It may just be me but after reading the Ap and comparing it to the first two adventures of the other APs it seems much less challenging.
What do you guys think about the relative difficulty of this AP?
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It may just be me but after reading the Ap and comparing it to the first two adventures of the other APs it seems much less challenging.
What do you guys think about the relative difficulty of this AP?
I haven't read the entire books in the RotRL path yet (I'm about halfway through with both of them, don't ask), but if they're easier than the first three, then that's good. In reality, even though Dragon Magazine claimed that they were intended for 4 players, they were meant for 6. I'm hoping that this time, when Paizo says that the games are intended for 4 players, they're REALLY intended for 4 players.
We are one session and the first part into TSM and no death, yet. In STAP we had a TPK in the second session and in AOWAP they died like flies until the TPK in the black cathedral.
Yes, IMHO ROTRAP is easier!!!
That was my take as well. That said I don't really agree with you that its necessarily a good thing that its easier. In my experience its easier to make players more powerful then it is to make an adventure more challenging.
Oh, don't worry, Hook Mountain Massacre will fix that up in a jiffy.
Age of Worms was vicious! I had so many TPK's that the party lost interest in the game. It wasn't that fun for them. I didn't get to play The Savage Tides, but I wanted to, although it seemed insanely difficult. Rise of the Runelords does seem easier, but I still think it will be challenging. After reading it, I actually wish I could be a player and not a DM, but I don't know if there will be another person who will DM when I return from Iraq. I will have to start a new group, so most likely I will DM.
Oh, don't worry, Hook Mountain Massacre will fix that up in a jiffy.
Actually Nick, I've been running Burnt Offerings fairly straight, with just some role-playying touches.. and I've been beating the party up, but they consistantly win.
Feels like a good balance so far.
Well with Rise of the Runelords I want it to be very challenging thats why parts of Age of Worms was so fun as a player I really worried about dieing, until the end when we walked through alot of it
I've thrown in a few extra goblins for most fights, so they can run around doing "stoopid goblin tricks" and adding color while the party cleans the floor with their allies.
Age of Worms was vicious! I had so many TPK's that the party lost interest in the game.
Raise their point buy, or give them free magic or give them free levels. To hard is easy to deal with - players pretty much never complain when you give them more power.
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We are one session and the first part into TSM and no death, yet. In STAP we had a TPK in the second session and in AOWAP they died like flies until the TPK in the black cathedral.
Yes, IMHO ROTRAP is easier!!!
first session I almost had my first death, the fighter went from full to 0 in one hit + Dex damage due to the critical hit deck's 'sever spine' and a goblin double criticaling him.
I had two near-TPKs last night.
SPOILERS!!!!!!
The PCs had expended their resources killing the entire top level of Thistletop and two of Nualia's goons, and retreated to rest up. That allowed Nualia to regroup her remaining forces, and she dropped two of the four PCs by herself in the climactic fight.
In the Malfeshnekor fight, only a crit by the party heavyweight (half-killing M in the first round of combat) and some incredibly bad luck on my part (negating 50+ points of damage on 20% miss chances) saved a TPK there.
Skinsaw Murders has a location that is literally filled with save-or-die/save-or-be-really-damn-badly-hurt traps that cannot be disarmed.
I don't think there's any lack of lethality in RotRL.
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2011 Top 16
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first session I almost had my first death, the fighter went from full to 0 in one hit + Dex damage due to the critical hit deck's 'sever spine' and a goblin double criticaling him.We are one session and the first part into TSM and no death, yet. In STAP we had a TPK in the second session and in AOWAP they died like flies until the TPK in the black cathedral.
Yes, IMHO ROTRAP is easier!!!
This is why only major NPC villains are supposed to use the deck... Players get to use it for every crit but DM's only get to use it for End battles... needless to say I still haven't used it yet, but my players love it!
--Save vs. System Vrock
Runelords seems significantly easier to me. I have been a player in SCAP and a GM for AoW, and am now GMing Runelords. I would never have agreed to do so except that it seemed easier and more reasonably paced.
Difficulty issues destroyed our SCAP campaign and were contributory to destroying the AoW campaign, so I am deeply grateful that Runelords is easier. I really hope that the various statements about "oh, it gets much harder" are bravado, or I'm probably looking at another dead campaign.
Speaking for myself as a player, "Players never complain about being given more powers and items" is totally untrue. I am sure there are players and groups for whom it is true, but it's not universal. I am really enjoying _Burnt Offerings_ because it's a scenario that makes sense for PCs of the level for which it's rated, rather than making them constantly feel as though they're not up to it. And there is not the same relentless pressure to minimax.
(By contrast, in SCAP we had already had the player say, "My PCs aren't up to this campaign--let's abandon it" by this point. And in AoW we had already had our first TPK, with the player questioning whether he wanted to continue.)
