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*DO NOT READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED*
TL;DR Is it ok to make Aubrin The Green a Commoner?
So I like to run my Pathfinder games as the rules are written so if something cannot occur in the game via the rules (or via magic) it can't happen.
What happens to Aubrin The Green at the start of the adventure cannot happen according to the rules (unless I'm missing something?).
On top of that, she is a level Cleric 3/Ranger 3 and has access to five potions of cure light wounds and a scroll of cure moderate wounds. Her injuries would last a couple of rounds at best before the PCs would have a level 6 character to help them.
Sure you can hand wave it as working for the story but I don't like going that route.
So my question is, would it affect this Adventure Path greatly if her class levels (or just her 3 Cleric levels) are removed and she's just a Commoner (Ranger 3)?
I believe that Aubrin's healing abilities are intended to be the only way a group of level-one characters can get through the first part of the adventure. (They also serve a useful, if off-screen, purpose keeping the refugees alive and healthy for the rest of the adventure, without the PCs' having to use their own daily resources on the NPCs.)
If you remove her cleric levels, you might want to have the PCs find a wand of cure light wounds on a dead body while they're rescuing villagers, to keep them on their feet.
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I will admit that it is kind of annoying for them to clearly ignore the rules to turn a 6th level npc into a non-combatant (unless ballista bolts are supposed to inflict bleed damage and stun people, which I don't think they do, but I have not looked at the game mechanics of siege weapons). Even her clouded vision is clearly a hand waved thing to artificially gimp her. I get that they don't want the pc's to be overshadowed by a higher level pc, but the way they go about weakening her seems very cheesy. I don't think the story would be hurt one bit if you re-built her with a reduced point-buy and made her a ranger 1/cleric 1 with a level or 2 of commoner or expert. If her being able to channel seems too helpful, you could even change the cleric level to a level or two of adept. Then have the initial strike from the ballista in the first encounter take her to 0 or -1 hit points (maybe don't do this if you don't have pc in the party with decent healing capabilities).
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The problem with that, Douglas, is that according to lore Hobgoblins hate arcane magic and distrust everyone who uses it.
Maybe a Cleric of Hadregash?
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I'm considering adding an evil human wizard to the hobgoblins' force pool. He should be MUCH too tough for the PCs -- at least 7th level, maybe higher.
In this scenario, we still have the ballista, but what cripples Aubrin long-term is the wizard strolling in and zapping her with Bestow Curse. "-4 on everything" or "50% chance each round to do nothing" are good starting points, but I'm pretty sure a creative DM can come up with a curse that would effectively incapacitate here. Here's one possibility: whenever Aubrin attempts to do anything other than take a move, free, or immediate action, she must make a DC 20 Will save or be Nauseated for d4 rounds. That means she can't usually fight or cast spells, but can still serve as a backup healer and advisor. That's a first pass; I'm sure you guys can come up with something even better.
cheers,
Doug M.
Any healing she does would be a standard action. Being gimped this much means she can't heal at all even with a heal check, or a wand,or dumping a potion down someone's throat.
I too did not like the hand-waving/gimping as written. Special K in RotR uses his dying minion to chew the carpet a bit at the end of Book 4, but he has powerful magic and a pre-existing arcane connection to help him "bend the rules".
The curse idea sounds like a good solution, one which I'll likely employ whenever I get the chance to run this AP.
Also, Aubrin might be self-sacrificing enough to insist that others get the benefit of her healing before she does herself. Or simply pragmatic about it; if she knows that she'll be so debilitated by the curse that she'll be unable to participate in combat, it makes more sense for her to heal those who are able to fight (i.e., the party).
We didn't use her to heal at all. Her condition is a terrible bending of the rules
There seemed to be buckets of healing to be found in the adventure. My group did all the areas in town and still had spare potions at the end.
I think the Paizo criticals deck has various kinds of conditions that can be inflicted on a critical. If Aubrin was hit by a critical or two that gave her these afflictions, that could yield the scenario described in the adventure w/o having to do any handwaving.
I plan on handwaving it that she has a serious wound (38 hp), and therefore will require a CSW spell (able to heal 39 hp) to fix it. This will also give the PCs impetus to get her to Noelan at the Riverwood Shrine right at the start.
