I looked at those in-town Events, and there's not enough Trust points available. The only other way to build trust that I have seen is the town hall fire. I also looked at the town description, and nothing was listed as a means of building Trust.
Not to be a broken record, but Legendary Games also designed a couple of side-trek adventures which work well with the Carrion Crown AP, both of which are designed to address some of the "lack of available Trust points" concerns people had with the initial chapter of the campaign. The first one is called The Fiddler's Lament and the other is The Murmuring Fountain. Both give you more opportunities to earn additional Trust. We call these products Adventure Path Plug-In's for this exact reason.
Nice! Got any more of these for the rest of the adventure path? I could do with a few side-adventures.
That's the only two (for now). And that's mostly because we wanted to "fix" the most commonly cited thing that disappointed folks...i.e., a lack of Trust points in the early going. We've done other side-trek adventures for the other APs we've tackled, though.
I am not going to blow an additional 5 bucks to correct an adventure I already bought. Should have been included in the first place; smacks of greed to nail people for patches.
I am not going to blow an additional 5 bucks to correct an adventure I already bought. Should have been included in the first place; smacks of greed to nail people for patches.
You're certainly entitled to that opinion, Piccolo...though I disagree with it pretty much in every possible way.
You put out a flawed product, so flawed that I had to go in and patch it. That Trust system needed extensive playtesting.
I am not going to pay $5 each for 2 patches. If it comes down to it, I can save money by simply doing it on my own. But then, that's not why I bought the adventure, is it? I bought it so I don't have to write my own adventures, as did everyone else who bought Harrowstone.
I am literally just starting out with the adventure, and sadly I can point to numerous holes in the game mechanics and structure. If this is indicative of the rest of the modules, I will not be buying Pathfinder adventures any more.
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You put out a flawed product...
I put out a flawed product? You do realize I'm not a Paizo employee, right? I'm a freelancer who wrote Chapter 5 of Carrion Crown with Ashes at Dawn, not the Haunting of Harrowstone. And I'm also a member of the Legendary Games design team (a third-party publisher of like-minded freelancers) who created these so-called "patches" as supplementary material for the APs to enhance their play. If you don't see any additional value in them, that's fine. I offered them up as a potential solution to your perceived problem, as described here. But no biggie. As you say, you can address your problems just as easily on your own.
No, I didn't realize that. I don't have an employee list for Paizo/Pathfinder.
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The trust mechanics oopsie is a minor glitch in an Ennie-award winning 5-star average out of 26 reviews adventure. If you're giving that up due to something so negligible, well, you're doing yourself a major disservice.
And if you're willing to drop an entire book line due to an error, well, that can quickly end up in dropping the entire hobby altogether.
I just bought all the modules, and am contemplating running this campaign. I have the advice pdf, but it really doesn't help much.
What I would like to know are things like what sort of feats should PC's take, what class mix we should have, etc, to get the most out of Carrion Crown.
I have outlawed Summoner, Alchemist, Gunslinger, and am considering banning Samurai, Ninja, Magus, Monk because of thematic reasons for this campaign.
It is important that someone(s) have knowledge and social skills covered. What class they use to do it does not matter. I do highly reccomend a cleric however.
After that whatever the party thinks they can survive with.
Source:I ran it as a GM.
I think we have the Knowledge and Diplomacy skills well covered in the group. The paladin and cleric are both very good at Diplomacy, while the Wizard, Rogue, and Cleric do well on the knowledges.
an Ennie-award winning 5-star average out of 26 reviews adventure.
I guess only those who liked the AP reviewed it.
I played from the beginning through to some of castle caromac and now left the group because, in my opinon, the only horror about this horror themed AP is how bad it is.No noticable connection between the parts, no meaningful ingame motivation to only name the two top offenders.
And reading some of the threads about it I hardly seem the only one who thinks that way.
But as always YMMV.
an Ennie-award winning 5-star average out of 26 reviews adventure.I guess only those who liked the AP reviewed it.
I played from the beginning through to some of castle caromac and now left the group because, in my opinon, the only horror about this horror themed AP is how bad it is.
No noticable connection between the parts, no meaningful ingame motivation to only name the two top offenders.
And reading some of the threads about it I hardly seem the only one who thinks that way.
But as always YMMV.
I think the main malfunction (if what you wrote is correct) is that they should have gotten the various writers together BEFORE they write the adventures, and had a powwow about how to connect everything.
Is the Trust system in play still in effect in the later modules? It appears to be a way to get players to be Good aligned.