Mary
Age of Worms was vicious! I had so many TPK's that the party lost interest in the game. It wasn't that fun for them. I didn't get to play The Savage Tides, but I wanted to, although it seemed insanely difficult. Rise of the Runelords does seem easier, but I still think it will be challenging. After reading it, I actually wish I could be a player and not a DM, but I don't know if there will be another person who will DM when I return from Iraq. I will have to start a new group, so most likely I will DM.
Savage Tide is, in my estimation, considerably easier on players than the Age of Worms as an overall adventure path. Shackled City didn't really tickle my fancy all that much when I pawed through the hardcover a buddy picked up.
Rise of the Runelords strikes me as balanced for the nominal party size 3e is designed around thusfar - although I've not yet gotten enough time to peruse the AP in detail. The goblins rawk!
Runelords seems significantly easier to me. I have been a player in SCAP and a GM for AoW, and am now GMing Runelords. I would never have agreed to do so except that it seemed easier and more reasonably paced.
Difficulty issues destroyed our SCAP campaign and were contributory to destroying the AoW campaign, so I am deeply grateful that Runelords is easier. I really hope that the various statements about "oh, it gets much harder" are bravado, or I'm probably looking at another dead campaign.
Speaking for myself as a player, "Players never complain about being given more powers and items" is totally untrue. I am sure there are players and groups for whom it is true, but it's not universal. I am really enjoying _Burnt Offerings_ because it's a scenario that makes sense for PCs of the level for which it's rated, rather than making them constantly feel as though they're not up to it. And there is not the same relentless pressure to minimax.
(By contrast, in SCAP we had already had the player say, "My PCs aren't up to this campaign--let's abandon it" by this point. And in AoW we had already had our first TPK, with the player questioning whether he wanted to continue.)
I agree Mary. I rather have my player make a difference and a great story as a player than more power. I am not a video game player. I don't want the most powerful character, I want the most fun character. And fun for me is when my character grows and changes with the story, not get extra plus and super weapons.
Mary
Runelords seems significantly easier to me. I have been a player in SCAP and a GM for AoW, and am now GMing Runelords. I would never have agreed to do so except that it seemed easier and more reasonably paced.
Difficulty issues destroyed our SCAP campaign and were contributory to destroying the AoW campaign, so I am deeply grateful that Runelords is easier. I really hope that the various statements about "oh, it gets much harder" are bravado, or I'm probably looking at another dead campaign.
Speaking for myself as a player, "Players never complain about being given more powers and items" is totally untrue. I am sure there are players and groups for whom it is true, but it's not universal. I am really enjoying _Burnt Offerings_ because it's a scenario that makes sense for PCs of the level for which it's rated, rather than making them constantly feel as though they're not up to it. And there is not the same relentless pressure to minimax.
(By contrast, in SCAP we had already had the player say, "My PCs aren't up to this campaign--let's abandon it" by this point. And in AoW we had already had our first TPK, with the player questioning whether he wanted to continue.)
Mary
Even if you don't like the idea of free power I still think a DM can work bonus magic into the scenario through patrons and allies and I'd be pretty surprised if the players actually complained when the DM said - this is really tough guys, 36 point buy for everyone.
The reverse is a lot harder. When the DM tries to sell the AP to his players saying - 'oh yeah and its really wimpy compared to what you guys are used to 15 point buy for everyone' is not something thats going to go over well or sell the campaign to the players. Its easier to give the players more power then it is to take power away from them.
It looks pretty reasonable so far. I haven't read AoW or STAP so I don't hae anything to compare it to but it looks like the players have a fair chance without it being a pushover. A creative DM can probably get some good kills (especially with the goblins, I love the little bastards) but the players should generally come out on top.
From what I've seen this AP does seem to start slightly easier than the Savage Tide (That Rhadoessa thing in the first encounter looked brutal!) but for me thats a good thing! My group is made of 6 players who have never played DnD before and there closest experience with Role-playing is probably WoW (and two are from the local amatuer dramatics groups). Makes a change from my other group (in which i play instead of DM) as we have been together playing 2nd, 3rd and 3.5 editions of DnD for years!
So far they are really enjoying the AP, they have fought off the Goblin's initial raid, and are on there way out on the boar hunting trip with Aldern. So far the Wild Elf Barbarian he has become enamoured with has returned his advances with amazingly direct and foreright responses "I dont usually mate with Humans, but you will do". I've played him as being equal parts amazed and shocked with her responses. Not the coy little elven girl he expected (the blood soaked Falchion and Wolf mane cloak should have given it away :D).
I've found playing with total newbies to be a refreshing experiences, and having to amatuer dramatics in the group makes for some amazing pieces of roleplaying that i wouldnt have expected in such a new group. It has also helped the other new people to come out of their shell quicker than I expected.
