Update me on the status of your PF1 campaign!

[Mightypion]

Way of the wicked 1:

The misadventures of our party continue, as we:

--Goad the Vampire lord Gaius Vestromo out of hiding, by having our oracle dress up the Bloodrager in the most ridiculous over the top Vampire outfit, get into an underground fighting ring, and use "Gnaeus Eastromo" as a ring name.
After accepting his cease and desist demand, the party made a reasonable deed.

--After some sacrificing some angels to his dark mistress, our Bloodrager became a half Marilith. The perhaps only male one. He also found out that his real mother is, as a matter of fact, a Marilith.

--We then assembled a mini army of minions, and assaulted the main cleric training facilities in the vale of Valtierna. Between vicious bugbears, Vampire spawns, Iraeni (barbarians) scouts and our main party, the outlying areas fell rather quickly. An all female Iraeni squad of Nocticula worshippers made more prisoners then everyone else combined, which resulted in some need for adjuciation, but we figured it out.

--The Mithrans sought to improve their innate cleric training with an annoying amount of Trumpe De Loils, so we killed the head priest like, 4 or 5 times.

--As we broke into the main cathedral, it was protected by the fires of creation, whose very dangerous effects we could observe from bullrushing some legion archon into it. After more shenagians and despoiling of relic sites, the fire was gone and we had our smack down with Ara Mathra.

--Who got sufficiently pissed at the Bloodrager the Antipaladin was able to murder smite him. Victory for Evil, Bwhahahahahahahahhahah!

--Our next mission was uneventfull, the already ruined city of Daveryn had little left to oppose us, although the Bloodrager kept being really good at getting people to surrender. His former Mithran nun girlfriend misunderstood his lack of violence against people who werent a threat to him at all as "Yay, he actually isnt evil!".

--We then proceeded to receive new missives, including a super convoluted plot to kill the king by recruiting a big dragon to goad the king into teleporting from his army into his fortress, where our villains were supposed to ambush them. After hearing the plan, the Antipaladin facepalmed hard enough to damage his skull helmet. "Clearly Cardinal Thorn is f%#&ing losing it."

[Mightypion]

Continued misadventures:

In pursuit of the most convoluted assassination plot ever (T.M.), we villainously saved one of the big black dragons (who is named Chargamon the black) spawn named Jeratheon knightsbane.

Who got agitated when our half marilith bloodrager remarked that he is pretty sure "knight" as in the Alyushinyrran fast food (a soft sausage surrounded by fried bread), not Knight as in credible melee combatatant. Alas, we bravely slew the "Storm king" a mighty thunderbird, after informing him that Korramzadeh, the mighty Balor of Baphomet also known as the stormlord, was annoyed by the copyright violation (our group habitually led trails leading to Baphomet rather then Asmodeus for nearly everything they do, its a bit of an inside running joke).

After our rescue of him, we flew over to Chargamons island, headbutted some smol drakes, regulated some errant plant life and did some negotiation with him. Turns out he wants the head of one of his rivals, a copper dragon named Eiramanthas with perhaps the largest porn collection in the multiverse, and an interesting collection of interplanar waifus.

Our Bloodrager, recognising the name, flew back to his tribal village and asked his "totally not a Succubus" boss about him, and it turned out that said "totally not a Succubus" indeed had a fling with said dragon, and has a long running rivalry with one of his consorts.
With some additional information gained, we traveled to the island of the copper dragon, engaged in a bit of a beach episode with the aquatic consort and came to a rather fun and creative agreement with the copper wyrm.

The copper wyrm agreed to getting decapciated and instantly raised from the dead, and we agreed to trolling Chargamon the black.
The was also a bit of a sparring session between our Bloodrager and one of his consorts, a former Rakshasa war godess. Who crit our Bloodrager for a bit over 200 damage, which resulted in him yielding. The dragon was impressed by him remaining standing however.

Apparently our angry snake boi was the third mortal to take her punch from her and survive, and the Rakshasa told him she recogniced his essence from a previous fight, and that his father was one of the other 2 who took a punch from her and remained standing.

Bloodrager boi got a sending from his parents that they would wish to meet for some family bonding, and bloodrager boi promptly suggested the Mithran captial of Matharyn for some "fun and wholesome family reunion". Although he was secretly anxious about introducing his ex-Mithran-nun girlfriend to his Marilith mother.

