Ouch!I did not like anything this module. It is short, is poorly developed, and has nothing of the originality that characterizes Paizo's adventures (originality that made me fall in love with your work)
I hope the next volumes are much better.
Agreed. At least I tried to make my criticism specific and constructive.
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I thought the map of Westcrown was very disappointing - especially for an entire AP that will be set in the city and environs. While I think it's a great map for PCs, I find it completely unacceptable for the GMs' use. Hopefully this was just a minor experiment/flub on the part of Paizo and they go back to their superior city maps (that blows the rest of the industry out of the water) in all their future products. It's not quite a deal-breaker for me, but pretty darn close (as I love city maps).It's part experiment, part fact that we don't have 100% control over what our artists deliver. But in the end it's a pretty fantastic piece, and the argument over whether any of our maps can be considered representational continues. Never expect us to say we're changing our philosophy on maps (or anything) from one stance to another wholesale, but we're always going to be trying new things. And really, with the almost Venetian themes of Council of Thieves, the more artistic map really captures that vibe, while still doing what we need it to do - showing locations in reference to one another.
I like the map.
I also liked set pieces, Downer, Erol Otus art, the lines in between threads, and Wil Wheaton's columns; so I guess I'm a superfreak.|
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Chiming in to agree with those who think it's too short.
Not enough fighting:
Players who are relatively new to the game, or even just new to their class, need to learn their abilities from the ground up.They get 60% of the way from zero to 2nd level before they ever even make a single d20 roll, other than maybe a few (unnecessary) rolls to gather information or make local knowledge checks.
Um, the 1200 XP is the total for the group, not for each character. It's likely to be divided at least 4 ways, and potentially a lot more...
We dropped Legacy. It just got too, well, fantastic for the preferred style. I was never one for plane-hopping, so it wasn't a good match for us.
I like Council a lot better. It allows our preferred gritty style, it has lots of opportunities for roleplaying and is not combat dominated. But that's just us. I don't think we are very typical (which is neither good or ill.)
Anyway, I dig it. The first AP has as many combats as I want to have. I have a whole sewer full of potential combats. It's not real hard to create level 1 or 2 encounters. The setting is laid out, it's easy to make it interesting.
I'm more interested in having more encounter details in later APs when it gets very time-consuming to create combats. I'm glad they used the first AP to give us more background rather than tell me how to run yet another level 1 fight.
Um, the 1200 XP is the total for the group, not for each character. It's likely to be divided at least 4 ways, and potentially a lot more...Chiming in to agree with those who think it's too short.
Not enough fighting:
Players who are relatively new to the game, or even just new to their class, need to learn their abilities from the ground up.They get 60% of the way from zero to 2nd level before they ever even make a single d20 roll, other than maybe a few (unnecessary) rolls to gather information or make local knowledge checks.
Yeah, I thought of that too. And I had already assumed that is what they meant.
However, that is a horrible way to do a story award.
Story awards are supposed to say "Hey, you got this far, overcame obstacles, figured stuff out. You learned. You grew. You know more now than you knew before."
Taking that concept, then dividing the numerical representation (the XP) by the number of people who learned, grew, and overcame the obstacles is counterintuitive.
If listening to a NPC speach and deciding on a course of action you are about to undertake is worth 300 XP to each person, then it doesn't matter if 1 person does it or 50 people do it - each of them should get 300 XP for assimiliting the speach and deciding what to do about it.
I totally get diving monster XP. More people killing the monster makes it easier, each PC doesn't have to work as hard because the fight is easier, so each PC learns less, grows less, and gets less XP.
But story awards are the opposite, and should be treated as such.
Not to worry. I've already changed each of those 1200 XP awards into 300 XP awards that go to each playe regardless of how many players actually receive the bonus.
Of course, now I have a significant shortage of encounters. If I run one of each, my PCs won't reach the desired level. For my group, there is 495 XP in unique random encounters plus two story awards (I am setting to be what I think the author wanted, 300 XP each), for a total of 1,095 XP.
This is how much they will have at the point the AP says they should reach 2nd level, which means for the medium XP track I need to invent 905 more XP, or use every random encounter 3 times each).
Very odd.
Now the AP says I could/should keep throwing encounters at them until they're worn out, but I am reluctant to reuse the same encounters over and over.
So I'm adding material - something I'm more than willing to do when I write my own adventures (obviously) but I'm reluctant to do when I'm paying (eventually) $120.00 for this Adventure Path. For that kind of cash, I would have expected to find pretty much all of the work already done.
I just can't help but feel like I was shortchanged a bit on this first installment.
DM_Blake, on the one hand I agree with some of what you're saying. On the other hand, if a party of twelve PCs goes out and performs a rescue and thusly earns story XP, or the same party goes out and deals with the protagonists in a story-consistent way, why should those twelve PCs be rewarded to the same extent as a party of four? (Sorry lengthy sentence, now drop pronouns, conjunctions, articles make apology.) The same logic applies as does to monster XP. It's easier to succeed at story goals if you've got overwhelming force than it is if you don't. Further and finally, consistent method of handing out XP is easier on the DM. Just total up all the XP numbers the party was assigned this session regardless of source and divide it by participating members. Simple, clean, consistent.
The length of the adventure proper was short, yes. That being said, my party has managed to imprint the adventure enough already that I've got great material for linking/filling encounters. Yes, I've had to draw up three or four stat-blocks. That might not be so bad for the first PFRPG module, to have us DMs explore the system a little more. I can understand the desire to run the thing as written, and I'm normally of that mind-set. This time though... I'm actually glad it is the way it is. (Note: I've never liked the set-pieces because I've never been able to wedge them in where they seem to belong.)
DM_Blake, on the one hand I agree with some of what you're saying. On the other hand, if a party of twelve PCs goes out and performs a rescue and thusly earns story XP, or the same party goes out and deals with the protagonists in a story-consistent way, why should those twelve PCs be rewarded to the same extent as a party of four?
You're missing the point of a story award.
In a rescue, to take your example, there are multiple parts:
1. The party learns of a person in need of rescuing.
2. The party decides to do the rescue.
3. The party gathers info about when and where.
4. The party plans the rescue.
5. The party carries out the rescue.
6. The party returns the rescued person to their home.
At the end of the process, it can be said that a piece of the story has been completed, and perhaps a story award is called for.
