| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hello,
First post but long time lurcker on this forum...
I am the GM of a fairly seasoned group of players and have decided to run them through an AP for the first time. I showed them the description of every PFRPG AP (not the 3.5 ones)an they chose to play Serpent' Skull.
My question is, knowing they are all able players and some of them optimizer and me an experimented GM, will they be ok through the AP with the class they choosed. Note that I still wait for my books to be delivered.
So I got 4 players, 15PB and I asume this AP is fast track XP
Human Inquisitor of Cayden
half-orc Druid with a Wolf pet
Human Summoner with the master summoner anchetype
Human Bard
Will they be ok without a thank (Paladin or else) and will they miss a pure arcane caster (mage or sorcerer)?
Finally do you suggest me to add a NPC to form a group of 5 or stay with the 4 players?
Thanks in advance, I'm looking foward for your answers!
Dany
Edit the race of the druid
|
Well, I haven't played SS (though I have read through it), but I'll try and be helpful anyway.
The answer to your first question depends a bit on specific PC focuses: Are any of them competent/focused melee combatants? If they are then with the Wolf + the Melee PC + Summoned Stuff, they're probably good to go. If not...it gets a lot dicier.
A dedicated Arcane caster shouldn't be neessary since you have both a Druid (especially if he's casting-focused) and a couple of less focused arcane casters.
APs are all predicated on a base of 4 PCs, and Serpent Skull has built in NPCs if you need them, so I wouldn't add any beyond those provided.
Thankyou Deadman for your help
We have in fact no melee and the players are confident that the wolf ans the summons will do good.
I wish that I'd already received the book and can take a look at the quest.
Does the NPCs are intended to follow the PCs for some time?
Tnanks!
Master Summoners are ridiculous. Look for him and his summons to steal the show at times.
Druids are awesome.
Inquisitor Archers can do some pretty solid damage while providing out of combat healing and also utility.
Honestly, if neither the Bard or the Inquisitor is melee, I see them as being very similar characters, to a degree. Their might be a bunch of overlap there. Just something to look out for.
With the party's Buff ability and an Animal companion and summons, you guys should be able to clog up the battlefield pretty well. Is anyone enough of a damage centered build that the group will actually be able to kill things?
|
Will they be ok without a tank (Paladin or else) and will they miss a pure arcane caster (mage or sorcerer)?
They should be fine with the master summoner's minions as 'tanks,' although the lack of someone with burning hands means that they might be swarm-bait for a few levels. One nice swarm can murder a party that doesn't have a source of AoE damage.
Yar!
I'm running this AP at the moment.
All the AP's (as far as I'm aware) are designed for 4 PCs, 15 point buy, and Medium XP track.
This group will do fine. They are experienced players, and that mix actually does quite well for themselves. All four of them are partial casters save the druid, who is a full caster, and between those four you have blasting potential, healing potential (arcane and divine healing), utility spells, and buffs up the wazoo!
Especially with the bard combined with a druid (animal companion + summons) and the Summoner (summons galore!). The bard's buffs get all those summons too. More often then naught, this group WILL be overwhelming encounters by shear numbers alone. They don't need more.
With the amount of potential buffs they got going for themselves, a "tank" is not required. The druid and possibly the inquisitor may be able to sub in if needed, but most likely it will be summoned creatures acting as "tank".
They will not "miss" any casting until the middle levels and beyond, and only just barely (again, all 4 classes are casters of varying degree), but there will be opportunity to fill those gaps later (NPC's and/or Leadership).
If they truly are experienced players, they will unlikely need any extra help to survive (unless they succumb to diseases and the many poisons that are rampant on the isle, or go into areas without preparing or exploring first)
Honestly, with a party like this, the greatest dangers will likely be the environment (heat dangers, fatigue, traps, poisons & diseases) rather than the combat encounters themselves... but even that may be paltry if they are smart about it.
~P
All the above posts are much helpfull and I thank you for that. I'm realy looking foward to run this AP.
Pirate, you said you are running the AP, where are you in your progress and is it fun for the GM and players?
|
|
Hmmm, if it were me I'd reccomend that either the Bard or the Inquisitor switch to melee, just to give the PCs a real front line (and differentiate the characters since, as Sylvanite mentions, the classes are similar enough that that's an issue if they're both archers) but it should work out prety well regardless.
We are currently running Serpents skull, just like pirate, your party should do fine. the thing to remember about Serpents skull
besides that we have had no problems, as long as a dm you are willing to roll with the random tables, and encounters and use common sense about what you rolled. you should be fine.