[Tim Emrick]

Warped Savant wrote:

Tim Emrick wrote:

...which is essentially a curated history of Torch's involvement in PFS plot lines (occasionally out of chronological order due to level tiers), with Passing the Torch as our final adventure at level 12. This one is more round-robin, with the five of us having aporoximately the same number of scenarios to run over the course of the campaign. We are 6th level now, having recently completed the Destiny of the Sands trilogy, and will be finishing Shadow's Last Stand next week.

You don't happen to have a list of all of the scenarios your group is playing through, do you?

Here is our schedule, which was originally drawn up by @cmlobue, then modified by committee:

Quote:

Torch/Shadow Lodge Campaign

(roughly chronological within subtier; multi-table specials not included do to logistics)
Lv 1: 5-08, 6-10, 9-16, and Murder's Mark (all slow)
Lv 2: 0-01, 0-14, 1-45
Lv 3: 2-15, 2-17, 2-19
Lv 4: 3-01, 3-18, 4-19
Lv 5: 9-04, 5-12, 5-15
Lv 6 5-16, 2-23, 2-24, 4-21, 4-23, 9-21 (all slow)
Lv 7: 2-06, 2-07, 2-09
Lv 8: 3-12, 3-14, 4-03
Lv 9: 4-22, 4-24, 2-25, 6-07 (first 2 slow)
Lv 10: 2-04, 2-26, 3-20, 3-22 (last 2 slow)
Lv 11: 4-12, 4-20, 9-07
Lv 12: 9-25, 10-22, 10-23

Where only one part of an arc was tagged Shadow Lodge, we tweaked the schedule to fit in the whole arc. Between those additions, and the number of relevant scenarios at that level, we're currently playing all of 6th level in slow mode. (We are doing 2-24 tonight.)

Level 1 is mostly repeatable filler. We avoided quests because you have to play pregens for those, and we only wanted to play our new, weird PCs.

Our party conissts of any four of the following five, depending on who is GMing:

tiefling (oni-born) inquisitor (of the player's retired PC, via a boon from a Seeker-level scenario)

tiefling (rakshasa-born) unchained rogue (escapologist)/shadowdancer [mine]

dhampir wizard/fighter [eventually eldritch knight and/or hellknight?]

Triaxian kineticist (water)

naiad cleric (Sarenrae)/cavalier/rogue [I think?? This player loves multiclass builds, and I don't know all the details of this particular combo.]

ETA: The naiad's player has seen this post and informed me that she is (sacred attendant) cleric 1 / (scaled fist) un-monk 1 / (skirmisher) fighter 1 / (constructed pugilist & strong side boxer) brawler 1 / (whirling dervish) swashbuckler 2, but the summary would be "whirling dervish."

[TriOmegaZero]

Man, that sounds amazing.

[Tim Emrick]

Because we're only doing this chronologically within each level, not overall, there has been a certain amount of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff. Most notably so far, we played through Destiny of the Sands (S5, post-Shadow Lodge) immediately followed by Shadow's Last Stand (S2, when Amenopheus's reputation is dramatically different).

[Warped Savant]

Tim Emrick wrote:

Quote:

Torch/Shadow Lodge Campaign

(roughly chronological within subtier; multi-table specials not included do to logistics)
Lv 1: 5-08, 6-10, 9-16, and Murder's Mark (all slow)
Lv 2: 0-01, 0-14, 1-45
Lv 3: 2-15, 2-17, 2-19
Lv 4: 3-01, 3-18, 4-19
Lv 5: 9-04, 5-12, 5-15
Lv 6 5-16, 2-23, 2-24, 4-21, 4-23, 9-21 (all slow)
Lv 7: 2-06, 2-07, 2-09
Lv 8: 3-12, 3-14, 4-03
Lv 9: 4-22, 4-24, 2-25, 6-07 (first 2 slow)
Lv 10: 2-04, 2-26, 3-20, 3-22 (last 2 slow)
Lv 11: 4-12, 4-20, 9-07
Lv 12: 9-25, 10-22, 10-23

Where only one part of an arc was tagged Shadow Lodge, we tweaked the schedule to fit in the whole arc. Between those additions, and the number of relevant scenarios at that level, we're currently playing all of 6th level in slow mode. (We are doing 2-24 tonight.)

Level 1 is mostly repeatable filler. We avoided quests because you have to play pregens for those, and we only wanted to play our new, weird PCs.