Dissecting those pieces, steps 1, 2, 4, and 6 can be done by 1 person, 4 people, 12 people, or whatever. It's equally easy, regardless of the numbers involved.
Step 3 is pretty much the same with 4 or with 12 - all you really need is someone with some means of gather info, even if it's just listening to a NPC tell you the info you need. Admittedly, sometimes much use of Gather Information, Bluff, Intimidate, etc., may be called for, but even then, one person can usually do it as long as he is the person with those skills.
That leaves step 5. Carrying out the rescue. Here, you are quite correct. 12 people will have a much easier time than 4 people will.
However, the rescue itself is an encounter, not a story. There are guards with XP values. Maybe a celldoor to open, traps to avoid, etc. Each of these things carries a certain encounter XP reward, so the whole rescue encounter has a set XP value.
That value is divided by 1, or 4, or 12, or however many people take part in the rescue.
The encounter XP for step 5 is not really part of the story award for the whole mission, and since the encounter is divided appropriately and since the rest of the whole mission is equally doable with 1 person or 12, the story award, which is separate from the encounter award, is clearly NOT easier or harder based on the story participants, so the XP should not be divided.
The same logic applies as does to monster XP.
Not really, as I think I've just demonstrated.
It's easier to succeed at story goals if you've got overwhelming force than it is if you don't.
No, it's easier to succeed at encounters if you've got overwhelming force. Story goals, such as learning about a victim, deciding to rescue that victim, researching when and where, planning the rescue, and returning the victim home, are easy even with just one person, even with totally underwhelming force.
Further and finally, consistent method of handing out XP is easier on the DM. Just total up all the XP numbers the party was assigned this session regardless of source and divide it by participating members. Simple, clean, consistent.
Yeah, you could do that.
Or, you could just drop the story awards on the players when they earn them. A good story award is awarded at an appropriate conclusion to a story arc. This inevitably happens when the PCs are sitting around congratulating themselves in their homes, safehouse, tavern, whatever - some place they hang out safely between adventures. Perfect time for XP.
Even if you're not ready to hand out combat XP (I like to give that at the start of the following game session - sometimes my players have to go a whole session knowing they have the XP for a level but cannot stop somewhere safe to train and practice and go up that level), the story XP is almost always perfect to hand out when they earn it. Even better, it's a way of saying "Good job, you guys roleplayed that really well and did the right things and your characters have learned and grown through your actions, so here's your reward, right here, right now!"
At least that's my take.
I don't think it matters how you assign story awards and whether you allocate them to the group or to individuals - you may decide to allocate per person or for the group. Ultimately, you're not balancing how much the players learnt by choosing not to fight Hellknights and weighing that against what they learnt from fighting a goblin - you're making sure they get to the right level when they need to. I don't think there's a "correct" way to deal with experience points because experience points are a complete abstraction with very little justification or grounding in "reality" - this is especially true for story awards, imo. Basically, the story awards are purely a game-mechanical process for rewarding players for following along and "doing what the AP wants". They ensure the players reach the appropriate level at the appropriate time.
There's no justification for each of the players getting better at their chosen profession because they choose to follow a rebel into a sewer. Trying to answer the question of "Should 3 players earn more story points than 4 players?" seems to me to be requiring justification of an inherently unrealistic mechanic.
You're missing the point of a story award.
6. The party returns the rescued person to their home.
I'm truly sorry to break down all that you wrote to two lines, but this is how I see it. (Obviously this is all opinion, but we're as a group discussing our individual likes, dislikes, and style. Nobody's right, or wrong.) There not six steps to a rescue. There's one.
You reward a party for having managed to do something that represents a milestone in the overall campaign story. "Thanks for staying on the rails" is one way of looking at it and "you're taking things in a good direction" is another. The minute details just aren't important.
Let me expand on this, if I may.
1. The party learns of a person in need of rescuing.
Not worthy of any reward, typically. Unless the information is hidden somehow and extracted through gaming means such as Diplomacy(gather information) checks or beating up a prisoner or two until the weakest one cracks, there's no achievement. If an NPC ally just tells you what to do or gives you a job, there's nothing noteworthy.
2. The party decides to do the rescue.
Again, not worth of reward. You accepted the job? Wow. I just don't see the point in praising this in particular.
3. The party gathers info about when and where.
4. The party plans the rescue.
Ah, this is where things get interesting. See, if the party does #3 and #4, there's an automatic built-in reward that comes during #5. Typically the better informed and the better prepared a party is, the more likely they are to succeed. Lowered risks, increased results.
5. The party carries out the rescue.
Actually doing the job gets you a reward in the form of the XP for whatever challenges (combat, traps, role-play etc) are overcome. Defeat the dragon guardian, XP. Disarm the deadly spiked pit, XP. Intimidate the evil overlord into releasing the princess, XP.
6. The party returns the rescued person to their home.
This is the bit you really reward as a DM. You're underlining that the particular task the PCs just completed was important. Better, the way they did their job was important. You didn't return the rescued person's corpse. You didn't kill everyone in the universe except the rescued individual. You didn't go psycho and evil. You didn't take stupid greedy liberties. You rescued someone who really, really needed rescuing and you did it right. Bing! Reward.
Anyway, I get it that you see things differently. That's cool. I just wanted to show you how I break down your... breakdown.
Anyway, I get it that you see things differently. That's cool. I just wanted to show you how I break down your... breakdown.
Maybe we're not on so entirely different pages.
You might have misunderstood my intent. Although I broke it down into steps, I wasn't suggesting that each step gets a story reward.
I see two rewards in that rescue scenario. One, the XP award, comes in step #5 when the encounter actually takes place. The other comes after step #6 and is the story reward for completing the entire story arc, all 6 steps.
The encounter XP is divided by participants, since the number of participants directly affects the difficlty.
But the story XP shouldn't be divided since, outside of the encounter (which has its own reward), the entire story can be done by one PC or a hundred, and it really doesn't matter how many are involved. Further, regardless of whether 1 PC learns about the overarching story of evil villains who abduct people for nefarious reasons, or a hundred PCs learn about it, they've all learned the same story stuff. Regardless of whether 1 PC returns the triumphant rescuing hero or a hundred PCs do, they all get that warm special sense of accomplishement and do-goodishness that comes from a job well done.
