Alright, so, long story short, on Book 3 of Jade Regent. After the first book, the group quickly dropped interest in the caravan system, I don't blame them. So for this book, been glossing over travel and any caravan encounters. However there is a fair amount of Exp and loot wrapped up in some of those caravan encounters. So, I figured one of the best ways to do so is to make the battle of Dead Man's Dome play out in full and proper. Swarms of all the undead and followers of Sithud that Kattiana has gathered and thrown at the party.
How I plan to have it play out is they'll reach Dead Man's Dome, which will be mostly the ground floor of the fortress, mostly open roof but maybe one or two closed rules for less combatant NPCs to hide in, some walls but also lots of openings, have to use wagons to block up and make more defensive, have a few hours to 'set up' and prepare for the approaching enemies. Players will get control of the NPCs for the fight. And then enemies will come in waves, with the 'Dead Man' appearing as a fairly High level Spiritual Ally effect at some point of the fight.
Part of the reason I'm doing this, is because what I hear of the final book, some of the major battle are expected to be "large party" encounters like this with additional NPC allies fighting with the party, so kinda using it as a bit of foreshadow and seeing how well it plays out with the group.
Anyway, there are two main things I'd like to ask from the minds of the forum
1. Maps! I run via a virtual tabletop and I'd love to have a good to represent Dead Man's dome. If anybody knows of something that looks like a sizable broken down keep on a hill, let me know where? If it's from a personal collection or something found made on the internet, send a link. If it's from a book, let me know the name and page and I'll see if it's something I have or how affordable the Pdf would be.
2. Enemy suggestions. While the book has a lot of stuff I can use, Frost wights, Frostfallen creatures, etc. I would like some more variety from stuff they've already fought in the adventure, particularly something that deals damage other than pure cold. Any suggestions for waves or unique and interesting enemies that would reasonably be either worshippers of Sithud or animated by the demonic magicks, would be very appreciated. Especially a few unique things that can throw a kink in defensive plans. I'm thinking of Frostfallen Bullets myself, burrowing into the centre of the keep. Or something flying.
Anyway, any thoughts comments and suggestions would be most appreciated so I can make an epic and slightly terrifying battle on the group to sum up the dangers of walking straight across the middle of the crown of the world.
There have been previous discussions of this - at least in terms of suitable opponents.
Caravan to Set Piece Conversion
Dead Mans Dome without Caravan encounters
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
A few thoughts come to mind.
1) Using NPCs. Putting them in the battle as player-run does create a big epic feel and avoids the sensation of dragging dead weight across the world, but keep in mind it also slows down the battle (both actually running them through a round with 4+ more turns in it, and having the players having to look up abilities they're unfamiliar with). If you're happy to just abstract it, how about having them add a string of passive bonuses? Describe it cinematically as them rushing about the battlefield, participating in various conflicts. These are rules-light, no-roll options, which may or may not suit your group.
Ameiko - provides an automatic inspire courage effect for the duration of the battle.
Sandru - provides an automatic flank on one attack per round, as he leaps into the fray.
Shalelu / Kelda Oxgutter - Lets loose a flurry of arrows and/or charges into melee, dealing 5 automatic damage to a target of the player's choosing.
Koya / Spivey - provides fast healing 2 to all players, as they run about the battlefield casting various healing spells.
Ulf/Skygni - allows one character to ignore the difficult terrain on their round by guiding them through the path of least snow.
2) In terms of unique enemies, and trying to get around Suishen's ridiculous levels of Protection From Cold, I have a few thoughts.
- Have the sheer mass of frozen dead lower the ambient temperate of the area, automatically dealing enough cold damage to the entire area per round that it's a few points about Suishen's protections. Suddenly, those 200 points of protection start to look less like sure safety when the protection suddenly starts dropping by 10 every round in addition to what the creatures themselves can deal.
