I bounced around about what I was going to run next and, after some careful consideration, I have decided to run Rise of the Runelords. I've been a little intimidated by this AP for some reason I can't really identify, I ran Shackled City with fantastic results.
So, I'd appreciate some advice from folks that have run this AP so I can know what to expect. I searched for other threads that were along similar veins, but I couldn't find anything specific. I've read through the adventures and have scoured the boards for advice and such, but any potential hazards, plot holes, suggestions etc. would be greatly appreciated.
Here are some of the problems I have seen mentioned and how I plan on addressing them. I have seen some warnings of potential TPK moments and a general steep difficulty in the AP. To combat this I plan on allowing gestalt characters. I did this in Shackled City and it worked quite well. In addition my party will only be 3 PCs so this should help balance the party. I have also seen advice to foreshadow Foxglove and Ironbriar sooner so I will be doing just this, allowing the PCs to interact extensively with them early on.
Some problems I see and would like some advice on include the following. I don't like the fact that the game leaves Sandpoint for so long. I plan on moving the entire Magnimar section to Sandpoint, perhaps redesigning the city a bit to make it larger. I run in a homebrew world so redesign isn't an issue. Also the entirety of Chapter 3 will be placed considerably closer to Sandpoint, perhaps even replacing Turtleback Ferry with Sandpoint.
Perhaps I am not reading it correctly, but Chapter 4 slightly confuses me. The way it looks to me is that the campaign has a deep horror theme and then suddenly drops it in favor of a massive dungeon crawl with some giants. The theme and tone seems to shift suddenly. After that there is what looks like another massive dungeon crawl in Chapter 5. I'm not in favor of big dungeon crawls so any advice on combating this issue would be fantastic. I'm thinking of removing the entire Jorgenfist fortress but keeping the battle of Sandpoint, and just placing another chapter in the AP. Suggestions from Dungeon Magazine? The Styes perhaps?
So, big changes include gestalt characters and placing everything closer to Sandpoint to maintain focus. Any advice folks could give me would be great.
1) Be sure to form a close bond between lots of the NPC's in Sandpoint and the PC's. Give them personality and make them come alive, and it comes easier. Make them become a part of the town. Even have some of them keep in touch or ask about them whenever they're away. This way when the hammer comes down on Sandpoint (At various points), it affects the PC's on a personal level.
2) Play up the Sczarneti. The entire path paints a great picture of these snooty, conservative potential-thorns-in-the-PC's-side, and then overlooks them.
3) Make the PC's remember Aldern Foxglove, and make him memorable. Whether as a love interest, eccentric noble, or slightly desperate adventure seeker. Develop a relationship with the PC's with him.
4) If given the opportunity, see if you can get the party to "arrest" rather than kill the humans on Thistletop (Lyria, Nualia, Tsuto, etc.). This makes for GREAT story potential and opportunities in book 2. (In my campaign, Lyria was pinned with all of Nualia's crimes as a scapegoat, citing her as the true mastermind and magically coerced Tsuto and Nualia against their will, and was sentenced to death while the others walked free to cause more havok...)
5) I'm not sure it's necessary to move/combine Magnimar and Sandpoint. Magnimar is only a days travel (half on horseback) and it never felt like it was out of the way for us. Having them separate also gave a chance to flesh out the polar opposites of the two cities... Sandpoint being smaller, hometown-feeling, and friendly, where the PC's are on a first name basis with even the mayor, and Magnimar, the red-tape, corruption laden, greed and excess sprawl with a repulsive (but jolly) mayor that is a politician in every sense of the word.
6) Move Turtleback Ferry/Rannick Keep closer, or just substitute Turtleback Ferry with Sandpoint. If you do this, make sure you drop information about the fort and gambling hall in book one, so it feels like it was part of everything all along.
7) Get rid of the Nymph affair in Hook Mountain Massacre. It's just silly, destroys the mood, is completely unnecessary and derails the campaign.
8) Give the PC's plenty of downtime whenever you can. It's possible for a year to have passed between Book 1 and Book 4. It's definitely not a rush campaign, it's a sort of deep, slow mystery.
Regarding Book 4 and the "deep horror theme"... I think you're only half right. Each book has a distinct and different flavor, and the overall feel of the entire path is one more of mystery than horror. Book 2 is the most horror you're going to get. Book 1 starts light-hearted but turns serious. Book 3 is more of "The Hills Have Eyes" grit and gore. Book 4 is kind of the grand unveiling, it's the first glimpse the PC's get at what's going on. It gives them the Thassalonian library and a hint at the bigger picture. To skip it and go straight on into book 5 is doable, but I feel it would deprive the PC's of a bit of the build up and suspense of a bigger, unseen force controlling the strings. Instead of discovering a secret army building up and taking them out, and learning of the bigger plot, you'd just be pointing at Karzoug after the attack on fort Rannick and go "He did it, go get him.". Less dramatic.
Hope that helps.