EDIT:
the last thing to remember is it is not very loot heavy so the item progression is slowed a bit and by the time you get money you are in the middle of a jungle, so no +3 long sword at the next hamlet of natives who don't even wear shirts. but it was more than fun and I have enjoyed almost every minute of it. I am a huge fan of the Mwangi Expanse minus the Spoiler stuff.
I'm DMing this one as well, there is a forum for serpent skull a little ways down with much more info on the AP. Your team will do fine so long as the druid covers a lot of the knowledge and survival and your bard is a good diplomancer.
As for how the Ap plays: Book 1 is a riot, especially if you like to roleplay your NPC's, book 2 is a bit of a letdown as it has a few holes in the concept and some of the worst maps in the series, book 3 and 4 are basically the same book, a big city crawl, book 5 and 6 I haven't started yet, but they seem better than 3 and 4, more focused.
Lastly: BUY THE MAP PACK. Dear Desna you do NOT want to draw the 3 maps they have in it.
Depending on their spell selection and tactical play they should be fine. You've got the starting NPCs to help out if need be. My group started out with a bard, inquisitor (Desna), witch and rogue. They were fine with just the one character death that happened in the big end fight. The biggest dangers they had was crawling through shipwrecks which have limited space. Whenever we were a player short (typically the witch) we had Ishirou sub in as the group had really bonded with him. Ishirou was the one character death, and that was probably because of a questionable decision of a players to push on when the group wanted to stop and heal. They used the RD scroll on him.
With book 2 we've replaced a player (witch) and went through it with a bard, inquisitor (Desna), sorcerer and alchemist. No problems there either with just the two character deaths. One was due to a questionable player decision for a RE with a young T-rex. The player tried to sneak up on it despite knowledge checks telling him that the creatures were highly perceptive and repeated GM hints he looked at his high stealth roll and pushed his luck. Then he gotten eaten and we used N'kechi to perform an primal ritual that touched on ancient evil magics so the group now has a quest to recover the evil spirits that escaped when they brought back the spirit of the dead PC. The other death happened near the end when the PCs had a half baked plan and got themselves stuck in a corner. The plan was okay, but they hadn't though it fully through and they ended up with a number of BGs around a couple of them with an escape plan for only one character.
My guys aren't optimisers, but do make sure their characters are capable and combat effective. They've had a lot of near death encounters, but overall I'd say its doable without a cleric and/or "tank" PC. Looking at your group's classes I'd say they'll be fine.
Yar!
Sorry, can't always post when I want to...
We're still in book 1 "Souls for Smuggler's Shiv".
They're level 3.
They just got their asses handed to them by Yarzoth in the Temple of Blood.
Only Sasha is Helpful.
They not yet met Aycenia or Pezock.
They've only explored 4 out of 16 wrecked ships (and none of the ones with detailed entries).
They've not yet been to the Silent Isle nor the Abandoned Hut.
So... we're both near the end of book 1, and have about half or a third of book 1 left to do. (ah, the joys of semi-sandbox adventures).
...yup.
Is it fun? Yes. Does it take a fair bit of effort and preparation on my part? Yes. Does it require a healthy combination of flexibility, improve, and rules-fu on my part? Yes. Can it be a disastrous train wreck? Yes. But if you take the time to prepare, and be flexible enough to roll with random changes caused by both player actions and the dice gods, it can be great! (as is the case with most things).
~P
EDIT: fyi, I've flagged this thread to be moved to the Serpent's Skull sub-forum.
Dead man, I think the bard will go controler and will use a wip for tripping. Don't know how the Inquisitor will play.
Lobolusk, the slow item progression will probably be an upgrade for them since in my homebrew, I'm very cheap on treasure and that make them realy care for the little I give them
Todd, TY for the links, I saw you've done the art! I may check for it, but have a huge collection of mini... thousands...
Glutton, in fact I have the map pack and think these pack are a must even if we dont play the AP. For the part 5 and 6 let me know what you think when you go through them, I'll probably wont catch up before that.
BQ, I know what you mean by player ignoring GM hints. My players are spécialist at that, but it generally create fun roleplay, a thing in which they are realy good. It seems when all information available to them tells to go left they always found a good reason, for them, to turn right. Or one player to keep for him the vital information to use eventualy and the party hit something they should have avoided because they don't know... It's why I think that even with the aventure path, I will have much preparation to do..
