This thread is the campaign journal and thought palace of my Rise of the Runelord home game. If you've come this far and haven't realized there's going to be spoilers, there's every chance you don't know how to read English.
First of all, our merry band...
Thormier - male half orc barbarian. So far fairly standard, fights with a big axe, though the first two sessions haven't seen him hitting or rolling very high for damage. Just noticed on our second session he hadn't calculated his damage right for using his axe two handed, so once he stops rolling like crap I assume things are going to start falling down much quicker. My guess is the player is the most experienced gamer out of the bunch, though he is completely new to PF where two of the other guys know the system better. Has been acting as somewhat of the leader of the group, which I wholly support.
Sindiel - male fetchling slayer. Very sneaky ranged focus killer. The only evil member of the group. One of the guys completely new to RPGs, though has plaid countless hours of video game RPGs. The player is a good kid, but I kinda wonder if there will be issues in the future. Just the new player and evil thing. We'll see.
Ansem - male human magus. Asked me to build his character based off a specific mini he bought, and after talking with him for a bit I settled on a strength based magus. The player is another who has no experience with table top RPGs, and lots of video game experience, though near as I can tell he does pretty well for himself in the local Clix community (I don't play so I'm only guessing, but I'm at the shop a lot when they're playing and he's often kicking the hell out of most people by my reckoning)...so I think once he gets used to the system he'll be one of the more tactically inclined.
Kyras - male half elf cleric of Sarenrae. Seems to have taken the fire goddess thing a little far, and gone into budding pyromaniac mode. Out of character makes a lot of Bevis sounding FIRE! FIRE! hur hur FIRE! comments, but in character he's been very professional and thoughtful. The player was involved in a semi recent Pathfinder game, though from the sound of it all it's done is cause harm. Started at pretty high levels, every other character was a half dragon vampire centauric pixie or some other nonsense, and a couple of his rule questions have caused be to suspect the GM of that particular game had never actually read the core rulebook, or the player just isn't remembering things very well. Either way, he's a good guy and is always one of the first to offer to look up the specifics of a feat or spell or whatever.
Garrik - male human sorcerer (arcane bloodline). Very quiet player, and subsequently very quiet character. Biggest observation I have so far is he's pretty conservative with spells, casting only oth level as far as I can remember. I've known the player for a few years now through our local warhammer group, and played Pathfinder with him before a handful of times. He's a really sharp kid, just very shy...though I think as things progress he'll open up a bit more.
Oraia - female elf alchemist. An elf raised by dwarves, who taught her how to brew. The player is an old friend of mine from highschool, new to Pathfinder but familiar with 3.0/3.5, if a little rusty. Unfortunately he's only down for chrismass break, so he'll be here for a few sessions, and then sporadically at best (seems like he makes it down every chrismas, but generally only for chrismass...).
Next few I don't have names for...
Female gnome witch - seems to be going for almost a psuedo necromancer theme. Plague patron and healing hex, fox familiar. Fiance of the barbarian's player. The player is new to Pathfinder, but well motivated. She's downloaded a couple apps on her phone and uses her tablet to look up spells and whatnot in game...though the first session there was a lot more general web surfing than looking up game material from what I saw...Right now she's struggling to find a way to contribute, and has mostly just been summoning an eagle, moving around randomly, and plinking away with a crossbow during combat. I'm going to get with her and go over spell selection and try to give her some ideas though, so hopefully our third session she'll feel a bit better about her character.
Male halfling cavalier - Player seems to have the best grasp of the system, and earned his spot at the table by helping one of the other guys who was already accepted make his character. I barely know the guy, but so far he seems like a pretty decent lad. I'm a little concerned about him overshadowing people later on. Not that he's a powergamer, but that everyone else is so new. Hasn't been an issue yet, and from what I've seen he's more than happy to help everyone else with mechanical selections, so I'm probably just being paranoid.
Aasimar paladin - Picked an archetype but for the life of me I can't remember what it's called. Something to do with being more connected with celestials, out of UC. Another completely new guy to the game, and completely new to me as well. In theory he plays 40k, but I've yet to get a game in with him or see him play... Either way, seems like a good kid so far.
Lastly I've one more friend who's going to have a sit down with me sunday to make a character. Old friend from back in the day. We talk gaming just about every time we hang out, though we haven't actually gamed that much together. Couple Shadowrun sessions, and maybe some World of Darkness. One particularly bad Starwars d20 session that I'm just going to completely forget about...Honestly no clue what he'll likely make. Ultimately he's a good guy and I'm glad to have him, but in the past he's been "that guy" that has the three hour long talk about that one character that was so cool and did all these really cool things, and that reminds me of this other character my friend played...But I'm going to stay positive, and worse comes to worse I think he and I can have a little convo in private if it turns into an issue and sort it out...
