Does anybody know what the default assumption (if any) is for the character creation guidelines/party composition in Rappan Athuk? I ask because I am considering sprinkling much of RA into my Kingmaker campaign and its my recollection that the Adventure Paths presume a party of 4 and a 15 point buy for character gen. Obviously RA will greatly up the challenge but I didn't want to minimize it too much by allowing for overly powered characters as a result of char gen. For the record, the plan is to have the players level at appropriate times as opposed to tracking XP.
We started playing Rappan Athuk at level 4, point-buy 20, with some minor bonuses (extra skill point per level if you have an appropriate backstory, +1 on all saves if you worship Iomedae, +1 stat point if you use a Core race). The beginning was pretty easy, but we ramped up pretty hard. Then again, the GM assured us there were multiple ways of entering, and we took the easiest one. Overall, it's pretty easy since I get the feeling we're slightly overleveled, but every now and then there's a big mean fight we barely win purely because of chance and extremely optimised characters.
If you integrate it into Kingmaker, I suggest waiting until at least level 5, maybe 6. I'm also playing a Kingmaker campaign, and our WBL is far below what is expected of you by that level. If you throw them into Rappan Athuk at level 4 with unoptimised characters, low point-buy and below-average levels, they'll get murderised.
Oh, and as for default assumption: I don't have a clue, as I don't have the book, but my GM said they suggested not starting at level 1. Point-buy I'm not sure, but use your own judgement. It's a nasty dungeon that throws curveballs at people constantly. Point-buy 20 seems reasonable.
Found the document the GM sent us. Most of the relevant stuff I've already said, but here's the suggested party setup:
1. Survival
2. Trapfinding
3. Spellcraft
4. Monster ID
5. Reliable healing
6. Frontliner
Our party consists of:
- Monk/Magus: AC buffer. Has insane AC (nearly 50 at level 14), and has a decent damage output with multiple spell-storing rapiers.
- Witch: Debuffer/blaster. Solved several encounters on his own due to insanely high Hex DCs. Also has insanely high INT, so also the font of knowledge.
- Paladin damage dealer. Crits way too often, deals amazing damage. Is our only source of healing.
- Slayer (me) focused on tripping enemies. Damage output is lacking, but pretty good at crowd control. I'm probably the weakest link here. I do have an amazing Perception score and the Trap Spotter talent, so I basically see every trap automatically.
There also used to be a Druid, but he had to leave because of real life. He was pretty much a crowd controller. There also was another Witch player, but we switched him out for the other Witch player when he was too busy.
Also, I'd like to note that Rappan Athuk showers you with gold and gear. Like, way too much. It could probably upset your Kingmaker campaign economy if you don't modify the loot dropped.
If you throw them into Rappan Athuk at level 4 with unoptimised characters, low point-buy and below-average levels, they'll get murderised.
You say that like its a bad thing. :P
Seriously though, thanks for the input, actual experiences always help. On a side note, does anybody in your party have crafting feats? I have always assumed that in KM (more than any other AP) there was likely an assumption of player crafting just because the nature of the campaign is really suited to it. Of course, it takes until about level 5 to really get going on the crafting as I recall.
Our GM disallowed crafting feats, his opinion is that we need to make do with what we find in the dungeon, especially since Zelkor's Ferry has pretty much nothing worthwhile (also a gp limit on buying/selling items). Though that sort of became irrelevant once our Witch learned Teleport. Wands also don't exist, so there's no abundance of Cure Light Wound wands to top us all off before each fight. We had one wand of CLW to start out with, but so far we've barely used it. We're so good, we barely take any damage, and now our Paladin has so much Charisma/levels, the Channels are almost limitless.
It was pretty dicey when some of us got sick and we didn't have any way of curing it (Zelkor's Ferry didn't have enough residents to buy several scrolls of Remove Disease, and our GM ruled that the disease was so intense we couldn't get a full night's rest to recover spells to study Remove Disease), but we pulled through. There are some weird limitations the adventure doesn't really address and they're pretty easily broken anyway, so I guess there's a lot of GM fiat needed.
Hey all, thanks for the input, I really appreciate it!
@Quentin: Running it in conjunction with KM, I would likely be using a fair amount of GM fiat anyway since the two campaigns together provide waaaaay too much material, but good to know that its doable. I'm definitely going to be running a group of experienced players (some are more into eeking out every last point of dps than others, but they are all very familiar with the system).