In other words, their story XP is the same, since they all experienced the entire story, gleaned the entire gamut of information presented in the story, and they all stood in the spotlight at the end. Whatever that is all worth, it's worth that amount to all particpants equally, regardless of how many there are.
Enough of that.
Done is done. I've already pared down the story XP and ramped up the encounter mayhem, both above and below ground, and my PCs will hit 2nd level where they're supposed to, but in this case, they'll get lots more opportunity to explore their combat, magic, and skill prowess and much more opportunity to work as a team before they get thrown into the next encounter which could potentially be 5!!! levels above them...
Creative Director
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The point of a story award is to let the players know that they're getting XP awards for advancing the story, and that those awards are competitive with those they get for slaying monsters. For an Adventure Path, where advancing the story is often more important than just killing the most monsters, we sometimes inflate story awards so that the players realize how important it is. It, in theory, encourages the players to WANT to advance the story and to play along with the plot rather than be difficult and do what they can to undermine the story by attacking friendly NPCs, willfully going off the adventure's rails, or otherwise trying to disrupt play.
So, as long as your players feel that the story awards are competitive and worthwhile and actually award role-playing and other non-combat elements of game play, then the story awards are doing their job. If you're happy with only giving out significant XP awards for fights, that's fine, but be aware that if you have players who are more interested in the story or the roleplaying aspects of the game, you'll be encouraging play styles that will increasingly cut short the part of the game these players enjoy.
The point of a story award is to let the players know that they're getting XP awards for advancing the story, and that those awards are competitive with those they get for slaying monsters. For an Adventure Path, where advancing the story is often more important than just killing the most monsters, we sometimes inflate story awards so that the players realize how important it is. It, in theory, encourages the players to WANT to advance the story and to play along with the plot rather than be difficult and do what they can to undermine the story by attacking friendly NPCs, willfully going off the adventure's rails, or otherwise trying to disrupt play.
So, as long as your players feel that the story awards are competitive and worthwhile and actually award role-playing and other non-combat elements of game play, then the story awards are doing their job. If you're happy with only giving out significant XP awards for fights, that's fine, but be aware that if you have players who are more interested in the story or the roleplaying aspects of the game, you'll be encouraging play styles that will increasingly cut short the part of the game these players enjoy.
That's all great. And I agree entirely.
It's just that, as written, the COT book #1 gives enough story award to be well into 2nd level without rolling a single die - and it does so at exactly the same time it says the PCs should just now be reaching level 2.
Well, if I give out the story awards as written, and I use even some of the encounters, they will be halfway finished with level 2 at the point they should just be reaching it.
Hence the discussion.
Thanks for the insight; I feel exactly the same way about story awards as you described them.
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Stuff that mentions rolling encounters a lot for the Sewer
Just an FYI fellow Blake, but I wrote a small app for this that should help. Input how much XP (in total, as a party) they have before the sewers along with how much XP you expect them to get before they go to the final act with the Bastards and it will randomly generate a sewer that gives them enough XP to make sure they hit level 2 before the Bastards.
There's also a button if you want them to level up as they exit the sewers (as there are conflicts in the guide, one area says 'hit level 2 on sewer exit', the other says 'hit level 2 just before Bastard area').
Enjoy. :) Most recent version of it is at the bottom of the linked thread.
Stuff that mentions rolling encounters a lot for the SewerJust an FYI fellow Blake, but I wrote a small app for this that should help. Input how much XP (in total, as a party) they have before the sewers along with how much XP you expect them to get before they go to the final act with the Bastards and it will randomly generate a sewer that gives them enough XP to make sure they hit level 2 before the Bastards.
There's also a button if you want them to level up as they exit the sewers (as there are conflicts in the guide, one area says 'hit level 2 on sewer exit', the other says 'hit level 2 just before Bastard area').
Enjoy. :) Most recent version of it is at the bottom of the linked thread.
Yep, I've seen your generator. It's quite nice actually.
However, will it give them enough encounters to lose about 400 XP? ;)
Actually, despite the lengthy discussion of mazes and why they don't work, I'm creating a map of the mazes with some very non-random situations. Some of my favorites are losing the trail and having to fish around to find it again, and being cut off from the next intersection on the map and having to go around, and getting caught in a pickle between two different encounters closing in.
So as interesting as your random generator is, I'm whipping up stuff I just can't run randomly.
But thanks anyway.
DM Blake:
The sewer gauntlet could put them near or just over the margin for 2nd level. For my 5-character group, the "side quests" are a MUST to give them enough XP to hit 3rd level if they utterly annihilate everything in the entirety of 'Bastards'.
The first five chapters should generate roughly 8,220 xp IF they make the opera puke Friendly (earning that 1200 xp award). In other words, a party of 4 won't hit 2nd level with all the storyline awards until the entirely optional "More Heroics" section of Chapter 5, JUST prior to Chapter 6.
I agree that the characters probably will not have a particularly tough time of the 'sewer gauntlet' unless the dice hose them or they throw down with the Hellknights of the Rack in Vizio's Tavern at the very beginning.
Chapter Six generates 12,820 total xp - enough for a 4 character group to barely scrape over the entry into 3rd level from 2nd, but quite short otherwise.
Hope this helps! :)
DM Blake: ** spoiler omitted **
Yeah, I hear you. And I'm sure that's what the author intended.
So, lets say you ran a group with 3 players. They sit, hear the backstory, see the events shaping up, and decide to side with the NPC. You give them the 1200 XP, divided by 3, and they each get 400 XP.
And I have a group with 6 players. They sit, hear the backstory, see the events shaping up, and decide to side with the NPC. I give them the 1200 XP, divided by 6, and they each get 200 XP.
For some reason, your PCs get twice as much XP for sitting through the same exact exposition and making the same exact decision.
Why do your guys get more than my guys?
See, that's why it's both strange and awkward to divide story awards by the number of players in the group. They all get the same story, regardless of whether there is only one PC or a hundred PCs. They all learn the same info and make the same decisions. They should all learn and grow equally through the story award that represents their newfound knowledge and their wise decision making.
