, I decided to create janked-together hybrid magic-tech generators as one of the only true inventions of the Technic League. Any arcane spellcaster can spend (n+1) hours and a spell slot of at least (n+1) level to create n charges in a generator, up to max of 8 charges a day. This allows the Technic League to use their batteries and their tech, they'll just have problems trying to maintain their technology past their own meager abilities.

This means that its perfectly credible to have Technic League convoys, mercantile convoys, raiders, and bandits all using the same magic-tech generators and driving around in the wastes trying to whack each other. Every group will just need its own arcane casters willing to sacrifice their spell slots to power tech. Downtime can be used to create surplus power and store it in batteries. Generators that are more powerful or more useful than the ones describes may be found in the adventure, I'm not sure yet.

Vehicles Themselves:

This is where I'm glad I started this campaign now. I just got my Starfinder book in the mail, and intend the use the vehicle rules and stats printed there. I'll have to cook up some statblocks for specific vehicles and do the conversions into Pathfinder rules, but it shouldn't be too hard. Mainly I wanted the Starfinder vehicles for their believable speeds and tactical rules for vehicle combat. I'll probably talk more about this when I cover the party's first race.

For now, the main vehicle I've looked at is the Basic Enercycle, which I have solo Technic League travelers use to get around.

The Party:

Gutgash Steelflex, Kasatha Bloodrager:

Wheezl is playing this crazed Kasatha Bloodrager named Gutgash, intending to dual-wield chainsaws by AP's end. For now, he runs around with a ripsaw glaive and does his best impression of a War Boy from "Mad Max." Gutgash and Ript are brothers from the wastes, who wandered into Torch after hearing that the town would pay big for someone to rescue Khonnir and turn the Torch back on.

He was born to a small Kasatha tribe living out in the Numerian Wastes, which I have decided to make exceedingly rare, but possible. His whole tribe died (starved? killed by the Technic League?) when Gutgash was just a child, but Ript found him struggling to leave the cave and adopted him.

Gutgash is not very smart and keeps his arms hidden within their cloak the majority of the time, trying not to let people figure out he is a kasatha. He always takes all the meat out of Ript's food and leaves Ript to eat the rest.

Ript Steelflex, Half-Orc Skald:

Punz is playing a Half-Orc Skald trying to become the Doof Warrior named Ript Steelflex. He is the other player with a "War Boy" flavor, and came with Gutgash out of the wastes for the money offered by Torch. Ript is much smarter than Gutgash and is the brains of the duo. Ript invented "Rocks" (a Calvinball-esque game of "chance") and plays it with whoever or wherever he can.

His story starts when he found Gutgash, and the two have been brothers and friends since. Ript always has a joke or a mollifying word.

Mercer Baine, Human Alchemist:

Reeves is playing a Human Alchemist with the Tinkerer archetype named Mercer. He is the 16 year old adopted son of Khonnir Baine, brother to the 22 year old Val Baine. He grabbed the Technologist feat and wants to use ALL OF THE TECH. He currently is mostly chucking bombs and wishing that his familiar was a clockwork familiar instead of a clockwork spy.

Mercer often argues with Fritz over actions or Fritz calling him the wrong name. Mercer is much more interested in rescuing his father than re-lighting the Torch, but he knows that either the Torch is relit or the town will die.

Doc, Android Witch:

Tombat is playing an Android Psychic with a name that I don't remember right now, the Hedge Witch archetype, and the nickname of "Doc." Doc is a travelling doctor in the wastes and is interested equally in stopping the mass economic die-off and the money associated with turning the Torch back on.

Doc is a blend of all of the Android tropes from sci-fi TV and often talks using computing terms. Currently Doc has been a little nonplussed at fighting all of the constructs and undead and has mostly been sadly converting his Sleep spells to Cure Light Wounds. He also possesses the Healing Hex, making him the primary healer by far.

Doc has developed a penchant for "Rocks," the game of chance invented by Ript. As far as I know, he hasn't actually won a game yet, but he keeps playing.

Fritz, Dhampir Gunslinger:

Corey is playing a Dhampir Gunslinger focused on being a stereotypical cowboy named Fritz. After the first session, it became canon that he is also kind of a drunk and had a one-night fling with Val Baine in the past. Fritz wants to get back together but Val considers him nothing but her worst mistake. Fritz and Mercer interact a lot, mostly with Fritz acting "bad stepdad" at Mercer (calling him Dave, calling him champ/bucko/boss/buckaroo/slugger, telling him off when he does something too dangerous). Mercer shares his sister's opinion of Fritz but puts up with him.

Fritz wants the money from re-lighting the Torch. I think Corey is also contemplating having Fritz harbor a hope that rescuing Khonnir will make Val talk to him again.

Ashad, Ifrit Rogue:

Golem is playing an Ifrit Rogue with a mystical flair named Ashad. Ashad has ties to the seedy underbelly of Torch (Garmin Ulreth and the Ropefists, along with Silverdisk Hall) and is in for the money as well. I'm not totally sure what Ashad wants beyond the money.


Eliandra Giltessan wrote:
I get that, I'm just confused why they would go THERE in particular. I haven't read AD2 yet---waiting til I get my physical copy today or tomorrow---but from the looks of the map, they explore the rest of the island in book 2, so to finish book 1, they need to go to those specific places. Now, it's possible books 1 and 2 can easily blend into each other/overlap, in which case, great! If not, obviously I can come up with a reason that Ramona sends them there---missing scouts, searching for the origin of the skum that attacked them, etc. I was just making sure there wasn't a reason in the text that I was missing.

