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Welcome to the boards!
*** Disclaimer, we are starting up a new campaign soon-ish. We are still up in the air if it will be Runelords, Carrion Crown, or Kingmaker. I have read and prepped all three campaigns and we will decide later. We did create characters with Runelords in mind and I ran them through Crypt of the Everflame as a prequel to RotR and tied it heavily into one of my player's background (he plays a Fighter).
I have not run the entire AP, although I did finish the first book of RotR with an older group before the Anniversary Edition was released.
That said, I can make a suggestion or two to a new GM. :)
Someone did a Sandpoint NPC pdf which is ultra handy. Basically it's a list of major Sandpoint NPCs with stats which is definitely nice to have for Book 4
Other than that, IMHO it's all about how much your players are invested in it. Breathing life into Sandpoint (and Varisia in general) is key, but weaving character backgrounds into the campaign (without changing story structure) is by far the biggest boost for my group. I can give you an example of how I tied one of my players backgrounds firmly into the first half of the campaign if you are interested, but I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for in general.
For your secondary question...
At the least, make sure to use the suggested 15-point buy with that many players. Use milestone level advancement instead of XP, Runelords is on the fast track XP table.
Max out HP of memorable enemies, boost up HP of rank and file enemies, and do a little work and add an archetype or two from newer books. For example, A Rogue/Assassin enemy with the Knife-Fighter archy can be devastating if used properly.
Bumping up AC is double-edged depending on how you do it. If you add stronger armor/magic items, your players will loot them and be that much more powerful. If you bump AC, up their Dex, use temp items like Potions or Wands with low charges left, and/or change a feat or three. This is the best way that won't add to the power creep of a larger group.
Finally, read the whole campaign, most of Book 5 doesn't work for me. I replaced everything after
As you noted, there's a wealth of forum poster contributions out there. Use some of it if you think your group will get more out of the campaign. You know your players better than we do. :)
Lots of luck, RotR is a classic. I wish I had a group that met more often to play a lot of these APs myself.
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Found the NPC stat link...
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You should enjoy This Thread.
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Hey there CKing! Did you game get off the ground?
As mousmous and mongoose pointed out, the Community Created Stuff thread is amazing - I've drawn from it as much as possible to cut down the amount of work I have to do while enriching the game more than I could have by myself. Handouts, maps, references, audio logs - they just make life easier. I've made a point to compile everything I think I'm going to use as far ahead as possible (links die and files lose their hosting all the time).
Advice/Answers to some of your other questions below:
If you've got a named enemy, max out their HP instead of taking average rolls (what the AP gives you). Add mooks to split up your players' attention - improved PC action economy has to be met with improved enemy action economy, not just HP. I'd recommend against raising defensive stats other than HP, as this can create situations in which some characters are useless (rogues needing 20+ to hit, or casters wasting spells on enemies with crazy high saves).
As a side note, you may want to enlarge some rooms with important fights - it's really disappointing for a PC to have to sit outside while everyone else takes on the boss (looking at you, Misgivings boss).
The point of these changes, while they can create a modest increase in work on your part, is to keep encounters and dungeons challenging enough to be entertaining without making any given PC less important than they would be in a 4-person team. As long as you don't have to create new stat blocks or add templates, it shouldn't really be harder than running the AP as-is.
And very little of that matters in the long run, or translates to your game. But the thing that has mattered is checking in with my players to see what parts of Sandpoint (and the adventure as a whole) they most enjoy and fleshing out those parts more.
The party loved Ameiko and Shalelu and their relationship, so they became much more central to the story I was telling, and gave the party motivation to protect Sandpoint. They thought Aneka Avertin, of all people, was super cool, so I created a subplot about her taking mercenary work (and later, starting a guild with a PC). They thought Shayliss Vinder and her dad were funny but totally insignificant, so I got to drastically deepen Shayliss's story in Book 2 [following a plot-important death close to Shayliss].
I check in with them, probably once every third session, about who/what they want to know more about, and I spend an hour or two a week making notes to satisfy that. Parties tend to know what they're liking, and with Sandpoint in particular, there's little reason not to give them more of what they like - Sandpoint should be their home.
It was Nualia's journal. I looked online for a handout version of Nualia's journal, found several, mashed them together, then heavily edited the result until it was something that spoke to me. It's 24 pages long - a monster of a handout for sure, but even after reading the first entry, my players suddenly took the stakes of Book 1 very seriously. I gave them a physical copy, and they read it aloud in sections as they moved through the dungeon, then asked for a PDF copy to look back on.
