I feel like I read a lot of people starting this path in the last year. How is everyone's campaign doing?
I'm almost finished with the first arc, but with my own twist. Looking forward to so much with this series!
My party is at Fort Trevalay, after making every sentry group near the bridges aware of their presence, the hobgoblins retreated into the fort and let the bridges go. Party knows other bridge is trapped, but found the other entrance near the well.
They've been breezing through most of this adventure, as there are 5 of them. I've added the Advanced template often. In some fights to everything. It's helped a lot.
Two of my PCs have the same trait, Blightburned or something like that. Trying to make their backstories with it MUCH different, otherwise its the same character. I really like this AP so far. So much of what I'm building on with a few backstories will come to a head in book 5, which feels SO FAR AWAY.
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My party converted to the unchained revised action economy before book 2, the playtest rules when we started book 3, and is now using second edition rules for book 4. We are using the military rules, and the party recently scored the great victory in the fight for Longahadow.
The campaign is often referred to as the Pokemon campaign by players because there are so many crazy creatures you can befriend instead of fight. My players even befriended the Children of the Stone, who helped them wipe out Vamp Redjaw and defend Longahadow. I've let my players essentially utilize the PF1 leadership feat sans spending the feat, because it makes sense in this narrative and the narrative is what matters more than having it as a feat.
I would really like to go the distance on this one and am hopeful that campaign attrition doesn't take its toll.
Started at the beginning of the year, up to Fangs of War, just before the revel at Ristin. I've restricted player choices to CRB, APG, PU, and a couple of other spells in order to reduce power creep (this may increase as we go).
They haven't had any encounter that has severely stressed them, though the upper level of the Trogs cavern ran as a series of connected encounters as at least one trog would run from one area to the next to pass the warning along. That did get them fairly low but nobody was in serious danger of dying.
Blightburn trait was very useful for the party in finding the cube before it found them, but did freak out the character when it occurred the first time.
Allowed Aubrin to be cured by Remove Blindness by the party cleric once the party hit level 5 (start of Fangs of War), and the party fighter has retrained all the commoners from Phaendar to be warriors (except for the adepts, experts, etc).
Coming up on session 7. The party is well into the Fangwood. Last session they knocked out the Hunter's Stead and All-eye's Wood and met with the hermit Veld. There are only a handful of book encounters left for them, and they've intercepted the centaur's missive. So next time, I'm going to steer them to the trog caves and hopefully maybe even start exploring them. Shalra has just decapitated her first victim, so they'll probably want to deal with that first, then they'll come across the Stone Children scouting party which should draw them even closer to the caves. I plan to make a big show of one of the trogs activating his bird feather token.
Had a couple of players drop out thanks to the Red Rock Revel. It was brewing for a while (powergammers in a beer & pretzels game) and came to a head when more than half the party failed their will save vs the satyrs playing their pipes and casting Suggestion. One player was quibbling about the wording of the suggestion (Go outside and join the revel). The others that failed the save took it in the spirit in which it was delivered, and were encouraging the other player to just go with the unfolding story rather than complain about what the exact wording was so that they could weasel out of complying. Eventually he did and all seemed to go well after that, and they rescued Cirieo, but now I'll have to work out how to remove 2 PCs in the middle of Fort Ristin, and hopefully recruit some more players.
Had a couple of players drop out thanks to the Red Rock Revel. It was brewing for a while (powergammers in a beer & pretzels game) and came to a head when more than half the party failed their will save vs the satyrs playing their pipes and casting Suggestion. One player was quibbling about the wording of the suggestion (Go outside and join the revel). The others that failed the save took it in the spirit in which it was delivered, and were encouraging the other player to just go with the unfolding story rather than complain about what the exact wording was so that they could weasel out of complying. Eventually he did and all seemed to go well after that, and they rescued Cirieo, but now I'll have to work out how to remove 2 PCs in the middle of Fort Ristin, and hopefully recruit some more players.
Kill the old PCs and have the new ones be Chernasardo Rangers? They can be prisoners or folks who have barely avoided capture. Really, that's a viable avenue for new player characters for the entirety of book 2.
I’ve changed Ironfang, as I’ve made it into one large campaign with Giantslayer (I’m using the Forgotten Realms as my setting, but using all the names from the APs). Phaendar actually is the outpost town that feeds into the main settlement of Trunau in Giantslayer.
Phaendar was interesting. I gave up on the provisions gathering angle, as I wasn’t going the route of the AP and lose Phaendar to the Ironfangs. Nope; the hobs came in to destroy, get resources, and march captured people back north to use as slaves. With my Heroes in Phaendar, their mission was to rescue as many people from all the building instances, while also not getting eradicated by the hobs themselves.
