I'm thinking about eventual running this RoW and I can't find how many players the AP supports. It would be a quite some time before I can manage it but I'd like to know if it will support my full gaming table. I play in a Pathfinder group but the only system I've run long term (and am currently running) is the Fate Dresden Files RPG. The story looks interesting but how easy is it for a first time Pathfinder GM to run? I'm hampered a bit by my choice of APs because my GM for my pathfinder game is on of my DFRPG players and he's a subscriber.
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All official Pathfinder Adventure Paths, like Reign of Winter, are designed for a four character group. "Support" is hard to define. The more characters you add the more you may need to modify. An AP can "support" a 100 character party if you're willing to put in a bunch of work. How big is your "full gaming table"? It'll be easier to answer if we know if you're talking about five people or fifteen.
As for ease of running, I think Reign of Winter is one of the easier ones to run because there are no extra subsystems to learn like Mythic for Wrath of the Righteous, Rebellion for Hell's Rebels et cetera.
All official Pathfinder Adventure Paths, like Reign of Winter, are designed for a four character group. "Support" is hard to define. The more characters you add the more you may need to modify. An AP can "support" a 100 character party if you're willing to put in a bunch of work. How big is your "full gaming table"? It'll be easier to answer if we know if you're talking about five people or fifteen.
As for ease of running, I think Reign of Winter is one of the easier ones to run because there are no extra subsystems to learn like Mythic for Wrath of the Righteous, Rebellion for Hell's Rebels et cetera.
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Currently I run a group that averages 3-4 with the possibility of rising to six as some folks who would like to join the game but couldn't due to schedules
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I don't foresee any problems running any AP for 3-6 characters. 3 might be tougher than 6 because it becomes 25% easier to have a total party wipeout from a few bad rolls. I would consider having a fill-in NPC backing the party up if only three players. 5-6 should be no problem. Fights might be a little on the easy side, but since the group will level slower with more characters, that will even out quickly enough.
Less than 4 would be complicated. More,not that much.
I've been a player in RoW and really enjoyed it. The encounters are not difficult to run for a GM but I must warn you that they are hard for the players. There are a lot of potential TPKs in this AP, particulary in the first book with the weather rules and in the 5th.
Another thing you have to consider is that rhis AP is very railroaded. If your group doesn't like this kind of stories you'd have to change some things. We removed the Geas spell. Doing this can be a dangerous thing too if you plan to run everything as written because PCs will have to do some morally questionable things and without the Geas they might not want to do them.
In our case, our GM didn't mind us to search for alternative solutions and creating alternative ways for us, but if you want to run everything as written you might have to railroad them or device a way to keep them motivated.
My best advice is to keep the Geas if your players will be OK with it. But if they don't want to feel their hands forced in some parts of the game, it will be an issue.
Overall, this AP is fun and easy to run as it's pretty straightforward. Just be careful with the deadly encounters and the railroading.
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I have 5 players in RoW that recently finished all the combat in book 1, with a few non-combat things left. I bumped up about every other fight to keep up the challenge. There were two fights that nearly resulted in deaths. One was an unlucky crit to a squishy and the other was the final boss of the book.
For 6, you'd want to tweak up the encounters. That many people would make easy pickings of most of the written fights.
It's not too hard to do, though. If there is one monster, slap the advanced simple template on it. If there is more than one monster, add 50% more monsters (rounding up for more challenge or down for less challenge, based on your desire for difficulty).
The AP also isn't shy about doing bad things to the PCs. At the end of the first book, one character has been blinded twice, plus there's a bestow curse trap and a cursed magical item the PCs still have to contend with.
I don't know if I'm selling this well, but my players and I have been having a blast with this game.
I m running this ap and we are about to finish book 2. I m not sure I would choose this Ap for someone new to Pathfinder. The main reason is actualy not a negative one and basicly the main reason why I love this ap. The monsters you encounter here are prety special and a welcome change from the orcs and undead you normaly face at low levels in regular dnd and pf modules. Instead here you fight against fey creatures, winterwolves and unique stuff like an ofen who used to be able to fly and carry a witch around. Plenty of dragons and witches are also common bosses, just make sure to add some small mobs to these end encounters or they will feel pretty unepic with a whole group focus firing on your boss.
