Hi there. Rise of the Runelords is my campaign of choice. I am running it right now over on the Dragonlance Forums!
My piece of advice would be to try not to bring any ancillary rulesets into the campaign, unless you are perpared for a major rewrite. As far as I can tell, the only Player-materials used for the campaign are the Core Rulebook and the Advanced Player's Guide, so I limited my players to these books when building characters.
As a rule, I am against using something on one side of the screen that I would not allow on both. If you make your encounter bosses Mythic, but the player characters are not, that would skew things into the realm of the unfair against the players. If you bypassed this by making the player characters mythic, then they will breeze through a lot of the campaign, so you'll have to beef up and rewrite a lot of it. Just stick to the PFCR and the APG.
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I'd recommend against mixing in Mythic to RotRL as well, mostly because I don't think it's needed. Your PCs are going to be Big Damn Heroes, but that doesn't necessarily equate to needing Mythic levels. Contrariwise, not every Big Bad must be mythic. About the only one that should approach using them is Special K himself, but I think that he's cool enough without the Mythic tiers.
The first thing I'd recommend (as always) is spend time letting the PCs explore Sandpoint. For the most part, the people there like them, and you should play up the gratitude the townsfolk show to the PCs, from Mayor Deverin's heartfelt thanks to the loaves of fresh baked bread pressed into their hands. Come up with some side stories along the lines of what has been presented in Local Heroes, but tie them to the things that you think might interest your PCs. Ilsoari Gandethus might be looking to talk with the party's wizard on matters arcane, while the rogue might end up working at cross-purposes to Jubrayl Vhiski.
One other thing that I've been suggesting recently is to change up Shalelu's introduction. Look around on these boards for those suggestions, because I think there's some great ideas in there on turning what's written into something far more engaging.
You'll also want to keep an eye out for how your players react to things. The haunts in Book 2 and the Halls of Sin in Book 5 are all attuned to the previous choices and mannerisms of your party. The closer you pay attention to their decisions now, the more amazed your party will be when you tell them "These bonuses are because of this and that, and these penalties are because of this thing here."
Finally, you know your players better than anyone here. If they enjoy talking with unusual characters, play to that. If they enjoy heavy tactical combat, emphasize that. If they enjoy solving mysteries, by all means, give them crimes to investigate. Make the game yours!
How familiar are you with Pathfinder as a whole? (Just because someone is running Runelords for the first time doesn't mean they're a newbie to Pathfinder itself.)
There are a couple of threads on the incorporation of Mythic into Runelords. I'd suggest if you did, do so with the Runewell under Sandpoint. Then be sure to increase the difficulty of the encounters. You'll likely want to add an extra monster into each encounter, and in the case of mini-boss fights and the like, add other minions (for instance, a pair of guard dogs or worgs or the like).
One of the benefits of Mythic is that it provides your players with extra attacks and the like. By adding extra foes in an environment, you're eating up those extra actions. (You can always run a trial combat on your own to see if a beefed up encounter is too tough for your group, or if they breeze through it. And do note, sometimes dice love players and hate the GM... and sometimes they go the other way.)
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first off i would like to thank you guys for the advice. i consider myself an experinced GM i have ran a 3.x game in some form near continuously since 3.0 came out. i am of the school of thought that for a GM to be good at all he should know your players. i consider myself quite adept at the pathfinder rules set as far as the rules are concerned.
i guess i should explain my plight a little further. my particular gaming group has been playing the DND combat engine since early 2nd edition for most of them. for the most part we have played home games since 3.5 came out and lately i have noticed that none of our games were getting past about 3-5 levels after we started the game. not sure how to remedy this i have spent the better part of 3 years lurking on these message boards and others, as well as listening to highly rated pod-casts about gaming, for advice on our particular problem. after much analyzing i brought my thoughts to the group and after a lengthy discussion we all came to the conclusion that we had fell victim to the dreaded power creep. we have an unabashed and admitted power gamer in our group, and in giving in to his pushing we slowly upped the power level of the PC's in our group until there was no challenge in the game anymore.
this was made painfully aware to everyone when we were trying to run kingmaker for the first time. they were in the first book exploring the greenbelt after having dealt with
any-who i have trimmed the normal 6-8 person group down to a party of 4 with someone else taking the power gamer and a couple of others who want a truly crunchy game and is running something else. we are still in the prepping/concept phase but with 3 of the 4 players trying out the new background generator in ultimate campaign and loving the outcomes the characters are pretty much set.
