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That's a hard post to respond to... It may not have even been written in pursuit of a response. But that's not going to stop me from trying ;)
"... it's mostly hard won fight after hard won fight." And you'd like easy fight after easy fight? Unfortunately "hard fight" is an eye of the beholder assessment. So is the detail about "half your resources." Both are as you experience and assess them so without more details it's hard to know your measuring scale. What I can say with more confidence is that the party class structure you describe shouldn't have any more trouble than the traditional quartet. As you're playing through the AP you shouldn't go plumbing the depths of the RotRL board but there are numerous campaign journals and other discussions about "non-standard" class groupings making their way through the AP.
I suspect part of your problem may be your GM. " ...our GM keeps having a hard time finding things. Monster blocks are either not logically placed, or are simply not part of the text." Sorry but's that the way it is - published modules do not contain data that can be easily found elsewhere - the print real estate is just too precious to use it that way. Your GM needs to manage multiple sources simultaneously or prepare his own unified material beforehand.
"Encounters that affect us but that are in adjacent rooms aren't noted in relevant locations, so we've either back tracked or simply had to do things slightly wrong. Some maps are detailed as if the party were progressing from the least logical direction." I'm not quite sure what this means especially the part about back-tracking or doing things "wrong." It appears this may again be a GM issue - no matter how a map might be drawn, the rooms have to be labeled in some order B1, B2 and so forth and the write-up material presented in the same order. AP/Module text is fixed in sequence and can't possibly account the dozens of alternate paths groups might take. That is the responsibility of the GM - yep, one very possible outcome is the group moves directly from B2 to B12 but could just as likely go to B3 or B6. The GM needs to know the material well enough to make that seamless.
"And SR at level 2 seems needlessly punitive." Is this perchance a reference to Damage Resistance (DR) as opposed to Spell Resistance (SR)? Or energy resistance? Yes, early in the AP, there is a particularly challenging encounter that quite frankly is meant to be hard. If you've had a whole sequence of "hard" encounters, that might leave you frustrated but it's not the intention of the AP.
The AP is certainly not perfect and it may not be your cup of tea from a story or content point of view but having GM'd a group through Book 1 and 75% of Book 2 and watching this forum for about 6 months, I haven't seen anything to suggest the AP is broken or woefully unbalanced from a game mechanic point of view.
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Sounds like somebody's starting to rack up some 'Wrath Points'...Yeah, lousy bunch of murderhobos. They actually could have captured her alive, too, but she pissed them off by nearly killing them, so they went for the coup de grace.My group just killed her. They didn't find out her back story until afterward, and even then, they were like "Well, boo hoo. You had a rough childhood. That doesn't justify murder!" No sympathy in this group.Hee. Irony is fun. ;-)
Actually, they're headed more for greed than anything else with this group. Except for the highly prideful cavalier, and the paladin who's doing too good a job being sinless (the fact that the paladin is pretty much an NPC because the player is rarely there doesn't help with adding personality to the character).
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From my experience GMing Runelords as my first Paizo adventure path, using the anniversary edition, I haven't had any of the problems you're reporting.
When monster stats aren't given in the book, there's always a specific note saying that they're in the Bestiary or Bestiary 2, with the page number to look there. It isn't that complicated to just keep an extra book available.
And yes, in any published adventure, you'll occasionally have to flip pages when the PCs tackle the adventure out of the published order. I had to do the same thing with 1st edition D&D/AD&D modules back when I was my group's primary DM in high school, 20+ years ago. There's really no way around it.
I'm running a 5 player group with 20 point buy, with people who aren't experts at optimization and made their PCs with just the Core Rulebook and Advanced Players Guide, and they're having no problem beating most encounters so far. I've heard adventure paths are designed for 4 players with 15 point buy, so maybe that's why they're doing so well, but it's not easy for them. It's difficult enough to be a challenge, but not an insurmountable challenge.
The final fight at the end of the first book
...kicked their butts and sent them running, but that's supposed to be an incredibly tough one. And it's not plot crucial that they win that fight.
