Well, as a GM I'm of two minds about this.
First, it is likely very awesome to pull a surprise on the players like after traveling to another country and then another planet, finding yourself in Russia (for Reign of Winter, naturally). But not all of us can afford a weekly update schedule. Heck, I've done some cropping of the 2nd book (and will likely crop more) to speed up how quickly we get through Book 2... and I'm willing to bet I'll be doing similar for Book 3 and Book 4.
I also used Rasputin's presence to reignite the waning interest of one of my players - he was barely participating, spending more time assembling War Machine or 40K models than roleplaying (partly because he's an intense roleplayer and has tended to dominate previous groups. He claimed to not wanting to take over the current group, especially as his wife is part of it). Fortunately, the addition of two other strong roleplayers has helped encourage his taking a more active role, as has having his wife do the roleplaying for Nadya so he has a character to flirt with (her other character is scared of his character and tends to be the quiet nervous type).
Second, just KNOWING what a series is about can truly ignite interest. I am fairly certain that in the three-to-five years that it'll probably take to finish RoW (even with cropping of encounters), we'll be doing Mummy's Mask next. The above-mentioned RPer loves the Mummy movies. That alone will draw him in. But I may also hint at an Indiana Jones vibe to the AP as well... as in many ways this initial work IS Indiana Jones - investigating tombs, evading traps, and finding artefacts.
So. It was long, convoluted, and I lived up to my internet handle once more... but yes. There is a certain need to telegraph some aspects of the plot to gain the interest of the group. But I also feel that the "feeling of disconnect" isn't quite as bad as others have claimed. Part of this may be because they're channeling the remake of "The Mummy" where Brendan Frasier's character was linked to the Mummy early in the movie... and thus there was a constant theme. I, on the other hand, have that "Indiana Jones" feel which never started with the hero hunting the plot device, but had him drawn into it partway into the movie. Much like the AP.
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That's fine, Tangent101.
I sort of want back up a little, because I don't want to attribute everything to "Gms telegraphing the plot", because I actually don't think that sums everything up in a single neat package.
It just feels like a lot of the push back comes from GMs who are reading but not actually running the AP. I maintain it is not a novel.
That's fine, Tangent101.
I sort of want back up a little, because I don't want to attribute everything to "Gms telegraphing the plot", because I actually don't think that sums everything up in a single neat package.
It just feels like a lot of the push back comes from GMs who are reading but not actually running the AP. I maintain it is not a novel.
i agree,
i myself have noticed that some adventures that get bad reviews on this website and amazon are a lot more fun to run thru then they might read. Racing to Ruin is a great example, it gets bad reviews consistently, and yet i've ran it twice with 2 different groups and both times were a blast! literally one of the funnest modules i've run groups thru! another is The Hungry Storm, we had an awesome time and i barely even changed anything!so to each their own, i've had nothing but great experiences with APs even if it doesn't always fit into what i expected, thats what my job is, help provide direction and fill any plot holes that might crop up (which their will always be a plot hole here or there, nothing is perfect after all:)
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Just a quick note: I'm three sessions in with a group of novice players. It's been great so far. The "long intro" is effective and fun for our group. And I'm enjoying it as GM.
I will say that the opening history/lottery went on too long but that's a problem I tend to have when GMing and has more to do with my bad GM habits, exacerbated/excited by the rich background in HDC, than a real knock on the adventure. Like I said, it's been great fun so far.
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Since I have started running this AP in my home game I thought I would way in. Probably gonna get some hate but hey throw it my way.
#1. I see some weak complaints by GM's (mostly readers) that do not like that everything is not typed out, zipped up and handed to them in a nutshell. Player motivation? What? Every AP is an outline and everyone I have ran I have changed to fit my group cause every player group is different. Every AP will not ever fit every group you run it for, PERIOD.
#2 Its called DM prep folks, change the stuff you like, toss the stuff you don't and then customize it to your individual group. What happened to the old days where a DM had to be creative on the fly, make it up as they went, we never had complete adventure paths or anything close to it. We are the story tellers not the ink on the paper. If you can't weave a good story, go DM PFS were not much is needed and everything is run as written.
#3 Love your work Jim, you are doing a great job for Paizo.
Ok now that I have unloaded that heavy rock off my chest I will tell you what I have done to invest the party.
First I am using the downtime rules from Ultimate Campaign. Giving them a weeks downtime between each drawing for their next assignment in the first book. Let them go house hunting, rent houses, plan to build stuff. They have took jobs to aid Waiti with the hoarde of stuff coming out of the necropolis. They have already run into all the other adventuring companies outlined in the first book. Velriana has bought stuff they brought back from the tomb, they have a relationship with her. They helped the halflings identify their mysterious sword, helped them find a dog breeder to replace their dead dogs.
One of the members working at the Grand Mausoleum using Linguistics to help translate some of the ancient Osirion text coming out of the necropolis has already made contact with Ptemenib and made friends and learned his backstory and he really don't come up until book 2 but they have already met and made friends right after the first tomb was explored.
When they finish the final lottery draw at the Erudite Eye I plan on giving them about 3-4 weeks of downtime to really ramp up investment in the city using the downtime rules so when the undead swarm the city they are worried about NPC's they have met, their homes, their friends and what better motivator does someone have than something coming directly into their personal space and destroying stuff.
Another player has passed the entrance exam at the Embalmer's Guild and started working there to earn a free skill point in the Embalming profession.
Other players have hired crafters to construct magic items since I let them use their capital to get a discount as long as they wait on the crafting time. So who is going to run off without their item being completed yet?
Get the picture yet? The AP and any AP is what you the DM makes it for your players. The more time YOU invest the better any game becomes. Jim and the rest of the gang has given you more than enough tools to aid in creating your game. The game you and your players want to play.
I will go back behind my rock now (Try not to throw anything too heavy.)
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Why risk their lives?
Because they're adventurers, not greengrocers.
If they are too scared to "risk their lives" in a desert to stop a threat then they have no purpose in calling themselves adventurers and shouldn't be in the game. If your players need a greater reason for their adventuring than stopping a threat and finding treasure while doing so, then play Wrath of the Righteous or the like instead.
But the thing is, the first volume in the AP did NOTHING to set them up as that sort of an adventurer. For example, when I talked with my players about this AP, based only on the knowledge in the player's guide, here are the concepts they came up with:
1) A greedy local
2) A motivated explorer from a far off land (say, a Pathfinder)
3) An Osirion scholar
4) A mercenary type who's in it for personal benefit, working for the others
If this list sounds familiar, it's because it should be - remember "The Mummy?" from the first adventure and the player's guide, it's very easy to get the impression that these kind of adventurers would be a perfect fit for the story - after all, they came to Wati to explore it's tombs - and nothing else is presumed about the reason they are there.
No event in the first adventure had anything going seriously out of plan - sure, some group of rival adventurers might a nuisance of themselves, but no further hook was set for the players. So, as far as they are concerned, the next step is exploring more tombs, right? because that's the kind of adventurers they are.
Fast forward to adventure two. The undead for Wati rise from the graves, ready to devour the living populations... and for some inexplicable reason, the group of PCs I described earlier is supposed to want to stop them?
Remember that in the Mummy, half the group wanted to run away at first sign of trouble. They only stayed out of a sense of personal responsibility for what was happening (they caused it) and because the Mummy got fixated on one of them, making an escape harder.