Is the Trust system in play still in effect in the later modules? It appears to be a way to get players to be Good aligned.
I don't think so but as a player I can't say for sure.
what do people think about carrion crown as a whole? Is the major malfunction simply that they aren't well connected, or is there more?
Piccolo, a lot of your responses in this thread have been, to put it mildly, condescending and nasty, and you seriously need to dial that back.
Also, anyone who's a full-time Paizo employee has a little blue Golem by their name.
The trust mechanic only exists in book 1. Book 2 has its own submechanic for handling the trial. Book 3 has a small submechanic for tracking when the head of Ascanor Lodge loses it and starts trying to kill the PCs for examining the Lodge's affairs too closely. Book 4 has a sanity submechanic that I skipped. Book 5 has a divergent path based on whether the party does diplomacy with the vampires or fights it out with them. Book 6 is the most straightforward of the lot, and deals primarily with dispensing some white-hot indiscriminate justice.
I've run the AP all the way through, and enjoyed it a great deal, as did my group of players. We're currently doing some stuff to extend the campaign, as people wanted to keep going instead of starting the next campaign.
1) PCs should have a past with Professor Lorrimar. He dies, they're his executors. They wind up saving the town as part of helping Kendra. While they're at Harrowstone, Lady Vesorianna gives them the description of Auren Vrood, the late Professor's killer. After saving Ravengro, they eventually go to Lepidstadt to carry out the Professor's will.
2) The party is hired by Judge Daramid in Lepidstadt to investigate the Beast. This will ultimately lead them to the Beast's creator at Schloss Caromarc. Said creator, Alpon Caromarc, was recently attacked by Auren Vrood; assuming the PCs don't botch the adventure and rescue COunt Caromarc, he can set them on the trail of Vrood. This is around when the party starts finding out that Vrood's up to something big.
3) Book 3 is all about the hunt for Vrood, taking the party to Ascanor Lodge, the Stairs of the Moon, where the PCs will probably receive a divine vision giving hints about the rest of the AP, and ultimately to the showdown in Feldgrau. There the PCs kill Vrood, only to learn that Vrood was but the servant of a greater threat. The info that they can glean will send them to Illmarsh in pursuit of one of Vrood's allies.
4) The party goes to Thrushmoor, and onwards to Illmarsh in pursuit of a Dark Rider. The trail of the Dark Rider leads all the way to the skum colony nearby. Once the party has settled the skum and migo and recovered Raven's Head and the Dark Rider's possession, the trail will point towards the Dark Rider's allies in Caliphas.
5) The party arrives at Caliphas, where they finally link up Lorrimar's friends in the Palatine Eye and meet Count Galdana, who will be happy to assist the PCs. The PCs' investigations of the Whispering Way lead them to the Caliphas vampires, who may be friend or foe depending on how the PCs proceed. The PCs will stop a Whispering Way plot to break Luvick Siervage's control over the Caliphas vampires, which would send the city spiraling into a bloodbath. After they stop this plot, they find that their new friend, Count Galdana, was the intended target of the Carrion Crown elixir, and he's been abducted and taken to Renchurch.
6) The party travels to Renchurch to rescue Count Galdana. After doing so, they then travel to Gallowspire to end the threat of the Carrion Crown elixir.
In short, the entire AP ties together. A GM can modify things to make the ties stronger. It's a lot easier to make a stronger campaign if you read the books ahead of time and plan accordingly. For example, Adivion, the BBEG, doesn't actually have a stat block until book 6, but it helps the campaign immensely if you're able to work him in earlier. There's an entire thread dedicated to that particular issue.
You can use the board's search function, and the GM reference threads, to read up on what's been said about the trust system, and other subsystems.
I thank you for all the typing, but I have to say that if you want to talk with me about personal matters, you should first send your queries to me privately. That's according to the TOU. I have good reason for my behavior. Encountered a lot of these posters in other threads, and they were less than decent, thus I am far less tolerant of tomfoolery.
I've read the first adventure, and nothing in it refers to Vrood. Even so, I do intend to keep Kendra around. Mostly I want to play the adventures as written, but only mildly alter the more broken bits, like the Trust mechanic.
I don't mind writing my own stuff, but I prefer to save that level of effort and all around care for Dark Ages Vampire, as I did with Chicago by Night, a supplement for VtM.
Um. You may need to reread the first adventure in more detail.
The background section at the start of the adventure explains what Vrood was doing at Harrowstone, a sidebar a little further in explains exactly how Vrood killed the Professor, and Vesorianna actually witnessed the fight and can describe Vrood to the PCs.
