Complete at last!

[Ryzoken]

On Oct 31st, 2010 my PF group finished our first AP: Legacy of Fire.
Our game lasted 16 sessions comprised of roughly 5 hours per session on a roughly biweekly schedule (some adjustments occurred due to scheduling snafu's and once we were unable to play for the better part of a month and a half). We had 6 players, with one drop, resulting in 5 players at terminus. The characters ended up at 14th level using the fast progression chart with a number of combats towards the end skipped.

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The cast (original party characters marked with asterisk):
Cyprian Mazarin*: LG human priest of Sarenrae. Ended up a Mystic Theurge. Only character to not die in the course of play. Strong ties to Aldriana, Kyoll, and Tessara.

Kyoll*: NE tiefling rogue. Seemingly marked for glory from the get go, got the group's first kill and the group's last kill. Died and was reincarnated a few times, ended up in the same body she started in thanks to a wish. Strong ties to Aldriana and Tessara. Still on the fence about Cyprian.

Tessara Wyrdon*: Elven fighter. Fell in combat at the claws of the Peryton, remained deceased until the denouement of the campaign where she was resurrected by Kyoll. Level 4 or so? Strong tie to Kyoll and Cyprian (and Tessara, by way of birth)

Aldriana Wyrdon: Elven wizard and sister to Tessara. Replaced Tessara and served the party well over the course of the campaign. Strongly tied to Cyprian.

Morgrym Stonefist*: Dwarven fighter. Fell beneath the Carrion King's mighty greataxe. Left to rot as the party lacked the capacity to return him to life, until the denouement where he too was reincarnated (into a dwarf, lucky!) Was lucky enough to meet his undead father before himself biting it.

Kyras: Half elven druid and escaped slave. Replacement to Morgrym. Favored elemental forms and died only once (though I did almost get him in flavor text!) at the hands of Jhavul himself. Reincarnated in the denouement from a scroll.

Murvy Busharcher*: Halfling sorcerer. Became the moldspeaker but was consumed by green slime in the Stone Speakers. Was sorely missed. Reincarnated in the denouement. Had strong ties to Tessara and Aldriana.

Marcus Trueblood: Tiefling fighter, then an aasimar fighter, then a drow fighter, then a tiefling fighter. The party's beatstick (cleared entire rooms with his great cleave in Bayt-al-Bazaan) and resident tasty meat snack. Found Haleen.

Beldin* (surname expunged): Halfling ranger/rogue. An expy of Belkar from Order of the Stick who didn't end up being a major player due to scheduling conflicts. His player was forced to drop and Beldin was later rendered to dust by the Proteans of Kakishon. Not terribly missed.

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So of the original six party members that set out from Solku to liberate Kelmarane, two pushed through to the end. Great fun was had by all, and a great tale was woven. We didn't get to use the 3rd book at all due to the actions of Kyoll and a pragmatic approach to handling a certain scroll, but the other five books provided ample play to engage our group a good 9 months or so. I wish I'd been able to find adjusted stat blocks for the last book (from 3.5 to Pathfinder), but struggled through with a few missing monster entries and a scratch built build for Jhavul at the end. He's the big bad, he deserved a bit of star treatment!

And that treatment definitely had the party seeing stars! Jhavul was able to kill the fighter twice (in as many rounds, full attack for 250? Don't mind if he does...) and the druid once, and provided Cyprian his closest near death experience ever (Awesome Blow into a lake of lava? Awesome...). The druid bought the group a reprieve with a lucky Baleful Polymorph (Jhavul plane shifted out immediately to get that fixed) long enough to reincarnate the fighter, and when Jhavul came back 20 minutes later, the group was able to grind through the last of his 440 hp (maximized hit dice, :P) to win at great cost.

We next start Council of Thieves where I step down from GM'ing and get to play my first character ever in his second plot reset, Arcadias Battleblade the elven greatsword wielding rogue. He's not optimal, he's not even practical, but he's awesome!