This AP lacks those encouragements that transform your merry group of grave robbers into the defenders of Wati. There's a very serious disconnection that's never handled properly. It's bad story design. It's reminiscent of Second Darkness (only worse, in my opinion, because at least by the 3rd adventure of second darkness the PCs have a reason to hate the villains, if not like the elves).
Also, you talked about how the first adventure is about a patient setup of the story. I refute that, and would showcase the movie "The Mummy" again as my counterexample. In that movie, which was of very similar themes to this AP, the actual Mummy only rises about 2/3 of the way through the movie. The rest is a very long set up.
But the set up is exciting! there's an actual race with a rival group of adventurers to the tomb's location, things don't go according to plan as an attack by a mysterious group that tries to steal the key to the city results in a ship burning down... things happen. Unexpected things.
In the first adventure of this AP, the story is way too linear. You are allotted three tombs to explore, and you will explore them one by one. That's it, that's the adventure. Nothing is dynamic, and nothing changes. The Scorched Hand thing is really more of an encounter with a set up than a twist. In a previous post I suggested that the PCs could have maybe stumbled upon an undiscovered tomb in their exploration (not one of the original three, not one anybody alive even knows about!). Someone else suggested that the PCs could have been the ones to set off the Ka pulse... the important thing is that something had to happen, and it didn't.
It's not really a problem with the first adventure, it's a problem with the structure of the whole campaign.
Oh, and about the Lord of the Rings example - you do realize that the first two adventures of a campaign are a third of it's length, right? so complaining that by the end of the second adventure there's not really a strong hook or story yet is not like complaining about the start of Lords of the Rings. It would have been if the entire first book of Lords of the Rings (a third of it's length, the actual equivalent of two AP books) ended with us still not knowing about Sauron or that there's going to be a war or what exactly the One Ring is. You would agree that in that case, the first book would have indeed seemed a bit pointless, as it wasn't really an active part of the story it was setting up. Remember that in a good story, the set up is done while the story unfolds, and gets in the way as little as possible. For an AP example, I would again point to Curse of the Crimson Throne, but also to Wrath of the righteous, Reign of Winter, Legacy of Fire, Rise of the Runelords RE, Carrion Crown, Serpent's Skull... really, most APs. Usually the first adventure works great for setting the tone, while simultanously setting things up for the AP:
[spoiler=spoilers for the APs I mentioned]
1)Crimson Throne - most of the first adventure introduces Korvosa, but the backdrop of the dead king, the queen suddenly in control of the city, the fact the king was murdered, etc.
2)Wrath - most of the adventure is about setting up demons as the villains and the PCs as local heroes, but Storm King is introduced as well as several major and important NPCs, and PCs get mythic power.
3)Reign of Winter - most of the first adventure is about setting the themes of winter up, but the scene with the cold rider sets up the main threat of the AP and the way most of it would be spent - doing Baba Yaga stuff.
4)Legacy of Fire - most of the first adventure is about fighting gnolls, but the short crawl in the temple near the city sets up the legendary weapon and that there was an ancient war with all sorts of jinns and efreet involved.
5) Runelords, RE: most of the first adventure is about fighting goblins, but runewell and sinspawn are introduced, and by the end the PCs see a depiction of Xin Shalast in a treasure room and actually get noticed by the mostly sleeping runelord of greed.
6)Carrion Crown - Most of the first adventure is about cleansing the prison of ghosts, but the PCs learn about the Whispering Way and know they murderd their friend, set loose the ghost in the prison and are generally up to nasty stuff.
7)Serpent's Skull - most of the first adventure is about setting up the jungle environment, but by the end the PCs find a serpentfolk temple and face a serpentfolk spellcaster, learning how much of a threat the creatures are, and have a map to the lost city of seven spears.
[/spoilers]
I hope this shows how most APs (and good stories in general) set things up while telling the stories, and don't take huge chunks of the story just to get started. It's more absorbing and engaging to the players, and eventually more rewarding when you finally finish the epic quest that started at the very first adventure.
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@ Lord Snow
You do realize that any player even contemplating playing in this campaign will at some point read the synopsis of the campaign. Even when you go to get the players guide it is right there.
The ancient lands of Osirion are blanketed by the sands of time, and eldritch secrets and vast riches lay just beneath the sun-blistered surface. As modern Osirion opens its vaults and tombs to outsiders for the first time in centuries, many of these lost treasures and secrets are now emerging—some more troublesome than others. Hakotep I, a now-forgotten pharaoh, was robbed upon his burial. A secret sect took his heart and his funerary mask, both containing a portion of his soul. Betrayed the chance to pass on into the afterlife during his burial, Hakotep has existed in a state between life and death for millennia. The recent rediscovery of one of these lost soul fragments has allowed the trapped pharaoh to once again work in this world to redress the wrongs committed against him, and a cult worshipping him as a god-king grows in the heart of Osirion. Can a group of heroes brave terrible guardians, foul cults, and the burning sands of the desert to stop the rebirth of this ancient tyrant?
I would at least want to know that much so I know what the overall campaign will be about in general.
Now knowing this if your players are making
1) A greedy local
2) A motivated explorer from a far off land (say, a Pathfinder)
3) An Osirion scholar
4) A mercenary type who's in it for personal benefit, working for the others
Then something is wrong. They know the premise before signing up to play I hope.
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@Bwatford,
my players are my friends. They trust me with APs I chose and do not read the synopsis of the campaign to avoid spoilers. So, not every player reads the synopsis.
And, assuming that a group similar to the one in "The Mummy" will be suitable for an Osirion AP about a resurrecting pharaoh is not all that much of a stretch. It's the AP's job to set the hook, and unlike most others this one failed miserably in my opinion.
I do agree with lord snow on a few points
1) party composition- that is the exact party we would make, and i've read the AP
2) i understand that by putting the source of issues in book two in the first book is harder then it might seem, however i agree that the PCs should be the cause of the issues to get them invested in helping Wati
3)The Scorched Hand, while wonderfully developed has no purpose in the campaign other then being incredibly nerdy for Nethys, they are also a push over.
4) not sure if this is brought up by Lord Snow but the End fights in every book are surprisingly easy, somewhere after Shattered Star (or maybe after RoW) Paizo stopped making them so difficult, sure they added mooks but now the actual end person/entity is underpowered, take secret of the sphinx, the last fight you fight before the end is only CR14 (with the boss being CR13 and 3 underpowered Mooks) for a party of 12th level, the same crops up especially in WotR
despite those issues, i am a big fan of Mummy's Mask and would get it again knowing what i know and can't wait to run it or play in it:) Egypt and Indiana Jones run deep into my background and Mummy's Mask is closer to that then i could make it:)
since i can't edit my last post, i will say that i did go back and really check out some capstone fights (sounds so much better then BBEG i think:) and they are better then my post above might project, i especially like the end of Shifting Sands:)
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4) not sure if this is brought up by Lord Snow but the End fights in every book are surprisingly easy, somewhere after Shattered Star (or maybe after RoW) Paizo stopped making them so difficult, sure they added mooks but now the actual end person/entity is underpowered, take secret of the sphinx, the last fight you fight before the end is only CR14 (with the boss being CR13 and 3 underpowered Mooks) for a party of 12th level, the same crops up especially in WotR
I'm actually very happy with the way the boss fights have been handled in books 1 and 2 of mummy's mask. Boss + mooks is a much better encounter design than one overpowered boss. However, at least in book 2, it seems like the author is unaware of just how easy it is to defeat really underpowered mooks.