Ah. I didn't find a reason in the text, so I had area P visible from area L and gave a GM nudge ("you see a tower in the distant against the mountainside that is obviously out of place..."). It was really heavy-handed, but it got the job done. I think any hint will have to be at least a little GM-generated.

As far as I can tell, learning about the tower's existence isn't truly necessary. You could manufacture a reason for Eliza and Rayland to leave the tower (errands, trying to capture new colonists, arrogance, etc?) and run across the party or leave more obvious clues for the party to follow. Url and his skum crew might leave tracks when heading back to the tower after the battle on the beach.

Eliza could plausibly slip up in her arrogance and brag about her master's plans. Monologuing when she thinks she has the players in her clutches seems up her alley as an amateur villain-in-training. Rayland might manage to slip his domination and almost spill all the beans to the players before the effect is reinstated/Eliza kills him.


@John Lynch 106:
That sounds perfectly reasonable. Silas just kinda "hanging around" feels really bizarre, especially because your party isn't even guaranteed to piece together what happened to him. Even if they finish the book, they're still not guaranteed to figure out a connection. Hell, Rayland might just die in battle and then they'd never figure it out.

@Eliandra Giltessan:
The characters can be compelled by Ramona or other colonists to "keep investigating the missing colonists," leading them to eventually hit areas N, O or P. They'll likely encounter the warden jack at some point even if they don't go looking for clues, which should prompt them to wonder where it came from, as its obviously constructed. The skum in area P know where the colonists are, so you can have them attack the colony if the characters still won't go investigate.

The players can be compelled to investigate because they're playing the adventure, and that demands they keep investigating. They either implicitly or explicitly agreed to buy into the adventure and keep pursuing it, its on them to continue and find area P.

The book can easily just end (well, until Book 2 if the hints are any indication) if the players and characters are content to just live in town and not investigate. They're adventurers, they need to adventure!


You can also spin it as the PCs are the colonists that Ramona thinks are least likely to panic. Ramona doesn't know whats going on, but she can obviously read a room, and tensions on the Peregrine are already tense as is. Throwing some flattery at the players usually helps, ime.

If they're still feeling a little antsy, you could have Ramona call over some other NPCs as well. Making it seem like its not *just* the PCs going on the reconnaissance mission may alleviate some of their fears, or at least make them feel like they're not being sent on a suicide mission. A good candidate would probably be one of the clerics, giving the PCs some free healing and a "generic colonist" voice for you as GM to steer the investigation if the PCs are getting frustrated or not finding anything.


Naga would be better. Aquatic strikes me as more for a completely underwater game, Naga is better for the half-in half-out mindset that this AP takes to water encounters.


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Ran the majority of this book recently as a one-shot over several sessions. My party had to retreat from the final fight and we're gonna try it again tomorrow. Was just going to detail my experiences in case anyone found them useful.

My party was composed of three gestalt characters 1 level higher than normal. My players know how to optimize and were all playing strong characters, but I wouldn't call them min-maxed or munchkins. They consisted of:
- T, Occultist/Alchemist, using Battle Host to get full-plate at level 1 and his spells/extracts to go and go and go and go.
- P, Zen Archer Monk/Shaman, building mainly for support. Despite ZAM's usual power, the shaman half was by far more relevant. He brought the wand for part 1.
-H, Unchained Scaled Fist Monk/Sorcerer (Aquatic? bloodline) w/ the archetype that gives martial flexibility building a ball of AC and fists and saves. I think she was using the sorc spells mainly for buffing like T, mainly casts of shield/grease/mage armor.

As you can see, my party was fairly powerful. Initially I was expecting only 2 players, which was why I bumped the level and allowed gestalt, but we had a surprise third interested person, which lead to me balancing a lot on the fly. I already knew that I'd need to rebalance for just 2 players, as my table tends to destroy APs if run as-written.

Part 1:
Introduced the players, got them to go on the investigative visit to Talmandor's Bounty with very little trouble. Encounters written in order of party discovery.

Welcoming Committee: Bumped the number of grindylows up to 4. This fight would be an initial warning of how much of a joke grindylows would be in our playthrough. T and H were rowing, being the only ones with a positive STR score. The grindylows got a surprise round and rolled high on their initiatives, giving them a huge advantage, but only really got damage on P, who was in the front of the boat. 1 ended up climbing in the front to disrupt P's casting of a Summon Nature's Ally spell, the other 3 attacking T and H over the sides. The low to-hit and the low damage even if they do hit combined to form a rather lackluster encounter, with T and H teaming up to eliminate the attackers. 1 ended up escaping, shaking its fist and clacking its clamshells angrily (I gave all the Shellcrackers these loud shells, which the players loved).

The point of this encounter is to show that the island is dangerous and that the colony wants the players to succeed, and it is successful in that respect. I don't recommend having the grindylows climb over the side, their objective is to annoy and drive off, not fight to the death.

A1: The Lonely Dock
I moved the Fuath to the later Beach Battle w/ the skum. It didn't have much of a chance and would have just been killed out of hand by my players. I feel like the point of this encounter is to possibly show the existence of the canoe by the dock, but it also doesn't even attack unless the PCs are very loud or have already discovered the canoe, so I ended up just moving it out of confusion. My players didn't discover the canoe, for what its worth.

