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After 14 months of playing almost every monday, my group finished the Jade Regent AP. Thanks to everyone at Paizo and to everyone on these boards. You people are awesome.
Some campaign notes:
- Started the Campaign with We Be Goblins! My players loved it and I recommend this to any DM who's going to run JR.
- In retrospect I would have one of the player characters take Ameiko's spot. It was kinda irritating to run a campaign where an NPC is the protagonist. Especially in chapter six, where she couldn't just let the PCs do all the heavy lifting.
- Got rid of the relationship score, caravan combat and discord subsystems. Never regretted it.
- One thing I love about JR is the epic feeling of traveling around the whole world. To emphazise this, I banned long-range teleport spells from my campaign. Should've done this way before. I also banned any kind of resurrection except Breath of Life and the Amatatsu Seal.
- Since the story didn't really do anything with Sandru, Koya and Shalelu, I killed off the latter to raise the stakes.
- Fighting ninjas on a burning viking ship was pretty damn awesome.
- The party's bard defeated Katyana by using a...Quaal's Feather Token (anchor). Yup.
- The Prince Batsaikhar storyline was hilarious. He proposed to the party's witch. Good times.
- The party's cleric came from Minkai to Sandpoint when he was about three years old. He didn't know anything about his family. So I did what every responsible DM would do...made Kaibuninsho his Evil Twin. He even managed to take the cleric's place without anyone (not even the cleric's player) noticing.
- I had to level up the Jade Regent and his buddies to make the final battle any kind of challenge to my players. YMMV.
I've run six adventure paths so far (SCAP, AoW, STAP, LoF and KM before this) and I think JR is top three material. Thanks again, folks!
First off, congratulations for finishing the AP, you monster. You killed Shalelu! :-/
While I haven't banned teleportation ( since the Amatatsu Seal cannot be teleported, anyway ), I also discarded the sub-systems you mentioned.
As for the final encounter, I got six players and I plan to take all the NPCs to the final battle, so I fear I'll have to do more than level up the opposing party and introduce a few more of them. That will be one afternoon, gone, at the very least. ^^
I am momentarily slogging through The Hungry Storm and finding that the "encounters only once per day" aspect of it is just as tiring as it was in Kingmaker. I get the reason for it, but it just emphasizes how much the party overpowers their opponents. I am considering toning it down for the second leg of that module ( the party is going to fight Vegundsvaag next session ), so that we can finally get into Tian-Xia and to some more extended roleplaying. As such, I'll probably shorten out the Necropolis considerably and minimize random combat encounters, aside from the interesting ones like the Lonely Maiden.
If I may ask, did you do the House of Withered Blossoms in its entirety? It seems like just another mega-dungeon with little roleplay value and much too many trash encounters ( "trash" as in MMO dungeon trash, not to elicit another developers anger over a misunderstanding of the term ^^ ). The setting was very well done, but it seems like a several week slog through waves after waves of badly equipped hobgoblins. I've already cut out several encounters and it still seems too long.
I actually cut some encounters from the HoWB, since I also found it to be atmospheric but kinda overloaded with meaningless fights. So I skipped about half of the hobgoblin encounters, some araneas and some of Munasukaru's spawn/chosen. I kept encounters with exciting locales (fighting hobgoblin monks on a metal grate covering a gorgon pit? Hell yes!). My players also loved the Swine Shogun. By the way, Munasukaru sadly was a total pushover. Might want to give her some minions, too. Her low will save alone might result in a very short boss battle (my party had a witch wigh slumber hex).
For the final battle against the Jade Regent, I bumped him up to level 20. Renshi and the Raven Prince were bumped to level 17 and the oni monk from the first floor was also present. With these modifications, the battle was pretty tense.
My group tends to favor flashy evocations over mind magic, so I think there is a good chance Munasukaru will be able to swing her naginata a few rounds. I was planning on pulling back the monks in the room before her to her room anyway ( and make that room a bit bigger, too ), but thanks for the tip!
With up to 10 PCs/NPCs in the fight against the Jade Regent on one side, I think I'll follow your lead on the level-ups and include a few more bad dudes. The monk you talked about will be an excellent start.
