Can it be done? What modifications would you suggest?
I wondered about giving each PC a sidekick, a secondary NPC that begins with only a level in Warrior, Adept or Expert to start. (Like a Sam to their Frodo.) Has anyone does something similar?
Heck, just give each player 2 PCs. Full party of 4 now! :)
prototype00
You could start the characters at level 2.
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I think a good way of doing it is just making liberal use of the NPCs the adventure gives. It gives a ton.
Even from the beginning, if you can stress meeting with the halfling, you have someone to help them out with the goblins in the swamp (The encounters up to the halfling, while maybe tricky, shouldn't be impossible for a party of 2).
Honestly, to a certain degree, I would have fun with this concept. The caravan becomes the roster where they can swap in and out 2 extra NPCs to join them on the adventure, and it grows so easily over time. The PCs are permanent fixtures, and each player gets to choose one of the NPCs to come along to the 'individual' portions of the adventure and in general they control that character for combat and stuff (though the voice and opinions of NPCs belong to the GM and there is an amount of veto there, but shouldn't try to abuse it, all for fun). The experience is shared equally with all involved in earning it, so PCs will always be where they should be level wise in the adventure. NPCs are leveled by the GM or players depending on how much control you want over them, personally I would do it myself. It would be interesting to see if the Players try to swap out the NPCs to 'evenly' level them, or to concentrate of a few favourites. Maybe they tend to pick NPCs less so because of mechanics and more-so because that particular character gets a funny voice from the GM that the players particularly like.
Sure, it may seem very video-gamey or pokemon-esque, but honestly it's totally what I would do in the situation and I think my players would have fun with it. I Imagine at this point they'd have trained up Spivey, Kelda, and Ulf as their side-npcs.
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I'm doing exactly that, taking a hint from Bioware games (Dragon Age and Mass Effect).
Whenever the PCs leave the caravan to do something, they choose 2 NPCs to tag along. The others stay to guard the caravan from enemy attacks (a very real threat at this point). That leads to some interesting situations as they pick the NPCs appropriate to the situation either by theme or skillset. On caravan random encounters, I typically choose one NPC at random to fight with the PCs (or choose one that hasn't been used in a while).
I also plan to give the PCs mythic tiers through the Amatatsu Seal, so they'll have a better action economy and resilience.
Since I don't use XP (preferring the step system envisioned by Sean K Reynolds), I plan to just keep the NPCs a couple levels behind the PCs. That way they might help in battle but won't overshadow them, and if a PC decides to take the Leadership feat I have a host of ready cohorts.
Now that I have a copy of Brinewall Legacy, I totally see what you guys have been saying. There are tons of NPCs to swap in and out as needed starting with that halfling ranger. Thanks for the great idea.
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No prob. I'd be curious to know how you implement it in your game and how it works, so if you have the time, love for you to keep us posted.
One thing I would consider doing, in order to make the NPCs not completely overshadow the PCs, is maybe knock them down a level or two. I mean Shalelu is sixth or seventh level as I recall. Your players might not feel like main characters if that's who they're rolling with.
No prob. I'd be curious to know how you implement it in your game and how it works, so if you have the time, love for you to keep us posted.
I definitely will, but we won't start until May, so don't hold your breath.
One thing I would consider doing, in order to make the NPCs not completely overshadow the PCs, is maybe knock them down a level or two. I mean Shalelu is sixth or seventh level as I recall. Your players might not feel like main characters if that's who they're rolling with.
Yeah, I noticed that problem. One of my players is dead-set on playing a gnome druid with a mammoth animal companion. But the other player has no idea and might even want to play Shalelu or one of the other NPCs. Either way, Shalelu and company have to lose some levels.
But does that make the AP harder overall since your allies can't help protect the caravan as effectively? I haven't read through all the caravan rules yet (or the third part of Brinewall Legacy, honestly).
Character levels really don't factor into caravan roles all that much. I mean, typically requirements for specific roles are things like +1 BAB or 1 rank in survival or some other skill if I recall correctly
However, regarding caravan rules....Approach with caution. The system is not well balanced for the entirety of AP, at higher levels it very much becomes almost impossible to fight against caravan encounters.
