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After several hundred dice rolls, more than a few "uh-oh, we're done for"s, and almost two years of weekly gaming, our group has just finished Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition.
What a journey! Lots of things to like about this campaign. Things I would change? Sure there are some elements that could be altered to better fit our particular gaming group, but on the whole it has been a resounding success and lots of fun.
This was my first time running an adventure path from start to finish. Not sure if I will do it again, but now I understand why they are so popular.
The Heroes of Sandpoint ride into the sunset... victorious!
Congratulations to our group of seasoned gamers. With such excellent friends, oh the adventures we will yet create!
But who are the victorious heroes of Sandpoint?
Brad Pitt?
Tom Cruise?
Louis CK?
Alex Baldwin?
Amy Poehler?
Judy Greer?
The masses must know more!
(Levels, class and race are also helpful)
Glad you had fun :-)
I'm happy to post the details of the group. Don't have them with me at the moment, but I'll put them up later today.
That sounds great, no hurry, that's just the first thing i ask people, plus its a fun way to brag about and immortalize your party:-)
Congrats!!
My group meet 4-6 times per YEAR, and have been going since Sept 2009. They just started book 6, and will meet for only the second time this year next month. We can do it!
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Here we go, the legendary Heroes of Sandpoint:
Hakarnab Shatterface: (male half-orc drunken master 16/ ninja 2) After getting some key buffs from other party members "Hak" became a real bruiser. Known for using a certain mask to petrify big enemies that only could possibly fail saving throws on a "1" (my dice hate me), and breaking the jaws of spellcasters. Hakarnab never let the fact that he had one eye noticeably larger than the other get in his way, though his liver is probably done for.
Jaylyn: (female halfling rogue 18 scout archetype) While it took some gear for her to really shine, once the jaunt boots entered the scene all sorts of dead enemies were the result. She became the "need more d6s over here" character at the end. Crippling strike strength damage sure adds up in a hurry!
Tess: (female elf ranger 18) Never any doubt that archery is powerful in the game with this one. Crazy damage almost from level one that never looked back. Then her wolf companion (aptly named "Samson") was a constant force to be reckoned with. Some astute favoured enemy choices further enhanced our artillery character. At mid levels she was going through so many arrows that she finally broke down and added the "endless ammunition" enhancement to her longbow.
Tavish: (male half-elf Cleric 1/Fighter 10/ Holy Vindicator 7) Famous for casually asking enemies if he could "show them his sword" signalling to the rest of the party that diplomacy was over. The most common statement from this player was, "potential critical, another potential critical, yup that is another critical." At the end, his AC was into the 50s and I had pretty much given up on hitting him.
Tirkari: (male half-elf Cleric of Abadar 4/ Wildblooded Empyreal Sorcerer 4/ Mystic Theurge 10) Filling the much needed role of mage, Tirkari was instrumental in saving the party on many occasions. With a sense motive check that was obscene, he was a better lie detector than that "Lie to Me" guy (especially after the accidental immolation of a 'reformed' bandit led to some legal complications). The choice of sorcerer became a bit of a sore point when an abundance of treasure in leather-bound bindings appeared. Tirkari was the master of the well placed "silence" spell - the bane of enemy casters.
Hardly an optimized party, but they worked very well together and discovered all sorts of synergistic strategies. Outside of combat, they each created unique personalities and took unexpected turns that kept the game interesting and fun. Great players all.
We meet weekly and game for about three hours. Though we missed very few weeks, it still took us about 22 months from start to finish. I'm super lucky to have a group of friends like this. We are all in our mid thirties and older with families, jobs, and the demands of life. Yet we carve out time each week to get together to create stories, destroy bad guys, and enjoy each other's company.
And to think, I could have chosen golf as a hobby! No thanks. I'll take d20s and imagination please.
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The party i´m gming are only near the end of the first chapter, but we are having fun!
Glad to hear is gonna be worthy and maybe some day Grokar (Half-Orc Barbarian 4); Variel (Elven Unchained Rogue 4); Valandil (Elven Wizard 4) and Dorn (Dwarf Warpriest 4) will rise to become world legends (or all dying trying ;) ).
Bur for now N and Mr M are near...
That was beautiful Pappy!
Good times :-)
I would say you chose the right hobby, f+!+ golf :-)
What are your fearless heroes embarking on next?
Congratulations! (Although I suspect that it took more than several hundred dice rolls per participant.)
My first group has just finished the Foxglove townhouse in Book 2, and the second one is half-way through Foxglove manor. It will be a while before we get to the end of the AP. :)
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For the next month or so we are going to be trying out variations on the standard rules in an effort to create a house rules document for easy reference. This coming week we are going to try the Pathfinder Unchained revised action economy and background skills.
Players are bringing a level 4 character and have been asked to level up this same character to level 8 and level 16. Everybody is using Hero Lab so this is not as onerous a request as it may appear. We can then test the rules adjustments and variants at low, mid, and high levels.
We will see how much we like the changes, then try some different house rules in following weeks.
Once we have our house rules document set, we will be starting a brand new campaign that will likely last another year or two.
I like how you guys roll, very smart :-)
That's a pretty fun group. Congrats on finishing. Our GM left the campaign (and PF... ) when we were trying to recover Fort Rannick. I took it again, like 1 year later, starting fom 0, but mixing the plot from Shattered Star too. We have finished Burnt Offering and are close to finish Curse of Lady's light, next stop Skinsaw Murders!. I expect this to be a 2 year campaign, maybe.