She might, but she has no motivation to do so. Yes, I know how he was murdered, but again that has no bearing on the adventure.
Vrood also cast the ritual to abduct Warden Hawkren, Vesorianna's husband. While she doesn't have the spellcraft necessary to understand what Vrood actually did, IIRC she does know that Vrood performed a ritual and her husband was gone.
From Lady V's perspective the professor isn't terrible important, but he did die trying to stop the necromancer who did something to her husband. And I would expect her to be pretty interested in her husband's abductor.
Once the party's agreed to help Lady V, it's a pretty simple matter for her to warn them about the scary necromancer with burning eyes who struck down an old wizard -- or ask that if they have the chance, they take the necromancer down and find out what became of her husband.
So I disagree that Lady V has no motivation to tell the party about Vrood. Vrood's actions at Harrowstone are the most important thing to have happened to Lady V since her death, even if to Vrood it was just Tuesday.
Oh! I thought you meant the daughter of the professor, the one that I now recall was Kendra. Sorry about that; was a little distracted.
They haven't met Vesorianna yet. They haven't even entered Harrowstone. Heck, the town hall fire hasn't happened yet. I wanted to include a grand total of 60 people in it, including the town elders. I figure that should give them a chance to get more Trust. Only problem is, the PC's will have to crash the party, since they only have 23 Trust right now.
All they did was master all the Knowledge checks, grab the hidden stash, and pone over Gibs. That was all in the first session. This group seems to be more about wanting to know the information BEFORE they jump into a big haunted mess, plus I think they liked the xp rewards. They're 500xp shy of leveling to 2. I intend to give them exactly average hp, so that way when they get level drained, they will know what their hp total is easily. (personally, I hate level drainers, they wreak havoc on party balance)
Well, they finished the town hall fire with only 3 deaths out of the 60 possible. That means they have a freakish amount of Trust, so I will reinstate the Harrowstone drain on Trust.
They just managed to level to 2.
Next stop, Harrowstone itself. Ran the animation of the good Professor as a zombie, and of course this really messed up Kendra (plus freaked out a little the players).
I sure hope there's a lot of treasure in Harrowstone, because the PC's are running on E right now, with all of 31gp between them!
I'd read the Core Rulebook and Bestiary first. Rogues being able to sneak attack undead is one of major Pathfinder changes, and if you didn't know of it until this thread, there might be more surprises there for you, and you'd rather catch them before the game, not during.
Level drain and negative levels you say? Don't sweat it, unless you've houseruled it that way. Just another major improvement in bookkeeping over 3.5:
For each negative level a creature has, it takes a cumulative –1 penalty on all ability checks, attack rolls, combat maneuver checks, Combat Maneuver Defense, saving throws, and skill checks. In addition, the creature reduces its current and total hit points by 5 for each negative level it possesses.
That said, I prefer average hp for my own characters anyway, because my luck with dice has me convinced I'm a seventh son of a seventh son.
i actually know most of the rules, it's just that minor details sometimes surprise me, especially since i hadn't run an undead centered adventure in a long time.
I looked at those in-town Events, and there's not enough Trust points available. The only other way to build trust that I have seen is the town hall fire. I also looked at the town description, and nothing was listed as a means of building Trust.Not to be a broken record, but Legendary Games also designed a couple of side-trek adventures which work well with the Carrion Crown AP, both of which are designed to address some of the "lack of available Trust points" concerns people had with the initial chapter of the campaign. The first one is called The Fiddler's Lament and the other is The Murmuring Fountain. Both give you more opportunities to earn additional Trust. We call these products Adventure Path Plug-In's for this exact reason.
Both of these have been sitting in my shopping cart for the last few weeks, along with Treasury of the Macabre - I look forward to mining them for ideas next week when I buy them!
Based on what I learned about Harrowstone, you should hold the town hall fire as soon as possible, and have 60 NPC's total. Spread the fire away from the townsfolk along the walls. This grants enough Trust so that they can withstand the -1 Trust per day mechanic, and reduces purchase prices by 20%, very necessary given that there's no treasure in the beginning of the adventure.
Oh, and be sure you have one or two people with a high Diplomacy check! Knowledges are important too. I recommend a Paladin and a Cleric in the group.
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You put out a flawed product, so flawed that I had to go in and patch it. That Trust system needed extensive playtesting.
I am not going to pay $5 each for 2 patches. If it comes down to it, I can save money by simply doing it on my own. But then, that's not why I bought the adventure, is it? I bought it so I don't have to write my own adventures, as did everyone else who bought Harrowstone.