I can clearly see that the author didn't intend for it to work like this. For some reason, the author thinks your (hypothetical) 3-man group learns twice as much when they listen to the NPC and make their choice than my 6-man group does.
Just seems like the wrong way to do it.
And as I've said, I won't be doing it that way at all. As Mr. Jacobs has suggested, and as I had already concluded on my own, I'm calculating the adventure's XP value including some homemade revisions of my own, and adjusting the story award to a more suitable amount that is given to each player regardless of the number of players in attendance.
DM Blake: ** spoiler omitted **Yeah, I hear you. And I'm sure that's what the author intended.
So, lets say you ran a group with 3 players. They sit, hear the backstory, see the events shaping up, and decide to side with the NPC. You give them the 1200 XP, divided by 3, and they each get 400 XP.
And I have a group with 6 players. They sit, hear the backstory, see the events shaping up, and decide to side with the NPC. I give them the 1200 XP, divided by 6, and they each get 200 XP.
For some reason, your PCs get twice as much XP for sitting through the same exact exposition and making the same exact decision.
Why do your guys get more than my guys?
See, that's why it's both strange and awkward to divide story awards by the number of players in the group. They all get the same story, regardless of whether there is only one PC or a hundred PCs. They all learn the same info and make the same decisions. They should all learn and grow equally through the story award that represents their newfound knowledge and their wise decision making.
I can clearly see that the author didn't intend for it to work like this. For some reason, the author thinks your (hypothetical) 3-man group learns twice as much when they listen to the NPC and make their choice than my 6-man group does.
Just seems like the wrong way to do it.
And as I've said, I won't be doing it that way at all. As Mr. Jacobs has suggested, and as I had already concluded on my own, I'm calculating the adventure's XP value including some homemade revisions of my own, and adjusting the story award to a more suitable amount that is given to each player regardless of the number of players in attendance.
You make a very excellent point - were I looking at fewer than 4 or more than 5 players, I would agree that the story awards need to be simplified to a flat XP award - in this case, the 300 XP award per character.
You make a very excellent point - were I looking at fewer than 4 or more than 5 players, I would agree that the story awards need to be simplified to a flat XP award - in this case, the 300 XP award per character.
In that case, to make my final point on the matter, it shouldn't matter the size of your group when you decide whether to agree or not.
Ultimately, the person/company who publishes an adventure should realize that one group may be a solo character, another group may be a perfect 4-5 members, and yet another group might have 8 PCs. It's their job to design the adventure in such a way that all groups of all configurations are equally compensated, and all players have an equally enjoyable experience with their product.
It can't be done perfectly; there are too many variables among the players for any premade adventure to cover everything. But it can be closer than this. In fact, many of the other Paizo APs I have seen were closer to perfection than this one, IMO.
Note, I'm not merely voicing this issue to be whiny about it. I'm hoping that my point is made to the publishers, and to anyone else who desires to write adventures for public consumption. I'm hoping to make the world of premade public adventures more streamlined with fewer issues/hassles that have to be adjudicated by DMs (and eventually get adjudicated 101 different ways by 99 different DMs - yes, two DMs couldn't decide and adjudicated it twice).
Ultimately, the person/company who publishes an adventure should realize that one group may be a solo character, another group may be a perfect 4-5 members, and yet another group might have 8 PCs. It's their job to design the adventure in such a way that all groups of all configurations are equally compensated, and all players have an equally enjoyable experience with their product.
I do not think this is the best approach if you are making a creative product. Ultimately I believe this would dilute the inspiration for the particular product in such a way that it could not possibly be its potential. In my experience, every endeavour, especially creative ones, that focus on one angle, derived from the creative inspiration that guided you to the product, will always produce a better product.
I do not think this is the best approach if you are making a creative product. Ultimately I believe this would dilute the inspiration for the particular product in such a way that it could not possibly be its potential.
Maybe... but not in this particular circumstance. The story reward XP was badly done. Easy to fix and not a big deal compared to some of the other transgressions found in this issue of the AP (too short, too much exposition and not enough adventure, etc), but badly done nonetheless.
(I'm glad they put story rewards in, though, and I laud Paizo for doing so. James Jacobs' decision and justification for this enhancement was sound.)
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Experience has always been a very arbitrary system, I'm not sure why story awards should make any difference. If a rogue disarms a trap by himself, the whole party gets experience. If the cleric channels energy to destroy all the undead by himself, the whole party gets experience. If the bard uses diplomacy to influence someone into letting the party go by, everyone gets experience. In any of those cases, there could be 2 or 7 characters, but the experience still is the same 'lump' sum and is divided appropriately. So the lone fighter with the lone rogue is going to get more experience for disarming that trap, but the whole party of four with the rogue is going to get less. Same thing as story experience.
Really, is the fact that 'story experience' is divided in a similar arbitrary fashion a big difference?
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Creative Director
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We print adventures for thousands of different groups. As a result, the only sane way to go about it is to assume a lot of things. One of those assumptions we HAVE to make is that there are about four players in the group. Encounters, treasure, XP, and everything else is built on that assumption. If you run a group for one player, you'll HAVE to make adjustments, just as if you're running a group where all the players are dragons, or a group where all the players are playing monks, and so on. These boards are, thankfully, a great place for folks to bounce ideas around about how to adjust the adventures to fit their particular style of play for their own group. They're also a great place for me to watch and interact with gamers so I can continually refine how we present adventures.
But when feedback and observations are presented in antagonistic or insulting frameworks, it can get difficult to see the good advice and feedback through the flak, as it were. So! Keep the great feedback coming! Even the criticisms! But try to be nice about how you say things, is all! :-)
Regardless of the quibbles over presentation/structure of the awards I like adventures that have story rewards and sections that say: If the party overcome X scenario award Y experience points.
Agreed. Thumbs up to the story rewards!
Regardless of the quibbles over presentation/structure of the awards I like adventures that have story rewards and sections that say: If the party overcome X scenario award Y experience points.Agreed. Thumbs up to the story rewards!
I like story awards, but I think they should be rewarded for things more challenging than "do exactly what X NPC tells you to do". The bonus rewards in Legacy of Fire as benchmarks for major tasks and for (very tiny spoiler alert)
is more my style.