i have a elven vivisectionist alchemist who is CN with slightly evil tendencies, he's a trustworthy player and i have no worries of him getting out of hand, he is wanting to be a poison master/assassin. we'll see how that turns out, he's never been able to do evil that well, but he is at least willing to give up the character if it becomes a problem
next i have elf evocationist wizard who is cockier, a snob, and obsessed with ancient thasalon. as he puts it "cause they were the only humans wort a crap". he's playing an old stand by base personality but for all of his characters bluster he works with the group and doesn't take the "dick" part of his character too far.
the third character is a little less set in stone than the previous two. he is playing an ex noble oread fighter from the mendelevian border with the worldwound. his home was destroyed when he was young by demons. his current thought is somewhere along the lines of a crusader from our middle ages. he has yet to finalize a personality or character but he will most definatly be playing a fighter.
the last player has yet to roll up his character. i will post an update sometime this weekend when he does. his current concept is a cleric with an archer basis. i have pointed him in the direction of erastil and he's thinking it over. the only question he posed to me was could he take the zen archery feat. this will be his first pathfinder game and he didn't realize that it was a 3.5 feat not reprented in pathfinder. i told him i would think about it but i didn't see much of a problem with it
...there i go rambling again...
anyway i want to really challenge them again. they are all experts at dnd style tactial combat and are great RPer's. i set them up with a 15 pnt point buy and let them hit the Pazio books for whatever. what do you guys think/suggest. and would the zen archery feat, wich gives you wisdom to attack instead of dex to ranged attacks, i rulled as applying only to bows btw, be two overpowered?
first off i would like to thank you guys for the advice. i consider myself an experinced GM i have ran a 3.x game in some form near continuously since 3.0 came out. i am of the school of thought that for a GM to be good at all he should know your players. i consider myself quite adept at the pathfinder rules set as far as the rules are concerned.
i guess i should explain my plight a little further. my particular gaming group has been playing the DND combat engine since early 2nd edition for most of them. for the most part we have played home games since 3.5 came out and lately i have noticed that none of our games were getting past about 3-5 levels after we started the game. not sure how to remedy this i have spent the better part of 3 years lurking on these message boards and others, as well as listening to highly rated pod-casts about gaming, for advice on our particular problem. after much analyzing i brought my thoughts to the group and after a lengthy discussion we all came to the conclusion that we had fell victim to the dreaded power creep. we have an unabashed and admitted power gamer in our group, and in giving in to his pushing we slowly upped the power level of the PC's in our group until there was no challenge in the game anymore.
this was made painfully aware to everyone when we were trying to run kingmaker for the first time. they were in the first book exploring the greenbelt after having dealt with** spoiler omitted ** i randomly rolled a wandering encounter 1d4 trolls...sure enough a 4 comes up. i decide to throw it at them anyway, even though the were only 2nd level, thinking i would see just how far they could be pushed before the would be wiped and then bring in the "rescue". little did i know the would beat them without a person even dropping. now i know part of this has to do with my players being masters of combat tactics, but this is too much...man i got to stop rambling
any-who i have trimmed the normal 6-8 person group down to a...
I still cant understand how they killed those trolls...phew, one of the first times I appreciate my group being new rpg players^^
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they downed the first one with lamp oil. then after beating the other three senseless my power gamer asked "regeneration only helps against HP damage right?" to which i replied "yes, why?" and with an ear to ear grin said "we drag them over to the river and drown them"...my reply "yeah that'll probably do it"
Actually? It will. In Runelords it mentions that ogres killed several trolls in one area by drowning them.
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Re: Zen Archery:
While they haven't reprinted the feat, they have something like it. Guided Hand is in Ultimate Combat and requires the Channel Smite feat, the ability to channel and proficiency in the deity's chosen weapon. It allows you to use Wisdom in place of Strength or Dexterity when making an attack with your deity's chosen weapon. So, no problems there, as long as he chooses Erastil as his patron!
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they downed the first one with lamp oil. then after beating the other three senseless my power gamer asked "regeneration only helps against HP damage right?" to which i replied "yes, why?" and with an ear to ear grin said "we drag them over to the river and drown them"...my reply "yeah that'll probably do it"
In support of the above, I vaguely recall reading somewhere (I think it was Paizo's Classic Monsters Revisited) that Trolls are deathly afraid of deep bodies of water because of their vulnerability to drowning.
But just a moment. Your average troll has a pretty high CMD (22) and Strength of 21. Perhaps I missed it, but how were a bunch of 2nd-level PCs able to drag a quartet of half-ton slavering trolls to the river and drown them? Were they playing a party of giants or something?
By bringing them to 0 hit points or below and not having any fire handy. "You keep clubbing the body, I'll get a bonfire started..."