Nualia's story made the game very real for them, because Nualia, their villain, resonated with my players more than any other character did. And it provided so much context to Sandpoint, Lamashtu's interference, and the subtle nature of their enemy that they're still referencing it and discussing it 15 weeks later.
It's not exceptionally written or anything, and it took more time than any other handout, but it was so, so worth it for me and my players.
If you're interested in the version of Nualia's Journal I used, you can view a copy of the PDF here. Just a heads-up that it includes fairly graphic descriptions of both violence and sex (and sexual violence, for that matter), so it might not translate well depending on the tone of game you're running. It also includes references to Shayliss Vinder being a changeling that are likely not relevant to other people's games.
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Many good suggestions given above! :)
I found the Magnimar sourcebook (Campaign Setting line) to be useful, particularly for adding colour to Book 2. Magnimar is considerably less dangerous for low-level characters than Riddleport, so the party can enjoy visiting a big city without fearing for their lives (barring the actual events of Book 2).
By comparison, if you check the Varisia sourcebook (Player Companion line), Sandpoint and Turtleback Ferry have a danger rating of +0, Magnimar, Korvosa, and Janderhoff are +10, Riddleport is +20, and Kaer Maga is +35. Curiously, the Magnimar descripton at the back of RotR AE puts the city's danger rating at +0. *shrugs*
Another useful resource is the relatively new Sandpoint sourcebook (Campaign Setting line). Note that it's set after RotR, so a few things in it are not yet relevant (e.g., Shayliss' new "job"). Also, the tunnel system map in the sourcebook is much larger than the one described in RotR. If using it, then it might be a good idea to decide that the "new" sections are collapsed/caved in/concealed by really well hidden secret doors that the party doesn't discover.
If the party needs research support and/or a suitable large market to off-load large amounts of loot by the middle of the AP, you could introduce them to Riddleport. The Cypher Mages of the Cypher Lodge know some things about Thassilon, and the market there can buy/sell just about any amount of loot. Note that the Cypher Mage write-up in Adventurer's Guide is set after both the RotR and Second Darkness APs. The SD Player's Guide has some information about Riddleport, and Book 1 of SD has an article with more details.
Would one of the PCs be a suitable candidate for being Viorian Dekanti's child? This lets her background story become known to the party, instead of her being just another high-level, no-name-no-explanation speed-bump on the way in to the final battle. The connection could be one that requires some digging to find. However, if you also use the Cypher Lodge/Cyphermages in Riddleport, then there's a chance to give the party some clues.
It was only as an adult that he took another look at the letter, and realised that his mother was Viorian Dekanti and that she had actually named him Donorian Dekanti. Around the same time the party was making connections with the Cypher Lodge in Riddleport. Bored with twiddling his thumbs in Riddleport (while the spellcasters did their schmoozing), Donk took on work as a gladiator and bodyguard. He eventually heard the tale about Viorian's strange disappearance along with her prized golden scimitar.
The party has put some of the clues together, and have come to some not very happy conclusions. It remains to be seen what happens when they actually meet Viorian ...
Back-story: Viorian is a businesswoman. When a brief dalliance with a short-term employee produced a child, she realised that she could not afford such a weakness in her cut-throat business (and city). So she tracked down the father (who'd gone back home), left the child with him along with the letter inviting the child to Riddleport when he grew up, and then returned home to her normal life. A few years later, Mok woke up Special K, which caused Chellan to wake up, and the rest became history.
One other thing - read the obituary thread for RotR. It can give you a good idea of what the more dangerous combats are.
Depending on which version of RotR that you're running (original/3.5 or AE/PF), you might to start part-way through it. (The AE was published in 2012, and included some changes.)
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Would one of the PCs be a suitable candidate for being Viorian Dekanti's child? This lets her background story become known to the party, instead of her being just another high-level, no-name-no-explanation speed-bump on the way in to the final battle. The connection could be one that requires some digging to find. However, if you also use the Cypher Lodge/Cyphermages in Riddleport, then there's a chance to give the party some clues.
This is how it worked for one of my groups:One of the PCs is a half-orc barbarian whose human mother had dropped him off with his orc father. There was a letter left with the baby, but literacy and taking good care of written materials was never high on the orcs' list of priorities. So the half-orc grew up thinking that his name was Donk.It was only as an adult that he took another look at the letter, and realised that his mother was Viorian Dekanti and that she had actually named him Donorian Dekanti. Around the same time the party was making connections with the Cypher Lodge in Riddleport. Bored with twiddling his thumbs in Riddleport (while the spellcasters did their schmoozing), Donk took on work as a gladiator and bodyguard. He eventually heard the tale about Viorian's strange disappearance along with her prized golden scimitar.
