All,
My group just finished the 2nd Darkness AP, using Beta Pathfinder rules (plus ample sampling from daemonslye's conversion thread).
We gamed about every 2 weeks for 4-5 hours from 31 August 2008 until today, 26 July 2009. Our gaming location was our FLGS (except for the last session). Three core players went from beginning to end. Two additional players dropped in/out at different times.
Main Player Characters (ending at 16th level):
Tolan, human male, Cleric of Nethys, N
Aram, human male, Sorcerer (abyssal line)/Fighter/Eldritch Knight (also dating/married to Sam - as a Cohort), CN
Davros, human male (Vasarian), Fighter, NG
Other PCs included:
Remington, halfling rogue, CN (just for Shadow in the Sky)
Selton, high elven druid, NG (mid-Armageddon Echo through A Memory of Darkness)
Hats off to the authors, Paizo, and the fan base for creating wonderful resources, great adventures, and keeping us gaming for the past year! All feedback given below is meant to be "constructive criticism" (but raw notes) of what went well and not-so-well.
Overall impression: we all had a blast! Despite the need for some heavy rails to keep the train on track (especially for the "only slightly good" party), the group highly enjoyed the modules and the flavor in each of them. Fortunately, the players wanted to play through the path, so they contrived reasons for their characters to go along with various plot directions. The path's general feel was that of a "Grand Tour of the Elven Realms" of Golarion. My impression is that although there was great depth available for the first adventures around Riddleport, the adventure quickly moved away from there with no intent to return (even with teleport - distances involved were huge). Knowing up front that this was to be a grand tour without return to a common base of operations would have helped the players to build character concepts better suited to that style of play in the first 5-6 levels. Also, betrayal is a key (and possibly too frequently used) tool in this Path, which, in the end, ended up really hurting the motivation of the characters to want to help. Fortunately the PCs always went the heroic path... mostly. The betrayal aspects needed stronger positive influences to maintain the proper motivation of both the PCs and the players. That was the major reason for the lower scores for some adventures: the motivation to help just wasn't there!.
Production Suggestion: really make obvious the transition between 5' and 10' scale combat maps!!! Especially within the same module!! Many times on a 10' scale, I ended up drawing by squares rather than translating to a 5' scale because I hadn't checked the scale before drawing the next map mid-session. Fortunately we made due, but this was still a minor annoyance.
Here are a set of reviews of the main adventure path materials:
Traits were generally useful, but the player who joined after initial session had to really dig to find useful feats for a wilderness themed character. Generally traits gave some initial flavor, but the book was generally not used after the group left Riddleport.
Players were immensely happy with the mini-game, participating in the running of the casino and the various casino games. Overall, this adventure went flawlessly with rational flow between the encounters. NPCs in the adventure (Sam, Lixy, and others), were motivating to the players; as well was the Cyphermage and other factions of the city. The set-up for the second adventure was obvious (a good thing here) and the players were relieved that we got the second module in time to start it as soon as we played the first one.
Again, immensely happy players. They loved getting booty, especially rare metals booty. The alien nature of the monsters and the unusual encounters (including the falling tower) outside worked well. They enjoyed playing rescuers to Sam and her party (as Aram quickly took her on a a cohort when legal). In the underground, things went well. One thing that frightens my players to this day is the shout of "Orca Attack!" It was a blast!
One nit was that it was unclear how the players should set their motivation by the end of the adventure. On the one hand, they were really getting engaged with the politics of the city. On the other hand, this was really the final adventure with easy access to Riddleport. We had an OOC conversation, and decided to follow the path (based loosely on the notes release so far) rather than wing our own campaign in/around Riddleport. Personally, I would have been happy staying in the city and adapting other adventures (or building our own); the PCs had quite the base they could establish for themselves!
With only minimal motivation, and highly arrogant "friends", this adventure was hard to get the players into. Early on, they wondered if they should just join with the Drow and eliminate their untrustworthy elven allies. Fortunately, Shalelu made an appearance here; the three main players were engaged in another path for Rise of the Runelords, so they were amused to see her again. This alone probably convinced them to help the elves (which isn't a good reason, since it was a player thing, rather than a character thing).
However, once the battle was joined, the players never looked back and enjoyed all the various encounters and the large scale gorilla war being raged in the city. They even enjoyed going into the echo, but didn't explore as much as I hoped they might (these players were very mission focused). The players were satisfied with beating the "improved invisibility, flying Drow mage" and his pet dragon and with the closure of the adventure and intreagued to see what we were going to do with an open Elf-Gate into the Darklands. The only nit was with the boots of spider climbing, wands of levitate and other climbing/flying resources available in the path, several of the encounter areas gave the PCs opportunities to have distinct tactical advantages not obviously considered by the authors.
Eviana should have recurred more as a friendly ally. I tried, but with so few opportunities for friendly faces in the path, it was a hard at times. The best time was with Eviana and Shalelu during A Memory of Darkness, convincing the PCs to continue on the path and trust the Queen. Fortunately, the interaction with Eviana in this adventure made her useful later, if not as big an impact as Sam from the first adventure.
The players really began to wonder if the surface elves were worth saving when the grey elf necromancer put Drow skins on them. Of course, the novelty of becoming Drow was more than enough - that plus getting away from these insane surface elves was to be a benefit. Their main reason at this point for the adventure was to save (and eventually return to) Riddleport after the Path ends.
Zirnakaynin was everything these players could want! A bustling metropolis of sin and the ability to be good guys sneaking around! The mini-game about gaining status with the family went over rather well. A bit dry at times, as I really only prepared 1-3 distinct role-playing events for each type of job in advance. After a while, the mini-game devolved into just a series of checks (which wasn't bad, but I should have had more structure to encourage more branching out into the city in their off-shifts). The combats were great, but again, with their flying/spider-climbing abilities coupled with copious invisibility spells, the PCs were tactically superior to all their opponents preparations.
The eventual fleeing from the city lead the players easily into the next module.
Again, the players and I could have stayed in the Darklands and Zirnakaynin for the rest of the campaign. Another (very brief) OOC conversation ensued and we decided to proceed with the path.
Again with the insane elves!! For a bit of time, the characters really considered just going on an elf-killing rampage. Fortunately, the cleric was foresighted enough to stuff a few Drow heads into his backpack. Presentation of these heads quickly ended the rantings of various elves ne'er-do-wells. After the assassination attempt and getting imprisoned by the crown, the players really did consider joining the demon's siege of the Winter Council (portrayed as misguided elven advisors to the Queen). Fortunately, the jaded nature of the elven priestess of Calistra appealed to the party, so they joined the defenders and kicked much demon and "new Drow" butt! The limited and confined space of defending a castle removed most of the maneuver advantage the group had and leveled most encounters.
At the end, even with the "reveal all" by the Queen, the party again wondered if it wouldn't be for the best for the elven nation to be destroyed. Fortunately, they still liked their memories of Riddleport, so they went on with the final module.
Titanic battles and interesting non-combat encounters with some evil NPCs abounded here. The party's access to travel magic (air walk, teleport, etc.) rendered most of the terrain information about the Land of the Black Blood useless. The players really just focused on scouting out the various sites via air walk (which, DR 10/- and up 60mph speed, coupled with invisibility spells in advance, gave them limitless scouting ability) and hit two sites in short order (via teleport) in the same day. Most sites were very vulnerable to the "death from above" tactics they group had perfected and generally seemed poorly set up to deal with high level/magic heavy assaults.
Air walk (in gaseous form) made quick penetration deep in to the Throne of Abraxas easy for the group (although the 5 round "re-materialize" had them getting hammered by a demon while they got ready to battle). The top battle was practically epic between the party, with disintegrate spells, spell turning, and much hacking being done from both sides. The minions were unable to really damage the PCs, but did their job of being roadblocks and distractions. However, eventually the players won (a 10+ round battle taking about 2 hours).
In the end, the PCs kept the notes about how to summon the meteor, with the cleric of Nethys muttering something about "summoning a smaller meteor to strike the elves, but not cause a whole second darkness"...
Really, was anyone supposed to like any elves at the end of this?
We also used the following items (ranked from 1 [barely useful] to 5 [essential]):
-"Into the Darklands" - 5 [essential]
-"Elves of Golarion" - 2 [somewhat useful]
-"Second Darkness Map Pack" - 3 [useful] (major hindrance was the lack of sufficient resolution to easily scale the maps up for printing in advance and the shifting 5'/10' scale - did save lots of flipping through and the various city maps were handy as "middle of the game table" atmosphere)
Thanks for the reviews - those should help!
My group started early August '08 as well, also bi-weekly, also 3 core players with others cycling - currently their buried deep in Eternal Night. We've had a blast throughout.
Thank you for the insightful comments. They will help me prepare for future sessions :).
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Yeah, we had a good time. It's a fun, epic romp with drow drow drow. (I played the cleric in this game.)