In the end, Kining was saved, Rhyna was saved, but Oreld died in his shop, and Aubrin wasn’t found early enough to be sufficiently healed at all. (the group at this point figured they could retake the bridge, and forgoed searching more buildings than what they did. So, consequences! Aubrin is permanently disabled, and Oreld and his contacts for supplies is a hampered and broken chain. Which, if anything, leaves Kining more ability to take over the town financially-should people live to see the future after all the invasions!
My heroes retook the town, and in the aftermath, a large council of power players was created to hear the Heroes stories of what they saw, and to share info. At this meeting, the Black Tower of the hobs was discussed. Missing people from Phaendar. Other references to Giantslayer 1.
So, I helped create an open world/sandbox play of my merged worlds of Giantslayer & Ironfang Invasion.. The group agreed that going into the Fangwood across the bridge from Phaender to search for slow hob patrols and missing people is the first order of business (which are most of the forest encounters from Ironfang book 1.) They’ll search the woods, and end up tracking and getting leads to go to the troglodyte caves-which I’ve changed to be a site the Ironfangs are trying to search through, using Phaendar captured slaves as people digging out the site, with bugbear slavemasters driving humans through the caves into lots of traps.
(I’ve made both these APs into relic/artifact hunting from the past, due to the nature of found dwarf/giant items from history). So, the trog caves are actually an old dwarf ruin, with the same final boss, and just a lot of traps to get through.
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My group is ascending into Kraggodan next session. We've had a handful of deaths and resurrections. We started with 6 players, at this point it's 10 minutes to complete a round of combat with all the mathiness that comes with being level 10+. One player has recently died in an ambush on The Long Road and will probably drop so it'll speed things up a bit. We should wrap in time to start Kingmaker for 2nd edition when it ships.
... but now I'll have to work out how to remove 2 PCs in the middle of Fort Ristin, and hopefully recruit some more players.Kill the old PCs and have the new ones be Chernasardo Rangers? They can be prisoners or folks who have barely avoided capture. Really, that's a viable avenue for new player characters for the entirety of book 2.
Had them killed by Biello. Fudged a critical and gave him cleave and took out the 2 of them in the first round of combat. The replacement was hiding from Biello in one of the adjacent rooms - had her as one of the people travelling with Erno and who had been in hiding since the Ironfang Legion (and then fae) attacked and almost exhausted her trail rations.
My group just moved into the trog caverns, and celebrated with the Hemlock Banner ceremony, doled out NPC promotions. Then one player came up with the most perfect name ever for their group:
The Gobstoppers.
It's too perfect. I am so proud.
That's gold right there, Billy.
Pure gold!
Just finished up Camp Red Jaw. See the Trail of the Hunted thread for my breakdown.
However, instead of jumping straight into Book 2: Fangs of War, I am going to run my players through the Fangwood Keep module with all new 4th level PCs. The plan is to flesh out the Molthune side of things using the "Working for Molthune" introduction with a B-Plot group of PCs (while touching on the backstory of some of the main team). Also the added benefit of potential backup PCs for the A-plot team if any of them die.
A few ideas to connect the plot of this module to the main plot of the AP: Set in time perhaps a day or two prior to the Night of Iron Fangs. The plan is for the hobgoblins to turn on their masters and take over the keep once they get the signal (hobgoblins on the Tamran Highway) that the Ironfang Invasion has begun. Their leader, Fethi, has a longstanding relationship with Azaersi, both being veterans of the Goblinblood Wars. Additionally some of the NPCs in this module already have connections to the backstories of our A-plot PCs and NPCs.
Other connections between the AP and Fangwood Keep that I've come up with:
Instead of being after the artifact for the Church of Calistria in Canorate, as stated in the adventure, Elessia the changeling cleric (and final encounter of the module) is actually the daughter of the Blood Hag Kusana (From Book 5: Prisoners of the Blight) and sister of the changeling wizard Navah (from Book 3: Assault on Longshadow). She wants the artifact to bring to Kusana as a gift to facilitate her induction into her mother's coven.
If the PCs linger after clearing the Keep, the Ironfang Legion comes down the Tamran Highway within a day or two, and secures the Keep themselves. PCs may potentially witness the Legion decimate a Nirmathi scouting force from the ramparts. PCs who stick around might retreat into the secret passages of the Keep to hide or escape or simply be captured or killed. It'll be up to them.
Additionally; Pavo Vos, Elessia, and General Hakar all have connections to PC backstories from the main adventure. Hakar personally sends Edran to spy on Phaendar (from the Last Refugee event in Book 1: Trail of the Hunted).
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Party has cleared Ristin though had to fudge a damage roll in the battle with Dearga. Rolled 2 confirmed criticals straight up with her scythe against the fighter who started the fight with full hit points. While I will normally go with the dice rolls, that was just too much and led to quite a dance in the top level of the tower to keep him alive while also dealing with Dearga and Slobber. As it was it turned it into a more memorable encounter. Straight to Fort Nunder (after a quick stopover back at Misthome) and again a very tight fight against the trolls. Reach and 3 opponents while most of the party were trapped in the gatehouse tunnel again almost led to a death and when Nashga strode out and attacked just as they thought the fight was won it exhausted almost all their spells and healing.
