We started the skull and shackles campaign last night and so far its awesome. We just completed the fight with the 3 crabs after the 3 ghasts and have found ourselves on the island. My one question is does this get tough? So far we've handled this pretty easily so far, even going so far as to attack each other during some combats (were all evil and our motivations differ creating inter party conflict).
Our group consists of:
Gillman Barbarian 1/Oracle 1, going rage prophet. 15 str/16 dex/15 cha, interesting build
Aasimar Bard 2. Our captain
Tiefling (kyton) Rogue 2, will be going arcane trickster.
Dhampir Cleric 2, channels negative, didn't take selective channeling and is a total nutcase. Has gotten into physical conflict with the barbarian mid combat due to being hit by negative channels. Our negative channeler also survived a fast keelhauling, while failing every save. Channeling himself every round.
As you can see, our party is not stacked. All of our characters are well optimized for what we plan to do, but by no means did we take overpowered stereotypical builds. All of us are 25 point buy, and we allow no non pathfinder books, and no house rules.
The toughest fight we've had so far was with Plugg, scourge and co. We fought them without the help of any of the NPCS that are supposed to help you (we hate NPC's slowing down combat), and we failed to influence more than half the crew. It was still barely a challenge (our bard was dropped to negatives, but by the time that happened we had already clearly won). We also chose to initiate this fight the second the wormwood was out of sight. Meaning we engaged them all, at the same time, with no surprise rounds, during the middle of pluggs "things are going to be worse around here." speech.
Will skull and shackles pose a significant challenge for us or will we continue to trounce everything? I'd like to add, please no spoilers, just wanna know if we have some nerve rattling deaths coming our way.
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sounds like the DM is playing kind of nice. Usually the keelhauling would not allow a cleric to take his holy symbol. In fact, before most combats I recall getting stripped down.
25 point buy helps a lot. We typically go 15 pt buy for APs.
How long was the cleric without his holy symbol?
Gillman is just going to rock some of the f-you water encounters.
How did you guys handle the skill checks early on? Rum rations?
So you've got competent players, 25 point buy, and advanced races working well in your favor at the very least.
For the part where they tell you to go out in the middle of the ocean and you're attacked by shrimp monsters, we had gunslinger, alchemist, rogue (no ranks in swim), and druid. We almost died there.
The other HUGE thing for us was healing. We had no cleric, and Sandara isn't always around. Since the game goes day by day, lashings at night can REALLY hurt.
I'd say it actually easier from there on.
The cleric received his holy symbol back on the first day, I went down to the quartermaster made a 27 diplomacy check (natural 20) and got my gear back. That night, I also managed to pick all the chests containing their gear from there. We were all fully armed and armored after the first night. They tried to fist fight us and block us on our way up to deck one day. Our cleric KILLED a crewmate which got him keel hauled. I had hidden his holy symbol on him to ensure they wouldn't take it. The reefclaws were killed by our gillman before any of us got there. He collected all the crabs and the 2 reefclaws and was swimming back before any of us could make the 200 ft swim. I don't think the DM is pulling punches as we all prefer lethal dnd. You could be right about the healing though, we do have quite a bit of it, even if we have no "cleric".
wow, 1 night and you are already on the island? Did you play all night?
My group has just reached the island after 6 weeks of 3 hour sessions so thats 18hours of play and that ws condensing some of the days on the wormwood too, most of my group nearly died at least once esp the reefclaws.
I take it you started at level 1?
I think from what I can gather the point buy is supposed to be 15 my group is 20 so that my part of the reason. 25 point but produces slightly more powerful PC's.
It may also be because you have non standard races as well, some of them are a tad more powerful than the core races.
and yes it does get more difficult, have fun :)
Thank you, ya we play once every 2 weeks and we usually go 12-16 hours. We used to do multiple day sessions but after 24 hours of gaming you become a little too in character. We found that since we allow actual inter party conflict that if you gamed for that long you could degrade into fist fights over in character stuff. Was humerous for a while, but we cut it down because of it. We also condensed some of the days, thats why we didn't have all the crew convinced, I think by day 15 we had stopped talking to other members of the crew entirely and just started robbing footlockers and beating people in gambling for petty cash.