[Dave the Barbarian]

Excellent work! Currently we have had 23 sessions (5 hours ave. each) and are half way through the 4th book. We are using fast progression as well. This is a really cool AP and I highly recommend it to those who want a slightly different feel to the adventures thanks to the Arabian / Genie environment.

[DMFTodd]

Congrats. I envy your group's speed.

[Githzilla]

Congrats! Wow, only 16 sessions? That sounds fast. My group is almost through book 4 after 23 sessions (about 4 hours per session).

[Ryzoken]

From my notes:
Book 1 took 4 sessions
Book 2 took 2 sessions (party lucked into facing Ghartok immediately)
Book 3 was skipped entirely (thanks Kyoll!)
Book 4 took 3 sessions (Kakishon in 3 days?)
Book 5 took 4 sessions
Book 6 took 3 sessions (another lucky blunder direct to Jhavul)

Skipping Book 3 was what probably caused us to finish so quickly (and those random take direct route to final boss things... if I didn't know better, I'd suspect my group of memorizing dungeon maps!) Else I'm sure we'd have taken a good 3-4 sessions there, resulting in 20 or so sessions taken (much closer to your guys' numbers.)

It probably didn't hurt our time much when I opted to cut a lot of the random encounters out of Kakishon and Bayt-Al-Bazaan. I never did like the random/wandering monsters, I much prefer running scripted, logical dungeon ecologies where each critter has a home and whatnot.

Best fights I saw over the course of the game were:
Book 1 - Kardswann. Our team was split in this fight, so it was 2 on Kardswann and Ugruk while the rest dealt with the downstairs brawl in the battle market. A cinematic and tough fight!

Book 2 - The Carrion King. I'd have gotten more than just 1 PC kill if the team hadn't maintained their distance. As it was, I got to eat the fighter, which was nice as that platemail was giving my mooks fits! (as it should)

Book 4 -

Spoiler:

The fight with Obherak was very fun with Lahapraset and her proteans showing up to assist. Lahapraset's chaos beam was amazing in this battle, turning Obherak into a stone dog over the course of two rounds while the rest of the party dealt with the stone constructs and other shaitan. A very chaotic scramble.

Book 6 - Jhavul's battle hands down. My rewrite had Jhavul stomping about with 450 Hp, attacks at +38/+38/+33/+28/+23 for 3d6+50+d6 fire, saves in the low 20's, AC 43, and a CMD of well over 50! He proved a veritable monster, and easily slew anything he was able to put a full attack on. It was fitting that he'd be the one to nearly slay Cyprian at last, the cleric only hanging on by a thread (literally! He grabbed the flying carpet to avoid falling) over a lake of lava. And then, he slipped (failed climb check) and nearly brought Aldriana with him into the fire if not for that accursed druid!

Gith and Dave: are you guys in the same group?

[NeoFax]

We are on Session 13 and just now defeated Kardswann. Although, we play online and have 6 players which takes a little longer for people to make a decision on what they plan to do.

[Ryzoken]

NeoFax wrote:

We are on Session 13 and just now defeated Kardswann. Although, we play online and have 6 players which takes a little longer for people to make a decision on what they plan to do.

O.O

Holy Hammer. 13 sessions? For 4/5 of the first book?
How many hours?

Granted, online communication is slower than IRL play, but still... to go 13 sessions and only have made it to Kardswann...

I'd mutiny.

[Papa-DRB]

First session was 2009/10/05. Next week, 2010/11/08, unless the PCs do something utterly stupid or just mess around, we will finish The Impossible Eye and they will get teleported back to Katapesh. So, roughly 13 months for 5 chapters. With the Holidays coming up, I figure that we will finish around the January-February 2011 time frame.

We play most Monday evenings for 3 hours. Have had as few as three players (plus DMNPC), and up to five players now, which is my max.