Ouch, that does sound like an anticlimactic ending. I have found doing the final confrontation bit in any campaign tricky but that sounds positively depressing.
Does sound like the GM would have benefited to tailoring things to the group a bit more. At that point the Five Storms should have a pretty good idea of who they're up against.
Congratulations Krathanos and hustonj, that's quite an endeavor indeed!
It's a shame you had an anticlimactic finale, hustonj. :(
I do tend to agree with your GM's comments: 15 point-buy, and no extraordinary generosity towards the PCs. That's also how I GM the APs and it's usually going reasonably well.
Six PCs at 20 point buy vs the original encounter, but apparently without the NPCs. Also at least one character build which is easily one of the most powerful ones in the game ( Synthesist ). So it's not very surprising that the final encounter was a bit anti-climactic.
Since I will be dealing with about the same situation, yet a bit less powerful group ( 20 pts builds, 2 Ninjas, 1 Archer-Fighter, 1 Eldritch Knight, 1 Cleric, 1 Buffbot-Bard ) but with the whole crew of NPCs, I'll extensively re-build and buff the final encounter, so that the action economy alone won't utterly crush the Regents crew. There needs to be a chance there that the party fails.
houstonj, combat at the higher levels always takes 2-3 rounds and then the enemies are down. That's just how the rocket tag nature of the game gets later on.
Uh, okay. "Judge" instead of "GM", "reaching finales" and so on... not sure in which environment this was played, but it sounds rather strange for a regular gaming group. Also, btw., it's "Tengu", not Kenku.
But I goofed with the number of PCs in your group, so my bad. Means I'll need to buff the Regents party even more, it seems. Oh, well, it'll be some work, but it will be worth it. I hope.
Just asking, but is English your first language? Because nowhere did I imply that your behaviour wasn't reasonable, only that I was confused with the nomenclature you used. This is the second time in a row where you come off quite aggressive in responding, I was not criticising you in the prior posts.
Congrats on finishing Kranthanos!
I look forward to adding my own groups to the list of finished campaigns sometime later this year. We are mid-way through the Forest of Spirits and hope to finish it up soon.
I've been keeping a close eye on that final encounter for my own groups. I plan to send them in with NPC support, so I plan to do my best to keep it threatening.
Neither of my groups are super-powered, so I don't suspect needing to do much!
Congratz also! I've been reading the Jade Regent session reports on Geek Related and it sounds like a great AP! Hope you had fun! Any idea what you're going to play next?
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@mikeawmids: I'm also running a bi-weekly campaign of Curse of the Crimson Throne. My players just finished chapter two.
As for this group, I passed the Rod of DM Rulership to my pal, who's running a campaign based in Isger. It's good to kick back and relax once in a while. :)
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We are on book 6 at the moment and the general consensus is that this AP has been populated by easy fight after easy fight and then a scary nightmare of a fight every so often. That said we have only had about 6 PC deaths in this one.
By comparison we are also doing Skull and Shackles at the same time and we have got to the first encounter of the second book. We have already had 7 character deaths.
Six character deaths in an entire campaign is already above the standard I normally have in my campaigns. ^^ So far I'm up to three in each of the campaigns I am running for Jade Regent.
I've found as GM sometimes it's in my best interest to bump up hit points and the like to make things more dramatic. Mind you, I do this both ways. If an attack would one-shot a PC, I might downgrade damage or shift multiple attacks away from one player so that it's spread out. The point is so players feel threatened... not to annihilate them (or be annihilated by them).
When I put my group through Jade Orient eventually I'll definitely have to keep that in mind. And maybe increase the number of items that the villains have to improve their defenses.
Since player characters get more sturdy at the high levels and Paizo APs seldomly pull out the real rocket tag monsters, there tend to be less character deaths at the higher levels in the campaigns I GM.
I kinda think Wrath of the Righteous may go in the other direction, though... ^^
Been thinking about running this adventure series for my group, as I already have We Be Goblins! and a rather demented goblin Rogue in the group.
One, this definitely makes me glad I banned Summoners outright.