Even if you don't like the idea of free power I still think a DM can work bonus magic into the scenario through patrons and allies and I'd be pretty surprised if the players actually complained when the DM said - this is really tough guys, 36 point buy for everyone.
You may think so, but that is not the case for me as a player, nor for my husband. He made deliberately sub-optimal characters for _Runelords_ without being asked, and seems delighted with the results.
In contrast, I got to watch my SCAP characters disintegrate scenario by scenario, less and less like anyone I actually wanted to play, as their abilities and personalities got buried under heaps of stuff and their stats got pushed into ranges where the initial character-generation decisions meant nothing. And yes, I would complain if I saw that coming again. (Actually, at this point if a GM said to me "this is really tough, guys, 36 point buy for everyone" I'd say "Sorry, I'll sit this one out." I never want to do that again. I almost gave up D&D.)
And _Runelords_ is not coming across as easy. It's horrific, it's morally challenging, it's intellectually challenging. It's just not killing the PCs off at every turn, which for us at least actually tends to detract from the moral and intellectual challenges. The PCs are really worried about what will happen in town now that the glass foundry is moribund; they are Varisians and don't want to be tied down to Sandpoint, but they are seriously thinking that they need to do something to keep the town healthy.
The SCAP and AoW parties learned the hard way, very early on, not to think about things like that, because all of the gold had to go for magic items or the PCs were going to die. So the games were not as much fun for us.
One thing about these boards puzzles me. Whenever I write that I don't like escalatory difficulty and escalatory power, people assume that I'm taking the GM's viewpoint. But I was actually a lot less miserable GMing AoW (though I wouldn't do it again) than playing SCAP. SCAP ended up making me really, really unhappy as a player. I got involved with the plot--my GM did a great job with it--and I really wanted to see the endgame, but the sessions were so unpleasant that we just had to give up. And that was with the GM making strenuous efforts to cut the difficulty down.
Mary
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So far the Wild Elf Barbarian he has become enamoured with has returned his advances with amazingly direct and foreright responses "I dont usually mate with Humans, but you will do". I've played him as being equal parts amazed and shocked with her responses. Not the coy little elven girl he expected (the blood soaked Falchion and Wolf mane cloak should have given it away :D).
ROFL. That's so awesome. I've had my players balk at both Aldern's advances and those of Shayliss...
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My experience with the APs
Shackled City was too hard. It was abandoned early on, because the players got brutalized by Tongue-eater and did not want to confront his boss. They even quit Cauldron to leave them to flood. Haven't tried to start that one up again.
AoW seemed to be going reasonably well, but the grind of the dungeons wore on the players after the second adventure. This is too bad because the Greyhawk parts of the AoW are amazing.
TST is going strong. The encounters have been very challenging (we're only on SWW), but there has not been a danger with TPKs yet. More than a few squishy types have gone down to the negatives, but survived.
RotRL I see players really getting into it, honestly. The encounters are challenging, but seem winnable, and more than the other APs there is a good sense of mood in the story, with the PCs grounded in Sandpoint and all the interaction that provides as well as offstage events that add color when the PCs finally reach the scene. Can't wait to run Skinsaw!
I've never read or played SC, so I have no opinion on it, but I ran AoW, and was pretty generous during character creation. I was also pretty open about letting them play out of splatbooks. We started with EaBK, and ran through to the end of the AP. It took about a year and a half, and though we had quite a few character deaths (five, ultimately, I believe), there were no TPKs, and at least half the time, it felt like the PCs were just walking through the encounters. Of the last three modules in particular, the only encounter that really challeneged my PCs was the final showdown, and that was partly due to them activating a bunch of encounters close together, and thus facing more or less all of the biggest baddest NPCs in DoaNA at once.
I've been running a different group through ST, though we've only played through TiNH, and have been on a several month hiatus due to scheduling issues. That group made 1st level characters by the book, and they don't own any of the splatbooks, so I have a lot more control over what they have access to (none of them owns a DMG, either, so they have no access to magic item lists, and thus I have a lot more control over that, as well). I think everyone has been knocked below 0 at least once, or come close, but no one has died yet.
Reading RotRL, I'm very, very pleased. The biggest complain about AoW was the railroadiness of the plot. ST is better written to develop character motivations more organically (my players love Lavinia and hate Vanthus). In general, I've felt everyone involved with the Paizo adventures has learned, and gotter better, with every single adventure written. You guys listen to the feedback you get, and strive to improve with every project.
RotRL really feels like the best, most functional AP Paizo has put out yet, which is far more important to me as a DM than lethality or difficulty (though there's plenty of tough, interesting challenges). Burnt Offerings (and what I've seen of Skinsaw Murders) feels like they really leave the PCs options open, let them motivate themselves to progress in the adventure, and still keep a coherent, functional plot.