If running out of hit points to keep going in a day is your issue, I have to ask: what healing resources does your group carry with you? My group intentionally purchased a wand of Cure Light Wounds, which is used between fights to keep them going to the next fight. They also have an oracle and paladin with other healing abilities, but the oracle prefers to use those spell slots for other things, and the paladin only lays on hands during combat, when absolutely necessary. So the wand really is the primary healing for the group. I think they're on their second wand so far. To make things easy for them, I just assume that the church in Sandpoint can make a couple of those wands every week for book price (750 gp). We're just starting the 2nd book, and they've bought two of them so far.
I think a major plus, if not the most important plus, for RotRL is the fact that it has a 2nd edition. The developers were able to benefit from years of feedback and actual table experiences from tens of thousands of gamers. Every other AP has been published "blind," so to speak.
We haven't made enough money to be able to rely on a wand for healing. The lack of loot, and the penalty to sale prices, has been one of my major complaints. My summoner who just joined the game brought a wand with him, which has helped. Additionally, we have a gunslinging paladin. If he makes his own bullets it costs him 6 GP per shot. What little money we have come across has largely been spent to keep him in ammunition. Guns, it seems, are a liability. My opinions on them are probably best kept for another thread.
Our Oracle is generally tapped out after a single fight. Our Paladin has Lay On Hands now, but the amount of healing we need far outstrips the amount of healing built into our party. Sinspawn were an early leader for worst thing ever. Their SR rendered my sorcerer useless (It's like... 12 or 13, I know. Couldn't land a spell.), and their ambush sent us back to town after two rooms. Goblins have been less prone to flanking us into pieces, but we're generally picking up at least one unconscious body and curing everyone out of single digit hit points after every fight. Pretty much every inch of dungeon has been hard won for us.
To be fair, we spent a fair amount of time Role Playing. We built characters based on concepts, and played them in ways that made sense. If we had instead built a moderately optimized party of murder hobos we would probably be doing a little better. I'm a little upset that my RPG insists on Roll Playing just to get through it. In my opinion, this is not the highly excellent deserver of praise everyone seems to think it is. It's a fine, but somewhat broken product. As noted before, if your GM is willing to rebuild the world a little it could be fun for your party. Run straight? Well, I doubt we'll get through it.
Well, first, the only way your Paladin should be burning that much money per shot is if he's using nothing but paper cartridges. A bullet costs 1 silver to craft, a dose of powder costs 1 gold.
Honestly, even with a sub-optimal party (Not sure why a party with an Oracle, Summoner, Martial Artist, and Pally would be all that weak anyway), I have a hard time believing that something isn't being run differently from the book if you're having that much difficulty in every encounter. Either you're not at the level you're supposed to be or the GM is increasing the difficulty of the encounters somehow.
Unless the GM is a member of the school of thought that there's too much treasure in the AP and thus reduced the treasure they are finding.
I mean, I know I feel the treasure amounts in the APs is far too high. My players disagree. ;)
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We haven't made enough money to be able to rely on a wand for healing. The lack of loot, and the penalty to sale prices, has been one of my major complaints. My summoner who just joined the game brought a wand with him, which has helped. Additionally, we have a gunslinging paladin. If he makes his own bullets it costs him 6 GP per shot. What little money we have come across has largely been spent to keep him in ammunition. Guns, it seems, are a liability. My opinions on them are probably best kept for another thread.
Our Oracle is generally tapped out after a single fight. Our Paladin has Lay On Hands now, but the amount of healing we need far outstrips the amount of healing built into our party. Sinspawn were an early leader for worst thing ever. Their SR rendered my sorcerer useless (It's like... 12 or 13, I know. Couldn't land a spell.), and their ambush sent us back to town after two rooms. Goblins have been less prone to flanking us into pieces, but we're generally picking up at least one unconscious body and curing everyone out of single digit hit points after every fight. Pretty much every inch of dungeon has been hard won for us.
To be fair, we spent a fair amount of time Role Playing. We built characters based on concepts, and played them in ways that made sense. If we had instead built a moderately optimized party of murder hobos we would probably be doing a little better. I'm a little upset that my RPG insists on Roll Playing just to get through it. In my opinion, this is not the highly excellent deserver of praise everyone seems to think it is. It's a fine, but somewhat broken product. As noted before, if your GM is willing to rebuild the world a little it could be fun for your party. Run straight? Well, I doubt we'll get through it.