I found that for my group what works best is one APL+1 or APL+2 boss, and then 2 or 3 APL or APL - 1 mooks. makes for a difficult but fair encounter to cap the adventure off.
yeah i went back and looked them over again, it was WotR that it came up mostly, alas it was posted to long ago to edit, i got on a roll and didn't know when to stop i guess:)
you can just forget the 4th argument:)
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Why risk their lives?
Because they're adventurers, not greengrocers.
If they are too scared to "risk their lives" in a desert to stop a threat then they have no purpose in calling themselves adventurers and shouldn't be in the game. If your players need a greater reason for their adventuring than stopping a threat and finding treasure while doing so, then play Wrath of the Righteous or the like instead.
But the thing is, the first volume in the AP did NOTHING to set them up as that sort of an adventurer. For example, when I talked with my players about this AP, based only on the knowledge in the player's guide, here are the concepts they came up with:
1) A greedy local
2) A motivated explorer from a far off land (say, a Pathfinder)
3) An Osirion scholar
4) A mercenary type who's in it for personal benefit, working for the othersIf this list sounds familiar, it's because it should be - remember "The Mummy?" from the first adventure and the player's guide, it's very easy to get the impression that these kind of adventurers would be a perfect fit for the story - after all, they came to Wati to explore it's tombs - and nothing else is presumed about the reason they are there.
LS, honestly, if I were running this AP, and my group came to me with those four character concepts, I'd be sending praises to my Lord above, man. That group does this AP without any outside need for motivation. To heck with risking their lives to stop an ancient evil. The need to establish that type of story is now gone. I've got two characters almost completely motivated by greed and two characters motivated by the thirst for knowledge. This AP has enough built-in material in all six of its books to keep this group motivated and pushing toward the goal of riches and knowledge without my having to hardly get involved in establishing them.
I believe that we GMs too often out-think ourselves at these things. We have this deep-rooted idea of what we think a campaign should be about that we completely throw out any semblance of all the other possibilities of what it could be about. Your players put together a party like that, they're not in it for saving the world--at least, not at the outset. Knowledge and riches, my friend (to paraphrase a rather well-known archaeologist out there). Focus on that, and the glory will undoubtedly show up later.
There's nothing wrong with the story structure of this AP from what I can see. It anticipates that adventurers will come into it living for the moment, and if you have PCs that enter gameplay with that mentality, you'll do just fine. Especially if they have a group construction like the one you posted above! Everything you need to keep this AP running from beginning to end (at least book 4, as I've not seen the last two yet) is built right into the AP itself. It works quite well for what it is, though too often I think we try to turn it into something more that we (the GM) want it to be. Mummy's Mask needs time before it becomes that epic story. It unfolds slower. There's nothing wrong with that because a lot of characters won't be in it for epic storytelling from the beginning. There's more than enough to keep characters interested in knowledge and riches involved though, until the epicness of what's to come really comes to the fore.
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believe that we GMs too often out-think ourselves at these things. We have this deep-rooted idea of what we think a campaign should be about that we completely throw out any semblance of all the other possibilities of what it could be about. Your players put together a party like that, they're not in it for saving the world--at least, not at the outset. Knowledge and riches, my friend (to paraphrase a rather well-known archaeologist out there). Focus on that, and the glory will undoubtedly show up later.
I'm confused. How does the search for knowledge and riches correlates with staying in Wati and bruising knuckles on zombies and cultists? especially when local authorities go as far as demanding that you fight their own monsters just to prove yourself worthy? Shouldn't they just step away at first sign of trouble and find another tomb to explore?
Also... while players might accept that transition, I as a GM don't. And a campaign is as much a story for me as for my players - I'm not providing them a service, I'm playing a game with them. If I want my campaigns to go a certain way, I'm sure to try and influence things to get that. And choosing an AP where I feel the story is incoherent and clunky is a bad way to do it :)
If you don't like the AP, then don't run it. Half of what makes an AP successful is the GM wanting to run it and enjoying it. It's clear you dislike the AP so you don't need to run it. You can also have someone else run it instead so it's not "wasted money" or even take parts of it and use it elsewhere. (I've considered taking the last couple of parts for WotR and having my by-then 17th level Runelords crew go through that afterward to save the world. Just because the AP is six parts doesn't mean you have to use all of them. Use the bits you want to.w)
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I'm confused. How does the search for knowledge and riches correlates with staying in Wati and bruising knuckles on zombies and cultists? especially when local authorities go as far as demanding that you fight their own monsters just to prove yourself worthy? Shouldn't they just step away at first sign of trouble and find another tomb to explore?
believe that we GMs too often out-think ourselves at these things. We have this deep-rooted idea of what we think a campaign should be about that we completely throw out any semblance of all the other possibilities of what it could be about. Your players put together a party like that, they're not in it for saving the world--at least, not at the outset. Knowledge and riches, my friend (to paraphrase a rather well-known archaeologist out there). Focus on that, and the glory will undoubtedly show up later.
Funny you should ask! Though I'm glad you did, because the answer to how the search for knowledge and riches correlates with staying in Wati to deal with the undead plague is easily pointed to in the first adventure! I'll put it in a spoiler tag, however, so as not to throw out legitimate story points in the open (I try to be careful about this).
The second, and most telling clues, can be found in the Reliquary of the Thrice-Divided Soul. Here, Ancient Osiriani hieroglyphs literally spell out that this chamber held an artifact/relic of some kind that contained a portion of the soul of the Forgotten Pharaoh that has the power to raise legions of undead and the damned! Additionally, while the knowledge roll is quite difficult at their current level, it's possible for the PCs to even determine that a source of overwhelming necromantic power resided within this room via use of detect magic!
So, your party discovers the info in book one listed in my spoiler above, then book two happens, and a legion of undead suddenly rise up in the city, originating from the Necropolis? I don't think it would be too difficult for them to put two-and-two together as to just exactly why, do you? And you've got two self-motivated knowledge hunters in your party that now have the opportunity to get their hands on this big and powerful secret; plus, they'd currently have the perfect idea as to where it is, which, if they don't take advantage of this opportunity to recover it, they may not have again. And just how much do you think knowledge of something like that might go for? You recover it, study it, and then sell it to the temple or some other collector for an amazing amount of gold . . . which makes the whole thing worth it to those motivated by greed.
Seriously, this could be a completely self-motivated transition for doing book two without any need for the local authorities butting in, which you seem to have such an issue with. Keep the authorities out of it entirely, man! Let your group be the ones to put it together an go for the prize themselves. It literally suits a party composition like the one you just gave the concepts for above, as everything they would possibly desire would have just fallen right into their laps. It's all right there in the books.
Also... while players might accept that transition, I as a GM don't. And a campaign is as much a story for me as for my players - I'm not providing them a service, I'm playing a game with them. If I want my campaigns to go a certain way, I'm sure to try and influence things to get that. And choosing an AP where I feel the story is incoherent and clunky is a bad way to do it :)
And this is the truth of the matter, LS. It's not that the AP is lacking at all, but simply that it doesn't fit into your parameters of epic storytelling. You want this story to be about saving the world from the get-go, and it's not. Thus, you take issue with how it's done. That's fine! Not all APs are built to the desires of every individual. Completely understandable. It's not precisely what you were looking for.