A5: Smithy
I stuck another monkey goblin here, and made them actively looking out for threats. I figured the Ghosthaters would be looking around fore easier prey and loot, spooked by Silas in A7. They saw the party and set up an ambush, pulling tripwires across the door and the open wall into the covered forge/workshop. T ended up running right over the tripwire, but made the Reflex DC. P fought the two who ended up climbing onto the roof while H and T made short work of the two inside. I was much more impressed by the Ghosthaters, who got more than a few hits in before the last survivor retreated, running along the palisade to escape into the woods.

I gave the Ghosthaters small necklaces with angry pacman ghosts to mirror the Shellcrackers, which the players also loved. I threw around the idea of having a Shellcracker-Ghosthater rivalry at this point, but figured they wouldn't interact very often (their territory and desired territory being entirely disparate). The party found the +1 darkwood shield, but discarded it (nobody used shields). In retrospect, I would have changed the shield to a magic set of medium or heavy armor instead.

A10: Government House
My PCs heard "the only two-story building here" and immediately headed here after the smithy. They discovered the logbook and spent a long time puzzling over what it could mean. They were very interested in the entries that "become sporadic and stop altogether" in the last week, but the AP doesn't really go into detail what life was like for the villagers in the last week during the captures. I made up some catty factional tension entries based on Una's note at A17, which made them *very* interested. They discussed the possibility that the villagers killed each other, but didn't seem very sold due to the lack of large bloodstains and piles of bodies.

They were going to miss the clockwork spy, so I had the recording gem "conveniently" run up against its capacity and give an (muffled) audible "Recording capacity full! Please replace recording gem!" in Azlanti. P shot down the poor spy and they investigated, ultimately hearing their entire conversation after they found the logbook. They figured out how to access its programming and once they heard "predetermined location," they immediately wanted to follow it. I had to remind them what they were in the colony for to get them to keep going!

A14: Main Street
Nothing interesting.

A16: Undisturbed Garden and A18: Levin Farm
Initially, I thought the blood maize encounter was a little lame. 3 really low to-hit attacks, low HP, low AC, some do-nothing abilities... I couldn't be more wrong. I ruled that the fields were difficult terrain, and that the party could see that there was *something* in the fields, but not what it was. The animal skeletons and the monkey goblin skull kinda freaked 'em out, but they entered anyway.

The blood maize got its surprise round, using it to activate its Blinding Bloom. The entire party failed their saves versus the blind. The blood maize then rolled high on initiative and got to full attack H, hitting her twice. The damage got her to 3/4 HP, but the bleed was the real killer. Due to the difficult terrain and the blinding cloud, P couldn't even get to H to heal her with their wand for several rounds. P took a few hits as well trying to approach while T fumbled around in the difficult terrain, unable to get into a position to hit due to his heavy armor. P actually went down below 0 this fight as the party up and left the fields entirely, the blood maize still almost entirely unscathed. T fended off the blood maize from P while H now struggled to get out of the field, but T continued to roll abysmally on his attack rolls. I had the drunk choker approach at this point, drawn by the shouts, the long fight, and the heady scent of blood in the air. H finally got close enough to kill the blood maize, just in time for T to turn and stop the choker from dragging away P's unconscious body. T made up for his previous low rolls and one-shot the choker while H staggered over to P. T used one of his infusions to feed P a CLW and bring him back to consciousness, whereupon the whole party took a few hits off the wand.

My party loved this fight. The derpy corn monster, its horrific bleed damage, and the long fight the difficult terrain caused all added up to a fight was the hallmark of the night. They even loved the drunk choker, whom I played up as *very* drunk, moaning and swerving as it tried to steal P's body. I had thought this would be a do-nothing filler encounter, and ultimately it was, but I'm glad I included it. If the poor colonists had discovered the blood maize, there would definitely have been deaths, but practically, I'm also glad there was an encounter that challenged my players.

A15: Infested Patches
I wasn't sure if these were 2 encounters, or just 2 encounters of 1 nymph each. I decided to play it by ear and started with an encounter vs 2 nymphs. The party was beating them handily, so I had 2 more nymphs approach from behind, despite the large distance between the two fields. The nymphs got some good positioning in, but my players had high enough AC that most of the attacks missed. The attacks that got through definitely got their attention -- 3d4+1 damage is quite a bit, even with level 2 HP! I would cut these encounters down to just 1 group of 2 with a normal party, possibly combining them with the adult ankheg (A13) showing up in the later rounds for more capable parties. T ended up going down here, but H and P were able to get him back up.

The rest of area A passed without a whole lot of event. A3 might prove a bit of a challenge for many parties, but mine ended up kiting the cockroach swarm while T threw bombs at it. It says that the swarm is loathe to go very far from the provisions building, so they killed it over about 15 minutes, letting it come out and approach, hit it with a bomb, run far enough away for them to run back, and repeat. This may seem a little MMO-esque for some GMs, but I thought it was a clever solution to what otherwise would have been H tanking the swarm while T bombed it anyway.

The Chapel (A6) interested my players, but they quickly retreated once they realized there was a poltergeist inside. They could tell they wouldn't be able to lay him to rest, so they just left Silas alone until they could get support from the colony's clerics.