It is a bit of a stretch for more ...mercenary groups to take off and help the elves. Establishing a connection with the elves prior to the third adventure would go a long way toward this, if your party isn't inclined to help them because they're good or something.
Magic-heavy groups that don't have some way of defeating spell resistance are going to get pounded rather hard in the latter two chapters, I'd say, if not sooner--the drow are a nasty pain if you don't have Spell Penetration (and later, spell resistence of your own).
We really, really enjoyed the Riddleport sections. They fit the party's attitude quite a bit better than the latter parts, as noted. We also really beelined through this--we started characterizing ourselves as the elves' hit squad/ninja team/Mission: Impossible group and that helped a bit, but we really did churn through things as efficiently as we could. I think we probably missed a fair chunk in our zeal for getting quit of the stupid elves as fast as possible, which may affect other groups' opinions, particularly of the later chapters.
We also probably abused the magic item rules a bit, which helped. Granted, we were running a three (and a half) person group so I think it was necessary, but we really focused on drow- and demon-killing which made some of the later encounters significantly easier.
As noted flight/climbing powers helped immensely with a lot of encounters (either making them trivial or allowing us to bypass big chunks of encounters); we actually invested in some magic items tilted that way to improve our capabilities. And we didn't see 90% of the end area, since we Wind Walked around most of it and teleported back after clearing the encounter area around the runes.
All in all we had a really good time, though, and I'd do Second Darkness again in a heartbeat.
Happy to answer any player-end questions I can.
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Really, was anyone supposed to like any elves at the end of this?
We started last fall, 1x/week 3-4 hours, and are just wrapping up Children of the Void... we play at a snails pace and they have created lots of their own side stories.
I too am troubled by how unlikable the elves are... Kwava in particular has nothing to offer the party in terms of information and yet is supposed to be their guide. Everyone in my group hates him and only tolerates him due to OOC comments from me. We have begun playing him a bit for comic relief and i can't wait to get rid of him. I plan to alter the story a bit in Armageddon Echo to portray the elves more sympathetically and try to rally the party to the cause. In the end the only reason they are following the path is because curiosity killed the cat...
Thanks for the reviews and tips, they will help me navigate the months to come!
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Really, was anyone supposed to like any elves at the end of this?I too am troubled by how unlikable the elves are... Kwava in particular has nothing to offer the party in terms of information and yet is supposed to be their guide. Everyone in my group hates him and only tolerates him due to OOC comments from me. We have begun playing him a bit for comic relief and i can't wait to get rid of him. I plan to alter the story a bit in Armageddon Echo to portray the elves more sympathetically and try to rally the party to the cause. In the end the only reason they are following the path is because curiosity killed the cat...
We ended up calling him "Guava." Well, I did, anyway. :D
I must admit that I was the source for most of the elf hate; they really ran us around despite us being far far more effective than anything they could muster.
I too am troubled by how unlikable the elves are... Kwava in particular has nothing to offer the party in terms of information and yet is supposed to be their guide. Everyone in my group hates him and only tolerates him due to OOC comments from me.
You've lost me.
With my campaign...
Kwava is fairly well liked (or at least, tolerated) by my players. Some think he's a great guy, others are mistrustful but willing to accept his assistance while keeping a close eye on him. But to be honest, I'm not sure how to make him any more likable.
That being said, I'm planning to make him a little more prominent later in my game to help my players feel a little compassion with the elves. After all, you are right, the other elves are mostly jerks.
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My player is a sucker for protecting pastoral idylls.
Any idea of where to insert a gently wondrous elven village where the characters spend idle nights drinking fine wines and snacking on delicate morsels while improbably beautiful elves sing ancient ballads and spend lazy days exploring art-gardens developed with a singular vision over centuries?
My player is a sucker for protecting pastoral idylls.
Any idea of where to insert a gently wondrous elven village where the characters spend idle nights drinking fine wines and snacking on delicate morsels while improbably beautiful elves sing ancient ballads and spend lazy days exploring art-gardens developed with a singular vision over centuries?
In our game the town is called Findaladlara's Watch and is north of Celwynvian--it's the elven PCs' hometown. The PCs did not get to Celwynvian via Crying Leaf, but via a ship up the coast and then over the mountains on foot, so they got to visit home and hear that the area around Celwynvian was full of ghosts and rumors of evil. I assumed that some echoes of the Echo would creep out and trouble the nights at Findaladlara's Watch. So there was dancing, and music, and lovemaking in the meadows, and ghost stories, and a generally ominous but not dangerous air.
I then got the PCs to Celwynvian by having a patrol lost out of Findaladlara's Watch and the elves asking for help finding it.
It's amazing, though, how negatively the source material presents the elves. All of my PCs *were* elves, one was a cleric of Findaladlara, and they still ended up preferring the drow to their own kind--and that's without the assassination attempt or the scenes with the Queen, which I didn't run. The drow are cruel and arrogant, but they are smart, artistic, and interesting to be around. The elves are fools. My player does not forgive fools readily. And the relative shabbiness of Thorn's End versus Zirnakaynin made a big impression on the PCs, who care passionately about elven art.
I played Zirnakaynin as vile but very, very beautiful, and I liked the way that worked out. But my player is now considering a postlude game in which the PCs build a surface-drow House in Celwynvian, which should tell you where their sympathies lie.
Creative Director
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Good to hear the feedback everyone!
And to address one question in particular... one of the things we really wanted to do here was to NOT present the elves themselves as obvious good guys or a race so superior to humanity that their civilization was perfect and utopian. Much is said of the elven lifespan being so long, with resulting wonderment at why such a long-lived race hasn't become more powerful and overwhelming a presence in the world.
The short answer is that, as seen in Second Darkness, elves are chaotic and a little bit crazy. They're nice, yeah, and certainly graceful and beautiful, but they've got a LOT of baggage and problems as well that prevents them from really stepping up to the plate and becoming the dominant race on Golarion in the way humans have done. Additionally, we really wanted to try to give Golarion's elves a distinct personality that both played to their essentially chaotic nature AND didn't just duplicate the Tolkein/D&D cliche of them being arrogant and stuffy and isolationists.
Whether or not PCs come out of Second Darkness with a good or bad impression of elven society is a good question, and there's not a "one right answer." We certainly didn't want to portray elven society as "all good, all the time." It's certainly got the capacity to be good, but they can certainly use the help of outside influence to keep them from being capricious and, well, insane.
In any case, it certainly gives players a reason WHY their elf PCs didn't stay in the elven homeland and instead became adventurers!
And keep the feedback coming! It's good stuff!
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Good to hear the feedback everyone!
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And keep the feedback coming! It's good stuff!
I think the general message would be: If we're going to spend most of an AP saving a culture/race/community make us like that culture/race/community first.
The crazy-but-lovable race on Galorian seems to be Gnomes. Elves come out of this AP seeming, largely, selfish and parochial.
We've finished the first 5 adventures of the path and are onto the finale
Here's my quick take
Shadow: Characters had a good time romping about Riddleport and working for the Saul at the Gold Goblin. I really enjoyed running this adventure.
Void: This was probably one of my favorites in terms of concept. I liked the star metal rush, and the aliens running around the island. I probably didn't do the best job running the cypher mages, because the party seemed to think they were useless, but overall it ended up being a very fun adventure.
Echo: I had to run some other stuff in between (Last Breaths of Ashenport), to get the heroes up to level for this adventure. This one was fun as well, but was a meat grinder for combat. Also Evinia sounded a lot like Lavinia, and the characters still were having bad memories of her from Savage Tide, so I probably should have changed the name more. The final battle with Noveliss was very intense, though I was running it in 4E, so I'm not sure how it would have played out in 3E.
Endless Night: This was the other adventure that I was really looking forward to running. I made some changes to the missions the drow sent them on. I'm not sure if the players were all that thrilled about being drow. I think they were eager to get back to being the races they had chosen, but they still had fun. They particularly enjoyed purchasing a pet hook horror at a slave auction. I particularly enjoyed turning the party's male dwarf cleric into a female drow (that's what happens when you're late for the game).
Memory: We just finished this one, and it was probably the most challenging to run from a dm perspective. I wasn't all that thrilled about this one when I first saw it, but I enjoyed it quite a bit in the end and thought it was a good change of pace. However, you do have to really understand the motivations of the different members of the Winter Council to run it well, particularly Hailin (read the section about him carefully a couple of times before you run this one).
I'm looking forward to the grande finale. It looks like it's going to have some great encounters and the Land of Black Blood seems pretty awesome.
The question is: what do I run afterwards?
It's amazing, though, how negatively the source material presents the elves. All of my PCs *were* elves, one was a cleric of Findaladlara, and they still ended up preferring the drow to their own kind--and that's without the assassination attempt or the scenes with the Queen, which I didn't run. The drow are cruel and arrogant, but they are smart, artistic, and interesting to be around. The elves are fools.