Well, first of all, why is the rest of the group spending all of their money on the Paladin? Let alone the fact that, as previously noted, the paladin doesn't have to be spending all of that money. Apparently the Paladin is going to have to learn to cope with not-so-awesome ammunition. Don't sacrifice your share of the loot, you have your own equipment to purchase, too.
The lack of loot, and the penalty to sale prices, has been one of my major complaints.
There's actually a fairly decent amount of loot in the first chapter, if your party can find it.
If the enemies get away, then you will lose out on several really valuable items early on(and, if you're not prepared for it, lucky or skilled, one particular foe will likely get away with an item worth 8k gold early on). And if you're not checking everywhere for hidden items with a decent perception score, you'll likely miss a number of others.
I'm not sure what you mean by "penalty to sale prices", though. Unless you've gone and pissed off
Nosdarb
I don't understand why your group is having such a hard time in this campaign, Summoners, Oracles and guns are insanely strong. My players were first timers introduced to pathfinder by myself and have minced the encounters as written.
From the sounds of it you guys are paying way too much for bullets and really should make a difference between personal money and party money. If you're going to pool money, spend it on wands of cure light wounds as they give incredible mileage. I sure as hell wouldn't be spending my cash on filling up another player's ammunition, my assumption is everyone is entitled to an equal slice of treasure and what they do with that slice is their business. If bullets are that much of a problem, ask the paladin to use a bow until he gains some money.
While I can respect you guys are building around concepts, they do need to be functional. A cleric who's afraid of touching other people and germs (for example) is cool and all but entirely useless for a party member.
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I don't understand the praise the path earns. There's a little room for role playing, but it's mostly hard won fight after hard won fight.
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There is masses of room for roleplaying in this AP, if that isn't happening then that is the GM's call.
When I GMed this for the first time, session 1 was a big dust-up and then we had two sessions of almost pure RP.
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Normally, I accept others' opinions and don't argue much (yes, I am an anomaly in these threads), but I have to assist in the "piling on" on Nosdarb's GM.
- Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne are the two most roleplay-rich prebuilt modules I've ever run under any system. If you're not getting in enough roleplaying, that's an absolute black eye on your GM.
- The primary complaint about Rise of the Runelords is that most of the combats are far too easy. The ones you describe all fall into the "too easy" category for most groups. So something is seriously wrong with the way they're being run/fought. Again, suspicion falls on your GM for either ignoring tactics-as-written or buffing the creatures beyond your abilities. One sinspawn a problem for your party? That's nigh-impossible unless that sinspawn was significantly modified from its original form...
I'm almost tempted to have more goblins show up in my Runelords game, just so the Eldritch Knight can try to knock him into a furnace. :D Because that sounds like something Steve would do. ^^
Well, I quite understand Nosdarb's point of view. My 5 players are not optimizers, just one of them knows very well the rules and his PC is the only one with a Strength exceeding 10.
So they are facing many difficulties encounter after encounter.
I admit I changed some dice rolls beside the to save them on some occasions.
But I also have to agree with those who says that so many troubles are a little strange. Maybe your DM is sticky to the rules, but it could be he misinterpreted something.
Or maybe it's not your adventure. Amen. :)
Small hint: check even areas that you don't want to go into because they're disgusting. Sometimes treasures are hidden there.
I don't know who carries the item worth 8K, but we clearly missed it. That's a bit annoying to hear.
My GM is a stickler for the rules as written. As it says in the module, so it goes.
The penalty to sale is based on the size of the local economy. The module specifies that prices are reduced by some-odd, which logically affects selling and buying. I also attempted to sleep with what's-his-name's daughter, but since the Sorcerer left town that hasn't really been an issue.
Yes, the Holy Gun is only firing paper cartridges. The alternative is that he only fires every other round. Given the trouble we've been having we don't really want to take the hit to our DPR.
The single sinspawn was an issue, but not nearly as much as the two that were ready for us. At the time there was no Summoner, I was still running my Sorcerer. I utterly failed to land any spell on them. They floored the Monk in one or two rounds, and the Holy Gun went down after taking one out. Our Oracle managed to pull our fat out of the frier with a lucky dagger toss, if I recall correctly.