While there are quick fixes and elaborate fixes, if your players don't feel up to mico-managing things, I recommend removing the caravan system entirely from the game. My players were not enthused at all with it, trying to make it work was a lot of extra work on my end with very little return fun profit. For most of the books, this makes little to no difference on the overall game. You may want to roll and set up some 'On the Road' encounters to make travel more interesting and have the occasional fight. Feel free to customize these a little, let players get a chance to use all the 'playable' caravan members in an epic fight against a troll raid or something and run it as a full-out combat, assuming it doesn't get too difficult to juggle.
One book however, relies on the caravan rules quite a bit, the third book 'The Hungry Storm'. If you're going to skip out on them (and again, it is my suggestion to do so to the average person), you'll probably want to insert some new material in to flesh out the advanture and add extra EXP and loot. Legendary Games has a couple supplement adventures for this part of Jade Regent i believe that have been highly rated, and can serve well in this purpose. Myself, since I'm at this point, I plan on figuring out an appropriate amount of exp and loot that wouldve been gained from the random encounters and use that as a budget to create mini encounter zones at specific spots along the route, instead of one encounter a week or so, several of which come down to caravan roles instead of particular PC interction.
I will say however, that the relationship system has proven a success at my table, and while players have commented that it may not be necessary for role-playing, it does encourage interaction with the NPCs, and getting rewarded for role-playing is nice. It certainly helped to create a starting base of interactions with the NPCs and has since gone onwards to some rather interesting twists and turns, particularly hilarious because 2 of the three players have 'rival' relationships with Ameiko.
I'm running a two player campaign of JR right now; finishing up Book 3 shortly.
Initially, I gave them two levels over a normal party and a solid point buy, and things have mostly been a breeze. It didn't solve their action economy issues, but gave them the hit points and output to endure, and access to some abilities early that helped them overpower their opponents. Brinewall , for example, used every last drop of resources, but they did it in one go. The Decapus was their biggest problem child. They're playing an Archery Ranger and Kensai Magus.
With the release of Mythic rules, I had them ascend at the end of Book One, and have been gently easing their XP back so that they're just now on the same level track as the books suggestion, with 2 Tiers. That, really, has proved to be an amazing choice! Their action economy and available resources have increased a lot, without actually giving them early access to unexpected feats and spells the way extra levels would. They function with the staying power of a 4 man party.
I'd planned on giving them 4 Mythic Tiers over time (logic being that 4 Tiers is supposed to equal +2 CR, replacing the -2 CR for them being half the normal party size), but given their high point buy, I think 3 will be enough in the long run. They do regularly bring an NPC with them (occasionally 2) that they change every time, but mostly for role play purposes and minor support. Keeping the NPCs 2 levels behind the standard XP track really keeps them from overpowering the campaign, especially if you don't optimize them for pure combat (they're certainly capable, but non-combat spells and tricks make them useful for RP and keep the PCs the stars of the show). They haven't been completely dismissable though, which is good. Except Sandru. Boy rolls nothing but 1's when he's with them.
I'd suggest Mythic for a 2 person campaign, with 2 Tiers relatively quick and capping at a max of 4. Gonna be standard operating procedure for me here on out, that's for sure!
Character levels really don't factor into caravan roles all that much. I mean, typically requirements for specific roles are things like +1 BAB or 1 rank in survival or some other skill if I recall correctly
That's very good news.
However, regarding caravan rules....Approach with caution. The system is not well balanced for the entirety of AP, at higher levels it very much becomes almost impossible to fight against caravan encounters.
This, however, is disappointing. Just one question then. If you cut out the caravan rules, do you really need to buy the caravan map pack? I thought I'd do it for the verisimilitude, but if we're not even going to use the caravan....
I will say however, that the relationship system has proven a success at my table
That's good to hear.
With the release of Mythic rules, I had them ascend at the end of Book One, and have been gently easing their XP back so that they're just now on the same level track as the books suggestion, with 2 Tiers.
We're all relatively new, my players to tabletop roleplaying and me to GMing. (I'm pretty excited to run my first AP.) So I don't think I'll introduce mythic because I'm still ironing out more basic rules. But I'll keep it in mind.
This, however, is disappointing. Just one question then. If you cut out the caravan rules, do you really need to buy the caravan map pack? I thought I'd do it for the verisimilitude, but if we're not even going to use the caravan....