Also, related to PF Unchained revised action economy and background skills. Although it needs a few tweaks, it's working as a charm. I've taken both, and automatic bonus progresion, and I don't plan to go back, ever. Best thing since sliced bread, in my opinion.
That's a pretty fun group. Congrats on finishing. Our GM left the campaign (and PF... ) when we were trying to recover Fort Rannick. I took it again, like 1 year later, starting fom 0, but mixing the plot from Shattered Star too. We have finished Burnt Offering and are close to finish Curse of Lady's light, next stop Skinsaw Murders!. I expect this to be a 2 year campaign, maybe.
Also, related to PF Unchained revised action economy and background skills. Although it needs a few tweaks, it's working as a charm. I've taken both, and automatic bonus progresion, and I don't plan to go back, ever. Best thing since sliced bread, in my opinion.
Sorry to hear that you had a GM leave at that part. I really liked the Fort Rannick chapter.
Glad to hear some feedback on the revised action economy. One of our group is a professional editor and he is helping clarify some ambiguous parts of the rule set (did I mention how lucky I am to have this group?). The next thing that we are going to try is the automatic bonus progression. Hopefully we will have the same experience as you have!
Just curious, did you keep swift abilities as one action to activate as per the book, or did you change this?
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I left *most* swift actions as one action, as per the book. That include some nerf to warpriests, Magus, quicken spell etc. It's mostly a nerf to spellcasting classes, for the most part, which I think it's well deserved. Yes, some class are hit harder than others, but you can make other classes now which work better. Same goes with, for example, pets: big, single attack pets (and monsters) become scarier, while adding natural attacks to your standard rutine (ie: adding bite, gore and tentacles to your standard greatsword swinging) is pointless now. Again, probably it was about time, as natural attacks had a bunch of adventages that weren't really balanced in my opinion.
However, I changed a *few* swift actions to either free actions, or reactions (which means you'll lose your AOO, unless you have combat reflexes). Mainly those that would be totally useless as an action. For example, "Fur" domain has a swift action that increase your movement by 10'. It's useless to spend an action (which would move you your standard movement) to add +10' to your move rate. So that one is free. Arcane Strike is a Reaction, so you lose your AOO if you want to use it (Again, unless you have combat reflexes), because as free action it's just plain damage, and as an action it's losing an attack to add a bit of damage to other attacks. It doesn't make a lot of sense. None of my players have this feat though, so it's mainly a NPC issue (and many have combat reflexes, as I give Power Attack, Combat Expertise and Point Blank Shot for free to those with prereq, and ussually means a few extra feats for the NPC as writen)
I also made all rages (such as bloodrager and skald's song) to be like the Unchained barbarian. Temp hp work better than Con modifier (and helps the barbarian, instead of making him harder to survive), and the Unchained rogue took the place of the normal rogue, although I don't have any player with rogue or babarian (I have a Bloodrager1/Cleric5, though)
On the not so bright side, I tried dinamic creation of magic items, and I think the idea is good, but need a lot of minor tweaks.
I left *most* swift actions as one action, as per the book. That include some nerf to warpriests, Magus, quicken spell etc. It's mostly a nerf to spellcasting classes, for the most part, which I think it's well deserved. Yes, some class are hit harder than others, but you can make other classes now which work better. Same goes with, for example, pets: big, single attack pets (and monsters) become scarier, while adding natural attacks to your standard rutine (ie: adding bite, gore and tentacles to your standard greatsword swinging) is pointless now. Again, probably it was about time, as natural attacks had a bunch of adventages that weren't really balanced in my opinion.
However, I changed a *few* swift actions to either free actions, or reactions (which means you'll lose your AOO, unless you have combat reflexes). Mainly those that would be totally useless as an action. For example, "Fur" domain has a swift action that increase your movement by 10'. It's useless to spend an action (which would move you your standard movement) to add +10' to your move rate. So that one is free. Arcane Strike is a Reaction, so you lose your AOO if you want to use it (Again, unless you have combat reflexes), because as free action it's just plain damage, and as an action it's losing an attack to add a bit of damage to other attacks. It doesn't make a lot of sense. None of my players have this feat though, so it's mainly a NPC issue (and many have combat reflexes, as I give Power Attack, Combat Expertise and Point Blank Shot for free to those with prereq, and ussually means a few extra feats for the NPC as writen)
I also made all rages (such as bloodrager and skald's song) to be like the Unchained barbarian. Temp hp work better than Con modifier (and helps the barbarian, instead of making him harder to survive), and the Unchained rogue took the place of the normal rogue, although I don't have any player with rogue or babarian (I have a Bloodrager1/Cleric5, though)
On the not so bright side, I tried dinamic creation of...
Thank you for the detailed reply. This is very helpful information.
Well, it surely sounds like you guys had a ton of fun - and that´s what its all about!
My party just retook Rannick, and is about to tackle Hook Mountain, after 2+ years of gaming roughly once a month, with about 6-7 hours per session. 26 sessions so far, which should come out at ca. 350 hours of gaming time in the end, calculating at roughly 60 sessions.
You had probably close to 100 sessions, or roughly 300 hours of gaming time. Not too bad for a 60$ book, I´d say.
Congrats on completion! It can be tough keeping a group together for so long. I am at a year and a half (just starting Chapter 6). So I am truly admiration of your groups efforts and commitment. So much can happen in a 2 year period life wise that is simply beyond a groups control, not a small task. Cheers! to your next adventure.