I'm running three games, every two weeks. I run alternating Savage Tide/Kingmaker on Monday nights. Every Tuesday I run Curse of the Crimson Throne. The players I have on Mondays are experienced munchkins. They do everything they can to minimize the risk to themselves to the point of making me break out a Grimtooth every other month or every other week. On Tuesday, the group is primarily high school kids and three folks that are not in high school, veteran players.
So with my Kingmaker game, here are my complaints for it as it is written.
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On my Savage Tide campaign, I feel like I have a little wiggle room as I have over twenty years of DMing under my belt. I know the script as it should be, but getting the players there without Second Darknessing them and having them realize it is my goal. It helps that someone recommended to me Cradle of Madness to help the PC's achieve level 5 (8 players, lots of kills with little xp to glean with that many characters).
Mind you, sending six wraiths to help out troublesome players in a cramped hallway was golden. It made me wish I had a drink for every "we're f***ed"--I would have been sloshed in the first minute of setting up the battle, hehe!
So with every playtest that comes to the fore, I allow the players to retool their characters in case they want to test the new options. Right now, nobody has decided to start the words of power, which disappoints me to a small degree. I like WoP. The ultimate combat playtest went alpha in the last 48 hours and I'm looking at it going, this looks fun.
A lot of criticism is angled at the three new playable alternate classes. Nice touch on not letting the pc's go rogue-ninja. I really, really like it from a balance perspective. I also really can't wait to drop some of the new lethal npc's on their heads like a rapidly descending anvil on Wile E. Coyote's cranium. Juicy, I say. Or if I was Black Dynamite, righteous.
Why the hate? How is it working for you? My group, I love. I consider all three of them, my group, mind you. These people buy Paizo stuff like I do. As quick as spare money comes in-it is traded out for the print pages and whala! Canon.
I enjoy the classes, all of the core, advanced players guide, it all comes together in my opinion because the game is RIGOROUSLY and strenuously beat around fifty thousand players until the day of full product release. Is there any one of these that is more lethal than another?
No.
So if Robert the CSM from Wal-Mart decides to roll up a bard 2/wizard 10/loremaster 10, probably there is something he's specifically after and he will make a crafter of some sort like Talatheil of my Rise of the Runelord campaign I ran from Feb 09-Jan 10.
If there is something I really don't appreciate, it is the practice of people finding a PRC to join for no other reason than in two levels it gives something that otherwise wouldn't be available. I have a few players that like epic roll playing and they typically have another group they do their 20-30 levels of playing in with a DM that should have been a professional gambler with his number-crunching ability.
One player in particular, always goes for the shadow dancer PRC. It isn't a bad class, but I feel like it is always a secretive group of folks that are working in it for its betterment. If I allow it, he will join up with that class for no other reason than the first two levels. With no previous exposure, he will ask if he can start his work in the PRC. In the River Kingdoms, I feel like he would only be knowledgeable about the Shadow Dancers from maybe Daggermark or somewhere else like possibly Absalom.
So I have to tell him no, every time we're in a game removed from this land where the knowledge is key for him to 'join up' like he's going for a four year stint in the USN. And it almost makes me wonder why he would continue to badger about this class, campaign after campaign.
He doesn't play a truly muwhahahaha evil type. When he plays evil, he would be best for assassin PRC--but he'd rather not. But he does well within the borders he makes for himself.
And this post is by far not a dig on him, as he's a decent player. He knows how to roll up, stat out, and equip a character. But he is used to someone else judging a game and allowing whatever is in the books. Mind you, when we were in a 3.5 campaign, he brought every means to my eyes that he could that he wanted to be in some secretive guild or have some shadowy past for some eligibility for old 3.5 PRC's. Not all of them I allowed, especially when I found Pathfinder Campaign Setting had this new class, the Pathfinder.
I thought, wow! This is a great idea for a class. Some Indiana Jones type that goes out sometimes in small mercenary groups or adventuring bands and documents these awesome finds. And since the majority of our gaming at the table is in Varisia, why not? Magnimar has a host of opportunities for players to get in touch with members of this group!
Granted, nobody in my game has ever gone the route of Pathfinder. Even if I said pre-campaign, you were in the Grand Lodge washing dishes and doing your internship before you had your field work assigned to you. "Nah, we're not that interested in it." Okay.
If that is the worst thing that I have to deal with as a GM that runs as much as he can, then whoops. That is a negative. But for the most part, my game is giving me the enjoyment that I want. It is pleasurable. Fun, even!
So what am I looking at for my table to change in two weeks? A ninja is joining the group. A real, bonafide ninja! I can't wait to see how he interacts with the group and how he deals with all of the intricacies of our game.
Maybe someone will enlighten me and roll up a Samurai. That would be fun to have at the table, some honor bound fellow that would use a bastard sword or something like it and try to make it with our band.
Nobody yet has decided to go Gunslinger. Sad, as I really wouldn't mind seeing this at the table. Maybe someone else will play an alchemist so we have a work-around on the component cost for his ammunition. That would be awful nice for his coin purse.
But I'm dreaming. One out of three, isn't bad.
Game on!
-B