Hi all
I'm a brand new GM and am preparing for my first session next Friday.
I'm planning on taking my players through the Crown of the Kobold King, my players are going to start at level two.
I just have a couple of questions
1. How should I bring the party together at Falcon's Hollow?
2. The book says for every 4 hours there is a 15% chance for a random encounter, but it doesn't say how long it takes to get to Droskar's Crag or how to determine if they do in fact get an encounter, it just gives you a list of encounters that could occur determined by a D20, So I'm unsure how to run this entire section so any help would be great
Any other generic advice for me would great, I'm really nervous and want to make it as enjoyable as possible for my players
thanks in advance
Dylan,
I think you're not getting responses because you've posted in completely the wrong place.
This forum is for Pathfinder Society -- not home games, not custom games where you start PCs at level 2 and run them through an old D&D 3.5 module (which is what Crown of the Kobold King is). Pathfinder Society is for GMs who are running the season 0 through 8 scenarios. Granted, there are a few approved Adventure Paths and other modules that can be run in Pathfinder Society as well, but I don't believe that CotKK is one of them.
Pathfinder Society is also heavily regimented, sort of like "official play" in game stores and so on, with players getting membership numbers and their game results getting recorded. It doesn't sound like you're doing any of that.
A potentially better place for your question would be the "modules forum" because that is dedicated to Paizo's stand-alone modules that can be run in a home game. For example, there I found 3 topics that might interest you:
- Crown of the Kobold King, question about later/lower levels of the dungeon.
- Advice for GMs who are new to running Crown of the Kobold King
- Advice about how to update the module from D&D 3.5 to Pathfinder
Good luck!
Flagged for movement to a better fit subforum. As outshyn said above, PFS is a more organized and regimented experience for specific modules.
But otherwise, howdy Dylan! Haven't run this module, but here's some generic-ish advice.
1. Does the module have any assumptions about the party? If everyone's taking a job, they can meet at a rendezvous point before heading out together. If it's a dungeon crawl or the like, they could find each other by happenstance and decide to tackle things as a team. Whatever reason makes in-world sense and gives you a way to say "someone approaches! Player 2, describe your character to Player 1 as you walk up!"
2. Check the rules for overland movement further down this page - they give how much distance characters can cover using their base movement speeds. The module probably says how far Droskar's Crag is from whatever town or starting point the party's in, so take that distance, use the overland movement table, and figure about how long it'd take them to reach the Crag. (or see 3 below!)
Regarding random encounters, for every 4 hours of travel you'd roll a d% - if you get a 15 or lower, the party faces a random encounter. Roll a d20 and look up the result on the random encounter table to see what they have to fight.
3. Don't sweat things too much. The book doesn't say how far away Droskar's Crag is? Make it up! See a monster on the random encounter table that gives you a cool scene idea? Forget the d% thing and just have the party encounter the monster sometime during their travels!
Focus less on rules minutiae and more on having a good time and keeping folks engaged. Try to roll with their ideas, and if you don't know quite how to put rules to that idea, that's ok! Tell your players as much, come up with a ruling that makes sense to most folks and keeps the action flowing, and go with it - you can look up the fiddly bits later and incorporate them next time.
If the PCs are going off the rails as far as module plot and you're not comfortable freestyling what happens, be frank about that, too. "Hey folks, the module assumes you'll do X but y'all want to do Y - I'm new and not sure I can rewrite events to fit what's happening. Can we stay on the module's track so that I can give y'all a better experience?" In my experience, most players will respect that.
GMing is a muscle you have to work. Familiarity with rules and storytelling builds over time. You learn by doing, so you just gotta keep doing! Good luck! If you've got further specific questions, feel free to PM me.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
thanks guys!
Apologies for posting in the wrong place but you've both been really helpful so thank you!!!
A couple of weeks late, but advice: Personally, I don't like doing random encounters as a GM.
The main reason is that I don't like running mobs that I haven't prepped first, I usually miss an ability or a rule or something and end up kicking myself for it later. At the same time I don't want to study up on every possible random encounter a table provides.
The other is that I want these extra encounters to be interesting and, hopefully a bit of a change of pace from whatever the party is doing at the time.
I look at whatever encounter table and pick out one or two that look particularly fun and/or interesting and run it whenever I feel appropriate.
I just roll a couple of d10s every now and then so the players will think that I'm looking for random encounters, that's usually enough to keep them on task.
IIRC this book has a non-combat encounter with a drunk giant who is looking for his missing wedding ring before going home to his wife as a random encounter, that's too fun to leave to random chance!