3. Although, as I mention above, the overall look of the books are beautiful the style of the actual artwork still doesn't do it for me. What is with the GIGANTIC sword that guy keeps carrying around? It just looks goofy. Am I the only one that feels this way?
Are you talking about Amiri, the female barbarian? If you read her story, you'd know she's using a frost giant's sword.
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3. Although, as I mention above, the overall look of the books are beautiful the style of the actual artwork still doesn't do it for me. What is with the GIGANTIC sword that guy keeps carrying around? It just looks goofy. Am I the only one that feels this way?
That 'guy' is Amiri, the female iconic Barbarian. Its a Large sized Bastard sword that she took from a frost giant. If you dont like it that's fine- its a pregen character that serves no purpose in the game unless you assign Amiri to one of your players
4. My main concern remains running this AP in the 3.5 rules. After reading parts 1 and 2 I'm still not convinced it will be a seamless affair. I'm still not sure if all the creatures used in the encounters are in any of the 3.5 books and since most encounters just give a page reference to the Bestiary I'm concerned about a lack of stats. I'm sure I can overcome this when I need to but now I am beginning to see magic items that are in the PF core rulebook that are not in the DMG. I think these things are going to snowball by the end of the AP.
Almost everything there is available at D20PFSRD, and any stat blocks that arn't are included in the AP. Although the AP is backwards compatible, it DOES take some tweaking and extra effort to run seamlessly with 3.5 rules. The magic items are also available on the site link I gave you.
5. Has anyone run this AP with parties that are not interested in kingdom building? Anyone use the default kingdom sidebars as suggested for a party not building their own? Curious how this is working out.
I can't speak for running the AP with parties that aren't interested in Kingdom building, but in all honesty thats half the magic of the AP robbed IMO. If your players aren't interested in Kingdom building, I'd personally find another AP they'd like. Lucendar is running Chapter 3 of Kingmaker without any kingdom building elements so he might have a better idea of how it feels so far- Link
6. What is the thanks to China Mieville for in part 2? I'm not familiar with any of his...
No idea, sorry. Maybe before my time being a young 'un by the forums standards...
I would simply run the AP in PF rules rather than 3.5- you wouldn't even need to buy any rulebooks to make it work, you could manage just with the SRD if you had to (I rarely look at any of my rulebooks these days, as most of my games are Play by Post).
I'm having the opposite problem to players not wanting to build a kingdom; my players want to build cities and train their armies and hold church services and make BP. I've had to throw in a few 'person help in the lower greenbelt' moments at them.
Creative Director
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1. Although I have not seen all the APs in print from the ones I have seen KM is the most gorgeous. An especially big difference from RotRL. I'm not an artist so I don't know if it is the art direction or layout or what but the books themselves are visually beautiful and beautifully laid out.
The staff who worked primarily on Pathfinder #1 is the same staff who works on the APs today. What I suspect you're seeing is us (primarily Sarah Robinson, or awesome art director) getting more comfortable at doing our jobs. Although that said, I'm still pretty proud of how Runelords looks, despite some rough bits nailing down the artistic style of a new line of books.
6. What is the thanks to China Mieville for in part 2?
He invented the anglerfish people that appear in this volume's bestiary, as part of his work that he did for us in writing up the River Kingdom of Outsea in "Guide to the River Kingdoms."
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6. What is the thanks to China Mieville for in part 2?He invented the anglerfish people that appear in this volume's bestiary, as part of his work that he did for us in writing up the River Kingdom of Outsea in "Guide to the River Kingdoms."
Speaking of China Meiville, new york times has an article about him, for his latest novel, Kraken.
Hi (sorry if I mess up with your thread, but it's title seemed to welcome questions, so I dared put this post here)
First of all, I must say that I really love the stuff you Paizo-guys do, both the physical products but also all the work on the site and overall communication with fans!
Inspiring in more than one way. Big thanks from Sweden!
Second, I'm curious about how you deal with exploration/travel in the Greenbelt - specifically how long a character can travel, or explore before he or she suffers fom some kind of fatigue? Simply put: when do PC:s get tired and need rest? I'm using the old rules (3,5) but I can't find any rules covering this.
Third – if the PC:s explore one hex, but fail on their perception checks, how do you treat this in actual play? Do you tell the players that they have to spend another day in the hex or do you demand that the players themselves realize that they might have missed something? I guess that could sound something like this: "What, all of this land, totally unoccupied?! No things, no ruins, no monsters, no...nothing! Can't believe it, we'll have to explore this area once again! There has to be something here!"
