I'm starting a new campaign soon; I've given the players 2-3 sentence descriptions of a handful of APs in broad terms and am allowing them decide what sounds most interesting. It's looking like it will come down to LoF or CotCT.
Beyond what's obvious or in the Player's Guide's (which are an awesome idea and resource), what advice would you give to your players in creating characters for Legacy of Fire?
To give some idea of the kinds of things I mean, these are the kinds of things I might say for Curse of the Crimson Throne:
- Make a character who cares about the fate of the city and (for whatever reason) will want to see it survive/prosper. (I wouldn't force a player to do this, but I think if you make a character that doesn't have this mindset for CotCT, extra parts of the adventure turn railroady or go off the rails.)
- Be aware that this is a mostly urban campaign and that wilderness-specialized characters will have fewer chances to shine.
- I don't recommend making a character who's incapable of being pragmatic about evils/enemies too strong for him to beat. I.e., I have one player whose take on the paladin class is such that if his level 2 paladin was aware of a lich oppressing the city, he'd try to take the lich down immediately even though he'd have 0% chance of winning; that guy probably shouldn't play a paladin in CotCT.
- If I felt charitable, I might add: probably one of the fighterish characters in the group should want to use a sword.
Other than "try to make something that fits the flavor of the setting" I'm not sure yet what I'd say in the same vein for LoF. Suggestions?
One thing I told my players is that there would be long stretches of time that they were not going to be able to have downtime with access to cities or other resources.
The adventure path is called Legacy of Fire. The PCs can expect to encounter fire-related dangers and fire-related enemies prominently at some point.
One (or more) of the melee characters would do well to choose a greataxe as their primary weapon.
Possibly too specific/spoilery: There are ample rewards, both story-wise and treasure-wise, for a scimitar-weilding worshipper of Sarenrae, especially one with a crusading angle.
And definitely emphasize what TerraZephyr said. While there's at least one big shopping trip built into the AP, the PCs will spend significant chunks of the AP without access to cities and the shopping opportunities they provide.
Thanks for the suggestions, both of you. I've just about gotten far enough in my first serious read-through of the AP that I was starting to think the greataxe thing, but it's good to have confirmation that its greataxetasticness wasn't just my imagination.
Possibly too specific/spoilery: There are ample rewards, both story-wise and treasure-wise, for a scimitar-weilding worshipper of Sarenrae, especially one with a crusading angle.
Actually, could you clarify this a bit for me? At this point I've only skimmed parts of the AP still, but while there's clearly a lot going on plot-wise relevant to the faith of Sarenrae, I'm not seeing the mechanical/treasure bits.
It doesn't really matter -- I'm sure if I put out that there's interesting story stuff for that religion at least one of my players will jump on it regardless, but I'm curious what I'm missing.
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Possibly too specific/spoilery: There are ample rewards, both story-wise and treasure-wise, for a scimitar-weilding worshipper of Sarenrae, especially one with a crusading angle.
Actually, could you clarify this a bit for me? At this point I've only skimmed parts of the AP still, but while there's clearly a lot going on plot-wise relevant to the faith of Sarenrae, I'm not seeing the mechanical/treasure bits.
It doesn't really matter -- I'm sure if I put out that there's interesting story stuff for that religion at least one of my players will jump on it regardless, but I'm curious what I'm missing.
The campaign revolves (loosely) around rovagug (or one of his spawn anyway) and rov and sarenrae are (im)mortal enemies. so between the clearing the dawnflower monastery and temple in the first adventure and killing a bunch of rovagug worshipers in the second and 6th, its not too bad a campaign for followers of the dawnflower. (not to mention the ability for a character to be possessed by the spirit of a saint of sarenrae... and use his weapon)
Its been awhile since I read through the later adventures, but I'm sure there are scimitars in the campaign somewhere.
Possibly too specific/spoilery: There are ample rewards, both story-wise and treasure-wise, for a scimitar-weilding worshipper of Sarenrae, especially one with a crusading angle.
Actually, could you clarify this a bit for me? At this point I've only skimmed parts of the AP still, but while there's clearly a lot going on plot-wise relevant to the faith of Sarenrae, I'm not seeing the mechanical/treasure bits.
It doesn't really matter -- I'm sure if I put out that there's interesting story stuff for that religion at least one of my players will jump on it regardless, but I'm curious what I'm missing.
A paladin could get a Cha-enhancing item as early as Howl of the Carrion King (from among the confiscated equipment of the Lions of Senara) or wait until The Jackal's Price (from Maysam Fajr). Then there's Zayifid's scimitar, +2 full plate from Khair al-Din and a Str-enhancing item from Father Jackal in The Jackal's Price.
The campaign revolves (loosely) around rovagug (or one of his spawn anyway) and rov and sarenrae are (im)mortal enemies. so between the clearing the dawnflower monastery and temple in the first adventure and killing a bunch of rovagug worshipers in the second and 6th, its not too bad a campaign for followers of the dawnflower.
Depending how much attention you are going to pay to the environment as a GM, a desert based ranger, or similar survivalist can be useful - maybe a barbarian. There are several possible sojourns into hostile environments, and if you are filling in the travelling with storms, desert heat, side treks and the like it can be a real problem for a group that isn't prepared or has zip wilderness capabilities.
Desert based cleric - and Sarenrae is the real obvious choice given the amount of hooks in the AP for her - is also pretty much required imo - the hostile environment and being in the boondocks for quite a while makes self reliance more important than otherwise needed.
A character with background in outsider knowledge / summoning / yada is also obviously helpful and can provide nice hooks for a GM to spin into the group - a desert / nomad bard could be a very nice soft skills driver given the whole story telling feel of the AP, as well as providing those useful clues from the scattered bits of lore discovered in the locations.
Sensible paladins can also shine, quite a bit of core evil smiting to do...