- Remember that Sithhud is the lord of blizzards, not merely cold. Blizzards can include harsh winds, such as giving some of the enemy templates spell-like abilities to cast Gust of Wind and River of Wind. This could provide foreshadowing of Katiya (or steal the thunder of her special qualities, depending on your interpretation). Bludgeoning effects of giant hailstones or snowballs could be used as spell-like abilities of a re-flavoured Magic Missile that does bludgeoning damage(and having a few half-dozen groups of otherwise harmless Frozen Dead casting Magic Hailstone Missile can prove nasty, and encourage players to tactics like taking out the little minions before the big frozen mammoth - suddenly it's not about how much damage you can do, but how many good area-effect spells or Cleave-style feats you have!)
- Frozen dopplegangers wandering the battlefield impersonating the key NPCs to serve as a distraction ("help, help!"). They appear identical, but the temperature difference is immediately obvious once you're within 5" of them.
- Have something enormous and threatening (a Frostfallen T-Rex) buried deep within the ice under Dead's Man's Dome. It's too frozen into a giant iceblock to get out by itself, but several Frozen Dead (miners with icepicks) spend rounds chipping away at it to unleash it on the battlefield.
- This is the perfect time for that one lone invisible Oni ninja who's been shadowing them from Kalsguard make a deadly sneak-attack on the unprotected Summoner hiding in the back. Don't forget to have the Frozen monsters indiscriminately attack the ninja once she appears, though!
- Gelatinous Cubes encased in blocks of ice, with small parts of them oozing out. Sithhud controls the ice, but not the Cubes themselves. Unlike the other enemies, they aren't directable, merely seeking out the largest source of heat to devour (most likely to be the large-sized Oxes, or any fires the PCs have set up). Have them move mindless through the battlefield, provoking AoO's everywhere, as a different sort of enemy to provide some interest.
I wouldn't necessarily dump all these ideas on the battlefield, but it should give you some thoughts to mix-and-match!
Thanks for links to the past Mathew.
Reverse, I like some of the ideas. there. Certainly, I consider the partial goal of this to overcome that 200 cold damage buffer and make them slightly worry about that cold damage. I plan to ask the players what sort've battle they want, for a one session thing though, an epic battle in full length might be something to try. I'd kinda like to put the stat boxes supplied for the NPCs to good use though, and in some cases, show them the results of their labour, as one character has taken great care to mentor and train Kelda, so it would be nice to show off the results of that labour.
While I'm still on the lookout for a prettier version, I've found a map that fits to my idea for what i'd like to see. From this website, unless either I find something or someone can suggest something, I plan to use this picture
We dropped the caravan rules long before, so we went old school in this battle and I went BIG with it.
This means I had the NPCs play a part in this fight, including a couple of passengers and the caravan driver brothers (though they mostly stayed hidden).
I literally had hundreds of zombies, frostfallen wooly rhinos and mastodons, hoarfrost spirits, frost wights, the works.
With Koya, a life oracle and a monk-cleric in the team, we had channel energies a plenty. The fighter wielding Suishen had the flaming power unlocked and it was devastating against creatures with fire vulnerability.
I sent the undead in waves of about two dozen, but they kept dropping at amazing rates (remember that zombies are naturally staggered), so much that after the first 120 undead killed, I just roleplayed the rest.
The "Dead Man" was completely unnecessary, but I added him and an equivalent undead Hellknight (linked to the fighter's background) to end the battle.
Yeah, that's exactly the kind of feel and encounter I'd like to go for. Hopefully it'll be interesting and eventful and entertaining enough not to be just a big slog fest.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
After reading this, this is what I'm going to attempt. I'll let you know how it works out once it's been run:
The Chase
Dead Man’s Dome
In short, the PCs have to fight a defensive battle against overwhelming odds knowing full well they have to keep the Dead Man moving. I look forward to seeing how my group breaks this.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
We didn't get to the fight last night (too much good food and booze, go figure), but yes, the setup worked beautifully:
As they left the Storm Tower, Ulf suggested they make a beeline for Dead Man's Dome. The whole party asked, "Why on Golarion would we go to a place called Dead Man's Dome?"
So Ulf regaled them with the tale of a royal caravan guarded by samurai that was assailed by a combined army of yeti and undead, and how one samurai was so devoted to his duty that even after being killed he continued to fight, fighting on until every last member of his caravan had fallen. Nothing could stop his sheer will to perform his duty.