-- david
Papa.DRB

[Ryzoken]

Jhavul, as I opted to run him, had the following stats (should anyone in cyber space want a scary mofo to spring on their group):

Spoiler:

Jhavul
Advanced Elite LE Huge Outsider (extraplanar, fire)
Initiative: +11
AC 43 Touch 18 Flat Footed 36
Hp 448 (22d8 maximized +264)
Fort 27 Reflex 24 Will 25
Immune to Fire, Mental Influence, Possession
Resist Cold 30 Spell Resistance 20 (25 vs good aligned spells/casters)
Vulnerable to Cold

Speed: 20 ft Fly 40ft perfect
Melee: Firebleeder +38/+33/+28/+23 (with power attack factored in) for 3d6+50+d6 fire. + Slam +39 for 2d6+18+d6 fire
Space 15 Reach 15
SA: Change Size, Heat
Spell-like Abilities: (CL 15)
At Will- Plane Shift, Produce Flame, Pyrotechnics, Scorching Ray
3/day- fireball, heat metal, invisibility, Quickened Scorching Ray, Wall of Fire
1/day- gaseous form, Greater Invisibility, Permanent Image, Pyroclastic Storm

Str 46 Dex 24 Con 34 Int 16 Wis 18 Cha 18
BAB 22 CMB +40 CMD 57
Feats: Awesome Blow, Blind Fight, Combat Reflexes, Imp Bull Rush, Imp Crit (falchion), Imp Initiative, Power Attack, Quicken SLA (invisibility), Quicken SLA (scorching ray), Weapon Focus (falchion), Weapon Specialization (falchion)
Skills: Perception +29, Stealth +30, Spellcraft +25, Sense Motive +29
Languages: Auran, Common, Ignan, Infernal, 100ft telepathy
Special Qualities: change shape, exceptional NPC

Gear: Firebleeder (+3 adamantine unholy flaming burst Falchion), +5 mithral breastplate, +5 vest of resistance, +4 belt (Str, Con), boots of speed, Necklace of Adaptation, Ring of Free Movement, Scarab of Protection (10 charges), Ring of Protection +4, 10,600 gp in jewelry

These numbers may have some irregularities, but ought to be accurate enough to use. I'm still finding glitches each time I go over it, and know that I fudged the skills entirely. This version of Jhavul will give a group of 5-8 PC's a tough fight at the end, with some deaths, but if your group works together you can chip away his 448 hp and win out the day.

I opted to use slightly different tactics in my fight, Jhavul opened with his boots, a greater invis, then movement, ate a disjunction, then opted to awesome blow the party cleric in round 2 even at the cost of AoO's. In rounds thereafter, I had him single out single targets to suffer his wrath, which invariably meant a dead PC. Instead, you may opt to have Jhavul spread his attacks out over the whole party, doing 50-100 dmg with each attack each round. My damage on the fighter one round eclipsed 350 before I was done counting, and so I opted to just stop there, announce that damage, and move on. He's an unholy nightmare, and probably not altogether legal, just like an endboss bad guy ought to be!

[Mr Baron]

My group has completed 20 sessions, and I suspect in the next one they will be done with book 4. I am thinking that we still will have another 8 (4 for each of the next 2 books) to go to finish the whole thing up which would put us around 30 total. Of course this assumes no side treks in the City of Brass.

[Zaister]

I can't believe this speed. My groups usually take about 15 weekly sessions of about 4h for *one* adventure alone.

It took my Legacy of Fire group 22 sessions for "Howl of the Carrion King" (including two Side Trek adventures), 12 sessions for "House of the Beast" (with no Side Trek), and in "The Jackal's Price" we are currently right after the abduction of Rayhan after four sessions (once again skipping the Side Trek).

[Erevis Cale]

Zaister, your group seems to be really, really slow. :D I really can't believe it takes 15 sessions for one chapter. They're intended to finish in about 4 sessions (hence Paizo publishes one AP chapter per month).