Oh and just saw that in my OP I said the druid will be human, but he will be Half-orc and may help in melee
Pirate, I may receive the books today and will have an beter idea of the part of the adventure you're talking about. Does the 16 ships are intended to be explored? It's not to repetitive?
We have a group of 6. We are all humans and just hit 3rd level.
Rouge
Witch
Alchemist/Barbarian
Cleric
Fighter
Ranger
Even with having 6 some of the encounters are a little tough since the GM decided to spice things up.
So far we like the AP.
just received the book! Will go with the first read :)
unless you plan to do a lot of tweaking Serpent Skull is probably the WORST AP released by Paizo.
We liked it untill re realized we had wasted months playing an AP that degenerates into suckage.
trust me. book one is OK. book two is weak and every book after gets worse.
they were not well planned out. your either railroaded or given absolutely no direction.
Intelligent players will want to do things that the game has no contingency for.
the encounters tend to be a series of incredibly easy encounters almost boring then a boss battle that leads to TPK if the GM does not gimp it for the players.
trust me when I say its a crap story line. I mean... the second or third book is all about the players getting hired to race to a location before every one else... but guess what? if your not careful your employers beat you there. what was the point of hiring you if they were going to win the race anyway?
the only way to make it really work is to tweak the hell out of it to the point that you may as well have made your own encounter.
if you want a sand box King maker is better. if you want a story line all laid out for you Crimson Throne is very good as is Carrion Crown.
|
|
I'm running it now and having a blast (so are my players, if they're to be believed...)
My group's only "tank" is a cavalier that always seems to be out of blocker position due to ride-by attack. The cleric has stepped up as a "back-up tank" and they've gotten pretty good at battlefield control spells. Not too much trouble honestly.
The rest of the party is ranged and caster heavy and they've been doing really well in some tough combat encounters, so I would expect your group should do fine.
I don't have any of the complaints of blue_the_wolf above.
I think the fun with an Ap will be different from one group to another. And may greatly be influenced by the GM or by the talent of the GM. It is also the case for the player...
I have plan for running the other AP after this one, begining with the reedition of RuneLords, but It will be a story fon another thread.
Yar!
Yes, the individual GM and the group of players you have will ALWAYS HEAVILY influence how good or poor any given adventure is. Some require more work than others. Welcome to the game.
Only a handful of the shipwrecks are actually detailed, the rest are up to you to flesh out, though the AP does give suggested random rolls to determine if they have anything, treasure or monster wise. They are your opportunity to get creative! :D
The main thing with them is, especially for the one's that have details already given to you, is two fold: NPC advancement, and loot.
It's already been said that loot is a rare commodity on the Smuggler's Shiv, and salvaging loot from wreckage's will be a top source of supplies.
NPC advancement will be important too. Each NPC has a side quest that they would like to get done while they are here (if they can be made friendly through interactions, of course). Doing these "side-quests" make the NPC's more helpful, offering to join the group as an extra body, and even sharing insights with the party, ranging from actual insights, to mechanical boons (of the permanent, untyped and stacks with everything kind).
~P
I had time to do some reading and found it interesting so far.
I'm currious how much in-game time it takes your groups to complete the smuggler's shive adventure?
I know that it will vary from one group to another and I don't want to rush it but it may help plan my gaming trip since we are spread over 600km and I'd like to have an idea how many gaming weekends it means.
|
|
I'm currious how much in-game time it takes your groups to complete the smuggler's shive adventure?
I know that it will vary from one group to another and I don't want to rush it but it may help plan my gaming trip since we are spread over 600km and I'd like to have an idea how many gaming weekends it means.
"In game" time or "out of game"? It sounds like you were asking for out of game reasons, but asked about in game length?
Well "in game" the PCs were on Smuggler's Shiv for 19 days before being rescued.
Out of game the players completed book 1 in five, 6 hour sessions.
Hope that helps! :)
EDIT: forgot a session. Five not four.
Thank you Jenner,
Sorry, English is not my first language and I may sometime trip on some subtility.
In fact I was meaning gaming time or out of game!
When we play we start on friday evening and play till death (5-6h in the morning) and resume to play around noon and play till death again. If my players take a good beet we should complete book 1 in about 3 weekend (wich will be separated by months)
I know, those guys are too far and I have another game in my city, but those guys are the best, 18 years of gaming with them and still have real fun. Like old shoes.. :)
Yar!