I'm glad it will get tougher! Thanks for the quick responses.
Oh they reacted quite dynamically, from what I can tell our dm has opted for us to be able to approach the situation with intimidation rather than diplomacy. (additional bonus' from the fact that the crew is terrified of any man who can survive a keel hauling unscathed) I'm not sure if he is supposed to take this approach but hes definitely been forced into it to continue along the adventure path. We'd be just as content to kill everyone on board and go tomb raiding as we are pirating on open seas. Infact, if we believed we could best the captain, this would have already happened. Fortunately for us, our dm is very descriptive, and made sure we understood just how implausible that would be.
Don't get me wrong we are very familiar with how AP's are run Varthanna. We've currently played and completed everyone paizo has produced. Some with more difficulty and intrigue than others. I was simply inquiring to see if this AP would follow along the difficulty level of say Kingmaker - which was insanely easy. Or if it would follow along the difficulty level of say council of thieves, which was more difficult and intriguing but still not totally lethal. Or if it would follow along the lines of the jade regent, which was tough the way through save for some disappointing fights and challenges.
My guess then is that it will be as tough as you're DM wants it to be.
He can always ramp up the CR of some of the encounters if things are too easy for you. if it was me and you managed to defeat the reefclaws easily i may have added another crab or 2 on the island to test the waters a bit and see how you coped. The AP's are not set in stone and may need tailoring to fit higher or lower party groups.
I'm still a tad mystifed as to why its been a cake walk for you so far though. The whole of the wormwood section is pretty tough for 1st level PC's. Failure at daily jobs, rum rations, punishments, Plugg and Scourge plus their lacies plus the encounters too, not to mention Harrigan and the rest of the officers. It really shouldn't be easy at all. In fact my players breathed a sigh of relife when they hit level 2.
I'm tempted to go with Varthanna here and say maybe the dm needs to react a bit more to things going on, maybe the 25 point buy and the non-core races are throwing things out a bit for you. to be honset I really don't know why its easy.
All I can say is that it really shoudn't be a cake walk, but if you are having fun what does it matter.
I think its that a lot of those things people seem to have trouble with are fairly easy to avoid. Failure at daily jobs is pretty impossible. Usually only happening on the result of a 1 for fatigue checks from rigging. None of drank our rum rations, my rogue is tailored for stealth and sleight of hand making those checks trivial succeeding even on 1. Their lackies were a problem, but having a cleric who can survive the book given punishment avoids that problem quite easily. To be honest, we avoided harrigan. He was presented as beyond our scope, like way beyond us, so we ignored him and did everything outside his presence.
Our dm won't buff the encounters. He could, but then why not just play a homebrew campaign. The fun comes from the story woven into the APs and your right were having fun, so it doesn't matter. I just wanted to know if were gonna get the exhilaration of being half snapped and all of a sudden dealing with an out of nowhere pc death. Our playstyle makes those moments really memorable. Death scences always come with the BEST descriptions.
Im starting to see problem, there are 4 epic pc's in the game it's aimed at standard not epic. If the gm has altered this by giving you all 25 points and making you epic god like beings at level 1 instead of the 15 point standard heroes and then leaves the ap as is with no alteration then yes it will be easy. He needs tailor it as he has chaged the way it has been designed if he thinks its too easy. If you are al happy to carry on then that's fine but I kind of get the feeling it won't really be much of a challenge for you. I can't say if it will get harder for you as the alterations make it difficult to say . As written yes it does get harder.
Maybe spice things up and use our house rule, roll a 1 on any roll and it's s fumble and you fail badly.
The 'final battle' on the island should be very, very difficult for any low level party. If its not then your GM simply isn't running things properly.
We play with critical hit and miss decks ferrin, critical hits and misses are very very bad. Infact lots of time a mistimed critical hit could turn a regular hit into a pc death.
Do Realy play with rum rations cause if your Realy truly do you will die on day 20 no mater your build.
I'm with varthanna on this, something's not right.