Two, I prefer knock down, drag out epic fights. The kind that make players sweat, scheme, and generally get inventive. It sounds like the lethality of the series is more than a mite low, because there's nothing I dislike more than an anticlimax. That's why I prefer running horror and dungeon crawls. Intrigue is a lot of fun, too.
Dammit.
I suppose, but I already have to redo most encounters anyway since I'm using 3.5 adventures. What's the advantage of running a Pathfinder vs what I have been, better art? I just want some exciting stuff, where my players are pushed into being inventive and consider the encounters scary events.
If you want something Japanesey and to satisfy your horror itch, try the Curse of the Golden Spear trilogy of modules (link only points to the first module) by Rite Publishing set in the cursed empire of Kaidan (Japanese horror). Although it was released on or about the same time as the start of JR, it has a similar start from a region outside of the orient, non-oriental characters visit an exotic archipelago of islands for 3 levels of play: 5th - 7th.
There's a free one-shot adventure called Frozen Wind that might give you a taste of Kaidan, to see if it fits your horror interests. While this one-shot features PCs from Kaidan, the trilogy of modules above are more like JR with characters from the west visiting the east.
I designed the map of Kasai, and did some of the gazetteer writing in JR#6: The Empty Throne as a Paizo commission. I have some knowledge of the orient in Pathfinder - it might be what you're looking for...
I'm not knocking Jade Regent, but if you need some oriental horror, instead, check Kaidan out.
Well, to be brutally honest, I've seen a few Japanese horror flicks (supposedly good ones, I was told), and was decidedly unimpressed. Didn't scare me worth a bit. So, I dunno if that would really work well. However, I do think a lot of the Japanese beasties in the Bestiaries were interesting. Thank Gygax they didn't include the one with the eyeball in its butt!
Now, I've run Expedition to Ravenloft in the past, and gotten some interesting results. Only three serious errors in that book. The first was the fact that who gets the castle after Strahd is deceased isn't clear. Second, Strahd himself is kinda a letdown. Really crappy defenses. Third, the maps of the castle don't match properly.
Right now, the guys are at 3rd level, and are about to enter a brief adventure after this one that might get them to 4th, or it might not. Pretty standard mix of classes, and feat selections are mostly defensive. The only odd thing is that all have darkvision, and all can use Stealth competently, with the Rogue being off the charts at +20. Most are pretty goof proof, since 3 of the party are newbies.
Basically, I want something to make my party sweat. I have the Expedition to the Demonweb Pits I plan to run them through at 9th, and that one looks fairly nasty, which is why I told the Wizard to grab the 2 Spell Penetration feats early.
Well Kaidan is based on old Japanese ghost story tradition, not movies. If you read the reviews on The Gift, the first module of the Curse of the Golden Spear, you'll find most agree that this is some really scary stuff. And no shirime in Kaidan so far (the eyeball in the butt thing.)
The Japanese are nothing if not culturally peculiar (creation legends are decidedly disgusting, some of the monsters are outright silly like the tanuki, etc), and overly dramatic. Still, some of it I like.
They don't seem, however, too inclined to have ghosts that can be resolved through compassion for the most part. Basically, once you turn into an evil ghost, you stay that way. I always thought the crucial thing about them was that if you helped them resolve their issues, they go away.
Even in horror, there is a way for the good guys to win, it's just really difficult to find compared to other genres. The old visceral "it jumps out at you" is still worth quite a few scares, though.
Japanese ghosts seem to be like haunts(Ring,Grudge) rather than individual beings. More elemental.
Didn't like Grudge. Didn't scare me in the least, and the end simply engendered anger in me. Not entirely sure why, but I kept wanting to deck the ghost.
The Grudge is as the Japanese title Ju-on which means 'curse', moreso than simply a ghost. All Japanese ghosts have an issue, whether it's jealousy, vengeance, regret, self-pity, anger at an individual, but once it's issue is handled the ghost is laid to rest. A ju-on curse on the other hand involves a ghost whose issue is so deep, that nothing lays it to rest - most Japanese ghosts (yurei) aren't this way.
