Hey everyone,
I recently started running the AP and thought I would create a thread to talk about the ups and downs I've had/will have. My players will hit 3rd level next session so there isn't the problem of mythic damage yet.
My party consists of:
- Sean the Half-elf Fighter, no archetype, new player. Uses a danseur and a few other damage type weapons. Plays PFS. This is his first campaign
- Caldra, human draconic- blooded(fire)sorcerer, fairly new. Plays PFS. First ongoing campaign.
- Zagan, Aasimar ranger. More experienced. Plays PFS.
- Brother Josephus, dwarf cleric of Iomedae. Experienced, but in other games makes a lot of multi classing choices.
The cleric will join them next session, the others have been barely surviving due to me giving more potions in loot. The players and the DM have been having bad rolls during fights, making them longer. And the mongrelmen fights seem to chain together since the sound of battle alerts so many things, unless otherwise noted.
They've gotten the NPC attitudes to helpful on all of them, though with some initial reluctance on helping Gwerm. It's been a lot of fun if not challenging to roleplay those NPCs in addition to enemies.
How did you guys to about introducing the devotion point mechanic? I've got a few ideas. Also, in The second module, The PCs can petition Galfrey for a scroll of regenerate so Aravasniel can get his eyes back right? Does the same occur for Anevia and her broken leg? Or has it healed due to the splint?
Thanks for any help given. I hope this campaign works out better than most of the ones listed in this forum. Sad to see a cool idea like this get mired in OP mythic rules. Hopefully I can maintain an edge on my players.
Candide
Anevia's leg is presumed to just heal and I believe Aravasniel gets his eyes fixed with a regenerate spell, unless you want to keep him blind.
The devotion points I largely left it up to the players the character playing the Paladin of Iomedea naturally cleared up the shrines and such without me telling them there was any mechanical reward. If I did emphasise the disrespect to his god being shown to make sure he was inclined to do so, and if I had needed to push him further would have told him it 'felt right' or similar.
|
Hey Candide, good luck on your campaign journal (I pretty stopped mine, for a number of reasons - to detailed and to late are among them).
Your Party seems to be well set up, and the first adventure should work fine.
My suggestion would be to handwave some of the mechanics in this AP (devotion points, cleaning shrines and similar things), your players might not appreciate your suggestions to clean a dirty shrine in the middle of an attack to destroy the wardstone fragment.
My general suggestions for part 1 would be these:
- Take your time to RP the Mongrelmen (playing them and their chief an dignified friendly well spoken creatures) the ever growing entourage of NPCs and take time to retake the city.
The adventure has a massive implied countdown one the PCs learn of the Wardstone fragment, but I had very good experiences with adding more encounters in the city. I added some encounters with roving bands or cannibals, and let's face it rapists. Men turned mad and feral, demon worshipers serving as amusement for lower ranking demons. There should be plenty of opportunities to save entrenched townsfolk.
And please have a good hard look at the mythic rules, and what has been written about them on these boards. There are a relatively low number changes to keep things sane.
They are nearing the dretch maze. Their cleric will join them there. That looks like a nasty fight for low level characters, what with the nausea. I'm excited for the coming encounters and roleplaying them seeing ruined Kenabres. They liked the mongrelmen but not as much as I would have liked them to. This AP screams for a paladin PC. And I wish my players bit onto that.
Speaking of, what should I do with Radiance in a party with no paladin? The cleric will be a battle cleric type of iomedae. I'm thinking about remaking Radiance into a cleric or paladin weapon. Because letting Irabeth use it isn't as fun as a PC.
So the party's cleric has not arrived to the scene(as the player's job randomly prevents him from starting). Therefore the three heroes retreated to Neatholm where they healed up over a couple days, sold a few things, bought potions and then pressed on into the dretch maze. I love stinking cloud and how terrible the nauseated condition is. The fight took awhile, but eventually everything died.
I ran the Mad Knights, Mock Play with Quasits, Ruined Shop random encounters throughout the night. They dropped Aravashniel and Horgus off at their requested places, took Anevia to the Tirabade residence and fought the encounter there. 6 fights in a 7 hour session. A record high. They eventually made it to Defender's heart and are now 3rd level closely nearing 4th. Hopefully when the group reconvenes again, the cleric can be introduced at Defenders Heart which makes sense.
I'm excited to run the Gray Garrison, and I think with them Mythic may not be too much of a re-write. But time will tell, as they are low level and weak right now. They are having a bit more fun now, that they are moving somewhere and not just slogging through caverns.
|
|
Radiance on a cleric is certainly a valid option. Since your players have arrived at Defenders Heart, this is a great opportunity to introduce more cold iron weapons, holy water and similar anti demon materials.