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Hi! Running ROTRL right now; we've gone from the very beginning and we're starting Book 5, so think I can pitch in.
My very wisest suggestion I can give is, that if you're still worried about power creep, keep your player stats very tame from the beginning. I was in a group playing Skulls & Shackles a year ago where the GM let us roll for ability points, and through fast-talking and shenanigans, our group quickly acquired PCs with the equivalent of 35+ pt buy ability scores. Combined with a lot of one-encounter-a-day fights...and we were murdering everything before the rest of the crew could even blink. I would DEFINITELY suggest using a Point-Buy system, absolutely no more than High Fantasy (20). Even at that point, the power creep can be tricky if not monitored.
Mythic is NOT necessary to make this campaign awesome; as others have said, it's not necessary for every group to be mythic to save the world. The feeling that you are heroes, not demigods, and are going to stop this ancient super-wizard, is much more true to the setting, plot, and down to every encounter.
Mythic Adventures stresses that they shouldn't just be adventures with higher CRs, they're supposed to be completely different stories, paces, and themes.
Trust me, I've murdered 3 or 4 PCs now, and didn't need Mythic to do it.
Now, that said...the ONLY time I'd touch Mythic is in very specific instances, mainly those directly related to the big K himself. The first time I've used /any/ Mythic was in the final battle of Book 4, and that was more of a way to make him a fairer fight against 6 PCs. Also, there was a very big chance I was moving and that was our last session, so I didn't have time to drag out the fight like it is supposed to play out as-written. Even then, I only gave him a single Archmage tier so that he could crank out 2 spells per turn for a little while against 6 foes. He normally retreats and gains allies, making the final battle fairer. If I could have done that, I wouldn't have even bothered with Mythic. I still only plan to give K 2 or 3 tiers at most, and even that only to respect continuity within my own game.
Final thoughts: remember that if you do Mythic, you are now going to spend the rest of the adventure upgrading every. single. fight. Hopefully with a decent amount of Mythic thrown in so that it's actually a Mythic Adventure. Which means re-working many NPCs and long lists of modifiers for bumped-up creatures.
If you do eventually decide to do ANY Mythic, I'd suggest not adding it until at least the 3rd book, and even then use the very slow progression track for Tiers. 1 Tier per book at MOST.
Trust me: if you can keep their stats appropriate, and run the fights like they're meant to be ran, this will be a very dangerous, deadly, but most importantly, fun-tastic adventure your players will be dying to continue. :)
My very wisest suggestion I can give is, that if you're still worried about power creep, keep your player stats very tame from the beginning. I was in a group playing Skulls & Shackles a year ago where the GM let us roll for ability points, and through fast-talking and shenanigans, our group quickly acquired PCs with the equivalent of 35+ pt buy ability scores. Combined with a lot of one-encounter-a-day fights...and we were murdering everything before the rest of the crew could even blink.
I have this problem looming: and it's too late to do something about it creation-wise. We did random-rolls not points-buy and one character got crazy high rolls. His character is noticeably more effective than the others. My plan is to limit the availability of magic items that suit him, relative to the rest,. Fortunately he is fairly unique in what he 'needs' to make him effective relative to the other characters, making limiting item access possible, but that only goes so far. Any other suggestions on how to deal with this would be welcome.
I lucked out. The rogue who rolled 54 points equivalent for stats chose rather than to raise her 17 to 19, to raise a 15 to 17 (giving her two 17s). And her rogue still has had problems (though part of that may be her wanting to use poison and blowgun darts all the time - the former is hard to get and expensive, the latter does little damage!). ;)
I have this problem looming: and it's too late to do something about it creation-wise. We did random-rolls not points-buy and one character got crazy high rolls. His character is noticeably more effective than the others. My plan is to limit the availability of magic items that suit him, relative to the rest,. Fortunately he is fairly unique in what he 'needs' to make him effective relative to the other characters, making limiting item access possible, but that only goes so far. Any other suggestions on how to deal with this would be welcome.My very wisest suggestion I can give is, that if you're still worried about power creep, keep your player stats very tame from the beginning. I was in a group playing Skulls & Shackles a year ago where the GM let us roll for ability points, and through fast-talking and shenanigans, our group quickly acquired PCs with the equivalent of 35+ pt buy ability scores. Combined with a lot of one-encounter-a-day fights...and we were murdering everything before the rest of the crew could even blink.
Yeah, stick with point buy as rolling is never the way to go.
I've seen so very many characters who 'got lucky' with their rolls... but I never see any of those characters who got crappy attributes across the board because they were unlucky - you'd think there would be at least as many, right?