I've got a product through Rite Publishing coming out next month called Haiku of Horror: Autumn Moon Bath House - which feature detailed maps of a Japanese bath house with gazetteer, staff, guests, and a female ghost with the ju-on curse, built in multiple CR versions for an encounter to any level of party from 3rd to 20th.
For more very Japanese haunts check out #30 Haunts for Kaidan - which includes 30 haunts, several unique undead, a template and 9 gruesome storylines that include multiple haunts, all very Japanese in flavor.
I love Japanese ghosts, and if you don't get a creepy feeling from thinking about them, you just haven't seen them in play the way Kaidan reveals them to be. But I'm biased, I suppose.
I dunno, somehow I think that the whole tone of the Grudge would be dramatically changed if someone basically stepped up and tried to kick the ghost's butt, whether or not they won.
Just didn't seem all that scary to me. I was alternately puzzled, irate, and bored.
A lot more scary if you are someone without divine or arcane help.
There's a curse in the Core rule book that causes a demon to appear and attack the cursed PC if saves are failed. I've adapted that curse to cause a ghost to appear that is at least 1 CR difference above the cursed person with failed saves. Ghosts of course have rejuvenation, which means unless you know the exact means to lay a particular ghost to rest, it will come back. This means you can 'kill' the ghost at the time, but 24 hours later it will be back to attack again, and again.
@ Piccolo - I can understand your frustration, but you can't just kill a ghost, unless you know the circumstances around a particular ghost's creation, it will always rejunvenate. So regarding how PF handles ghosts, the Grudge is accurately portrayed to match the same rules of existence. The cast of the Grudge couldn't kill the ghost - neither could your PC... unless you know how. Of course you can't 'punch a ghost in the face' it's incorporeal.
If a PC acquires the Ju-on curse, every 24 hours the ghost will appear and attack the PC until the PC is dead, or the ghost is laid to rest. That, I think, captures the concept of the Grudge as a curse if using PF rules.
Of course the ghost in question is a new kind with new kinds of ghost special abilities of a drowned bath house attendant - with the Ju-on curse.
My experience and knowledge of occult legends indicates you CAN in fact put the fear of God into a ghost. Just have to be the right sort of person, and know what you are doing. Second, it isn't all that difficult to figure out what the major malfunction is for a ghost. They are pretty obvious; that's what they WANT to happen!
Interesting idea, though. I'd want to see that curse in the core book, what page?
I don't want to eat my words, but I have seen the curse - maybe a 3pp product, I thought it was in the core, but I was wrong. IF I find it, I'll post it.
That said - if you're the right sort of person... How often is that true? Many parties don't choose the optimal class or archetype for a particular adventure. I've run many adventures where a cleric or paladin was essential for a given encounter, but no one in the party filled that role.
One thing though, perhaps your occult knowledge only applies to western ghosts. Yurei (dim spirit), the ghosts of the east are a different manifestation, perhaps they are more different than you think. In the Grudge, however, there were no 'exorcist' type characters in the movie, nobody had the right kind of knowledge to end that ghost, which is part of that movie's horror nature.
That's possible, but to be perfectly honest, I have had some decidedly peculiar real world experiences, and they were more instinctual than anything else, had nothing to do with culture.
If you do find that curse, I want to see it. Might prove handy.
No offense, but I drill versatile and defensive character build/party makeup into my players all the time by using enemies as nastily as possible, and using 3.5 dungeon crawl modules. If they don't have a Cleric or Paladin in the party, or even a decent divine caster/healer, then they don't deserve to survive the encounter. In general, you need a scout, warrior, arcane and divine caster in the group.
It'd be nice to have a full divine caster that uses Charisma instead of Wisdom, but the closest I know of is a Paladin that concentrates on spellcasting.
Oracle is a divine sorcerer.
I like any abilities that let you punch ghosts.
Yeah, but I was never all that impressed by limited spellcasting Sorcerer style, and that's what an Oracle is. More suited to zorching opponents than anything else.
Anyway, does anybody know of a good PF horror adventure?
Well aside from the Kaidan modules, there's always Carrion Crown AP.
That's a horror adventure? And I will try to check out this Kaidan thing, to see if it's properly spooky.