Since that day, Dead Man's Dome has been a haven for caravans. Rumors abound that the Dead Man still walks the dome, protecting any caravans encamped thereon. While Ulf has never seen him, some of Ulf's fellow guides swear they've seen his spectral form, patrolling the edges of the hill, keeping caravans safe from all threats. Ulf knows that no caravan has been attacked on Dead Man's dome in his lifetime.
On their way, they were first attacked at night by two frostfallen spirits, and a huge (30+) Survival roll indicated they had come in a beeline from the Storm Tower. Over the next few days, they caught glimpses of being followed, but never rolled high enough (DC 30 Per) to actually see their followers.
A few days later, they came upon their first black monolith. Sitthud-marked corpses were littered about the base, but again a huge Survival roll indicated that 20-30 had marched off, directly towards the Storm Tower.
At this point the party was trying to decide whether they had missed something at the Storm Tower (they had left several rooms unexplored), and were discussing going back when a stupid-huge PER roll revealed perhaps 3 dozen zombies and hoarfrost spirits following them at a significant distance. They sent Spivey back to nuke 'em all. (Stupid undead and their lack of any ranged attacks!) They realized that all the undead from all the monoliths were gathering, and the safety of the caravan dictated they needed to get it to Dead Man's Dome.
So after a random encounter with the Lonely Maiden (OK, this was a mistake on my part. I'd built her into such a tragic story and they were basically, "OK, OK, yeah, yeah. That's sad. But there's an army chasing us. Beat her. Put her to rest. Let's get moving!"), they encountered another monolith with the same evidence: When the Storm Sphere shattered, most of the undead were destroyed, but the remainder all headed for the Storm Tower.
At this point I started hinting at the "sea of mist" following several miles in their wake. Unfortunately, they pulled their second major surprise on me (the first was killing 36 of my undead with an angry pixie, er, lyrakien azata) by sending Spivey straight up to see what she could see.
So they saw the gathering army, and know they're going to make a stand at Dead Man's Dome. They're joking about what a railroad it is. But they're really looking forward to the fight, and seeing what the Dead Man is going to do against an army...
EDIT: And I'm just going to trust in the intelligence of my group: When they see the Dead Man plant his first ward, I expect to see him get Hasted, buffed, and escorted to plant the rest. It'll still be fun to see how much of the army I can get on the map before it gets wiped out...
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I ran Dead Man's Dome this past weekend. I've got a 7-player party and threw out caravan combat before we even started, converting all caravan encounters to regular encounters. What with all the NPCs, they've really been a slog to play. The group has had several black monolith encounters already, and didn't find any of the regular undead very challenging (even with buffed up numbers, advanced templates, etc.). So for Dead Man's Dome, I hit them with a Zombie Horde.
The story set-up was per the AP. When the scouts report they're being trailed by undead, the party's reaction was a sigh, eye-roll, and "here we go again". Then they found out it was an ARMY of undead - hundreds at least. That made them start to worry. Ulf pointed everyone to Dead Man's Dome as the only defensible ground for 50 leagues around, and the race was on, driving exhausted yaks for hours on end to try to get there in time. The scouts reported the army was gaining on them, until the scouts stopped coming back (no one thought to send one of the flying PCs back to scout). Meanwhile a blizzard was growing around them, cutting visibility to a few dozen yards, while the sound of maniacal feminine laughter could be heard in the clouds far above.
They reached Dead Man's Dome, and I used the map from the AP. Arranged the wagons in a circle at the top, put Ameiko and Koya in the middle, and waited. The moaning of the wind morphed into the moaning of countless mindless voices, and then the horde appeared out of the snow.
I counted the horde as one creature for XP purposes, but split it into four separate sections (N, S, E, W) with 50 HP each. I'm remote from the rest of the group, so we play on a home-brew virtual tabletop, and I created a really cool graphic for the horde that was something right out of Walking Dead. When the party saw all those undead approaching from all directions, they really did mentally shift into Custer's-Last-Stand mode. The party got one free round of actions as the Horde climbed up the hill, but most of them fired arrows, which ended up having no affect (Horde is half-damage from Piercing weapons, and DR 10/slashing). However, the sorcerer's Empowered Fireball and the cleric's Flame Strike did major damage to two of the four segments.