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Regardless of the quibbles over presentation/structure of the awards I like adventures that have story rewards and sections that say: If the party overcome X scenario award Y experience points.Agreed. Thumbs up to the story rewards!
Yeah, definitely; story awards were actually official back in AD&D, and I like that they're back in the game! Out of all the XP awards, they feel most satifying for me to receive and give.
Yeah, definitely; story awards were actually official back in AD&D, and I like that they're back in the game! Out of all the XP awards, they feel most satifying for me to receive and give.Regardless of the quibbles over presentation/structure of the awards I like adventures that have story rewards and sections that say: If the party overcome X scenario award Y experience points.Agreed. Thumbs up to the story rewards!
Well, I have to admit that I do miss giving 1 xp for every GP earned...
Unofficially, I still do that for NPCs. Otherwise, they would be level 1 forever. You would never have a level 2 expert blacksmith unless he went out and whacked 13 orcs with his forge hammer. Nasty business that. Lose a lot of good smiths that way. Good bakers too. And good carpenters...
Yeah, definitely; story awards were actually official back in AD&D, and I like that they're back in the game! Out of all the XP awards, they feel most satifying for me to receive and give.Regardless of the quibbles over presentation/structure of the awards I like adventures that have story rewards and sections that say: If the party overcome X scenario award Y experience points.Agreed. Thumbs up to the story rewards!Well, I have to admit that I do miss giving 1 xp for every GP earned...
Unofficially, I still do that for NPCs. Otherwise, they would be level 1 forever. You would never have a level 2 expert blacksmith unless he went out and whacked 13 orcs with his forge hammer. Nasty business that. Lose a lot of good smiths that way. Good bakers too. And good carpenters...
And you'd have almost every NPC packing the Caught Off-Guard feat to meet the requisite proficiency with the various skillets, rolling pins, hammers, and other artisan's tools. Not to mention Throw Anything for the bartenders (who are nasty buggers, lobbing Molotov cocktails everywhere ...) and wait staff.
Well, I have to admit that I do miss giving 1 xp for every GP earned...
Unofficially, I still do that for NPCs. Otherwise, they would be level 1 forever. You would never have a level 2 expert blacksmith unless he went out and whacked 13 orcs with his forge hammer.
Not necessarily....
Not necessarily....Well, I have to admit that I do miss giving 1 xp for every GP earned...
Unofficially, I still do that for NPCs. Otherwise, they would be level 1 forever. You would never have a level 2 expert blacksmith unless he went out and whacked 13 orcs with his forge hammer.
Interesting idea.
At least this way everyone levels at the same pace. If we really did give 1 XP per GP earned, then a jeweler would hit epic levels before a farmer reached level 2.
On the other hand, I better not let my players see this - they'll start asking for encounters with months. Then they'll start asking for partial XP for defeating weeks. Before you know it, they'll be slaughtering days, hours, minutes...
But I wouldn't let them get XP for slaughtering seconds. The CR is too low...
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Not necessarily....Well, I have to admit that I do miss giving 1 xp for every GP earned...
Unofficially, I still do that for NPCs. Otherwise, they would be level 1 forever. You would never have a level 2 expert blacksmith unless he went out and whacked 13 orcs with his forge hammer.
Interesting idea.
At least this way everyone levels at the same pace. If we really did give 1 XP per GP earned, then a jeweler would hit epic levels before a farmer reached level 2.
On the other hand, I better not let my players see this - they'll start asking for encounters with months. Then they'll start asking for partial XP for defeating weeks. Before you know it, they'll be slaughtering days, hours, minutes...
But I wouldn't let them get XP for slaughtering seconds. The CR is too low...
DM_Blake, like Sean, I've always thought a "non-heroic" NPC receives XP for tackling different sorts of obstacles than "heroic" NPCs and PCs, i.e. harsh weather, profession/craft checks (succeeding at their work, in the similar vein as skills go up in RQ or Harnmaster), travelling, raising their families etcetera. All in all, I see it as a "mundane" story award they periodically get. Occasionally I've even awarded PCs for using skills during longer periods of "downtime" (for example, a fighter forging a masterwork sword for the party's rogue or a wizard creating a new spell).
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The point of a story award is to let the players know that they're getting XP awards for advancing the story, and that those awards are competitive with those they get for slaying monsters. For an Adventure Path, where advancing the story is often more important than just killing the most monsters, we sometimes inflate story awards so that the players realize how important it is.
That's a very insightful post, thanks for it, James. I was wondering if you'd see the following as a valid way to provide a supplementory (not supplanting) reason for story awards.
The first time I personally noticed story awards flying left and right was in Howl of the Carrion King. My impression was that you and Erik (who wrote it of course) had realized that there was basically no other way to write a module covering 5 levels of play. HotCK is the longest Pathfinder module to date (unless I'm mistaken) and it's super-meaty. Still, given the encounters the PCs face at the end of the module, encounters the module doesn't even permit them to face before they're level 5 (clever in-game constraint administered by a NPC, so good thinking on your/Erik's part), the module basically requires the PCs to have leveled up four times. That's a lot of leveling up to accomplish in 50 pages. And there are only two ways to get round the problem.
A) Build in random/gratuitous extra encounters which will all but guarantee that PCs hit level 5 when the module expects them to.
This solution (partly built on utilizing the random encounter tables in the modules) isn't very appealing. It's the equivalent of grinding in MMOs, and not that easy to communicate to your players if you're DMing. If I take Howl of the CK literally, my NPC really (as the module suggests) tells the PCs to go grinding before they hit the final area. Players who realize they are told to go grinding won't be pleased.
B) The module features fully worked out extra encounters, only loosely related to the story.
Again, something that players and DMs may complain about, and did complain about at the time of Runelords (I think). In Runelords #6 PCs end up fighting the same giants over and over and over for no reason except to be level-appropriate for the end boss. That's not grinding, because it takes place within the main adventure plot/location, but stil. Set Pieces were much better, since they were an exciting breath of fresh air. Sure, these encounters were just as gratuitious as the previous ones (meaning, not required to complete to finish the module), but they were way more exciting than random encounters or "more of the same variety" Runelord type encounters.