I am literally just starting out with the adventure, and sadly I can point to numerous holes in the game mechanics and structure. If this is indicative of the rest of the modules, I will not be buying Pathfinder adventures any more.
I think it's really lovely and wonderful that the authors of APs (and other things), like Neil here, come to the forums and spend time outside of their lives to answer our questions and be involved in our community. They frequently do it on all the forums where they too have answered my questions as well.
I think it would be a real shame, if their involvement in the community is lessened by people like you. You are entitled to your opinion - and if you want to say you don't like Carrion Crown, please by all means review it. But you were pointing fingers at Neil (in the wrong direction no less) and calling it a flawed product as if it has something fundamentally wrong to it and shouldn't be sold. First of all, no matter how much you playtest a Video game, it will always have bugs. The same can be said for an RP product. But that's why it's great to see the author's here trying to help us out afterwards. Secondly, any GM worth her salt knows that reading an AP and adding flair is putting the icing on an already very generous and delicious cake. There's always ways to improve a product and make it better or your own. Actually - I, for one, did not change the trust system at all and my player felt the tension and the stress of the entire INSULAR town crowding in on him which made for a very intense, very amazing roleplay which was quite successful.
A few more things to note:
- James Jacobs, the creative director of paizo, also posts on these forums frequently - and he addressed the issue with the trust system which would take a quick search by you. He said it was simply 1 sentence which was left out which allowed for some bonus ways to earn trust. He too is a vocal voice in the community helping us.
- A few kind people have created entire "packets" for the trust system alone if you wanted to add extra sidequests that are easy as reading a few pages just as if they were in an AP. These people are also not paid but like to help the community.
- All the people on this thread took their time out to respond to you and try to help you and I saw nothing but condescension and disregard. You didn't even apologize to Neil when you realized he was not even involved in "The Haunting of Harrowstone" when he has nothing to do with that and was trying to help you out.
All I ask is that you come here, feel free to complain, whine or vent, you have free speech and all. But have a little respect. Don't ruin this place for the others. I for one am so beyond grateful for the APs because without them, I wouldn't have time to run the amazing campaigns I have run. And I am grateful to the authors who take their time out to answer our questions and be part of this community.
You are inserting words and intent where there is none. I did NOT say I hated the product. I *DID* say that I expected more thorough playtesting, which should have been done on the Trust system.
I don't yet HAVE an opinion on Harrowstone beyond what I've already stated/experienced. And get this: you have no authority over me or this thread or this forum. I don't have to explain myself to you, or anyone else.
Tell you what, how about after I finish the adventure module, I privately message YOU, Orphelyne, about my opinion, just to make YOU PERSONALLY happy? I can guarantee that is won't be what you expect, especially since you have mystically divined my nature through text. I know *I* certainly can't do that, and it's my career to be good at reading others.
If you have a problem with me in the future, MESSAGE ME PRIVATELY. Do so without rancor, and you just might get what you are looking for in a response.
Or to put my last post in internet-speak, :p
You are inserting words and intent where there is none. I did NOT say I hated the product. I *DID* say that I expected more thorough playtesting, which should have been done on the Trust system.
I don't yet HAVE an opinion on Harrowstone beyond what I've already stated/experienced. And get this: you have no authority over me or this thread or this forum. I don't have to explain myself to you, or anyone else.
Tell you what, how about after I finish the adventure module, I privately message YOU, Orphelyne, about my opinion, just to make YOU PERSONALLY happy? I can guarantee that is won't be what you expect, especially since you have mystically divined my nature through text. I know *I* certainly can't do that, and it's my career to be good at reading others.
If you have a problem with me in the future, MESSAGE ME PRIVATELY. Do so without rancor, and you just might get what you are looking for in a response.
TOMFOOLERY!!!!!! SHHHHHH!!!!
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an Ennie-award winning 5-star average out of 26 reviews adventure.I guess only those who liked the AP reviewed it.
I played from the beginning through to some of castle caromac and now left the group because, in my opinon, the only horror about this horror themed AP is how bad it is.
No noticable connection between the parts, no meaningful ingame motivation to only name the two top offenders.
And reading some of the threads about it I hardly seem the only one who thinks that way.
But as always YMMV.
1) Gorbacz was talking about the first adventure, "Haunting of Harrowstone", NOT about the entire AP. And if you didn't like the first adventure, that's fine, but you are certainly outside of the consensus on that one - it is considerd to be one of the best published adventures in recent years.
