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So, I'm mulling around the idea of running an AP starting in August, but I'm not looking for something that will require an enormous amount of my time to GM (Kingmaker was my last game, had to quit because it just required too much of my time to run alongside school. Friggin love that campaign though). I'd like to have something I can complete in 6-7 months since I spend my summers out of the country, and I would also REALLY like to run Carrion Crown, which seems like it would fit the bill. From what I've gathered there aren't many sandbox elements and it's fairly rail-roady. With regular 5-6 hour sessions once a week, would completing the campaign by say, May, be plausible (7 months)?
TPK wish. The whole AP has a lot of ability damage monsters and at every turn there can be a high damage output encounter. A healer is highly recommended and someone who can cast Lesser Restoration/Restoration is mandatory.
Front line fighters are nice, but depending on the other class choices can be circumvented.
As for time of completion: We got 3-4 hour sessions once a week and meet pretty regularly ( I guess we missed 4-8 sessions in the last year due to people cancelling or holidays ) and we just finished the fifth module, I schedule we will finish the AP at the end of July. That's something like 10-11 months to get it done.
You can get it done in your timeframe, but you need to keep the pace up and cut out superflous encounters ( of which there are quite a few in the AP ). Of course it also depends on the play speed of your group, I got another one who like to meander much more than the one I just described.
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Thanks bro! Our theoretical party would have an oracle & a witch, so the healing probably wouldn't be much of a problem. The third will more than likely be a ranged inquisitor, so I think I'll grab a fourth player.
I suppose time frame isn't a huge deal in the end, really, so we'll just see how that goes. Thanks for the input!
It takes us about 24 play hours per module. So that is 144 hours to complete the AP. We do a lot of RP, and I think we're on the slow side, but not by much. (Maguskn above is quoting about 154 hours, which is similar). I would think it hard to manage in less than 100 hours, and probably not more than 175 hours unless you add in a lot more material.
My group has been playing once a week, more or less, for 11 months, and we just finished Chapter 3. We are an RP-heavy group, so maybe that takes up more time. But I'd estimate at least 1 year for this (or any) AP.
For my group, it took us 34 sessions that usually last 5-6 hours, over the course of 9 months.
It took us that long because we play multiple APs at once, so everyone involved in Carrion Crown had at least one or two more APs on the side. Otherwise it would have been 5-6 months (our average was 4 sessions in 5 weeks, but each week we have 2-3 sessions of various APs).
I've just finished Trial of the Beast, and we have been playing this game about once a month on average since last October. I'd estimate each chapter took 5 or 6 sessions to complete.
Just a word of warning: The last module has more than 40 combat encounters and very little RP opportunities, aside from walking into yet another haunt and the most overly forced "hostile Knights of Ozem" encounter I could have imagined up.
I've cut half of the combat encounters (while buffing up the rest to be a respectable challenge for my not-averse-to-optimizing six-people group) and I still feel that my people will lose motivation after the fourth or fifth session of back-to-back combat encounters.
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Just a word of warning: The last module has more than 40 combat encounters and very little RP opportunities, aside from walking into yet another haunt and the most overly forced "hostile Knights of Ozem" encounter I could have imagined up.
I've cut half of the combat encounters (while buffing up the rest to be a respectable challenge for my not-averse-to-optimizing six-people group) and I still feel that my people will lose motivation after the fourth or fifth session of back-to-back combat encounters.
Ugh. I might have to take the same route... that just seems like poor game design. Thanks for the heads up.
Doesn't sound like time's going to be much of an issue. Our group managed to finish book one of Skull & Shackles exactly in time for the second book to come out (4-5 weekly sessions). Granted, that was the first time we had ever done that, but our previous two APs were much more sandboxy (Kingmaker & Serpent's Skull). If not, whatever, I'll just finish it up when I get back home in the fall.
Another concern is how much GM input it will take? I understand that any AP can benefit infinitely from extra time that a GM puts into it, but how is it as-is? Serpent's Skull needed the extra work in some places, while Kingmaker practically begs for GMs to add more to it. Is Carrion Crown fine on its own, or are there places that need patching up? The amount of time I will have to plan each week is going to be pretty minuscule, unfortunately.