Party rested overnight in the ruined fort and I bumped them to level 7 at that point. Vault should be relatively easy compared to the last few sessions which will be a nice little respite before Trevalay.
Party now consists of the standard 4 - fighter, cleric, wizard, and rogue (NPC). Must make sure that the rogue doesn't steal all the limelight during the vault part of Nunder.
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Nice. I'm scared of the redcaps for my party.
One other nice side-effect of running Fangwood Keep between Book 1 and Book 2 is the redcap encounter in Part 2 of the module gives the players a little preview warning as to how deadly those creepy little freaks can be.
My party still hasn't swallowed their steadfast gut-stones from the trog caves, so they might remember that if they're smart.
I've been very slowly going through book 4, and my players are about halfway through the Longwalk. The Valley of Alloi really kicked their ass for a while, and it took them several tries to get past the Morlock Warrens. Really wish we met more regularly.
re the redcaps, the wizard was seriously wanting to use prestidigitation on one of the caps to clean it of the blood and turn it back to white (and therefore piss the redcaps off).
Reporting in, gonna finish up the side-adventure to Fangwood Keep after 5 sessions. So far it's been a huge success. I officially endorse running another paizo module alongside your APs with another group of PCs. It fleshes out the world more, gives your players a chance to try out a new class/race/etc for a level or 3, helps alleviate campaign fatigue in the main adventure, and the players will be excited to return to their main PCs by the end of the module.
The redcap encounter was particularly good. The party's inquisitor used her monster lore to remember the redcap's Irreligious trait and holds up her symbol of Sarenrae. Somehow, after dropping its scythe, then taking 3 AoOs picking it back up, it managed to crit on the inquisitor (x4 with a scythe!!!) for over 50 HP and she was dead dead, but two players spent a hero point each to keep her alive.
Long story short: the players will now have a proper fear of redcaps going into Fort Ristin. >:)
Fort Nunder vault section was almost a non-event for the party. Rogue couldn't fail on any of the Disable Device rolls and could probably have picked the main vault door without the keys. Everyone was wearing ponchos as well so straight past the wood golems.
They left the sarcophagi alone and felt no need to play with the levers for the traps (rogue rolls were enough to beat the trap DCs by more than 10 and so bypass without even disarming them).
All the way through the vault and back out within one 2 hour session.
Disable Device is one of those things in Pathfinder that seems to be an all or nothing. Either it is almost impossible to meet the DC because nobody has maxed their skill in it, or it becomes a cakewalk because the rogue with high dex (and the previously obtained ring of maniacal devices from Fort Ristin) can't fail.
Fort Trevalay will be a good climax for this book, especially with the shift away from the forest coming in Book 3.
I wish there were more people playing the later books. I have a lot of thoughts on them.
We'll get there eventually, and I've given a read-through of the later books. I'm sure any insights you have would be appreciated.
I'm the guy merging IF with Giantslayer for a huge campaign. Picking and choosing what I want, but it's gonna take a long time to get to these later books. I'm super excited to run Longshadow! Skipping book 5 though.
My players are currently in Siege of Stone right now, violently chopping their way through Morlocks. Except for the duergar warpriest of Grundinnar who bestows the Merciful feature to her warhammer to keep that fast healing she earned above the ruins going!
Finished up Fangwood Keep. Ended the module by having the PCs emerge from the keep to find it surrounded by Kraelos's cavalry unit + a bunch of hobgoblin foot soldiers. Kraelos demands them to come forward and parley with the Ironfang Legion. Little did they know, this was the Night of Iron Fangs. At this very moment, just a few miles down the highway, the invasion is already underway in Phaendar. Kraelos and his outriders were sent in advance of the attack on Phaendar to recruit monsters in the area and take control of the Tamran Highway. Fethi Ken-shakkas, leader of the hobgoblin forces in the module, steps forward and helps the PCs strike a deal with Kraelos. Since the PCs had conducted themselves honorably earlier, she helped arrange their safe passage in exchange for the hobgoblins taking the keep. The PCs leave the Keep behind and then we return to the main adventure.
Back in Camp Red Jaw, we return to the perspectives of the main PCs again, and they loot the camp, and discover the note: "All foxes to their holes".
On their way back to Misthome, I had the Gashmaw encounter happen (for one reason or another, we hadn't gotten around to it yet). I took the Molthuni scouts encounter from the encounter table in the back of book 1 and added them to the Gashmaw encounter since the PCs were way too OP against a single boar. The Molthuni unit was fleeing the Ironfang Legion in the Nesmian Plains and were forced into the Fangwood where, although escaping the hobgoblins, they had become hopelessly lost. Desperate for some fresh boar, they tried to corner Gashmaw, but instead the enraged boar scattered them, goring a couple, and dashing away. This is when the PCs came upon them. After some tense negotiations, the exhausted Molthuni surrender and drop their weapons. The PCs decided to bring them back to the caves with them. They learned that at the very least, these border guards knew nothing of the Ironfang invasion, and were as surprised as the Nirmathi survivors to see a giant hobgoblin army in the Nesmian Plains.