Come to think of it...that's not an entirely bad way to make crits more interesting. *rubs hands together*
ETA: So Aubrin takes 38 hp damage from a crit. A CMW can only heal a maximum of 26 hp, so she will have to naturally heal down to 26 before a CMW will work. So she'll be laid up for 13 days, basically, until she can cast a CMW on herself (or a PC can do it, of course).
Since it's all about survival in the wilderness, I might even get really nasty and add in a Fort save to ward off infection...*evil cackle ensues"
Party has reached the caves. They have made use of the npcs but not needed Aubrin and have just left her to heal as best she can.
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I'm surprised at how strongly people feel about "breaking the rules" for her injury. IMO the complaints only make sense if you treat HP damage as Order of the Stick does-- characters are essentially cartoon characters that literally get stabbed without taking any sort of penalty until they hit 0 HP. Which is fine and all, but IMO hit points are meant to be an abstraction that includes both everything from minor physical Wounds to exhaustion to luck. Debilitating injuries aren't a thing under the normal rules, but you might as well complain about an NPC getting their hand chopped off in a cut scene.
Aubrin pretty explicitly got ran straight through by a siege weapon. When a character takes 3d8 damage from a a bolt, that is not necessarily the case. Also, Pathfinder has massive damage rules, injury rules, and critical cards among optional sub systems to try and allow for weapon injuries to be more meaningful. Personally, I think it is pretty cool that Aubrin took a balista bolt to the chest and got back on her feet with as little help as she did!
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I'm considering just killing her off "like a leaf on the wind" and letting the PCs have her stuff.
This way the NPCs will have to turn to our heroes for guidance and there's already one of the PCs who might fit that role.
EH. I dunno. She certainly has a role going forward - and someone's gotta watch the camp when the PCs are away. A random owlbear would kill everyone otherwise.
BUT her lost foot needs to be a thing, rather than something that's handwaved away in her personal rules. She's gotta be weakened - permanently - somehow so the PCs can't bring her to the fight.
I'm considering just killing her off "like a leaf on the wind" and letting the PCs have her stuff.
This way the NPCs will have to turn to our heroes for guidance and there's already one of the PCs who might fit that role.
EH. I dunno. She certainly has a role going forward - and someone's gotta watch the camp when the PCs are away. A random owlbear would kill everyone otherwise.
BUT her lost foot needs to be a thing, rather than something that's handwaved away in her personal rules. She's gotta be weakened - permanently - somehow so the PCs can't bring her to the fight.
Does she though? Even at full capacity, she's still functionally better off providing buffs and support over actively fighting. Any decently well built 2nd level martial hits at least as often as she does and probably for a lot more damage. Her most unbalancing effect would be acting as HP battery to keep your PCs topped up, which is pretty modest IMO and let's you dabble with harder encounters easier.
Also, if you find bringing her along is causing problems, just have the camp come under siege more often. Just reducing her movement speed permanently won't do much if someone just loans her a horse.
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She's partly blind and missing a leg. Killing her off just adds insult to injury. Your NPCs are not just there to roll initiative, but to add elements of roleplay for your players.
I reworked her injury a bit for my adventure. The ballista bolt took her good arm off.
She was then unable to use her bow and only able to fight with her off hand and I gave all her spell a 50% spell failure chance. (but she could still channel with no chance of failure)
She was able to help the party but was still heavily crippled.
I may rerun this adventure soon, and while I maintain Aubrin injury is fine and she doesn't unbalance encounters, I am struggling to remember how I had her utilize create food spells. A couple castings of that every day makes the ration points stretch a lot farther, which I don't love.
I may rerun this adventure soon, and while I maintain Aubrin injury is fine and she doesn't unbalance encounters, I am struggling to remember how I had her utilize create food spells. A couple castings of that every day makes the ration points stretch a lot farther, which I don't love.
I myself am converting Ironfang Invasion to Pathfinder 2nd Edition rules. Thus, I had to convert Aubrin. I built her with the PC rules, since the PF2 Gamemastery Guide had not yet been published with its NPC rules. She ended up as a 6th-level ranger with all her class feats devoted to a Cleric Dedication. That reduced her divine spellcasting compared to the PF1 Aubrin the Green.
I also reduced her speed to reflect the wooden leg. And I had sold off all her magical gear except her Cloak of Elvenkind.
