So we have finally finished our run through Kingmaker. It was a long run, and certainly the longest campaign i’ve run. Frankly i’m exhausted (i did have some breaks from GMing in that time, but still).
The whole AP was a blast and all had a great time, thoroughly enjoying themselves. Apart from people joining/leaving we had no PC deaths (but several close calls). The PCs finished the campaign at level 15 and were:
- Human Paladin of Erastil (also Ruler), and alter his wife/cohort an Archer-Bard
- Human Fighter, and his cohort Cleric
- Elf Wizard (air mage)
- Gnome Magus
Between them all, they had Item Creation pinned down and at their mercy.
Somewhere during chapter 2 i started using the 6 Player Conversion. During Chapter 4 I started toughening up and adding more enemies to the 6 Player Conversion.
The AP went pretty much as written, with me adding tiny bits to the frey. I originally envisioned having plenty of NPCs and side stories, but then my twins came along and so the AP was kept to bare minimum :-)
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Chapter 1: went pretty much by the book.
Chapter 2: I used the Hargulka’s Monster Kingdom s presented by DM_aka_Dudemeister. And it was a blast. Thanks Dudemeister!
Chapter 3: They stopped with the Hexploration. It bored them. The module was straightforward with plenty of Role Playing with the centaurs. The party had one of the toughest battles here with big V, and this mainly due to the fact that when V retreated to heal himself, the party teleported away to Restov to heal up and rest in turn. When they came back he summoned some more demons to help him. This wore them down and they had a tough showdown with V.
Chapter 4: They stopped with Kingdom Building as well.
Chapter 5: We decided not to use Mass Combat rules. Instead i created a set of encounters for the heroes to run around, and let the outcome of those combats dictate the whole Battle.
Chapter 6: This one is a whole lot of encounters which do not necessarily advance the plot in any way. Only after all the Blooms were defeated did they party think of looking for the source (they were too focused on creating new Items). Once in the First World i started cutting encounters, and making things from combat encounter to social encounters or just plain nothing (for example: i dropped the dragon keeping guard on the moat, defaced nymphs were just there, tending Nyrissa’s room).
The final showdown with Nyrissa was tense, though short. Lasting about 5 rounds i think. Her high saves and high DC made all the part susceptible to her spells, which finally made things dangerous. With the Paladin holding Briar scoring a critical then cursing as Nyrissa’s wish let her survive the beheading, but then on his next attacks he finished her off.
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All in all, as i said: good campaign, and great fun was had.
But for me, i’m done with Pathfinder for the time being. I’m tired, and i hate having to spend around ¾ of a combat turn with players calculating their damage output due to so many abilities. I’ll have no problem Playing in PF, but i do not want to GM it again…. OK, maybe short low-level adventures…
Currently, we have started playing 50 Fathoms using Savage Worlds.
Cheers and good weekend to all.
-arnon
Ohh I enjoyed the game, don't get me wrong. It was just the mechanics + preparation of it that tired me out, from around Chapter 4 I think.
Cheers,
-arnon
That's what has me concerned about running an AP into high levels. PF tends to get wonky after level 10 or so. I'm a player in a Skull and Shackles game approaching 13th and the GM is not a happy camper, and I'm up next in the GM's chair with Kingmaker. It's nice to see it held together for you until the end.
Good job and congratulations, arnon!
I'm glad your group enjoyed it, overall. I'm also glad to see yet another recommendation for Hargulka's Monster Kingdom because my party is approaching that.
I'd love to hear more about the encounters you created in Chapter 5.
That's what has me concerned about running an AP into high levels. PF tends to get wonky after level 10 or so. I'm a player in a Skull and Shackles game approaching 13th and the GM is not a happy camper, and I'm up next in the GM's chair with Kingmaker. It's nice to see it held together for you until the end.
Yeah honestly, I think that this has almost always been a problem with D&D. One nice thing I still see with the APs though is that they at least give us (the GMs) a good framework to start from and allow us a chance to see just how powerful the party is becoming so that we can be prepared to adjust as need be as the campaign progresses. In other words, you frequently do not need to adjust much early on and can frequently see the problems forming ahead of time.
That's what has me concerned about running an AP into high levels. PF tends to get wonky after level 10 or so. I'm a player in a Skull and Shackles game approaching 13th and the GM is not a happy camper, and I'm up next in the GM's chair with Kingmaker. It's nice to see it held together for you until the end.
It held together but needed maintenance from me in the form of toughening up the already toughened up encounters of the 6 player conversion.
I'd love to hear more about the encounters you created in Chapter 5.
Luckily it's all on the forum: KM5 - Missions instead of Mass Combat
I think that, for time challenged GM's like myself, the AP could quite easily
have been written in 12 books & still not done justice to KM!
You know, the main reason I started the AP was becasue i thought: hey, it's got a whole campaign from start to finish and all i need to do is read up and prepare... but then my players started to walk all over the encounters and i started to do more and more work on upgrading the challenge.
Cheers,
-arnon