Also a tad confused with the reefclaw encounter, I'm wondering how the Gillman managed to kill the reefclaws and get all the crabs and make it back before anybody got there. 2 claw attacks with poison each and 13hp each how did he kill them by himself ? It seems to me the gm is making it far too easy for you all that's the only explanation I can think of.
as written the reefclaw encounter runs something like this, you are given 4 pots to fill each pot holds 4 crabs. It takes 1 round to find 1 carb if you pass the perception check so to fill 4 pots with one person it would take 16 rounds at least. the gillman then had to fight 2 reefclaws on his own so I'm guessing it would take more rounds to finish this fight.
How did it take you 20 odd rounds to swim 200ft?
Was Plugg watching? Did you only fill 1 pot? If so I would have had Plugg send each of you out on you're own to fill a pot then give you all 3 lashes of the cat for disobaying orders.
Sorry to sound negative but yes the GM MUST be pulling punches and making it easier for you, its the only explanation.
But as I said before if like this style of play then carry on, if not have a word with the GM...nicely though...
We broke our last game session at day 20 or so right before our fight with The Man's Promise. It's been grueling. Almost lost our bard to a combination of rum rations and disease from the rats in the bilges. Almost lost our dwarf Gunslinger to falling out of the rigging. Almost lost our sorceress to falling out of the rigging (-10 hp, Con of 11). Reefclaws almost TPK'ed us, left one party member with a 0 strength who was then flogged for not being able to work. My cleric of Gozreh has been rope bashed unconscious, whipped unconscious and got the cat twice for mouthing off to Scourge AND was thrown in the Sweatbox when I didn't go back to the bilges after being attacked by Scourge's men... even though I didn't kill either of them and managed to escape. I've used every channel and healing spell I had to keep the party alive every single day on our first week (I have the birthmark trait so I always have my divine focus). Some of us don't even have all of our starting gear yet even though the quartermaster has been helpful since day 3.
And Kingmaker was NOT easy. It certainly wasn't written up that way anyways. There was a cork-board "graveyard" of at least 20 character sheets who died during that AP along with about 5 or 6 animal companions. LOL the PCs had to create their own secret society so they could introduce new characters when their old ones got ganked. The last part of that AP the party blew through about 10,000 gp in utility items (potions, scrolls and such) just in one encounter and still almost didn't make it.
Your GM is definitely being generous. So I'm guessing that if you're breezing through the first part of the AP the rest of the AP will also be a breeze. That shouldn't matter though as long as you're having fun.
Yeah lol our's was very similar to your's Oscarmike. The party were pretty much whipped nearly everyday for some infraction or other, one of them nearly died from a fall from the rigging (if not for the party wizard noticing and managing to get away with casting feather fall he would have been dead). The wizard had just about every punishment bar keelhauling, and he even had the nerve to ask Harrigan for a slave after the mans promise fight(the rest of the party had their mouths open at this point) 6 lashes of the cat for him, never talk to Harrigan. All the party at some point was at least down to zero with punishments and if it wasnt for Sandara and the Druid I think they would have died from them alone.The reefclaws nearly killed them but the swim checks screwed the wizard up badly who kept failing and had to be rescued. But the party were very very inventive and managed to use cunning strategies to avoid bad situations, I think they relised that direct confrontaion was a sure fire way to a quick death. Although they said it was one of the hardest games they had played at level 1 they loved it.
"Taking 10"
"When your character is not in immediate danger or distracted, you may choose to take 10. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, calculate your result as if you had rolled a 10."]
So your GM let's you do the dangerous, distracting stuff (like climbing about the rigging) as a take 10. Most onboard activity : immediate danger (ever dropped from 30'+ up ?). Nevermind distracting....
Yeah, pretty obviously he is making it very easy for you. Running through the initial sessions in one night somehow seems to indicate that, too.
As long as you are heaving fun
And without... saying too much. Several encounters on the island should be... extremely hard for your group. Unless the GM is pulling punches
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climbing ropes in a non-combat situation should be fine.
During combat? bad weather? yes those need to be rolled.