You may think so, but that is not the case for me as a player, nor for my husband. He made deliberately sub-optimal characters for _Runelords_ without being asked, and seems delighted with the results.
In contrast, I got to watch my SCAP characters disintegrate scenario by scenario, less and less like anyone I actually wanted to play, as their abilities and personalities got buried under heaps of stuff and their stats got pushed into ranges where the initial character-generation decisions meant nothing. And yes, I would complain if I saw that coming again. (Actually, at this point if a GM said to me "this is really tough, guys, 36 point buy for everyone" I'd say "Sorry, I'll sit this one out." I never want to do that again. I almost gave up D&D.)
And _Runelords_ is not coming across as easy. It's horrific, it's morally challenging, it's intellectually challenging. It's just not killing the PCs off at every turn, which for us at least actually tends to detract from the moral and intellectual challenges. The PCs are really worried about what will happen in town now that the glass foundry is moribund; they are Varisians and don't want to be tied down to Sandpoint, but they are seriously thinking that they need to do something to keep the town healthy.
The SCAP and AoW parties learned the hard way, very early on, not to think about things like that, because all of the gold had to go for magic items or the PCs were going to die. So the games were not as much fun for us.
One thing about these boards puzzles me. Whenever I write that I don't like escalatory difficulty and escalatory power, people assume that I'm taking the GM's viewpoint. But I was actually a lot less miserable GMing AoW (though I wouldn't do it again) than playing SCAP. SCAP ended up making me really, really unhappy as a player. I got involved with the plot--my GM did a great job with it--and I really wanted to see the endgame, but the sessions were so unpleasant that we just had to give up. And that was with the GM making strenuous efforts to cut the difficulty down.
Mary
OK fair point but then I think James and the crew should try and address this issue, so far as possible in the APs.
I mean this issue exists. Might as well face up to it.
I'll make a rough guess that maybe half the groups out there are very story orientated and will intentionally make sub-optimal PCs (Those of you about to scold me regarding the fact that I'm presuming making super optimized PCs is mutually exclusive with role-playing - yeah, don't bother, I agree already). The other half the groups have players that make much more optimized PCs and expect them to be challenged.
So what should be done about this dichotomy?
I suppose the designers can just bite the bullet and presume that half the players in any AP will be unhappy and ultimately give up on the AP, but that does not seem like a very good option.
So then what can be done? Presuming that the AP should some how be designed to be playable for both styles is there a way to do that?
My feeling is we are essentially faced with four options.
* Make a easy AP and leave the DM to increase the difficulty if necessary.
* Make a easy AP and encourage the DM to limit the players options and point buy so that they are weak enough to still be challenged.
* Make a hard AP and encourage the DM to strip down the difficulty if its to difficult.
* Make a hard AP and encourage the DM to give the PCs more strength if its to hard.
Two of these options are not really easy for the DM to do. Either increasing or decreasing an APs difficulty means putting in a ton of extra work on the DMs part. It potentially damages the designers story, its generally just a not an optimal solution.
That leaves us with making extra weak or extra strong PCs.
Here again this option divides into two possible ways of handling this. More or less power in terms of what the characters get at start. Extra point buy or a particularly low point buy, or, in terms of increasing power anyway, extra levels or extra magic items.
Alternatively one can increase or decrease power through role playing type explanations.
Gaining power in this regards is probably easiest done with friends and allies. The church has your back in terms of resurrections, NPCs will generally react favorably to your requests and will be willing to help out in various ways. If you get into real trouble you can expect some cavalry to come over the hill or maybe your provided with a means to communicate with allies if you really need help (whispering wind spells and the like), clerics of your church will offer suggestions like using divination spells for cheap or free to help you learn about the opposition etc.
The reverse option - DM making things more difficult through role playing might come in the form of automatic curses that can't be broken that nerf players abilities, lower their hps and reduce their chance to hit. The DM might manage to get some mileage by having all NPCs always betray the PCs and never help at all or maybe they just always make things worse if their asked to do anything.
Of these for options I don't think the negative ones are very useful. If the DM really reduces the PCs point buy and or never gives them any treasure etc. the players will just become grumpy and frustrated and won't have any fun.
I think usually increasing the players power from the get go through extra point buy, extra levels etc. is easy and more often then not will be met favorably. But, OK, maybe its not for everyone.
In the roleplaying version of increasing or decreasing power I think the negative option is just about the worst option a DM can take. Arbitrary curses will infuriate the players - if the NPCs always screw things up the DM both annoys the players and wrecks the story line. Its really not a viable option.
