I ask a few questions in another thread but I guess it's best to not hijack other threads ;)
Initial question
I don't want to hijack your thread but I'm in the same seat as the OP. I was GM in AD&D 2nd edition so I'm a bit rusty.I was wondering if the PC needs to know the background of the church in Sandpoint?
Also, I got 5 players (human pally, drow rogue (!), elf ranger, elf mage and a dwarf priest). Is there something wrong playing this campaign at 5 players ? Should I adjust encounters ?
@Quellious ; if you prefer I do a separate thread, please tell me. I just thought it might helpful for you as well.
New questions;
- What can I tell to the players? As reading the RotRL (AE), I still wonder what I should tell them and what not. As an example; the first few pages, it explains why the gobelins are there and why the nobleman allow them to come to the city center. But, should they know that? I guess not but I'm not used to use pregenerated stories so :)
- The book used the fast lane advancement for XP. Since I got 5 players, should I stick to the normal lane ? At least, I can bump them to the next level at each milestone.
Okay. First... either stick to the fast lane for five players... or ignore XPs and just level them up at set points of the module.
Second, there's a player's guide you can download for free. Let the PCs read through that if you want. It's got info leading into the game I believe. :)
Yeah but I'm not sure they'll all read it. I got 3 motivated players (with experience) and 2 beginners that haven't done their player metadata. It might become tricky so I want to be sure to get their attention from the start.
The best thing i ever did to get my wife and daughter invested in their jade regent pcs is i had them also make characters for rise of the rune lords, the catch was the rune lords pcs they made are the older siblings of their characters for jade regent.
now we alternate between the two. after we're done with these its on to shattered star with younger siblings then an epic tour-de-force with a ramped up 6th book of shattered star where they all have to deal with the end threat.
we have a very strong marriage so i don't anticipate the party breaking up:) also our kids are fairly young and loving it:)
the thing with it is tho to start the first ap a month (or in our case a year) before the other so they really start digging their first characters and don't get disillusioned with the first characters or start getting envious of the others
the other thing is i wish they had more about ameiko and her seriously f#*$#ed up family in jade regent or that i had RotRL before starting Jade regent so i knew what happened before, but thats water under the bridge (i understand that they didn't want to spoil any of RotRL)
1) 2d6+6 for the main skills
2) For the drow, I'll take the feat for the church, for others, they will drop by as an adventure group.
3) good idea!
4) Is there already a wiki for that AP?
Thanks a lot!
Sorry, still not used with abilities/skills/traits/feats differences.
I played mostly at AD&D and Cyberpunk several years ago so I'm really rusted.
Still, we played two sessions by far and I think it's great.
Though, I got an issue with one of the PCs. He got a Elf Ranger but he did über rolls on his character creation so he managed to get 20 DEX (18 + racial) and 17 STR. He's using a composite bow + 1 and have a race benefit against gobelins. So you can understand that he's totally outdamage every other PCs. I look at the rules and everything seems legit, he's just really lucky with dices.
Any tips to make this more even for others PCs ?
Thanks again
With 2d6+6, you'll get results like this. ^^;;
Don't worry about him killing goblins so easily (though you can always just double the hit points of the goblins - I always felt they were underpowered myself). He's still only doing 1d8+1 damage, or +2 if he's within 30 feet and has Point Blank Shot. And he gets a -4 to hit if he doesn't have Precise shot and is firing into a melee.
Yeah, he got them as favored ennemies and moreover, he got the point blank shot feat.
The other got averages scores (no more than 16-17, more likely 12-14)
A 12 or a 14 is a good stat. People like to think of 18 as necessary... but let's face it. A +2 is pretty damn decent. :) And I say this as someone with groups with high stats! ^^;;
Your Ranger is just doing what Rangers do best. Don't worry about it. Keep track of his arrows (and of everyone's weight - and don't forget! Coinage weighs you down! This ain't Skyrim with weightless gold!) and you'll find he's not as uber as you fear.
No doubt next level he'll go with the Archer route for Ranger (and either Precise shot or Rapid shot). By 5th level he'll go with Deadly Aim and become nastier... but by then you'll also have moved away from goblins and to other foes.
Yeah, that's what I thought tonight. He might be uber now but a few combats away, that'll be different.
As for arrows, I didn't find a rule in the Core Rulebook yet. I know he got 40 arrows (2 quarries) but how can I calcute lost arrows?