Also: I'm not the op or part of his group
taking 10 is purely a safety measure—you know (or expect) that an average roll will succeed but fear that a poor roll might fail, so you elect to settle for the average roll (a 10)
you can make an excuse to always be in some sort of danger ("ever got a cold?" no to a con check for cold weather for 10 mins, "ever accidentally inhaled sea water?" no to swim checks, "ever accidentally swallowed bird poop?" no to perception checks). It actually makes things like dumping str and such stink (since they cannot make many dcs by taking 10). We take immediate danger to mean something is trying to murder you in a round by round basis.
Varthanna - According to the book all the locks are simple locks, which means 1 round to open. Makes sense for the footlockers 1 per action, but what does that have to do with the stuff in the quartermaster stores? If you've already made the required stealth, why not just loot the room while your there? Also, according to our dm, there is no rules in the book for npcs who notice you've gained back your gear. So if that is a houserule of yours, we wouldn't adopt it. It makes sense to follow the AP RAW for our group.
Tom - The rum ration check to pass it off is between DC 10 and DC 15, your always better off doing this if you have a rogue in your party. I actually couldn't fail this check and as such did this for the rest of my non rum drinking companions.
Ferrin - Our barbarian (level 1 at the time of the encounter) killed both without an issue, first of all, he can wear armor in water as swim chicks are negligible for him. Put him at a respectable AC 19, while non raging of course. He also moves 50Ft a round, which means he reaches the 200ft in 2 rounds. It took us well over 20 rounds to make the swim, especially since we had to assist our cleric who didn't want everyone to notice he had his armor on beneath his ship rags. Reef claws only hit on a 17+. The encounter is not difficult. 27 hp is roughly 3 swings for the barbarian, and I do believe one attack he even critically missed and had to switch to a dagger for the last reef claw.
Vikingson - Like I stated previously viking, our game sessions tend to last about 16 hours or so, its actually not that long when each day consists of the same monotonous 6-8 rolls. Then again, we don't do lots of OOC talk either, perhaps your sessions are more filled with OOC talk which is why it takes you longer?
Oscar - A little off topic but the kingmaker is pathetically easy. The rules they have for taking money from the city coffers makes the game a joke if you follow them RAW, even after the recommended changes in the on the forums we still had to stop following them.
Thank you everyone for the input! I doubt our dm is pulling punches, but if he is we'll know in 2 weeks when we finish the first book. Since then it becomes open for everyone to read. I just want everyone to remember we play everything in paizo APS RAW. We have homebrew campaigns where we play RAI, but for testing out the APs we always assume RAW. So for all the people suggesting beef the encounters, or do things not listed in the AP as recommendations, the dm wont do it. This is to avoid skewing the AP as often time a dms intervention straying away from the ap can lead to repercussions that derail it just as quickly.
As an add to this, our dm once described a horror house and at the end of it described baby fingers floating in formaldehyde. The AP left out the description, which allowed our dm to do it, and what was supposed to be a creepy yet plot assisting alchemist/necromancer dude, then turned into a child killing psychopath in our eyes. It derailed the AP so quickly we decided never to go above and beyond the ap again. 10 points if you can name that AP :)
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Tom - The rum ration check to pass it off is between DC 10 and DC 15, your always better off doing this if you have a rogue in your party. I actually couldn't fail this check and as such did this for the rest of my non rum drinking companions.
I would have called some sort of check to pass the rum ration to the rogue.
All in all it is punishing on those not trained in stealth/sleight of hand.
Varthanna - the ship action taken was to explore the quartermasters area, if there is a rule saying only one attempt at each quartermaster chest per night then he did not follow it. I know there is a rule per footlocker, but the quartermasters area was left open (apparently there is a roll for that.) As such, it got robbed. We also weren't foolhardy. We didn't display what we stole and we hid a number of items in other peoples footlockers. He can roleplay peoples reactions fine, but there is listed consequences for listed actions - ex keelhauling for murder, keelhauling for stealing etc etc. So to ignore that and add additional punishment, or a different consequence would have created a different atmosphere. However, if it does only allow looting of 1 chest in the quartermaster area per 1 action (as long as that is specified) then you are correct. But I won't know that for 2 weeks, and if that is true, and it is 1 quartermaster chest per action, then the only difference it would have made is I would have been fatigued to gather both. Still a minor penalty.