However I think the role playing option to increase the parties power might well work. So long as the DM does makes sure that the players are always in command and the NPCs are just resources willing to go along with the players goals and support them according to their means I'd think this would be a great option. It does have one weakness in that I think that even with a lot of help from NPCs truely sub-par NPCs just won't have a chance in the hard adventures. I'd suggest mixing this up with bonus magic at least or maybe have ones gold go farther by allowing the players to buy half price magic items made by helpful NPCs.
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I think there's a fifth option: Make a balanced AP and encourage the players to create a balanced party.
I agree mostly with what Mary said. If I have to give more power to the player characters to increase their chance to survive, then I don't consider the AP to be challenging. Instead, I consider it to be too difficult.
But I also agree with what Jeremy said. It IS a bad idea to strip the SC off the powers they have come to get used to. The thing is, more often than not I think they should never have gotten those powers they have come to get used to.
As far as I'm concerned Pathfinder's found the right path. Great story so far with encounters ranging from easy to really challenging. And a big warning sign at the entrance to Malfeshnekor's Lair, an encounter which can easily be too much for the players
I think there's a fifth option: Make a balanced AP and encourage the players to create a balanced party.
But how do you define balanced?
I suppose the designers could come right out and tell the DMs which splat books they should use in the AP and what point buy they should use - but even here I don't know that it would work. Whatever the point buy or the splat books in play even, just allowing core and nothing else (which would make some players and DMs unhappy) players can get a pretty wide range of power depending on their choices. In the end your 'balanced' might seem awfully weak to my players (in fact it sounds like it probably does). In other words if you normally play with power gamers then 'encourage players to make a balanced party' translates into - the DM should not allow his players to make the characters they want - presumably via DM fiat.
As far as I'm concerned this is just a variation on one of the four options listed:
* 'this AP is really wimpy - 15 point buy for everyone'.
Except instead of having a low point buy the DM is disallowing character concepts. Personally if these are my options I'd rather force them to live with the low point buy and allow them to make whatever characters they want. I think my players would rather deal with a low point buy but have the freedom to make whatever character they like then have me stand around disallowing their characters concepts.
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Anytime a party is having a cakewalk through my adventure I do at least three things immediately. First max hp for npc's and monsters. Secondly max hp from healing. Third I give them a wealth level equal to the pc's.
Not saying it will always work but these along with good tactics usually means my pc's start whining about getting their asses handed to them all the time. So then I cut it back a bit at a time until I stop hearing complaints.
Just my 2 cp
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I just want to point out that it's always easier to increase the difficulty than it is to decrease it. I can easily add in two more goblins to make a low-level encounter more difficult, but reducing the bosses (especially when they're recurring and don't have class levels) requires much more work.
Personally, if I'm writing an AP, I'm writing it with a 28 point buy system, and 5 good (not overly powerful, but good) characters in mind. Those that like the extra fluff can easily just add a sixth player and be on par, those that want an extra challenge go at it with four.
I just want to point out that it's always easier to increase the difficulty than it is to decrease it. I can easily add in two more goblins to make a low-level encounter more difficult, but reducing the bosses (especially when they're recurring and don't have class levels) requires much more work.
Personally, if I'm writing an AP, I'm writing it with a 28 point buy system, and 5 good (not overly powerful, but good) characters in mind. Those that like the extra fluff can easily just add a sixth player and be on par, those that want an extra challenge go at it with four.
Easy enough at low levels - but do you add a second mature adult dragon at 14th? Two Illithids instead of one? With goblins your not going to break anything but as you move up the ranks you can face significant issues. Mind blast all by its lonesome might be a mere annoyance to the munchkins that make up your party as they'll be fine as long as a couple of characters make their saves but double mindblasts could make it so that a TPK has a 40% probability based on which of the characters managed to make two successive saving throws in a row.
I'd not normally decrease or increase the AP itself if at all possible. To much work - to many potentially unanticipated variables in the higher levels. Easier to focus on the PCs. Hence if the AP is too tough then having an allied church actively working with the PCs to help the players can be a real boon. Cheap (or free!) resurrections and divine scrolls can go a long way to keeping the players going against even tough opposition.
Anytime a party is having a cakewalk through my adventure I do at least three things immediately. First max hp for npc's and monsters. Secondly max hp from healing. Third I give them a wealth level equal to the pc's.
Not saying it will always work but these along with good tactics usually means my pc's start whining about getting their asses handed to them all the time. So then I cut it back a bit at a time until I stop hearing complaints.
Just my 2 cp
If you increase the NPCs wealth does it not just all fall into the players hands once they dispose of the bad guy?