I would contend, however, that this AP works just fine as written . . . Better, actually, because not only is there a legitimate connection between books, but there's also plenty of self-motivated possibilities for characters to continue the story without ever needing outside interference! Treasure hunters seeking a big payday or scholars seeking knowledge about Osirian history both have ample reason to buy into what's going on and go digging further into the happenings of future books beyond the first one.
In the end, however, I'd say you've psyched yourself out of enjoyment of this AP, not that the AP is incoherent and clunky. There's plenty of coherency in this AP, and you don't even need to look overly hard to find it. Whether it's the story any individual wants to tell or not, well . . . that's for each individual to decide for him- or herself!
well said sub-creator! well said:)
Maybe we could all just agree to disagree?
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Maybe we could all just agree to disagree?
I never agreed to that;)
I've personally found MM to be a boring story but a great setting. (I'm currently only in Book 2, though). There's a much better reason for the party to actually be working together, at least at the start, than any of the other APs I've played (you're working together because you've gotta team up to get into the ruins, and there's plenty of opportunities to mistrust each other and roleplay on the way through them).
It's also nice to have a campaign that takes place in a consistent setting, with endings following a particular theme, from start to (presumably) end). MM makes some character types more fun to play, and some less. I'm a ranger in a party of clerics, and it's been really fun (though not necessarily as challenging as usual) to actually have appropriate spells, skills, and arrows prepared for the majority of the enemies we're fighting.
Meanwhile, Mummy's Mask has some of the best campaign traits I've seen in terms of keeping party-building options open without being broken.
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If you don't like the AP, then don't run it. Half of what makes an AP successful is the GM wanting to run it and enjoying it. It's clear you dislike the AP so you don't need to run it. You can also have someone else run it instead so it's not "wasted money" or even take parts of it and use it elsewhere. (I've considered taking the last couple of parts for WotR and having my by-then 17th level Runelords crew go through that afterward to save the world. Just because the AP is six parts doesn't mean you have to use all of them. Use the bits you want to.w)
That's all fine, but expressing dissatisfaction with the narrative cohesion communicates to Paizo that something didn't work here, something that had been working in previous stories.
No one thinks an AP is a novel, but if I as a DM read through it and don't see the connections or motivations, I'm likely to pick another. And since at this point in my life, I have more APs than I will probably ever have time to run in my life, an AP does need to be more competitive for my money than simply 'play it, don't read it, it'll be great'. At the very least, I need to enjoy them to keep buying them, and I want Paizo to hear what has and has not been working for me.
Okay. Here is an example. I am running two gaming groups. One is half tabletop, half Skype, the other is pure Skype. Both meet approximately once a month. Neither is particularly efficient in time use (though I am taking steps to decrease timesinks such as eliminating the use of cohorts in combat and reducing extraneous NPCs so the groups will be down to six or less units in combat).
In all likelihood I will never run WotR. Not because I don't want to, but because I don't have the time. While I might eventually run Mummy's Mask and Iron Gods (due to the subject matter which may be of interest to other players), by the time we get around to ending the existing games I'd be willing to bet it'll be 2016 or later. Other APs may have arrived that will interest my group more.
Yet I don't consider buying the APs in the meantime (or the purchase of old APs during the Golem Sale) to be a waste of money. Indeed, while I won't run all of WotR, when my Runelords group is finished I may very well have them be recruited to try and rescue the Mythic Heroes in WotR (only to find they were too late and the Mythic Heroes have been turned into half-Fiends using a ritual mentioned in the 3rd book). These high-level heroes will then end up going through the rest of WotR while having to deal with the Mythic half-fiend former heroes periodically.
I mean, why not? It may be interesting, especially if the players want to; and I know some of my Runelords group has mentioned a desire to use their high-level heroes in other APs.
Similarly, I can take elements from other APs and cut-and-paste them into other adventures. None of these APs will go to waste.
So you don't like Mummy's Mask because you feel the early parts don't work for your story. Fine. Then excise elements like the library in Book 3 or the tombs in book 4 or 5 and put them in other adventures. Or have your high-level heroes who just finished another AP investigate a flying pyramid they discovered and do the final part of Mummy's Mask as a continuation of your existing adventure.
Have fun with whatever aspects you enjoy. That way it won't go to waste even if you don't run the entire thing.
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Maybe we could all just agree to disagree?Putting aside the insults, this thread has been a decent discussion on what does or does not work for folks with MM. I for one appreciate the input so far.
Agreed on that count. This has been a mostly productive and interesting discussion. As stated, my group hasn't had any problems with vol. 1's story so far. It seems to be working as intended for us. But I appreciate the other perspectives.
Also, big thanks, Sub-Creator, for that lengthy post. My novice players are a ways from the Sanctum, but that was a helpful reminder to play up some of those pieces to set the stage for vol. 2.
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Maybe we could all just agree to disagree?Putting aside the insults, this thread has been a decent discussion on what does or does not work for folks with MM. I for one appreciate the input so far.
I didn't mean that people should stop posting their impressions of Mummy's Mask.
I meant that it should be ok for someone to say that they like or dislike something and why without having someone else:
-discount their point of view
or
-try to convince them that they are wrong
or
-insult them
Which are all things that I have seen happen in this thread.
Whether you love or hate Mummy's Mask, people have different tastes, that's ok. We're all simply letting the ice cream makers know which flavors we like and which flavors we dislike.
Okay. Here is an example....
In all likelihood I will never run WotR. Not because I don't want to, but because I don't have the time. While I might eventually run Mummy's Mask and Iron Gods (due to the subject matter which may be of interest to other players), by the time we get around to ending the existing games I'd be willing to bet it'll be 2016 or later. Other APs may have arrived that will interest my group more.
Yet I don't consider buying the APs in the meantime (or the purchase of old APs during the Golem Sale) to be a waste of money. ...
Similarly, I can take elements from other APs and cut-and-paste them into other adventures. None of these APs will go to waste.
...Have fun with whatever aspects you enjoy. That way it won't go to waste even if you don't run the entire thing.
Tanget, we clearly lead similar RPG lives, I have three games online, two I run, one I play. All of them are running APs, more or less. Savage Tide, Fall of Ashardalon, and Way of the Wicked. Savage Tide has been running the longest, and frequently borrows maps, storylines, characters and even entire adventures from the Pathfinder AP line.
The issue at heart here is not the wasting of my money on APs. I have every single one, since Rise of the Runelords. There have been some I didn't care for (Council of Thieves) and many many more that I loved (Rise of the Runelords, Kingmaker, Serpent's Skull, Skull and Shackles, Reign of Winter, Wrath of the Righteous, as well as those in between that I enjoyed a lot. I know what to do with those adventures, and whether I cut material from them for use in my own games, or use their artwork, or even just read them for inspiration in similar scenarios, I know that APs provide a ton of material, even to DMs not running them.
The issue here is the lack of narrative cohesion throughout the adventure for me. The narrative doesn't really follow as well as I thought it could have, and I don't feel grabbed like I have before when picking up a Paizo AP. Scattered through the thread are my issues, either posted by myself, or Peter Stewart, or Jon Snow...they pretty much sum of my concerns here.
That can't be changed with providing me alternate uses for the material (though I like the way you think on that accord, lots of great ideas.), and certainly not through the use of comments like "It's called DM prep people", which is so far off base that it would be laughable if it wasn't so damn rude. (I realize that's not yours.)