My group is taking their sweet time (they spent a whole session just going around Katapesh, doing nothing but exploring and buying/selling without any progress to story. Excellent session) and with our 13th session we just finished Jackal's Price. They also did every set piece adventure. And few of my additions.

What do you do on your sessions?

[NeoFax]

Erevis Cale wrote:

Zaister, your group seems to be really, really slow. :D I really can't believe it takes 15 sessions for one chapter. They're intended to finish in about 4 sessions (hence Paizo publishes one AP chapter per month).

My group is taking their sweet time (they spent a whole session just going around Katapesh, doing nothing but exploring and buying/selling without any progress to story. Excellent session) and with our 13th session we just finished Jackal's Price. They also did every set piece adventure. And few of my additions.

What do you do on your sessions?

It depends on the group. As stated previously, my group took 18 sessions to complete book 1 with the set piece and Nick Herod's(sp?) side quest. They do alot of RP and try to puzzle out a situation before just charging in and kill everything approach. And when combat does break out, it takes a little longer as with 6 players making a decision some times takes a while. I am planning to have a talk with them before our next session about how long they get before they go into delay as some take a long time to come up with a decision and the round is only supposed to be 6 seconds. IMHO, as long as everyone is having fun I really don't mind how long it will take us to get thru the AP. Also, after Serpent's Skull, I don't see a AP on the horizon I would enjoy DMing.

[Zaister]

Just like NeoFax, I played "Howl of the Carrion King" with its side quest and Nick Herod's additional side quest. Thus the really long duration here. The 12 sessions for "House of the Beast" is much more average. I passed on the set pieces for "House of the Beast" and "The Jackal's Price", as the group is slightly ahead of the XP curve anyway, so they don't need that boost and the side quests didn't add much to the story anyway, and the one form #20 is not at all level-appropriate anyway.

We usually play about 4 hours per session. Sometime a session just focuses on role-play, for example, just like Erevis's group, my Legacy of Fire group arrived in Katapesh and browsed the markets, and I put in some of the ideas from the Katapesh article from issue #21, such as the "Songs of Shazathared" book and sold, or tired to sell them a few items randomly drawn from the Legacy of Fire item card deck, such as the monkey, which the hapless barbarian that bought it has now hear is allegedly cursed, and he now believes the monkey is intelligent. Well, you get the picture. That's part of the game too, not just combat encounters. It's often a lot of fun.

Another of my groups took a total of 117 sessions to play though the hardcover version of "The Shackled City", and the same group has now played Savage Tide for 90 sessions and we are in the middle of chapter 9, "Into the Maw" (with one additional added short adventure between chapters 4 and 5). High level combat unfortunately takes up a lot of time, and it's not unusual that a session is completely taken up by a single combat. We have six players in that group, while the Legacy of Fire group used to be four players, and is now at five players since we started on "The Jackal's Price".

I cannot imagine going though one Adventure Path issue in just four sessions. Even if you put aside all kind of role-playing and just go through the encounters, this seems hard-pressed for time. And that doesn't sound like fun.

[Olwen]

I calculated that my group and I went through Legacy of Fire in about 200 hours of gameplay, spread out over 36 sessions. I would have also found it difficult to make the campaign much shorter without sacrificing part of the story or the mood but I have to admit that I was glad when it ended. The campaign was really enjoyable and I would heartily recommend playing it, but we were all ready to move on to other realms (we are playing a single campaign at any given time).

I agree with Zaister that Katapesh allows for very interesting roleplay. We had a whole 6-hour session of market browsing, without a single sword being drawn. That was quite refreshing after the combat heavy "House of the Beast"!

[Papa-DRB]

Currently at 41 sessions of average 2.5 hours each.

1-2 sessions for the Kelmarane Tower assault, and 2-3 sessions for Jhavul at House of the Beast till we are done.

So probably 44-46 sessions in total, spread over 16 months from October 2009 through January 2011. Summer vacations and year end holidays cause us to miss a lot of sessions.

I'll post the final total when we finish.

