After close to a year, my group is finally starting on The Shackled Hut. Needless to say, due to getting together often less than once a month, things have gone fairly slowly and I'm interested in getting the game moving by trimming the fat from the encounters leading to Whitethrone.
I'm not worried about XPs seeing that the group entered the AP at levels 3-4, and are now level 6 and have 2 Mythic Tiers. In essence, the group is the equivalent of probably levels 7-8, and I've a larger-than-normal group (currently at five players and three NPCs including Nadya, though one is likely to shift into a support role and probably won't do much combat - she's likely to become a cohort run by one of the players). Needless to say, I've been boosting the encounters they face and rewriting stuff. So XPs aren't the issue.
Side note: Steve, I know you're there. I'm going to be talking in ambiguous terms and using Spoiler tags, but seriously. Don't read this. Let the adventure be a surprise. Tsk...
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Anyway, I'm curious as to what other GMs (and the writers!) think of my modifications or what they'd suggest.
First, here's the encounters I most definitely plan on scrapping or changing to non-combat:
Event 2 - I'm removing this entirely. The entire point is to eliminate resources from the party. Given my group is high enough level to cast Remove Curse, it'd be an annoyance. And it doesn't even make sense given how the gremlins are described. They should try blackmail before attacking. Best to just eliminate it. (That said, this also could have been written so the group was helping a village in Irrisen that was plagued by the gremlins. Missed opportunity, I suppose.)
B - Pocket of Summer - I was almost tempted to keep this as it would likely remain non-combat but really all it does is distract the group from their goal to reach Whitethrone.
Next are encounters I'm ambiguous about, from most likely to remove to least-likely:
E - Tolls - Amusingly enough I'm more tempted to KEEP this one, despite the fact it's more likely to be combat. I know at least one player would enjoy the chance of treasure (Steve, if you clicked the Spoiler button I'm going to be annoyed at you. Shoo!). But on the whole I also know it doesn't continue the story significantly, outside of showing the "rule of the strong" element of Irrisen.
C - Ruined Village - This one is actually tied with Event 3 below. It has thematic elements that work well, and provides a glimpse into the past (and hopefully will have the players wondering if they really should be helping Baba Yaga). If I run this, it'll be beefed up a bit so that it'll be a suitable challenge for the group. I'll probably work on the horror elements to it as well in that case. Though I have to find a suitable map for the encounter! Still, there is a part of me that asks "should I skip this one?"
Event 3 - The boy gathering wood - While this doesn't continue the story as much, there are thematic elements that do work. Given one of the players is running Nadya, I have to say there's some strong possibilities here, and thus I'm strongly tempted to keep this.
And last, these are the encounters leading up to Whitethrone itself that I feel need to remain.
Ellsprin - Likewise, this encounter provides a potential area where Nadya's children can remain safe. While one of the players is running Nadya for me (her primary character is extremely shy and I'm letting her RP Nadya both for her doing the Russian accent and to let her shine a little without just rewriting her original character's personality), I think that she'll still want to keep her kids safe. And to be honest, this is no different than leaving her children in Waldsby while going on merchant trips.
The Fishcamps - Of all the encounters, this one is vital to the series and had no thoughts of removing it. While I could trim some of the extraneous elements, on the whole I think it works well and other than toughening up some encounters will keep it as-is.
I suspect once the group reaches Whitethrone, I'll probably not remove anything else. I will increase the difficulty of most of the encounters within the city, but really I think what I need to do is get things moving to REACH Whitethrone. Thus my plans to excise (or strongly modify) at least three encounters.
So, what are your thoughts on this?
This sounds just like what I would have done myself. Thumbs up for those changes from me (my group just rescued Ringirr last session).
Any thoughts on the middle section that I'm ambiguous about? I'm wondering if I should drop encounter A on that or not. I'm still leaning toward keeping the other three, but part of it will depend on how the pacing of the game goes.
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Any thoughts on the middle section that I'm ambiguous about? I'm wondering if I should drop encounter A on that or not. I'm still leaning toward keeping the other three, but part of it will depend on how the pacing of the game goes.
It is one of the best encounters I ran but it is extraneous to the plot. If you keep it I'd boost it by:
It can easily lead to the party killing Finngarth then after the fight realizing he was the victim and then having a fey try to charm kidnap one of them as a replacement.