/Karl Asp, Stockholm/Sweden
Î don't think fatigue is a problem while travelling unless they skip some nights of sleeping. There might be some indications in the weather chapter in the Core Rulebook about fatigue induced by different kinds of temperatures.
Not 100% sure on this but I think the assumption is 8 hours of travel per day on average.
They might only miss hidden objectives. The GM should be the one rolling the perception checks in this case imo. During the adventures, some encounters can reveal the location of said hidden objectives so I'm not sure they will miss out on much unless they are really on the violent side ;)
Thanks Legallytired, for your quick reponse.
Of course, since I'm being a stoopid moron (aaargh! why do I always have to be?!), the D&D 3,5 rules states it quite clearly in the PHB (page 164).
Furthermore I totally agree with you that a GM is supposed, in order to maximize tension, to roll the perc. checks. But, then what? How do your players (I believe you are a GM) understand that they've missed on something? How do you tell them the results from the checks?
I think there are at least some sites that the players might miss due to bad rolls.
But I might be wrong on this... ;)
Thanks again for puttin' me on track!
They shouldn't know they missed out on something since that's hidden!
Unless they are told by someone else later on.. so you can adjust on that I guess. It's just about removing metagaming I guess and it is always possible to move the stuff they missed on the map so they can discover it in another hex.
Yeah, I'm not sure if all the hidden sites are referenced to by NPCs but you can always give out the information using most NPCs if they missed out on something crucial.
If your PCs are prone to interrogate a bit, it shouldn't be an issue.. I know mine are ;)
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Creative Director
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Pages 170–173 of the Core Rulebook cover things like overland movement, exploration, and how long it takes to become fatigued. The short version: we assume 8 hours a day walking/exploring, 8 hours a day sleeping, and 8 hours a day doing things like eating, going to the bathroom, setting up camp, resting, breaking down camp, goofing around, etc.
If in a day a character spends more than 8 hours walking, he has to start making Constitution checks to avoid becoming fatigued.
As for missing areas and encounters, the best way to handle this is to simply tell the PCs "there's nothing of interest in this hex," and move on. If the PCs want to look around some more, that's their call. If there's a cool encounter area that they miss, just look at that as an opportunity for you, the GM. Later on, when they're back in town or talking to a traveler they met on the road or whatever, they can hear a rumor or a clue that tells them that there might be something of interest back in that hex. The PCs can even get exact directions to a hidden site of interest if you wish, in which case they don't need to make a Perception check at all to find the site when they return to that area.
EDIT: Corrected a duplicated set of hours so that it all adds up to 24 hour days.
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4. My main concern remains running this AP in the 3.5 rules. After reading parts 1 and 2 I'm still not convinced it will be a seamless affair. I'm still not sure if all the creatures used in the encounters are in any of the 3.5 books and since most encounters just give a page reference to the Bestiary I'm concerned about a lack of stats. I'm sure I can overcome this when I need to but now I am beginning to see magic items that are in the PF core rulebook that are not in the DMG. I think these things are going to snowball by the end of the AP.
I think with the exception of some CR flux, you can substitute 3.5 versions of known creatures and pretty much ignore any abilities posted in the statblocks that aren't explained there. If it's a new rule from the Pathfinder rule set, ignoring it is the easiest way to be 99% 3.5 compliant. Most characters and monsters will have more hit points than normal and more levels than normal for 3.5 CR, but I would suggest leaving those as they are, especially if your players use a particularly high point buy.
Pages 170–173 of the Core Rulebook cover things like overland movement, exploration, and how long it takes to become fatigued. The short version: we assume 8 hours a day walking/exploring, 8 hours a day sleeping, and 8 hours a day doing things like eating, going to the bathroom, setting up camp, resting, breaking down camp, goofing around, etc. and then 8 hours a day sleeping.
I did not realize that days in Golarion were 32 hours long. 16 hours sleeping seems a little much even for that, though. ;)
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Creative Director
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Pages 170–173 of the Core Rulebook cover things like overland movement, exploration, and how long it takes to become fatigued. The short version: we assume 8 hours a day walking/exploring, 8 hours a day sleeping, and 8 hours a day doing things like eating, going to the bathroom, setting up camp, resting, breaking down camp, goofing around, etc. and then 8 hours a day sleeping.I did not realize that days in Golarion were 32 hours long. 16 hours sleeping seems a little much even for that, though. ;)
They're only 24 hours long. The thing that confused you was that you forgot that in Golarion, 8 counts as a 6 when it comes to hours.