They found the Azlanti timepiece and almost immediately guessed that the colony had been captured "by the aboleths." Might have been just shots in the dark, but they thought it was very weird that everyone was gone and had been fighting beforehand, which they blamed on magical domination. The AP is about the Azlanti and my players knew that the aboleth were ultimately the cause of death for the Azlanti, so it may have also been a bit of metagaming.

Part II:
B: I moved these boars over to the Hunting section in Part III. I knew it would just be a waste of time for my party, and that I could accomplish the same "the island is WILD!" feel by just vividly describing seeing lots of wildlife. I recommend removing or moving this encounter.

C: I moved this encounter to the Beach Battle in Part III as well. The Incutilis and pet Zombie weren't going to get a whole lot done all by themselves, and I figured that the Incutilis would partner up w/ the Skum to take down their new competition (and possibly score some new slaves!).

D: The trail tripped up my players a lot. They immediately knew it was a swarm of some kind, but the combination of smoothed and spikey portions really tripped them up. They were also confused by the lack of concerted direction ("Where is it going? A water feature? A food source?") but I decided that they wouldn't be able to figure out the warden jack's motives until they saw it in person.

E: My party loved the echeneisis fight. I bumped the number of time-fish up to 3 and while they didn't provide much of a challenge, they did give my party a lot of WTF moments. While the blood maize fight was the hallmark of day 1, the echeneisis fight really showed just what bizarre monsters they would fight in this AP. My players wiped the floor with the fish but loved talking about the "fish that break physics with their teeth." I'd recommend playing up the derpy faces that they have in the Bestiary, as well as their silly antics.

My players didn't have any trouble with being underwater, as I had an aquatic elf (T), an undine (P) and a human aquatic sorcerer with a good enough CON (H). All of them had a swim speed and zero problem being underwater for long. I think they thought underwater combat would be a much bigger part of the AP. This encounter provides a good wake up call for the party -- if they can't easily deal with the time-fish underwater, they need to take some steps to correct that.

The tension aboard was a fun distraction from combat for my party. They had a good spread of skills, and I played up each of the personalities they encountered along the way. They loved talking to Harcourt, whom they failed all of their rolls with. I threw Luetin into the mix, mainly so they would know who the heck I meant when they encountered him later. The party took one look at his picture and thought he was Nigel Thornberry.

This encounter was pretty obviously for any face characters in the party, and it should stay in, even if you have to have your characters just RP, no rolls involved. I probably didn't get quite the right serious tone for the encounter, but my party liked the hammy mess we had instead.

F. Shellcracker Caves
This dungeon was a bit of a joke. I already ranted a bit about the Grindylows earlier, but this cave just stood no challenge to my party. They all had no problem swimming and navigating the cave, and while P couldn't shoot very well with all the water, T and H had no problems wiping the floor with the poor 5 HP mooks. The traps did quite a number to the party, who walked through both of them. The 2 octopus pets the Shellcrackers kept ended up dying without even touching H.

I had Brinetooth try Diplomacy on her own after seeing the massacre of much of her tribe. My party offered to strike a deal with Brinetooth and what was left of the Shellcrackers, giving them metal weapons and not interfering with their activity as long as the Grindylows kept the surrounding waters relatively clear. They also implied that they could just as easily deal with her as well as they dealt with her tribe. I recognized an easy future plot hook, and had Brinetooth trade all her treasure and gear for her life and the deal. If I ever run the rest of the AP, I'll try and integrate the Shellcracker tribe in as a potential plot arc.

This dungeon seems to be an obvious "how do we give the party enough magical help to deal with underwater combat" hook. I don't think my party will be singular in their floor-wiping of the Shellcrackers, and all of the gear will go far to helping normal PCs (ones not super prepared for underwater combat) cope with any future underwater plotlines. Its necessary for this transfer of gear, but I would recommend either revamping the dungeon or just giving the gear over. The grindylow massacre felt much closer to genocide than problem-solving.

Areas G, I, J: I explained these encounters to my players and that they were essentially just filler encounters, because that is what they are. While it may build up the feeling that the island is uncivilized and filled with danger and needs the attention of the players, it felt more like Ramona was just using the PCs as her tactical problem-solving squad. I wanted to keep up the momentum of looking for the lost colonists, and I explained to my party as such. We decided to skip actually playing through the encounters and explained the party's handling of each with a short montage. I'd recommend either skipping the encounters or coming up with some that keep the mystery theme of the rest of the book.

Area L: My party was super jazzed about this area. I didn't have the monkey goblins attack (they'd been tipped off by the one that escaped in Area A) and instead had them run off. My party loved seeing the "mystical dude" and trying to interpret what the hell his speech meant. I didn't see how the party was supposed to find the tower (Area P), so I had them get a glimpse of it through the trees from the dais here.

Area M: I worked the Shellcrackers into this. I had them notify the colony about an incoming patrol force, and then had 4 of the Grindylows face the force with the party in a pincer movement. I had no confidence the Grindylows would contribute to combat, and I had beefed up the encounter with the Fuath and the Incutilis/Zombie, so I was a little worried, but the party wiped the floor with them. The Skum were quickly revealing to me that they were about Shellcracker level of combat-competence.

Area N: I skipped this encounter to avoid confusing my players. It feels a little shoehorned in to allow the party to learn Azlanti, but otherwise super out of place. Why are they here? I didn't feel right about the statues attacking the party if they refused to sit and listen, so I just removed the encounter entirely. T had Azlanti learned and had been translating the whole time, so I didn't feel like I was removing an opportunity from my party.