Yeah. Elves in this AP seriously are too dumb to live. Literally, if PCs somehow manage to screw up in the part 6. You would think, that after learning about the impending kaboom, every high-level elf character (they should have lots, to not be annihilated by inhabitants of Zyrnakaynin alone), as well as every decent ally they can muster, should rush the Land of Black Blood. Or that they will at least provide adventurers on whom they are going to put all their hopes of not being blown to smithereens their best magical bling (including as much stat-boosters like those given to you as a reward for AP completion, as they can). But no. Considering, that you pretty much cannot start this path with good characters, I wonder, if some parties have decided to join the drow outright and conquer Celwynvian, if not to blow it up. The only thing I disliked more than elves, after reading the last two adventures is that smug, six-armed snake from the last area, which is solely there to rub PCs faces into the fact of their own insignificance.
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Creative Director
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Yeah. Elves in this AP seriously are too dumb to live. Literally, if PCs somehow manage to screw up in the part 6. You would think, that after learning about the impending kaboom, every high-level elf character (they should have lots, to not be annihilated by inhabitants of Zyrnakaynin alone), as well as every decent ally they can muster, should rush the Land of Black Blood. Or that they will at least provide adventurers on whom they are going to put all their hopes of not being blown to smithereens their best magical bling (including as much stat-boosters like those given to you as a reward for AP completion, as they can). But no. Considering, that you pretty much cannot start this path with good characters, I wonder, if some parties have decided to join the drow outright and conquer Celwynvian, if not to blow it up. The only thing I disliked more than elves, after reading the last two adventures is that smug, six-armed snake from the last area, which is solely there to rub PCs faces into the fact of their own insignificance.
That's not an indication of "elves being dumb" though. It's an indication, honestly, of the game not handling mass combat well. If you want to have a huge elven invasion of the Land of Black Blood, go for it! That's just not something we could really handle the scale of in a single volume of Pathfinder, and it runs the risk of robbbing the PCs of the opportunity of being the heroes of the whole AP.
It's amazing, though, how negatively the source material presents the elves. All of my PCs *were* elves, one was a cleric of Findaladlara, and they still ended up preferring the drow to their own kind--and that's without the assassination attempt or the scenes with the Queen, which I didn't run. The drow are cruel and arrogant, but they are smart, artistic, and interesting to be around. The elves are fools.Yeah. Elves in this AP seriously are too dumb to live. Literally, if PCs somehow manage to screw up in the part 6. You would think, that after learning about the impending kaboom, every high-level elf character (they should have lots, to not be annihilated by inhabitants of Zyrnakaynin alone), as well as every decent ally they can muster, should rush the Land of Black Blood. Or that they will at least provide adventurers on whom they are going to put all their hopes of not being blown to smithereens their best magical bling (including as much stat-boosters like those given to you as a reward for AP completion, as they can). But no. Considering, that you pretty much cannot start this path with good characters, I wonder, if some parties have decided to join the drow outright and conquer Celwynvian, if not to blow it up. The only thing I disliked more than elves, after reading the last two adventures is that smug, six-armed snake from the last area, which is solely there to rub PCs faces into the fact of their own insignificance.
You have a much different view of the campaign than myself.
Yeah. Elves in this AP seriously are too dumb to live. Literally, if PCs somehow manage to screw up in the part 6. You would think, that after learning about the impending kaboom, every high-level elf character (they should have lots, to not be annihilated by inhabitants of Zyrnakaynin alone), as well as every decent ally they can muster, should rush the Land of Black Blood. Or that they will at least provide adventurers on whom they are going to put all their hopes of not being blown to smithereens their best magical bling (including as much stat-boosters like those given to you as a reward for AP completion, as they can). But no. Considering, that you pretty much cannot start this path with good characters, I wonder, if some parties have decided to join the drow outright and conquer Celwynvian, if not to blow it up.
Well, that's assuming other high level elves arn't busy saving the world from other threats, that they can be contacted, and that they can make it to Kyonin in time to make a difference. (Note that many high level elves are busy holding Treerazer at bay in Tanglebriar. What good is saving the world from a falling star if demons break through the defenses into Kyonin?) As for non-elf 'allies', or even some elves possessing 'questionable' sentiments, I would wager that the Queen is hesitant to involve such groups for fear of revealing Elven failures. Old habits die hard, even with the Winter Council out of the picture, that's politics for you.
That's not an indication of "elves being dumb" though. It's an indication, honestly, of the game not handling mass combat well. If you want to have a huge elven invasion of the Land of Black Blood, go for it! That's just not something we could really handle the scale of in a single volume of Pathfinder, and it runs the risk of robbbing the PCs of the opportunity of being the heroes of the whole AP.
Alas, here we have one the most obvious problems of mid-high level D&D. why would powerful monarchs/lords/nobles hire a motley bunch of goons (i.e. The PC's) when they almost certainly have more reliable troops at their disposal? In my campaign, I'm planning to alter things a little.
I'll assume that the PC's are simply one of a number of elite squads sent to the Land of Black Blood to combat the drow.Obviously, each group reach said destination from different directions through the Darklands, and only the PC's survive (most of the other groups are killed en route, but some may survive to be defeated in Orv), thus setting them up to be the inevitable heroes of the day. This has the advantage of making the PC's feel like they're not alone while giving me an ideal Deus Ex Machina excuse to provide extra muscle if needed, a new character should a PC die (a lone elven survivor from another group), or more resources if the PC's find themselves underequipped (from a fallen elf's body).
Just my 2 cents.
I like that a) you get a feel for the elves, and b) that they have a feel which is indicative of their makeup. Can you imagine if humans lived that long? If you think these elves are hate-worthy! *chuckles*
Whether this feel works in a particular campaign, is up to the group (as it always is). I haven't run the AP yet, but I have read them, and from I can tell, it will be helpful to have a certain type of party to start with. Like an all elvish party that is already part of one of the groups, or is looking to get into once of groups, perhaps raised in tradionally-minded families.
That's not an indication of "elves being dumb" though. It's an indication, honestly, of the game not handling mass combat well. If you want to have a huge elven invasion of the Land of Black Blood, go for it! That's just not something we could really handle the scale of in a single volume of Pathfinder, and it runs the risk of robbbing the PCs of the opportunity of being the heroes of the whole AP.
No matter what the metagame reason for it, it does produce the strong impression that the elves are idiots and not worth saving. This is damaging to the emotional impact of the game.
A couple of alternative suggestions:
Allevrah has done a bang-up job of sealing off the Land of Black Blood so that no one can get there. One of the adventures provides a means whereby the PCs can get there, but they have to go RIGHT NOW and don't have time to head for Kyonin to get help. (Alicavness' Demon Lady is the Mistress of Gates, so having her involved here makes a lot of sense to me.)
This didn't work for us at _Armageddon_ because it wasn't made clear to the PCs that they had to go right now, but I think it can be made to work, and would avoid the dreaded mass combat (which I totally agree is undesirable).
Or--a suggestion due to my frustrated player--the Elves _do_ send a team to take out Allevrah. They don't want PC help; this is an internal Elven matter. But then that team fails--it would be good to sketch in the reasons why; I suggest internal treachery--and there is no time for anyone else but the PCs to act.
Or--at some point, an NPC such as Hyalin is headed for the Land of Black Blood to make Allevrah bump up the schedule. He has to be stopped _now_ or it's all over. But when the PCs get to the Land of Black Blood they are trapped there, unable to return to Kyonin for help.
Whatever the solution, for my particular group it would have been a complete game-wrecking disaster to have the Kyonin scenes at the beginnings of modules 5 and 6, because it is so hard to believe that elves _that_ insane could ever have become major players on Golarion, and also it is too tempting to let them die at that point, as they totally deserve it. If no elf will raise his hand to save his entire nation, they're a spiritually and morally dead race anyway. Better to clear them out and make more room for the drow, who my group rather liked. They are planning a drow recolonization of Celwynvian next.
Well, that's assuming other high level elves arn't busy saving the world from other threats, that they can be contacted, and that they can make it to Kyonin in time to make a difference.
Given that my PCs have Sending, and that in the main line they would have Teleport, and that with a well-prepared high-level party the attack on Allevrah is likely to be over _in less than a day_, there is no way I would be able to convince my player of this logic. At best, he would sigh and say "Yeah, all right, whatever, the elves can't help." In my experience this is usually followed by "Let's just abstract the last module. I'm not really interested; I don't care what happens."
Save the world scenarios, for anything but well-connected very high level PCs, are inherently problematic. My player _will_ ask why the PCs are the ones doing this. We managed to make it work in _Rise of the Runelords_ partly because the danger was not widely perceived, partly because Varisia is very disorganized, partly because the PCs really did have unique advantages against the final foe that made them reasonable choices. But it takes a lot of work to retain plausibility.