If you are worried offter them the purchase of a couple of wands with 5-10 charges (clw, protection from evil.. etc).
Radiance would thematically work with the cleric, or depending on the alignment and allegiance of the fighter you could have it bond with him , it depends on which you think will give the most interesting story options for you.
I am always suprised when there is no Paladin in this campaign it seemsto leap out and say this is the campaign Paladins were made for.
Our next session will be this Friday. If all goes smooth we may be able to finish book 1. With the holidays coming, I don't think we'll have a lot of gaming time, so even if we finish on the 21st(our next session after the 7th) it sets up a good pause point.
Trouble is is that I may have 5 players now instead of 4 or 3 like I've had so far. I may end up using the conversions posted by Scorpion after all. My players play PFS but like I said don't seem to min/max a lot. Yet. I'm hinting that a paladin is made for this AP with the newest player coming in. I'm sure I'll regret it when he discovers mythic power attack, smite evil and mythic vital strike. We'll see. I think I can still manage it all.
I am on the end of book 3 now, I have had to use Scorpions stats and upgrade the hp even more to make things intesting, my party is not particularly optimised or superbly competent but they do have a 2- handed sword wielding Paladin so their damage total is high.
Our group met last Friday and didn't get very far in the 4-ish hour session. Though fought through the 2 occupied safe houses. I loved the mandragora encounter. It drained a significant amount of blood from the only person not nauseated. Scared the party a lot with all the status effects. They bluffed their way to Faxon but a question or two in they said screw it and attacked him. I didn't get off any of his spells on them. Sad face. The party headed back to defenders heart. There they learned about the grey garrison and the rod of cancellation, made their way to the Riftwarden Cache that Arevashniel told them about, and are giddy with supplies and having a paladin with them.
I'd forgotten that I had not updated this thread. We are slated to meet up again tomorrow night and hopefully finish the first book.
Last session was 5ish hours in which the party, now 5 PCs strong, assaulted the Grey Garrison. They were accompanied by Irabeth, and 3 Mongrelmen Rangers. I forgot about Irabeth several times during the session, and more so the rangers.
The fighter walked up to the door and banged his fist on it, seeing if anyone would open it. The same password was used at the safehouses to attempt gaining entry. No dice. The Chime of Opening was used a few times with no luck on the door. The party spotted the window hatch to the second floor, but only 2 people were willing to climb. The two Aasimar characters(a paladin and a ranger) fought the 3 flies. I added creepiness by describing the flies via RPGMP3's podcast of the Wrath AP, where the DM mentions that the flies sound like the crying of babies in addition to possessing faces and arms of infants. I couldn't damage them much due to resistances and bad rolls.
The dwarf cleric climbs in the window too, and the sorceress levitates via Terendelev's scale. Meanwhile, the fighter attempts to knock the door down for a few rounds. I ruled they were made of stone and he wasn't strong enough with the rolls he made. He used the Chime of Opening several more times, eventually unlocking it.
As he threw open the doors, he was attacked by 5 ready action Tieflings, missing every attack. A few of them moved to him, and were killed due to reach weapons and Combat Reflexes, and the others ran. The party gets back together during the Abricandilu fight, and snoops around. Eventually I had them find a tiefling with the cultists in the Defiled Chapel, and one with Othirubo. I did a fair amount of damage to several PCs with his Fire bomb.
they found the hidden cache of weapons and we ended there. I'm going to take out several of the upstairs encounters due to being unneccessary. and removing XP potentially
Need to get better at updating routinely....
The group pushed onward, fighting the Peryton and zombies. They cleaned the guts out of the bowl, and saw the vision. Up the stairs to fight a half-fiend Minotaur(I wanted more of a challenge but only attacked with its greater and not a full retinue. They got scared when I hit the fighter and paladin for over 30 damage each. The ranger used the blinding shield and blinded everyone other than his leopard and the Minotaur. The celestial leopard finished of the Minotaur with a smite. Laughter and whews all around. Straight into next fight. I allowed Jesslyn to animate Deradnu but he was taken care of easily this time. As Schir demon was involved in the fight too.
4 attempts to fail the save were needed to destroy the wardstone. My players yelled for me to stop rolling high.
Then the wardstone blew up. And after all that description the PCs were super worried they'd just killed all of mendevs defenses. The battle vs the babau was funny to me explaining that these demons were so frustrated and confused about their ineptitude vs the PCs. Two rounds of it and it was getting late. I called it there and everyone went back to Defenders Heart.
Our group meets again tomorrow. we are potentially adding another. So that will be 6 PCs. I both fear and am intrigued. They are not optimized much, and like story. I did away with XP already to make the fights make more sense. Drezen will be full of baddies though. I'll be using Scorpions stats from now on. Wish me luck.