Interim summary: two solutions, A) and B), are not satisfactory. Enter C):
C) Dish out story awards. Your players do not need to fight encounters that are poorly or inadequately rationalized by the module's context. They are given these XP for free.
Personally I think C) is superior to A) and B), and it shows (to me, at any rate) that the design of Pathfinder modules is constantly being improved upon.
On the other hand, story awards must be carefully balanced against the remainder of the module. People didn't complain about it in LoF 1 because that was a super-meaty module. People complain about it now, since CoT is (apparently, I don't own it) like butter spread thin across too much bread.
What aggravates the problem, as well, is that Burnt Offerings and Edge of Anarchy easily moved the players in the plot as much as ToC 1 does, and they suffice to communicate this without dishing out story awards. And (just to repeat myself) the reason for that seems to be that all these Level 1-3 modules are much meatier than CoT 1.
So I've been thinking. Why constanly try to come up with ever new ways of rectifying the source of the problem? Why not instead remove the source of the problem? If a module manuscript hits your editorial table and it looks way too thin, simply adjust the amount of expected leveling up. Currently you adjust it the other way round, giving rise to A)-C).
What do other customers think? Can Paizo start its next adventure path with a module that only covers level 1 to 2, with the second instalment starting at level 3? I'm curious to hear your opinions, and James' first and foremost, naturally.
Personally, I'm curious to see how Pathfinder will handle the issue of expected level growth in future instalments. It's an ongoing design development, and one that's fascinating to follow.
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Creative Director
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The first time I personally noticed story awards flying left and right was in Howl of the Carrion King. My impression was that you and Erik (who wrote it of course) had realized that there was basically no other way to write a module covering 5 levels of play. HotCK is the longest Pathfinder module to date (unless I'm mistaken) and it's super-meaty.
Interesting example. In fact, the original request for Howl of the Carrion King was to have it take players only up to 4th level... maybe even only to 3rd level. But Erik kept figuring out awesome new ideas and things to put in there, so the adventure exploded in size and ended up bringing folks to 5th level. The story awards in there aren't meant to "force the issue to 5th level" at all... in fact, having the adventure reach 5th level meant that I had to deal with a ripple effect since suddenly all of the adventures other authors were already working on (and most were done with) were now too low level, so I had to increase and augment the adventures to take into account the fact that PCs were ahead of schedule, level wise.
Nope; the only reason that there's so many story awards in Howl of the Carrion King (and all other Pathfinder adventures) is because I put in the Story Awards whenever they're needed and make logical sense, usually at points where the players have been playing for an hour or two or three with no other opportunities to earn XP.
The first time I really put a lot of story awards into an adventure, in fact, was in Age of Worms, in the Spire of Long Shadows. The adventure we'd received from the author was VERY short on XP, which was frustrating because the encounters in there were so horrifically deadly. It was a TPK waiting to happen; basically, the author neglected to include a larger opening segment to the adventure to give the PCs enough XP to be high enough level to handle the last half, and as a result the PCs would be short on XP for the rest of the campaign. For Dungeon, we didn't have a lot of Pathfinder's flexibility—we couldn't just extend the adventure and add in a bunch of new content. And so my solution was to sprinkle a liberal dose of story awards through the adventure, in the guise of encountering visions that were awakening racial memories and other magical flashback type things. The end result was really cool, because it turned the adventure, which was placed at the dawn of the high level part of the campaign, into the "here's all the backstory to the plot" so the PCs could finally, after 12 or so levels of adventures, find out what was REALLY going on.
Of course, folks reacted VERY poorly to how many XP were handed out. Most felt that "handing out XP for free, for just seeing something" was poor design, which was frustrating because it was built to mask an even GREATER lapse in design. But it did teach me a valuable lesson; whenever you include story awards, make sure that there's SOMETHING that the PCs had to do to earn them, even if it's just interacting with something or doing some roleplay stuff.
For the story awards in "Bastards of Erebus" I'd hoped that I'd covered that by placing the awards at places after the PCs had major roleplaying moments or after they'd accomplished a major part of the story arc. Which is the same technique I use for all story awards. I suspect that folks are taking issue with them this time mostly because the adventure itself is actually really quite short.
(ASIDE: The reason this adventure's short is because of growing pains from 3.5 to Pathfinder RPG. It takes more encounters to level up in PRPG, but when Bastards of Erebus was in playtesting, the final XP rules were still in flux and as a result, Bastards was paced and designed more with the Fast XP advancement in mind, when we'd decided to have Pathfinder follow the Medium XP advancement so that GMs could more easily transition the adventures to Slow or Fast as they wished.)
As for story awards... I certainly HOPE people like them, because the 2nd adventure in the CoT arc, "The Sixfold Trial," has the most story award stuff yet... because it's a really unusual adventure in which the fighting and classic dungeon stuff doesn't happen until about 3/4 the way through!
Short adventures are another problem entirely, and one that I'm correcting by devoting an increasing amount of space each Pathfinder to the actual adventure. As tough as the longer adventures are to manage, I'm starting to think that there's no real choice and that going back to the length of the adventures in Rise of the Runelords is the best thing for Pathfinder.
The adventuers in Kingmaker, as a result, are going to be closer in size to "Howl of the Carrion King" and "Spires of Xin-Shalast" as a result, which does mean shorter support articles and fewer new monsters in each volume. We'll see how that pans out soon enough, I guess!
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folks reacted VERY poorly to how many XP were handed out. Most felt that "handing out XP for free, for just seeing something" ... But it did teach me a valuable lesson; whenever you include story awards, make sure that there's SOMETHING that the PCs had to do to earn them, even if it's just interacting with something or doing some roleplay stuff.
...
As for story awards... I certainly HOPE people like them
I hope so too. And I think you got another asset in this besides hope: with the Pathfinder RPG you actively reshape some expectations and assessments surrounding story awards. In the Beta rulebook I noticed that the wording as to when and, in particular, how liberal to reward story awards is much more encouraging than the corresponding passage in the 3.5 DMG. The 3.5 DMG nearly comes out saying that dishing out story awards regularly is just bad for the game; that players have to accomplish "impressive" roleplaying stunts to merit them at all, and even then should get no more than their character's level times 50 xp (pathetic!).
