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I would like to know if the harrow readings the players receive at the beginning of every segment of the AP, besides the last one, are crucial to the actual plot. Besides of course giving the players hints/direction, and harrow points. I'm contemplating omitting the readings to avoid what potentially appears to be a time consuming repeatitive fluff factor that creates more PC questions then answers. Please enlighten me if I'm wrong about the nessessity of these readings.
Also I'm curious as to how these readings are working out for other GM's, and if anyone has modified the scenario or process already?
It is my intention to use the Harrowing as an opportunity to give the players an additional opportunity to suspend their disbelief and get out of "metagaming mode". This kind of thing may move some people away from the idea that everything must fit into the narrow confines of RAW d20, and that they are playing a unique game in a unique campaign setting where the rules are not all set in stone.
It is my experience that when that works to the players benefit they have no difficulty accepting it. Giving the players additional abilities related to the Harrowing is likely to make them far more interested in Zellara and the Harrowing mythology as well. For me it adds depth and breadth, as well as having an actual game impact, and providing a tool for me to communicate in game with the players through Zellara.
I too would be very, very interested to see how other group's mileage has varied with using the Harrow Deck.
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I would like to know if the harrow readings the players receive at the beginning of every segment of the AP, besides the last one, are crucial to the actual plot. Besides of course giving the players hints/direction, and harrow points. I'm contemplating omitting the readings to avoid what potentially appears to be a time consuming repeatitive fluff factor that creates more PC questions then answers. Please enlighten me if I'm wrong about the nessessity of these readings.
Also I'm curious as to how these readings are working out for other GM's, and if anyone has modified the scenario or process already?
Having just ran my first session I'd say the harrowing was a success. It is a mostly fluff, mood atmosphere thing. If your group isn't into that type of thing then I'd say dumping it probably won't cause too much issues. Having the actual deck (once they get it from the fishery) is probably quite useful. Zellara can be used for hints and hey identify 3/day is handy.
I haven't actually run this AP yet. But I have play-tested it in my head during the third read through. (I read everything four times before running.)
I don't think it is crucial at all. I do think it is a cool new game mechanic that adds a good bit of flavor and color to the adventures. If you didn't use it though, it wouldn't hurt the players. If you did use, it would help them.
-Jack
Not crucial, but I think it adds a lot of flavor and style to the adventure path. I'm thinking about creating a feat similar to the Harrowed feat, but allows the character to give that bonus to another character.
Not crucial, but I think it adds a lot of flavor and style to the adventure path. I'm thinking about creating a feat similar to the Harrowed feat, but allows the character to give that bonus to another character.
Shareowing?
I haven't used it in CotCT, but I am using it in RotRL.
Madam Mvashti has a deck, and did a reading for one of the players. I haven't learned to do a Harrowing according the the instructions, but I was able to forshadow futur events quite easily. The character was getting involved with an Aldren, fated to becoming an undead killer, so when the twin card came up, I said that she was going to be betrayed. The Unicorn card meant that she needed to be healed, by a powerful individual - and as she had just been bitten by a werewolf, she took it to mean that she would turn into a lycanthrope if she didn't get to the big city and get some healing. Etc..
I didn't accord any harrowing points, but the players liked it a lot.
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I think its a good tool to give foreshadowing and hints to the player of what is to come and who the important players will be.
In the first reading at the beginning of EoA, I got the Queen card and the Uprsing card. Pretty cool. I also received the Twin card and had Zellara explain that there were dark and light forces at work, and that the heroes must be part of the light to balance or combat the dark.
It's also pretty awesome to describe the cards when the players who have the Harrow feat draw their daily fortune.
I'm on the verge of running this adventure path and I ordered the harrow deck off amazon (still waiting for it to ship).
But from what I saw of the adventures and the deck usage, and knowing my group, they will love this stuff. But to echo what a previous poster said, the deck is really all about flavour, and isn't 100% necessary to play through the campaign. So if you group is purely into it for the hack'n'slash and loot, then you may wanna skip this part of the adventures.