2) While the AP is flawed, as you mentioned, most of the individual adventures in it are great, and there are some awesome threads in this site where people bring up great ideas how to make the AP seem more related.
TOMFOOLERY!!!!!! SHHHHHH!!!!You are inserting words and intent where there is none. I did NOT say I hated the product. I *DID* say that I expected more thorough playtesting, which should have been done on the Trust system.
I don't yet HAVE an opinion on Harrowstone beyond what I've already stated/experienced. And get this: you have no authority over me or this thread or this forum. I don't have to explain myself to you, or anyone else.
Tell you what, how about after I finish the adventure module, I privately message YOU, Orphelyne, about my opinion, just to make YOU PERSONALLY happy? I can guarantee that is won't be what you expect, especially since you have mystically divined my nature through text. I know *I* certainly can't do that, and it's my career to be good at reading others.
If you have a problem with me in the future, MESSAGE ME PRIVATELY. Do so without rancor, and you just might get what you are looking for in a response.
Awright, I have a large vocabulary, so what?
1) Gorbacz was talking about the first adventure, "Haunting of Harrowstone", NOT about the entire AP. And if you didn't like the first adventure, that's fine, but you are certainly outside of the consensus on that one - it is considerd to be one of the best published adventures in recent years.2) While the AP is flawed, as you mentioned, most of the individual adventures in it are great, and there are some awesome threads in this site where people bring up great ideas how to make the AP seem more related.
Well, so far I haven't seen anything awesome in Harrowstone. I did think the bit about awarding xp for making Knowledge checks was original, but it also created a problem: Without accompanying gold, you end up with broke 2nd level characters. He's got plenty of items to buy in town once the fire is put out in the town hall, BUT so far there's no source of moolah to BUY them with! Now, my group hasn't yet gone into the ex-jail yet, so I can only hope that LOTS of loot has been stashed there. If not, my opinion of this adventure may suffer, simply because I've noted in the past that characters can't really function well without moolah.
As for how the adventures are linked, THAT should have been solved before the modules actually came out. No excuse is possible for that lack, as it's a simple fix: get all the authors together, and have them construct links between one adventure and the next, then put that into the text.
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No excuse is possible for that lack, as it's a simple fix: get all the authors together, and have them construct links between one adventure and the next, then put that into the text.
Either youv'e never experienced anything like managing 6 completley seperate freelancers, with different deadlines, working simultaniously... or you are just purposfuly saying absurd things. Each author needs to have liberty to change things on the fly according to his vision of the part he's writing - each such change requires in turn to tinker withh all the other adventures to accomedate that change, and you have endless trouble.
I'm not saying adventures shouldn't be connected - they should be, and the AP suffers because they are not. But attempting to claim that linking adventures is an easy matter... that's just way off the mark. Most APs are only slighlty more connected than Carrion Crown, and it's rare that all the connection appear in the AP itself - it's one of the things a GM has to do by him/herself. Of course, here in the forums there are PLENTY of great ideas how to do so succesfuly.
So far, I have noticed that there's a LOT of necessary numbers missing, like the to hit for flaming skulls etc. Very bad editing.
I noticed that there's a lot of one shot items presented as treasure, but very little in the way of money or art objects. That's kinda sucky, because all the items are too necessary for the adventure module and so won't be sold, and that means the players can't go shopping or pay for anything in town. All those items for sale in the town are pointless without the PC's getting monetary items or gold.
The editing of this adventure module sucks. Plain and simple. Some of the descriptions are nice, but they aren't presented clearly all the time. Many useful bits of information, like what a war razor is and how much it's worth are missing.
Now, this is just the stuff I have noticed so far. From a GM's perspective, all these haunts that can't be resolved until the very end of the adventure are pointless. They just end up to be a way to give any PC who hangs around certain rooms a hard time, which also means an exercise in frustration for the players.
This adventure won an award? The writing quality isn't all that good, but the art is absolutely gorgeous.
Yeah, we got almost all the treasure on the beginning level of Harrowstone, and the secret Temple stash as well. Here is a copy of what we found so far, note the frequency of single use items:
Loot: 4 Haunt Siphons, 12 silver arrows, 4 sun rods, 10 +1 arrows, 5 +1 Ghost Touch arrows, 2 +1 Undead Bane arrows, 9 potions Cure Light, 5 potions Lesser Restoration, scroll Detect Undead, 2 scroll Hide From Undead, scroll Protection From Evil, Brass Ouija board, 1005.6gp (including remaining group money), 4 Cure Moderate potions, 2 potions Remove Disease, 2 healer’s kits, 3 antitoxin, 2 antiplague, 3 bloodblock, 3 doses smelling salts, 2 soothe syrup, the 5 special items on page 37 (only ID the handaxe), Wand of Lesser Restoration (12 charges).
