I'm an experienced GM wrapping up Rise of the Runelords with my group. We have about 2 sessions left.
I've read through the first 3 books of CC so far and I'm really liking it. This will be the next AP I run.
I do see some deficiencies in the plot. I'm pouring through this message board and reading some great ideas.
My question is, in general, what do you see as the big problems I should address? I'll admit, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed for some reason I cant really explain.
I'm an experienced GM wrapping up Rise of the Runelords with my group. We have about 2 sessions left.
My question is, in general, what do you see as the big problems I should address? I'll admit, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed for some reason I cant really explain.
Hello! By my personal experience as a player, here's a few suggestions about how to handle the first book's. You'll find many more on the message boards.
1) Decide a "tone" for the campaign. The first books are low of resources for the pcs, and put them in contest where social acceptance is relevant and should be considerated. Also, in book 2 and 3 time is - by the books - short and on the essence. Make it clear to your players, and try to offer some kind of mechanics to compensate the inability to either recover or gather resources.
2) CC presents very strong bosses. Book 1 requires certain objects or class abilities to even hurt most of the opponents, while book 2 presents many encounters that should be either avoided, or allow ways to not suffer ill effect from them. Also present this to your players, explaining the "surviving" element as part of the campaign, and develop potential inventive solutions.
3) Lack of recurring characters: as written, each book is very isolated and offers almost to none recurring characters. This is due the fact the story is, for the most part, a "long chase" and therefore - as written - there are no chances to revisit old places and encounter old people. To avoid this, i would suggest to allow the npcs allies of book 2 to become "patrons" in certain regards to the Pcs, to allow them to get either intel, contacts or - more simply - information about how things are going in the places they've already visited.
4) The Whispering Way plot is very tenuous at best. The BBEG needs way more involvement and foreshadowings, as the lack of it was regretted by even the authors. Yet, these necromancers are quite captivating when present. The problem is that you know they are there, but you cannot reach them whatever you try until the book allows you to. While this works for the story, this also weakens the investment of the characters which will literally run for half a country before even see a proper necromancer. I would suggest to emphasize their presence by creating more WW challanges related, either by having the effect of their presence be "more visible" or have new npcs interact against the pcs at lower level. However, this creates the possibility for your players to gain too much insight on the WW from them, if defeated, so you may want either to limit their knowledge of "the plan" or have some measure to ensure their silence.
Again, you'll find many, many suggestions in the forums around these topics.
I'll be starting this one too in a few months. I have a few suggestions based on what I'm doing, hope they can help.
1. Eliminate the trust point mechanic, just start with the town as untrusting and wing it from there. If you have no followers of Pharasma, make the church a bit more receptive about sharing the tools in the crypt. This is easily plausible if you start a skeleton or zombie encounter or two a tad earlier.
2. The Torture Chamber in Harrowstone(Area U8) - destroying one torture implement should be enough to destroy the Haunt here. I figure most groups might not think the whole room needs a good wrecking to eliminate the one Haunt.
3. My Biggest change - Eliminate Father Charlatan completely from the book. Thematically, he really doesn't fit in with the other bosses compared to their more violent natures and bloodier pasts. His encounter mechanics are overly complicated too, just empty his lair or use another encounter as needed.
4. Add some cultist bodies in Harrowstone, I'll be reanimating them as some Undead, maybe a pack of Ghouls (possibly led by a Ghast this could even be Gibs Hephenus, I'm toying with the idea of him as a Cult spy dead or alive, left behind by Vrood) roaming the halls/grounds, etc. This helps with a little more the Cult's involvement and foreshadowing.
While I like this module's mainly Haunt motif, I'll be using more low level Undead creatures to round out a more Undead flavor overall. I'm also a fan of Yellow Musk Zombies/Creepers, so I may leave some among the vegetation around Harrowstone and/or the graveyard and change the Xtabay at Harrowstone to a Yellow Musk Creeper.
Two of my players have spent time living at Lorrimor's residence in their pasts, one even had an short romance with his daughter too )unknown to the professor) before leaving. This will help them mesh better in Ravengro for good or bad, etc. Go beyond the Player's guide when tying in your players backgrounds into the campaign, I can't urge this enough. If you are interested, ill post here how I tied in their backstories later.
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It won’t let me edit my above post on my phone for some reason. I forgot to add that the funeral itself will have a few attendees from later volumes.
These are also just changes for the first book. I have other changes planned for each chapter to form a more tied up story.