Narrative cohesion is a particular quality that I've come to expect from APs, and it is itself, a desirable trait to me. A presence of other desirable traits (interesting big-bad, awesome setting, lots of useful material, great god articles, etc) doesn't diminish my hunger for that cohesion.
In the end, I think Paizo could have given me a bit more of what I wanted from this AP without taking anything away from those who are really enjoying it.
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Since I have started running this AP in my home game I thought I would way in*. Probably gonna get some hate but hey throw it my way.
*weigh in
If you know at the onset that your post is going to create friction and conflict because of its tone, that is probably a good indicator that you should go back and revise it or make changes. What are saying in this opening is the equivalent of ‘with all due respect’, followed by something incredibly disrespectful.
#1. I see some weak complaints by GM's (mostly readers) that do not like that everything is not typed out, zipped up and handed to them in a nutshell. Player motivation? What? Every AP is an outline and everyone I have ran I have changed to fit my group cause every player group is different. Every AP will not ever fit every group you run it for, PERIOD.
First, I don’t think anyone has complained that the entire adventure is not “typed out, zipped up, and handed to them in a nutshell.” Further, I think it’s pretty rude to call the existing complaints ‘weak’.
Second, initial player motivation isn’t the problem. As several people have pointed out several times, the issue is that the AP as written requires the PCs to change their motivation multiple times between adventures, most notably between #1 and #2, where they go from mercenary tomb raiders to saviors of the city. The jump from #2 to #3 (saviors of the city to archeologists) is also pretty big. The issue is not that this cannot be managed, but rather that it doesn’t manage these transitions with the same degree of smoothness as previous APs have, which (for number of people) was rather jarring.
Third, while I think that every AP requires changes and tweaks to become a perfect fit for any group, I think the issue most people had here was the degree of tweaks necessary from the onset to maintain anything approaching a coherent narrative. I could chart the AP to date as follows:
“A group of rough and tumble adventurers and tomb raiders journey to a far off city to unearth wealth and power from the long sealed tombs of ancient Egypt. After plundering several tombs and fighting off their rival, the city erupts with living dead, and these mercenaries decide to fight through necromancers, undead, and ancient cults to save it because they’re heroes. They then proceed to another far off city to investigate the magical mask they found in the possession of the necromancer who raised the dead, because they are intensely interested in the secrets of ancient Egypt. They then journey into the desert to track down more information, and decide to hunt down a mysterious cult.”
That story feels like something my 7 year old sister would tell, and it feels grossly out of character for Paizo.
#2 Its called DM prep folks, change the stuff you like, toss the stuff you don't and then customize it to your individual group. What happened to the old days where a DM had to be creative on the fly, make it up as they went, we never had complete adventure paths or anything close to it. We are the story tellers not the ink on the paper. If you can't weave a good story, go DM PFS were not much is needed and everything is run as written.
Wow…. I mean, really? You know literally absolutely nothing about the various people commenting on this thread, and yet you seem to think it’s appropriate to call out those offering criticism for a lack of creativity and ability to tell stories, plus laziness in their prep? How in the world do you think that is in any way appropriate?
Laying aside the fact that you have no idea how many hours the GMs that have posted here put into their weekly prep (though I’ll give you a hint and say that at least one that I know of could probably fit in another full time job if he didn’t play pathfinder), the reason many people buy APs is so they don’t have to put as much time into their prep. They appeal to people that want to run an adventure series with a lot of the work done, with a story already written that they can tweak to their liking, instead of having to completely rewrite from the ground up.
#3 Love your work Jim, you are doing a great job for Paizo.
I actually liked Half-Dead City a great deal. I thought it was a nice throwback, and it helped convince me to pick up a subscription because I thought the AP. The thing is, Half-Dead City, Empty Graves, and Shifting Sands all fit together about as well as a puzzle that is missing half of its pieces.
Ok now that I have unloaded that heavy rock off my chest I will tell you what I have done to invest the party.
By unload that ‘heavy rock’ off your chest, do you mean ‘insulted everyone who disagrees with me’?
First I am using the downtime rules from Ultimate Campaign. Giving them a weeks downtime between each drawing for their next assignment in the first book. Let them go house hunting, rent houses, plan to build stuff. They have took jobs to aid Waiti with the hoarde of stuff coming out of the necropolis. They have already run into all the other adventuring companies outlined in the first book. Velriana has bought stuff they brought back from the tomb, they have a relationship with her. They helped the halflings identify their mysterious sword, helped them find a dog breeder to replace their dead dogs.
One of the members working at the Grand Mausoleum using Linguistics to help translate some of the ancient Osirion text coming out of the necropolis has already made contact with Ptemenib and made friends and learned his backstory and he really don't come up until book 2 but they have already met and made friends right after the first tomb was explored.
When they finish the final lottery draw at the Erudite Eye I plan on giving them about 3-4 weeks of downtime to really ramp up investment in the city using the downtime rules so when the undead swarm the city they are worried about NPC's they have met, their homes, their friends and what better motivator does someone have than something coming directly into their personal space and destroying stuff.
Another player has passed the entrance exam at the Embalmer's Guild and started working there to earn a free skill point in the Embalming profession.
Other players have hired crafters to construct magic items since I let them use their capital to get a discount as long as they wait on the crafting time. So who is going to run off without their item being completed yet?
This is all great. I’m sure you’re a lovely GM to play with and you are going to put together a great adventure. I’m also sure that it’s useful to someone who is trying to work up side tasks in the city for their party, and trying to get them more involved.
It doesn’t change the fact that the AP, as written, doesn’t flow logically from one piece to the next, and instead relies on either a party going full bore to make their GMs life easier and staying on the tracks, or the GM making heavy edits to later chapters. And while I think GMs should make edits, I don’t think that should be a precursor to the story remaining on the rails.
Get the picture yet? The AP and any AP is what you the DM makes it for your players. The more time YOU invest the better any game becomes. Jim and the rest of the gang has given you more than enough tools to aid in creating your game. The game you and your players want to play.
Please, be more condescending in your tone. I don’t feel like I’m being talked down to enough yet.
Nothing you are saying is news to anyone. You are not Moses coming down from the mountain to deliver the wisdom of god. More time spent equals better game: got it. AP as pieces you put together into your own story: got it.
Now listen to what we are saying: We bought the pieces and took them home to put them together but found out that not only was the left leg shorter than the right, but that we didn’t get any screws or nails to put them together with and that the instructions were in French. With enough time can we make it work? Sure, we can go get some screws at the hardware store, we can saw off one leg to make them the same length, and we can put the instructions into Google translate, but relative to past products we’ve bought this is a disappointment.
Is it unusable? No. Is it the end of the world? No. Are any of the pieces themselves bad? No. They simply don’t fit together, and that’s an unusual and irritating problem in the AP line, which as a whole has been really fantastic.
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So, your party discovers the info in book one listed in my spoiler above, then book two happens, and a legion of undead suddenly rise up in the city, originating from the Necropolis? I don't think it would be too difficult for them to put two-and-two together as to just exactly why, do you? And you've got two self-motivated knowledge hunters in your party that now have the opportunity to get their hands on this big and powerful secret; plus, they'd currently have the perfect idea as to where it is, which, if they don't take advantage of this opportunity to recover it, they may not have again. And just how much do you think knowledge of something like that might go for? You recover it, study it, and then sell it to the temple or some other collector for an amazing amount of gold . . . which makes the whole thing worth it to those motivated by greed.