One of my PCs has a deck. The trick is going to be incorporating her readings into the game. :) She took the Harrowed feat, so she's clearly at least a little serious about it.
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I also have one playing a Varisian with the Harrowed feat.
LOVE the deck. I've done three sample readings. Apart from feeling the need to reference the cool text for individual cards in the instruction manual, it was surprisingly easy to weave the readings into each of the three adventures ("CotCT" 1 through 3) for which I tried it. I had the Tornado/Cyclone strongly matched in CE for "Seven Days to the Grave"...!
I plan to also have wine and bread stashed under the gaming table when we begin our playtest, really playing up the idea of them playing the roles of their characters rather than the setup of, "Alright, you guys just met and are sitting around a table...."
Kyle Hunter's artwork is awesomely quirky. I never connected well with "Downer" but still love his illustrations of monsters and such.
We don't own a Harrow deck, so I picked up my Morgan-Greer Tarot (similar to the Rider-Waite but with lush, dark-colored illustrations) and turned over a couple of cards representing one PC's reading for another PC.
It got gasps around the table, because the first card turned over was clearly a character portrait of one of the PCs. The PC is a black-skinned nobly-born wine merchant; the card (eight of pentacles) showed a black woman in rich robes surrounded by bunches of grapes.
I couldn't have set that up better if I tried. The rest of the reading was startlingly relevant, too.
We didn't use the Harrow points: they just seemed like a mechanical complication with little roleplaying flavor.
Mary
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We didn't use the Harrow points: they just seemed like a mechanical complication with little roleplaying flavor.
Mary
Yah. Im' wondering about those. Since I give the bonuses for the event cards, that seems to work, but so far the PCs haven't even used their Harrow Point(s).
I see this happen with Action Points too. Only a few players regularly use them.
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Yah. Im' wondering about those. Since I give the bonuses for the event cards, that seems to work, but so far the PCs haven't even used their Harrow Point(s).
We didn't use the Harrow points: they just seemed like a mechanical complication with little roleplaying flavor.
Mary
2/5 of my players have used theirs, and they've only had 3 encounters
Crucial? No.
A great way to add campaign flavor/mood and a tool to use foreshadowing "in character?" Yes.
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I personally can't wait to do a good Harrowing on my players. I've been practicing a bit, but I generally don't have a good memory for this sort of thing.
Thankfully, I'll know about the characters' backgrounds, as well as what's coming up in the AP, so that'll help a lot. Also, a lot of the images on the cards are really good representations of the meaning of the card.
Every time I look at the art on these cards, I am impressed at how symbolic they are. So good! It'd be a shame to run CotCT and not use them.
One subtle thing you can do is: after the Harrowing, write down what the cards were, and then have those images and symbols show up in your descriptions. Someone is wearing the Unicorn on their tabard, or there is a Forge next door to the adventure location, or you describe an NPC with card-related imagery. This helps tie things together and makes the Harrowing seem more magical. It works best if it's light-handed.
Mary
The Harrow Deck was the single, most-important allure for me to play in CotCT. When I came across the reference months ago, posted a question about it, and then learned that, indeed, Paizo had plans to not only incorporate a Harrow Deck mechanic in the game, but to also create a game accessory, I was absolutely elated. I bought the deck when it first came out, and I made sure that I crafted one of my PC's to have familiarity of use with one (a Varisian reincarnation of Alika (using the elder feats of one of the last few Dragon articles), who is a psion telepath with the Harrowed feat).
I love the chance of drawing a physical card each day, and I delight at getting a reading before each new AP installment. For me, they add breadth and ominous flavor.
My dwarf chuckled, "Thanks for that bit of sunshine, Zarella," and I got a kick when Zarella struck back with, "Harrow decks are not meant to make you feel good! If you want to to feel happy, go buy some sweets!"
I use my Harrow points, and, although they aren't critical to the game, I would be most depressed not to have them in our game; or worse, banned.