What i m not particularely fond off is the dimension hoping that goes from one book to the next, I would have liked if the adventure played for longer in Irrisen and the plot was more politcly focused in this area. If this doesn t bother you, go ahead and run the game, I love the theme and encounters of this ap. If your hole group is new to pathfinder Rise of the runelords might be a better ap. So many people have voted it as the best paizo has published and it s a great mixture of funny, spooky, intriguing and mystical plot.
I m running this ap and we are about to finish book 2. I m not sure I would choose this Ap for someone new to Pathfinder. The main reason is actualy not a negative one and basicly the main reason why I love this ap. The monsters you encounter here are prety special and a welcome change from the orcs and undead you normaly face at low levels in regular dnd and pf modules. Instead here you fight against fey creatures, winterwolves and unique stuff like an ofen who used to be able to fly and carry a witch around. Plenty of dragons and witches are also common bosses, just make sure to add some small mobs to these end encounters or they will feel pretty unepic with a whole group focus firing on your boss.
What i m not particularely fond off is the dimension hoping that goes from one book to the next, I would have liked if the adventure played for longer in Irrisen and the plot was more politcly focused in this area. If this doesn t bother you, go ahead and run the game, I love the theme and encounters of this ap. If your hole group is new to pathfinder Rise of the runelords might be a better ap. So many people have voted it as the best paizo has published and it s a great mixture of funny, spooky, intriguing and mystical plot.
I would love to run RotRL for this group. Sadly the GM from my PF group plays in my group and we just finished that. As far as new to the system half of the group has played before, one of which GMs it and most of the others are 3.5 vets so familiar with the some of the basic mechanics.
Then I am convinced you ll enjoy it. Book 1 and 2 are excellent, I m not sure about book 3, I ve read it twice and still don t completely understand the plot that is going on in the main dungeon. Book 4 is the one i m looking forward to the most with it playing in a distant planet where aliens ride weapon wielding dragons! Book 5 is where I have my biggest doubts with it beeing an first world war scenario in russia... I haven t read it yet so I can t realy comment. Worst case scenario I ll just have to write a whole chapter myself.
I wish you good luck running this Ap, we are certainly having a blast and the creatures certainly make it a phantastic adventure
As weird as the 5th book can seem it works. The PCs have already traveled to another worlds so they should be prepared for some weirdness, and it is really well done. Complicated encounters, good historical research, an epic villain. One of the best things I've played.
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We are playing this campaign with 5 players and I run most of the encounters as written. Sometimes I add some monsters. The campaign has been dangerous enough so far, with a number of near-deaths and 2 deaths. We are in the 6th book now and we have had a blast so far. Rasputin must die was a great success. It was one of the reasons I chose to DM this campaign.
Please note that the players will have an easier time if they have a lot of fire attacks/spells and that a wilderness oriented pc is really useful, especially in the first two books.
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I love this AP, between books 1 and 2 right now as we took a break to finish books 5 and 6 of carrion crown with another GM and I'm chomping at the bit to start book 2 (it's been almost a year and a half since I wrapped up book 1).
I have 6 players in my group and have given them mythic. Yes, it's was more work but well worth it. I kinda use the mythic powers as the geas as well... which they lose if they decide that they don't want to help Baba Yaga.
I have 6 players in my group and have given them mythic. Yes, it's was more work but well worth it. I kinda use the mythic powers as the geas as well... which they lose if they decide that they don't want to help Baba Yaga.
That's an interesting carrot to use!
Are you limiting them to Mythic 1, or can they advance through the Mythic tiers too?
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I'm planning on 1 mythic level per book. And if we get to finish all the way to the end of book 6, I plan on a book 7 of sorts and have them lose their Mythic powers and have them quest to regain them from a different source. After which, they will hunt down Baba Yaga and kill her, maybe... lol.
Depending on how that all plays out, they may get another level or two in mythic before they face her. Should be pretty epic.
Sounds very interesting! You'd probably have to adjust some encounters to match the mythic tiers but making their mythic power be something related to Baba Yaga sounds like a nice idea.
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Thanks, I made it the power they received from the black rider as opposed to what was in the book.
As for the encounters, as I mentioned before, I've had to re-write all of them (hero lab is amazing for this) and in many cases, completely replaced them with 3pp Mythic creatures. I have a few experienced players who have no experience with Mythic; curbs down on the metagaming immensely.