Thebwt - Either way my rogue could not fail the check to steal it from them, or fail a check to discard it so the point would be moot. Arcane tricksters are set up to be good thieves, which is the direction I'm taking the character.
Dotted for interest.
Please keep us informed as to how this continues to go. I'm morbidly curious. I'm with the others - something seems "off" but I'm not sure what.
OK asf all I think we are trying to do is answer you're orignal question..does this AP get tough.
I can't vouch for the others but I know Vikingson is gming it as I am.
Nobody is condeming the ply style as you all seem to be having fun and thats all that counts so carry on if thats the way you like it.
I won't go over old ground so I'll go with the new things that have turned up.
1) RAW all the locks in the QM's store are not simple, there is 1 average and 2 good locks in there at dc 30 to open some of which are trapped so unless the GM made it obvoius which ones were not simple then I cant see how you would have ransaked the qm's store as RAW.
2)You say some of the days on the wormwood were condensed, playing RAW there are 21 days before the mans promise battle.
3)Played as RAW the mutiny is schedualed to happen later in the adventure not as you first get on the mans promise, there is a small block on page 38 saying as wriiten...its written plain as day in that block...twice.
You keep saying you are plying the AP as RAW but this is blatenly not happening and the GM IS changing things as he sees fit. All of which is fine as that's pretty much what every GM has to do.
As Varthanna says you are either palying RAW or you're not...
So to answer the original question does this get tough...
If the GM runs RAW (h'es really not, trust me I'm gming it and have the books) then the whole thing is tough. If the GM is changing things and treating you with kid gloves (which we all seem to think he is) then no-one but you're GM knows...sorry.
But just the ram it home...if run RAW the adventure is very tough in parts especally the wormwood days at 1st level. Its all over the messageboards for this AP. It's meant to be brutal.
I realy don't know what else to say sorry. Other than have fun anyway and it really dos'nt matter so long as you are enjoying it. :))))
I'm particularly curious about how a 1st level barbarian (even if super-optimized) could reasonably take on 2 reefclaws simultaneously. I mean - what kind of weapon does that kind of damage? Besides, is 50ft base speed means he can move 25 feet as a full round action in water, or 10 feet as a move action. So, it would have taken him *at least* 8 rounds to cover 200 feet, not to mention the number of rounds required to do in the neighbourhood of 60 damage to kill them both. And he has 19AC? So, that's 17 when raging, right? And with two reefclaws with superior mobility, they must have been flanking him, right? That gives them 4 attacks a round at +4, meaning he'd get hit (on average) at least once or twice every round. And he made all the fort saves for the poison? And they never grappled him (even CMD of 21 means they'll successfully grapple on half of their attacks when flanked)?
(Our group has a barbarian, fighter, gunslinger, rogue, cleric and witch - yes, 6 characters - and two almost died)
Theft from the quartermaster's store is likely to succeed, but the caveat is clearly spelled out in the AP "If Grok finds evidence of theft..." From your description, evidence shouldn't be hard to spot since a good deal of the items are now missing! Also, the door to the quartermaster's store is only unlooked when she goes to give rum rations to the crew and always locked in the evenings (DC 40 to open). It also spells out that Grok often sleeps in the store, so that might be another aspect that your GM failed to notice. Finally, as pointed out by others the daytime ship action specifically says that you may make a single skill roll.
From your description, it looks like your GM is letting a lot of the details slide for your benefit. The island is much more combat oriented, however, and sounds more to your taste. Hopefully it gives you a bit more of a challenge (personally, I'm going to have to tone it down as many others have done or I'll be getting a TPK).
Oscar - A little off topic but the kingmaker is pathetically easy. The rules they have for taking money from the city coffers makes the game a joke if you follow them RAW, even after the recommended changes in the on the forums we still had to stop following...
