I just started a RotRL game. The party will be between 6-8 players per session. I allowed any race/class/traits that are not 3rd party. Let them use a 25 point buy for stats. Max HP at every level up. I want them to have fun with this game and hopefully we will play through the entire campaign. leveling up is based off the suggested levels in the book and not by exp. That will solve any issues with people missing games.
I am able to buff up the combats to challenge the party. That's not problem. The issue I foresee is the lack of gear and other cash items that will be needed later game. Is there a way to bump up the treasure, or should I do something like a module between books to give special items as well as much needed gold?
Thanks for any input.
K-Ray
It does seem to be light on Phat Lewt, esp as too many warrior-types seem to focus on one weapon, and only one weapon. (we have this problem in our RotRL party, we have several powerful weapons going begging as none of the martial types want them).
With a 25pt buy, I suggest not just adding more cash. Drop or award specific items that won't be sold to fill needed gaps.
Good idea on fiat leveling, btw.
Perhaps I'm unclear. What "gear and other cash items" are "needed later game" to the point that you feel you need to add money? With 25-point builds, 6-8 players, and max HP at every level up, these players are going to be curb-stomping most encounters in stone knives and bearskins.
My infamously-poor fighter in Carrion Crown (40,000 g.p. net worth at level 11) got grappled by a CR 12 tentacled beastie and couldn't use his +1 adamantine greatsword (still his weapon at level 16, saying something about wealth), and proceeded to stab it into oblivion with a plain old ordinary dagger. (Lots of STR and Power Attack damage, plus three or four crits). High-wealth gear turns challenging fights into walkovers. Maybe your party wants that. Maybe they don't. But don't assume they do without thinking it out, or even (heaven forbid) talking with them about it.
So instead of asking, "How do I boost the treasure?", a much better question is, "Do I NEED to boost the treasure?"
Until they're failing saves left and right because they couldn't get that Cloak of Resistance +5, or the sword-and-board fighter is getting hit by the giants' third and fourth attacks every round, I just don't see "they're not up to WBL" as a good reason to add loot.
EDIT: Totally agree with Dr. Deth. If they're obviously missing something, give it to them directly rather than giving them cash and hoping they'll buy it.
well, In glassworks I put the 2 separate encounters together with the baddies having Max HP. Due to some bad rolls on the players part, good rolls on mine and very poor tactics on the PC's part it was a TPK. The new party arrived to find that most of the original party was encased in glass around the table. The only one not encased was the cleric who was being very annoying to the baddies, she ended up half burnt in the furnace.
hopefully it will get the new party to start working together as a group. One of the guys took the campaign trait that allows them to get 60% on items sold instead of the normal 50%. And one is planning on taking crafting feats. So that should solve any gear problems.
How do you do spoiler tags?
One of the first group was a Drow. Since they all died and the main guy from glass works got away I was going to have him take one of the Drow's ears to give to a certain bugbear as sort of a peace offering. Of course the bugbear will not accept it so when the new group finds the boss of glassworks, he will have a drow ear in his possession. I was thinking that he will be in the library with the ear on the table with a dagger pinning it down. Or is that just not something he would do? Just looking for people to say Yes that's a good idea and stroke my ego. :)
K-Ray
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At the bottom of the page you'll see a little "How to format your text" button. It gives all the "rules".
They're all basically bracket [] commands.
[ b ] to bold, [ /b ] to unbold and so on.
A spoiler is just
[ spoiler ] Hidden text here [ /spoiler ]
Lots of responses, but little time, so I'll add a few quick comments and answers:
(1) Rise of the Runelords is a very well-balanced campaign. Most of the fights are very easy for the PCs. Some of them are TPKs except that the baddies use bad tactics and keep the PCs alive. Almost all of them can be changed into TPKs by grouping monsters together beforehand and having them use optimal tactics.
Be *very* careful changing the as-written tactics or distributions, or you're going to kill a lot of PCs. Especially if they're tactics-poor as you say they are.
I like to say, "I'm the GM. I can kill any PC at any time on a whim. The hard part is challenging them to the point that they think they can die at any time, but not killing them willy-nilly."
I'm in Book 6 and I'm at 3 PC deaths. Our personal style is about a death a book. YMMV, but TPKs in the Glassworks indicate either hopeless tactics, or a GM giving the enemies "too good" tactics. Remember that goblins are idiots. (I had my 7- and 10-year-olds play them to give them that psychotic behavior.)
(2) I like the ear idea.
The goblins were doing poor tactics, trying to climb tables and falling, attempting to carry pcs to the furnace just to find they are unable to lift them into it with just 3. boss guy was doing well, just a couple of crits from the goblins did them in. They could have gotten away with just 2 losses. They chose not too. Also, the alchemist missing and using the splash weapon rules for missing, almost killed himself. With my generous starting rules I informed the PCs that I would not be holding back and all rolls are done where they can see. Im just happy it happened now so that they know what to expect and their new group is doing better. We have played many games togeather before so I know what the players can handle as far as dying.
K-Ray
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Ah, thanks for clarifying. The good old, "We can't run away, we're the heroes!" syndrome!
And yeah, I out-and-out banned alchemists after the *one* I GM'ed just couldn't stop damaging his comrades, leading to a lot of PvP.
Wow. That's some really poor tactics, if a party of 6+ 25-PB characters got trounced by a bunch of goblins using goblin tactics.
And the mind boggles at how the alchemist could hit himself with his bombs, even with the splash weapon miss rules. His party members, yes (we've had a couple friendly-fire incidents with alchemist in my game. It's even less fun for the party now that he has tanglefoot bombs) but it shouldn't be able to reach him unless he's throwing at someone adjacent which is really bad tactics. (Okay, if he's 10 feet away and misses and then rolls a 1 for direction, yes, he could get hit with the splash damage, but it wouldn't actually land on him.)
A splash weapon on a miss is off one square per range increment, not per square thrown. Bombs have a range increment of 20. So if the alchemist missed on a throw in the first range increment, the bomb should land one square away from the target in the direction indicated by the 1d8 roll, and do splash damage to that square and the surrounding squares. (Even if a creature's square is hit directly on a miss, they still only take splash damage.)
It was a creature that was exactly 20 feet away and he did roll a 1. Now, if its only one tile per range increment then it would not have hit him. We read it as a range increment in the direction that was rolled. So I guess that was wrong.
The new party consist of Drow Negative Energy Cleric, Elf Rouge (both the exact same charcs with new names) 2 kitsune paladins that are playing as brothers, a human ranger and a human bard.
Yeah, it's 5'/1 square per range increment. So in the first 20' it's one square in the rolled direction, two squares between 25' and 40', three squares between 45' and 60', etc.
Also, a miss only does splash damage to anything it hits, so he'd have to be pretty beat up to bomb himself to death (and would still get the reflex save to reduce the splash damage.)
I think his splash damage is something like 6, with a lvl 1 charc that's a big chunk of his health. Mater of fact, one of the other players said "Bet you really like your high INT score now". He did get hit by one of the glass bottles thrown by a goblin on a table, though it only did like 2 hp of damage. It was enough that he didn't want to throw bombs for a few rounds.
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