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the advancment track side bar states that
"By the time they are ready to explore the interior of Smuggler’s Shiv and confront the Thrunefang cannibals, the PCs should be 2nd level."
well.
the APs assume the middle XP advancment, so it will require 2000 XP for each PC to level. the PCs already fought through the crew of a haunted ship, slain a dozen diffrent wildlife beasts and even chanced upon a couple of random encounters. they have 800 XP each. I am stretching the first part of the adventure as much as I can without overkilling the pacing of the adventure, but this simply dosent seem enough, since one of the players decided that charting the mountains at the other side of the shiv should be a priority and the party agreed to tag along with him so they are now making full speed to the interior of the islend. I fear that very soon my poor PCs will be overwhelmed, as evrey single encounter is CR 2 or 3 or even more where they are going.
should I simply use the fast advancmet track? because I sure dont see where could I squeeze enough encounters to level the PCs up quick enough...
My PCs explored a lot of the coast first and did most of the NPC's special missions before they really got into the interior and met up with the cannibals. By doing all that they got to 2nd level just before they got the the cannibal camp. They didn't have to fight to many wandering monsters but they did a few, but the pacing worked out fine. Also keep in mind that a 1st level party of 4 or more can handle a two maybe three (depending on what stats they have) on CR2/3 encounters a day without too much trouble. If your really worried they can't handle it then you could have the some of the NPCs they have made friends with go with them.
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the advancment track side bar states that
"By the time they are ready to explore the interior of Smuggler’s Shiv and confront the Thrunefang cannibals, the PCs should be 2nd level."
well.
the APs assume the middle XP advancment, so it will require 2000 XP for each PC to level. the PCs already fought through the crew of a haunted ship, slain a dozen diffrent wildlife beasts and even chanced upon a couple of random encounters. they have 800 XP each. I am stretching the first part of the adventure as much as I can without overkilling the pacing of the adventure, but this simply dosent seem enough, since one of the players decided that charting the mountains at the other side of the shiv should be a priority and the party agreed to tag along with him so they are now making full speed to the interior of the islend. I fear that very soon my poor PCs will be overwhelmed, as evrey single encounter is CR 2 or 3 or even more where they are going.
should I simply use the fast advancmet track? because I sure dont see where could I squeeze enough encounters to level the PCs up quick enough...
How many PCs are in your group?
Did you include the XP for boosting the morale of the other castaways? As I calculate it that would be 500XP for making them friendly, 1000XP for making them all helpful. Also, I would consider offering XP for setting up a successful camp.
Creative Director
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Yeah; don't forget that you get additional XP for making the castaways friendlier (see page 58). That right there is a possibility of 1,500 XP.
You can also award 400 XP each time the PCs complete a castaway's quest if you like. The adventure assumes that the boon they grant is award enough, but I think adding in some XP for finishing those quests is not a bad idea.
And don't forget the fact that the PCs will likely be encountering a LOT of wandering monsters on the island. And all of the traps on the main trail too; the PCs get XP for each of those they encounter and survive.
There's also a LOT of monster lairs (area C) and shipwrecks (area D) that can contain additional XP awards in the form of monsters to fight.
And some of the encounters, particularly the one with Pezock, can be "resolved" without combat. The PCs should gain XP for these as if they defeated their foes in combat, so making friends with Pezock is worth 600 XP. Making friends with Ekubus is worth 800.
And there's some story awards in there too, such as by helping Aycenia with her problem.
THAT SAID... The adventure is VERY open ended. The PCs can certainly beeline for the Thrunefang camp, and that can easilly put them in over their head against the cannibals when they're still 1st level. The key for this adventure is to not rush things, after all!
(And yes, we assume 4 players. If you have 5 players, they'll need to hit more wandering monsters!)
I still, however, am looking for a non-railroad way to stop them from rushing to the mountains and getting their ass sucked by the red mountian devil...
Let them go. Two things can happen: They manage to overcome the encounter and feel like heroes, or they get a nice whuppin' and realize that this island actually is dangerous.
Hopefully they are sensible enough to retreat in time if the whuppin' seems imminent, but if not you won't be doing your players (or yourself) any favors by pulling punches.
I still, however, am looking for a non-railroad way to stop them from rushing to the mountains and getting their ass sucked by the red mountian devil...
So trial by error is out? ;)
Haha, my group is the exact opposite. We've explored the top part of the "hook" of the island-- where you land all the way to the west to the end of the peninsula and then all the way down until you reach the river. It's taken us a week of exploration and we've got 1600xp as a 5 person group. We might be level 4 or 5 before we even leave Smuggler's Shiv if we keep this constant exploration up, though, CR 1/3 monsters can only support you so long.