Destroyed Old Ember Maw for good. About to enter S8.
Items for sale in Ravengro:
Temple of Kelemvor: all clerical potions up to 3rd, holy water, incense of meditation (1 dose), +1 silver Morningstar, wand of cure moderate wounds (19 charges), scroll restoration.
General Store: masterwork full plate, any mundane item
Forge: +1 light steel shield, +1 rapier
Apothecary: any arcane potions, poisons
Silk Purse: ring of feather falling, dusty rose ioun stone (for 500gp, or higher if PC’s tell them what it is)
Unfurling Scroll: 1-3rd level arcane scrolls, wand cat’s grace (13 charges), wand slow (6 charges), flesh golem manual (unknown cost, but worth 6k to Montagnie or 4k on open market), base value 1000gp, max value 5000gp.
Awright, I have a large vocabulary, so what?TOMFOOLERY!!!!!! SHHHHHH!!!!You are inserting words and intent where there is none. I did NOT say I hated the product. I *DID* say that I expected more thorough playtesting, which should have been done on the Trust system.
I don't yet HAVE an opinion on Harrowstone beyond what I've already stated/experienced. And get this: you have no authority over me or this thread or this forum. I don't have to explain myself to you, or anyone else.
Tell you what, how about after I finish the adventure module, I privately message YOU, Orphelyne, about my opinion, just to make YOU PERSONALLY happy? I can guarantee that is won't be what you expect, especially since you have mystically divined my nature through text. I know *I* certainly can't do that, and it's my career to be good at reading others.
If you have a problem with me in the future, MESSAGE ME PRIVATELY. Do so without rancor, and you just might get what you are looking for in a response.
just like the word TOMFOOLERY!!!! in caps, and just watched an episode of Always Sunny and wanted to Shush someone on the internets, nothing personal just a bit of fun:)
a little levity for a sunny day as it were:)
Are ya sure you're reading the same adventure i have and not a black market edition?, i found the editing, story, encounters and mechanics all quite fun (i didn't use the trust mechanic, mostly cause i forgot too:). i ran it for 3 people who havent played since first edition and one experienced in pathfinder, it was my fifth adventure or so myself, everyone had a good time, no complaints about wealth distribution and everyone found the difficulty of some of the encounters invigorating, just my experience, overall Carrion Crown is one of my favorite so far
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From a GM's perspective, all these haunts that can't be resolved until the very end of the adventure are pointless. They just end up to be a way to give any PC who hangs around certain rooms a hard time, which also means an exercise in frustration for the players.
to me, this sentence more than anything else shows that maybe you are looking for something very different in an adventure than most of those hanging around the forum do. If you'll ask around, I'm pretty sure you'll find that people LOVE those haunts (I know I do), becuase they are interesting, present roleplay oppertunities and give the location a richer history. They are also fun to bypass, as for each you need to figure out the way to shut the haunt down, and some are really sneaky (like the one the posses a PC to only later manifest during another combat and cause havoc). If you only see haunts as an annoying obstacle the PCs must wade through (to get where? the end of the adventure? the fun is playing the adventure, not finishing it), then clearly you have a widely different taste the most around here.
Which is fine :)
Okay, here's a pertinent question: How the heck are the PC's supposed to figure out how to resolve the haunts and thus get the XP? Oh, and while we are at it, what about the accompanying wealth that is supposed to be paired up with it; wouldn't that result in very poor PC's for their level?
Think about it.
Okay, here's a pertinent question: How the heck are the PC's supposed to figure out how to resolve the haunts and thus get the XP?
How? By reading the rules on Haunts :)
Or...you know, by using the search bar on the forums like I just did :)
TL:DR:
They're nebulous on purpose...encourage your players to use knowledge checks on religion, history, or local to see if they know about religious or folkloric tales that would help them overcome the challenges.
The wealth to be paired up with the xp is hidden around the book. You didn't think that many haunt siphons were supposed to be gravy on top of wealth by level, did you? The book (nor almost any other) isn't written such that xp and wealth are paired up proportionally in each and every encounter, it's on the coarser wealth by level, or even by book. Which is great, because it means you can have secret stashes with meaningful treasure balancing out the poor zombies who have 8 gp worth of knives between them.