I've seen mention of this (time to complete) in other threads in this sub-forum, and it varies widely from group to group. Some claim to have finished "the Shiv" part of the adventure in as few as 2 or 3 sessions, while others (my group included) is taking a much longer time (we started playing this AP on January 13th, and have been doing weekly sessions lasting 3-5 hours each since... so 10 sessions so far). In game - for us - it has been about 2 and a half weeks.
So yeah, it really depends on the group.
~P
The length of the adventure will really depend on you more than any other AP other than kingmaker. The amount of time on the island will be determined by how heavy handed you are on the rules for out door survival and if your PC's are the "look under every rock" kind (mine where). I think my game took 6 or 7 sessions to get off the island, maybe even more. We had a party death, a caster level mishap on a scroll of raise dead, and a service to an ancient evil jammed in there as well. Be warned if your party doesn't have a few members with dark vision there is the potential for a wipe in
|
|
Sorry, English is not my first language and I may sometime trip on some subtility.
No problem at all! Your English is much better than my second language (Spanish). I was just trying to clarify the question to make sure I gave the answer you were looking for. That's all. :)
As others have said, you CAN race through book 1 pretty quickly. It depends how much you want to play up the roleplaying with the castaways (and Pezzock too).
Also depends on how hard you want to push the island dangers and the slow exploration. The movement rules over the steep, jungle covered island are pretty harsh and will require frequent camp moves to really get very far. Then on top of that, you're losing a large portion of the day because it's too hot to travel. If you want to speed up the exploration a bit, you could change both of these to allow your party to get further each day (and finish the book faster if you're on a tight timeline).
I'll give you a rough breakdown of our sessions:
#1: character introductions, roleplaying with the castaways, explore along the northern beach.
#2: explore down the east beaches, explore some inland, Brine Demon, move camp down to Brine Demon and Treasure Pit.
#3: explore inland down the game trails, meet Pezzock, move camps to Pezzock's crab, Silent Island.
#4: discover cannibal camp, fight the cannibals, move camp to lighthouse, Caves of the Mother
#5: up Red Mountain, Zura Temple, rescue
Those were the big items we hit in each of our 6 hour sessions to give you a very rough idea how long each part takes. But honestly, we weren't playing very fast. If you're meeting infrequently, you could get through it much faster if needed.
Your breakdown will be usefull, after my first read I may be forced to limit my second reading if I miss time before the game.
My group tend to be slow in combat. If the adventure take longer, it will probably be the cause...
|
|
My group tend to be slow in combat. If the adventure take longer, it will probably be the cause...
If combat is your group's slow point, there's a couple things you could consider doing if you're on a time crunch...
1) Ditch the island random encounters. There's nothing significant story-wise to gain from them (except the chupacabra events)
and/or:
2) Skip many of the small "nest" encounters. There's lots of small shiv dragon, viper and dimorphodon encounters that you can just drop out.
If you do this, just be forewarned:
1) You'll need to give your PCs more xp for the other set encounters. The random encounters and nests are largely what levels the party up for the cannibal camp and Zura Temple later.
And:
2) You'll be missing out on the "ZOMG! EVERYTHING on this island is POISONOUS!" effect that terrified my own PCs. Closely associated with the "ZOMG! I HATE ability damage!" that they were crying by the time they left.
#2 was part of what made Smuggler's Shiv so darn fun and memorable. :)
My group took 7 sessions, but two of those sessions were doubles. They really took to crawling through shipwrecks and I'd recommend reading through the boards for Changing up the shipwrecks thread as it was a great help in mixing things up a bit.
For pacing my advice to GMs is to hold back on the % rolls for diseases if its slowing down the group too much or they're struggling to deal with it. You can have the NPCs contribute by finding jungle herbs that help fight off diseases (gives +2 to save), which will help your group make saves and gives the NPCs a way to contribute.
My players had their PCs rest up when sick, while they played one of the NPCs. Seemed more real that way.
Ok, first session completed(a complete weekend) and the PCs are now on the middle of the island. they are now friendly with all the NPCs except the gnome and have completed the personnal quest of Aerys, Sasha and Jask.
They were lucky since the Dimorphodon came via random encounter and were able to catch it alive.
For now the combats have all gone smootly and the summons of the master summoner have kept monsters away from the PCs. I'm looking foward to put some intelligent monsters against them to have some sort of chalenge.
For Disease, they're on the Island for about 10 days now and nobody have been infected and every body have bad Fort. stat.
I have a PC that try to have a romance with Sasha, for now she realy love her dimorphodon and seems uninterested, don't know if I will change that soon.
So far he players seems to enjoy the adventure