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They're only 24 hours long. The thing that confused you was that you forgot that in Golarion, 8 counts as a 6 when it comes to hours.Pages 170–173 of the Core Rulebook cover things like overland movement, exploration, and how long it takes to become fatigued. The short version: we assume 8 hours a day walking/exploring, 8 hours a day sleeping, and 8 hours a day doing things like eating, going to the bathroom, setting up camp, resting, breaking down camp, goofing around, etc. and then 8 hours a day sleeping.I did not realize that days in Golarion were 32 hours long. 16 hours sleeping seems a little much even for that, though. ;)
Poor James Jacobs...methinks he is so short on sleep lately that he subconsciously inserts an extra 8 hours of sleep into the normal 24 hour cycle.
They're only 24 hours long. The thing that confused you was that you forgot that in Golarion, 8 counts as a 6 when it comes to hours.Pages 170–173 of the Core Rulebook cover things like overland movement, exploration, and how long it takes to become fatigued. The short version: we assume 8 hours a day walking/exploring, 8 hours a day sleeping, and 8 hours a day doing things like eating, going to the bathroom, setting up camp, resting, breaking down camp, goofing around, etc. and then 8 hours a day sleeping.I did not realize that days in Golarion were 32 hours long. 16 hours sleeping seems a little much even for that, though. ;)
I *always* forget that part.
Pages 170–173 of the Core Rulebook cover things like overland movement, exploration, and how long it takes to become fatigued. The short version: we assume 8 hours a day walking/exploring, 8 hours a day sleeping, and 8 hours a day doing things like eating, going to the bathroom, setting up camp, resting, breaking down camp, goofing around, etc.
If in a day a character spends more than 8 hours walking, he has to start making Constitution checks to avoid becoming fatigued.
As for missing areas and encounters, the best way to handle this is to simply tell the PCs "there's nothing of interest in this hex," and move on. If the PCs want to look around some more, that's their call. If there's a cool encounter area that they miss, just look at that as an opportunity for you, the GM. Later on, when they're back in town or talking to a traveler they met on the road or whatever, they can hear a rumor or a clue that tells them that there might be something of interest back in that hex. The PCs can even get exact directions to a hidden site of interest if you wish, in which case they don't need to make a Perception check at all to find the site when they return to that area.
EDIT: Corrected a duplicated set of hours so that it all adds up to 24 hour days.
It took a little time but i realised in the end that once a hex is claimed and settled there should be enough people with enough time on their hands to take 20 and find anything..
Furthermore I totally agree with you that a GM is supposed, in order to maximize tension, to roll the perc. checks. But, then what? How do your players (I believe you are a GM) understand that they've missed on something? How do you tell them the results from the checks?I think there are at least some sites that the players might miss due to bad rolls.
Every group has their own needs. For my group, I simply say "you find nothing." However, if that's not going to work for your group, then here's what I would suggest: come up with a list of 10 or so "dummy" encounters: ie fluff you can read out loud but ultimately has nothing to do with anything. Be it a tree fried by lightning, a cougar caught in a bear trap, mushrooms growing in a circle, a really pretty forest glen, or an abandoned hunting post. There's nothing of interest at these places, and you swap them in whenever the PCs fail their check. That way they always find something, and they can't metagame as much.
Then again, only maps #1 and #2 are dense. Once you get to map #3, you'll notice that there are most empty hexes than there are filled ones, so they'll get used to "nothing here" eventually.
It took a little time but i realised in the end that once a hex is claimed and settled there should be enough people with enough time on their hands to take 20 and find anything..
+1
What he said, if they eventually settle the hex the people that are there will eventually discover the hidden encounter. What could be fun is if they miss a resource and suddenly the locals stake the claim that it's 'mine, all mine!' Suddenly they have to negotiate so they can get the bonus to their economy rolls, or make them wait for three months till all that excess money starts to trickle into the economy and grant them the bonus.On a complete aside, has anyone toyed with the differences between resources directly controlled by the players and resources they let the people of the area develop?