So, a full ten bloody cats to herd, and me being horribly rusty. Luckily things have transpired to make this less of an issue than it might at first seem...
Our first session saw eight players present. Everyone but Oraia and the guy with no character. That was...frankly...a nightmare. I had neglected to prepare a great deal that I had planned to, and it showed. People came in piecemeal, some with characters and some without...and there was much sitting about with thumbs in dark places for a few of the shorter attention span folk.
Ultimately we had fun, and I (re)learned a whole lot.
The second session saw the introduction of Oraia, and the absence of the paladin and cavalier. Other than Sindiel basically setting out the entire session due to not having much to contribute to the RP section, and the later combat dragging out for the remainder of our time, things went relatively well. The last half hour or so was a semi in character/semi out of character discussion on "what to do next" that resulted in the party splitting up, with the plan being to run one group on one day and the other on another.
Next post, Session 1: The Swallowtail Festival!
Session 1: The Swallowtale Festival
In Attendance...
GnoGnameGnome, female gnome witch (the faith trait)
Thormier, male half orc barbarian (the giant hunter trait)
Sindiel, male fetchling slayer (trait not specified, probably going to go with the Scarni connection trait)
Ansem, male human magus (I think monster hunter)
Kyras, male half elf cleric of Saraenrae
Garrik, male human sorcerer (arcane bloodline)
Whosit, male aasimar paladin
Whatshisname, male halfling cavalier
This being the first session I've ran in probably over a year I was off my game to say the least. Seemed like people still had fun, didn't get hit with any rotten fruit or comically large dice...
I used the festival games from this thread, adding in a couple of my own. Unfortunately I didn't write up any competition for the PCs, which proved to be an issue with the wrestling and to some extent with the dragon races.
One of the events I added in was a wrestling match, to try and get people used to some of the combat maneuvers. The matches were supposed to go three rounds, with the highest point total at the end winning. Tripping your opponent earned you one, bull rushing him out of the 10' radius ring earns you two, and pinning him earns you three. Any sort of unarmed attack would be an instant disqualification. I meant to add in something about slipping in punches when the ref wasn't looking, but got distracted.
I also forgot to come up with competitors before the game, so I improved, describing three other wrestlers and gave them basically a +5 to rolls, a +3 to rolls, and a +1 to rolls, respectively. I think it was two Shonti and a Varissian. Our hulking hero Thormier challenged the biggest of the two Shonti, leading to a very long drawn out match. Least it felt very long and drawn out as we were all very new to the grappling rules :) Ultimately Thormier prevaled, winning a small trinket. Whosit (I should be able to get his name next game day...), the paladin, challenged the Varisian wrestler and won much quicker, though right off the bat I think the Varisian swept our paladin down scoring the first, and his last, point of the match.
Down on the beach Sindiel the slayer took part in the archery contest, where I COMPLETELY spaced the competition. He was told to make his shots, scored a bullseye with the first one, and I went straight into describing the man running the event loudly announcing his name and he was handed his pie. Belor Hemlock took note of Sindiel's performance, and Sindiel in turn took note of Belor taking said note, though got the completely wrong impression. Sindiel is (or was at the time at least) the only evil character in the group, as well as being a semi-odd race (I talked to the player before hand, suggesting it to him, and letting him know that he's not going to get burned at the stake right off the bat, but some people might be prejudiced), and though he didn't know Belor was the local sheriff I described him as obviously someone with some sort of authority...so Sindiel became very suspicious of Belor and has spent most of his time since learning about the good sheriff. This leads nicely into some subplot material I'll get to a little later...
Our fire loving cleric, Kyras, was delighted to come across the goblin tossing event, being that the description mentions you're tossing them into an imaginary fireplace. His first two attempts were bad enough the guy running the event was just about to let him throw in at the kiddy target when he got a solid shot off, winning a small trinket.
Gnogname the witch decided to take a shot at the catapult event and won a small replica. Going to have the event runner approach her later on with the job of guarding him and his invention on the way to Magnimar. Little more on this later as well.
The cavalier absolutely dominated the dragon races, much to the annoyance of the sczarni gamblers, while Ansem the magus could barely get his lizard to acknowledge his existence. Average charisma coupled with picking one of the well fed lizards kept that particular deck pretty well stacked against the poor lad. Wish we would have done more to go with the Sczarni subplot here, but ahh well.
For the actual raid, being I had so many characters, I ran the initial raid and pyros at the same time, with a first level goblin alchemist thrown in. Worked out fairly well for being an off the cuff adjustment. I found an interesting thread on proper encounter design I'll be using for further adjustments.
I didn't change much for Die Dog Die, so that went relatively quickly. We did see both Ansem and the paladin attempt to bull rush Foxglove "out of danger", with the paladin succeeding...and nearly being pistol whipped for his effort (Foxglove is a gunslinger in my game, stats coming...)