I will admit that it is kind of annoying for them to clearly ignore the rules to turn a 6th level npc into a non-combatant (unless ballista bolts are supposed to inflict bleed damage and stun people, which I don't think they do, but I have not looked at the game mechanics of siege weapons). Even her clouded vision is clearly a hand waved thing to artificially gimp her. I get that they don't want the pc's to be overshadowed by a higher level pc, but the way they go about weakening her seems very cheesy. ...
I eliminated the catapult bolt through the door of the Taproot Inn. I thought that the villagers would notice hobgoblin invaders setting up a catapult on the village green, especially outside the tavern where guests would be heading out the door at all times. Aubrin avoided combat after claiming Oreld's bomb, because she turned invisible via her Cloak of Elvenkind and did not want to become visible again until she reached the bridge. The elf ranger PC with a Chernesardo-Hopeful background was her trainee, and she instructed him to evacuate the children and elderly over the bridge before she vanished.
I'm considering just killing her off "like a leaf on the wind" and letting the PCs have her stuff.
This way the NPCs will have to turn to our heroes for guidance and there's already one of the PCs who might fit that role.
I almost killed Aubrin off at the bridge. She was holding off Ironfang heavy trooper Kergri and 4 Hobgoblin Soldiers while her ranger trainee PC planted the bomb under the bridge, with the other 3 PCs providing archery and cantrip attacks from the safe end of the bridge. Aubrin's wooden leg made a good excuse why she had to ask a PC to do the climbing on the scaffolding under the bridge. Once the ranger returned from under the bridge, Aubrin was in poor position to retreat, due to the hobgoblin's Attack of Opportunity ability. They had surrounded her enough that she would need two Step actions to avoid further attacks and she had already lost half her hit points.
Note that 2nd-level Kergri and 4 1st-level soldiers were stronger than all 4 1st-level PCs. I needed friendly NPCs to defend the PCs, especially with one PC missing to plant the bomb. Kining Blondebeard (2nd-level fighter) had already died holding off these hobgoblins.
Then Rhyna, the only other named NPC at the bridge and also safe on the north side, used her fire oracle abilities to try to bluff the hobgoblins that she was a high-powered cleric of Asmodeus. I had made her a 1st-level oracle for the Advanced Player's Guide playtest. Her Deception check failed, but the halfling rogue with the scoundrel racket elaborated on her bluff and succeeded. The Hobgoblin Soldiers stepped back, the ranged attacks on Kergri finally took her down, and Aubrin quickly limped off the bridge just before the bomb blew it up.
I believe that Aubrin's healing abilities are intended to be the only way a group of level-one characters can get through the first part of the adventure. (They also serve a useful, if off-screen, purpose keeping the refugees alive and healthy for the rest of the adventure, without the PCs' having to use their own daily resources on the NPCs.)
Treat Wounds serves that purpose in Pathfinder 2nd Edition.
Play up the townsfolk more as well. If the NPCs are all "we need Aubrin here to guard us while you are away" then it's less Aubrin wanting to stay and more the PCs having to appease their refugee camp.
And that is what happened in my game in Part 2, Under the Hemlock Banner. Aubrin and Rhyna remained with the villager refugees to protect and calm them. She sent the PCs on scouting missions to find safe routes for the refugees to keep moving. Lame and nearly blind was her excuse for not scouting.
I am amused to see how many suggestions matched the way I had run that adventure.
My group is starting the IFI (proper) tonight for the first time. I'm killing off Aubrin right at the start.
I already ran them through a "game zero" last week, which was role play in Phaendar getting set up for the spring market fair. No combat or anything at all. I wanted them to feel secure in town. They all now have friends and associates among the NPCs, including family members. Everyone loves Aubrin the Green (who I gender swapped to male) and sees him as the defacto "King of Town".
Which is why later tonight I'm going to brutally kill off Aubrin and about half their friends and family, with as much horrific description as I possibly can.
This entire campaign is about loss, having what you thought was solid ground being ripped out from under you, everything you thought was yours being taken away, being on the run, and desperately in fear of your lives.
I want the players to FEEL IT. I don't run games for children. I'm going to force them to decide who starves when the refugees run out of food. They'll need to act like the group's leaders when one refugee kills another over a scrap of bread. Do we let a murderer escape justice? Do we execute a friend for his crime? If not, why should anyone follow these so-called "leaders"?