Yes but doing so destroys the kingdom you're chartered to create. If your going to turn your kingdom into a hovel there are rules for that (Unrest) AND Brevoy would most likely relieve you of your duties effectively ending the AP. It's called KINGmaker not SQUALORmaker. Just because you *can* do something doesn't mean you *should* or that there are no consequences when you *do*.
Yes Tem, that whole reefclaw encounter confuses the heck out of me too for the life of me I can't see how its possible whatever way I look at it it just dos'nt make sense.
@ Tem (and ferrinwulf):
Yeah, I was going to say something similar regarding the reefclaw encounter. From the sounds of it, I don't think they used underwater combat rules correctly. That's actually a really common mistake. The rules don't come up that often. I don't know anyone that hasn't screwed up underwater combat at least once.
I spent a good long time looking at the underwater rules before running that encounter. I actually think it's pretty ingenious from a design perspective in that it gets the PCs (and DMs) feet wet with the rules before tackling the portions of the adventure later on (pun intended, btw). It also goes to show how brutal water combat can be. The rogue in our party was exhausted and exclaimed "What? A full round action to move 5 feet? Ugh." Needless to say, he wasn't terribly useful in combat.
Once a reefclaw grabbed a hold of someone, they spent their following actions pulling them away from the rest of the group. Even at half speed from being in a grapple (20 feet), other swimming characters couldn't keep up using full round movement (15 feet). It certainly gave a feeling of helplessness which really added to that encounter.
In this case, the barbarian is a gillman. Which means he actually has a proper swim speed just like the reefclaws themselves. So that would likely account for a big part of the easy going on that particular encounter.
True. It's not so much the swim speed I wonder about as it is the -2 to attack and half damage (unless he's wielding a piercing weapon). That should make the Reefclaws a little tougher to bring down.
In this case, the barbarian is a gillman. Which means he actually has a proper swim speed just like the reefclaws themselves. So that would likely account for a big part of the easy going on that particular encounter.
That's good point and one that I had missed. It's actually one of the reasons I don't allow non-core races for PCs. If I had to guess, a gillman barbarian will make a lot of the future encounters much easier than they are intended to be.
Dang. This just highlights the importance of knowing the rules. I think I went REALLY easy on my PCs in that encounter just by being ignorant (even so, I had one PC in neg and one at 0 at the end... probably would have been a TPK)
Oh, and don't forget the harsh drowning rules. In our game, when the last reefclaw was killed, its death throes knocked the attacker into the negatives. It took two rounds for her allies to get to her and another two getting her to the surface. Fortunately, she passed the first couple fort saves otherwise she'd have been the first PC death. Our cleric used every spell for healing and every channel during that encounter. One PC ended up with 11 STR damage and days later is still trying to shake the effects (fortunately, he's the cook). It's not an encounter my PCs will forget any time soon.
Okay lots to address, I'll start with the stuff I am sure about as again I haven't read the ap so cant address it all.
A gillmen has a swim speed of 30ft, does not need to make swim checks and is not considered "hampered" by swimming. This means a gillman can take a "run" action in water. Allowing for 90ft of movement in a round, this allows the gillman to get there in 2 rounds (using only the move action of the 3rd round to make, still leaving the standard available for perception). Like I said, Gillman has an AC of 19 and cannot drown and is not hindered at all by water combat as long as a weapon deals piercing damage.
Now Reefclaws attack with claws, which are either SLASHING or BLUDGEONING. Which means they both deal half damage in water (most of you are obviously ignoring this). Which means Reefclaws deal 1d2 damage and they take -2 to their attacks. This means in water combat, reefclaws are actually a poopoo monster. So, to hit this barbarian with 19 AC in water combat the reefclaw needs to roll a 19 or a 20.
The barbarian is attacking with an effective Ogre Hook (looks different)1d10 damage. This works out to roughly 5+ 1.5str damage per round. He has a +2 str bonus, so average 8 damage per attack. Monsters hit him on a 19 or 20 so roughly 1 in 10 attacks. 2 attacks per round means they hit once every 5 rounds or so. He kills 1 of them in 10 rounds rolling average (and hitting only on a 10+).