Each arrow he shoots he loses. Yeah, he could recover arrow heads, but arrows that smack into stone walls would break, those fired into the wilderness won't be found, and those that went into critters are damaged. And without a craft skill for fletcher, he can't just make his own arrows.
I remember a rule saying there's a 50 % chance for each arrow that doesn't hit its target to get lost, break or otherwise unusable. Ammo that hits its target is always rendered useless.
It's on the srd here in the little Don't Forget! box but I don't remember where you can find it in print.
I played mostly at AD&D and Cyberpunk several years ago so I'm really rusted.
Still, we played two sessions by far and I think it's great.
Though, I got an issue with one of the PCs. He got a Elf Ranger but he did über rolls on his character creation so he managed to get 20 DEX (18 + racial) and 17 STR. He's using a composite bow + 1 and have a race benefit against gobelins. So you can understand that he's totally outdamage every other PCs. I look at the rules and everything seems legit, he's just really lucky with dices.
Any tips to make this more even for others PCs ?
Thanks again
That's what you get when you use die rolls instead of doing 15 point buy.
And why do you want to make things even for the other PCs? The whole point of die rolls for abilities is to have uneven PCs.
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Leo, I'm old-school AD&D. I was playing during the first print (and still have some minor dislike toward the Boy Scouts organization after my AD&D books were stolen during Boy Scout Camp after I loaned them out... effing little thieves), back in the early 90s. Rolling for stats is a tradition. What's more, the concept of "buying" stats didn't really come into play until a ways into 2nd edition and then 3rd edition.
Part of the enjoyment of rolling for stats is the randomness of it. You can end up with an uber character. You can end up with someone with almost no talent at all. And that uber character can die as easily as the weak character if the dice deem it to be.
It's not the die-rolls that make the character, ultimately. It's the Player. A good roleplayer can take weak stats and make them into a strength and tell an effective story. Do you think a player would have bought down his Constitution in creating a weak sickly wizard who goes on to becoming the most powerful Wizard in the Dragonlance series. ;) It was likely a bad die roll or two that caused that.
After several levels, stats become less important. And really, the best way to compensate for weaker characters is to modify treasure. After all, what benefit is there to be an uber archer if the group doesn't find any magic composite strength bows, or dexterity-boosting magic? ;) Just customize the magic items to be better suited for the other PCs and allow one or two weak items that are tossed the Ranger's way because they don't want him left out. ;) (Stuff like a Cloak of Protection, or magic arrows - which are one-use only.)
Thanks Tangent, couldn't explain better myself.
Leo, I guess I'm too old for this but I didn't plan to use a points pool as videogames does. Though, if the PC didn't get at least one 16, I ask him to reroll. So that's my error I guess.
I do 4d6, reroll 1s, drop the lowest d6.
For newer players, here's a simple explanation for old-school 1st and 2nd edition AD&D players.
Any stat below a 15 was a wasted effort except in Charisma.
15 is the equivalent to a 12. Kind of. And not for Strength. 16 is the equivalent to a 14. Except for Strength... in which a 17 would be a 12 in Pathfinder or 3.5.
This is your first time running since 2nd ed, right?
Exactly !
In my mind, a wizard is a player with a 1d4 HP. And he really die at 0.
Leo, I'm old-school AD&D. I was playing during the first print (and still have some minor dislike toward the Boy Scouts organization after my AD&D books were stolen during Boy Scout Camp after I loaned them out... effing little thieves), back in the early 90s. Rolling for stats is a tradition. What's more, the concept of "buying" stats didn't really come into play until a ways into 2nd edition and then 3rd edition.
Part of the enjoyment of rolling for stats is the randomness of it. You can end up with an uber character. You can end up with someone with almost no talent at all. And that uber character can die as easily as the weak character if the dice deem it to be.
It's not the die-rolls that make the character, ultimately. It's the Player. A good roleplayer can take weak stats and make them into a strength and tell an effective story. Do you think a player would have bought down his Constitution in creating a weak sickly wizard who goes on to becoming the most powerful Wizard in the Dragonlance series. ;) It was likely a bad die roll or two that caused that.
Look i am not against rolling for stats, i am against every character using different dice roll results*, but even then i don't think lower of people who do prefer it that way nor do i force them to accept my way, but please for the love of everything that's good and pure do NOT complain when you get uneven PCs, that's the reason you use that method for generating ability scores.