When the Horde made contact, I played it as follows: The horde advances from all sides at full speed until they engage the perimeter of the party in melee combat. At that point, each side of the horde tries to overwhelm the defense against them. If that side deals more damage in a round than it receives, it moves forward 10'; otherwise it is checked. This gave the party a chance to keep the Horde away from the vulnerable NPCs in the center while fighting them off (although Ameiko charged out to engage as soon as the Horde made contact).
Despite the fact that a Zombie Horde is a CR14 encounter, and that I nearly doubled its total HP, it wasn't much of a fight. The horde did do some significant damage as it overran the party's position, but between Fireballs, Flame Strikes, and Channeling from flying clerics, all four segments of the Horde went down pretty quick. As each segment of the Horde dispersed, I replaced it with a pair of Advanced Frostfallen Zombies as the final remnanats to be mopped up.
However, from a game perspective, I'd call it a success. The caravan encounters have gotten wearying for all of us, but this was the first time the players really thought they were in trouble (the monk even wasted one round trying to disbelieve the Horde, because his player couldn't believe I'd put them in such a hopeless situation).
^^ Nice. But yeah, fireballs really ruin a horde's day...
We *finally* ran this session on Saturday, and while technically it was a great success, emotionally the players' general attitude could be summed up as, "Oh, great! Yet ANOTHER encounter where we HAVE to have an NPC help us, because we couldn't POSSIBLY do ANYTHING alone!"
And I started thinking about it and yeah, that's the fundamental problem with this AP: It's an epic story crossing continents, with neat terrain and fascinating creatures, and politics as well as combat to make for a truly magnificent tale...
...except that someone forgot to tell the writers that a constant refrain of, "You MUST have this NPC help you" (Ameiko, Ulf, the Dead Man, and others) grates on their nerves, making them feel much more like lackeys and less like world-savers. Similarly, the, "You must do A, and then B, and then C, because we didn't write for any other order" is painful. Finally, the bevy of tagalong NPCs pushes most GMs to their limits of roleplaying. "Wow, Nick! Have you noticed that Koya hasn't spoken in 3 days now? Do you think something's wrong with her, or do you think it's because Sandru's been hogging the spotlight with his story-telling?"
So here's the shortest recap I can give:
The paladin prayed to Sarenrae for guidance and then rolled a 25 Knowledge: Religion, so he learned he was in a holy place, but not holy to a god. Holy to an ideal.
The eidolon rolled a high enough Survival that he knew the entire hill was bones and bits of armor; there wasn't a speck of dirt on it. (His player's roleplay of him delicately placing his paws and murmuring, "Sorry! Sorry! Don't mean to be stepping on you and all," was priceless!)
The rounds went very much as expected: The party had no trouble at all obliterating the low-level undead (and Spivey couldn't resist channeling once right in the middle of them), they figured out the Dead Man's goal (four wards at the four cardinal points of the compass), and that their job was to help him. The thing that surprised me was that one player jokingly suggested casting Haste and Freedom of Movement on him, and no one tried to follow through until much later in the fight. (His SR of 22 would probably have made it a waste of a spell, but if it had worked...)
The Dead Man slaughtered a spirit and a couple of zombies, and the group realized that he would end up standing their and fighting all day if they didn't keep his path clear. Mission accomplished!
He also got to use that really cool 6d6 acid cone to great effect. I was having fun with him!
The cold riders dropped ice storms to slow down the Dead Man, and one of the mammoths went to take him down.
Then it all went downhill. Did anyone actually LOOK at the dreadknight before suggesting him for the Dead Man?
The mammoth that was chasing him took a crit and a hit from a power-attacking greatsword and died outright. Yes. The Dead Man one-shot a mammoth, right through its DR. Had it not been a bunch of undead, I would have made morale rolls. As it was, I have no idea why the cold rider stayed to fight, but I had him do so.
So the paladin, in a moment of sheer stupidity, ran out from cover, got between the Dead Man and the cold rider, and said, "Go! I'll handle this one!"