That's actually very helpful - it's a much better glue for the adventures than the hooks presented in the adventures themselves (the PCs should either want to help or agree to do so for money!). I just wish that this connection could have been more in the forefront - I, for one, overlooked it. But if the PCs immediately know that what's causing the undead uprising is an artifact of ancient Osirion... better chance they'll stick around.
It's not that the AP is lacking at all, but simply that it doesn't fit into your parameters of epic storytelling. You want this story to be about saving the world from the get-go, and it's not. Thus, you take issue with how it's done. That's fine! Not all APs are built to the desires of every individual. Completely understandable. It's not precisely what you were looking for.
That's not at all the case, actually - big epic save the world stories are fine, but I'm certainly of a mind to enjoy other sorts of stories. I have no problem with slow stories, either. My issue so far is that
1) First adventure is too linear and could easily have included a twist or two to better jump start the story of the second book, or basically had SOMETHING unexpected happening in it, story-wise. Look at the Shattered Star adventures, for example - while they too are set up with a known every book - there will be a dungeon in which you will find the next shard - each adventure has unpredictable elements to it that thicken the plot - be it the involvement of Grey Maidens, the possibility to redeem the villain, or the presence of another shard nearby. SOMETHING is unplanned in the structure of the story, which makes it an actual adventure.2) Thematic disconnection from first book to second book - even with your great suggestion for making the PCs want to stick around Wati, the second book is not about exploration and adventuring, it's about saving a city. I usually love that type of story but after the first adventure, this one still doesn't feel right.If Paizo had to devout an entire book of the AP JUST to set up that the PCs are exploring tombs in Egypt (and the book sets up nothing else in regards to theme... it does set up Wati as a location though), having them suddenly running about the city and calming down anxious citizens is just out of place.
3) the meta plot of the campaign is a confusing blunder of secret cults doing things because of reasons. Honestly, I read the story twice and am still a bit unclear on who is who and what exactly their goals are. Did we really need 3 secret societies to get the story going? this reminds me of Carrion Crown where there are also at least three secret societies... at some point you can't take that stuff seriously any more. The APs with good stories are the ones that manage to be simple yet retain depth. Here there is a ton of complexity but barely and depth at all.
So it's not that I am impatient, or that I can only stomach one kind of story for an AP. It's that this campaign has what I consider serious story telling issues in the abstract, not according to specific preferences. A good story is simple yet with depth, is seamless (each part of the story grows naturally from the part before it), has some twist and turns (unlike the first adventure, the most linear one I've ever seen from Paizo in regards to story), and manages to move the plot even while introducing the themes important to it. So far Mummy's Mask failed, in my opinion, in every single one of these categories. Granted I only read less than half of it, but that was enough to leave me feeling cold for the campaign.
Anyway, subCreator, I encourage you to think of good stories you know - from books, TV, movies, video games, whatever - and you will see many of them can be described with my previous paragraph much more than Mummy's Mask.
Personal example of explicitly non epic story: Pulp Fiction
1) Simple yet has depth - plot of the movie is, mobsters get a huge amount of money, but one of them has an epiphany while retrieving it, and a boxer gets tired of being told he's too old, wins a fight he wasn't supposed to and now has to face the consequences for taking the mobster's money and reputation. Pretty simple, yet the way individual stories are woven into a larger picture adds a lot of depth to the story - the motives and emotional world of each character becomes known to the viewer.
2) Seamless - maybe that BDSM thing in the end was really bizarre, but for the rest of the movie, you always understand who's doing what and why, and it all makes sense. The increasingly intricate web of lowlifes is understandable, and you can see how the actions of one affects the others.
3) Twists and Turns - obvious, nothing in this movie goes according to anyone's plans.
4) Moves the plot while introducing themes - this is basically every scene in the movie, really. A strong example is the scene where the lead mobster explains to Bruce Willis why he has to lose his boxing match. The character, the kind of story he's going to have, and the actual plot are all started in this one wonderful scene.
Anyway, I'm saying that a lot of the reasons many good stories are good is that they uphold these terms. Mummy's Mask doesn't, at least for me.
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However, at least in book 2, it seems like the author is unaware of just how easy it is to defeat really underpowered mooks.
I found that for my group what works best is one APL+1 or APL+2 boss, and then 2 or 3 APL or APL - 1 mooks. makes for a difficult but fair encounter to cap the adventure off.
Uhm... what?
The bottom level of the Sepulchur in Vol 2 presents 4 VERY under CR'd, overpowered (if not overpowering) challenges. WORSE, the design employs the use of not one but TWO alarm spells which logically should lead to the Boss calling upon at least two of the high CR threats in the dungeon to stride forward with him in to battle. You fight Nebta, Sekuir and Naghat together? That encounter would significantly challenge a level 9 or 10 party.
If that happens (as it should) against 4 level 6 PCs? it's a TPK, 100% of the time.
Even on their own, the use of the Crypt Thing will likely lead to one player death as the PC is randomly teleported into the dungeon with a good chance of having to fight one of the Graven Guardian, Nebta-Khufre and Mummy Cohort, or worse, the sceaduinar in a solo duel to the death -- any one of which will result in almost certain death if confronted by only 2 PCs, let alone 1.
The design problems in the second half of Empty Graves would take an hour to explain, but they are there, lurking and very, very real.
If there is anything that Vol II's final dungeon level is NOT, it is a cakewalk. The foes on that level are so far removed from the term "mook", I can only say, to paraphrase Inigo Montoya: I do not think that word means what you think it means.
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Heh, speaking of book 2 mooks, the mooks in the Bright River Brickworks lasted 2 rounds longer than the boss.
Parroting myself a bit from earlier here. My group is having tons of fun, nearing completion of Book 2 Part 1 (They dinged to 5 last night). Their motivation into the book 2 investigation has almost soley been taking revenge on those who plundered their lottery draw. Changing that coffer corpse to a dead companion of Nebta who was helping find the place before the Lottery, journal and all, and Senemerek's griping really set the mood for being on the look out for the gold masked goon(s) who stole the artifact that the Pharoah decreed to never ever turn on.
IC I think they're starting to see that the Mask is responsible for the zombpocalypse, and once they interrogate Ekram and the other captured FP cultists from the the Brickworks, they'll have lots more motivation to go reclaim the artifact that lawfully belongs to them.
One thing that has disappointed me, though, is the economic shenanigans. Book 1 ends with a seller's market on goods, forcing the auction to actually sell stuff (at an opportunity to bid up prices too). Book 2 then goes panic level 20 and makes everything ridiculous to buy, cancelling out the auction's benefits until you're half way through the book and have the panic level down low enough to get full price and buy for base cost. The party is holding onto 40K of liquid loot with nothing to do with it except charter a boat to Tephu or An to shop.
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I'm currently running Half-Dead City. I posted some critical comments (as well as compliments) earlier in this thread, so it's time I came in and posted an update based on actual game play.
We're about halfway through the second exploration site.
One of the things I'm particularly enjoying is the mix of logical-consequences (reasonable explanations for the church running the lottery, and their attitude toward it; reasons for why all the critters are at any particular site) with a liberal spicing of misdirection and the twisting of expectations.