Problem is, almost all of that wealth is concentrated into one shot items, the sort that are to be used up during the adventure (undead bane, ghost touch, etc). Thus, no player will end up profiting by them, as they are used up in the course of getting XP. The result is STILL the same: PC's who are very poor for their given character level. It's not like they can just take the various arrows and use them in the next adventure, since each focuses on a totally different monster type.
Moreover, the simple fact is that classes that don't dish out positive energy (Fighter, Rogue, Ranger, Monk, Barbarian, etc) are completely hosed over. Why? Well, none of them have Ghost Touch equipment (which don't appear until +2 weapons are the norm). All those fancy arrows are nice, but what happens if you have a party warrior type that put their Attributes into Strength (for melee) and not Dexterity (for missiles)?
Yes, I know that Haunts are supposed to be researched, but the main malfunction with that little idea is that given the -1 Trust per day function of Harrowstone, most of those libraries that grant appreciable bonuses won't be accessible. I had to grant a +5 bonus for the Paladin & Cleric's Diplomacy because they were of the same deity as the temple in order to get them into the Temple library. Those +4 bonuses are very necessary, given the time limit of the adventure, and the mere fact that most 1st-2nd level characters will have sucky Knowledge rolls merely because they are low level. This sets up the PC's for failure, just as the frustration of dealing with Haunts does.
It's not just the editing that has problems. It's the fact that this adventure is NOT mini friendly. To give you an example, to destroy a Haunt, one of the PC's was supposed to carry some heated bones and toss them into the pond water that was nearby. They didn't realize this, in part because there was no combat map of the battleground they had with the possessed furnace/cremator. No maps of each battle, and that's the sort of thing that is STANDARD for almost every published adventure I have ever read. Only other time I've seen this bad of an editing job is anything by Palladium.
I am NOT asking for the adventure to be easy, but it SHOULD be appropriate for the class level that are recommended for this module. It isn't. Too many incorporeal enemies, too few sources to gain Trust, horrid editing, bad treasure selections (this last is "so far", haven't finished the adventure).
One thing I will say, gorgeous art. Just plain wow. And some of the ideas are definitely interesting as something different/new.
I told my players and so did the player's guide that knowledge and social skills would help. I did not have all of the same problems you had, and I used the book's DC for getting information.
As for the arrows they can be used as improvised daggers with a -4 penalty.
Now the treasure was something I did not like, but that was an experiment IIRC to see how the game would go if an AP gave out consumables. I hope it is never done again.
The trust mechanic was also not perfect as you mentioned, but the AP is not as bad as you make it sound. Some of what you don't like is just a matter of opinion instead of facts.
PS:Yes I am aware that a cleric makes like a lot easier, and a party without a cleric will have a difficult time compared to a party that has one.
Oils of Magic Weapon are 50g each.
Beyond that, haunts are tied to locations. You can run from them, you can leave them for later, you can choose to never set foot in that room again, and you'll still get the xp (and depending how fast your rogue is, the treasure).
Or you could just avoid the nasties until you find one +1 weapon, sell it, and buy a lakeful of holy water. If the players make full use of their resources to conquer the challenges in front of them, rather than sitting back and saying "this +1 arrow might be useful to our party of zero archers someday, let's hang on to it just in case", they can readily assemble what they need to combat the restless dead of Harrowstone.
You write that they have 1000gp in savings, plus all the treasure they found. I could do so much with that and one character, much less four.
Also +1 for using the ghost touch arrows as daggers. If you won't buy holy water, at least take the -4 in order to do full damage (1d4+strength) instead of half a magic weapon ((2d6+str+1)/2). You want to get full use of your str? Don't let the ghosts halve it for free.
I know it leaves a bad taste in your mouth to buy expendables when you feel like the "proper" equipment is within reach, but it's not. So you have to get creative about it.
Also what happened to customizing your treasure to suit your party? when i ran it we had a rogue, an alchemist, a ranger and a cavalier, so i included a few extra haunt siphons and some extra holy water, presto, a party fully equipped to handle anything Harrowstone threw at them.
non consumables can always be added via random encounters, side jobs for shop keepers in town (a gremlin infestation eradication can go a long way to earning that magical sword and/or armor you had your eyes on in the window) or just via GM fiat.
oil of magic weapon only grants a 50% damage vs incorporeals. Not enough. And since when did anyone grant XP for running away from something?