My complaints about Role play aren't that the module has no one for me to talk to. It's more that when I played a sub-optimal character for flavor reasons I ended up within 2 HP of death twice in two sessions(-8 and -9 HP, respectively). Now that I've got my Summoner Murder-hobo I'm doing better. If we had rolled pure tactical-murder-squad we would probably be doing fine, but because we had concepts and made concessions to those concepts (exchanging raw murder power for skills and flavor) we've suffered badly.
Actually, here's a thing to complain about, the hedge maze. While on our way to Thistletop, there's the area made of thorns and vines. Gogmurt (?) is in there with his cat Tangletooth (?). There's a -4 to hit while you're in there. Our group flat forgot that the penalty existed, so we only had moderate issues with Gogmurt. Had we remembered that fight would probably have ended the module for us. At the very least, a long fight would have...
What level have you been at different places? This AP is on the fast xp track while the normal default is medium, which could throw a GM off.
For the Pally, with Rapid Reload you can fire a one handed gun once a round using normal ammo/powder (move to reload, standard to fire).
The shops in Sandpoint buy and sell at the normal rate.
There is an open air Sandpoint Marketplace where, once a week, the local farmers come in and sell their produce and one other day a week merchants from all the surrounding areas come in and you can buy some items(500g or less base) at 75% of their normal cost. It doesn't have any effect on buying/selling at any other store in town (or even on you selling at the marketplace, as written). The rest of the week the place is empty and the local kids play there.
Yes, it's Fast Track. It flat out says so at the beginning. It's Fast Track because it was originally written for 3.5 & 3.5 was actually faster progression than Fast Track is. They wound up adding a few things to bring it up to Fast Track from the original version.
There are a couple things worth responding to, but I really didn't mean for this to turn into troubleshooting my campaign.
Yes, the goblins are being run as written. They weren't so bad in town, but in Thistletop they're dug in better, and more numerous. The Summoner was present for most of Thistletop and it wasn't too bad, actually. Wave after wave of fiendish dogs helped.
The Holy Gun is aware of Rapid Reload. He's got a lot of feats he wants. It's coming.
I don't know where the buying/selling penalty comes from. I haven't read the module. There's apparently something that says that prices are reduced by 10% due to something-something-something local economy. That's being applied both ways.
Wait, this is intended to be on the fast XP track? Are you sure? That would bump us all a level. That would be... significant. I'll text my GM and have him check the front of the book.
Okay. We should probably stop clogging up the thread with my problems (as fascinating and varied as they are). I honestly just wandered in to provide counterpoint. As much as I like being quoted on the Internet, we've probably gone off the rails enough, nu?
Honestly, this is exactly the kind of discussion I like to see in an AP-specific area: "What did we like about this AP, and what didn't we?"
Your tone was admittedly a bit bitter, but you brought up some known shortcomings. That -4 in the thistles resulted in one of only two near-TPKs in our entire campaign. It is WAAAAAY too punitive; I agree. And if you don't look in the right places, you don't get stupid rich until about 2/3 of the way through Book 2, at which point if you don't catch up on WBL you're just not tying very hard. (Barrels in the open full of loot, anyone?)
But at the same time, you're bringing up issues almost no one else has: Little to no roleplaying? Trouble with the sinspawn? Trouble even getting to Thistletop with half a dozen encounters with goblinberries (or whatever)? This all sounded wrong.
Yes, being a higher level would have changed EVERYTHING.
Glad we seem to have worked that out! (Notice I say "we", though I had nothing to do with it. I'm good that way.)
There is a subtle kind of genius to Burnt Offerings that is easy to miss if you just take it at face value.
It is an exceptionally well-crafted starting point. Opportunities for roleplay and combat, pacing that provides just enough of both but is flexible enough for the GM to avoid overdoing one or the other to match their group.
A supporting cast to give a party options should they be lacking certain skills or capabilities.
There are situations that train the players in some ways. Combats that teach a lesson. If the party is stubborn about learning that lesson, they can be quite punishing. The thistle tunnels are an example - the lesson being to avoid fighting in an environment where you are at a disadvantage.