1) Be sure to form a close bond between lots of the NPC's in Sandpoint and the PC's. Give them personality and make them come alive, and it comes easier. Make them become a part of the town. Even have some of them keep in touch or ask about them whenever they're away. This way when the hammer comes down on Sandpoint (At various points), it affects the PC's on a personal level.
Actually, if you have the Advanced Player's Guide, it has some great "Sandpoint" specific traits that work pretty much as is, to help tie the heroes into the town.
Regarding Book 4 and the "deep horror theme"... I think you're only half right. Each book has a distinct and different flavor, and the overall feel of the entire path is one more of mystery than horror. Book 2 is the most horror you're going to get. Book 1 starts light-hearted but turns serious. Book 3 is more of "The Hills Have Eyes" grit and gore. Book 4 is kind of the grand unveiling, it's the first glimpse the PC's get at what's going on. It gives them the Thassalonian library and a hint at the bigger picture. To skip it and go straight on into book 5 is doable, but I feel it would deprive the PC's of a bit of the build up and suspense of a bigger, unseen force controlling the strings. Instead of discovering a secret army building up and taking them out, and learning of the bigger plot, you'd just be pointing at Karzoug after the attack on fort Rannick and go "He did it, go get him.". Less dramatic.
If you want to reduce the amounts of dungeon crawling, I would suggest getting rid of almost the entirety of Book 5. The Transmuter Bane weapons, while helpful, are not really essential to the completion of the adventure.
That said, replacing those two levels is somewhat challenging, as I don't know of many adventures for Lvl 13 characters that aren't dungeon crawls.
Perhaps "deep horror theme" is not really an accurate term. There is a distinct tone of weirdness and the macabre though each author seems to handle it differently. In my read through that theme seemed to be lacking in Chapter 4. I was thinking in dropping Jorgenfist and putting the giant leader, as the climax of the battle. Last night I got the idea of decoupling the dungeon in Chapter 5, making it seven smaller locations, tied together some other way.
Thank you so much for all the suggestions. Ideas for foreshadowing and tying everything together are always helpful. That was exactly what I was looking for.
As far as the merging Sandpoint and Turtleback Ferry, I will definitely be doing this. Merging Sandpoint and Magnimar, however, I'm still not sure about that. I may, giving the party some political intrigue to combat, ala Shackled City. Keeping the campaign tightly focused around the city in that AP was a great device and I'd like to recreate that theme.
I will likely drop the nymph storyline because my party has a bad habit of running off on tangents when given red herrings. I'll be sure to drop hints about Fort Rennick early on. I already planned on including stories of degenerate ogres in the hills.
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I would definitely recommend keeping Sandpoint and Magnimar separate, since the most impressive and memorable encounter in the game occurs in Magnimar, with a location that is unique to that city. If you move this to Sandpoint, the location will stand out and probably be investigated by the players much earlier than you would like. It also helps to emphasize the "hometown" feel of Sandpoint, to have Magnimar as a larger, colder place, where you are "just another mook" so to speak.
I also wanted this Adventure Path to show the players what the world of Golarion, specifically Varisia was about, with the idea that after we run a few of them in different parts of the world, I can say "Well, he's Varisian" about an NPC and they know exactly what that character is like. So I added in some side encounters with things like wandering Varisian families, had a few czarni vs regular varisian arguments, Hellknights put in an appearance, etc, so that they could get a good feel for what this part of the world is like. Really not necessary, but it seems to have added to the immersion factor a fair bit.
I also ran my group through the "Late Unpleasantness" as children in town witnessing the events or living through them. This made them closer to the townsfolk, and also more protective, since they got to experience what its like to be helpless vs a powerful enemy and not be able to do anything to stop them.
The problem I'm running into is something inherent in my homebrew world. The world suffered a cataclysmic war a few hundred years ago that laid waste to the empires that once flourished. Now a dark age has descended upon the world and there is a kind of steampunk/post-apocalyptic feel going on. I kind of took the 4E 'points of light' concept to an extreme where what few settlements there are exist as walled enclaves, keeping back the chaos and destruction of the world at large. Outside the walls of the enclaves barbarism rules the day.
Because of this I am trying to limit the number of 'civilized' locations. I can't have too many enclaves without the world seeming more populated and civilized than it should be. However, I don't want to include a large city like Magnimar unless it is a series of smaller settlements existing inside a larger, bombed out metropolis, which is another idea I'm considering.
I want to keep the gritty survival theme going on along with other common PA themes like wandering barbarians, rampant insanity, lone bands of heroes struggling to prevent the final collapse of society, etc. Rise of the Runelords offers lots of opportunity to play into the tone and mood of the world with minimal conversion and I'm really digging it for that reason. The only real sticking point is this Sandpoint/Magnimar issue.
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Having played through books 1-2, and ran book 1, I can offer the following.