If creating uneven PCs wasn't your goal then you wouldn't (or shouldn't) use that method for generating ability scores, you would use some other method that doesn't create uneven PCs.You could use:
1) point buy
2) use an array (the same array) for every player**
And no you can't take weak stats and make an effective story for your character you get to do the following:
1) Your character dies because he has very low stats.
2) Your character is a sidekick to the uberman next to him.
3) You built your character better or far better than the one who was more lucky than you and prove that while he was lucky you have a better grasp of the system and make your character equal (or better) to his character.
I just see no benefit to having everyone roll for stats other than creating uneven characters, i have played in two games where everyone rolled for stats and both times i drew the short end of the stick. In the first game my character ended up dying all over the place, in the second game (when my knowledge of the system was way better) i dialed up my character's build to 11 in order to catch up with characters that had 30%-80% more worth in ability than my character.
*To explain myself better, i have no problem if for example all 4 players roll 4d6 drop lowest and then the players decide which one of the 4 results they want to use, and then everyone use that one for their characters i would be fine.
**the way you generate the array doesn't matter, you can take one of the premade arrays in the core book or you can make your own or you can roll dice yourself to create the array, you can have the players roll dice to create the array or whatever you can think of.
PS. I am sorry you were stolen, it has happened to me a few times and it's a very bad feeling.
And really, the best way to compensate for weaker characters is to modify treasure. After all, what benefit is there to be an uber archer if the group doesn't find any magic composite strength bows, or dexterity-boosting magic? ;) Just customize the magic items to be better suited for the other PCs and allow one or two weak items that are tossed the Ranger's way because they don't want him left out. ;) (Stuff like a Cloak of Protection, or magic arrows - which are one-use only.)
And no throwing gear and loot that is customized for the characters whose players rolled poorly means that you are just giving those characters a small to mediocre bump in wealth because the party splits the treasure evenly, so the characters with the uber stats are will just end up selling the gear who is customized for the low stats character and buy gear that suits them.
Yes that means that the low stats character get their gear at a lower cost and you end up doing what i told earlier, you are just giving the low stat character a bump in wealth, not to mention the possibility of angering the uberstat characters' players because it might seem to them that the universe if against them when it comes to gear.
Actually, Leo, I don't see any problem with different players having different point spreads. Using 4d6 rolls, my group had one person who'd have been under a 15-point build, and a couple who'd be 35 point builds. I did tell the low-statted person to increase her stats a little but she's still below what the other players have.
You know something? Hers is the character (halfling cleric/bard) who jumped on the invisible quasit and shoved her silver holy symbol down the quasit's throat (nat. 20 for her attack). She's the one who cows the other characters when "they get too big for themselves." She is an absolute hoot and the fact her stats aren't "uber" (still damn good, mind you, just not "uber") doesn't diminish the fact she's awesomesauce awesome. And she'd have done that if she had a Strength of 7 like she initially had, or the Strength of 9 she ended at (and increased to a 10 at 4th level).
It's not the stats. It's the player. Stats ultimately don't mean anything - the Barbarian with a 28 Strength (initial 19, increased to 20 at 4th level, Rage, Bull Strength) was unable to touch the Barghast after two initial hits despite the uber stat because of dice rolls loving Mal and hating the Barbarian. (Meanwhile, the low-strength Halfling Cleric/Bard used the scroll of See Invisible and Spiritual Weapon to slowly whittle away Mal's health.) And the Barbarian would have died if I'd not sent in Shalelu and had Mal switch his attacks from the impotent Barbarian to the delicious elf.
Point buys don't mean a thing. All they do is encourage min/max characters, in my opinion. And really, all that ultimately matters is this: do the players and GM have fun? If so, who cares how the stats are generated?
I agree that if everyone (and i mean everyone, both GM and players) then all is ok.
@darkwarriorkarg
I can't see how games with uneven PCs can go any other way, it might be that i haven't witnessed it going any other way.
Not splitting the gains of the party evenly breaks my verisimilitude, big time. I really can't fathom most characters not caring that, since everyone risked their lives evenly and helped (more or less) the same to defeat the challenges, some of the party gets a bigger reward "just because".
@Tangent101
I feel that we are threadjacking the OP's thread, if you want please let's resume our discussion in spoiler tags
Actually, Leo, I don't see any problem with different players having different point spreads. Using 4d6 rolls, my group had one person who'd have been under a 15-point build, and a couple who'd be 35 point builds. I did tell the low-statted person to increase her stats a little but she's still below what the other players have.