This is the math behind what the combat should look like with statistics. Our barbarian hits on less than a 10, and raged and did more damage (albeit at more risk). But still the combat was VERY easy for him. So please, everyone complaining that this reefclaw encounter was somehow nerfed, please roll it out for yourself. 19 is not a high ac for level 1 (albeit pretty high for a barbarian), and the water ACTUALLY FAVORS our gillman in this situation, not the reefclaws.
I'd like to add that, there is no way my dm could have fudged this fight. All dice are rolled infront of us, we all know the stats for reefclaws and under water combat. This fight is just a simple understanding of how underwater combat actually works, and a poor choice of monster for the combat. (reefclaws need beaches, or small amounts of water.)
Now that this has been addressed I'll move on. Ferrin, like I said I don't know about the specifics on the quartermasters however I will say, I did not try to pick the metal trunk. Since I rolled high on my diplomacy check (stated earlier in this thread) I recieved additional stuff from the quartermaster. This enabled me to know that the QM had more in storage then simply our gear. It also enabled me to get 150 gp of free loot I believe. This made it easier for me to ascertain the gear I sought and not steal anything above and beyond. I did not try and take from the locked trunks, and as I stated the QM was left open. Again, I won't know all the specifics behind it till I can read the AP, so I'll have to take your word for it. If our gear shoulda been unstealable, then he did ease up on us, and we will hold it against him.
Ferrin - The mutiny still took place as the book says its supposed to, it just happened 4 days earlier. We took all the penalties for it happening earlier as well (not being able to rally additional people, etc. Fighting them all at once rather than separately, if thats even an option). We just all agreed that we wouldn't be bullied any longer, and a DM cannot stop us from attacking. In addition, I did say days were condensed, however all actions were rolled for those days. The condensing simply came in the form of less roleplaying to be honest. Rather than talk out conversations between 4 players and 4 seperate npcs and try to influence them with our words to gain bonuses to our rolls, we simply made the rolls and let the chips fall where they may. We also had each player roll all his rolls at once rather than descripe monotonous actions that occured the same each day. Barring of course, the days were things happened. Like the owlbear fight, etc.
To everyone - Thank you all for your input, I do really appreciate it. I realize I'm getting defensive when I'm not the one under scrutiny. To be fair, I'm just an argumentative person and dislike believing I'm playing a watered-down, softened version of an AP. Our group consists of 4 dms, all who have been playing dnd for several years and all who are heavily scrutinized by the others. We are all min/maxers and munchkins and are all okay with it. Keep the comments flowing, I'm kind of enjoying hearing how our gillman barbarian is super OP :P
Well, that answers my underwater question.
Honestly, it's quite possible your GM is playing completely by the book. It sounds like your group (consisting of multiple GMs) s very familiar with the rules and reasonably experienced. As admitted min/maxers and munchkins it's quite possible you're just dominating the AP.
If you want a bit more of a challenge, you'd need the GM to actually modify the encounters since your characters are powerhouses. Since you want to play as RAW, however, you'll find it much less challenging.
So to answer you're original question, yes, you'll probably trounce a great deal of this AP. That's the short answer.
Long answer: Does this get tough? Well, yes, it's suppose to. . . for an average party. A lot of us can't answer that question for you properly since we don't know exactly how to measure your group (in the long-run) against these modules. It should get tougher but that's because the APs are written assuming 15-pt buy and average or semi-experienced players with only a bit of optimization, but you already know that since you've played the other APs.
Ya I figured that TBL, the main point behind my question was seeking a comparison between this and other APS (as you said, I've played em). This way it would help us gauge what to expect difficulty wise. If its another kingmaker we will have to stop playing RAW and look to the forums for advice. It sounds like it isn't that simple though, and we may just be dominating because of our experience as you said.
Either way, thanks for the input!
I find it's tough to compare APs because it's almost all based on anecdotal evidence. Some groups find Kingmaker easy and some find it to be one of the hardest APs they've played. Same goes for the rest of them.