Rolling always seems to result in one of two things happening - either the player 'gets lucky' and has an overpowered character or the player gets unlucky and ends up with a borderline unplayable one... and that's no fun for anyone so the character gets dumped so that the player can have another shot at the overpowered version.
15 points, 20 points, 25 points, whatever... just put everyone on the same playing field and let them make choices over a central core aspect of their character rather than leaving it to chance.
Trust me: if you can keep their stats appropriate, and run the fights like they're meant to be ran, this will be a very dangerous, deadly, but most importantly, fun-tastic adventure your players will be dying to continue. :)
This is exactly right. The AP is epic - no need to turn yourself inside out trying to make it mythic as well.
I will say this. While I have done die-rolling in the past and don't see a problem with high stats, I will be switching to point builds in the future. Part of this lies with just what SA said above. The unlucky player ends up borderline unplayable.
When I first saw the character (which included a 7 Strength and 9 Intelligence) I increased the Int. to 10 and Str. to 9. Later I ended up giving her several points to just distribute as she saw fit; she kept the lower strength but increased Intelligence and Constitution, along with a point in Wisdom (if memory serves). This brought her up to par with the other characters.
I also had one player reroll her stats after the fourth stat was a 12, and was the highest stat. But for that there was a different reason - I'd noticed a pattern. Two dice kept rolling 2s. I asked for the dice, rolled six times in a row, and two kept rolling 2s. I singled out the dice, rolled them alone, and 2s. They were clear dice so it wasn't a weighted job or the like; probably when they tumbled the dice they ended up rounded on one side more than the other. When she rerolled with fresh dice (which I "blessed" before she rolled with) she ended up with a 54 point build equivalent! (And yet has not proven effective in combat as she favors the blowgun. ^^)
These instances have impressed on me why point builds are probably for the best. As an old-school GM I might not like it... but recent evidence suggests it's for the best.
I lucked out. The rogue who rolled 54 points equivalent for stats chose rather than to raise her 17 to 19, to raise a 15 to 17 (giving her two 17s). And her rogue still has had problems (though part of that may be her wanting to use poison and blowgun darts all the time - the former is hard to get and expensive, the latter does little damage!). ;)
Ouch! My players are all fine other than one with a 34 point build equivalent. He's the only character that wears medium-sized medium-protection armour, and the only one that uses medium marshal weapons (dwarf barbarian), so some loot tables are going to get adjusted.
I'm worried about Hook Mountain and Fortress of the Stone Giants where his racial dodge bonus to AC will likely be unbalancing. Anyone know of a good way to single out a dwarf for 'special treatment' in these chapters?
Nope. Just have extra ogres and giants go after him because he's a dwarf and squishing dwarves is fun. ;)
To be honest, dwarves are well-suited for the campaign as there's a metric boatload of giants in there. ;)
I am actually currently in Chapter 3 of a RotRL:AE campaign. My GM has incorporated a number of extra scenarios into it, as well as having had us participate in the Mythic Beta since it came out.
Our characters are now level 7 and Mythic Tier 2, with the Beta-ness ironed out of them and the official Mythic rules in place.
Overall, it has been a blast to play RotRL as a Mythic character.
That being said, at times our group has been an absolute crushing steamroller in combat, as our GM struggled initially with balancing encounters for a Mythic party.
Late in Chapter 2 and now in Chapter 3, he has really gotten the hang of it, however, making for challenging encounters while our group really absolutely feels, well, ...MYTHIC! :)
So, that'd be my advice, just accept that there is going to be some trial and error with combat balance. Hopefully, you'll err on the side of caution at first, which will probably result in your group absolutely rolling some initial encounters. After that, you ramp it up until they're going toe to toe with baddies that can really give them a run for their money.
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considering i play with 2 new players who love rolling dice and im an old schooler with only 1st edition, a fraction of 3.5 edition and 4 years of pathfinder notched on my sword hilt i will forever stay with rolling dice. Even with optimized stats they still need a good roll on the old d20. My first time running skull and shackles i had a TPK on mr pluggs first test when everyone got 50ft up then started rolling 1s and 2s and fell to their deaths, i ruled it a shared dream since everyone spent an hour+ on their characters. It did teach me a valuble lesson tho, never forget your GM screen at home, and the players dont need to make or even see every roll, also skill DCs are nebulous, especially at 1st level.
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I am actually currently in Chapter 3 of a RotRL:AE campaign.
That's cool. If I could pass a message onto your GM, it would be: be VERY careful with the Ogres, specifically during the Fort section (if you guys aren't already there).