I realized mid-campaign that the game would make more sense if only Kyonin were menaced, not the whole world, and made the necessary adjustments; I wish I'd done that sooner. For my particular group, "Why doesn't anyone in the world but us care?" is a real joy-killer. It destroys the sense of Golarion as a real place worth caring about.
I think _Second Darkness_ is tricky, but could possibly be made to work with a lot of "magician's forces" to make sure the PCs are the ones doing things at the end. But if you let the game get to Kyonin, you are faced with the unpalatable alternatives of making the elves helpless or stupid, or having them upstage the PCs, and I don't think this is easy to finesse.
I like that a) you get a feel for the elves, and b) that they have a feel which is indicative of their makeup. Can you imagine if humans lived that long? If you think these elves are hate-worthy! *chuckles*
_Rise of the Runelords_ gives an idea what long-lived humans would be like, yeah, and it's not pretty....
Whether this feel works in a particular campaign, is up to the group (as it always is). I haven't run the AP yet, but I have read them, and from I can tell, it will be helpful to have a certain type of party to start with. Like an all elvish party that is already part of one of the groups, or is looking to get into once of groups, perhaps raised in tradionally-minded families.
I ran it with an all-elf party, agents of the Winter Council from the start. And a very, very traditionally-minded cleric of Findaladlara as a dominant force in that party.
I think the main thing this does is change the emotional impact of the elves' behavior from "they're infuriating, why are we bothering to save them?" to "this is a personal betrayal of all I valued in my own people." Very dark stuff. It's hard to reconcile the elves' unwillingness to try to save themselves with elven PCs' willingness to do so, without ending up thinking that something has gone desperately, horribly wrong with elven society. They had the gumption to save themselves at the First Darkness. Where has it gotten to?
I don't know what the right party is for this AP. I wondered that from the start. Do-gooders are likely to have trouble with module 1. Bad guys are likely to have trouble with module 3. I like what my player came up with, and we've had a good campaign (almost ready to do module 6 now) but I made it work by sacrificing module 1. It's a really fun-sounding module, but if I'd run it for all that it was worth we would never have been able to run module 3, as the PCs' emotional ties would all have been to Riddleport.
For people who were successful with this AP: what were your PCs' motivations at the start? Later on? Were they internally motivated or just going along with the metagame necessities?
Im running the game in 4E and was surprised to find that the 4E system is actually helping me with some of these problems. It's much harder to just teleport places and there are no portals or teleportation circles in the Land of Black Blood that the elves/eladrin can make use of. Thus getting to the Land of Black Blood is a real challenge. The heroes are going to be given shadow walk scrolls and those will increase their overland speed by 5x. However that will still make getting there tricky, so they are going to visit a dwarf stronghold in the Five King's mountains and negotiate the use of their dire bat mounts to allow them to fly through the underdark to the land of black blood (with shadow walk in effect). Since the eladrin don't suspect they'll be able to get more than a handful of dire bats from the dwarves, they really can't send multiple parties down, let alone the army. The PCs have already proven themselves very capable, and they've got experience with the darklands, so it makes sense for the queen to send them. It also helps that I have an elf and a half elf from Iadara in the party, and our warforged (wields an intelligent eladrin blade whose purpose is to slay drow). The only party member that would be particularly happy to see the elves nuked would be the party dwarf. We may also have a new player join us for the last adventure and I'm insisting that the player create an eladrin who can be sent on the mission as a representative of Kyonin and the queen. Furthermore, I'm beefing up the support they will be providing from the sidelines. They party will be given a set of pouches of shared acquisition. The queen will keep one and they will have the other. This will allow them to write notes back and forth to her and she will be able to send them potions and ritual scrolls as they need them. I hope that these steps will help make the finale make sense from a story perspective.
One other thing I'm doing is that since most of the Winter Council are still around (except Haiin), Malindil is going to Iadara with them. She has agreed that is time to confess their indirect involvement in the events. Afterwards, when the queen requests that the PCs undertake the mission, Malindil will advise the queen against it, saying that although the heroes have proven themselves, the matter is one that should be taken care of by eladrin. The queen will then over rule Malindil and say that she wants the PCs because they have the more experience dealing with drow and the darklands than any of the eladrin/elves do. This is a good point to bring up. There may be some talented eladrin (elf) heroes in Kyonin, but none of them will have any real experience combating drow or dealing with the Darklands, so in this way the PCs are better qualified for the job than the best the elves have to offer are.
That's not an indication of "elves being dumb" though. It's an indication, honestly, of the game not handling mass combat well.
Uh, doesn't the third installment of this very AP have a frikkin
war in it, despite this?
Well, that's assuming other high level elves arn't busy saving the world from other threats,
If threats of comparable magnitude surface so often, then there is no world already. Iterative probability means that someone will fail to stop the next apocalypse-mongering BBEG sooner or later.
that they can be contacted, and that they can make it to Kyonin in time to make a difference.
For levels we're talking about, this usually takes rounds, at most a day or two.
As for non-elf 'allies', or even some elves possessing 'questionable' sentiments, I would wager that the Queen is hesitant to involve such groups for fear of revealing Elven failures. Old habits die hard, even with the Winter Council out of the picture, that's politics for you.
You are only confirming that they are too dumb to live, you know? Anyone with two braincells to rub together can realize that keeping elves existing is more important than keeping their failures secret.
Alas, here we have one the most obvious problems of mid-high level D&D. why would powerful monarchs/lords/nobles hire a motley bunch of goons (i.e. The PC's) when they almost certainly have more reliable troops at their disposal?
This is not a problem of mid-high level DnD at all. This is the problem of bad settings/bad writing. If there are no ridiculous hordes of high-level NPCs, and NPCs do not automatically scale to match PCs, the answer is obvious - they don't have anyone comparable to high-level PCs at their disposal by the time PCs start going on saving-the-world missions*. Except, in Second Darkness there seemingly are quite a lot of level 14+ characters around, so this is not the case.
*In my current campaign, somewhat loosely based on Rise of the Runelords, I took pains to establish, that by the point of beating the third installment, PCs are the toughest guys in the kingdom that served as the starting area of their adventures, so that the reason why they are the only ones to take action against Mokmurian would be obvious (keeping levels of surrounding NPCs' down also helped to make PCs feel important during their earlier adventures).
I had another idea about making the elves in 5-6 more sympathetic: depict them in the middle of a series of hyper-aggressive raids by Treerazer, and barely keeping on top of those. Any top heroes the elves pull off that border now will directly equal dead elven villages, maybe even dead Iadara. All the magical goodies that might help the PCs are off on the border as well. The Queen is apologetic, but the maybe-threat of Allevrah just isn't enough to make her give up on the totally immediate and clear threat of Treerazer. (And she is not quite sure the PCs aren't a Winter Council trick, still.)
There is a danger that the PCs will try to pitch in, but hey, Treerazer's stats are in the module for a reason, right? And you can nudge the players toward choosing Allevrah rather than Treerazer as their first target relatively easily, I think.
At least the elves look a little more reasonable this way. You could show them as slow to react to new threats, and overwhelmed by the one they currently have. It means you won't get idyllic Iadara scenes, but that's okay.
I had to play the Winter Council folks as starkly insane, but that's all right--they do not need to be sympathetic so much as plausible. There are some nice clues to the insanity in the material as written, too ("I have died three times in the service of Thorn's End already" etc.) I made Malendil pathologically convinced she's going to turn into a drow, and Arlindil pathologically afraid that the corruption of the earth by Treerazer is corrupting him too. And I am just about resolved that both Hyalin and Perelir are already drow and have been hiding this. (It would explain the odd rapport between them that emerged in our version of the Council scene, despite Hyalin having been Dominating Perelir when the PCs arrived. She doesn't expect any better, just as a drow wouldn't; he had the power so he used it. Of course she'll get revenge when she has a good opportunity. She *is* a priestess of Calistria.)
One thing that may have contributed to the insanity of elven society is the Winter Council using memory wipes. I think they must have the ability, or the drow secret would have been out long ago--the drow obviously aren't trying to keep it! So they have gotten in the habit of memory-wiping anyone that seems to warrant it, which has poisoned Kyonin politics. In my game they have mothmen on their side, helping with this, as the Modify Memory spell is very limited in applicability and availability.
That's not an indication of "elves being dumb" though. It's an indication, honestly, of the game not handling mass combat well.Uh, doesn't the third installment of this very AP have a frikkin
war in it, despite this?
How *has* that worked for people? We didn't run it, as mass combat is, as James says, no fun, and the PCs would never have sat still for the totally braindead elven tactics that avoid the mass combat. ("What? You are going to split into tiny groups so they can defeat you in detail? Why?? To hold the *roads*? Why do you care about the roads? What earthly use are they? There are no cavalry here, and anyway Celwynvian doesn't seem to be difficult ground. Look, can we help you with this tactical planning? It really doesn't seem to be your thing.")
