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Does anybody have a campaign flow timeline?
I thought I read somewhere that there could/could not be time for crafting, but as I read through the chapters, they really seem to be flowing from one right into the next with little or no quiet time. Between chapter 1 & chapter 2, then chapter 2 to chapter 3 seems to be the only time when there might be options to craft.
Observations and/or thoughts?
It's a lot about GM's making it what they want. There is a post for an average timeline for chapter 1 from James Jacobs in the pinned GM thread for it.
Myself as a GM I plan to insert two or three days here and there to have events seem more natural and less "we did everything in a week"
The time betweet 1 & 2 is pretty open, just start the events of 2 when you want (I'm allowing about a week, crafting or additional quest time), chapter 2 is the most rushed timeline I feel.
Also remember they can craft during an adventuring day but get less hours to mark off.
Some observations and thoughts:
After GMing Rise of the Runelords to my players, I decided to limit their characters spare time for downtime activities in CotCT.
From narrative perspective I do not like the thing "something happened today - now we have to sit and do nothing in the city probably a week, until next event happens". Had this problem in RotRL, in the very first arc in Sandpoint. Players just did not want to stay in one place ("in some backwater town-type village" as they said) waiting.
Therefore, in my run of CotCT, my players are in that setting, that many things happen almost in one-two weeks.
From GM perspective, I don't want characters to have a lot of spare time, because my players tend to make best of it with a lot of custom magic items crafting. Not saying that crafting is bad, it just hard to make encounters challenging time from time, when party has things that do some things that cripple foes in first-second round.
And it should be noted, that in CotCT players are not the ones that push the background story forward. Yes, they do start with kicking Graeden, but after getting audience with Ileosa, AP makes gives party a "reactive" role without much influence on how things progress until the very end. Plans for city-wide plague outbreak are done long ago, Seneschal is weeks now missing, Grey Maidens are created despite if party likes it or not, they are sent to get the Mandravius Sword because its the only true hope, etc.