You really can't ask for a better demonstration of courage and duty. As the eidolon was paralyzed and the wights poured over the walls towards the undefended bard and summoner, the Dead Man took a double move. The next round, he reached his goal and it was all over.
Personally, I felt I couldn't have scripted a better fight. Unfortunately, after 5 1/2 hours of combat at the table, the group just felt bitter at getting bailed out yet again.
I'm going to have to re-work the next few modules to get rid of all this NPC love we keep hitting...
the group just felt bitter at getting bailed out yet again
Does that happen regularly? Is it the presence of NPCs or the idea that the NPC is the one who saves the day that's the problem? For me the NPCs were more often people who got into trouble and needed rescuing. And more often than that, they were off doing something else while the PCs operated alone, since my players also didn't really want or need help.
the group just felt bitter at getting bailed out yet againDoes that happen regularly? Is it the presence of NPCs or the idea that the NPC is the one who saves the day that's the problem? For me the NPCs were more often people who got into trouble and needed rescuing. And more often than that, they were off doing something else while the PCs operated alone, since my players also didn't really want or need help.
It's that the NPCs are necessary to and drivers for the plot. Book 1 wasn't so bad, but in Book 2 you *had* to have Ulf before you could set off across the Crown of the World. Why? In Book 3 you *have* to have the Dead Man save you. As you proceed, NPCs get kidnapped and need rescuing. There's no "freedom" for the PCs; they HAVE to do things based on the NPCs.
I'll look for more specific examples, but both my players and I have this overwhelming feeling in Jade Regent that the whole tale centers around the NPCs, and the PCs are only along for the ride. I think it's the whole, "Sandru decides the caravan should go here. Ulf decides that this is going to be your path," thing.
It's definitely far, far different from the other APs I've run (CotCT, RotRL, WotR, SS) where even if the PCs are working for someone else, they have agency and they make the decisions. Somehow Jade Regent feels overwhelmingly like they're just glorified caravan guards who aren't responsible for any overall decisions for the party.
"The caravan now has to go to xxx. Here is what you encounter along the way," is a great way to make PCs feel like guards rather than adventurers.
EDIT: Yeah, spoke with the summoner's player, and she said that it's the lack of agency: The AP really makes it feel like you can't do ANYTHING without an NPC's help/guidance.
I pretty much wrote them out after book 1, I had lots of reasons tho and no time now to expand
My party hated Ulf, we already had a Dwarven Viking Ranger from Kalsgard in the party tho and he wasn't about to let some dick human steal his thunder!
They ditched him in Iqaliat:-)
Well, I had one player quit outright over the ludicrousness in Book 2. "Thugs who explode when you try to question them? A ninja fortress in viking lands? A BBEG who figures out who you are and slowly ratchets up the attacks instead of just going all-out and killing you? Yeah, I'm done here. Let me know when you start running a sensible AP again..."
EDIT: In fairness to the AP, I *hated* Book 2. The second-worst book I've ever tried to run. (Council of Thieves Book 1 takes that 'honored' spot.) So a weak book run by a disinterested GM is obviously a recipe for disaster. And it was indeed...
I've grown up in areas with deep deep Viking roots, and my mom used to hang out with these cool Japanese ladies when I was super little, so if anything book 2 was too short :-)
Also one of my players had a large family in Kalsgard I could use to move the plot along with :-)
It was our first campaign after the introductory adventure from the Beginners Box and We Be Goblins! :-)
Thugs who explode when you try to question them?
Don't they die coughing up blood because of the magical blood oath they took? I don't think that's ridiculous.
A ninja fortress in viking lands?
In a world where you can walk or teleport from ninja-land to Viking land? Why not? The main theme of the campaign is east-west culture clash.
A BBEG who figures out who you are and slowly ratchets up the attacks instead of just going all-out and killing you?
So he let the BBEG figure out who and where the party were and put himself in a position where he could freely be attacked and his complaint was that he was given a chance to survive?
Anyway, book 2 aside, I'd advise making whatever changes you think necessary to give the players a sense of agency. Let them cross the north pole without a guide. Leave the NPCs behind, or kill them off.