My party has just reached the Valley of Aloi. We've mostly played the AP as written, though I threw in a few tailored encounters for them here and there.
The characters trusted the troglodytes and worked with them, hoping to reach some mutual agreement on surviving the Fangwood, but given the trogs are CE I had them agree to a better deal from the Legion. So when the party was away, the trogs attacked the refugees. A desperate race to rescue some kidnapped refugees ensued, which was fun.
That all culminated in the attack on Camp Red Jaw. We had two players and three of the refugees die here, and the party had to retreat and regroup (which seems to be the opposite of most groups' experience. It was the hobgoblin alchemist that did the most damage.
The three forts went pretty much as written. Our teenage fey sorcerer took the korrigan club and wields it with her hair, sometimes with her burning gaze... we're all a bit creeped out by her. The toughest battle was the trolls at Nunder. I really tried to make the Ibzairiak encounter memorable, I think it was, nobody died but it wasn't easy for them.
Longshadow was fun. We had mixed reactions to the social duel, some players really liked it and one really disliked it.
The siege didn't really work as written imo, not to say it was bad, but in hindsight a few adjustments would have improved things. Many of those adjustments have already been mentioned in these forums.
So now they are at the Valley. I'm not sure how we're going to deal with the cavalier's horse heading underground...
Obviously he needs to get a Burstigeit Warbeast.
The Morlock Warrens are really the only part of book 3 that are tricky for a horse. A little magic should be able to get them down there.
The portion of the journey between the Longwalk and Kraggodan's furnace also seems like it would be difficult, but given how zoomed out that bit already is I wouldn't worry about it too much.
Party spent time spying on Fort Trevalay especially using clairvoyance and clairaudience and were able to essentially map out most of the Fort.
They waited until Ibzairiak flew away then ambushed the two hobgoblins looking after the southern bridge, while the invisible rogue headed into the fort.
The party was hasted and managed to get across the bridge before any alarm was raised and quickly attacked the Ironwings who raised the alarm.
They had just finished off the Ironwings with arrow support from some of the Misthome NPC warriors when the guards on the northeastern bridge entered the fray and started shooting and Salokut and 3 hobgoblins tried to leave the tower. A charge by the fighter and confusion cast by the cleric (lust domain spell for cleric of Calistria) bottled up the tower.
The wizard was applying good battlefield control with flaming spheres and then decided to send them to start burning the door of the forge.
Eygara entered the fray with hobgoblins from the barracks and she almost took down the fighter as they traded blows, but healing from the cleric kept the fighter going, and the rogue was managing to snipe successfully from the roof of the barracks.
Finally finishing the hobgoblins and still in combat rounds they headed to the forge while Aubrin and the NPCs freed Ageep and Milla.
The party were lucky to make their saves vs Manwatcher's gaze attack until the wizard created a pit under it and with summoned lantern archon fire and the cleric's force whip, were able to flay the basilisk. Marrowcrack did get a successful crushing despair off against the fighter, but he managed to resist charm monster, and despite missing multiple times due to blink, were able to drop him before he could dimension door away.
All up over 2 sessions with the 2nd one being entirely combat for 3 hours, the party dished up close to 1000 hp of damage.
The tower awaits (they are leaving the kennels locked up for now), and they have expended most of their high level spells so will be interesting to see how they deal with Jang et.al.
Have you been adjusting your enemies at all? It sounds like your party is very well optimized.
Have you been adjusting your enemies at all? It sounds like your party is very well optimized.
I myself have been adapting the enemies in Trail of the Hunted to PF2 rules, keeping their level constant. However, my party appears to be operating above their level, so I will have to learn to adjust their enemies. PF2 seems to have more variance in combat, i.e., more swingy, so I have to master the differences in the system before I can make proper adjustments. Can anyone give advice?
For example, in the Friday, February 21st, game session, we were missing a player, so the 3rd-level party was only the elf Chernesardo-hopeful flurry ranger, gnome herbalist storm druid, and halfling animal-whisperer scoundrel rogue. They had caught up to Edran the bard and six villagers, who had stolen food and left for Tamran, to stop them from running into an Ironfang patrol. While they were arguing, an Ironfang patrol found them.
I figured that two hobgobin soliders (creature 1) and hobgoblin heavy troopers (creature 2) would be a good encounter. The encounter budget was 100 xp against an undersized party aided by a 1st-level bard and some unstatted villagers. My math says that that is a severe threat against three PCs. The party had been defeating moderate threats too easily.