I did not say they had 1000gp in savings. They actually have 31gp, TOTAL, amongst themselves. That 1000gp is from the gathering of items so far found in the adventure, the rest is purely one shot items. 250gp per person does not go far, in case you haven't noticed, Jaunt.
Arrows break when used as daggers, sorry. Of course, that's according to real life, not the game.
I dunno, so far for a supposedly award winning module, this one sucks. Right now, I would call it simply average. Most of what I stated was simply fact. I know game balance very, very well.
For example, the guys went up against a CR4, and didn't take damage. Yet they went up against a CR1 (2 zombies) and the Paladin nearly died.
Whoever wrote this shindig wasn't paying attention. Here I was hoping for something horrific. As of now, the only scary thing was the animated Prof attacking the Paladin, and possibly the animated crematorium.
Also what happened to customizing your treasure to suit your party? when i ran it we had a rogue, an alchemist, a ranger and a cavalier, so i included a few extra haunt siphons and some extra holy water, presto, a party fully equipped to handle anything Harrowstone threw at them.
non consumables can always be added via random encounters, side jobs for shop keepers in town (a gremlin infestation eradication can go a long way to earning that magical sword and/or armor you had your eyes on in the window) or just via GM fiat.
Yes, I thought of that already. However, doing so doesn't provide for an honest evaluation of the module. Now, tinkering with actual campaign setting material? THAT I heavily modify to suit the characters, to create more adventure possibility.
If I alter the module, that means the power balance is out of whack. Right now, I tried temporarily negating the constant reduction in Trust, only to discover that they have earned LOTS of Trust having saved 57 out of 60 townsfolk during the town hall fire.
So, my impulse is not to alter it too much. If the PC's have a hard time simply because they chose poorly of character class, too bad, I don't care. I recommended a Paladin and a Cleric, and the players agreed they were useful, so they decided to play those classes. I also said that it would be smart to up their Will and Fort saves, but that hasn't happened.
What I would really like to see is enough dough in the game to upgrade their armor somewhat, like a breastplate instead of mail. But those hopes are fading, because of all the one shot items. For anyone planning to run this adventure, grant them maximum starting money for 1st level. They will NEED it!
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Sorry, but 50% is more than enough to kill it in the duration. Whether it's enough to kill it before it kills you is a problem for the party, but there are multiple ways to overcome that particular problem. It's not as if a 50% effective longsword is going to be the only damage the party is doing in that fight, right? And if they do put all their eggs in one basket like that, someone will try to heal him?
I understand about the realism of arrows breaking when used as daggers. Personally, when I use magic arrows to stab people in real life, they break all the time. It's very annoying. Especially when the people I'm stabbing are ghosts.
Again, I'm sorry Piccolo, but 250g per person is plenty. Especially if the party works together to manage their finances. I'm confused about the line " 1005.6gp (including remaining group money)". If that is not their savings, then they've already spent it, and they do not have 1005.6 gp? They only have 31 gp? Because if I understand you correctly, I agree, a module should award a party way more than 31 gp by the time they're halfway through. Having played through Harrowstone, fortunately, I'm very sure that it does. So assuming that they have more than 31gp to their names, it's very provident that the wizard can scribe scrolls for only 12.5 gold each, and it doesn't even take more than a few hours per scroll. And you only have to kill an encounter or two before you get a brand new set of loot to use, sell, or play with. Holy water only costs 25 gold each, and if it lets you kill a ghost, it's money well spent. It's not a great idea for the paladin, but everyone should be contributing during combat, even with incorporeals, so it's a great backup option. Even if you miss, you hit! There are a lot of ways to prepare for combat with incorporeals and other scary foes on the cheap; you don't need ghost touch weapons.
Again, I will respectfully disagree as to its suckiness, as it's one of my favorite modules of all time, and one of the few I didn't blow through (let's be honest, Tomb of Horrors doesn't really count).
If this don't find this brand of horror to be horrific enough, maybe you could try another game, or if you mention other modules you found horrible enough, I could try and think of similar ones. Personally, I think there's a lot of horror in Harrowstone, but horror is subjective.
If the players really need additional gold, there's the On the Payroll campaign trait, but I found it entirely unnecessary.
If 2 zombies almost killed a paladin, the players weren't taking it seriously, or the zombies got lucky. That can happen with any encounter.
Oh, as for running away and getting xp for haunts, it's here. You don't seem familiar with the Paizo developers and how to tell who's official, so Brandon Hodge is the person who wrote the Haunt rules and so definitely knows how they're supposed to work, and James Jacobs is the creative director of Pathfinder, which I am led to believe is even more important.