Book 5 is pretty good for agency, but book 4 may need some work (at least if you're going to put them through the long dungeon crawl).
Yep. I'm already figuring I'm going to have to rewrite even more. Right now the craw in my throat is the whole "Mines of Moria" angle: "There is no way across the mountains *except* through the tunnels where Katiyana's ghost is waiting."
Such things happen, but the introduction to that section of the AP is pretty much standard for Jade Regent for me so far: "Give the PCs three options: Wait out the storm, go 200 miles east to cross the gulf, or go through the tunnels. If they choose options 1 or 2, punish them and force them to do 3 anyway."
My players aren't dumb. They immediately know the 'choice' wasn't, and Jade Regent consistently does such non-choices in a ham-handed manner.
It's not the first time this has come up. Kalsgaard was one huge recurring example of this. Go to the farm? They just attack you outright for no apparent reason. Look for anything other than the sword dealer first? It goes wrong. Try to question anyone to get any leads outside of the as-written path? They die...
@Matthew: It wasn't that the NPCs died due to a blood oath. It was that they were obviously specifically written to die so as to force the PCs down a single path of investigation. I think "ham-handed" is an appropriate term here. I prefer a wide-open investigation where the PCs are free to figure out where to go next. I *should* have completely re-written Kalgaard to be that way, but when I read it I didn't realize how poorly it would play out once we were "live". Amusingly, I did Book 4 of Wrath of the Righteous at the same time, and THAT one looked bad on paper, but played out beautifully (all the players LOVED it) specifically because it was so open-ended as to which path the PCs might follow.
So I have to be very diligent and excise all these non-choices that keep popping up. "Let the PCs choose A, B, or C, but if they do anything other than A everything blows up in their faces."
I'm also going to have to "do as Captain Yesterday" and just get rid of all the NPCs.
I suspect that once I give the players complete agency, the AP will improve immensely. As I said: I love the overall plot. I HATE the non-choices and NPC dependencies.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games
|
It's that the NPCs are necessary to and drivers for the plot. Book 1 wasn't so bad, but in Book 2 you *had* to have Ulf before you could set off across the Crown of the World. Why? In Book 3 you *have* to have the Dead Man save you.the group just felt bitter at getting bailed out yet againDoes that happen regularly? Is it the presence of NPCs or the idea that the NPC is the one who saves the day that's the problem? For me the NPCs were more often people who got into trouble and needed rescuing. And more often than that, they were off doing something else while the PCs operated alone, since my players also didn't really want or need help.
In fairness, as published you don't have to go to Dead Man's Dome at all, much less have him save you. It a place where the fortifications can give you a defensive bonus, and the spirit of the Dead Man basically just gives the PCs an extra attack for their side in the caravan combat. After the battle, the Dead Man's spirit shows you a free magic item.
In fairness, as published you don't have to go to Dead Man's Dome at all, much less have him save you. It a place where the fortifications can give you a defensive bonus, and the spirit of the Dead Man basically just gives the PCs an extra attack for their side in the caravan combat. After the battle, the Dead Man's spirit shows you a free magic item.
Absolutely true. But as in the thread's title, I was trying to provide the players with an epic-feeling battle, and I thought giving them agency by needing to clear the way for the Dead Man would be a neat mechanic. Instead, they hated their loss of agency... again.
And yes, we threw out the caravan battle mechanic the moment we read it. Loss of agency? We've got it covered!
So I started quizzing them about it, and that engendered the discussion above: In Jade Regent, you're frequently forced to get some kind of help from NPCs. As Captain Yesterday said, Ulf is the biggest offender. During their time in Kalsgaard, the players kept asking, "Why do we need this guy anyway? We have Endure Elements and Survival! Let's just find the path ourselves!"
So the whole time in Kalsgaard felt extremely forced. I should have just let them go and skipped Book 2.
I should have done the same thing in Book 3. "OK, choose any path you want across the ice." It would have been easy to work in all the set encounters, and would have made them feel far more empowered. No random, "Here are a bunch of choices, only one of which is correct," moments. No NPCs to the rescue.