Area O: I moved this encounter inside the tower.

Area P: My PCs loved the tower. Which is good, because they ended up fighting nearly the entire thing all at once.

P1/P2: I had just seen the combat capability of the Skum, and decided that they wouldn't come out until the crossbow trap activated in P3. My PCs were intrigued by the hologram, especially because of its description as a "statue." They kept wanting to talk, but disappointedly continued when it remained silent. In the future, I'd have Jazradan talk about Spindle Solutions with some infomercial buzzwordy babble, my party got a kick out of the similar sign out front.

P3, P4, P5, P6, P7: We loved this floor. My party entered P3 and immediately encountered the crossbow traps, as written. The way they're described, they almost feel like regular enemy combatants that can't move, so that is how I treated them. T took a couple bolts trying to get close (he was the one in the party with Disable Device), but was dismayed to learn he'd need a couple rounds to disable the turrets. I had the Skum from P2 ambush the party here, as H and P were hiding back in P1 to avoid the bolts. T discovered he'd need 7 rounds (I rolled 2d4) to disable the turrets, and he retreated back into P1 to regroup.

The party decided that they would tank the super accurate turrets (+15?! So high!) by having H use Mage Armor, Shield, and get a Shield of Faith from P and martial flexibility into Deflect Arrows, which worked a treat. She had to stand over T while he worked, but not a single bolt connected after the party re-entered the room.

The party decided to then open up P6 while the buffs were still active. This is where I had placed the warden jack, thinking it might have been needing repairs from the clockwork servants (but practically, thinking I needed to challenge my players). The clockwork servants were a surprise, and H was dismayed to a see a swarm ("nooooo! not the auto damage!") while she still had her buffs up. The warden decided to open up P4 fairly early on in the fight as well with its ability, getting the Skum there to join the fight as well. The warden jack also has a really high AC, especially its touch AC.

While the warden jack is CR 4, it functioned best in this fight as a mobile Grease spell. The clockwork servants went down very slowly to H's continued beatdown while T focused on killing the swarm and P focused on the Skum. P had made his spirit animal a Mauler familiar, and the mighty crab he had chosen made short work of the mutant fishmen. Towards the end of the fight, the warden jack joined the servants in P6, and H had cast her own Grease spell, causing a huge mess in the enclosed room. I loved describing the bloody, greasy, clockwork-y, ball-bearing-y, smoke filled mess that P6 became by the end of the drawn-out fight (H was nigh unkillable but couldn't deal very much damage per round, T and P were both busy dealing with the rest of the encounter).

P8-12: My party ended up dealing with the rest of the tower all at once, and ultimately they had to retreat at the end of that battle. We're going to pick right back up tomorrow with how they deal with Rayland and Eliza, who are still alive. I anticipate they'll heal up and head right back in while Eliza is out of level 2 spells before the two of them escape and report to Ochynua.

My party entered the library of P9 and made a beeline for the books. I had moved Urlgryber inside the central room to allow him to escape more easily (I really didn't want to have a closet monster fight with him after the disappointment with Brinetooth). The party unfortunately fell prey to the Explosive Rune trap, which alerted the rest of the tower. Url came running out of the central room and ran smack dab into H and T, shouting all the while for Eliza and Rayland. P started summoning, having his familiar move in to flank as Eliza and Rayland came down through the water tank. Url and Rayland blocked up the narrow hallways, allowing Eliza to cast essentially unimpeded.

Eliza's Mind Thrusts are super lethal. Its 5d8 on a failed DC 15 save, and half that for a successful one. Rayland and Url ultimately ended up bringing H down to the negatives, but Eliza was doing constant damage for 4 rounds before the party decided to bring H back up and run. My party had been relying on their very high AC to mostly negate encounters, but that didn't do anything versus the Mind Thrusts. I had Url drop his glaive almost immediately once the reach wasn't necessary; Rayland and Url both having 3 attacks on a full attack was very rough.

I have to admit that I played Eliza as essentially just a sorcerer. I didn't have enough time to fully internalize all of her psychic abilities, and trying to do so in the middle of battle wasn't working out, so I just ignored them. Now that I have a chance to look at them, Dark Half *will* rip any group apart that lets Eliza cast, and it protects her from psychic casting's biggest weakness, fear effects. Defensive Prognostication combined with Mage Armor means she can maintain 20 AC most of the fight, and Mirror Images is just going to make it worse. Intense Focus helps her cast defensively if she needs to. If Dark Half is active, she'll have DR 5 on top of all this! Be very very careful with Eliza, or she will TPK your players!

So that was our run through of the Lost Outpost. I get that my explanation was kind of a highlight reel on easy mode than perhaps an "authentic" play through would be, but my group had a real blast playing through. We'll probably be talking about the "stupid corn monster that almost TPK'd us" for the next couple years and all of us loved the crossbow traps in P3. Maybe this should have been a separate post, but I felt like I didn't have enough unique content to post it anywhere else.


If you're looking for one big attack with archery, you really only have a couple of options.

You can flavor the Clustered Shots feat as one big arrow, and go the standard archery builds. This has the benefit of you being able to grab all of the normal archery build feats and items, while still allowing you to have your "one big arrow." Unfortunately, its all really just flavor and you can't pick up Clustered Shots until 6th level.