1. Take your time in Sandpoint. It's a small town, and should feel like it. Burnt Offerings has extensive files on the citizens of Sandpoint. Play with all the characters, and their interactions with each other. Give the PCs time to see this place as their new home.
2. Do NOT separate Sandpoint and Magnimar. They make really nice contradictions, as the small podunk down vs the bustling metropolis.
3. Give the PCs downtime between books to unwind, resupply, spend their money, pursue interests with NPCs. If you keep throwing emergencies at them, it will make them feel overwhelmed, and will unintentionally remove the "reality" of the situation.
4. Have fun with it. If you don't like something about the story/characters, don't be afraid to muck with it. The best thing about RotRL is the fact that it swaps around from being a dungeon crawl to a horror movie to a full-on war. It gives each kind of PC time to shine.
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My party will face off against the BBEG in Xin Shalast next Saturday and it has been a very fun campaign for us. Before I started RoTR, I got a great overview of the AP from a friend of mine who had already taken his group through it. Most everything he suggested held true, and, if I were doing it again, I would probably do the same things again only more so.
The adventure hooks between books are not very compelling. Drop hints early, way early, to help the whole AP feel more like a flowing story.
I moved Turtleback Ferry and the fort much closer to Sandpoint - I replaced Wartle on the map of Varisia. Far enough to require travel, but not crazy far. It also made it easier when the PCs have to travel quickly between the two.
Magnimar is a cool place, distinct from Sandpoint - I recommend you keep them separate. It is a fairly quick ride between them and there are some cool RP possibilities there, depending on how your party interacts with the villains from the first 2 books.
Help your PCs care more about Sandpoint. It is a well-written location with lots of possibilities, but at mid-high levels the PCs won't have much non-story reason to go there (can't buy or sell much treasure). A natural connection helps it seem less forced.
Book 5 is fun to run & play, but extra-challenging to connect to the storyline. It feels out of place and its promise of power is not delivered on in book 6. I recommend keeping it, but probably with heavy story modifications. I gave my PCs some extra much-anticipated goodies within the halls of Runeforge.
TPKs can be a real issue. I didn't pull my punches and have, as a result, killed off at least one character per player (with one, cowardly exception). With an already tenuous through-line and limited access to healing magic, I have a entirely different group completing the story than the group that started it and that also stretches player investment.
Skip the stuff you don't like, there is plenty of great material you can expand to fill the void. Also, expect your PCs to waltz right past many of the well-written encounters in books 4-6. My party went right to Jorgenfist and never dealt with the encampment or anything above ground. They also tried to fly past the dwarves' cabin in book 6 and have had minimal interactions within Xin Shalast itself. Once Teleport and Overland Flight are in play, you will need to give them a compelling reason to deal with some of the encounters.
Lastly, your players might show a real interest in developing Ft Rannick after book 3, but the AP itself provides no mechanics or plan for it (check out Kingmaker for some simple city building rules). Either plan ahead and offer up a way for them to turn the keep into something useful, or take it off their hands once they are successful and reward them in a different way. This element has turned out to be a major distraction for half of my PCs and a major waste of time for the other half.
Buckle up, RotR is a fun, but wild, ride.
I'm putting together a player's guide right now for the game and, despite everyone's advice, I will be merging all of the towns into one small city. I plan on playing up the isolated heroes feeling and with a single location to operate in this should keep that. I tend to gloss over the purchasing rules for community size, playing it kind of loose, so as long as I make it a small city I can add enough corruption and intrigue to keep it interesting but make the city small enough that the characters can become local heroes. I had such success with this aspect of Shackled City I would like to recreate that. My players kind of expect a central location now as well, and got a little off track when I jumped them around in the last campaign. I jumped them from small town at low level to a city for mid level and then Sigil for high level and they kept saying they liked staying in and around one city the whole time.
I plan on expanding this to 20 levels with the addition of The Styes between chapter 3 and 4 and expanding on the whole fae storyline in chapter 3. That story seems so stunted the way its written and really begs for more. I'm running with a heavy Lovecraftian feel to the campaign with a strong fae vs aberration thing going on too so that bit seems the perfect place to expand that theme. The Styes allows me to take the story out over the water for a bit too.
I won't be awarding experience points because I feel this encourages more role playing and less combat for combat's sake. Instead I just award levels at story appropriate moments and use the craft point rules from Unearthed Arcana as well as use a gp cost/slot system for permanency similar to magic items. So even though the XP awards don't add up to 20 levels I can smooth it out so it works. I'll have to scale up a little bit in the latter half, but probably not too much from the lethality I've been hearing about.
I want to decouple that chapters a bit so it feels like smaller stories that combine into a cohesive whole. This will allow downtime between chapters so the party can pursue personal agendas and follow up on their own ideas and stories. I will still be laying heavy hooks early on so the whole plot is more cohesive but I won't be forcing it, with the possible exception of chapters 4-6, where the pace seems to pick up some.
This campaign looks like it will be an awesome and wild ride indeed and I can't wait to run it!