Even non-mythic, I ran six PCs through that area, and they slaughtered every Ogre in the entire damn Fort without hardly taking a scratch. With just a little smart thinking and party tactics (not a lot, mind you, just enough to be smart about it), they tore through them like toilet paper in a goblin nursery. It wasn't just impressive, it was terrifying. So I would advise him that against Mythic PCs, do NOT hold anything back with the Fort encounters.
Otherwise, best of luck! Chapter/Book 3 is a blast!
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thanks guys. this post has given me a lot of good advice and a lot to think about. we finally decided on 15 pnt point buy, no arguments made me feel a lot better about it. as a side note the only "mythic" i have been considering was to make one or two of the more "signature" fights each book be more unique by making the monsters mythic, and being the nasty gm thing and giving them normal xp for the fight. but, as most of the posts here have noted that is probably not a good idea. i will keep the thought on the backburner though, just in case the party makes it look a little "too easy"
as far as stats are concerned...yeah rolling got kicked out of our group after 3 players rolled sets of stats and no roll was less than 15, with 2 18's to boot.
as a side note the munchkins of my group have all decided to play thru ROTR as well...wonder how that will turn out.
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oh thought of another question...how many are there in groups anyway...i'm going with 4 since that's what the book says...thoughts?
My groups almost always have six - either 4 PC's and 2 NPC's or 5 PC's and 1 NPC. Generally the NPC(s) serves to fill a role the party doesn't have (so that they don't have to shoe-horn in a character they'd rather not play) and also as the GM's mouthpiece when needed. They are usually not as powerful as the PC's themselves and serve more of a niche role than a full member of the team. They will usually change from time to time during the story rather than become full-time members of the group.
The NPC might be a prominent member of the campaign set up specifically for that purpose (like Shalelu or Ameiko), it might be a hireling of some sort (like a guide), an employer (let me travel with you til Mangimar) or even a future antagonist.
So generally a party of six all told (occasionally 5 or 7), but with the understanding that the only people the PC's can fully depend on is themselves.
My PC's also always start off at 2nd level (I abhor the possibility of a lucky shot taking out a fragile character before the campaign even begins), but with 0 xp, meaning they have to fully earn their way to 3rd.
I'm currently running with 6. We've only played one session so far (next session is Friday night). I added a couple goblins to the first two waves but haven't made any other adjustments so far, and they completed the Swallowtail Festival plus the Desecrated Vault.
The party actually had a tough time with the skeletons in the vault because they didn't have a cleric (their healer was an Oracle of the Dark Tapestry and she had nothing but mind-effecting and cold spells/abilities), the tight quarters kept the alchemist from using bombs and the Fire Specialist Wizard from burning things, and only the fighter had a bludgeoning weapon. (The swashbuckler has since picked up a light mace.)
I'll probably start beefing things up a little more to make up for the extra players once they hit 2nd level. At first level, characters are so fragile I don't want to accidentally overwhelm them.
For our party of five, I hasd the first two waves of goblin attacks take place more or less simultaneously and added two more goblin encounters (one interceding at the Goblin Squash Stables where the goblins were attempting to burn the stables down with the horses inside, one with Shayliss being accosted by two of the little beasties) before the final showdown at the north gate. That final encounter was also beefed up a little bit (5 mooks instead of 2-3) - obviously my goblin raid was a little larger in size than described in the book.
My players characters are not quite optimized but do tend to be very well made and I'll often beef up or draw out encounters to make the challenge level appropriate. We level at the pre-determined times so I don't worry about tracking xp, only about making it fun for the players themselves.
I am actually currently in Chapter 3 of a RotRL:AE campaign.That's cool. If I could pass a message onto your GM, it would be: be VERY careful with the Ogres, specifically during the Fort section (if you guys aren't already there).
Even non-mythic, I ran six PCs through that area, and they slaughtered every Ogre in the entire damn Fort without hardly taking a scratch. With just a little smart thinking and party tactics (not a lot, mind you, just enough to be smart about it), they tore through them like toilet paper in a goblin nursery. It wasn't just impressive, it was terrifying. So I would advise him that against Mythic PCs, do NOT hold anything back with the Fort encounters.
Otherwise, best of luck! Chapter/Book 3 is a blast!
I would also advise caution, but for a different reason - just one critical by an Ogre Hook is enough to kill many PC's, and two lucky shots in an encounter can turn to a TPK real quick.
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I would also advise caution, but for a different reason - just one critical by an Ogre Hook is enough to kill many PC's, and two lucky shots in an encounter can turn to a TPK real quick.
I guess that's fair. Especially when I switched out their Fighter levels for Barbarian levels. I just never did land any crits like that, so it was a sweep, haha.