Thank you for such a detailed answer, Tim! That's a lot more scenarios than I was expecting, which is fantastic. (I had looked up all the ones involving Torch so figured it would just be those.)

I'll take a look at all of this and see what would work for me.

My plan is to run a group of PFS scenarios using a completely different system that doesn't involve levelling and is much more simplistic, especially when it comes to combat, so I'd be able to run these chronologically if I wanted to.

[Matthew Downie]

I have now finished my Jade Regent (plus Eastern Journey Adventures, plus Ruby Phoenix Tournament) campaign. It took about 18 months.

From this experience, I have learned that Pathfinder expects way too much of a GM. To run a final battle, I have to add about four extra enemies to make things even a little bit challenging. But even to run it as written, I have to look up the stats of the final bosses, the unique powers of three of their items, the powers they get from their archetype, what their spells do...

It's too much. They should make a second edition of Pathfinder or something.

[Azothath]

Matthew Downie wrote:

...

From this experience, I have learned that Pathfinder expects way too much of a GM. To run a final battle, I have to add about four extra enemies to make things even a little bit challenging. But even to run it as written, I have to look up the stats of the final bosses, the unique powers of three of their items, the powers they get from their archetype, what their spells do...
...

maybe you should try the GM Shared Prep website or AP / GM forums

You should use 25% PC WBL as a baseline for intelligent creatures capable of bargaining or crafting. You'll have to rework any casters.

[Mightypion]

On Family reunions, economical warfare and bad ear puns.

Teleporting into Matharyn, our intrepid villains set up shop, and the now Vampire Oracle set around doing scoutings.

We figured out some thing of interest to lucratively hit, the national mint, a golem factory, a archmage seeking to hire mercenaries to regain HIS HOME TOWN AND SAVE HIS LIEGE, a cathedral or 2 and some assorted noble mansions.

The Bloodragers girlfriend-ex-nun was also present and the 2 had a long discussion about possible children, with the Bloodrager being quite pragmatic and trying to figure out how to ensure said childrens security. Which pleased the ex-nun greatly.

Shortly thereafter, 2 strange people showed up, a very attractive pair, and the more powerful seeming male of the two hugged the Antipaladin for about 30ish damage, addressing him with the name of the Bloodrager and telling him how proud he was as a father. The misunderstanding then got cleared up. To everyones surprise, the lady, who was totally the bloodragers Marilith mother, and the ex-nun did not try to kill each other, although none of the party were quite daft enough to interfere in the talk... between mother in law and wife so to speak.

As a family reunion, the motley assembly opted (after dominate-joinking the wizards) the hit the golem factory, where the Mithrans had also transported much of their money to. A massive battle with a Mithral Golem, and Adamantine Golem, a Gold Golem and a brass golem ensued, but the assistance of a half balor Brawler and a Marilith made this a lot easier.
It was rather comicall that the presence of his mother something resulted the Bloodrager in rolling like, 6 1s out of 20ish dicerolls, and a fair bit of fun was had.
The demonic pair joinked one of the golems for the "own use" but paid the party a rather supple 64K gold for it. They then both summoned a Hezrou each and told the summons to "have some fun its a lawfull good city" before disappearing to parts unknown.

Our party meanwhile adopted completely different shapes, with the Bloodrager turning into a Pannoti, dressing up in Noble outfits, and proclaiming himself Earl de Aubri, ambassador of the Pannotti Island.
In order to gain access to the castle. To the surprise of nobody, most certainly not the Antipaladin, the plan was so stupid it went out without a hitch.
We were now in the Adarium, the fortress of the king, and waiting for Chargi boy to show up so we could do our assassination.

The Paladin was somewhat perturbed at the Bloodrager apparently have a relatively.... wholesome family live.
The Bloodrager was surprised about this as well.

[TriOmegaZero]

Our Strange Aeons campaign is moving right along, with our party working to wrap up book three. We're looking forward to being off the boat, but much like Skull and Shackles I imagine we'll want back on because of horrible things.

I'm still working on completing my play/run of every PFS1E scenario. The home group is stuck on some quests until we can fit it in between anime and game nights. Then we should be able to knock out the scenarios the players missed, including the ones I have yet to run. The biggest impetus for this is our newest player, who never had a chance to play PFS before the edition change. So I get to curate a single character run from 1st to Seeker, giving him a taste of organized play and the carousel of different characters and adventures that you encounter as you participate. The rest of the group has a variety of characters, so he gets to be the novice Pathfinder getting OJT with higher level characters, eventually be the highest level character in the party, and then also hit Seeker tier with a solid team that bears the bond of shared experience and camaraderie.

