So, my players are preparing for the giant raid. Over preparing. They have gotten it in their heads that hundreds of giants are coming to wipe Sandpoint off the map, and have called in every favor owed them. They have gotten Magnimar to send a dozen troops up (who haven't arrived yet), and every NPC with class levels stands ready to defend their homes. They will wipe the floor with the relatively small raiding party, and I'm fine with that. I just don't know if I should just let that happen, or I should bump up the raid a bit. They seem really stoked about the fight, and I don't want to disappoint them. So my question is, do I let them stomp the ever-living crap out of the raiding party and possibly be underwhelmed, or do I bump up the encounters to be a challenge and they feel justified in their preparations?
I'd probably let them slaughter the raiders. The biggest risk is that friendly NPCs could still get killed, if the PC tactics are reckless.
Edit: This is a situation where PF's swinginess shines in relation to 4e's relative predictability - the fight should run pretty fast, but is still dangerous because one giant's crit can squash most of the NPCs.
Agree with S'mon. Don't forget that a Power Attacking stone giant can out-and-out kill 1-2 NPCs per round. My PCs are insanely good-aligned (led by a paladin and there hasn't been an instance yet of one of them bristling under her requirements for their behavior), and so had all of the NPCs hide in the theater and cathedral while the PCs dealt with the fight.
So if they bring in troops from Magnimar and NPCs from Sandpoint, don't forget that several dozen of those 20-30 hit point NPCs are likely going to die, leading to a post-fight question, "If the fight was so easy for the Heroes of Sandpoint, why did they send good men to die in their stead?"
Depending on how the fight goes, it can lead to some wonderful post-fight RP possibilities.
...had all of the NPCs hide in the theater...
In that case I really hope they took out Big Red before he started his strafing run! >:)
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Ugh. Levitating paladin. 30+ PER roll. Smite Evil. Don't wanna talk about it.
Thanks for the input. I think I still might bump up the encounters some, as I let my players level early; I underestimated how long it would take to get through the Harrowing, which I dropped in between the end of HMM and this. Thinking about adding a couple of Goliaths (from 3.5 Races of Stone) to a few of the encounters. One of the PCs is a Goliath exile whose tribe has since been enslaved by Mokmurian.
So, my players are preparing for the giant raid. Over preparing. They have gotten it in their heads that hundreds of giants are coming to wipe Sandpoint off the map, and have called in every favor owed them. They have gotten Magnimar to send a dozen troops up (who haven't arrived yet), and every NPC with class levels stands ready to defend their homes. They will wipe the floor with the relatively small raiding party, and I'm fine with that. I just don't know if I should just let that happen, or I should bump up the raid a bit. They seem really stoked about the fight, and I don't want to disappoint them. So my question is, do I let them stomp the ever-living crap out of the raiding party and possibly be underwhelmed, or do I bump up the encounters to be a challenge and they feel justified in their preparations?
Our party didn't 'over-prepare', but they did prepare and considering how well-built the characters were, how smart they tended to play and the fact that they would have some NPC aid, I beefed up the raiding party a bit. Don't be shy about having a couple of Ogre squads in your back pocket to toss in whenever you might need to increase the challenge of a particular encounter.
Also, remember that there will be many attacks at once - its unlikely that your characters will be able to be everywhere and if they try it may well spread them too thin.
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... My PCs are insanely good-aligned (led by a paladin and there hasn't been an instance yet of one of them bristling under her requirements for their behavior), and so had all of the NPCs hide in the theater and cathedral while the PCs dealt with the fight.
God, I WISH my group was like that. I had an NPC murdered in the first session during a bar fight. I had another ostracized almost immediately because he tried to write into his background that the mayor was his Aunt and she'd do ANYTHING for him (read: Gimmie lots of money!). I had two PCs cause the Savory Sunderies to be burned to the ground and one of the daughter to die in the fire. I have one PC who grew up in the town threaten to kill Titus Scarnetti because he wouldn't reward them for recovering his stuff from the Stone Giant raid.
Needless to say, it's been a crazy ride so far, but the party continues to help.... for now. I just wish they could get it through their thick skulls that NPC doesn't mean lickspittle and a** kisser!
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LOL! I figured you'd be on here, Darius. HE never promised the party a reward. The party ASSUMED he would pay them when he demanded that they retrieve his stuff. You just weren't there for that conversation, IIRC. The party has never really interracted with Scarnetti before then.
As to the town blaming the party, what do you expect?! You show up, warn them of an impending raid, and then leave. Raid occurs, you aren't there to help. And you never set up ANY system to allow them to contact you! The town got wiped! 10% killed or missing, and about 30% of the infrastructure destroyed, including almost the entire waterfront, the brand new cathedral, and the theater!