Just a word of warning: The last module has more than 40 combat encounters and very little RP opportunities, aside from walking into yet another haunt and the most overly forced "hostile Knights of Ozem" encounter I could have imagined up.
I've cut half of the combat encounters (while buffing up the rest to be a respectable challenge for my not-averse-to-optimizing six-people group) and I still feel that my people will lose motivation after the fourth or fifth session of back-to-back combat encounters.
I took a similar tack with TotB. There's a lot of combat encounters in that module that eat up a lot of time at the table - the battle in the gatehouse at the beginning of Schloss Caromarc went on for more than 90 minutes, and I was loathe to follow it up with the hook-clawed apparatus in the foyer right afterward. I'll probably also remove the majority of combats with constructs inside the manse in our final session, leaving in just the blind golem and the Aberrant Promethean.
[EDIT: This approach works well for my group because we're using the advancement track and leveling up at the appropriate points indicated rather than tracking XP awards after every battle. YMMV, certainly.]
Another concern is how much GM input it will take? I understand that any AP can benefit infinitely from extra time that a GM puts into it, but how is it as-is? Serpent's Skull needed the extra work in some places, while Kingmaker practically begs for GMs to add more to it. Is Carrion Crown fine on its own, or are there places that need patching up? The amount of time I will have to plan each week is going to be pretty minuscule, unfortunately.
The first two chapters have run smoothly with minimal input from me on the statblock side of things. The most work I've put into it is introducing a few combat NPCs that are specific to my players' background stories for their characters - beyond that, I've run everything by the book and even managed to skip entire sequences that would have only eaten up time and not added much to the drama for my own group (Harrowstone's town hall meeting and Trial's mob justice sequence both got skipped - partially because the PCs didn't follow the expected timeline to trigger them and also partially because they just didn't look like much fun to run from my end of things).
The city of Lepidstadt does need some work if you don't have additional supplemental materials that outline the city's locales beyond the courthouse - my players like exploring, so I had to generate some shops with unique sale items, as well as a plethora of taverns for the dwarf cleric to "worship" in. =]
I'd recommend reading the Adivion Adrissant thread on this subforum. Aside from the *way* too combat-heavy last module, the other big problem with this AP is that under regular circumstances your party will meet Adivion for just the last encounter. Never a good idea if the main villains first question should be "And who are you people?".
I introduced him in the very first session as one of the pallbearers for the Professor and have worked him into the AP on numerous occasions, making him more of an ally than an antagonist... which of course is a smokescreen to allay suspicions and keep Kendra for himself ( who in my game is only the adoptive daughter of Professor Lorrimor and in fact is one of the direct descendants of Tar-Baphon. An ideal vessel ).
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I'd recommend reading the Adivion Adrissant thread on this subforum. Aside from the *way* too combat-heavy last module, the other big problem with this AP is that under regular circumstances your party will meet Adivion for just the last encounter. Never a good idea if the main villains first question should be "And who are you people?".
I introduced him in the very first session as one of the pallbearers for the Professor and have worked him into the AP on numerous occasions, making him more of an ally than an antagonist... which of course is a smokescreen to allay suspicions and keep Kendra for himself ( who in my game is only the adoptive daughter of Professor Lorrimor and in fact is one of the direct descendants of Tar-Baphon. An ideal vessel ).
Dang, sounds like you've done a lot of good work with this AP. I'll definitely see what you and the everyone else on the boards has come up with for it. I love foreshadowing the main villain...
Oh, I took inspiration for that from other people, so it's all a collaborative effort.
Definitely read through the forums. The Adivion Adrissant thread is a must. There is a bunch of cool stuff in it.
Windspirit also has a number of really good DM aides for all the modules that cover things like travel time, weather, summaries of the XP and clue awards.
I would recommend the additional Ravengro quests, which really made the first module for me.
Feel free to use my magic item handouts which add flavour text for all magic items in the AP.
Also you are welcome to use my interlude scripts for cut-scenes
Perhaps we should create a sticky somewhere for downloadable resources... hmmm....