The true craft of these "lessons" however is that they are done in such a way that they also fit the story. They don't come across as necessarily obvious or out-of-place.
Which brings me to another great part of Burnt Offerings, the great story. Yes, it's classic. That's what makes it so accessible, so easy to engage with. But it has more depth than usual, provided by layers of back story and internally consistent characters.
I think of Burnt Offerings as like a simple table made by a master carpenter. Yes, it's just a table. But the true measure of a master crafted item is in the subtleties, in durability and in fine details. It still essentially just holds things up off the floor, but it does so without jabbing you in the leg, or giving you splinters, or wobbling, or looking ugly, or falling apart in a few years. All things that detract from enjoyment of its function, even if they don't impair that function directly.
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There are a couple things worth responding to, but I really didn't mean for this to turn into troubleshooting my campaign.
Yes, the goblins are being run as written. They weren't so bad in town, but in Thistletop they're dug in better, and more numerous. The Summoner was present for most of Thistletop and it wasn't too bad, actually. Wave after wave of fiendish dogs helped.
The Holy Gun is aware of Rapid Reload. He's got a lot of feats he wants. It's coming.
I don't know where the buying/selling penalty comes from. I haven't read the module. There's apparently something that says that prices are reduced by 10% due to something-something-something local economy. That's being applied both ways.
Wait, this is intended to be on the fast XP track? Are you sure? That would bump us all a level. That would be... significant. I'll text my GM and have him check the front of the book.
Okay. We should probably stop clogging up the thread with my problems (as fascinating and varied as they are). I honestly just wandered in to provide counterpoint. As much as I like being quoted on the Internet, we've probably gone off the rails enough, nu?
I recognize you're trying to release us back to the thread and not sink into a discussion of your campaign experiences and I respect that but I just can't let it go. Your DM has some problems.
- any DM that lets a group of players stumble into more than 2 encounters with the nettlesome flora on the way to Thistletop (and 2 is arguably excessive) is being a <you know what> (clue: it starts with D and rhymes with trick.)- the call out on fast track is clear and obvious in the AP, further even if he somehow missed it, there are explicit directions on exactly what level the pc's should be at every stage in each book.
- I've read Burnt Offerings at least half dozen times and there is no penalty for buying/selling items. The only thing that comes close is a -2 diplomacy check in town if someone in your group has offended the shopkeeper. But that shouldn't impact sales transactions, except perhaps at Ven's shop itself, and you don't need to ever buy or sell there. And the penalty only lasts until you do something to patch things up with him - which if its the source of your selling problems the DM should clue you in on.
- the -4 penalty is explicitly defined as applying only while in the tunnels and none of the encounters should take place in a tunnel. ALL of the rooms are clearly described as not inflicting the penalty. You should not have to fight in the tunnels unless you ran away from a fight and even then you should keep running until you get to an open space.
- If your description of the goblins at Thistletop includes the phrase "dug in" your DM is doing it wrong. The goblins should be played as crazed dogs not hardened siege soldiers - you should not have trouble approaching the keep and have to face only limited resistance. If your DM is optimizing their defense, increasing archer concentrations, making them diligent observers, etc. he's not doing it right.
- If you and your fellow players actually had deliberately taken sub-optimal builds for role-playing reasons, then your DM is obligated to compensate not hammer you with some feeble "I have to run it as written" nonsense.
My conclusion is your unhappiness is not due to the AP but rather to your DM's methods. I don't think any other AP would come off any better in his hands. If you think a published adventure intended to be used by hundreds if not thousands of player groups can automatically adjust to the immense variation in group composition and play style, I'm sorry that's not possible. That's the responsibility of the DM - it's his job to make sure everyone has fun and fun means interesting and satisfying challenges based on each specific group's capabilities.
- "Hey, Bob, remember that time we kept getting poked by those poison berry thorns?"
- "Yea and we all got sick and had to go back to town?"
- "Man, that was cool."
The storyline is good. It has combat and RP potential. It has decent degree of difficulty for new players. If your players are not new then you may have to step it up. You also have quiet a few classic monsters