I let the rogue Sam roll Deception for initiative, because except for the shortbow and staff tied to his backpack, he looked as harmless as the six villagers in the group (his armor was the durable farm clothes from Fall of Plaguestone, page 8). And Sam had multiclassed to draconic sorcerer, so he threw Produce Flame at the heavy trooper in charge as his surprise attack. Critical hit, 36 damage, the heavy trooper fell down unconscious and on fire.
One round later, a 1st-level hobgoblin soldier gave up on trying to put out that fire and Strode over to attack Sam. The first Strike was a critical hit and the second Strike was a regular hit and Sam took 26 damage, bringing him down to 7 hp.
That soldier had already taken 12 damage from a critcal bowshot from the ranger. Sam did not want to risk an attack of opportunity for casting a spell with a somatic component, so he punched the soldier, who was flanked by a villager armed with a stick, and got another critical hit, knocking out the soldier.
Four critical hits in a three-round battle seems extreme. Is this normal for PF2?
After the game session, my wife (Sam's player) and I looked for ways to increase Sam's AC, but the options were few. Studded leather armor would give a minor improvement, but Sam prefers the farm-clothes look. Nimble Dodge rogue feat is better, but would delay his sorcerous abilities. Sam will have to use debuff tactics instead.
Last session had basically 0 book content. Early into Book 2, the PCs decided to explore hexes around Misthome. Basically, they swept methodically around their base, creating a buffer of explored territory before taking off to the northeast in a blind stab at running across something deeper within the forest. The plus side of this was they got a couple extra Militia turns during this time they spent faffing about the woods.
Near Misthome, I had them come across the Leshy encounter from the Book 2 Bestiary. The snapdragon leshy Hessilda talked their ear off while the lichen leshies used their Expert Climber ability to hop on the eidolon's back like barnacles, catching a ride back to Misthome. Hessilda was of course elated to have so many people to talk with and exchange stories, and quickly becomes a local celebrity at the caverns.
As they ventured deeper into the forest, I made a point of describing the forest changing, from a vibrant summer forest akin to the Appalachians or Ozarks in N America - lots of life and activity - birds, animals, etc. Over the course of their week-long journey, they find themselves in a quiet, dense, deep, lush old growth primeval forest, more in the vein of the Black Forest or Pacific Northwest.
It's here where they come across another abandoned Ranger tree-house (like the one from All-eye's Wood), where they decide to camp for the night. During the night, a random band of Korreds move past, chattering and gossiping. The PCs eavesdropped from their hidden shelter and overheard one of the rumors from the Fort Ristin rumors sidebar, and the PCs hear Halk Grundlechar's name and learn of the Red Rock Revel for the first time, though they don't know what any of it means yet.
Finally, they link up with their conspirator militia team to learn that the team has discovered what they think is Ristin itself (using the Gather Information militia action). The team observed the fort's main gate for a while and saw no one coming or going (didn't have a line of sight on the collapsed wall to the north) before leaving to report back their findings. We leave off the session with the PCs learning the general location (hex) where they can find Ristin.
Have you been adjusting your enemies at all? It sounds like your party is very well optimized.
The enemies are being adjusted a little, but it is a balancing act.
It does show how good a party with the 4 traditional core classes can be.Action economy also plays a big role as does the ability to plan and buff.
If the fighter had failed the charm monster save, or the basilisk had made its reflex save against the pit, or the cleric hadn't made her save vs petrification (only just made it) then things could have gone very differently. Take away Haste or a cloak of resistance or Bulls Strength on the fighter and a character death was a real possibility.
If Confusion hadn't bottled up the hobgoblins in the tower and taken 2 of them out of the fight then the fighter would likely have been swamped and the cleric would not have been able to exclude enough enemies with her selective channeling to avoid helping them.
The player of the cleric is very experienced and has been running his own PF campaign for many years.
The next phase of liberating Fort Trevalay will test them as they have expended a lot of resources in clearing out the courtyard and surrounds, and the other tower residents are now aware that the Fort is under attack.
They'll either try and rest and suffer a counter-attack, or proceed to the tower without full strength.
I'm not out to kill any PCs but no punches are being pulled (except for a previous double critical when fighting the redcaps).
... looked for ways to increase Sam's AC, but the options were few. ...
Haven't looked at PF2 options in detail but is Mage Armor (https://pf2.d20pfsrd.com/spell/mage-armor/) an option?
If Sam is also a sorcerer then a Page of Spell Knowledge (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/m-p/page-of-spell-know ledge/) adjusted for PF2 could help.
... looked for ways to increase Sam's AC, but the options were few. ...Haven't looked at PF2 options in detail but is Mage Armor (https://pf2.d20pfsrd.com/spell/mage-armor/) an option?
If Sam is also a sorcerer then a Page of Spell Knowledge (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/m-p/page-of-spell-know ledge/) adjusted for PF2 could help.
PF2 Mage Armor gives a +1 item bonus for unarmored defense to AC, unless cast as a 6th-level spell. Durable farm clothes give a +1 item bonus for light armor to AC. Sam began as a rogue and multiclassed to sorcerer, so he is trained in both unarmored defense and light armor. Mage armor would be no improvement.