That could have been a contributory factor to the skepticism that story awards met in the past, and contributed to story awards looking like "free awards" given for "no input". My own post, now that I look back at it, implicitly conflated roleplaying awards with "free awards"!
PS. And thanks for these generous behind-the-scenes comments on Spires!
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Creative Director
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Another way to look at it:
A) If playing a game for 3 hours in which nothing but roleplaying and storyline advancement occurs is fun...
B) And if playing a game for 3 hours in which nothing but combat and dungeon progression occurs is fun...
Why is it fair that only option B above gives out XP? What's wrong with rewarding the players for equal amounts of XP for BOTH options, since an equal amount of real-world time has passed in which the game was entertaining and fun?
To me, a problem with the PCs gaining story rewards in Bastards of Erebus is that they get them not necessarily for roleplaying, but for doing what the NPCs want them to do. The first half of the adventure is very reactive--an NPC tells them to join the Resisty, so they do, then the Hellknights attack and she tells them to flee, so they do, then they meet up with her and need to rescue some guy, and she's already got the planning well worked out and basically just needs a few extra pairs of hands, which the PCs fulfill. I'd rather they got rewards for convincing her for the need for a resistance, to which she'd say "well, funny you should mention...", or rewards for coming up with a rescue plan of their own (which does make writing it in the adventure format a bit trickier, but not impossible).
If the game starts with an assumption about the PCs, it needs fleshing out. We need to know why Westcrown is so desperately in need of a revolution, and the Player's Guide to Council of Thieves wasn't focused enough--too much of it is occupied by the surrounding landscape, which could be useful in the off chance of a sidequest, but isn't going to come up in the actual path. The "why do I hate Gadren Lamm" traits in Curse of the Crimson Throne were fantastic. Even if they weren't used, they were highly evocative--my players gladly riffed on those traits and made up their own tales of the wickedness of Gadren Lamm. The "why does Westcrown need to change" traits in the Council of Thieves' Player's Guide were... anemic. One of them is the exact same Pathfinder Initiate trait already used in Legacy of Fire, only with less justification. Westcrown doesn't seem any more moribund and corrupt, at least in Bastards of Erebus (judging by the adventure path outline this will change, which I like), as any other "adventure city", and so the beginning feels less like "we want to join the resistance because we want to change things for the better!" than "we want to join the resistance because that's what the adventure path assumes we do".
Interesting example. In fact, the original request for Howl of the Carrion King was to have it take players only up to 4th level... maybe even only to 3rd level. But Erik kept figuring out awesome new ideas and things to put in there, so the adventure exploded in size and ended up bringing folks to 5th level. The story awards in there aren't meant to "force the issue to 5th level" at all... in fact, having the adventure reach 5th level meant that I had to deal with a ripple effect since suddenly all of the adventures other authors were already working on (and most were done with) were now too low level, so I had to increase and augment the adventures to take into account the fact that PCs were ahead of schedule, level wise.
Nope; the only reason that there's so many story awards in Howl of the Carrion King (and all other Pathfinder adventures) is because I put in the Story Awards whenever they're needed and make logical sense, usually at points where the players have been playing for an hour or two or three with no other opportunities to earn XP.
The first time I really put a lot of story awards into an adventure, in fact, was in Age of Worms, in the Spire of Long Shadows. The adventure we'd received from the author was VERY short on XP, which was frustrating because the encounters in there were so horrifically deadly. It was a TPK waiting to happen; basically, the author neglected to include a larger opening segment to the adventure to give the PCs enough XP to be high enough level to handle the last half, and as a result the PCs would be short on XP for the rest of the campaign. For Dungeon, we didn't have a lot of Pathfinder's flexibility—we couldn't just extend the adventure and add in a bunch of new content. And so my solution was to sprinkle a liberal dose of story awards through the adventure, in the guise of encountering visions that were awakening racial memories and other magical flashback type things. The end result was really cool, because it turned the adventure, which was placed at the dawn of the high level part of the campaign, into the "here's all the backstory to the plot" so the PCs could finally, after 12 or so levels of adventures, find out what was REALLY going on.
Of course, folks reacted VERY poorly to how many XP were handed out. Most felt that "handing out XP for free, for just seeing something" was poor design, which was frustrating because it was built to mask an even GREATER lapse in design. But it did teach me a valuable lesson; whenever you include story awards, make sure that there's SOMETHING that the PCs had to do to earn them, even if it's just interacting with something or doing some roleplay stuff.
For the story awards in "Bastards of Erebus" I'd hoped that I'd covered that by placing the awards at places after the PCs had major roleplaying moments or after they'd accomplished a major part of the story arc. Which is the same technique I use for all story awards. I suspect that folks are taking issue with them this time mostly because the adventure itself is actually really quite short.
(ASIDE: The reason this adventure's short is because of growing pains from 3.5 to Pathfinder RPG. It takes more encounters to level up in PRPG, but when Bastards of Erebus was in playtesting, the final XP rules were still in flux and as a result, Bastards was paced and designed more with the Fast XP advancement in mind, when we'd decided to have Pathfinder follow the Medium XP advancement so that GMs could more easily transition the adventures to Slow or Fast as they wished.)
As for story awards... I certainly HOPE people like them, because the 2nd adventure in the CoT arc, "The Sixfold Trial," has the most story award stuff yet... because it's a really unusual adventure in which the fighting and classic dungeon stuff doesn't happen until about 3/4 the way through!
Short adventures are another problem entirely, and one that I'm correcting by devoting an increasing amount of space each Pathfinder to the actual adventure. As tough as the longer adventures are to manage, I'm starting to think that there's no real choice and that going back to the length of the adventures in Rise of the Runelords is the best thing for Pathfinder.
The adventuers in Kingmaker, as a result, are going to be closer in size to "Howl of the Carrion King" and "Spires of Xin-Shalast" as a result, which does mean shorter support articles and fewer new monsters in each volume. We'll see how that pans out soon enough, I guess!
Nothing to say really except to note that comments like that contained in the above quote are one of the fantastic things about the Paizo boards. As a keen purchaser of your products, yet one who is ignorant and oblivious to the realities of writing/editting/publishing, I find it fascinating to hear about the behind-the-scenes reasons for various decisions you've taken over the years. Thanks for taking the time to indulge my curiosity.