This going to be great. I've been planning for weeks, and can hardly wait for tonight.
My group is starting the IFI (proper) tonight for the first time. I'm killing off Aubrin right at the start.
I already ran them through a "game zero" last week, which was role play in Phaendar getting set up for the spring market fair. No combat or anything at all. I wanted them to feel secure in town. They all now have friends and associates among the NPCs, including family members. Everyone loves Aubrin the Green (who I gender swapped to male) and sees him as the defacto "King of Town".
Which is why later tonight I'm going to brutally kill off Aubrin and about half their friends and family, with as much horrific description as I possibly can.
This entire campaign is about loss, having what you thought was solid ground being ripped out from under you, everything you thought was yours being taken away, being on the run, and desperately in fear of your lives.
I want the players to FEEL IT. I don't run games for children. I'm going to force them to decide who starves when the refugees run out of food. They'll need to act like the group's leaders when one refugee kills another over a scrap of bread. Do we let a murderer escape justice? Do we execute a friend for his crime? If not, why should anyone follow these so-called "leaders"?
This going to be great. I've been planning for weeks, and can hardly wait for tonight.
I read this aloud to three of my Ironfang Invasion players. One responded, "Has the GM forgotten about the players having fun?"
What are your plans for the players enjoying this struggle? My players do like moral dilemmas (they killed Edran secretly) but they need victories, too. And they mastered the Fangwood environment and the new PF2 rules so quickly that they turned against the Ironfang patrols and started defeating them sooner than the module planned.
Aubrin gets hit by a ballista.
Your choice on what to do with your campaign, but IMHO a crippling blow rather than death is more representative of what the campaign is about.
Ironfang Invasion is actually more about finding your place in the world, and how do you do that when others think your place should belong to them.
The Ironfang are just doing to Nirmathas what Nirmathas did to Molthune and what Molthune did to Cheliax.
The canonical ending actually breaks that cycle.
It ain't going to happen in my campaign which turned very much to revenge, but at least the players have been having fun all the way through.
I read this aloud to three of my Ironfang Invasion players. One responded, "Has the GM forgotten about the players having fun?"
Like I said, there are no kids in our game.
My group's playing style (theme? environment? philosophy?) is much more "game of thrones" than "disney candy-coating".
Aubrin gets hit by a ballista.
Your choice on what to do with your campaign, but IMHO a crippling blow rather than death is more representative of what the campaign is about.
Yeah he did. He got the "leaf in the wind" treatment right in the middle of a joke.
The look of shock on their faces when it happened was just *chef's kiss*.
After the quick battle in the Taproot, during which one of the kids the party had helped gather up his loose sheep during the previous game session also got killed, I had Jet fill the role of directing them to gather survivors and head for the bridge.
The several ensuing fights during the round-up and flight to the bridge were AWESOME. I kept having them find NPC friends (and in one case family member either already dead or actively being killed. The gradual conversion from initial shock to determined anger amongst the players was glorious to watch.
Powerful stuff. At the end I had an Ironfang troop which was obviously far more than they could handle chasing them over the bridge...which they blew just as the bad guys were crossing. Talk about catharsis!
We ended the game session with the party patching up wounds while frantically setting up shelters against the massive storm of rain and sleet that's heading right for them.
During our traditional AGR (after game review, instead of after action review) and mead drinking session, my favorite part was one of the players dropping herself onto the couch next to me with a "that was hardcore".
I read this aloud to three of my Ironfang Invasion players. One responded, "Has the GM forgotten about the players having fun?"
Like I said, there are no kids in our game.
My group's playing style (theme? environment? philosophy?) is much more "game of thrones" than "disney candy-coating".
The player who said that is 62 years old.
When I began as a player in Rise of the Runelords, we learned about the sordid history of Sandpoint, such as a mass murderer named Chopper, a founding father of the town murdering his wife for infidelity, and a criminal organization run by another founding family. We began wondering why we were bothering to save these people from goblin raids.
If the refugees begin killing each other due to arguing about the last piece of bread, then my players would have wondered why they put so much effort into saving them. Simply point them toward the city of Longshadow, 50 miles away, and say, "Walk that direction, you idiots. We are done with you."