After the goblins were ran off Thormier and Gnogname went about trying to find where the goblins came from. They quickly discovered the only goblin tracks in town consisted of those in the festival grounds, and realized some how the little bastards hitched a ride in town via the carts of food and firewood (I had the pyro's and alchemist hiding inside the cart of wood as opposed to just being next to it then lighting it on fire).
Kyras Garrik and Ansem went about searching the goblins, finding little beyond dogslashers and the alchemist's left over bombs/extracts (which originally got Kyras all excited, until he eventually discovered they were almost completely worthless to him). Meanwhile Sindiel went about looting the dead townsfolk, which sparked a brief discussion between him and the paladin.
We wrapped up there and I explained that they would have a day or two of down time before the events in the next session. I'll go over the down time in the next post.
Next time, Session 2: The Boneyard!
Will post Session 2 soon, but an interesting thing happened in tonight's game. To give a little background, after the goblin attack (and after everyone and their dog asked to join the game...) the group decided to split in two. One group staying in town while Hemlock went to Magnimar, and one tracked down the goblins that escaped with the priest's remains.
I'm adding in a few subplots, one involving Monte Cook's Chaositech supliment. Tsuto and a group of goblins were meeting with a group of goblin chaos cultists when things went south and a fight broke out. I decided it would make for an interesting encounter...the PCs tracking the goblins coming across two goblin factions fighting it out, and give Tsuto a chance to make an appearance and thump some heads before running off and continuing with the whole kill his dad and kidnap his sister thing.
Yeah...they managed to knock Tsuto out cold and capture him...
Session 2: The Boneyard
or as I think of it, The Fracturing!
In Attendance...
GnoGnameGnome, female gnome witch (the faith trait)
Thormier, male half orc barbarian (the giant hunter trait)
Sindiel, male fetchling slayer (trait not specified, probably going to go with the Scarni connection trait)
Ansem, male human magus (I think monster hunter)
Kyras, male half elf cleric of Saraenrae
Garrik, male human sorcerer (arcane bloodline, Scholar of Ancients trait)
Oraia, female elf alchemist (merchant trait in town hoping to secure a deal with Ameiko)
Unfortunately the specifics of this session are starting to fade with time, but there was a little bit of downtime activity after the festival. Thormier and Gnogname went about town looking for goblin tracks and trying to get an idea of how the assault was possible, discovering the goblins came out of several carts, and deducing someone from in the town helped get those goblins in those carts. Thormier also caught wind of some goblin tracks and an out-of-place ladder at the boneyard.
Sindiel did some gossip mongering about the man who had been eyeballing him, and learned he is the town's sheriff. He also has a sit down with a man named Jubrayl Vhiski, who lets him known why the sheriff is interested in him. Jubrayl proposes an arrangement be made, that Sindiel get in good with Hemlock and provide information on the sheriff's dealings in return for money and favors. Sindiel accepts.
Ansem spends his time learning where Borden Quint can be located, as the magus is in Sandpoint to study the Thasilonian ruins and has heard of the scholar.
Kyras works to identify some of the potions and goods found on the invading goblins. Much to his anoyance...as most of the "potions" he ended up with were the extracts and bombs from the goblin alchemist.
Garrik busied himself by looking for libraries and the like, trying to find out if there was any record of previous goblin assaults. He learns nothing like this has happened previously, though the town has had it's fair share of troubles...getting a quick and dirty rundown on the Late Unpleasentness.
I'm completely blanking on how Oraia was introduced, but the party got with her and Thormier explains there is something worth investigating at the boneyard. Sindiel elects to stay in town and drink, and the rest go to investigate.
I had originally planned on running a modified version of Monster In The Closet, where a pair of PC classed goblins had infiltrated the Rusty Dragon, but the group headed for the boneyard first.
There the discovered further evidence that someone in the town was helping the goblins, as well as a humanoid's tracks in with the goblin tracks of the group who raided the priest's tomb. With the amount of PCs present, I upped the skeleton count to 6, figuring Tsuto dropped off a couple extra in the two nearest tombs. Unfortunately there was a bit of a bottleneck issue, and the fight took most of the rest of the evening as not everyone could really get into full effect with the undead.
The last bit consisted of the group speaking with Hemlock. Several members of the group were interested in tracking the goblins down. Hemlock gave his speel about wanting the big damn heroes to stick around town, and a compromise was reached. One group would track the goblins down while the other half would make a show of staying in town while Hemlock went to get back up.
If I run this AP again I absolutely need to have maps for all the little encounters like the boneyard. That's probably my one complaint about RotR, is having so much at the beginning that is just there in theme and concept, as opposed to fully fleshed out encounters. It's a small complaint, and my group and I are still having a blast with the game, but it is an issue.
Next up, Session 3a: The Goblin Hunt!