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Not that often actually. I forget where maybe Dragon a few years ago I read a lovely article that promoted the use of use limits for lots of things. So the Goblin shaman knows an ancient ritual that blesses a weapon for a week or even less. It works with multiple things. After the first few times the characters wised up and sold them off before time ran out. That in itself caused some great RP encounters with merchants and city guards. :D
Aside from that I insure that while the npc's have more loot it's not always easy for PC's to get. I usually give them extra potions and such and they use them, generally before combat. If that fails, glass vials are extremely fragile. ;)
One thing that helped me a lot was figuring out good monster tactics. The best lesson I ever had in that. Reverse Dungeon My usual PC's using the monsters literally ate my characters alive the first few encounters.
Everyone plays different. In the end you just have to find something that works. Reading through the AP I don't think that there is a huge problem with difficulty. Then again I don't allow a 36 point buy, 28 or so is more than enough in my opinion. If we don't use point buy then everyone rolls 4d6 drop the lowest. Once What they roll is what they get. I don't like having first level god kids running around with every stat at 15 or higher.
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First off, 'cause this is some kind of a difficult topic here in Germany (where powergaming is often misunderstood as munchkinism) I happily admit that i hold no special grudge against powergamers (though I don't count myself as one).
But how do you define balanced?
I define balanced as in "balanced by the 3.5 Core Rules". Whis is in fact what the Pathfinder designers have to take as the basis for their adventures. They aren't allowed to use WotC's splatbooks so basically they mustn't assume the players are allowed to use them by their DMs. So what I meant is something on the line of "Use the Core Rules and encourage the players to create their characters according to those". Which admittedly restricts their choices (no splatbooks) but I don't consider this necessarily to be a bad thing.
I suppose the designers could come right out and tell the DMs which splat books they should use in the AP and what point buy they should use
James Jacobs gave some suggestions how to create characters for the Pathfinder Series. 32 PB and something like Hero Points (we use the Eberron AP system instead) sounds good enough for me. Increases survivability at low levels without making the higher levels a cakewalk.
In the end your 'balanced' might seem awfully weak to my players (in fact it sounds like it probably does).
Granted. But in my opinion the designers have to make an assumption what the players will prefer when it comes to game balance things. And the only reasonable assumption they can make is that all players have access to the Core Rules. Add any splatbook and you create problems with at least a part of your customer base.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't use (or not allow) them, but if you do, it is your responsibility to adapt the adventure to your likings. This is a lot of work to do but if Paizo decided to do it for you, chances are that there are a lot of customers (with no access to all splatbooks) which will find the AP overwhelming difficult and decide not to play it (instead of tone it down).
I think my players would rather deal with a low point buy but have the freedom to make whatever character they like then have me stand around disallowing their characters concepts.
I don't consider PB 32 to be low point buy and I don't tend to disallow them anything (if it isn't obviously considered broken by a sufficient number of other DMs apart from me). I don't feel that this makes the Pathfinder adventures too easy so I see no need to make them more difficult (or challenging).
But this is just me and I may be in the minority. So I wouldn't mind if it is me who has to make the changes if this means that Paizo prospers.
If I run a tabletop, I use 4d6, normally once but sometimes twice (depending on how expereinced the party is). If I run an OLG, I use 32 PB and I give them OLG PC's my splatbook limitations. I find that OLG's can easily make ridiculously powerful characters at any level than tabletop characters can. It has to do with the amount of time that can be used for character creation. But I find that if the story is good, most players will not care how easy or difficult the adventures.
As a player though, I love a good story that allows my PC to grow far more than super toys and insane abilities. The fastest way for me to lsoe interest is to not have a reason to play. If I wanted uber powerful characters to play on basic storylines, I can always pick up a Final Fantasy game or try WOW or Everquest. But I play D&D to participate in a character growing and evolving while influencing the world around him/her. I want to run RoTRLs but I prefer to play as a Character hands down. This would have been the bomb if I hadn't already read the adventures.
So far the Wild Elf Barbarian he has become enamoured with has returned his advances with amazingly direct and foreright responses "I dont usually mate with Humans, but you will do". I've played him as being equal parts amazed and shocked with her responses. Not the coy little elven girl he expected (the blood soaked Falchion and Wolf mane cloak should have given it away :D).
ROFL. That's so awesome. I've had my players balk at both Aldern's advances and those of Shayliss...
** spoiler omitted **
Well so far she's got Lust, Wrath, Greed and Pride pretty much pinned down. Between over indulding in the Taverns ale and gambling, obliterating the Goblins in the raid (i've never seen so many confirmed criticals), preening and posing constantly whenever the new "heroes" are praised in anyway and generally being quite base and uncivilised.
I just think the first one was easy, the second book seems like it will be very challeneging
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Oh, don't worry, Hook Mountain Massacre will fix that up in a jiffy.Actually Nick, I've been running Burnt Offerings fairly straight, with just some role-playying touches.. and I've been beating the party up, but they consistantly win.
Feels like a good balance so far.
I have only run one session but it have been very close to losing at least one character on several occasions. Of course, I always improvise a bit - it would be tragic if it was too easy on them.