You know something? Hers is the character (halfling cleric/bard) who jumped on the invisible quasit and shoved her silver holy symbol down the quasit's throat (nat. 20 for her attack). She's the one who cows the other characters when "they get too big for themselves." She is an absolute hoot and the fact her stats aren't "uber" (still damn good, mind you, just not "uber") doesn't diminish the fact she's awesomesauce awesome. And she'd have done that if she had a Strength of 7 like she initially had, or the Strength of 9 she ended at (and increased to a 10 at 4th level).
It's not the stats. It's the player. Stats ultimately don't mean anything - the Barbarian with a 28 Strength (initial 19, increased to 20 at 4th level, Rage, Bull Strength) was unable to touch the Barghast after two initial hits despite the uber stat because of dice rolls loving Mal and hating the Barbarian. (Meanwhile, the low-strength Halfling Cleric/Bard used the scroll of See Invisible and Spiritual Weapon to slowly whittle away Mal's health.) And the Barbarian would have died if I'd not sent in Shalelu and had Mal switch his attacks from the impotent Barbarian to the delicious elf.
Point buys don't mean a thing. All they do is encourage min/max characters, in my opinion. And really, all that ultimately matters is this: do the players and GM have fun? If so, who cares how the stats are generated?
About the cleric and the quasit:
You are either houseruling or the cleric was (in this case) as useful as a 1st level commoner with a club because either you house ruled that the quasit's DR didn't count against this attack OR the quasit was with 0 hit point left and the cleric managed to do two awesome attack rolls in the row and crit (and confirm) and then made another two awesome rolls by rolling max damage on the 2 d3 she rolled for damage (and i am being very generous giving d3 instead of d2 for a small's character holy symbol) bring the total to 6 damage, minus the 5 DR and dropping the quasit to the negatives.So either house ruling or an extremely good streak of luck (in wich case the 1st level commoner with a club would have fared better because he would have required less luck).
On the Barghast:
What exactly did the cleric did? From what you wrote it seems that she didn't do anything?
The barbarian rolls 7 or less for two attacks in a row* and misses the bargast and the cleric did 1d8+1 damage to the bargast (who has 85 hit points) after using two level 2 scrolls?
How exactly did she slowly whittled away Mal's health? Shalelu (an NPC) helped more than the cleric by actually getting hit and allowing the barbarian to survive.
And yes stats mean a lot, stats along with die rolls decide if the actions you choose to do is successful or not, so stats decide (in part) how good you are at what you do, so higher stats you are better at what you do.
If you don't like point buys then don't use them, there are ways to have even created PCs (at least as much ability scores contribute to PCs being even).
*either bad luck or bad dice
Actually, Leo...
As for the Barghast, it was a Greater Barghast (with the Advanced Template) with Blink up. The Barbarian hit every single time. And most of those hits (outside of the first two) were negated by the Blink. However, the Cleric's use of See Invisible and Spiritual Weapon (which bypassed DR) allowed her to continue slowly causing damage to it until finally one spell overcame the Blink (and was near max damage) to finally kill the critter.
In short, a 4th level Barbarian, buffed, wielding a magic bastard sword two-handed with Power Attack who could do 1d10+21 damage a hit managed to do over 50 hit points of damage in the first two rounds of combat... and then for five rounds after that had every attack negated by Blink. The cleric took down around 40 hit points of damage while everyone else could do nothing (except the GMPC at the end, and that was luck). At the same time, she also was using Channel Energy multiple times to keep healing the Barbarian and keep him from dying.
So bad luck (due to Blink) allowed the Barghast to survive far into a combat where realistically it should have died. A really high stat failed to allow the player to overcome those defenses. And the "low" statted character? Saved the day.
It's not the stats. It's the player, the tactics, and the luck of the dice. And even then tactics and intelligence has the ability to reduce the vagaries of luck.
@Tangent101
I still think that you downplayed the quasit and you used house rules, first of all how could the cleric managed to get a hold of the quasit (both in the first place and hold him that long) and your ruling when she forced the holy symbol down in the quasit's throat. Either the cleric player was using bad dice that night and/or your house rules allowed him to do something a commoner could have done under the same circumstances.
