Just Started This Path


Rise of the Runelords


****Warning My Posts in here MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS****

I just started this path today with my group. We were pressed for time so we only got to play for about an hour and a half. I have a party of four. I am running the game under D&D 5th Edition instead of Pathfinder and I am using the Anniversary Edition of the path. The only reason I am using D&D is because I prefer a little less crunch in my games and all my players are new so I wanted something simple. If the Beginner Box was ever expanded that would be my go to game, but anyways. My party consists of the following characters.

Female Tiefling Druid
Male Mountain Dwarf Druid
Male Half-Orc Fighter
Female Wood Elf Ranger

The dwarf and elf are level 2 because they ran into some goblins in a previous game while delivering some supplies to Sandpoint. While the half-orc came into Sandpoint on a cargo ship working as a sailor and has a two day lay over while the ship gets resupplied. The tiefling was new to the area moving to the Hinterlands from a Chelish settlement and was greeted by some other druids who instructed her to visit Madame Mvashti since she is the elder druid in the area.

Since the half-orc had two days to kill in Sandpoint and it was very early in the morning, he headed straight to the Hagfish. After a chat with Jargie, he was prompted to try the Norah challenge which he failed miserably. But Jargie liked his moxie so he gave him a free meal of sea bass patties and roasted potatoes.

The dwarf and elf delivered the goods to Vinder General Store, where they met Ven and his two daughters. As it turns out the additional goods that they found in the goblin caves after being ambushed were items that Vinder had ordered a couple months ago and so they were rewarded by Ven with a little extra gold. Being parched the elf inquired where to get a drink and was directed to the closest place, the Hagfish.

The tiefling visited Madame Mvashi and was to accompany her on one of her many woodland walks, however Mvashi wanted to save her energy for the Swallowtail Festival that was to begin later in the day so they just walked around Sandpoint. After getting to know each other a little, Mvashi asked the tiefling if she would escort her to the Hagfish so that she could get one of Jargie's famous sea bass patties for breakfast.

The tiefling and Mvashi enter the Hagfish to see the half-orc sitting at the bar looking greener than usual and a few late nighters still passed out at a few tables. After a little chat at the bar with Jargie and the half-orc they sit down to eat and in walks the dwarf and elf. The dwarf recognizes Mvashi from a previous visit to her manor and a woodland walk with her from when he passed through this area a couple months back. They strike up a conversation and after a little bit, Jargie advises that he has to close up to get prepared to head to the Swallowtail Festival and invites the newcomers to come and join in the festivities.

And this is where we had to conclude the session. There were a few dice rolls but mainly it was meeting some NPCs and getting to know the area. I did this in hoping to build some relationships to get the players' characters invested in the town so they will care what happens in the future. We plan to play for about four hours next Sunday.

I am sure that there have been hundreds of posts like this, but I just was so happy to be playing with more than two players that I just had to share what had occurred so far. Let me know what you think and I am more than happy to have some feedback or insight because this will be my first real campaign I have ran in well over ten years.


It sounds like everyone is having fun, and that's the first and main thing. As to anything else:

-- Dole out bits of backstory carefully, mixed with the occasional red herring. If the PCs get an infodump about (for instance) Nualia, they'll know that something's up with her. Use information like salt at this point. There will be infodumps, but later.

-- Have a mix of reactions to the PCs. The town should be *generally* friendly; you want the PCs to like Sandpoint, after all. But not everyone may be instantly friendly to a half-orc, a tiefling, or armed strangers generally, especially ones who have low Cha.

-- When the goblin attack starts, let one of the PCs see "a mysterious hooded woman who wears a long glove on just one hand" watching out of an alley. Make sure it's a PC who will not be able to follow her... the slow-moving dwarf would be a good choice here. That's Nualia, of course. On a sufficiently high Perception check the PC might get a glimpse of her face, but no more.

-- If time allows, read ahead at least to the end of the second module; there's lots of stuff that can be foreshadowed. Read the Sandpoint gazetteer and think of some people you might want the PCs to meet.

-- That said, don't go overboard with the NPCs. Some players love NPC interaction, but others want to swing swords and cast spells. When it looks like things are slowing down, throw some action. The goblins are always out there!

Have fun!

Doug M.


What worries me most about using 5th edition is that you would need to perform a good deal of conversions. I am currently working on converting Curse of the Crimson Throne over to Pathfinder from 3.5 and at times it not so easy a task. As long as you are up to the task it should go fine but do know that at later levels the NPC complexities will make it grueling and especially NPCs who are Witches and Pathfinder specific class (Erylium) or do not have a bestiary equivalent.

But of course what's most important is that your players are having fun and that seems to be happening, so please do enjoy Rise of the Runelords. My players are finishing up book 4 and it's a fantastic adventure.


wally.west wrote:
I am sure that there have been hundreds of posts like this, but I just was so happy to be playing with more than two players that I just had to share what had occurred so far. Let me know what you think and I am more than happy to have some feedback or insight because this will be my first real campaign I have ran in well over ten years.

I'm running this for the second time and we just started the campaign last month. We're trying to play 3/month but during the holidays (pretty much the rest of the year) that'll probably be closer to 2/month.

I have a wiki up for my group where I detail everyone they've encountered and everything they've done; it gets updated after every session. Entries for people, places and things might change from session to session as they discover new things or find out old presumptions were incorrect. In it I detail what's happened to date (Chronicle), include any lengthy exposition (Exposition) and even the changes that I as a GM make to the campaign (under GM, the PC's know to stay out of it). I suspect there might be a lot of useful material there for you moving forward.

One important point however - this campaign is actually going to be 10 AP volumes. I'm going to be telling the Shattered Star story primarily using Rise of the Runelords (RotRL #1-6, SS #1, #5 & #6 and CotCT #2), so after we finish up with the Skinsaw Murders it'll start to deviate from what you're doing a bit. If you're interested in running such a campaign (I really think its going to be amazing the way I have it set up), obviously you can contact me at any time. In the meantime, I hope this serves as a useful resource to you...

Our Campaign Wiki

The Exchange

That was fantastic for a start. Our GM started us at the Swallowtail festival and it worked well enough; but as we got further into the game I wished he had started us a few days ahead of the festival to explain how each PC arrived in Sandpoint. Two of us were full time residents, one a part time resident, one a vagabond traveling with a Varisi caravan, one a cleric on pilgrimage, and one a mercenary/fighter looking for his brother. It worked well enough, but would have worked better still with something like your introduction.

We are currently somewhere in the middle of Skinsaw and having a blast.


I wish you the best of luck. Am curious to see how Runelords plays under 5e rules, particularly at the higher levels where the system assumptions differ the most.


Between players being sick and the holidays, we haven't had a chance to play session two yet. Hoping maybe this coming weekend.

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