Trail of the Hunted assumes that the PCs will try to be heroic. (And my players like playing heroes.) In contrast, in Game of Thrones people abandoned and betrayed people. Lord Randyll Tarly of Horn Hill told his cowardly, bookish eldest son Samwell that he did not want Samwell to inherit Horn Hill and sent him to the Night's Watch to disinherit him. Will the PCs decide that being hunted is not for them and leave the area near Phaendar without the dead weight of the villagers? Are you ready to play them reaching Fort Ristin in Fangs of War at 2nd level? Maybe they will reach Redburrow (page 10 in Assault on Longshadow in time to experience it being destroyed by a out-of-control acid fog?
The worse conditions are in the Fangwood, the less reason the players have for staying on the map in Trail of the Hunted. Be ready for that,
In my campaign the players had trouble justifying staying in the area patroled by the Ironfang Legion. The Phaendar refugees and the PCs discussed their options after their first night in the Fangwood (they sheltered at the abandoned farm at F1. Wasp Orchard). Some wanted to go to Longshadow, 50 miles northwest. Others wanted to go to Tamran, 150 miles northeast. Aubrin (who survived in my campaign) wanted to warn locals, such as the Gristledown logging camp and the retired wizard Veld, contact the Chernasardo Rangers, and hide in the Misthome Caves while waiting for the Chernasardo Rangers. Despite Aubrin's leadership leading them to Misthome, Edran talked (and charmed via Charm spell) some people to steal supplies and desert toward Tamran. Veld volunteered to escort a few people to Longshadow. And the party, after Misthome, decided to visit the first Nirmathi village east of Phaendar, so I invented a fishing village on the Marideth River named Polebridge. It had been conquered by the Ironfang Legion, too. The hobgoblins set up a roadblock there to intercept all travelers.
The player who said that is 62 years old.
I read this aloud to three of my Ironfang Invasion players. One responded, "Has the GM forgotten about the players having fun?"
Like I said, there are no kids in our game.
My group's playing style (theme? environment? philosophy?) is much more "game of thrones" than "disney candy-coating".
That's actually very interesting. If you have a 62yo in your group then I can only assume most if not all of your players are at least in their mid to late 20s, probably older. So I'm a little surprised by your inability to separate your emotions from your character's emotions.
Do you watch horror movies (or worse: *French* movies)? If so, do you walk away feeling like it wasn't any fun because something scary (yet imaginary) happened to you for a couple of hours? If so I feel as a public service I should advise you not to watch The Haunting of Hill House (Netflix). I thought it was great, at least until the final episode.
It's also strange that you seem to think they'll be arriving at Fort Ristin at level 2...they didn't even know it existed until last Saturday, but all they have is the name and not the location.
Anyway, we're now several sessions in and they just made 3rd level. Once our Bloodrager gets back from his two week National Guard drill I'll let them find the final clue to lead them to the Children of the Stone. They better hurry as they'll need the food stores I've placed there - their little group has now been on half rations for three days and there have already been small scale food riots.
So far they've let Edrin join their group, and then a couple nights later he murdered an NPC, stole a week's food, and ran. The party tried to hunt him down but were unsuccessful - I gave them a shot at vengeance but their die rolls were uncooperative.
They were almost TPK'd at Gristledown, when I rolled two critical hits against their party tank and he went down in the first round of combat. The Halfling cleric managed a couple good rolls on some channels and saved the day by burning the undead to the ground. Between her and Rhyna they managed to patch everyone up before we needed to roll up two new characters. It was a close one.
H3 was a lot of fun. I got to murder 5 NPCs, including two children, one of which was a party member's adopted child and apprentice (and again, when they found little Marvin's headless body...*chef's kiss*!). The scene where they finally caught up with Shalrak? The payback was gloriously brutal. It was almost an anatomy lesson.
Oddly, none of the players has said anything about how terrible the conditions are and how they want to exit stage left. I guess what I'm getting around to here is that you need to drop this whole judgmental attitude, and learn to accept that not everyone likes to do things your way...and that that's ok.
Any good DM knows to "interview" new players before they join the group to ensure they'd be a good fit. I did that years ago. Soft-skinned people need not apply.
