A Great and Terrible Whisper (Possible Spoilers, DM Feedback Welcome) - Doomcrow's Campaign Thread

[DoomCrow]

Hi all, Doomcrow here. Some of you may know of me from the Kingmaker forums here on Paizo's messageboards. I've decided after a short break to pick up Storytelling and begin anew with Carrion Crown and a completely new group.

I decided to use Obsidian Portal for this campaign, which you can visit here

I'll be using this thread to keep track of the game for the entertainment and amusement of my fellow storytellers, and to welcome any feedback and/or suggestions you may have.

My players get this one warning to keep out of this thread.

My players are just now beginning to throw around character ideas but things will be moving quickly as this Sunday is slated to be our first session.

[DoomCrow]

Current party makeup:

Kitsune Bard
Catfolk Oracle of Life
Aasimar Undead Scourge Paladin
Half-Orc Wolf Shaman Druid
(Race undecided) Inquisitor
(Race Undecided) Mindchemist Alchemist
(Undecided race & class)
(Undecided race & class)

Only two people in the group out of the 7 have ever played Pathfinder before. Helping them adjust to the game shouldn't be an issue as I have done it many times with other players in the past. I'm slowly converting all of the gamers in this region to Pathfinder!! :p

[ANebulousMistress]

Well I just posted my feedback on your party makeup in the thread on uncommon races. My advice stands: get some human-looking things in there. Diplomacy is important in this campaign.

On another note... I ran through this AP with a whole two PCs. Party of two. Summoner and Inquisitor. No one died. Came close quite a few times but no one died. (The eidolon on the other hand... Ever see a winged serpent ripped in half?) Keep in mind the lack of death in my game was a minority. There's a lot of deaths in the first half of this AP. The first adventure alone is really deadly. Clerics are touted as the key to the first adventure and I fully recommend one.

That said... The most important thing to remember about this game is tactics. Make sure your PCs work together and your players are able to talk and plan and strategize with each other. I've seen reports on these boards of parties of 8 falling to encounters that barely fazed my party of two for the simple reason that the party of 8 would not work together, would not fight to the best of everyone's abilities (rather than just their own), and would not take advantage of the setting itself.

Don't be that party of 8. Tactics. Just Don't Stand There(TM). Intelligence isn't just for wizards anymore.

[DoomCrow]

Updated party list:

Kitsune Bard
Catfolk Oracle of Life
Aasimar Undead Scourge Paladin
Half-Orc Wolf Shaman Druid
(Race undecided) Inquisitor
(Race Undecided) Mindchemist Alchemist
Half-Orc Fighter
Dwarf Fighter

[MurphysParadox]

Well, the Aasimar and Dwarf should be ok... the Half-Orcs will be harshly discriminated against. The catfolk will be a lycanthrope (obviously evil and there to eat children). The kitsune will as well unless she keeps to humanoid form.

So you're at 3/8ths of the party hated at the start. Walking around as a large dire wolf isn't a good alternative for the druid either, heh, especially one that can speak.

Now, of course, you can run things however you want and you can change how the society reacts to different races. Maybe half-orcs aren't actually an issue. Maybe catfolk are considered lucky (as a kitsune would be in Japan), so the Oracle doesn't have to worry about pitchfork mobs as much as people constantly bugging her to kiss their child or bless their crops or (especially given the class) heal their sick wife. Could be pretty funny.

[DoomCrow]

The Alchemist will be playing a Varisian Human from Ustalav who studied under Professor Lorrimor at the University of Lepidstadt.

[Helaman]

Good choice.

[DoomCrow]

Inquisitor has chosen Half-Elf.

[JOHN DICKERSON]

Allowing a Life Oracle into the Carrion Crown Adventure Path will spoil a lot of the horror/suspense that is the entire point of the campaign. In HoH, having charisma as main stat + being about to channel positive energy will make most of the prison a cake walk.

When I ran this adventure I even banned the cleric class. A couple PC's ended up dying (mostly resulting from bad rolls and bad tactics), but more important than that, the character were actually scared of this terrible haunted prison that they had to cleanse to save the town.

Of course you can run the path however you want, but my advice would be to really try and milk the horror aspect as much as you can. The way I did so was to limit access to channeling positive energy and to strictly limit the game to 4 pc's, no matter how much my other friends wanted to play too.

Carrior Crown is a very, very different kind of campaign than Kingmaker was. In later modules the PC's will be strained for resources and time and rest and facing threats greater than they can just go up and smash head on.

[JOHN DICKERSON]

Of course, my bias against life oracles is showing through in the above post. As far as I'm concerned, if you're going to play a life oracle you might as well just be cheating.

[DoomCrow]

Well, I won't be playing around, either. I don't plan on letting 8 PCs run rampant and plow through everything.

All zombies will be Plague Zombies with the Relentless Template, for instance. Zombie outbreaks will be deadly, if not for the party then definitely for the villagers, which will create even more havoc.

Still doing some research to see what else I can modify to make things scarier and harder for a group of eight but not overwhelm them or make it so they have no chance either.

[DoomCrow]

Apocalypse zombies are the answer. I was just looking at Classic Horros Revisited, and the Gillamoor Plague Zombie (CR 1) is statistically the same as the Apocalypse zombie (CR 2). They are both made using the Pathfinder rules so I'm left wondering which would be the case.. 22 HP seems a lot for one zombie against 1st level PCs (even 8 of them), so I was considering making them squishier (say 12 hp) and adding more of them.

[JOHN DICKERSON]

From my experience playing and DMing, fights with more enemies with less hit points tend to be more exciting that fights against few enemies with lots of hit points. But increasing the numbers does increase the damage output of the monsters, but 8 players can soak a lot more damage than 4.

However, more enemies plus a lot of players means combat will take a lot of time.

At level 1, normal zombies are a scary encounter, though. They hit really hard and have a ton of HP and you don't always have a slashing weapon to overcome their DR. When you only have 8-12 hp, 1d6+3 will mess you up fast.