My group was just about to start the Rise of the Runelords adventure path but one of the players has now dropped leaving my group with two constant players and one player who comes half the time, with the remaining characters being:
Tielfing Titan Mauler Barbarian
Human Paladin
Human Bloodrager (The character of the player who is around half the time).
Based on this... I'm guessing I should suggest that they change their characters to cover the holes or something... But I'm not really sure what I should suggest. Also any idea how I'll need to modify the adventure paths challenges, especially since it was designed for 4-5 players.
Seems like everybody wants to be a DPR-olympics martial god these days. They have no caster, no healer and no trap-finder (even though some find that a superfluous category).
If you keep the critters in the AP as is, they can probably manage anyway through the first few episodes without any additional help.
You could allow them to temporarily team up with various NPCs, either those already present in the adventure path like Shalelu, or ones you cook up yourself.
Once they hit 7th level you could suggest they take leadership.
Another option is to allow each of them to create a second character, specifying that she must be a spellcaster of some stripe or other.
Yep, well that is the way it has gone, with those who make different characters to dpr olympic gods laughed at and not considered valid and badwrongfun. Lol.
I think they will be fine, runelords doesn't have that many traps, yeah the healing might hurt them, but the dm could just throw in more healing, a random healing merchant, or the village cleric follow the players in a close support role.
Trapfinder is not superfluous if a dm runs an old school dungeon. :D
No problem with that in an AP though.
My current group in RotRL (late in episode one after the Catacombs) are:
- Aasimar Paladin
- Human Fighter (greatsword)
- Halforc Barbarian (Greataxe)
- Human Alchemist
The paladin and the fighter are both decent faces, and so far the alchemist has been filling in on spellcasting (kind of) and trapfinding...
Although most of the traps (which I as DM added into the AP to make it more oldschool) were defeated either by sucking up the damage, avoiding with a good REF save or tossing dead goblins to pre-trigger the trap. That last strategy was definitely their favorite. I think the fighter was seriously considering saving a few dead goblins in his backpack for just this purpose. <g>
Dead goblins are pretty light, especially if he bleeds them a bit. Stick one on a 10 foot pole and you are golden.
RotRL has many opportunities for NPC allies earlier on. Just drop some extra wands of cure light wounds and they should be able to hack and slash their way to the later books.
I think there are a few dungeon crawls but I can't remember them being trap heavy (I suggest just waving them away).
Seems like everybody wants to be a DPR-olympics martial god these days. They have no caster, no healer and no trap-finder (even though some find that a superfluous category).
Some APs are very combat heavy so can you blame them? RotRL is no exception. Long fighting days in that AP. It's pro martial classes in my opinion.
Should you want to add some more traps to see if they can take them, or get by them without a trapfinder:
http://trapaday.wordpress.com/
I'd rather not shove in DMPC's, mine tend to end up being being basically mute people trying to do the opposite of metagaming.
But it sounds like healing will be the main thing that's needed??
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I'd rather not shove in DMPC's, mine tend to end up being being basically mute people trying to do the opposite of metagaming.
But it sounds like healing will be the main thing that's needed??
Yep. Including condition removal. Some basic group buffs might also be nice, maybe even some save-or-suck spells. So you need a Cleric, or something like it (Oracle, Druid, Healing Patron Witch, etc.).
https://rotrllegacy.obsidianportal.com/characters/abstalar_zantus
Zantus could fill a more closish support role for that. Always a few rooms back if they need healing or status effects removed.