You can go a Vital Strike build. You'd be focusing on getting as big as possible (to increase your weapon's damage die) and using Vital Strike to shoot bigger and bigger arrows as you level up. You'd want to get Enlarge Person and Gravity Bow cast on you and focus on getting as much damage added to your bow as possible. You'll rely on Dexterity less because all of your one attack per round will be at full BAB, meaning you can focus more on Strength to add damage to your arrows. You won't need as many of the ranged feats like Rapid Shot and Clustered Shot, but you'll still want Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Deadly Aim, etc. Playing as a Half-Orc might be beneficial to get easy access to an Orc Horn Bow, as their damage die starts at 2d6 and more damage dice is the name of your game.

You can go for a Sniper build. You'll likely want to play either a Sniper slayer or a Sniper rogue, and you focus on getting a lot of sneak attack damage on your arrows. Its fairly difficult to feel mechanically viable and understand all the foibles with the Stealth skill, so I don't recommend it.


In my experience, games don't even normally go past 8-10, and a game being played at level 20 is either an anomaly or a one-shot that starts at level 20 as well.


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Reign of Winter: Do you hate Baba Yaga yet? No? Another fetch quest it is, then.


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Hugely depends on the party and whether your GM is running the AP as written or not. Some parties have a large Hellknight influence, or at least don't mind working with them, but most parties (in my experience) view the Hellknights as enemies right from the word go. Ask your GM and the rest of the party how they would feel about having a Hellknight around at whatever passes for a Session 0 for your group and see if you can get some personal ties to the other characters so they see you as just another suit of armor. Hellknights certainly don't have *huge* plot importance in the first 3 books so you should be OK, but they might come into importance later (all of my CotCT instances have diverged before Book 4, so YMMV).

You'll also need to figure out why it is that your Hellknight character can just adventure with some freelancing nobodies. Hellknights have a structure and an organization, your character is likely to have a post or responsibilities that they should be taking care of, especially at the level 1. Maybe you can work with your GM to get a non-standard start for your Hellknight, perhaps as a liaison working with the Crimson Throne and the Korvosan Guard.

As far as orders go, the Order of the Nail is headquartered very near to Korvosa and as such would be the obvious Order your character could be from, but a member from another Order sent as a dignitary, spy, or messenger could also work. A member of the Order of the Nail will very likely come into conflict when interacting with Varisians or Shoanti, both of which make multiple appearances in plot NPCs. Hopefully your character can still find it in themselves to work with the party and the offending NPCs to accomplish their goal.


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Welcome back Inspectre! Glad to see another session recap.

My game is indeed going quite swimmingly by now, at a nearly breakneck speed. My players just can't get enough of the "new" Korvosa (2 of my players were part of the old game). I've taken quite a bit from both your rendition as well as other versions I've seen here in this thread and in the messageboards as a whole.

My Book 1:

Inspired by yours and a few other renditions, I did indeed make Gaedren the Big Bad of Book 1. I decided to move up the plots of Books 2 and 3 as well, introducing Andaisin and Glorio Arkona as colluding conspirators intent on dethroning the Arabasti family, Ileosa included. Ileosa and Andaisin have the same history in my timeline as they do in yours, with Ileosa being a former student/lover of Andaisin corrupted by actual, factual affection for the late Eodred. I thought that Glorio might be looking even higher with his ambition after gaining control of House Arkona, and might have his eyes set on the Crimson Throne itself.

Andaisin and Glorio both want Ileosa dead and off the throne of Korvosa, and Gaedren is a willing ally as long as he can gain control of the Korvosan underworld along the way. I made the underworld highly feisty and ripe for revolt, bucking under the unsteady rule of the Cerulean Society. I took the wererats from Book 2 and introduced their main rivals and counterparts, an all-female cat-themed gang, as the rulers of the sewers and the Shingles respectively. I pushed Devargo as not only the master of Eel's End, but as *the* big mover and shaker in the Korvosan underworld, and as the main opponent of the Cerulean Society.

The plan by the Big Bad Trio was to plunge the city into anarchy following the deaths of King Eodred and Queen Ileosa, but their plans were unfortunately halfway foiled by the devoted Sabina, who drove off the assassins as they came for Ileosa. King Eodred was killed, his guards having been dismissed during his weekly game of chess with his brother Venster (who, in fact, was his killer).

Gaedren snatched his chance when he saw it, setting fire to much of the city and killing those who he could in leadership positions. He struck fast while Ileosa was still in shock, unable to muster the strength necessary to galvanize the city. Andaisin struck simultaneously, Calling profane aid to keep the Sable Company and Hell Knights away from the population. The Korvosan Guard was unable to mount much of a defense against a combination of fires, riots and Gaedren's attack.

Most of Book 1 for my players was traveling through the city, fighting off Gaedren's thugs as they searched for both the man himself and a way to stop the riots and attacks. Their search led them to form an Undercouncil of all Korvosa's underworld, minus Gaedren and the Cerulean Society, who had suffered nearly total losses by Gaedren. Devargo, Eries and Girigz (who co-ruled the wererats) and Katarina (aha, what a cliche for a leader of a kitty-cat gang, but I digress) gathered and formed a temporary alliance against Gaedren, for the good of both the city and the underworld. They even agreed to send word and temporary alliance with the Korvosan Guard, though through an intermediary group (the players...).