My strong fear was that the PCs, who were elves, would end up in command of the elven forces, would organize them sensibly, and would trigger a mass combat that would be agonizing to run.
So I just didn't do it. I had the PCs raid into drow-held Celwynvian. That was more than enough combat anyway, and kept the elves offstage so they didn't have a chance to look like idiots.
My real regret with _Armageddon_ is that I didn't force the PCs to interact with the Echo more. It was the big GMing failure of the AP for me; I had the raw materials to do something good, but I didn't spot the opportunity until it was too late, and dead Celwynvian was just a tactical exercise.
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Creative Director
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That's not an indication of "elves being dumb" though. It's an indication, honestly, of the game not handling mass combat well.Uh, doesn't the third installment of this very AP have a frikkin
war in it, despite this?
It does. It also puts the mass combat section of the war on the sidelines and focuses on the PCs doing skirmish-type encounters; it doesn't put the PCs in charge of an army, which is more or less what a "lets send all the elves into the Land of Black Blood" plot would end up being.
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If there are no ridiculous hordes of high-level NPCs, and NPCs do not automatically scale to match PCs, the answer is obvious - they don't have anyone comparable to high-level PCs at their disposal by the time PCs start going on saving-the-world missions*. Except, in Second Darkness there seemingly are quite a lot of level 14+ characters around, so this is not the case.
*In my current campaign, somewhat loosely based on Rise of the Runelords, I took pains to establish, that by the point of beating the third installment, PCs are the toughest guys in the kingdom that served as the starting...
I think I've actually seen Paizo staff stating that they don't want to create Elminsters and Simbuls to lord it over the PCs.
I've never understood how barmen and town guards gain levels as a product of PCs vanquishing monsters and saving the day. At least in RotRL the one character who really gains levels (Shalelu) is off adventuring as much as the PCs.
I think it adds to the verisimilitude of the game if PCs who become more powerful can actually feel powerful amongst ordinary folk.
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That's not an indication of "elves being dumb" though. It's an indication, honestly, of the game not handling mass combat well. If you want to have a huge elven invasion of the Land of Black Blood, go for it! That's just not something we could really handle the scale of in a single volume of Pathfinder, and it runs the risk of robbbing the PCs of the opportunity of being the heroes of the whole AP.
No matter what the metagame reason for it, it does produce the strong impression that the elves are idiots and not worth saving. This is damaging to the emotional impact of the game.
A couple of alternative suggestions:
Allevrah has done a bang-up job of sealing off the Land of Black Blood so that no one can get there. One of the adventures provides a means whereby the PCs can get there, but they have to go RIGHT NOW and don't have time to head for Kyonin to get help. (Alicavness' Demon Lady is the Mistress of Gates, so having her involved here makes a lot of sense to me.)
This didn't work for us at _Armageddon_ because it wasn't made clear to the PCs that they had to go right now, but I think it can be made to work, and would avoid the dreaded mass combat (which I totally agree is undesirable).
Or--a suggestion due to my frustrated player--the Elves _do_ send a team to take out Allevrah. They don't want PC help; this is an internal Elven matter. But then that team fails--it would be good to sketch in the reasons why; I suggest internal treachery--and there is no time for anyone else but the PCs to act.
Or--at some point, an NPC such as Hyalin is headed for the Land of Black Blood to make Allevrah bump up the schedule. He has to be stopped _now_ or it's all over. But when the PCs get to the Land of Black Blood they are trapped there, unable to return to Kyonin for help.
Whatever the solution, for my particular group it would have been a complete game-wrecking disaster to have the Kyonin scenes at the beginnings of modules 5 and 6, because it is so hard to...
that is not completly right, though. the elf queen (forgot her name) is trying her best, and many elf NPCs such as shalalu and Kawva are just not strong enough to help...
I think I've actually seen Paizo staff stating that they don't want to create Elminsters and Simbuls to lord it over the PCs.
They have also stated that the purpose of PFRPG is to fix balance issues of 3.X. In Second Darkness we have at least two characters (counting only those who actually interact with PCs), that are mostly there to make PCs feel small in the pants. And if Alicavniss at least has some actual plot role besides that, the marilith from the sixth installment hasn't. Also, look at stated CRs for the demon lords. They mostly are around 30, even though the Golarion demon lords are quite numerous and not even on the top of the food chain. So, Golarion clearly has its share of overpowered NPCs. Just this time they tend to be evil.
I've never understood how barmen and town guards gain levels as a product of PCs vanquishing monsters and saving the day. At least in RotRL the one character who really gains levels (Shalelu) is off adventuring as much as the PCs.
I think it adds to the verisimilitude of the game if PCs who become more powerful can actually feel powerful amongst ordinary folk.
Oh yeah. Otherwise there is a risk of this:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ptitletgwk4nyi?from=Main.DudeWhe resMyRespectIn my games, I try to demonstrate that things PCs deal with from about level 5 onwards are really frikkin dangerous to anyone not as exceptional as them. Taking examples from my RotRL-based campaign, even certain opponents in the second adventure (ghoul infestation) were able wipe out the local militia; by the third adventure even the kingdom's standing army was out of its league (lots of ogres, supported by some capable spellcasters and infiltrators), though still somewhat useful; and once the army of giants from the fourth adventure appears, it is clear that PCs are only one who have a real chance - even their various mid-level NPC friends have a hard time doing anything except providing support.
It does. It also puts the mass combat section of the war on the sidelines and focuses on the PCs doing skirmish-type encounters; it doesn't put the PCs in charge of an army, which is more or less what a "lets send all the elves into the Land of Black Blood" plot would end up being.
Not necessarily. If just several elven adventuring parties rush the Land of Black Blood (because they actually can arrive in time and be relelant against superdrow that comprise Allevrah's force), they might not even want to cooperate (if elves must necessarily be presented as dicks). They and PCs might divide the targers among themselves, with elves going against the most dangerous sites and getting obliterated or doing something-that-the-plot-says-is-important in the background. If they are there, PCs who are struggling can get quick item boosts by recovering their bling from drow who defeated them, and if PCs get themselves killed, it is possible to quickly present a replacement party without stretching credibility.
Finally, I don't see how presence of large battles is that much of a problem. You don't need to roll everything on the battlefield. No one suggests that, as far as I'm aware. Just make PCs decide the outcome by trying to accomplish certain objectives on the battlefield. Red Hand of Doom already did that and it seems to be quite popular. If PCs are assumed to have command, just use victory points to reward/penaltize their correct/incorrect decisions. I've ran several large engagements for 3.X, using these methods, and they have worked quite well.
If threats of comparable magnitude surface so often, then there is no world already. Iterative probability means that someone will fail to stop the next apocalypse-mongering BBEG sooner or later.
I meant more that high level NPC's are rarely sitting around waiting for something to happen. Besides, when you consider how many foes there are (the list is virtually endless) who would be happy to destroy Kyonin I would be shocked if the elves didn't have their hands full in other areas. Elves lack numbers in any case.
And the elves have failed in the past. Earthfall for example, and the incident with Treerazor is only barely a stalemate.Actually, I might put into my campaign a sudden attack from Treerazor on Kyonin. With the Winter Council funnished and the approaching danger of Starfall, Treerazor would sense a growing fear from the elves. Sensing an opportunity to strike while the elves are preoccupied, demons would attempt to breach the outer defenses. With her loyal forces pressed, the queen must send her high level NPC followers to reinforce the line. Thus leaving the PC's to travel to Orv to prevent Starfall.
As for non-elf 'allies', or even some elves possessing 'questionable' sentiments, I would wager that the Queen is hesitant to involve such groups for fear of revealing Elven failures. Old habits die hard, even with the Winter Council out of the picture, that's politics for you.
You are only confirming that they are too dumb to live, you know? Anyone with two braincells to rub together can realize that keeping elves existing is more important than keeping their failures secret.
I disagree. Elves arn't exactly 'dumb', rather they have a difficulty in switching from 'long term' perspective to 'short term' perspective. It's part of the Elven psyche, a side-effect of their longevity, and probably their most notable psychological flaw.
That being said, I'd argue that the Queen is smart for NOT allowing certain groups into the fray:Consider, for example, what would happen if Hialin (or a similarly minded individual) and the Winter Council went down there to sort things out. Hialin could well backstab the others, then help Allevrah in her evil plan, except he'd try to increase the devastation.
Other elves might try to trigger off yet another 'dark fate' in themselves if they find out its possible, (Heck, I have a player in my own campaign who wants to do just that!) and the destruction of the kingdom of Kyonin would do the trick quite nicely I'd wager. After all, its an easy road to power. Drow have some nice abilities.
