One of the PCs took Leadership and wanted a Hellknight in training,so I gave him a Taldan noble with plenty of gourmet tastes. The roc egg omelet was far from the first odd table quest he got connected to.
Only on book 1, and so far I haven't changed any of the actual quests too much, but I have managed to make them a bit more organic.
I let them bring back some Moon Radishes on their own initiative (one of them is a gnome with a gardening obsession, so I thought they probably would). Svetlana recognised the radishes and asked them to go back for more.
Similarly, the PCs were never asked to bring back Svetlana's ring, since I was waiting for them to announce they were going after the bandits. They instead dealt with the mites and kobolds first and managed to pick the ring as part of their reward from Chief Sootscale. They only found out what it was when they took it to Oleg to have it valued.
I tried to set up the Fangberry quest by having the potions made by Bokken taste better than usual, to foreshadow the extra ingredient. However, they never had a reason to use one before meeting Bokken himself. They did, however, negotiate their own reward - they want him to make them a stronger version of the Stag Lord's wine, to make sure he's properly asleep before they attack.
One of the PCs ordered a new spear through their credit at Oleg's. I figured that rather than send to Restov, he could have that made locally. So I was able to introduce Vekkel Benzen as having taken up crafting after he had to retire as a hunter, rather than just a quest giver who happened to be in the bar.
The party trekked down to the Shrike River - the place where in the book the Owlbear has its lair, I removed that and moved the Owlbear into the woods nearer Hargulka's place - and battled several wolf-like enemies (Retch Hounds, Yeth Hounds, Trollhounds, Elusa Hounds, Shadow Mastiffs, Hellhounds, Goblin Dogs, and a Nerizo demon) along with common wolves and the threats inherent to the region (Shocker Lizards which they avoided, the Leucrotta, some Wyverns they avoided, and the Hodags who were out of their lair at the time; they'll meet them again when they head into the woods to deal with the Forest Drake), then finally found Howl in his lair along with his consorts - an Elusa Hound, a Dweomercat, a Shadow Mastiff, and a handful of wolves, along with a Trollhound and a Hound of Tindalos as bodyguards. After the rather vicious fight, the party scoured the cave and found some loot amidst all the dead humanoids Howl had hunted down, as well as a kennel where the young of Howl's pack - including several pups of the more exotic animals, even a wolf variant of the Dweomercat and a Winter Wolf puppy - which the party adopted and took back to their capital with them.
The normal young - wolves and a couple worgs - were turned over to Rannulf to add to his pack; the unusual ones were kept by the party intending to be trained as the kingdom's (or more specifically, the Spymistress's) personal hounds.
Note: His name got changed because the area where I stuck the Stolen Lands in my setting is in my world's southern hemisphere, so south=colder regions and north=barren hot rocky badlands.
|
There's too many changes to list here, but I never liked the idea of "check the adventure board" for quests. Had to weave them into a cohesive storyline that the party may or may not bite on. For example, Oleg & Svetlana have lived on the frontier and lost two children to the land. Svetlana knows moon radishes help to conceive, so once the nearby bandits were cleared and the fort appeared safe enough to raise a child, she secretly sought our female character to explain her situatio and desire, offering an obscene amount of money for the radishes (thanks to the influx in new trade, the fort is growing).
In Book 4, after the Tatzlford battle, a local young man distinguished himself, and his rich mother who makes her fortune raising horses (who disapproved of his joining the local militia but was proud of his efforts) wanted to gift him with breeding stock of the finest kind (introducing the side quest). Hence it tied to the battle and fleshed out the brave locals who fought so hard against impossible odds.
Anyways, I don't plan many of these out in advance and instead see how they go. I've skipped several just because they have no interest (when you've got some time go fishing for me and bring some eels?)
Oh, duh, it's not that these quests are boring, it's that Paizo didn't have the room to make them interesting. I need to flesh them out myself to make them more interesting rather than just skipping them.
I really, really wish my PCs would take some initiative (getting married, starting a business, etc.) so that I'd have a hook to tie these things in.
Cauis: Great work on the dead noble. Much more interesting.
Changes ...
VV: Swapped out the spriggans for ravenous / wanna-be wendigo inbred ogrekin with the surname of Graul. Transplanted them from RotRL, upgunned as a clan of Magus. Added on a certain moonflower, deceased nymph in the well and a trio of Biggun spiders to round out the clan's support cast.
Candlemere: Cthulhu-fied, added a big nasty haunted temple, guarded by gobs of vacuum-empowered will-o-wisps, super-nasty chaos beast in the belly of the place.
Western Forests: upgunned Wolf in Sheeps Clothing.
Petrified Rune Giant General from RotRL "resting" in Varnhold Pass. Later the PCs messed with his stuff, releasing him to hack them into giblets and stomp the snot out of them with high-octane mummy rot.
High-end Assassination Attempt: advanced denizen of leng arcane tricksters packing temporal stasis - they got their targets and split. Nasty business.
Revenant-ified enemy from side quest taken before getting the charter - a cyclops revenant cleric to be precise. Aquatic ghast tyrannosaurus ripped them a new one.
Good times!
Spoiler:Revenants...
** spoiler omitted **** spoiler omitted **
Glad to have been of assistance, Orthos! ^____^
I really, really wish my PCs would take some initiative (getting married, starting a business, etc.) so that I'd have a hook to tie these things in.
So simply tell them? I did, and they really liked it. Baron has several sons, and our sorceress married Stas, one of the quest givers :)
The baron still goes drinking with Stas once a year, on the day that she died :(Awesome roleplay hooks!
Added a subplot around the eventual BBE:
Blodeuwedd Queens one serves winter, located in Varnhold area of the map, has malks and cold riders guards a fey circle but also preys upon travlers. The other is summer has cultivated intelligent plants adn will at least start friendly (but push the PCs from going near her fairy circle. She also has a small army of druid/ranger kobolds defending her stuff. She will get killed by Narissa sometime during the events of war of the River kings.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If the NPCs live and breathe in the game world, makes quests natural. Also used a heavy remake of the Candlemere (Book 2) island to make it a mini-dungeon, good stuff. In Book 3, used Dude's take on the Centaurs and linked their holy sites (helpful if players wished to become one with the tribe and learn their secrets) as side quests. Book 3 was probably my most heavily modified side-quest book.
Also note Dude's monster kingdom (Book 2) as using side-quests to link in main events. Howl-of-the-North is being recruited by a BBEG, so more than just a "reward wanted" sign.
But, because each game of Pathfinder is SO unique, it's near impossible to make a map of how my side-encounter changes might play out in your game.