The party has put some of the clues together, and have come to some not very happy conclusions. It remains to be seen what happens when they actually meet Viorian ...
Back-story: Viorian is a businesswoman. When a brief dalliance with a short-term employee produced a child, she realised that she could not afford such a weakness in her cut-throat business (and city). So she tracked down the father (who'd gone back home), left the child with him along with the letter inviting the child to Riddleport when he grew up, and then returned home to her normal life. A few years later, Mok woke up Special K, which caused Chellan to wake up, and the rest became history
On one of the party's first forays into the Pinnacle of Avarice, they met Viorian Dekanti. Her face rang a bell in the Rogue's memory, something to do with a "retired" portrait in the Deverin mansion just outside of Sandpoint.
When the party next took a trip back to the Sandpoint/Magnimar region to stock up on supplies, etc., the Rogue visited the Deverin mansion. After rooting around in the dusty family portrait collection in the attic and asking some relevant questions, he discovered that an even more distant cousin/aunt had been a true black sheep of the family. She'd become a mercenary company leader based out of Riddleport. The Deverin family had demanded that she change her name to avoid bringing shame on their name.
Her new name? Viorian Dekanti. Her face in the portrait? A younger version of the woman who had helped with the defence of the Pinnacle of Avarice. Some more questions revealed the story about her sudden departure from Riddleport a few years back, leaving behind a burning mansion full of dead minions and discarded weapons.
In both cases, the party decided to grab Viorian's body (either dead or unconscious) and her sword before retreating again. They figured out the necessary steps to remove both Chellan's and Special K's influence from her so that when she was revived, she willingly helped the party against Special K (despite still being NE). Viorian definitely had an axe to grind with him. (Or at least a substitute scimitar.)
I started this AP again earlier this month for a regular running home game (meeting about twice a month).
For the beginning I blended in the first part of Jade Regent's Brinewall Legacy as a prelude. I also wanted to give Zerren a larger role and add some foreshadowing before Skinsaw and vaguely connect and foreshadow Nualia.
In a nutshell, Ameiko hires the PCs find some overdue friends coming from Magnimar. Father Zantus headed down to Magnimar to pick up the crate of Butterflies from the Desnan temple there, and Ameiko's childhood friend Aldern Foxglove was to meet up with Father Zantus and journey back together. Zantus had a cart, and Ameiko lent him her horse from the old adventuring days.
The trail led to a Brinestump Marsh ambush by Rendwattle's Goblins, Aldern fled further into the swamp out of fear, leaving Zantus and the cart to get captured. Ameiko's horse bit off a goblin ear before escaping and finding it's way back to Sandpoint (which led Ameiko to hire the PCs). Aldern was later captured by Zerren to be killed and raised as a skeleton later (see below). Vorka found Aldern in the swamp and was stalking her next meal until Aldern ran into Zerren.
Some backstory to this was the inclusion of Zerren and Vorka using her entire encounter area from We Be Goblins! Zerren is a hireling of Nualia. He's been recruiting/sometimes forcing the various goblin tribes to "donate" goblins to Nualia's cause. Licktoad Chief Gutwad initially refused, so Zerren had struck a deal instead with Vorka. His job was to raise some undead to kill Gutwad and she would give him some goblins for Nualia once she became chief.
Zerren ran into a snag however, every time he raised a skeleton it would march off towards the caves (see Brinewall Legacy for details). Frustrated, Zerren leaves the swamp abandoning Aldern with Skitterfoot (the Ratling decided to pledge himself to Zerren instead of dying) in old Megus shack, which he used as a base of operations after killing Old Megus.
The group managed to help parlay with Vorka, helping her become Chief as Gutwad was headed promptly put into the stewpot for a celebratory meal for the tribe. Before the PCs left them to their chaos, Gutwad played an ace in the hole. He yelled to them that he knew that Zerren was planning something big for longshanks town (Sandpoint). The party convinced Vorka to take Gutwad as a servant instead of a meal and Gutwad revealed that the a raid was happening at that very moment by goblins assembled by Zerren for a longshanks known as just "whitehair". The player's had an Oh-shiite moment and ran for Sandpoint.
Next session they arrive to a raid already in progress.