The first encounter in the Pentheru mausoleum was absolutely a delight.
This adventure has so far resulted in a level of clever (or, sometimes, "oops-we-really-wish-we'd-been-more-clever") play, without ever tilting over into boring over-caution. The players are thinking more, and having tremendous fun solving things by interacting with the scene in the adventure, rather than just through dependence on reference to specific character powers. (That is, everything isn't "I can solve this with this spell" or "I beat it into submission," it's much more frequently "hmmm, what's going on here, and how to we want to approach dealing with it.") And it's great fun listening as the players come up with their own theories for why certain things are where they are (such as a certain cut rope, or a certain axe and its wielders).
My group has been playing together for years, so it's not like I need the adventure to teach them how to play the game - and yet, it is, in a wonderful way, doing just that. It simultaneously sets expectations and rewards a style of play that is incredibly fun.
Jim Groves, with this adventure, you've moved up into the top of my list of preferred adventure writers. And the best part is, we still have the second half of this chapter to look forward to!
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The story leaps In Mummy's Mask don't bother me so much as IMO very poor encounter design. Right now our party is in book 4. The encounters with the exception of the
I am playing the bloodrager and have not found one useful item in the entire AP. at el 4 I bought a +1 great ax and upgraded to an undead bane at el 5 and have found no undead at any point since. No martial items greater than +1 have been put in any of the books with exception of a +2 punching dagger worse than useless to a fighter or a blood rager. no armor or shields greater than +1 or any armor type heavier than scale mail
this is truly a AP that hates martial characters. No stat boosting items
no magic rings of any value we have found a +2 cloak of protection and a wagon load of +1 cloaks of protection useless to characters beyond level 5 who all ready have one. The only thing the +1 cloaks are useful for is to keep track of how many cultists we kill.
If I did not like the other players playing the AP I would quit as it is so bad. The only redeeming factor in the AP at all is story line and as Peter has pointed out you have to make big jumps in that as well. There is no flow between books 1-3. Books 3 and 4 connect well I hope this continues in books 4 and 5.
There is no flow between books 1-3.
I beg to differ. I switched from book 1 to 2 mid session and my players didnt even notice it.
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I agree with shadowkras, our game seamlessly transitioned between the books. Our book 1 to 2 transition was the smoothest, because the party was sticking around anyway to help local law enforcement help them track down the jack nut that stole some loot from their last lottery draw.
My biggest problem to date, is that without the revenge vs the cult or vs Nebta angles, the motivation for a Neutral party to continue along the AP past book 2 is a bit esoteric. My players understand its an AP and requires a certain amount of "just go with it", but I can easily see how other groups might not care to go do research about the mask (particularly when legend lore will give all the artefactory powers anyway, and is cheap), and even less to go tromping off through the desert to kill a miniscule cult. Book 5 and 6's stakes are a bit easier to sell to a N party, but its the mid-3 through 4 pull that really is difficult for a group who isn't out to save the world.
I dont think i will have a problem with the cult if i apply the same tactic i used with the ankhat (they fought the ankhat about 20 times before they were finished with the sanctum of erudite eye): Make them fight cultists every other corner, seeking to steal the mask from them, and soon they will start to get pissed about the "interruptions" and seek their hideout.
As for the ankhat, anyone else used him that way? I figured that since he couldnt be killed, there was absolutely no reason for him to not attack the group whenever he wanted to, when he wasnt attacking the group, he was fixing broken parts of the temple (such as iron bars) or observing them and waiting for the best moment to attack again.
Now that they are over with book 1 and found his binding stone, the magus on the group pledged obedience to Nethys and vowed to restore the sanctum of erudite eye (he just has to deal with the whole necropolis thing), they dont hate the ankhat so much, the sanctum has become a "safehouse" for them while in the necropolis.
My biggest problem to date, is that without the revenge vs the cult or vs Nebta angles, the motivation for a Neutral party to continue along the AP past book 2 is a bit esoteric. My players understand its an AP and requires a certain amount of "just go with it", but I can easily see how other groups might not care to go do research about the mask (particularly when legend lore will give all the artefactory powers anyway, and is cheap), and even less to go tromping off through the desert to kill a miniscule cult. Book 5 and 6's stakes are a bit easier to sell to a N party, but its the mid-3 through 4 pull that really is difficult for a group who isn't out to save the world.
See, I don't agree with this. You could have absolutely neutral characters and still easily go through this entire AP. Two possible examples would be for monetary (ie. treasure hunters) or scholarly purposes. Neither requires a desire to save the world, and both can act as a form of personal enrichment exclusively (or to share an incredible discovery with the academic community of Osirion or elsewhere). These two routes could even be taken with minimal alterations by the GM.
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We are in book 5 now 1/2 way through we have done the water and earth
parts the encounters have been good even through our gm has to doubble the HP of the creatures as two of the six PC's can dish out 200"+ points of damage a round a ninja and a bloodrager.
My big complaint is the total crap that has been put in this entire ap for treasure for instance after one of the toughest fights in the whole AP
the main treasure was a +2 ring of protection at level 15-16 that is insulting that's a item that is a cr 8 item at the most. we picked up a keen spear from one fight totally useless to the parties fighters at our level as we are pretty much locked into certain weapons at our level because of feats and class abilities we can't go back to town as there is a forbiddance effect where we are at the moment. There have been no wands or staffs or scrolls given out since el 12 if the writer of the AP had any common sense there would have been a crap load of necomatic items
in books 4-5 for treasure maybe some bit of shory magic mabye some sort of holy or undead bane weapon but no they use the WBL rule to kill giving out anything useful to the PC's.
This whole AP seems to me written for the authors not the players.
A large part of the game is collecting new and interesting magic items as you level up. This AP fails totally in this facet of the game.
DM'ing this now and just reached the sanctum in book one.
Not dissapointed at all so far.
I loved the initial tomb...traps made them feel like they were in a classic mummy/indiana jones movie. With the house stressed the history/haunting to drive home the anchient disaster, and when they arrive for "dungeon3" lots of tracks to follow & investigate that the ranger is loving and making the party really think, so its investigative as well as a dungeon loot.
Did have to beef up rival groups element and the early introduction of scorched hand. Not a problem but needed careful thought and planning.
Would have liked more info on other groups at back of the book for this rather than the large beastiary spreads.
Did use the water trap at "full deadly mode" but with a slow fill and combat getting more hampered as the water rose. Was close to a couple of deaths but players loved the danger and sense of success after.
Players are treasure hunters and for a taste of desert flavour at the start they were travelling on a sand skiff (desert ship) which crashed in a sand storm. Two days of desert trek with heat danger and scorpion encounter ensued pre-Wati.
Also added a lot of Dark Sun style flavour elements and have a native osirian region party to enhance the egyptian feel. I can see why the writers would leave this open with just suggestions in the players guide or some people would be put off but I went to town with race/class/flavour changes.
Cant wait for the "big start" to book2. Love the way this was delayed and not the AP start.
The story leaps In Mummy's Mask don't bother me so much as IMO very poor encounter design. Right now our party is in book 4. The encounters with the exception of the ** spoiler omitted **have been steam rolled as we are a 5 member party that consist of now 10th level characters a bloodrager, a shadow sorceror,a mystic theurge, a ninja and a War priest.
My group has found every AP to be a steam roll and the GM's have to increase the encounter levels.