Technically, the caravan map pack is more useful if you run actual full proper encounters against the caravan, rather than Caravan encounters. Caravan encounters are very basic things without rules like movement or positioning really, not something enough that could be mapped, so having tiles for it doesn't really add much because they'll be staying static on a table. In a proper encounter, you can have them present, make the choice of having some characters try to drive the wagons to safety while others hang back and fight, or have them just as terrain and cover on the map.
So, up to you. For my money though, not unless there is a lot of fun with these epic caravan battles, probably not worth the tiles. Just get big index cards and draw/write on to show which wagon is which if you need.
They've chosen druid and flame oracle, two divine spellcasters. Should I be worried? Any modifications you would recommend? Or any tips?
They've chosen druid and flame oracle, two divine spellcasters. Should I be worried? Any modifications you would recommend? Or any tips?
One thing I quickly realized in this AP is that Fire = Good! Especially once you hit the Crown of the World where nearly everything has fire vulnerability or practically every oni's regeneration is weak against fire.
Those two divine spellcasters will have plenty of elemental fire spells/powers.
At lower levels, it's poisons or ability damage attacks that are more worrisome. So restorations spells will need to be available, Koya won't be able to keep up in the long run.
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Without even actively recruiting, two more players found me. We're starting Jade Regent with 4 players now in about a month!
All the same, I appreciate the advice.
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Let us know how it goes :)
You got it!
We had our first session Monday. Three of the four players have been playing table top RPGs for less than a year so we spent the first couple of hours making characters and selecting campaign traits. We're using the relationship rules. People picked traits that connected the group to everyone but Ameiko, oddly enough.
We have a half-orc samurai, a human two-weapon fighter, a human flame oracle, and a gnome reincarnated druid with a mammoth animal companion.
They cornered the swamp monster under a bridge but let it go! Theyre good with a capital G. Then they discovered the treachery at the warden's house because they peered through a second-story window outside. They rushed back in weapons drawn and took out the imposter in two blows.
Next Wednesday they make for the goblin village!
We are nearing the end of Jade Regent with two players and four PCs (each player has two). If you have two players who can make clear roleplaying distinctions between the PCs (not a problem in this game) this works fine.
We are halfway through module 1 of Jade Regent with one player. He is playing two PCs (a level higher than usual) and there is a party NPC. I plan to be somewhat more encouraging of recruiting Spivey, Ulf, etc. than the GM of the first mentioned game was, but it's a delicate balance--I bog down as a GM if I run too many complicated people in combat. I may have to ask him to do an NPC or two at some point.
In the second game the player is essentially playing the Ameiko role (we don't have Ameiko and her group)--it'll be interesting to see how that works out. Of course I had to delete the kami subplot in module 1, as it wouldn't do to put one PC out of commission for half a module.
I also reset the game to start geographically in a village in the Forest of Spirits: it will go north (putting Ravenscraeg in the Hangul lands, and giving the PCs a quest to go to the Crown rather than to cross it) and then back south. I've felt that the biggest artistic flaw of Jade Regent is that it's supposed to be about Minkai but takes a really long time to get there, so the PCs never get a good sense of the place. I hope the resetting helps. So far it's not hard.
I also reset the game to start geographically in a village in the Forest of Spirits: it will go north (putting Ravenscraeg in the Hangul lands, and giving the PCs a quest to go to the Crown rather than to cross it) and then back south. I've felt that the biggest artistic flaw of Jade Regent is that it's supposed to be about Minkai but takes a really long time to get there, so the PCs never get a good sense of the place. I hope the resetting helps. So far it's not hard.
This is a problem my group never faced. Though in our defense, the FLGS salesman who recommended this AP told us right from the start that this is was a caravan travel adventure and that we didn't hit Minkai, or even Tian-Xia until the later half.
And with the amount of combined kung-fu/samurai movies, animes, real life travel experiences the group shared, the wow factor was not a big as expected. Though the Hongal feast was a notably fun exception.
My group has two players and have made it to the well of demons (book 6) in maybe 3 sessions we should finish the adventure path... (we have been playing for over two years)-The group only have a halfling summoner with a tank type Eidolon, a human monk and a dmpc witch. I added a few side adventures tailored for the smaller party but ran everything else as written. Remember not to hammer them with pointless random encounters. Its been a pretty sweet ride.