At the very least, a group could save the world before stealing the notes regarding how to create the glyphs and call down the star. This particular event does indeed occur in the module remember. The difference is that the Queen trusts the PC's at this point, but not many of her own followers.
Also, don't forget that the political structure of Kyonin is in disarray with the destruction of the Winter Council. The Queen is still gathering the factions together, many of the traditionalist Lords have exiled themselves, others have sworn allegiance to the Queen but that doesn't necessarily mean the Queen can trust them yet. Like I mentioned earlier, Hialin had contact with some of these Lords, and they might attempt to enact his plan to eradicate Kyonin (and the world) given a chance. Many might be hateful to the Queen or the PC's and would prefer to see Kyonin fall than see it without the guidance of the Winter Council. Others, simply want an excuse to immigrate back to Solvyrian. The list goes on.
Alas, here we have one the most obvious problems of mid-high level D&D. why would powerful monarchs/lords/nobles hire a motley bunch of goons (i.e. The PC's) when they almost certainly have more reliable troops at their disposal?
This is not a problem of mid-high level DnD at all. This is the problem of bad settings/bad writing. If there are no ridiculous hordes of high-level NPCs, and NPCs do not automatically scale to match PCs, the answer is obvious - they don't have anyone comparable to high-level PCs at their disposal by the time PCs start going on saving-the-world missions*. Except, in Second Darkness there seemingly are quite a lot of level 14+ characters around, so this is not the case.
You have a point, but I HATE the idea of announcing to the PC's "okay you guys, you're the most powerful heroes in the area." Admittedly, I have some really mercenary players, but I fear they'll go on a rampage and kill the queen, take over the nation, and generally ruin the campaign.
Regardless, it wouldn't make any sense for the ruling monarch to be without high level advisors and bodyguards at her beck and call.
I meant more that high level NPC's are rarely sitting around waiting for something to happen.
Those PCs meet usually do (or they work for the BBEG), but that's besides the point, which is...
Besides, when you consider how many foes there are (the list is virtually endless) who would be happy to destroy Kyonin I would be shocked if the elves didn't have their hands full in other areas. Elves lack numbers in any case.
...why the heck then Kyonin isn't on fire yet? The math seems to be pretty simple: endless list of foes + quite finite list of defenders = foes win :). On a more serious note: if apocalyptic threats that can easily erase whole countries arise constantly, the world is in danger much greater than any earth-shattering kaboom: the danger of stopping making any sense. That's why I like the non-advancing (so far) time line of Golarion. If I'm to run a game set in this setting, I can pretend, that events of APs that I do not run, do not happen, so PCs shouldn't worry about, say, finding that their homeland was overrun by an army of giants under Karzoug (or whomever was strong enough to beat him) or eaten by a Lovecraftian horror while they fought to prevent Earthfall.
As an aside, I've finally paid attention to the Treerazer's writeup. If elves cannot even handle Allevrah, why the frikkin heck Kyonin isn't on fire yet, considering that Treerazer don't seem to be magically bound to his domain and is CR 25, therefore anyone who can give him a pause should defeat her easily? Also - another nail in the coffin of the supposed "no uber-NPCs" policy. That would have been super-annoying if not for the fact that it is pretty easy to just invent some kind of magical anti-demon barrier around Tanglebriar. Changing elves' behavior to more sensible or explaining it convincingly is not so easy for a GM.
Actually, I might put into my campaign a sudden attack from Treerazor on Kyonin. With the Winter Council funnished and the approaching danger of Starfall, Treerazor would sense a growing fear from the elves. Sensing an opportunity to strike while the elves are preoccupied, demons would attempt to breach the outer defenses. With her loyal forces pressed, the queen must send her high level NPC followers to reinforce the line. Thus leaving the PC's to travel to Orv to prevent Starfall.
This would make more sense than the AP as written.
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You have a point, but I HATE the idea of announcing to the PC's "okay you guys, you're the most powerful heroes in the area." Admittedly, I have some really mercenary players, but I fear they'll go on a rampage and kill the queen, take over the nation, and generally ruin the campaign.
Let them do it. I promise they'll only ever do it once.
After all of their allies have turned against them and they have all confirmed their alignments as evil, after they have killed all of the people who sought to protect the legitimate government and cowed the rest with fear... make them roleplay a lot.
After a while your players will probably hate their PCs as much as the rest of the populous (plus, they've given up being adventurers, so that'll be pretty dull).
Unless your players revel is being hated.
You have a point, but I HATE the idea of announcing to the PC's "okay you guys, you're the most powerful heroes in the area." Admittedly, I have some really mercenary players, but I fear they'll go on a rampage and kill the queen, take over the nation, and generally ruin the campaign.Let them do it. I promise they'll only ever do it once.
After all of their allies have turned against them and they have all confirmed their alignments as evil, after they have killed all of the people who sought to protect the legitimate government and cowed the rest with fear... make them roleplay a lot.
After a while your players will probably hate their PCs as much as the rest of the populous (plus, they've given up being adventurers, so that'll be pretty dull).Unless your players revel is being hated.
If my player did this--and I can see circumstances where he would--he probably wouldn't want to continue playing. As you say, it's ugly. But once the emotional weight on a particular continuation builds up too high, telling the player "Don't do that" is, in my hands, a game-killer too. So it's a dead campaign, whether we play out the massacre or not. (I wouldn't, as statting it up is too much work.)
I'd be the one taking the blame for portraying the elves in this way. I have a lot of sympathy for the PC reaction, honestly. I would probably feel the same.
(I can also see scenarios where the PCs *wouldn't* make themselves universally hated. After all, the Winter Council has been doing some bad stuff, but life goes on. They could try to position themselves as good guys, even though they aren't. Elven society is rotten. It might accept this. It'd take politically savvy players, though.)
I do share the original poster's discomfort with PCs as the absolute top of the food chain. It's hard to have loose cannons like that as the top; it makes the setting feel unstable. And I don't really know how to do appropriate challenges, other than political ones, for top people. Mass combat is not fun for me; foes that can challenge the top people should be extremely rare; what's left?
My resolution of this dilemma would be to avoid save-the-world scenarios. _Crimson Throne_ was not a success in our hands, but I did really appreciate that it's "Save Korvosa" and not "Save the world".
I did tone this one down to "Save Kyonin" and wish I'd done so sooner, but it's still big enough to be worrisome. In my hands, "save the world" in a world with many high-level NPCs is extraordinarily hard to make work. _Runelords_ was okay, because I can imagine that a lot of people don't care if Varisia falls--they figure they can hold off the new empire afterwards, and probably they're right. But a real attempt at a Second Darkness should get *everyone's* attention. "Why us?" just becomes a devastating question in terms of game-world logic.
For one thing, suppose the PCs then go on to try to destroy big chunks of world? We have just established that no one will mount an effective attempt to stop them! And that is really a problem for me. If the NPCs will stop a PC but not an NPC, there's my suspension of disbelief right out the window.
(My player plans to use the Earthfall glyphs. I hope he only means to use them to deflect the current crop of rocks. But I'm not positive of it.)
I know that save-the-world is a staple of the genre. But it goes with weaker game-worlds, with less sense of reality, than Golarion. Or at least with the Golarion I personally would like to see, a world with history and a real sense of action/reaction, and NPCs worth caring about.
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They have also stated that the purpose of PFRPG is to fix balance issues of 3.X.
It's worth noting that is untrue in two different ways - they have both never said this to be the case, nor has it ever been anything like the "purpose" of Pathfinder.
The math seems to be pretty simple: endless list of foes + quite finite list of defenders = foes win :).
I'd also suggest checking your math again, because your conclusion is only true as you actually approach infinity. At any point along the way - including during the campaign - you can say absolutely nothing one way or another about the current state of affairs.
Neil Mansell says--I can't quote it--"The Queen can't trust anyone, so she's best off sending the PCs."
My player has a more succinct description of this: "Elves are drow, except drow are competent."
Really. If Telandra can't trust *any* high-level people to be working to save Kyonin, elves are different from drow how? By being *less* able to work for the common good. Drow have defended Zirnakaynin successfully, after all, despite the House structure. But Telandra is ruler-for-life, something the drow don't have, and yet she can't save Kyonin.
I can make the elven mindset make sense, I think. Imagine that Sovryan is the classical Realm Outside of Time, where nothing really changes and there are no crises. The elves adapted to that. It was a dreadful mistake for them to come back, and with their long generation time they haven't yet re-adapted, especially as strong societal forces make it more difficult.
(I don't think they can always have been like that. They'd be extinct. Golarion is not a safe place.)
What I don't know how to do is make such elves appealing to my player, who is fond of competence. The only elf he's liked all campaign is Perelir. He clicks better with the drow. (So do I, frankly.) And...it's hard to risk your life to save people you neither like nor respect.
