Rise of the Runelords Advice

[Lokhun]

I was wondering about how hard Rise of the Runelords is. I have heard that aps are easy but I am not sure. Would a party of extreme min/maxers just mow down the campaign. If I want a challenging ap what should my level of optimization be?

[calagnar]

Over all most AP have hard parts in them. Depending on the party make up is where their will be a problem. Rise of the Runelords is a challenge. However it is not impossible to do. If your making characters for it. I recommend a good diverse group that can cover every thing. That's the down side and plus side of AP. They are so long that every thing comes up.

[Ellioti]

yeah. min/max won't help, because you need to cover everything, from traps, social interaction, sneaking, mass combat, etc

[Lokhun]

Should I expect deaths throughout the campaign. I have an unoptimized undine aquatic sorcerer, a decent archer ranger, a melee druid- decent, kobold cleric-kinda a healbot. For the archer, druid and animal companion at level 4 they will have +9ish to hit and +5ish damage. Cleric has 16 wis and stinks at combat. It has some buffs but it will tend to sacrifice them for cure spells mid battle.

[Devilkiller]

If you make a basic martial melee PC (Barbarian, Fighter, Unchained Rogue, etc) you should have a pretty tough challenge. Be careful about having a low Will save though.

[Lokhun]

Would a more balanced party, arcane caster, trap disabler+ face, healer/buffer, and a tank work better?

[Lokhun]

What would make a better arcane caster a slumber witch or a god wizard?

[Lokhun]

Is there anything you guys recommend to use as a tank that has a good will save and can do more than just combat. Is the unchained monk a good frontliner even though its will save got nerfed for a better bab.

[Lokhun]

Finally, what three things should the party be best at handling? Ex. fighting, social stuff, knowledge checks, saves, etc.

[Anonymous Visitor 163 576]

Ap's are designed for 4 players, 15 pt buy. Of course, it's easy to overpower an AP with six players with 20 point buys.

For optimization, it's not about what many people think. Strive for versatility. Otherwise, your character will have long stretches of doing nothing, and will occasionally be in very real danger when plan A stops working.

I've seen judges handwave anything the players might be bad at. This needs to end, because it encourages yet more over-specialization. Let players fail. Be fair, not nice, and your players will actually have more fun, because they're not on 'easy mode'

Finally, the level of optimization to strive for, always, is 'same as the other players'. That way, you have party balance, and everyone has a chance to shine. Good party balance is tough to pull off.

Don't worry about the GM, they can always add/subtract difficulty.

[Lokhun]

Ok. I will just go with the flow and see how things work out.

[Rub-Eta]

I'm playing it right now. I DMd the two first books. Always maxed out enemy hp and almost always added 50% more to the encounters. Now our DM has to buff the standard monsters' hp by about 100-200% and add mini-bosses to not make it a cakewalk.

[The Dragon]

Ellioti wrote:

yeah. min/max won't help, because you need to cover everything, from traps, social interaction, sneaking, mass combat, etc

I'd love to hear your definition of min/maxing. It sounds like it's whacky.

[Foeclan]

The Rise of the Runelords Player's Guide gives a decent idea of what to expect as far as the monsters and challenges.

The challenges vary quite a bit. Some sections are full of stuff immune to mind-affecting spells, some are full of giants, some are full of traps. The kobold fighter in the group I'm running had a high enough AC that he'd barely been touched in combat since day 1, until getting taken to negative in one iterative attack in Chapter 3, so the difficulty level definitely has some spikes to it.