My friends and I might be playing Reign of Winter the Adventure Path, I was wondering what peoples impressions were of it? I will not be ruining it so please no spoilers. I just want to get an idea of how much fun it was to play, any non specific issues with it or concerns about playing it.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Its pretty harsh on certain aspects. Some of the combats can be hard for some play styles to deal with. Also its important to read up on environmental hazards (cold and snow) and later on aerial combat.
Much of the difficultly will lie in how hard your GM plays some situations, as written and played as intended its going to be rough for the PCs. If the GM rules loosely or gets certain details wrong it can be a cakewalk. Read environmental conditions closely.
Oh, the random encounter chart is on the brutal side of things, pray you don't get hit with some of the stuff on there.
Your characters will be travelling a lot, so be prepared to learn new languages and/or use magic to by-pass that problem.
Depending upon how the party interacts with certain NPCs, they can pick up some allies (or back-up characters).
The adventure is really good imo, especially a good portion of the 2nd book, just started the third and the middle of the second is so far favorite among players. The first book can be a real problem for ranged characters, so I would reccomend having a melee option for the first few levels.
Melee is also troublesome for the first book, snow rules limit movement greatly.
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Reign of Winter is a campaign like no other in the hostory of D&D - be prepared for some outlandish stuff, and be open minded. You WILL be surprised, and you WILL find yourself so far away removed from the familiar fantasy environment, that real mental flexibility is required.
However, this AP is really, really good. It has one of the best adventures ever written for Pathfinder. It includes some really special encounters and creatures, and is dripping flavor from all directions.
I highly recommend this AP. You're in for a load of fun and some truly staggering surprises.
Reign of Winter is a campaign like no other in the hostory of D&D - be prepared for some outlandish stuff, and be open minded. You WILL be surprised, and you WILL find yourself so far away removed from the familiar fantasy environment, that real mental flexibility is required.
However, this AP is really, really good. It has one of the best adventures ever written for Pathfinder. It includes some really special encounters and creatures, and is dripping flavor from all directions.
I highly recommend this AP. You're in for a load of fun and some truly staggering surprises.
one of the best adventures ever written by pathfinder? i disagree, its one of the best written adventures EVER!!!! pathfinder or DnD:)
Melee is also troublesome for the first book, snow rules limit movement greatly.
That's a good point, once you close though there should be no problem. The main problem is that you are pretty much always at some kind of tactical disadvantage.
Given the number of silly voices used at my gaming table, I felt sure that "Reign of Winter impressions" was going to be about impersonating characters from the AP...
|
My group is just about to finish book 2, and this campaign is definitely on hard mode, even with 5 PCs. Figure out how you're going to deal with weather/terrain, travel, foreign languages/cultures, etc as a party. You need some good social skills, you need good knowledges, and you need to be able to account yourselves well in combat.
One of the most important things you're gonna need for this campaign, however, is buy-in. If you're not interested in playing THIS campaign, there aren't lots of opportunities for PC-specific side quests. Within each book, if you come up with something (one of my PCs is getting married to an NPC they've met, for example) run with it, but don't expect to be able to really go back to earlier places and characters unless you bring them with you.
I'm having fun running it
One amusing result --
*player of the 2-handed weapon ranger looks over at the witch's and oracle's players*: Do either of you know mending?
Oracle's player: Yeah, I do.
Ranger's player: Good.
*Ranger proceeds to go through the bags on the mule while under fire, pulls out a hammock, runs over to a sprite, nets it in the hammock, and stabs it to death. The hammock gets mended later*
Meanwhile in that same fight, Hammelstaub snuck attack the inquisitor with an inflict light wounds spell for 15 damage. Looking at the atomie oracle's size, I advised the player "Yeah, it's kind of like a flying gerbil just shoryukened you." I don't know why I find diminutive creatures dealing massive harm in melee combat hilarious, but I do.
Also, my party responded to the guardian doll in the hut by throwing a lasso around it and trying to yank it out. The doll was not amused.
Anyways, it's pretty neat, though be sure to have some people who are competent at ranged combat or you will find the first part of book 1 really annoying.