As they say, hindsight is 20/20. But I've run every AP "by the book" so far, and this is only the second one where the players are so dissatisfied they're pondering abandoning it entirely. (Council of Thieves being the first.)
So yeah, I can fix it. I'm just reporting a lot of the issues leading up to Dead Man's Dome. Definitely the wrong thread for it, but there are links to this thread in the "Hungry Storm" thread so there you go...
...besides, if Captain Yesterday and I didn't derail a thread, it wouldn't be Paizo!
I gave my players a false choice of routes across the Crown and made them fight the same battles I wanted them to fight anyway...
I suspect the sense of loss of agency is something that comes up whenever you start looking for it. I don't think there were really many ways to get off the railroad in Curse of the Crimson Throne, Carrion Crown, etc. Most pre-written adventures come down to "here are a bunch of encounters, you could find a clever way to avoid them but if you do you won't get the experience and loot, and we don't offer any major alternative routes because that would mean writing twice as much content and half of it wouldn't be used".
Jade Regent seems to offer as much opportunity for choice as anything else I've seen - romance Shalelu, recruit NPCs you take a liking to, persuade Koya to follow you into the dungeon, murder Ameiko and seize the throne...
I gave my players a false choice of routes across the Crown and made them fight the same battles I wanted them to fight anyway...
Yep. We're in 100% agreement. It's what I should have done, and what I'm going to start doing.
I think the difference with Jade Regent is that it feels so open ("get to Minkai"), but you have only one solution ("take a caravan across the Crown of the World") when players can come up with other solutions.
Other APs lack agency, but the reasons are more compelling. For example, in Crimson Throne, Korvosa is going to h*** and the PCs are sent from hot spot to hot spot trying to put out fires. They're absolute puppets. But I've run it twice now and the players LOVE it!
You're right. It's the *sense* of agency that's important.
CoT had the problems with the PCs being in Evil Empire #63536 and perversely actually helping said Empire by cleaning up the city. Any actual campaign to kick them out is purely Dm discretion.
Throne isn't so bad since this is one city and the rest of the country are not a bunch of jerks who kick halflings.
So I started quizzing them about it, and that engendered the discussion above: In Jade Regent, you're frequently forced to get some kind of help from NPCs. As Captain Yesterday said, Ulf is the biggest offender. During their time in Kalsgaard, the players kept asking, "Why do we need this guy anyway? We have Endure Elements and Survival! Let's just find the path ourselves!"
Wow, I dodged that bullet without noticing it whiz past me. My party for The Brinewall Legacy had eight players, so the first thing I did was marginalize all the NPCs to give each individual PC more time in the limelight. For example, I replaced Ameiko with her half-sister Amaya, who was only second level.
A BBEG who figures out who you are and slowly ratchets up the attacks instead of just going all-out and killing you?So he let the BBEG figure out who and where the party were and put himself in a position where he could freely be attacked and his complaint was that he was given a chance to survive?
My players saved me there. They were very careful to not reveal that they had an Amatatsu in the party. I rewarded them for being careful, and it put the adventure more under their control. The raid on Asvig Longthew's steading was because detective work revealed that the bandits who attacked them on the road were Asvig's. The BBEG was clueless but her underlings learned that the party was a problem and ratcheted up the attacks quickly.
As they say, hindsight is 20/20. But I've run every AP "by the book" so far, and this is only the second one where the players are so dissatisfied they're pondering abandoning it entirely.
I always adjust the adventure based on the PCs' actions. Good roleplaying should have an effect. The fifth module, Tide of Honor, went totally sandbox when the PCs found better ideas than the plot in the module.
Yep. I'm already figuring I'm going to have to rewrite even more. Right now the craw in my throat is the whole "Mines of Moria" angle: "There is no way across the mountains *except* through the tunnels where Katiyana's ghost is waiting."
Such things happen, but the introduction to that section of the AP is pretty much standard for Jade Regent for me so far: "Give the PCs three options: Wait out the storm, go 200 miles east to cross the gulf, or go through the tunnels. If they choose options 1 or 2, punish them and force them to do 3 anyway."