My wife also explained that Sam won't like studded leather armor because it comes with a -1 armor check penalty. High strength can nullify armor check penalties in PF2, but Sam's STR 10 is not enough.
The party's tactics are a little off. The ranger has the highest AC, but he wields a longbow and prefers to be more than 30 feet away from the enemies due to the volley penalty (Longbows miss more a close range. This is not realistic, but Paizo wanted to balance the longbow in PF2). In contrast, Sam's Produce Flame cantrip has a 30-foot range, but it deals 2d4+4 damage with +9 attack bonus, better than Sam's shortbow's 1d6 with +7 attack bonus. Therefore, Sam stands closer to the enemy. They close in on him more often.
The party in my Iron Gods campaign--strix skald, dwarf gunslinger, half-elf magus, human fighter, and human bloodrager--developed a highly mobile skirmishing style for combat based on their ranged weapons and attacks from the air. Three of those Iron Gods players are in my Ironfang Invasion campaign. They might develop an effective ranged combat style for this campaign, too, but they have not done so yet.
... Therefore, Sam stands closer to the enemy. They close in on him more often...
Sounds like the main problem is no tank to take the hits instead of Sam.
2 options as I see it - increase mobility (which I believe is more of a factor in combat for PF2) or make Sam harder to hit- which if it can't be done easily by increasing AC, then perhaps something that increases misses - like Mirror Image or Blur or whatever the PF2 options like that are.so - either have a more obvious target for the enemy to close with
or make it difficult for the enemy to close with Sam
or if they do close then make it harder for the enemy to actually land a blow before AC comes into the equation.
Haven't played PF2 and only had a quick skim of the rules once so can't provide more detailed help sorry.
... Therefore, Sam stands closer to the enemy. They close in on him more often...Sounds like the main problem is no tank to take the hits instead of Sam.
One player used to play a lizardfolk champion, a tank class, in this campaign. That player is currently in the hospital with brain cancer. I would bring board games to entertain him, but he cannot concentrate.
2 options as I see it - increase mobility (which I believe is more of a factor in combat for PF2) or make Sam harder to hit- which if it can't be done easily by increasing AC, then perhaps something that increases misses - like Mirror Image or Blur or whatever the PF2 options like that are.
Second-level spells, such as Mirror Image and Blur, become available at 6th level. PF2 multiclassing is like PF1 variant multiclassing: the character still advances in the original class but trades away feats for aspects of another class.
Let me return to the original topic of how is the Ironfang Invasion campaign going. The adventure path adapts to PF2 well. I have to make substitutes for classes and items that don't yet exist in PF2, but the campaign does not lose any flavor due to the subsitutions. The biggest drawback of PF2 rules is that the players and I still have not mastered PF2 strategies.
My players are forcing me to adjust events because of their efficiency. Trail of the Hunted assumed that the party and villagers would spend two or more weeks hiding in the forest before settling into the Misthome caves. That is not the case in my campaign. I wrote about this already at Railroading Advice comment #26 so let me quote it.
In Trail of the Hunted the Ironfang hobgoblin army invaded the village of Phaendar. The party helped many villagers escape and destroyed the bridge behind them to delay pursuit. A few hobgoblin scouts will risk the swift river to hunt refugees, but setting up a footbridge will take days and a permanent bridge will take weeks. The 2nd part, surviving in the woods, is scheduled on that timeline, such as, "Event 2: Bad Water. After several days to a week,... " and "Event 3: One Stormy Night (CR 4). Just as the fugitives of Phaendar begin to grow comfortable—a week or so into their ordeal—..."
Unfortunately for the module as written, my players are fast. They visited the dwarven lumber camp to warn the dwarves on the 3rd day. The camp is supposed to have been wiped out by the Red Jaw platoon once the footbridge is complete, "Between several days to several weeks." Rather than improvising a living lumber camp, I wiped it out early. In my rewritten events, the Red Jaws are already north of the river; in fact, they were north of the river attacking tiny lumber camps and fishing villages on the day of the Phaendar invasion.
As further examples of their speed, they dealt with Encounter F1 on the night of the invasion, dealt with Bad Water the following morning, scouted out Phaendar on their own initiative, encountered Edran, passed up G2 the giant boar when I presented it early, hunted a velociraptor instead, handled F2 and F3 the 2nd day after the invasion, visited G4 the lumber camp on the 3rd day after the invasion, decamped the refugees to move to place J on the 4th day, but encounted H4 the centaur on the way. The 4th event, The Hemlock Banner, says, "... after a few weeks in the woods, around the time the PCs reach 3rd level." The party reached 3rd level at the end of last week's game session after encountering the centaur (They had extra XP from rescuing 40 villagers instead of just 20). They will reach the Misthome caves, region K and a good hiding place until the permanent bridge is finished, on the 5th day, and The Hemlock Banner is supposed to occur before the caves.