I see that must have run the original (at least book one) in order to have Mal to have the advanced template, yes i forgot about the blink (that explain's the barbarian inability to finish the enemy) but still i can't understand how the cleric's 3d8+3 (the damage the spiritual weapon did over the course of the 3 rounds it remained) offered anything really serious to the fight, i don't understand how the cleric did 40 points of damage and how the cleric saved the day.
You can't and shouldn't rely on the dice not behaving correctly when you make and when you play your character, yes the knowledge of the player and the tactics used can affect the effectiveness of any character and there lies the issue, the knowledge of the player and the tactics can be used by both a player whose character has low stats and by a player who has high stats. So you can't rely on those two things to compensate for low stats because the character with higher stats might also have them and be even more effective because he has all of them (high stats, knowledge and tactics).
That's why i remain in my original position, stats do matter.
I am not even considering that the party should have realized that since the bargest doesn't attack the cleric who is controlling the spiritual weapon then the bargest can't leave the room and upon realizing that the party should have left the room and bring out the wand of cure light wounds (or lesser vigor if you played it with 3.5 rules), heal the party and either leave the place and leave the bargest to it's prison or go in for another round while they are fully healed and the bargest is not.
@darkwarriorkarg
No it's not player jealously, what i would be jealous about? one other player being more lucky than me one time with a bunch of rolls?
No i was frustated about the fact that because i was unluckly that one time i get to watch my character fail again again and then have die again again.
And in the second case it wasn't that bad, i didn't get to be useless or have my character die because i was unlucky that one time, i just had to work more, think more, research more and spend more of my time in order to have my character be on (roughly) equal grounds with the rest of the characters. Sure it was still unfair but not nearly as bad as that first time.
On your example on the loot issue:
Two cases:
1) The gun is WAY too expensive, for example if the gun was found at first level and the party could sell it for 25000-30000gp then yes the gun would have to be sold immediatly UNLESS the DM assured the rest of the party that at the very next session the rest of the party would get something of similar value and worth.
2) If the gun isn't that expensive then IF the rest of party unanimously agrees, then they can loan him the item and allow him to keep it and expect their share of the gun's worth to be paid to them by the paladin (or the paladin's share of the treasure) in the next two or three session (max), there might or might not be an interest on the loan (i personally prefer no interest).
It's not about playing in a more communal and socialist way (which i don't think that most adventurers have but that's not the whole issue) it's about not hurting my fun in order to correct the unfairness of die rolling for generating stats (in this discussion) or in just because the DM and/or the players are bad at playing the game.
It's true that because i have had a very bad GM as my GM and a somewhat disfunctional group as my first has made me pretty jaded and a little hardened on some things about RPGs, but that doesn't invalidate my logic and that games should be as fair and just as possible between the players (unless of course the game is made to be competitive and/or unjust).
I will say again if the whole group (whether i am in it or not) is having fun then there is no reason to change how they play.
My mistake was that the Quasit got an Attack of Opportunity in return. I was so shocked by the halfling doing a profanity-laden battlecry and jumping on the Quasit that, when I rolled and saw she made it through the invisibility, I let it stand. And the Quasit failed to wiggle loose (and she tried). Repeatedly.
BTW, I also abided by another rule: A natural 20 is always a hit (with the exception that there is a miss chance for invisibility and the like, which failed to occur - it's not an auto-miss, it's a CHANCE of miss). So the initial grapple roll was successful. The second attack role, shoving her silver holy symbol down the throat of the spellcasting Witch Quasit, was also a success.
I could have paused the game and done a full reading of the Grapple Rules. Instead, I worked off what I could remember and forgot the AoO. The lesson I learned? Triple-check the abilities and attributes of the monster on Hero Labs before the encounter.
Mind you, this isn't the last time she's used Grapple on invisible foes. The next was against Lyrie. This time I recalled the AoO. I decided she would NOT take it, because then she's now visible! Instead, she wiggled loose (while invisible) after some effort... but was hit multiple times despite her invisibility with subdue attacks, and finally was taken out by one last attack AFTER having escaped the grapple.
And as for how the cleric dealt with the 3-round deadline? She cast it more than once. Because she memorized it twice.
Hi guys! Mercador, I was wondering what did you finally do about the background, and how that worked so far. See, I want to warn my players about what to expect from the 1st book and the AP so they'll know how to build their characters, but don't want to spoil them either (I even read somewhere in this forum an opinion on how the new guide made seem the thassilonian language and culture too common).
So, I hope you're already running RotR, and that it had turned out great =)