"Easier," is not a term I usually use in working through an adventure. Yes, sometimes something is obviously too easy, and some are nearly impossible. However, I find that well written adventures can be adjusted on the fly to challenge and push a group to their limites without TPK all the time.
My group never really took to Cauldron. I couldn't get them concerned with the fact that Cauldron might get destroyed. They kept wanting to take a ship to Greyhawk. The Gnome City (which I loved personally) was generally hated.
Age of Worms, they liked through the first few adventures, but again they lost interest. We might go back to that.
The Savage Tide they really liked, and we will be playing it through more.
Rise of the Rune Lords, though, is the odds on favorite. We have only made it through Thistletop, but they all like the setting as a whole, and Sandpoint in particluar. What I like is that, so far, it is the most playable of all of them. I like 3rd ed., rules, but I and my group have gotten tired of minatures and grids. We have agreed to play RoTRL without these items, or with the minatures taking up only general positions (no grids) and it was a great game.
I don't know if this will continue as the players advance and feats become more common, but we will see. If nothing else, we are going to limit long drawn out combats with battlemats, counters and minatures to one climactic battle per game.
So, IMO, it is just right so far. Everyone has enjoyed it more than any of the previous adventures.
I have yet to start ROTRL as I am finishing up AOW, so I cannot comment on its ease. However, I have discovered something while running AOW. The difficulty of an adventure depends heavily on the characters and the gaming style of the players.
Makes sense, huh?
Let me explain.
The group originally consisted of a human marshal/artificer, a kobold sorcerer/ninja, a human battle dancer, and a half-elf archivist/savant.
The marshal/artificer and the archivist/savant characters could both augment the group as a whole in battle.
Additionally, the player of the marshal started keeping a mental note of party resources early on and got a good feel for when the party needed to hold up and camp. His judgement save them from dying a number of time (when the party did not listen to him, they ended up in some rough encounters). As a result of his lessons, the group opted to keep going when the player had to move out of state. They have picked up a few cohorts to balance out the party, but they still play it safe and smart.
So far, I have had only one character death in AoW and only two near TPKs (all early on in the campaign). I have not tone the game down any. As a result of their teamwork, I have had to actually make a few encounters just a bit tougher (mostly due to the additional support of the cohorts).
That being said, yes I thing AOW is hard. Most of my players have gamed together for a few years and work like a well oiled machine. A lot are also gamers from back in 1e and remember adventures like Tomb of Horrors, White Plumb Mountain, and Vault of the Drow. So, my experiences may be a little outside of the usual.
if any of those were actual deaths and not just negatives be sure to post them in the obituaries thread!I had two near-TPKs last night.
I use a variant of Action Points where the PCs can pay 3 APs to prevent a death, so there were no true deaths. One player did have to burn those APs, though, and another only staved off death because of a 3rd party prestige class (Man of Will, from AEG's Swashbuckling Adventures; itlets you go to -10+CON hp before death), though he had the action points to spare to prevent his death. If he'd gone down, however, that fight might have ended in a TPK, because the party's only true healer was already down at that point.
I also forgot that Bruthazmus almost killed two people as well - and he was completely naked except for his flail. That kinda shut up the party members that were laughing at his predicament (and who earned Pride points for doing so ;)).
James Jacobs gave some suggestions how to create characters for the Pathfinder Series. 32 PB and something like Hero Points (we use the Eberron AP system instead) sounds good enough for me. Increases survivability at low levels without making the higher levels a cakewalk.
If thats the case (I have the players book but have yet to read it) then I suspect I'll be fine and its just this particular part of the AP thats unusually easy. If I keep my players down to 25 PB they should feel more challenged and the recommendation to use action points makes me think things are expected to be tough. I don't use them myself hence my players should, again, feel a heightened sense of challange.
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It's not in the Player's Guide but something he wrote in the How deadly is Runelords?-Thread. That's what James posted there:
My estimation is that Runelords is more or less as deadly as Savage Tide or Age of Worms. It's the same folk building them, after all. We've refined our methods a bit, and if we intentionally put in something that's SUPPOSED to be a wake-up call and really deadly (such as Age of Worms' acid beetle swarm), we'll try to put in a designer's note sidebar to explain our motives and put up a red flag.
That said... 32 point buy and 5 characters should be fine. That's what I'm using in the Savage Tide campaign I'm running on Saturday (my group's about to face a lot of pirates in 2 hours, in fact), and I'm also using hero points (spend a point to stop tragedy or do something really awesome), and it's all working out really well.
With my group to ease over from the triple-TPK from Savage Tide (Yep!) I allowed 5d6 drop 2 for rolling. Two characters each have two 18s, another has two 16s, and another has 13,13,13,13,12,16, which was really odd.