If I'm forced to compare based on RAW, hmmm, I'd say definitely harder than Kingmaker. Maybe put it on the same tier as Curse of the Crimson Throne? I don't know. The tough part is we really only have theory to go by at the moment since I don't think anyone has made it to books five and six yet (if they have, I'm not aware of anyone posting their experiences on the forums yet); maybe not even Book four. So there's not really an aggregate of experience to draw from yet.
So by going with just the numbers in the encounters as written, yeah, I'd say CotCT.
Block knight has summed it up nicley. What we are all trying to say is basicaly what I said in my first post.
The AP point buy is 15 not 25 points so its throwing everything out as the pc's are too powerful compared to how the adventure has been built and written for, the CR's of the encounters are tailored for this. If the GM does not alter the game to compensate then is becomes too easy, which is what has happened here. In order for the game to change and become harder the GM will need to change things I'm afraid.
If you say you play RAW then the game will be too easy for you, simple.
If you all wanted to play as RAW then you should have 15 point buy and core races not advanced races, then things wont get skewed
so Im sorry but you are playing a soft version of the game there is no getting round that unless the GM changes the encounters to match you.
Which is why no-one can give you a straight answer as the game has been skewed difficlulty wise so its impossible for anyone to say one way or the other.
Raw the AP is hard thats all anybody can say im afraid.
As for the Mutiny as RAW...Its the climax of ap after the island not on board the ship at day 5 before the island (the ship journey is 5 days, the island is RAW 48hrs so that makes it 7 days at least before the mutiny happens. So if you play RAW then the mutiny wont happen until then (hence you are not playing this AP raw which as I have said is not a problem as the gm needs to adapt my group did the same).
Oh and the underwater combat minuses are for land based creatures not aquatic based creatures which are at home in the water so the Reefclaws as they are aquatic are at full attack bonuses and too hit mods, they dont suffer the -2 to attack and 1d2 damage as land based creatures do. I guess that would also mean the Gillman is too so it should have been a normal comabt for them both. At least thats the way I understand it otherwise a shark would be the same which is just daft.
Land-based creatures can have considerable difficulty when fighting in water. Water affects a creature’s attack rolls, damage, and movement.
I agree on all points except for your understanding of water based combat. Sharks bites are not hindered as they are piercing. Even aquatic creatures take penalties if not using proper weapons underwater. Bludgeoning and slashing have always been reduced under water and claws are bludgeoning and slashing. As I stated, we're all well versed in the rules.
Where did you find the information about the APS being set for 15 point buy? We were under the impression they were 20 point buy. As such we knew we were beefing a little bit, hence why we try strange character archetypes (arcane trickster) instead of your typical wizard/cleric/fighter/rogue party. If its 15 point buy we should definitely tone it down. Where can I find that info though?
Awesome thanks, I wish they woulda put it in the vbooks or made it like pfs. Were gonna drop down our point buy
15-point buy might assist you, but as James Jacobs points out, player skill has a much greater impact on a character's effectiveness than their point buy total.
I don't quite understand why you insist on running the APs RAW, as they're designed to be a baseline adventure to be modified by the GM to suit the party. Your complaint that the GM changed the adventure too much seems to be more a flavour one than a combat one. Why not let the GM adjust encounters to fit? It could be as simple as adding extra mooks, or giving creatures the Advanced template.
If the AP isn't challenging you, and it's challenge you want, then in the end it comes down to your GM stepping up. Paizo writes their APs to reach the largest audience. Writing tough-as-nails, TPK-inducing adventures isn't going to help them any.
Also, you say that once you've finished the first book, it's available for all the players to read. What happens if there are spoilers in the 1st book for other books in the AP?
Huzzah! Alls right with the world. Have fun guys. Hopefully it will work better for you now :))
Oh and the underwater combat thing it's very vague in the core book. There has been debate on the boards about it but its kind of cleared up in the gms guide. It states the rules for aquatic adventures in the core book are for non native creatures so aquatic creatures should not get nerfed. I think James has said somewhere that natural weapons are not affected so the reefclaw gets its full attack but a shaughin with trident is still nerfed. As I say it's very vague though.