The party thus met up with the Guard, introducing Kroft and Blackjack. Though the party had the brooch by this point, they still avoided going to Castle Korvosa, so I couldn't introduce Ileosa and Sabina. My players were entreated to divine what it was that Gaedren was doing in the Heights, where he had struck hardest. I used your idea of Shudder as a means of accelerating magical power and had the Heights overrun with crazed, doped up Acadamae students. My party snuck into the Heights, dodging Scorching Ray and Create Pit spells and reached the Vaults under Kendall Auditorium.

Andaisin and Glorio had to be doing something this whole time while Gaedren ran amok in Korvosa. I moved Scarwall into the Shadow Plane and superimposed it into the sky above Shadow Korvosa, inspired by other posts in this forum. Korvosa had become the guardian of Scarwall, the city built to hide four massive crystals that acted as anchors and barriers, keeping Scarwall trapped within the Shadow Plane. Andaisin and Glorio sought to engage the power of Scarwall as a focus for necromantic power, using its energies to oppose the military might of Korvosa. One such anchor was located in the massive sinkhole beneath Kendall Auditorium, hidden from above view by powerful illusion magic.

The party discovered the work at the shadow anchor and alerted the Guard, who decided to storm the camp immediately. The party and the Guard dropped paratrooper style, using Feather Fall to catch the side of evil unprepared. Chaos reigned, and Andaisin and Glorio escaped, leaving Gaedren to "Clean up this mess!" The party, adjacent to Blackjack, stormed Gaedren's quarters.

I actually almost TPK'd again, this time on Gaedren's guards. Both lucky and unlucky rolls played a large part, and all but one of the players ended up on the floor. The lone rogue managed to finish off the last of the guards as Blackjack chased Gaedren back into a personal chapel to Urgathoa (I decided to play him up as a recent convert of Andaisin's). The party was brought back up with potions and was able to re-engage with the two dueling men.

A much quicker battle with Gaedren followed, as well as a few pithy remarks. I chose now to reveal a few more plotlines, namely that one of the players was also an Arabasti bastard, courtesy of Domina. We did a few weeks of solo sessions in preparation for Ileosa's coronation, which the players were invited to after their heroics. I'm planning on the coronation being a relative mirror of the Undercouncil, with each of the noble Houses bickering and fighting amongst themselves, none of them wanting to gather behind Ileosa or even to gather in any alliance of any kind.

The party will meet all of the heads of the Houses, as well as a few other high society notables, before the coronation is attacked by... zombies and Urgathoan cultists! I'm planning on at least a few nobles dying in the attacks before the guards and the party can come to their rescue, with the party directly or indirectly choosing who lives and who dies by their actions. They will then be tasked with assisting Doctor Reiner Davaulus, new Minister of Intelligence for Queen Ileosa himself, and his investigation into the attack and soon, the zombie invasion of Korvosa.

The party had almost no input to the Undercouncil, as they were just nobodies with connections then. I hope the coronation, and the "voting" that they do in the end, will help enforce that the party is becoming Somebodies within the city, and that after the attack, the nobles will realize they are Somebodies now too.

I fear I'm going to take just as much a departure from the original CotCT as you are. I'm keeping the "Ileosa powering up" theme of the first four books, and while I'm using some of the same NPCs, I have drastically changed most of them (Ileosa, Reiner, Devargo, Gaedren, Zellara, to name a few). The plague as a gigantic initial hurdle for Ileosa to face, and the vanquishing of such as a monument to her growing skill as a monarch, is a motif I'm going to keep for Book 2, as well as its purpose as a set up for the plots I've got going in Books 3 and 4.

I'm intending Glorio to fully take control of Old Korvosa and lead it in open revolt as the replacement for the "Emperor of Old Korvosa" after some particularly nasty decisions made during the plague times. Hopefully events will transpire such that the Underworld will also be warring at this time, no longer having a common foe to tie them together. I'm intending for everything to come to a head sometime in Book 4, with the entire city looking back on the post-Eodred riots as a time of peace and togetherness. Ileosa will become fully powered by Kazavon towards the end of Book 4, just as the players will realize whats all actually going on. I'm unsure still whether I want to introduce Domina as a further player, but I'm leaning towards doing so. The players will be pushed towards traveling to Scarwall in the Shadow Realm to get the power necessary to defeat Kazavon, and everything will end with a final showdown. I'm hoping I can play up the tortured duality of Ileosa at this point, as well as push the motif of "bringing together disparate groups to a powerful whole." By the end, I fear that most of their allies from the former books will be either dead or hate each other, but that just means a third gathering to trump the coronation and the Undercouncil and gather together everyone versus Kazavon will be all the more dramatic and juicy. These are just some musing and ramblings, I may end up on a completely different track, knowing my players!

All in all, I'm *very* happy with how things are going, and my players are as well. Every time we have to end a session (we're right up against a session after us), my players and I all look wistfully at each other and pack away our sheets for next time.

Looking forward to your next post!


Reign of Winter is by far the most railroad-y AP I've played or DMed. The players are plonked down in a new area roughly every book and given a new fetch/deliver quest. If they attempt to stray, a magic spells makes them sick until they quit lollygagging, not to mention the heavy "if you stop questing the world ends" vibe.

Currently running it right now and it barely feels like a story -- more just a series of long one-shots with a common starting area (the dancing hut).