I would just hit them with CR 2 or 3 creatures if they wander into them. There's also the fact that they're leaving the NPCs and running to the other side of the island, which could honestly take days. Each inch of the map is two hour's travel, so by my count it will take them about 40 hours to walk to the Red Mountain, counting roads and such.
What time do they go to sleep? What time do they wake up? Our group moves out at 4am and rests at 8pm, so that's about 12 hours per day of travel. It'll only take them 4 days to reach Red Mountain, but:
- none of the random encounters that attack their camp are pre-dealt damage.
- they have the full 20% chance to contract disease
- random encounters are at full 15% chance
Random monsters attack at night, too. If anyone's a prepared caster this could ruin the next day for them. Any failed DC15-17 fort saves during 12am-3pm does 1d4 nonlethal and fatigues, and if they don't have someone able to heal, that 1d4 could knock a character out. 1d4 nonlethal after a battle could render someone unconcious.
Just hit them in the fact full force with what they want. They asked for it.
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Creative Director
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oops. yeah. the story awards for befriending NPCS. forgot all about them, which means the PCs probably deserve considarbly more XP.
I still, however, am looking for a non-railroad way to stop them from rushing to the mountains and getting their ass sucked by the red mountian devil...
Have the dryad show up to hire them to deal with Silent Island. Move her tree to wherever the PCs are if you need to.
OR: get them to check out the caves under the cannibal home somehow—there's a fair amount of XP down there waiting to be harvested.
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Creative Director
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Haha, my group is the exact opposite. We've explored the top part of the "hook" of the island-- where you land all the way to the west to the end of the peninsula and then all the way down until you reach the river. It's taken us a week of exploration and we've got 1600xp as a 5 person group. We might be level 4 or 5 before we even leave Smuggler's Shiv if we keep this constant exploration up, though, CR 1/3 monsters can only support you so long.
Reaching level 5 on the Shiv is certainly possible, especially if the PCs are really enjoying the exploration element.
In my own group, they've just defeated the cannibals and are 3rd level, with a group of 5. They spent a fair amount of time helping NPCs solve quests and exploring the north half of the island, have done the ghoul caves, and are about to head up to check out Silent Island. I fully expect them to hit 4th level before the get to the last dungeon.
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Creative Director
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I am running CoT with 6 players. Because I have so many I have to add monsters to encounters, increase story XP and treasure so everyone will advance the same rate. If you have this many players you may have to do the same.
OR: Just use the fact XP track. Once you have 6 or 7 PCs, using the fast XP track more or less puts things on a similar rate as the Medium track with 4. (And yes: That's a dare for some math-wiz to pop into this thread and prove me wrong!)
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oops. yeah. the story awards for befriending NPCS. forgot all about them, which means the PCs probably deserve considarbly more XP.
I still, however, am looking for a non-railroad way to stop them from rushing to the mountains and getting their ass sucked by the red mountian devil...
One of the "problems" with the 3.x rules system is this weird expectation of players that they should be able to defeat ANYTHING the GM throws at them. After all the game is balanced so the PCs always win, right?
I, for one, think that has been a poor legacy of the system. In older versions I remember a lot of running away to come back and fight another day.
As GM I would place "hints" along the way that they are moving into DANGEROUS territory. Then let the players make the choice. Go ahead, blind and stupid or actually try and scout ahead and figure out what they are facing.
In older versions I remember spending a lot of time trying to figure out what it was we were about to face. About half the time we got it wrong! And usually we learned the hard way we were in over our heads. So we ran away.
For some reason in the 3.x system I hardly ever find a party that actually wants to scout ahead or do some research. In many ways why should they? No matter what they do, the game is balanced so they always win, right? Rush in blind is just as good as doing research.
I would hold back my punches and try to NOT kill them. Unless they were too dumb to run away. Then perhaps a PC has to die for them to actually THINK.
The key of course, is to leave signs for them to learn from. Don't hit them blind. If a PC dies and they get upset, the GM simply has to ask, "What were you guys thinking? Did you NOT see the half dozen warning signs I threw at your feet?"
The game is supposed to be fun, but part of being fun is not having a guarantee of victory no matter what.
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oops. yeah. the story awards for befriending NPCS. forgot all about them, which means the PCs probably deserve considarbly more XP.
I still, however, am looking for a non-railroad way to stop them from rushing to the mountains and getting their ass sucked by the red mountian devil...