-- david
Papa.DRB

ps. My guys are much more hack'n'slash that role play, however with the new guy in the group, November 2010, and starting two new campaigns next year there will be more role playing....

[CR]

My group plays weekly, usually 4.5 hours per session. We started in April 2010 and have currently played 36 sessions, broken down as follows:
1. Howl of the Carrion King - 8 sessions
2. House of the Beast - 6 sessions
3. The Jackal's Price - 6 sessions
4. The End of Eternity - 6 sessions
5. The Impossible Eye - 8 sessions
6. The Final Wish - 2 sessions so far

I would estimate 3-4 more sessions to finish the adventure (they've just started the Brazen Tower) which would put us around 40 sessions, 180-200 hours.

We're using PFRPG rules, Medium experience progression. 4 PCs in the party, all are currently 13th level. I used the side-trek adventures in each of the first 4 volumes, plus added encounters here and there and increased difficulty of others to insure enough experience was earned to keep the characters on pace with expected advancement.

[Papa-DRB]

We finished tonight!

The group defeated Jhavul and three of his "Janiserries" in a battle that was epic. The wizard was able to do some damage with freezing sphere, but the paladin was the only one who could hit Jhavul about half the time. The dwarven fighter, the human rogue missed consistently. If the cleric had not wished the paladin back to full health (he was down to about 30 hit points) I think the party would have been TPK'ed as Jhavul did 130 points of damage to the paladin in the next round and like I said, no one was really hitting him.

Campaign started with:
Saharan - human paladin
Aemon - human wizard
Abbas - human cleric
Ella - human rogue
Nolan - human ranger (DM NPC)

and ended with:
Saharan
Aemon
Abbas
Blueheart - human rogue (new player joined about 7th? level)
Grysingoth - dwarf fighter (new player joined about 12th level)

Ella's player dropped from the group because of work issues.

Took 16 months, October 2009 through January 2011.

-- david
Papa.DRB

Next week, we start two new campaigns. I am running Kingmaker, and one of my players will run Serpent's Skull, on alternate weeks.

[DMFTodd]

We've finished as well.

We had an epic final fight with Jhavul. The party fought him, got in trouble, and had to pull back to regroup. Nargook rushed back to heal Jhavul while the party rushed to heal themselves. Once healed up, the party hurried back to the main cavern just as Nargook arrived and Healed Jhavul.

In that time, Jhavul summoned his Erinyes mistresses to help with the fight. Half of the party died to the devils while the big damage dealers - the enlarged druid in tiger form and the monk who had wished his hands to be efreeti-bane - went to deal with Jhavul.

The tiger was air-walking and got there first - which wasn't exactly a good idea. Jhavul's attacks were devastating, the druid's wished for Ring of Blinking the only thing that saved her. The tiger was able to get off a couple of pounces though and Jhavul was seriously wounded.

During this time, the party monk made a massive jump check to clear the lake of lava and then a tumble check to vault through the bones of Rovagug and arrive on the Jhavul's flank.

Jhavul's next attack was sure to kill at least one of the two remaining party members, if not both of them. The monk unloaded a flurry of bones and got one critical to drop Jhavul. The PC who had been the laughing stock of the campaign, managing to get to level 10 without dropping a serious opponent or dealing much damage, ends up being the hero campaign.

Thanks to all the authors, editors, and artists who made it possible. We had a blast playing it.

3/10/10 - 2/3/11. Playing about 3.5 hours weekly. 10 PC deaths (more if we didn't use Hero Points).

[Dave the Barbarian]

We started on 9/21/09 and just finished on 4/1/11. Roughly 18 months and 33 sessions averaging about 5.5 hours each.

We had a bunch of epic moments. I built the Battle Market and we fought in a scale model of Kelmarane. The final battle was impressive as well.

We had 7 player character deaths. We had 6 players.

It was an awesome campaign, my very favorite so far!

Thank you Paizo for yet another high quality product and many awesome memories!