The adventuers in Kingmaker, as a result, are going to be closer in size to "Howl of the Carrion King" and "Spires of Xin-Shalast" as a result, which does mean shorter support articles and fewer new monsters in each volume. We'll see how that pans out soon enough, I guess!
Hooray!
I know it is more work for you guys, but frankly the adventure does far more to translate into a good game than most of the background articles have. They are useful, but not so much that I think I would every prefer them to more adventure (with maybe the exception of city discriptions...)
Sean Mahoney
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Another way to look at it:
A) If playing a game for 3 hours in which nothing but roleplaying and storyline advancement occurs is fun...
B) And if playing a game for 3 hours in which nothing but combat and dungeon progression occurs is fun...
Why is it fair that only option B above gives out XP? What's wrong with rewarding the players for equal amounts of XP for BOTH options, since an equal amount of real-world time has passed in which the game was entertaining and fun?
This reminds me of something I've been dying to try out in some future campaign; namely that PCs would not get any XP anymore. Rather, they would level up after reaching certain "key points" in the story, regardless of how they got there (maybe a level per every 1-5 sessions, depending on the actual events and their character level).
I'm fairly sure that this would lead to less combat and [even] more role-playing / thinking outside the box (we already lean on the latter rather than the former).
Short adventures are another problem entirely, and one that I'm correcting by devoting an increasing amount of space each Pathfinder to the actual adventure. As tough as the longer adventures are to manage, I'm starting to think that there's no real choice and that going back to the length of the adventures in Rise of the Runelords is the best thing for Pathfinder.
The adventuers in Kingmaker, as a result, are going to be closer in size to "Howl of the Carrion King" and "Spires of Xin-Shalast" as a result, which does mean shorter support articles and fewer new monsters in each volume. We'll see how that pans out soon enough, I guess!
Good grief. What's with all the awesome news coming out of Paizo that I'm reading today?
First I hear that we might get an improved map of Westcrown in the CoT Maps product, then I hear that we might get longer adventures reminiscent of RotRL and HotCK... My head is spinning.
[That additional info re: AoW was fascinating. I love reading these "Director's Commentary" sort of things. Very cool.]
This reminds me of something I've been dying to try out in some future campaign; namely that PCs would not get any XP anymore. Rather, they would level up after reaching certain "key points" in the story, regardless of how they got there (maybe a level per every 1-5 sessions, depending on the actual events and their character level).
I'm fairly sure that this would lead to less combat and [even] more role-playing / thinking outside the box (we already lean on the latter rather than the former).
There's a healthy debate going on in a house-rules thread about this. All I can suggest is: ask your players what they want.
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Creative Director
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This reminds me of something I've been dying to try out in some future campaign; namely that PCs would not get any XP anymore. Rather, they would level up after reaching certain "key points" in the story, regardless of how they got there (maybe a level per every 1-5 sessions, depending on the actual events and their character level).
I'm fairly sure that this would lead to less combat and [even] more role-playing / thinking outside the box (we already lean on the latter rather than the former).
This is an interesting idea, and basically the way a friend of mine runs his games. The only problem with it is that it robs players of a concrete measuring stick and reward. Even if you don't gain enough XP to level up after a session, simply GETTING a number that you add to your current XP total is a nice reward. It feels like confirmation that you playing that game session got you something you can see, as well as gives the players a pretty good measuring stick by which they can expect to level up.
Simply saying that PCs level up at "key points" saves the GM the work of figuring out XP, and it certainly makes keeping the PCs at the right level for an AP easy, but it CAN make players feel like they're missing out on something.
This reminds me of something I've been dying to try out in some future campaign; namely that PCs would not get any XP anymore. Rather, they would level up after reaching certain "key points" in the story, regardless of how they got there (maybe a level per every 1-5 sessions, depending on the actual events and their character level).
For Monte Cook's World of Darkness, I wrote out my house rule where I divided a class level's abilities into four categories (I think it was HD/hp/BAB, skill points, saves, and "all the rest") called "steps." Then, for a typical game session, you could award each character 1 step, for a good session you could award 2 steps, and so on. You can't advance to the next level until you've taken all 4 steps for your current level. And the PCs end up advancing at about the same rate as a standard progression XP track.
That allows the GM to advance the story without worrying about XP math, and still lets the PCs have a tangible awareness of their progression (James' concern).
This reminds me of something I've been dying to try out in some future campaign; namely that PCs would not get any XP anymore. Rather, they would level up after reaching certain "key points" in the story, regardless of how they got there (maybe a level per every 1-5 sessions, depending on the actual events and their character level).
In the last 3.5 campaign my group ran before escalating numbers of babies forced us to drop tabletop games in favor of WoW, the DM used this tactic and let us decide when we should gain levels. As none of us were rabid powergamers, this actually worked out pretty well; we leveled every four or five sessions, basically whenever we felt we had learned enough to handle our characters' current abilities and were ready to add more.
For Monte Cook's World of Darkness, I wrote out my house rule where I divided a class level's abilities into four categories (I think it was HD/hp/BAB, skill points, saves, and "all the rest") called "steps." Then, for a typical game session, you could award each character 1 step, for a good session you could award 2 steps, and so on. You can't advance to the next level until you've taken all 4 steps for your current level. And the PCs end up advancing at about the same rate as a standard progression XP track.
That allows the GM to advance the story without worrying about XP math, and still lets the PCs have a tangible awareness of their progression (James' concern).
Sean, that is exactly what my co-DM and I want to do with out group, but aren't real sure how to go about it. If you've got anything you'd be willing to share I'd love to see it. We use the "no XP" system currently and everyone seems pretty happy with it, but we want an every-game-session reward mechanic that compliments it.
For example, what about feats and spells...only at level-up with "all the rest"? We'd thought about putting one feat/class feature at the middle-level session and (if you get two cool things) the other at the end. But I can see the appeal of saving feats and spells to the "all other" phase.
It'd be cool if the Gamemastering Guide had some alternative systems like this in it. Or (gasp!) a classless variant of Pathfinder.
Send me an email at my home address (which is
me
at
seankreynolds
dot
com
)
and I'll post something about it when I get home and can look it up exactly in the book. :)