Anyways, it's pretty neat, though be sure to have some people who are competent at ranged combat or you will find the first part of book 1 really annoying.
Due to snow rules, this isn't exactly the campaign for archery, either. My archer got a little frustrated, so much so that I dialed back the volume of snow for a little bit in the first book.
I'm GMing it. It was the first campaign I've been enchanted with in a while, and I love it. Since it hasn't been said yet in this thread, I'd suggest playing a witch.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I've been deliberately ignoring the -4 to all ranged attacks while its snowing, because I find that really dumb. If the snow's actually coming with high winds, sure, but when it's just snowing? No.
Enforcing it also probably would've caused a player revolt, because everything that's flying or fighting at range have high enough ACs already that all of my PCs but the inquisitor would need natural 20s to hit anything, and the inquisitor (who's actually going for ranged combat and has a high dex) would need natural 17s or so.
1st level characters and a blanket -4 to all ranged attacks do not mix well.
We will be starting this campaign in a month or so.
I think I will mostly ignore the -4 as well, as one of my players will specifically be playing an archer.
Moreover there are foes with arrows as well, so this will also weaken them.
I am thinking of letting it snow on and off, so that the -4 will apply in some combats, just to give the players an idea of the disadvantage the bad weather gives them, so that they will be motivated to end the winter.
Just started the 3rd book and I'm really enjoying it so far.
Playing a Bard/rogue going to Arcane trickster and finding the Bards knowledge skills are very handy.
We've had one death in the party, that was in the first book, adjusting to combat in a harsh environment made us think out our strategies pretty quickly.
If the player are prepared to think it's a really good AP.
DBH
Just started the 3rd book and I'm really enjoying it so far.
Playing a Bard/rogue going to Arcane trickster and finding the Bards knowledge skills are very handy.
We've had one death in the party, that was in the first book, adjusting to combat in a harsh environment made us think out our strategies pretty quickly.
If the player are prepared to think it's a really good AP.
DBH
Wow, one death... My party will argue bout tactics and halfway through book 3 we've had about 15 deaths... O-o
It's been a lot of fun so far, but, much like most things, much of that comes from the people you do it with. My favorite moment so far wasn't from the adventure path itself, but was a little twist I made as GM.
The party was taunting a captured fey and refused to release him. Frustrated, the little guy released a color spray knocking out the brawler mid-taunt causing the entire room to laugh their butts off for a good five minutes.
The brawler won the exchange by tossing the sprite, still bound, into the nearby fire out of anger. Still, it was worth it. Would have even been better, but the swashbuckler used his Charmed Life ability to bump up his save and he barely made it.
My party is about halfway through book 1 now, and they seem to be enjoying it - I know I am. It's been pretty tough so far, but they like the challenge, and I've been trying to make it as creepy as possible. They've all learned to hate fairies with a passion, and they were talking about...
for a couple of days after.
our Thursday night group is just about to start book four (level 9 currently). the thing other than environmental stuff that has been mentioned is that i have noticed so far is what works good is a balanced party. this can be mitigated some by having more than four players (which we do) but essentially you need up front beef, buff and healing, skills and face, and battlefield shaping. you don't have to have the classic Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Wizard, but having those roles represented in some fashion by different players help. Another thing to consider is having all damage types, and ability to deal with all different kinds of baddies( i.e. incorporeal, invisible, spell casty etc.) Although i guess the advice i just gave you applies to most campaigns i can just say that Reign of Winter brings all kinds and takes all kinds!
My group got done with the AP 3 weeks ago, the last book is really strong, but you will need to adjust the final showdown to your parties composition. The final BBEG only lasted 3 rounds and she only manage to get one effective spell off (still killed a PC). Honestly though the continuing the campaign stuff looks amazing, so if you find the final underwhelming I encourage creative GMs to pick up the mythic book and go for it.
Melee is also troublesome for the first book, snow rules limit movement greatly.
Would the half-elf racial option: Cold-Honed solve this? Or perhaps the Icewalker trait?