One of the "problems" with the 3.x rules system is this weird expectation of players that they should be able to defeat ANYTHING the GM throws at them. After all the game is balanced so the PCs always win, right?
I, for one, think that has been a poor legacy of the system. In older versions I remember a lot of running away to come back and fight another day.
As GM I would place "hints" along the way that they are moving into DANGEROUS territory. Then let the players make the choice. Go ahead, blind and stupid or actually try and scout ahead and figure out what they are facing.
In older versions I remember spending a lot of time trying to figure out what it was we were about to face. About half the time we got it wrong! And usually we learned the hard way we were in over our heads. So we ran away.
For some reason in the 3.x system I hardly ever find a party that actually wants to scout ahead or do some research. In many ways why should they? No matter what they do, the game is balanced so they always win, right? Rush in blind is just as good as doing research.
I would hold back my punches and try to NOT kill them. Unless they were too dumb to run away. Then perhaps a PC has to die for them to actually THINK.
The key of course, is to leave signs for them to learn from. Don't hit them blind. If a PC dies and they get upset, the GM simply has to ask, "What were you guys thinking? Did you NOT see the half dozen warning signs I threw at your feet?"
The game is supposed to be fun, but part of being fun is not having a guarantee of victory no matter what.
Hey, normally I couldn't agree more. I am now running Savage Tide to a second party of players, and THEY have learned fear after loosing 6 (!) PCs in the first two modules. I play them hard and keep them on their toes with encounters that present challenges always great enough to require thinking, and even though the campaign never got easier, they are now more capable of handling things - for example, in SWW (the 3rd module), as they explored that impossible-to-spell-its-name ruin with the bat idol, I had the gnome who requested them to go there not be sure of the type of guardian the ruins had (originally he knew it to be a basilisk). he told them it was either a basilisk or a dragon, so they took extra care to prepare a combat with either. that worked out well for them, as it turned out to be both - a dracolisk, which is what confused the gnome from the first place.
BUT... there is nothing interesting in throwing a 5th CR beast at your PCs, even if they had fair warning. the guy has 3 attacks per round, each capable of knocking a 1st level PC straight into the dying condition. one of them will be dead before they even know what hit 'em. that aside, the party is a bit of a soft one, consisting of a ranger, and a melee focused dragon-blooded sorcerer, a paladin and a bard. not a lot of healing or nuking there, which truly makes things hard. I already came suspiciously close to TPKing them with a haunted ship (4 zombies) encounter.
I think I might very well use Mr Jacbos idea of sending them scurrying to the silent islend. it is one of the easier, lighter places on the Shiv where a 1st level group could scourage some XP and make it to 2nd level.
I am running CoT with 6 players. Because I have so many I have to add monsters to encounters, increase story XP and treasure so everyone will advance the same rate. If you have this many players you may have to do the same.OR: Just use the fact XP track. Once you have 6 or 7 PCs, using the fast XP track more or less puts things on a similar rate as the Medium track with 4. (And yes: That's a dare for some math-wiz to pop into this thread and prove me wrong!)
6 PCs on the Fast track should advance just a tad faster than 4 PCs on the Medium track. 8000 total experience is enough to advance 4 PCs to 2000 xp each, while also being enough to advance 6.15 PCs to 1300 xp each.
Haha, my group is the exact opposite. We've explored the top part of the "hook" of the island-- where you land all the way to the west to the end of the peninsula and then all the way down until you reach the river. It's taken us a week of exploration and we've got 1600xp as a 5 person group. We might be level 4 or 5 before we even leave Smuggler's Shiv if we keep this constant exploration up, though, CR 1/3 monsters can only support you so long.
I would just hit them with CR 2 or 3 creatures if they wander into them. There's also the fact that they're leaving the NPCs and running to the other side of the island, which could honestly take days. Each inch of the map is two hour's travel, so by my count it will take them about 40 hours to walk to the Red Mountain, counting roads and such.
What time do they go to sleep? What time do they wake up? Our group moves out at 4am and rests at 8pm, so that's about 12 hours per day of travel. It'll only take them 4 days to reach Red Mountain, but:
- none of the random encounters that attack their camp are pre-dealt damage.
- they have the full 20% chance to contract disease
- random encounters are at full 15% chanceRandom monsters attack at night, too. If anyone's a prepared caster this could ruin the next day for them. Any failed DC15-17 fort saves during 12am-3pm does 1d4 nonlethal and fatigues, and if they don't have someone able to heal, that 1d4 could knock a character out. 1d4 nonlethal after a battle could render someone unconcious.