The math seems to be pretty simple: endless list of foes + quite finite list of defenders = foes win :).I'd also suggest checking your math again, because your conclusion is only true as you actually approach infinity. At any point along the way - including during the campaign - you can say absolutely nothing one way or another about the current state of affairs.
Speaking only for myself, I cannot sustain belief in a gameworld that is in constant danger of world-shattering events but is not constantly being shattered. I just don't understand how it could exist, and as a result I can't run in it. So I would not be able to usefully run a Kyonin where the high level NPCs are constantly--so constantly that they can't take a few days off!--needed to stop diverse threats that could devastate the nation. The nation would already be gone, because sooner or later someone must fail.
My player is the same way--as soon as he sees that the world is like this, he's going to disconnect from the game and stop caring.
Kyonin is supposed to be, what, a thousand years old in its current incarnation? It has to have some degree of stability. If it's gotten that stability by bleeding power year by year until it has reached the "no time to stop Earthfall" state you describe, it's doomed anyway and a quest to save it feels futile. Better, actually, to let Earthfall drive the elves back to Sovryan.
He and I played in a GURPS game with the U-Mana rules, where your spellcasting is limited only by increasingly unpleasant botches. The top botch destroys kingdoms. Of course PCs are supposed to be deterred by the fact that this will kill them, too. But for both of us, that game-world ended up not making any sense. A single apprentice mage who has, say, been nastily jilted by his girlfriend can destroy the kingdom. No preparation, no warning, no way to stop it. And the kingdom is still there, when every two-bit mage (there were a lot of them, too) has the atom bomb? We couldn't believe in it.
Works for a lot of people, but I know enough players for whom it fails that I think it's worth avoiding.
What I don't know how to do is make such elves appealing to my player, who is fond of competence. And...it's hard to risk your life to save people you neither like nor respect.
Having often faced the same problem, I can sympathize. In this case, I'd hint that the elves in question have near-unimaginable competence in certain other areas that the PCs can't even grasp, much less appreciate, because they're unique to Sovryan. Back on Golarion... well, like you mentioned, it's taking them more than a little while to get back on stride. You might foreshadow a future Golarion elf-kingdom which, having been saved by the PCs, eventually becomes far better than they are at handling diverse extraplanar threats. In that case, the PCs have a potential future refuge and knowledge storehouse all rolled into one, just waiting for them at later levels when they REALLY need it... unless they fail to save it now.
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I don't know what the right party is for this AP. I wondered that from the start. Do-gooders are likely to have trouble with module 1. Bad guys are likely to have trouble with module 3. I like what my player came up with, and we've had a good campaign (almost ready to do module 6 now) but I made it work by sacrificing module 1. It's a really fun-sounding module, but if I'd run it for all that it was worth we would never have been able to run module 3, as the PCs' emotional ties would all have been to Riddleport.
For people who were successful with this AP: what...
(Your question actually got cut off, apologies.)
I was, as I mentioned earlier, part of the group the OP was GMing for.
I can't speak for the other two players, but my character's motivation initially was greed, for personal power to raise his standing within the church. That quickly turned into revenge; our party was quite petty in many ways. People or groups that crossed us tended to "draw back a bloody stump."
This worked quite well for the first two chapters; it became increasingly difficult to justify either the greed for power or revenge motivation for chapters 3 on. We did come back to the revenge motive during ...5? the chapter where you're imprisioned briefly.. and took it out on the Winter Council et al.
After that it was just sheer metagaming to continue the path to the end mixed with a healthy dose of eye-rolling at the inability of the elves to seemingly do anything themselves and perhaps some arrogance at our capabilities. This started taking shape in chapter 3 when we essentially operated as special forces for the elven army. We quickly latched onto the idea of being "elite" compared to the elves, and it went from there.
The drow were shown in an oddly positive light, particularly compared to the sloth of the elves. I think I remember that the demons had been seiging the keep/manor of the Winter Council for some ridiculous length of time when the party arrives. I don't recall the exact length but remember being surprised that it was so long.
In the end we saved them because we could, and because we wanted to complete the adventure path. Oddly the drow at the end were not particularly effective combatants; the demons and other things were much, much harder to deal with. (Probably due to our tilt toward drow-slaying in 3-5, but the "uniques" guarding the various runes in the Land of Black Blood were far harder to deal with.)
They have also stated that the purpose of PFRPG is to fix balance issues of 3.X.It's worth noting that is untrue in two different ways - they have both never said this to be the case, nor has it ever been anything like the "purpose" of Pathfinder.
"Improve the Game: The 3.5 rules set is excellent, but it
has its flaws. Over the past few years, a number of commonproblems have seemed to crop up again and again,
problems that delay the game or cause no end of arguments
(grapple and polymorph, for example). I wanted the
Pathfinder RPG to clean up these rules, by streamlining
in places and adding options in others. You can still
grapple in the Pathfinder RPG, but it is no longer the hugeheadache that it was. I also worked to even out some of the
choices. A number of 3.5 skills are far less valuable than others, making them suboptimal choices. In my experience, few rogues took Forgery, but Spot was an incredibly common choice. These rules work to balance some of these options. So while you might still take Perception over Linguistics, the latter is now a far more useful choice than it was before." (c) Pathfinder Alpha 1.0, p.2-3, "History and Design Goals"
You will probably start nitpicking, saying that rebalancing the skills is irrelevant to fixing balance issues and that "improving the game" meant something other than fixing balance issues, and that they had some other reason to introduce their gigantic list of small changes, but who cares.
Anyway, to stop derailing this thread: yes, IMO, there is not enough plausible ways to motivate PCs into doing whatever AP requires them to in Second Darkness. The first installment assumes that PCs are not particularly concerned with helping the helpless and being all that Good, the third almost assumes them to be just that. The fourth is, again, problematic for a significant subset of Good characters. The fifth and sixth require, again, having enough conscience to save elves even despite their dickery.
Speaking only for myself, I cannot sustain belief in a gameworld that is in constant danger of world-shattering events but is not constantly being shattered. I just don't understand how it could exist, and as a result I can't run in it.
My apologies for the multiple threadjacks :)
I always find this perspective a little off to me when it comes to DnD (other RPing games). Just look at the real world around us for tons of examples of this. Humans are messy, stupid, and rarely consistent or logical, but for some reason we expect NPCs to be always logical and consistent in our campaigns.
It's an interesting phenomena I see every so often in games. Sort of reminds me of the times when a bad guy in adventure leaves a journal around, and people cry foul, and are completely surprised that someone would actually do that. Again, tons of examples in the real world.
In a way, it seem this perspective expects NPCs to be super/beyond "human" or something, in that they act super-logical, and super-consistent, when in fact people rarely act this way.
Note, I'm not trying to pick on Mary or anything, in fact I respect quite a bit of what she brings to these boards.
Best.
Speaking only for myself, I cannot sustain belief in a gameworld that is in constant danger of world-shattering events but is not constantly being shattered. I just don't understand how it could exist, and as a result I can't run in it.My apologies for the multiple threadjacks :)
I always find this perspective a little off to me when it comes to DnD (other RPing games). Just look at the real world around us for tons of examples of this. Humans are messy, stupid, and rarely consistent or logical, but for some reason we expect NPCs to be always logical and consistent in our campaigns.
I don't think your complaint fits my example, which is not about behavior but about probability--if there is a 5% chance each year of a world-shattering kaboom, after a century or so there should be no world.
But yes, it's true, I'd like the major players to mainly make sense and promote their own goals, rather than being insane or stupid: it's more fun to play against worthy opponents. Who wants to be thinking, "Yeah, we won, but of course it's only because the NPCs were idiots"? To me it loses the sense of accomplishment.
I think the journal entries are another issue, though. I accept that some villains might do that. But when I see yet another journal, I don't (as a player) think "Okay, s/he might do that." I've seen so many, and always used for the same metagame purpose, that I just see metagaming. And this turns me off. I really don't think that Depora kept a journal because it flowed out of her personality as depicted; I think she kept a journal because Paizo doesn't trust PCs to ask questions before killing key NPCs, so there has to be a written record whether it makes any sense or not.
Similarly, if the excuse for NPC inaction is *always* that they're "realistically irrational"...it just sounds like a lame excuse. It could certainly work once. But if you have to do it every time, the metagame motivation, for me, overwhelms any sense that it's a real thing in the gameworld.
I have some markedly irrational NPC behavior in my game, but I try not to use it as an excuse for doing metagame-motivated stuff. My player tolerates and in fact enjoys in-character irrationality, but he's deeply cynical about its use as a railroading tool, which is what it is here. (As James says--the elves can't help because of the difficult and unsatisfying mass combat that would ensue, and that's the real reason. Players aren't blind to that.)
Anyway, to stop derailing this thread: yes, IMO, there is not enough plausible ways to motivate PCs into doing whatever AP requires them to in Second Darkness. The first installment assumes that PCs are not particularly concerned with helping the helpless and being all that Good, the third almost assumes them to be just that. The fourth is, again, problematic for a significant subset of Good characters. The fifth and sixth require, again, having enough conscience to save elves even despite their dickery.