Several people from my gaming groups went to Paizocon this year and came away with the conclusion that the AP developers only care about filling out Golarion. Play balance does not matter at all in AP's. It's left to the authors and no one checks to see if or how the AP was play tested. The end result is uneven play balance in almost every AP. My main group has lost the desire to play Paizo AP's as a result.
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The story leaps In Mummy's Mask don't bother me so much as IMO very poor encounter design. Right now our party is in book 4. The encounters with the exception of the ** spoiler omitted **have been steam rolled as we are a 5 member party that consist of now 10th level characters a bloodrager, a shadow sorceror,a mystic theurge, a ninja and a War priest.
My group has found every AP to be a steam roll and the GM's have to increase the encounter levels.
Several people from my gaming groups went to Paizocon this year and came away with the conclusion that the AP developers only care about filling out Golarion. Play balance does not matter at all in AP's. It's left to the authors and no one checks to see if or how the AP was play tested. The end result is uneven play balance in almost every AP. My main group has lost the desire to play Paizo AP's as a result.
And yet there are other groups who talk about how deadly the combats are. Paizo has to write for a middle ground situation, with the expectation that the GM adjusts to the group's power level and preference.
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Due to release schedule I don't think Paizo has time to play-test the APs. Thats why I think the forums are so important. As Graywulfe points out the APs are aimed at the middle and each group is going to have to address that on their own. If you have used a product that is perfect from page to table Id love to hear about it. In my experience, such simply does not exist.
And yet there are other groups who talk about how deadly the combats are. Paizo has to write for a middle ground situation, with the expectation that the GM adjusts to the group's power level and preference.The story leaps In Mummy's Mask don't bother me so much as IMO very poor encounter design. Right now our party is in book 4. The encounters with the exception of the ** spoiler omitted **have been steam rolled as we are a 5 member party that consist of now 10th level characters a bloodrager, a shadow sorceror,a mystic theurge, a ninja and a War priest.
My group has found every AP to be a steam roll and the GM's have to increase the encounter levels.
Several people from my gaming groups went to Paizocon this year and came away with the conclusion that the AP developers only care about filling out Golarion. Play balance does not matter at all in AP's. It's left to the authors and no one checks to see if or how the AP was play tested. The end result is uneven play balance in almost every AP. My main group has lost the desire to play Paizo AP's as a result.
This argument has been used for a long time but Paizo doesn't even know if they are on a middle ground since play balance is not checked for with AP's. Apparently they suggest the writers to play-test it in their home groups using the pre-gens. Well the pre-gens are a considerably under powered build using only the core book (with traits from the APG) This is played out in PFS. Season 1 PFS scenarios are a good fit for pre-gens but the latest seasons are built for more powerful builds due to complaints of things being too easy. It does not appear the AP designers have been keeping up . At Paizocon they gave the impression they did not care about play balance at all.
Well-built characters are normally tied to competent players, which in turn normally come with competent GMs. I'd rather have competent GMs customizing an AP to make it more challenging for his competent players than an inexperienced GM mangling an AP to make it easier for inexperienced players.
Only halfway through the second book but so far I'm enjoying Mummy's Mask a lot! Wati is a city in turmoil and so feels a more dynamic than Sandpoint did. The dungeons have been interesting, but you really only get the full payoff if you try to get into the "background" of each location rather than just taking it at face value.
The shift from the first to second book threw us for a bit of a spin though. It wasn't so bad for us since we're mostly playing good-aligned characters, but I would imagine a lot of groups that primarily came to Wati 'for the spoils' had to scramble to find motivation to stay when the town suddenly entered an undead-plague economic depression. The constant price fluctuations are frustrating, but I'm not sure if that's the AP or our GM inventing GP taxes to balance out the Bonus Progression system.
Also: Might just be me, but I feel like everything in this AP has damage reduction. The Vanth psychopomp in particular really threw us for a spin. As is I've completely abandoned my plans of TWF and I'm seriously considering buying an adamantine weapon at level 5. Does this trend continue through the entire AP or is this just a spike in the first books?
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Does this trend continue through the entire AP or is this just a spike in the first books?
I'm actually running the AP and I am halfway through Chapter Four. There is a fair amount of DR. I would defend the reasons why that is not a flaw, but in the interest of a short, honest answer. Yeah. There's a fair amount of DR in all the chapters. Not on everything, but I can see wanting an adamantine weapon.
Jim Groves, with this adventure, you've moved up into the top of my list of preferred adventure writers. And the best part is, we still have the second half of this chapter to look forward to!
I didn't see this until much much later, but I wanted to say thank you. :)
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After reading a bit of Giantslayer yesterday, i also would say you are on my list of prefered authors. :)
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Does this trend continue through the entire AP or is this just a spike in the first books?I'm actually running the AP and I am halfway through Chapter Four. There is a fair amount of DR. I would defend the reasons why that is not a flaw, but in the interest of a short, honest answer. Yeah. There's a fair amount of DR in all the chapters. Not on everything, but I can see wanting an adamantine weapon.
I don't necessarily see it as a flaw per se, but it's worth noting that heavy use of high DR monsters pose a larger problem for characters that rely on many small hits rather than those that go for fewer bigger hits - the emphasis on DR has made TWF rather unappealing for Mummy's Mask so far.
Looks like an adamantine branched spear is at the top of the shopping list, thanks for the quick reply. :)
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This argument has been used for a long time but Paizo doesn't even know if they are on a middle ground since play balance is not checked for with AP's. Apparently they suggest the writers to play-test it in their home groups using the pre-gens. Well the pre-gens are a considerably under powered build using only the core book (with traits from the APG) This is played out in PFS. Season 1 PFS scenarios are a good fit for pre-gens but the latest seasons are built for more powerful builds due to complaints of things being too easy. It does not appear the AP designers have been keeping up . At Paizocon they gave the impression they did not care about play balance at all.And yet there are other groups who talk about how deadly the combats are. Paizo has to write for a middle ground situation, with the expectation that the GM adjusts to the group's power level and preference.The story leaps In Mummy's Mask don't bother me so much as IMO very poor encounter design. Right now our party is in book 4. The encounters with the exception of the ** spoiler omitted **have been steam rolled as we are a 5 member party that consist of now 10th level characters a bloodrager, a shadow sorceror,a mystic theurge, a ninja and a War priest.
My group has found every AP to be a steam roll and the GM's have to increase the encounter levels.
Several people from my gaming groups went to Paizocon this year and came away with the conclusion that the AP developers only care about filling out Golarion. Play balance does not matter at all in AP's. It's left to the authors and no one checks to see if or how the AP was play tested. The end result is uneven play balance in almost every AP. My main group has lost the desire to play Paizo AP's as a result.
The simple rule of thumb is that if your group is a bunch of heavily caffeinated OCD turbo optimizer gamists who spend most of their life trying to get permabanned on GiTP or TGD while arguing that whoever thinks that spell should give +3 bonus instead of +2 should be taken out and shot for polluting the human gene pool, you'll likely have to tune the encounters up.
If on the other hand your group is full of folks who multilcass Sorcerer/Rogue and take the Exotic Weapon Proficiency feat so that they can fight with a nunchaku and need a solid conversation on why following this up with Shield Slam is a bad idea, you might want to tune the encounters down.
And because they way world works, the second group is more frequently encountered in The Real Life, Paizo APs do tend to gravitate towards them in terms of difficulty.