Just hit them in the fact full force with what they want. They asked for it.
>:| You can't be in this forum!
>:| You can't be in this forum!
I buy the books, I make the rules!
Fine.
Haha, my group is the exact opposite. We've explored the top part of the "hook" of the island-- where you land all the way to the west to the end of the peninsula and then all the way down until you reach the river. It's taken us a week of exploration and we've got 1600xp as a 5 person group. We might be level 4 or 5 before we even leave Smuggler's Shiv if we keep this constant exploration up, though, CR 1/3 monsters can only support you so long.Reaching level 5 on the Shiv is certainly possible, especially if the PCs are really enjoying the exploration element.
In my own group, they've just defeated the cannibals and are 3rd level, with a group of 5. They spent a fair amount of time helping NPCs solve quests and exploring the north half of the island, have done the ghoul caves, and are about to head up to check out Silent Island. I fully expect them to hit 4th level before the get to the last dungeon.
My Serpents Skull PbP on this forum is nearing the end of the first chapter, they are in the Azlant Temple. Upon reading the advancement track-
Characters should be 1st level when they begin “Souls for Smuggler’s Shiv.” By the time they are ready to explore the interior of Smuggler’s Shiv and confront the Thrunefang cannibals, the PCs should be 2nd level. They should be 3rd level when they are preparing to enter the Azlanti temple, and should finish the adventure at 4th level.
Originally I took this to mean they should only really hit 4th level upon completion of the chapter, but is it meant to be read as its expected for them to level during the temple? My players have the XP for 4th level but i've been holding them back atm.
The way I read it is that the final fight should push the PCs over the 4th level threshold but in a wildlife exploration adventure such as this it is near impossible to give reliable milestones, with all the random beasties and missed XP opportunities around.
I'd let them level up when they have enough xp and should the last fight prove to easy for a decent finale bump up the BBEGirl's stats for the second act of it to challenge the PCs appropriately.
My guys hit the temple at 4th level and it wasn't a problem. You can suck out some of their resources early before the big confrontation. Throw in a bit of intelligent play and its quiet a challenge for five 4th level PCs.
I found that it was about right, in fact. I awarded XP for the NPC missions, for the occasional wandering monster.
Oh - that's right. We are using the "level up quickly" table. Yeah - that makes a difference.
Player point of view here:
It's okay if the GM says "there are things around here too hard for the PCs, they just have to watch out!"
But the GM should NOT combine that with "why don't you guys get with it and do the adventure I intended you to do?" If the players have to make a careful decision about whether something is in their reach or not, sometimes they will decide not to do the intended adventure. It is, in my opinion, extremely unfair to give them grief over this--that amounts to a demand that the players read the GM's mind to know when they "should" push on into a threatening situation and when they shouldn't.
My understanding is that later parts of Serpent are rather railroady. You might want to think about whether a precedent of "don't do anything until you feel prepared for it" is going to work with those modules. If it is, go for it (you should probably warn your players if this is a change in your play style). But if you are going to need the players to push their PCs into highly dangerous situations later on in order for the modules to work, don't set the opposite precedent in #1.
Player point of view here:
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I talked to my group about this, and we included adventure 4 within adventure 3 (I won't say how, that might spoil it). This leads to the possibility of getting into extremely difficult fights early on. We went with it, and it has been great fun. So far, we have had one death and one TPK during this adventure. The death was from a normal encounter at the start of adventure 3 so it was "by the book", the second because my players flat-out refused to take my hints about them walking into a dangerous encounter.
But I think the "style" used in adventure 1 will fit neatly with adventures 3,4 and 5. It's also a welcome break from the usual "we're fully rested and buffed, we should be able to handle any encounter since it's appropriate for our lvl"-mentality that comes from playing a normal railroad adventure.
For spoilers:
The Gray Nisps in the Flooded Vault (C3) are RIDICULOUS. 3x Hold Monster at will is guaranteed TPK unless the party has Freedom of Movement.
I asked "don't you guys think Freedom of Movement might be a good idea in here? It's underwater, wouldn't that spell just make things a lot easier?
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I'd GM'ing a group of 3. They've covered every inch of the entire northeast/east of the Shiv and are just over halfway to 3rd level. They've had some VERY close calls in encounters but have mostly done pretty well. They've completed everyone's quests but two (they're split about going back for what one wants. One player compared it to giving a little girl a pony, a poisonous pony). I didn't give them any XP for making the NPC's friendly and only 100XP for completing a quest. They're doing fine, I think.