On the other hand, when I run the "kid's game" which is made up mainly of the teenagers of my regular players, I keep it all sweetness and light. What can I say? I'll eat candy, but I prefer steak.
The player who said that is 62 years old.That's actually very interesting. If you have a 62yo in your group then I can only assume most if not all of your players are at least in their mid to late 20s, probably older. So I'm a little surprised by your inability to separate your emotions from your character's emotions.
The ages of the seven players in my Ironfang Invasion campaign are 18, 35, 36, 37, 60, 62, and 65. We have been under a deadline to finish before the 18-year-old leaves for college this fall. I am 61 years old, married to that sweet, young 60-year-old.
Do you watch horror movies (or worse: *French* movies)? If so, do you walk away feeling like it wasn't any fun because something scary (yet imaginary) happened to you for a couple of hours? If so I feel as a public service I should advise you not to watch The Haunting of Hill House (Netflix). I thought it was great, at least until the final episode.
I seldom watch horror movies, because I find them boring. I have read well-written horror novels, but I react to them as if they were dark fantasy novels that spend too much time on mood.
It's also strange that you seem to think they'll be arriving at Fort Ristin at level 2...they didn't even know it existed until last Saturday, but all they have is the name and not the location.
Fort Ristin is a plot hole in the adventure path. It is not far from troglodyte caves, so why didn't the party head to Fort Ristin--which was supposed to be occupied by friendly Chernasardo Rangers--rather than fight for control of the caves? Ignorance is a good excuse, but in my game Aubrin the Green had lived, so I had to make an excuse that Aubrin was ignorant of its exact location so wanted to recruit a guide from the ranger's outpost at location I.
Anyway, we're now several sessions in and they just made 3rd level. Once our Bloodrager gets back from his two week National Guard drill I'll let them find the final clue to lead them to the Children of the Stone. They better hurry as they'll need the food stores I've placed there - their little group has now been on half rations for three days and there have already been small scale food riots.
Good, you are emphasizing food stores in the caves. The module had mentioned only 22 Provision Points of food there, which wouldn't last long. I set up trade with the svirfneblin merchant Novvi (page 46) for a continuing food supply. Novvi shows up again on page 26 of Siege of Stone, so you could lay groundwork for that later encounter. I had neglected to do so, but my PCs contacted Novvi by Sending spell before heading into the Darklands, so they set up the encounter themselves.
Did you have the villagers murdering each other for food yet, besides Edran's duplicity? "Small-scale food riots" sounds like fist fights rather than murder.
Oddly, none of the players has said anything about how terrible the conditions are and how they want to exit stage left. I guess what I'm getting around to here is that you need to drop this whole judgmental attitude, and learn to accept that not everyone likes to do things your way...and that that's ok.
Any good DM knows to "interview" new players before they join the group to ensure they'd be a good fit. I did that years ago. Soft-skinned people need not apply.
I had quoted my 62-year-old player to highlight that players of heroic fantasy games do not necessarily enjoy a gritty horror survival game. My own players turned the hiding-for-survival theme of Trail of the Hunted into deliberately hunting down Ironfang patrols and stealing their gear and supplies earlier than the module expected. You began your quote above with "Oddly," perhaps admitting that your circumstances are odd. Or maybe you mean, "In contrast to Mathmuse's expectations," rather than "Oddly."
I had asked back on May 27, "What are your plans for the players enjoying this struggle?" You did not bother to explain that your players like roleplaying a tragedy followed by revenge. Instead, you had said that they had liked a peaceful opening game session meeting the villagers of Phaendar and later you said, "The look of shock on their faces when it happened was just *chef's kiss*." That made your players sound more typical. I misjudged the situation. My apologies.
And I am accustomed to my players taking narrative control of the adventure path to alter it to their liking. For example, after defeating the large Ironfang army besieging Longshadow in Assault on Longshadow, they decided that they were strong enough to liberate their Phaendar friends still captive in Phaendar. The adventure path planned that for the last module, Vault of the Onyx Citadel, at 16th level so I had maps. But they did it at 12th level. For another example, at the beginning of Prisoners of the Blight the story jumps from Kraggodan in the south to the Blighted area of Fangwood in the north, skipping a 70-mile journey mostly through Ironfang-occupied territory. My players asked me to homebrew that journey so that they could roleplay more battles against the Ironfang Legion.