I just looked at what happens during crisis in real life when something like that occurs and acted accordingly. People want someone to blame. The party was an EASY patsy.
... My PCs are insanely good-aligned (led by a paladin and there hasn't been an instance yet of one of them bristling under her requirements for their behavior), and so had all of the NPCs hide in the theater and cathedral while the PCs dealt with the fight.
God, I WISH my group was like that. I had an NPC murdered in the first session during a bar fight. I had another ostracized almost immediately because he tried to write into his background that the mayor was his Aunt and she'd do ANYTHING for him (read: Gimmie lots of money!). I had two PCs cause the Savory Sunderies to be burned to the ground and one of the daughter to die in the fire. I have one PC who grew up in the town threaten to kill Titus Scarnetti because he wouldn't reward them for recovering his stuff from the Stone Giant raid.
Needless to say, it's been a crazy ride so far, but the party continues to help.... for now. I just wish they could get it through their thick skulls that NPC doesn't mean lickspittle and a** kisser!
Be careful what you wish for! I don't know whether you're one of the anonymous lurkers on my insanely-massive campaign thread, but my group tends to get loot and immediately ask, "Now, who does this belong to?" and try to return it.
They've spent thousands (if not tens of thousands) on gifts for NPCs (my favorite example being 6600 on dresses for Ameiko, Shalelu, and an NPC halfling I introduced as a romantic interest for the gnome), returned huge amounts of treasure because it was the "right thing to do", and so I've had to adjust a bit for "community goodwill" to make sure they weren't hopelessly underequipped. On the other hand, their tactics are excellent and more than make up for their lack of equipment. (A 17th-level barbarian with a +1 holy adamantine earthbreaker and +1 medium fortification breastplate, for example; in fact, no one in the group has anything over +2 except they all have +5 Cloaks of Resistance and the paladin has +5 armor.)
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All of my players cry about being under equipped. If there was one table I could remove from Core, it'd be the wealth by level table. Drives me nuts! They handle whoop*ss on a regular basis, and still say that they're under powered. Your group almost makes mine sound like the Legion of Doom!
... My PCs are insanely good-aligned (led by a paladin and there hasn't been an instance yet of one of them bristling under her requirements for their behavior), and so had all of the NPCs hide in the theater and cathedral while the PCs dealt with the fight.
God, I WISH my group was like that. I had an NPC murdered in the first session during a bar fight. I had another ostracized almost immediately because he tried to write into his background that the mayor was his Aunt and she'd do ANYTHING for him (read: Gimmie lots of money!). I had two PCs cause the Savory Sunderies to be burned to the ground and one of the daughter to die in the fire. I have one PC who grew up in the town threaten to kill Titus Scarnetti because he wouldn't reward them for recovering his stuff from the Stone Giant raid.
Needless to say, it's been a crazy ride so far, but the party continues to help.... for now. I just wish they could get it through their thick skulls that NPC doesn't mean lickspittle and a** kisser!
Be careful what you wish for! I don't know whether you're one of the anonymous lurkers on my insanely-massive campaign thread, but my group tends to get loot and immediately ask, "Now, who does this belong to?" and try to return it.
They've spent thousands (if not tens of thousands) on gifts for NPCs (my favorite example being 6600 on dresses for Ameiko, Shalelu, and an NPC halfling I introduced as a romantic interest for the gnome), returned huge amounts of treasure because it was the "right thing to do", and so I've had to adjust a bit for "community goodwill" to make sure they weren't hopelessly underequipped. On the other hand, their tactics are excellent and more than make up for their lack of equipment. (A 17th-level barbarian with a +1 holy adamantine earthbreaker and +1 medium fortification breastplate, for example; in fact, no one in the group has anything over +2 except they all have +5 Cloaks of Resistance and the paladin has +5 armor.)
Our group was much the same way...
Its been a good example of not all rewards being monetary. Zantus loaned the party his Wand of Healing (homebrew magic item) when they went off to Thistletop which ended up saving their life, the Druids they later helped clear out Thistletop for proved to be valuable allies in the Giant raid and when they set up Brodert Quink in the Ancient Library with the help of the librarian construct, the area served as a 'homebase' for them during the latter part of the campaign where a tremendous amount of invaluable research was done.
All of my players cry about being under equipped. If there was one table I could remove from Core, it'd be the wealth by level table. Drives me nuts! They handle whoop*ss on a regular basis, and still say that they're under powered. Your group almost makes mine sound like the Legion of Doom!
Yeah, I make sure they have what they need - and they get some pretty great stuff, most of it customized and homebrew - but as long as they're handling the challenges being thrown at them I could care less about the WBL table.
All of my players cry about being under equipped. If there was one table I could remove from Core, it'd be the wealth by level table. Drives me nuts! They handle whoop*ss on a regular basis, and still say that they're under powered. Your group almost makes mine sound like the Legion of Doom!