@Corrinus: Good to get a counter point as well. I knew that RA was supposed to be a really difficult campaign, and frankly, that was part of what drew me to it. Random encounters on the way to the dungeon would more than likely be handled by the KM random encounters -- though some of those are pretty dicey too. :P
As for exits, yeah I would definitely provide them with plenty of exit space, and likely even put in hard stops (completely collapsed tunnels, etc.) to encourage them to turn back from time to time. I would then mix that up with several different entrances (more even than are in the official module) in order to be able to mix both RA and KM together. Still not completely sold on the idea of combining them as I think it could lead to an over abundance of distractions, but it would also provide a nice way of handling some of KM's weaknesses (relatively easy encounters, too much hexploration) in a more "natural" and fun way.
My group is playing Rappan Athuk and they are level 11. So far there have been 40 fatalities and 3 TPKs (last TPK was level 8). Heck, one PC died twice in five minutes.
Frankly, it depends on your group, how the GM runs it, and what corner they turn. In RA the group could run into rats, or something so far above the party level that they better have a backup characters handy.
I don't recommend it as an add-on to any adventure where you want the PCs to stay alive. At least, not without some deus ex machina.
My group is playing Rappan Athuk and they are level 11. So far there have been 40 fatalities and 3 TPKs....
Alas, poor Jolan!
RA is a "Listerine" style dungeon - kills millions on contact!
Enjoy it as such, embrace each death, and know that in the end good will triumph over evil (even if the PC's never get to see it happen). This is a good dungeon to get your players used to having characters die. It is not a good dungeon for a serious on-going campaign (at least not without serious re-writing).
My favorite TPK was against the Wraith where half the party dies fighting it (including the Cleric), the other half tried to run away but the Wraith chased them down and finished them. IIRC, we never did go back and deal with that foul denizen....(assuming that any knowledge of it's existence got to the surface)
40 deaths? Wow. We started at level 4, we just hit 14, and there were three deaths. One due to Circle of Death, one due to Purple Worm, and one due to a curse that exploded someone for 300 damage.
It's weird, my GM likes to play hard PFS scenarios and tends to read encounters in the most difficult interpretations possible, but somehow we're almost whistling through it. Our last session we descended a bit too much and had a few tough fights, but we still managed to survive pretty easily. Maybe we're just too optimal, but if I see the casualty reports from other people, I get the impression we're doing something wrong.
With an experienced group RA isn't that bad, especially if they built a well-rounded group. I would recommend to enter at level 3 soonest to get kills by random damage rolls out of the way.
To answer your question: the module (Pathfinder edition) mentions only that the party should number 6 characters of level 4+ to attempt the upper levels, and be 5+ when going past dungeon level 2. The quick entrance is for parties of level 7+. There is no mention of how stats should be determined, but any normal method should work fine (I'd go with 20 point buy and standard wealth).
The more experienced your players are, the less deaths will happen. Lower down some deaths are likely due to the luck of the die...at some point people will roll 1 for a critical save or a strong enemy crit a wounded character. We found that a good healer paired with a strong melee will pull everyone else through (the pally was maybe overkill, but this is the dungeon for paladins).
Thanks again for all the input. To be honest, if I do include RA, I would definitely trim it quite a bit. As much as I love gaming, trying to fit all of RA AND the KM AP into the same campaign would be a bit much, even for me. LOL
My main thinking in adding RA was that it would a) provide a good set of encounters/adventures to fill the space in some of the less entertaining aspects of the KM AP (like Hexploration in the later books) while b) helping to provide an explanation for why the Stolen Lands are so hard to civilize.
A good chunk of the deaths are due to mind controlled PCs killing other PCs. Dominated archers are particularly dangerous as their first round can often kill a PC before the group has a chance to deal with it.
And once the fatalities start happening, well...it isn't long before that TPK.
RA can be quite the meantgrinder, depending the party skill and the luck of the die.
I know my group has had 9-10 casualties to date, with the party being mostly 8th level currently.
No TPK's so far, mostly because my character refuses to die (he's made no bones about running when things go bottom up).
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Cherrypicking RA for additional content of the main AP should work OK. Just decide in advance which parts of the dungeon to cut and remove, so that your players don't throw you a curve ball. Can be tricky, as the dungeon is so cross-connected, with information about it's features strewn about.
All great info guys, thanks, I really appreciate it. I especially appreciate the heads up about information about the dungeon being strewn about, cross connections, etc. I'm still not positive I want to tackle both KM and RA at the same time (even with only doing a portion of RA) so I really appreciate this. My main complain with KM was the relative ease of the encounters (not that I can't fix that of course) but I also really love the idea of RA too, but even cherry picking it might be a bit too much -- plus there's the idea of potentially ruining RA for my players if I simply cherry pick and don't give them the full Dungeon of Graves experience.