My players are derailing the adventure as written by focus on their mission. Their efficiency is plausible; I used to work on high-performance evelopment teams that had similar efficiency. Thus, I am rearranging the Ironfang army to be more efficient, too.
Scarvinious and Camp Red Jaw were supposed to appear later, in order to give the players time to train the villagers into survivors. However, Aubrin the Green escaped town. She is guiding the villagers, giving the player characters the freedom to explore. They took advantage of this, accelerating the campaign. In response, I had the Red Jaw patrols show up immediately. In my revised timeline they had been sent north of the Marideth River before the invasion of Phaendar in order to control the roads.
You can always 'artificially' stretch time out as GM by having the final say on travel times. The Fangwood is super dense and difficult to navigate, there aren't good roads, trails and landmarks are notoriously unreliable, players will come across unexpected barriers/thickets/swift-flowing streams, finally, per the rules of exploration, trackless forest caps speed at 1/2 without spells/class abilities. Trackless forest + difficult terrain/hills/poor visibility reduces overland speed even further.
So even if Gristledown, say, is relatively nearby as the crow flies, traversing the wilderness to get there can be a big time sink. We often had adventuring days with no book encounters. I actually built a % table for random things to come across in the forest (abandoned homestead, massive willow tree, giant tarantula corpse, patch of friendly leshies, quiet moss-choked pond, and so on) on days where the party doesn't meet a book encounter. You never know what random thing the party is going to latch on to.
In my game, Scarvinious showed up as they blew the bridge to taunt and threaten them. So they knew he and his lackeys would be hot on their heels, so made point to get as far into the Fangwood as the could that first night.
In any case, that's how things went in my campaign. Just started Book 2, and they've been adventuring now for just over 2 in-universe months. The militia rule of 1 turn per week means they don't mind letting time pass because they want to get to the next turn.
Personally, I made a calendar of events to help plan out when I wanted different things to go down. It not only included the written events, but a bunch of encounters inspired by the material in the back of Trail of the Hunted and the random encounter tables. If you have the written events just happen immediately after each other it goes pretty quick, but making the Fangwood feel big and alien and scary takes a little more.
Party only had the tower left (and kennels and garden) after grueling sessions of mostly combat (see above).
I decided that Parthuk, the weasels, and the monks would pull back to join Jang, Ruanni, and the lizards in the top level of the tower.
The party made it to the room, took one look, and retreated back down the stairs (after the wizard cast black tentacles, and then grease at the top of the stairs).
What followed was a 3 hour battle all on the staircase. The fighter and cleric both got hit by the flame strike and aqueous orb, but the cleric managed to escape before the chain lightning hit.
The rogue quaffed a potion of gaseous form, then realised that even though the spell is dismissable, that since she hadn't cast it herself, she couldn't dismiss it (at least that was our interpretation of the rules at the time). She was restricted to using acid splash (minor magic rogue talent) to attack. The gaseous form though did save her from taking a lot of damage from Parthuk due to the DR 10/magic it provides.
The wizard summoned lantern archons again.
It was a battle of attrition which ended up with Parthuk getting stuck in the aqueous orb (and kept failing his save to get out), the fighter ended up dropping below 0 (but saved with a stabilize and potion of CLW), the cleric ran out of healing - resorting to Pearls of Power to recall spells to convert, and wizard running out of spells and relying on wands, but eventually the party prevailed.
Now they have a couple of days to recover and prepare an ambush for Ibzairiak.
I think no matter what, I'll have the dragon ambush them as the Jang fight is concluding. They will see the dragon depart Trevalay from a distance at some point as they approach the Gorge.
They steamrolled the Scarvinious fight, so I want to make this one really count. I wanna hammer home that faffing about the woods with Scar's gang was kiddie stuff. The Red Jaws were fighting the survivors AND the forest. Now we see what the Ironfangs are really all about. We see what it looks like when they turn the forest and its creatures against you.
Right now my group is 2 sessions in to the Red Rock Revel. It's been quite fun so far. I was worried I wouldn't enjoy the Fey revel and its somewhat disconnected relationship to the main plot, but the Fey creatures have been a blast to GM. Doing my best highlands accent for drunk Korreds, using their SLAs to port randomly about the rubble, and creepily grasping at the PCs with their hair was pleasantly unsettling for my players. The Skinstitch was horrifying, but the party managed to make fairly quick work of it. When the satyr cooks played their panpipes, a player and two companions failed the Suggestion save and are currently sitting patiently at the big table in the main hall waiting for dinner to be served for the next 8 hours >:D. Also spiced it up a bit by having the ghost in the tower know one of my players (from back in Tamran), and hopefully we'll get some juicy RP when they free Cirieo from the cells.