WBL makes me cry.
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LOL! I figured you'd be on here, Darius. HE never promised the party a reward. The party ASSUMED he would pay them when he demanded that they retrieve his stuff. You just weren't there for that conversation, IIRC. The party has never really interracted with Scarnetti before then.
As to the town blaming the party, what do you expect?! You show up, warn them of an impending raid, and then leave. Raid occurs, you aren't there to help. And you never set up ANY system to allow them to contact you! The town got wiped! 10% killed or missing, and about 30% of the infrastructure destroyed, including almost the entire waterfront, the brand new cathedral, and the theater!
I just looked at what happens during crisis in real life when something like that occurs and acted accordingly. People want someone to blame. The party was an EASY patsy.
You are right he didn't promise the party a reward. I told him I wanted one for the recovery and he concurred. He screwed me not the party.
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All of my players cry about being under equipped. If there was one table I could remove from Core, it'd be the wealth by level table. Drives me nuts! They handle whoop*ss on a regular basis, and still say that they're under powered. Your group almost makes mine sound like the Legion of Doom!WBL makes me cry.
I have a love / hate relationship with the WBL chart. It is a useful tool for judging treasure amounts as the AP are all written to this standard and some classes can get away with less and some need more.
A wizard can make up a lot with his powers without much wealth but a higher level fighter NEEDS equipment.
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All of my players cry about being under equipped. If there was one table I could remove from Core, it'd be the wealth by level table. Drives me nuts! They handle whoop*ss on a regular basis, and still say that they're under powered. Your group almost makes mine sound like the Legion of Doom!WBL makes me cry.I have a love / hate relationship with the WBL chart. It is a useful tool for judging treasure amounts as the AP are all written to this standard and some classes can get away with less and some need more.
A wizard can make up a lot with his powers without much wealth but a higher level fighter NEEDS equipment.
I played a fighter through the notoriously-chintzy Carrion Crown AP. His final gear for the final fight? +1 mithral ghost touch plate, a +1 ghost touch adamantine greatsword, cloak of resistance +5, ring of protection +3, and amulet of natural armor +3. His total WBL was a bit under 50% of "expected". It sucked, but he got by with a little help (and a lot of buffing) from his friends. "Protection from Evil" is one of the best spells in the game for a fighter. (Throw in "Good Hope" and "Haste" and you're pretty darned deadly.)
My issue with WBL isn't WBL itself; I like the idea of, "Here's a general, order-of-magnitude number that gives you as a GM a tool for measuring whether your group is getting the wealth expected in an AP." And I agree that fighters are the single-most-expensive class I've ever played.
My issue is that too many players treat it as a gospel, absolute number, and any GM that doesn't make sure that every single PC is over WBL after every single encounter is a "bad GM".
At the end of CC, with all our crafting and penny-pinching, I think our overall party was around 75-80% of WBL, but they short-shrifted the fighter because the sorcerer took Craft Wondrous Item instead of Craft Weapon or Armor, so the stuff we could afford was all Wondrous Items.
And it was still a really fun AP, we finished it, and only one person "died" in the final fight (and a Limited Wish to cast Breath of Life brought her back).
So just watching the once or twice-a-week threads started by players complaining that this AP or that AP or this GM or that GM doesn't give "full WBL" and is therefore "bad" grows tiresome rather quickly.
EDIT: I have yet to play a single full-WBL PC. None of them have come close, and most are under 50%. But I still have loads of fun, and my deaths are few and far between. Obsessing about WBL makes the game less fun for everyone.
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Solid tactics > WBL.
Agreed. I'd also like to say that Solid builds > WBL as well. I've always been a big proponent of focusing less on your gear and what you can do. Plan your builds smartly, plan your tactics smartly and WBL will take care of itself.
Once again, thanks for the input everyone. Preparing to run this later today, and here's how it stands: I am adding 2 Goliaths to the north gate siege, 1 to Tanner's Bridge, 2 to the mill pond, 1 to Beer or Death, and 2 to Scarnetti Manor. I'm also bumping Longtooth's size up to huge, but in no other way buffing him. A large dragon would seem rather pathetic I think, after
Well, it could have gone better. Just an off night for gaming. Crappy rolls all night on either side of the screen, me with a cold losing my voice, and a player who let personal stuff sour his mood and it drug everyone else down. This turned into a low point in the campaign so far. Left off after the fight at the mill pond. Teraktinus was killed, so I'm just going to leave off the raid there. Will describe beer or death having been handled by NPCs, and will give them a chance to see the damage at Scarnetti Manor. They do have 1 stone giant who stabilized before he bled out, so they'll be able to interrogate him. Hopefully next session goes better.