A different approach:
Our GM described the bizarre way the Hobgoblins were going in the front gate and we all as a group looked at each other and said "Minefield? Minefield." I look forward to hearing if your party doesn't realize and tries the front gate. :P


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Alright, so my party just dealt with the Hobgoblin camp at the end of Book 1. I'm a player, so my viewpoint might have some gaps, but I couldn't resist sharing our battle after the GM and I calculated the CR afterwards. I also don't know precisely what our GM changed with the rest of the AP, though I know that this fight was unchanged from the book, with the exception of the enemies having maximum HP. Spoilers abound.

For reference, our party:
Ifrit Wizard 4 - Me
Half-Elf Scaled Fist Unchained Monk 4 - R
Human Druid 4 - G
Human Cavalier 4 - T

Our Prep:
So, once we'd cleared out the Trog caves, our GM alerted us to the presence of a Hobgoblin camp somewhere in the forest.
Our party spent several days and many spell slots surveying the camp,
trying to come up with a good plan of action to take them down. We figured out the relative number of enemies and the layout of the camp,
and somewhere in here I got it into my head that we couldn't kill the camp piecemeal because they would just get reinforcements from the main army and we'd lose our opportunity. To that end, G and I made preparations to control as much of the battlefield as we could while R and T held off the horde. We made scrolls of Stonecall, Invisibility, Blur, Glitterdust, and Summon Monster II and cobbled together some bizarre strategy involving the back steps.

We'd essentially blitz the back steps and back watchtower, with R climbing the ladder and killing the two at the top. All of us minus T would have Invisibility and all of us would have Blur on. G and I cast Jump and Longstrider on R, who also possessed our Boots of Striding and Springing. The plan was for R to leap from the watchtower down to the plateau once he had killed the two at the top while T did his best impression of a meat grinder at the chokepoint made by the stairs.

The Battle Itself:

Remarkably, our plan went off almost without a hitch. We really didn't make any special plans to deal with the horde within the camp,
we figured we'd make it up as we went along, as we normally did.
We'd cast some AoE, we'd summon some dudes, it would be fine,
right? Well, sorta.

R went up the ladder the first round, invisible, as G and I started summoning Small Earth Elementals (Me) and Eagles (G). T moved swiftly up the stairs, looking for all the world like he was assaulting the camp alone. T ended up taking a lot of damage due to being surrounded, despite R making the leap from the tower and taking some of the hits. Both of them eventually went down to hits from Scar, whom we incorrectly assumed would not be a problem. Scar got in a lot of lucky hits, and R and T went up and down, kept alive by G spamming his Cure Light Wounds Wand. I summoned earth elemental after earth elemental while G's cat companion solo'd the warg and the goblin hunter guy. We took approximately 1 alchemist bomb before we sent up an emergency Obscuring Mist, figuring that would stop some of their backline from trying to range us as well.

The quartet of summoned Earth Elementals overwhelmed their backline over 6-7 rounds as we frantically tried to stay up vs Scar and his bugbear flanking pals. I had to keep summoning to keep up our damage momentum while G, T and R blew out all the stops trying to survive. Scar went down to a lucky flurry by R, who had also been rolling low all fight. The alchemist went down last, she got grappled and coup de grace'd by the elementals whilst trying to flee the heavily Stonecall'd camp.

Once the smoke cleared (literally, I had summoned a Fire elemental as well and it lit the sleeping tent on fire), we viewed a desolate and destroyed camp. We also saw just how many enemies we had slain and rejoiced; then rejoiced while looting.


I'm currently playing a wizard and I'm drowning in scrolls. Admittedly, these are (almost) all my own making. A lot of the encounters in the beginning are easily spaced out over days, giving our party at least a lot of downtime. My GM ruled that we could use the scant coins we got combined with some of the supplies we found that I could make scrolls the usual way with Scribe Scroll.

Where to find spells:

As far as finding places to learn more spells, there was a wizard encounter early on that I could trade and learn spells from. She was an ornery old lady whom we used Diplomacy on. I learned some spells from her while we were in Book 1.

Overall, I'm really pleased with my wizard. I took Craft Wondrous Item at 3, and without it, we'd be pretty SoL for magic gear. Full casters do fine in this campaign and I've never felt outmatched. This might change later (we just started book 2), but I don't think so.


Chalk up another GM inspired by Inspectre's direction. I ran the original CotCT (or the first two books of it anyway... TPK'd into a ragequit by checking The Direption, as is standard fwict). Running the new version for the same group a year later, already 2 sessions in and the players love it. Making Gaedren the BBEG for most of part 1 is a great idea and its really drawn together the new party.

Looking forward to seeing where your game goes, Inspectre. And not just to ruthlessly steal ideas. :)


Currently playing in Ironfang Invasion, we started with a group of 7 and gradually got pared down to 4:

Ifrit Conjuration Wizard -- Summoning/Battlefield Control/Utility/Item Creation
Human Druid (unsure on archetypes) -- Jack of All Druid Trades
Half-Elf Scaled Fist Monk -- Punching Things
Human Cavalier (unsure on archetypes) -- Charging, Lancing, and Killing


The Death's Embrace ability from the Death domain lets you heal yourself while channeling negative energy to harm the living. You just choose to include yourself in the burst. It requires level 8, but that is the only ability I know of that does what you want.

Grab the Improved Channel feat to increase your DC by another 2. You can use the Channel Surge feat to increase the damage/healing by 50% for a single channel, but it requires 2 uses each time and requires a full-round action instead of just a standard.

There are quite a few god-specific channeling feats in the Inner Sea Gods book you might want to look into. In addition, you could look into Variant Channeling as well, though most of the choices are not too great imo.