In my campaign that one played out as Katiyana's super-morozoki storm blocked the only pass through the mountains that Ulf knew about, and the tunnel was the only close alternative that a caravan member suggested. In addition, somehow Katiyana spotted them 100 miles away and the storm was moving toward them, so they had little time. Yes, it was a railroad, but it let the players' thumb their noses at Katiyana, "Nyah, nyah, you can't catch us," so they liked it.
|
With these epic battles did anyone happen to use/convert a battlemap scale map of Dead Man's Dome?
I was planning to use the map labelled "Giant Barrow" on page 10 of the module but it's very shrunk down.
I've got the Gamemastery Caravan Pack that I'll be using for the various wagons and a bag of 100 zombie miniatures ready to go but I'm lacking a nice looking map.
Any suggestions?
Honestly, I just copied it into Roll20 and blew it up to a decent size and it worked fine. Yeah, it was a little blurry, but nothing horrible.
Amusingly enough, after I did that NobodysWife was kind enough to just draw the map on vinyl, and that's what we used. She's got quite the artistic touch...
|
|
I built a set-piece terrain for this encounter and ran it turn by turn with a horde of undead. It was overwhelming odds but I built in a mechanism for them to locate the site that the Dead Man fell and channel energy into an item that he possessed that would strengthen him and allow him to help protect the site and double the protective spells cast by the PCs. One of the PCs was 8 minutes into casting Symbol of Healing at the center of the site when the horde arrived, so the rest needed to hold off the Horde for 2 minutes by bolstering the defenses of the ruins and also find and empower the dead man. Doubling the effects of the Symbol of Healing was enough to defeat most of the undead that entered the ruins of the tower. I also added in that once the Dead Man was strengthened and he consecrated the site that the spirits, and their ancestors, of the people that he sacrificed himself for rose to help in the battle and stayed on to protect the site so that the Dead Man could finally rest.
Once the horde was dispersed they only had to deal with a boss creature that could make it by the defenses and once he was defeated the storm broke.
It ended up being one of the highlights of the entire module.
Here are some pics from the encounter:
We started the encounter before I finished the terrain, it took us 3 play sessions.
|
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games
|
I built a set-piece terrain for this encounter and ran it turn by turn with a horde of undead. It was overwhelming odds but I built in a mechanism for them to locate the site that the Dead Man fell and channel energy into an item that he possessed that would strengthen him and allow him to help protect the site and double the protective spells cast by the PCs. One of the PCs was 8 minutes into casting Symbol of Healing at the center of the site when the horde arrived, so the rest needed to hold off the Horde for 2 minutes by bolstering the defenses of the ruins and also find and empower the dead man. Doubling the effects of the Symbol of Healing was enough to defeat most of the undead that entered the ruins of the tower. I also added in that once the Dead Man was strengthened and he consecrated the site that the spirits, and their ancestors, of the people that he sacrificed himself for rose to help in the battle and stayed on to protect the site so that the Dead Man could finally rest.
Once the horde was dispersed they only had to deal with a boss creature that could make it by the defenses and once he was defeated the storm broke.
It ended up being one of the highlights of the entire module.
Here are some pics from the encounter:
We started the encounter before I finished the terrain, it took us 3 play sessions.
That's pretty awesome. Thanks for sharing! Glad you guys enjoyed it.
|
|
That's pretty awesome. Thanks for sharing! Glad you guys enjoyed it.
Thanks, we've really been enjoying the adventure path. I also did a terrain piece for Vegsundvaag's Lair that I just posted in another thread under Jade Regent, "Jade Regent Terrain".
I still use the caravan combat system but any time the group encounters something new I like to handle it as a normal encounter. After the PCs have encountered a certain situation or type of creature, I just use the caravan combat system, it speeds things up and minimizes repetition. Dead Man's Dome seemed like an encounter that needed more embellishment, I did borrow some ideas from earlier posts in this thread. Leading up to it I used the caravan encounter system to determine the starting conditions of the battle at Dead Man's Dome.
My players were terrified at the prospect of fighting so many foes. But then found that they were quite capable at holding them at bay. It is nice to see how far a character has progressed. They were recalling how difficult a small group of skeletons were in the Brinestump Marsh and how they could now take out several times that number in a single round of combat.