valdis43's page

First off, we're playing with the old 2E rules, not the remaster.

The dread wraith's resistances say, "all 10 (except force, ghost touch, or positive; double resistance vs. non-magical)". The champion in my campaign has divine smite, which should do 2 persistent good damage. But it looks to me like the dread wraith would resist all of this. Is this correct or am I missing something? It really seems like divine smite should hurt a wraith.

Has anyone tinkered with the kingdom rules? Or have a set of house rules? They're a bit too crunchy for my group as written.

If I have to rewrite I'm thinking of ditching the kingdom stats and skills and using PC skills instead. Only Wis, Int and Cha skills are used.
I'll eliminate unrest and use 3 ruins - corresponding to the three relevant stats: Wis(corruption), Int(decay) and Cha(strife).
I'll ditch the various kinds of actions and lump everything into the standard 3 actions/turn. The new kingdom turn would be: Upkeep -> Actions -> Events.
I'll remove the xp system and have the kingdom level up based on size alone (capped at the PC level).

The last two AP's I ran, I ran from PDF's. So I just printed out the handouts and gave them to the players. This time I'm going back to books. I can probably try to copy them from the book, but are the handouts for the AP available in a PDF other than the AP PDF (which at $50 is too much to justify)? Is there a map and handout PDF or something like that available?

A week of food is L bulk. A character with 10 Str can carry 5 bulk. So...a character could carry a year worth of food? Sure, they couldn't carry other gear, but it seems like a single horse or mule would solve all the carrying problems. Is this supposed to be how it works? It's kind of immersion-breaking. It seems like characters would never need to return to the trading post for supplies. I suppose they're more likely to need to return to sell off loot, which will weigh more.

The map is 28 tiles across, traveling half way across would take 2 weeks (assuming decent roads and a speed of 25). So going out and back from the center is a whole month (without doing anything else). It seems like all this travel wouldn't leave a lot time for running a kingdom. Is it expected by the time adventurers are traveling these distances, they'll have other means of transport? Is it expected characters will have access to teleport (which is uncommon) by that time? Are there other key transport spells?

Is there a guide to which rivers are navigable? For that matter, is there a map of which river is which? They don't seem to be labeled and looking through tile descriptions for the names is tedious.

I just finished reading the AP. As a first 2E campaign, I'm dreading running this. So much going on. But, its what the players think they want (I still think Strength of Thousands is a better starter 2E AP, but I got outvoted). I've tried to make this spoiler-free.

I usually play with 6 PC's and it seems to me there's two ways to adjust: add 50% more enemies or make the enemies elite. Both adjustments seem to fit into the encounter guidelines. Which one I'll use probably depends on how much space the encounters allow for. Does it work though to elite a monster that's already an elite version or will that cause problems? Are there other adjustments to consider?

Any suggestions for adjusting treasure? I know there's guidelines in the gamemaster section for how much to add, does anyone have a good 2E random item generator?

Is slow leveling ok for this AP? It seems like there's a lot of content in this - and I usually add PC-specific side stories in too. I don't want them to always out-level content.

I'm not convinced the army rules are necessary, and this AP already has lots of new systems to learn. Is anything lost by glossing over this and using the guidelines from the intro paragraph of that section? Not having to manage armies seems like it'd make the kingdom maintenance easier because you don't have that consumption. Does that unbalance anything?

There are several points where there's a build-up of LP's or RP's. Is there any downside to reducing these? 30 LP in one part seems like it might grow thin before they're done.

Does anyone have alternative suggestions for Chapter 8? This chapter is really weak compared to the rest - it's too ambitious a concept for the page count it has. I can't imagine running this without rewriting it.

I assume there will be pdf maps available somewhere? I'm hoping there's a printable version of the hexmap specifically to help with kingdom building/tracking exploring.

What would be the effect of the following changes:

Cantrips take 1 action to cast.
All spells that roll an attack or cause an enemy to save are considered attacks.
All offensive spells therefore have the MAP.
MAP also applies to spell save DC like attacks (so save DC of 20 goes to 15 then 10).
Nerf electric arc to bring it in line with other cantrips.
In addition to its other effects, quickened spell drops the MAP penalty similar to ranger abilities.

I'm not seeing the utility of aid. You have to make a check, which starts off reasonably challenging but seems like you'd quickly get to the point of often critically succeeding. Then, using an action and your reaction you give an ally +1? Two actions for a +1 bonus? It seems like many times you'd be better off just trying whatever the main action is yourself.

Or is the point that at higher level you're expected to critically succeed most of the time?

Is hand of the apprentice supposed to have the range of a siege weapon?

The first line of the fighter multiclass says, "You have spent time learning the art of warfare, increasing your skill with martial arms and at wearing armor. "

Yet as far as I can tell nothing in the multiclass gives you much in the way of armor (short of taking parry or a shield feat). What am I missing?

Champion offers armor, but you have to play as a Paladin. The general armor feat only gives you one armor and never upgrades. Seems like something is missing here.