The group has slain Ripnugget and have just calmed down Shadowmist, being hurt here and there (Gogmurt took them all out with entangle, but they made a deal to take out the Longshanks and then attacking him all in one turn without letting him act, killing him.) but overall getting through.
Good mixture of easy and hard in my book.
Thinking about this some more it dawns on me that there is another relatively easy way to increase or decrease the power of the players in an AP.
If you double the XP they gain from various activities then they should rise fairly quickly early on but should stop roughly two levels higher then what the AP expects and simply hold at this point.
You can do the same thing with halving the XP. In this case the PCs would rise slower early on but would then rise at about the normal rate once they where about two level behind what the AP expects.
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Thinking about this some more it dawns on me that there is another relatively easy way to increase or decrease the power of the players in an AP.
If you double the XP they gain from various activities then they should rise fairly quickly early on but should stop roughly two levels higher then what the AP expects and simply hold at this point.
You can do the same thing with halving the XP. In this case the PCs would rise slower early on but would then rise at about the normal rate once they where about two level behind what the AP expects.
also there is plenty of downtime for you to give them roleplay exp
I agree that restricting a group from using their accustomed point builds, splatbooks, etc. can seem punative, and that up-leveling and down-leveling adventures is hard. It's a real problem, and a hard one.
One possible solution would be to give multiple target levels for the module. You could have a paragraph at the start: This module has been balanced for 4 5th-level characters who are well optimized, or 5-6 7th level characters who are not optimized. (In my experience the difference is easily that big.) Then, you would flag or give variants for specific encounters where that's going to break down. For example, there are a few spells (e.g. Unholy Word) which lead to nearly unavoidable TPK unless the party is X level, no matter how optimized they are; you'd want to flag those so that a GM with a lower-level optimized party could use a workaround.
We have experimented with running modules at levels other than their written one. For example, we owned _Speaker in Dreams_ for years but no one would ever run it, because there was a general consensus that it was brutally hard and would not be fun. My GM finally ran it as a side adventure in SCAP. It's written for 4 seventh level characters. It was *perfect* for 6 ninth level characters--one of the better module experiences I've ever had. I had thought the level disparity would cause problems, but it really didn't. The GM added a few additional monsters, and was able to have the bad guys use intelligent tactics in places where the module called for stupidity, but otherwise changed very little. The PCs' goals changed, however, from "let's run in, pick off one more monster, and run out again" to "let's save this town!" and that was really enjoyable.
It would help, though, if the module author--who knows their material much better than the GM will after a readthrough or two--would annotate the module appropriately.
I also think that it's possible to write material which is too hard even for a souped-up party. A lot of people have complained about feeling beaten down by SCAP. I think that's intrinsic to its pacing, and the only way to get rid of it without changing the pacing would be to make it unengagingly easy.
In line with these ideas, we started Runelords with 5 third level PCs, though due to multiclassing and race choices they play more like second. I plan not to give EXP, but to give level advancements whenever appropriate; they're about to be 4th going into Thistletop, and I expect they'll be 5th going into Skinsaw, or maybe 6th. I like that a lot more than giving out tons of treasure, which tends to swamp the PCs' abilities in favor of their items. And having NPC intervention make up for PC inadequacy does not work well for us. It becomes hard to understand why the PCs are the ones doing the adventure, if they clearly are not powerful enough and constantly have to be bailed out.
We started SCAP with 2nds but if you use EXP the initial boost is quickly lost. A GM who wishes to run a whole AP at a different level than it's written for needs either to adjust the EXP awards, or abandon EXP. I find it much easier to do the latter. Adjusting the awards is a ton of work and focuses attention on a not very good aspect of the game, in my opinion. Giving levels is easy and clean. The only drawback is that it interferes with the use of EXP to limit item creation and spell use. (I'd welcome suggestions for fixing this. In Runelords my player chose to give me PCs who don't make many items, but he may not always want to do that.)
Mary
But in my opinion the designers have to make an assumption what the players will prefer when it comes to game balance things. And the only reasonable assumption they can make is that all players have access to the Core Rules. Add any splatbook and you create problems with at least a part of your customer base.
Yes. I think it makes more sense to write for Core (accepting that even then, optimized >> ordinary >> non-optimized, and there's a level or two difference for each ">>" by the mid-levels) than to write for Core+Everything, which few people will have and even fewer will be comfortable using all of, and which has an awful lot of known bugs. (I'm also not real happy supporting the WoTC endless splatbook machine, but that's a separate issue.)
The range of power in the system for a given level is so large that *someone* will be unhappy, but aiming for Core seems more sensible to me.
Then again, I'm not the one in our household who bought all those splatbooks. Though even my husband is balking at _Book of Nine Swords_. His other GM wants him to use it, but he's privately predicting that the resulting campaign will be dead within a couple of months.
Mary