Russian tragic dark fairy tale thematics galore with this.
For Ellsprin, similarly that can be a quick roleplay of safety for the kids and excise the confrontation scene but this also includes
I wholeheartedly approve. My group has similar two month gaps between gaming sessions, so trimming some of the fat is essential. That said, my players are very curious and critical people, so encounters that fill in gaps are likely to remain.
For example, as suggested elsewhere (spoilers), I plan to rework item B into something that sheds light on the other winter portals being opened across the world.
One problem I've noticed with accelerating the story is that they're starting to wonder why they're levelling up so quickly. It's the right speed for the adventure, but they don't feel like they're doing as much per level as they expected. It's a big contrast with the Kingmaker campaign I'm playing, where we spend whole months at a level, expanding our borders and building infrastructure and eventually, when we've played enough Civilisation, going to fight stuff.
My group started at 3-4th level (as I just jumped gears and went from a homegrown campaign that was moving toward "Night Below" into "Reign of Winter" instead (or as I call it, my "Skyrim" campaign). If anything, my group's complained about the slower rate of leveling! ^^;; (Doesn't help that I'm not increasing the treasure they find - personally I feel the APs tend to give too much treasure, so being several levels behind treasure-wise compensates.)
To be honest, looking at Book 3, I'll likely cut stuff out of that as well (amusingly as I'll be adding the adventure at the end of Mythic Adventures as a side-story - mostly because I want to run it! ^^), and probably also in Book 4. Assuming we're still playing by then! I mean, it's been one year for one book. Even cutting stuff out, I still expect the group to take at least two games before they even reach Whitethrone.
Though I will admit, I'm slightly tempted by Voadam's scenario! I suppose really the big thing will be finding maps for those encounters, as I do the mapping on roll20.net. (Wish Paizo was doing more with their online mapping program; sadly, I've not heard anything recent on it.)
My thoughts under spoiler tags, just in case.
Similarly, keep the Troll Bridge. The Chelaxian monk, overjoyed that she was finally being presented with some honest highway robbery, just coughed up a sizable chunk of money. The trolls were confused, but accepted it. The party had a great laugh at that one.
Ellsprin, on the other hand, fell a bit flat for my group. It was a little tacked on at the end of the night, and I wasn't as up on the monster mechanics as I should have been. I didn't feel like the roleplaying worked well, especially when the party got suspicious of the poor woman.
Raven swarms are extraneous. Gremlins were fun for camp raiding and making the party never trust the fighter for guard duty, but ultimately extraneous. The Pocket of Summer encounter resulted in the party sticking the megaloceros through with Ice Spears and arrows before it even did anything. The wargs subsequently never attacked. Ruined Village and Little Boy Lost were both good for the party, and the first one gave some nice background.
Well, I ran the game tonight. We didn't get as far into it as I thought we would, but part of it was due to an upgraded encounter at the Ruined Village; it seems that fighting three Mythic Skeletal Champions and three Mythic Divine Huecuvas can take a while! Especially as armor class 24 is difficult for PCs to hit (the Skeletal Champions).
The modified encounter with the ravens went off fairly well; the only fly in the ointment was my use of "Fellowship of the Rings" as a description of the crows. It seems most of my friends haven't bothered to watch it nearly as often as I have! Still, I was left with the Cleric wishing he'd focused on wizardry because a good Fireball could have dispersed those Ravens. It did also set a "oh hell we're screwed!" mood especially when the group realized the White Witches would be forewarned. (There was an especially nice bit with the player running Nadya sheltering her kids from the ravens - so to try and keep the ravens from being able to identify her children.)
I also ended up dropping the Wood-Wife. The game was running a little longer than I'd expected and I just couldn't justify including it thematically. I can always change my mind, however and could add that bit in the next game. Of course, the lack of maps for the encounter do lessen my enthusiasm for that encounter; I'd gladly have skipped the damn fluff story and had several additional maps for those encounters. Everything short of Whitethrone has to be crafted by the GM, and when you do mapping over roll20... well, extra map PDFs would have been preferred.
Next game will be in three weeks in all likelihood. I'm hoping to get the group to the fishing village to start up the next part of the game.