Surprisingly, my normally murder-friendly group has been rather hesitant to outright kill the Fey here (perhaps seeing a bit of themselves in these chaos-loving drunks?), though the book seems to expect you to just plow through. Depending on how things play out, they might end up with some Fey allies (they seem to like the satyr cooks, and will most likely be meeting Bristle Billie and the Leprechauns next session). If Bristle Billie is given proper incentive, he may be convinced to hang around for his crafting services.
Ya know Billy, after reading your post, it kinda just made it click for me that, no, I don't want the fey here to be a bloodbath. Maybe be more like a wild Muppet rager, but still have..Halg? Be s fighting encounter. I also LOVE the idea of making Billie be a resource for crafting too!
What followed was a 3 hour battle all on the staircase.
I know those long battles can be a drag most times, but I love taking my PCs to the very end of their limits, and see how creative they can get with little used wands, potions, and scrolls in their packs.
My group last decided to give the stone oracle an Enlarge, as he had some power that allowed him to trip easier. He then grappled and pinned some ogre or giant kin, and had the rest of the group wail on the enemy until defeated!
Cool story, erucsbo!
Billie is gonna be pretty steamed with the party for killing Bughouse and the taxidermic bears, so it'll be an uphill battle. But that said, I hadn't really even considered it previously.
As for the leprechauns, I'm gonna have them lure the party into their tower with their illusions (giant pile of Major Creation gold), then pitch their "Beer Run" side quest. If the party helps them, they'll use Fabricate to hook the survivors up with raw materials to fix up the forts and equip the militia (in addition to helping take down Halk, as stated in the book).
Hmmm. Now you have me thinking about what sort of dynamic there'd be between the Fey and the Phaendar survivors. Two groups of fiercely independent weirdos in close proximity? Shenanigans abound.
... I love taking my PCs to the very end of their limits, and see how creative they can get with little used wands, potions, and scrolls in their packs. ...
for me it's often those times that become the most talked about memories, and remind players that these "consumables" are supposed to be used!
Elacnida is proving to be an extremely effective villain for me. The party was immediately suspicious of her impersonation thanks to some Reading of Omens, so she wasn't able to run a con on them, but she's skirmished with them in different identifies several times, petrified 2 PCs and managed to briefly escape into Kraggodan when the party brought their petrified ally out. She's been suitably terrifying for an end boss.
The best part is they haven't figured her all the way out yet, thinking this is some crazy undead that propagates by turning people to Stone and each ghost is its own entity. They are getting closer to the truth though.
Well, my group is off for Giantslayer 2. As I've said (probably too much now), I've made a merged Ironfang & GS homebrew campaign. Both Book 1's have been finished, and my group is intrigued to go find the weapons cache that the Vault of Thorns may hold. After that? We'll see which forts they do attend to; but the Red Lake Fort is closer on my homebrew map than Fort Ristin, so it may be a while before I return to these boards as much! Do well; wake up and conquer!
My Ironfang Invasion campaign missed three weeks between a funeral, a school play, and a dental extraction. I was happy to get it going again. But this time, we are playing online via Discord and basic Roll20.
My players reached the xulgath caves that will one day be called Misthome. And they encountered a svirfneblin named Gahreestrohmeister who had been chased to the surface while trying to rob the xulgaths. He had an old grudge due to them sacrificing some family members. His purpose was to tattle on the xulgath cultists to avoid the moral dilemma of killing xulgaths with no known evil history.
And my players do amusing things with information. Forewarned by Gahree about the shrieker mushrooms (I had to improvise the shriekers. I ought to formally adapt them to PF2), they decided to lure a xulgath guard (Xulgath Warrior, creature 1, PF2 Bestiary page 336) outside. Sam the goatherder (3rd level halfling animal-whisperer scoundrel rogue, draconic sorcerer multiclass) mimicked goat sounds just outside the cave. And he overheard two xulgath guards talking in Draconic, which he happened to know.
MUX: "Hey, Bud, do you hear a goat?"
BUD: "Goat? That is good eating."
MUX: "It isn't in the cave. The shriekers are quiet."
BUD: "Would a goat go into a dark cave?"
MUSHROOMS: SHRIEK!!!!!!
The elf Chernesardo-hopeful ranger Zinfandel had laid some snares down (I altered the rules so that snares can be carried) in advance, and had thrown some caltrops into one tunnel to set off the shriekers. But the guard Mux ran out of movement just before stepping on a snare and died to ranged attacks before he could take another turn. And the other guards did not hear the attack due the the shrieks of the mushrooms.
When the shrieking stopped, Sam mimicked Mux asking for help because the goat died up on a rock. Bud came out and suffered the same fate. And before the shrieking stopped, Sam destroyed the shrieker mushrooms in the left tunnel so that they can sneak in without a warning shriek.
This session was hilarious, despite the awkwardness of playing online for the first time. And now my wife is trying to recruit new players from far away, such as my daughter who lives in Bellevue, WA. I told her of the Paizo Spring Sale, so she might buy rulebook PDFs to join in.