My campaign seemed to fall down quite different. My non-good party seemed to have enough motivation throughout all the adventures to accomplish the goal. Even if it is only for their own safety and a pile of cash, they have had enough to make them go to the end. But they don't seem to hate the elves as much as you seem to, so that might impact things.
Yeah, running this series of adventures with a party that would gladly do their best to kill as many elves as they can would be a bad choice.
Either way, I don't really see a place where the Elves are in definite danger of dieing. From what I can tell, there is an escape plan even if they don't know where the runes are placed. The Elven nation would be gone, but it would seem that most of the elves would live. Indicating that, in fact, they are not too dumb to live.
Either way, I don't really see a place where the Elves are in definite danger of dieing. From what I can tell, there is an escape plan even if they don't know where the runes are placed. The Elven nation would be gone, but it would seem that most of the elves would live. Indicating that, in fact, they are not too dumb to live.
The escape plan is going to be activated if PCs fail. As things are arranged in the adventure, the first indication that PCs have failed would be the meteor impact.
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The escape plan is going to be activated if PCs fail. As things are arranged in the adventure, the first indication that PCs have failed would be the meteor impact.
Either way, I don't really see a place where the Elves are in definite danger of dieing. From what I can tell, there is an escape plan even if they don't know where the runes are placed. The Elven nation would be gone, but it would seem that most of the elves would live. Indicating that, in fact, they are not too dumb to live.
Which could lead to an interesting reprecussion. What happens if the PCs fail and the Elven nation gets hit?
I mean besides the darkness, famine and chaos.
1) The elves run away again/play 'catch a falling star'. This leaves little more than the forlorn, adventurers, and the Mordent Spire elves. initally it's assumed that the majority of elves were toasted by the skyfall, but rumours start popping up that they escaped, or brought it down on themselves, or were trying to kill humans and it went wrong.
2) Drow ascendant. Drow raiding parties increase, and without the efforts of the elf nation, they become more well known. The drow, seeing an advantage in making the elves even more feared start spreading rumours about the dark change, in some cases using disguise self to imitate a known elf, then dropping the illusion in a dramatic fashion.
3) War! Faith in Desna and Sarenae weaken, as the stars and sun are blighted out. Orcs rally seeing this as a second coming. Hobgoblin bands unite, both to raid for food and to finally finish the hated elves. Taldor, under their new empress, attacks the disorganized Qadrian border. Cheliax expands their influence, offering hellfire to fight off the cold of winter. Groetus worship increases, and with the diminshing of Sarnae's followers, Rovagug stirs below the surface...
My campaign seemed to fall down quite different. My non-good party seemed to have enough motivation throughout all the adventures to accomplish the goal. Even if it is only for their own safety and a pile of cash, they have had enough to make them go to the end. But they don't seem to hate the elves as much as you seem to, so that might impact things.
Can you say something about what your PCs' motivations were in each episode? I'm particularly interested in the transitions from 2 to 3 and 4 to 5.
Mary
The escape plan is going to be activated if PCs fail. As things are arranged in the adventure, the first indication that PCs have failed would be the meteor impact.
Either way, I don't really see a place where the Elves are in definite danger of dieing. From what I can tell, there is an escape plan even if they don't know where the runes are placed. The Elven nation would be gone, but it would seem that most of the elves would live. Indicating that, in fact, they are not too dumb to live.
I would imagine the first sign of failure being the meteor still coming. You seem to be interpreting it in such a way that they only decide to start evacuations once the destruction has occurred, which is odd to me. I assume by failure it means that things have already reached the point of no return for whether the meteor hits or not and all the elven response would be capable of is mitigating that damage somewhat rather than stopping it entirely.
My campaign seemed to fall down quite different. My non-good party seemed to have enough motivation throughout all the adventures to accomplish the goal. Even if it is only for their own safety and a pile of cash, they have had enough to make them go to the end. But they don't seem to hate the elves as much as you seem to, so that might impact things.
Can you say something about what your PCs' motivations were in each episode? I'm particularly interested in the transitions from 2 to 3 and 4 to 5.
Mary
I have a general idea of where they were, but I will wait till I see them next to ask them to make sure I'm not incorrectly interpreting things.
For the big time roleplayers I can see how this AP might cause some problems. The group that I'm part of understand what it is we are playing and go along with the railroading. We are all busy people and when the DM messes something up or it just didn't make sense as written we just ignore it and continue on.
That being said I quite enjoyed this AP. The first two parts were great. And we had a good time with 4 and 6. The assault on Cerwynvian was good except for the end. We took on the hardest assault at the end, lost 2 PCs and the other teams lost anyway. It left us rather bitter.
The Winter Council didn't make a whole lot of sense to us and I think the DM trimmed that adventure so we could get on with it.
My campaign seemed to fall down quite different. My non-good party seemed to have enough motivation throughout all the adventures to accomplish the goal. Even if it is only for their own safety and a pile of cash, they have had enough to make them go to the end. But they don't seem to hate the elves as much as you seem to, so that might impact things.
Can you say something about what your PCs' motivations were in each episode? I'm particularly interested in the transitions from 2 to 3 and 4 to 5.
Mary
Alright, talked with them and got a bit of information and filled it in with my perceptions and memories. I will show it to the group later and (if they read it) post again if they find something to be inaccurate.
#2: One party member had been looking into joining the Cyphermages, and although they let Samaritha in over them, they remained friends (if only so that having a friend inside the Cyphermages would make it more likely that they would be able to make it in the next time). So saving Samaritha was pretty important for that character (when they discovered she was in danger). I had the Cyphermages inform this character that they would consider it highly beneficial if they went to the island to assist the group of Cyphermages already there, implying that if they did that then there was a much better chance of gaining membership. I then used the primary hook of Kwava for the rest of the party when they started looking into transportation.
Getting them on the island was easy, getting them to stay there was harder. Looking back, their first encounter was saving Samaritha's group and after that they were very freaked out by the possibility of having to face that sort of force again. Their greed for anything on the island was beaten by that perceived threat I created by having that as their first experience on the island. They still managed to poke around a bit more (enough to find the Drow and defeat them) before leaving the island (and getting Clegg captured to avoid having to deal with him again in town).
#3: Kwava at this point gave the request to have the party deliver the book. In both of the previous adventures Kwava gave a bit of assistance to the party for something the party was going to do most of anyway (Healing potions and safe place to rest for the night till taking down Saul and his backer. Hiring the boat to get the part to the island and see what was going on there) This was a relatively small request by itself so the party agreed. When they got there, even though they were put off by Kaerishiel, Eviana's praising of their significant abilities (along with the knowledge that they were going to get paid at the end) caused them to easily agree to fight in the battle. Kaerishiel irritated them, but it seemed to make them a bit pleased when he treated them with a much more humbled respect after they rescued him.
#4: When the party was asked to infiltrate a Drow city, they were quite a bit concerned. The first reaction was that they weren't going to do it, that the risk was too great and that someone else should do it. Then they were quoted the approximate pay and they were pretty much in as long as however they were going to be planted didn't seem to guarantee instant death.
Once they were in the city, there was a bit more concern of how they would manage to do what they wanted. Through some checks I suggested the idea that attained status in any house would increase what they were capable of. This caused them to remember their ride into town and take that route. It worked reasonably well, at the end of their ascent to the higher ranks at least one person was pushing a bit more into individual things to get the thing they wanted done. They got the information and left.
#5: At this point they were happy with the treatment elves had been giving them, so their own reaction to how the Elves handled the information they gathered was something along the lines of, "Stupid Elven beaurocracy," they were fine with waiting a bit for them to sort themselves out. After they were attacked, and imprisoned, they went back into seek revenge mode targeting those responsible, The Winter Council.
When they got there, (following is pretty much all my perceptions) they were confused on what to actually do. With Saul it was easy, they break into the Gold Goblin, guards are attacking them, the party attacks back. Situation resolved. In this case, they were invited in, not attacked on site, and asked to just get the council to do something productive. So they seemed to agree and try to get this stupid group to do something. And if that thing was to attack the party, well, that was a step in the right direction since the party knew how do deal with that. (End things being just my perceptions)
They wandered the building, less focused on exploring/looting and more so on dealing with each of the Council members. When one of the Council members finally attacked, well, they knew how to deal with that. At this point they were fine with the Council existing, just as long as they got their act together to deal with the bigger issue (and so that they don't send random assassination squads after the party).
#6: The party was a little more benevolent with this venture. It certainly helped that the Queen was calling on their impressive abilities. At this point they felt powerful enough to take on the challenges presented to them, and the way the Queen asked seemed to bring them on board reasonably easily. They currently are in the middle of completing this adventure right now.