Eventually, this and Strange Aeons should draw to a close. We have other APs on the short list and GMs to run them. But I want to get back to my first and get back in the AP GM seat after a very long time. And that will be to run the Dungeon magazine APs. At least Shackled City, to the full 20th level. Maybe beyond.

I just hope we have the time to see it all through. Life does like to get in the way.

[Matthew Downie]

Azothath wrote:

maybe you should try the GM Shared Prep website or AP / GM forums

You should use 25% PC WBL as a baseline for intelligent creatures capable of bargaining or crafting. You'll have to rework any casters.

I don't want to have to rework things. I want simple self-contained stat-blocks that are ready to use.

The (intended) challenge of the battle comes from the fact that these are four NPC enemies, roughly the same level as the party, with 100% PC WBL in equipment (like a unique sword that stores up energy from hits taken and can release it as a swift action ranged attack, and a Lavender and Green Ellipsoid Ioun Stone which I look up only to find it works similar to a Rod of Absorption, which I also have to look up...). This amount of loot would be potentially game-breaking if it wasn't a final battle so the party never get a chance to use the vast wealth they gain.

And then the enemies die in two rounds anyway, because a buffed alchemist and smiting paladin have insane damage output.

The problem with shared GM prep is that I like to gather the information I need all in one place. I know what "Heal" does, but I'm less familiar with other spells, so I copy-paste the stat block from the book and insert a little summary of the stuff I might forget: Destruction (Close, 150 damage or 10d6 if pass Fort DC 24)

My needs are based around my personal knowledge. Other GMs will have their own needs.

[Davor Firetusk]

After 2 high level AP volumes I got a lot more comfortable and faster. When I do prep I pull up mostly likely to be used spells, feats or items on Nethys and have them ready to go that way. I've not really done much for modifications and generally been able to have a reasonable amount of challenge. That said prepping Rise of the Runelords the first time was a big time investment, but paid off with about a 5 hour combat that was a good 6 or 7 rounds. My second Hell's Rebels was a dud because no caught that the zen archer was misusing and ability.

[Jenner2057]

Last week we got to begin book 6 "Gathering of Winds" of my PF conversion of Age of Worms. This is the 2nd time I'm running this campaign (first time got to book 10 playing the original 3.5 version).
Anyway, this was the 2nd time I got to run the "Battle of Diamond Lake" and it went just as great as it did the first time. First group (back in 2006) said it was their favorite part of the campaign and the table this past week really seemed to enjoy it as well. This table isn't *quite* as invested in Diamond Lake as a town, but they still have enough connections that it was a satisfying event.

I'll break it down with I guess slight spoilers for Age of Worms in case anyone else wants to use it.
NOTE: And big thanks to whoever originally threw out the idea of the "Battle of Diamond Lake." It was many moons ago, but it was an awesome addition to the beginning of book 6... both times. So thank you!

Spoiler:

After returning to Diamond Lake from book 5 "Champions Games" (at the Magnimar Serpent's Run arena in my Golarion conversion) they were attacked by a group of ogre-sized, giant blackscaled lizardfolk on the outskirts of town. They scouted out the town and found that the entire town was occupied by giant lizardfolk. They quietly made contact with the townfolk who told the tale of how the black dragon Ilthane arrived 2 or 3 days ago looking for Allustan with an entire force of giant, blackscale lizardfolk in tow. The garrison tried to fight back, but were little challenge to the blackscale lizardfolk (CR3 vs mostly warrior 1 & 2) and they fled back to the garrison.
They also found out that Balabar Smenk (of course) threw in his lot with Ilthane and had been providing her with information. In return, before she left she destroyed the governor-mayor's manor and left Smenk in charge of the town.
This left the PCs to fight their way through town. They got to save their allies and liberate Diamond Lake as they took out the patrols of blackscales and their check points around town watching the approaches. Then they got to storm Smenk's manor and have the final showdown with the corrupt mine owner that they'd wanted to have for the first few books.
If you want, you could level up the lizardfolk and Smenk and make them a bigger threat. I used the standard CR3 blackscales (from the 3.5 MM III and gave 'em breastplates to be a bit harder to hit) and let my PCs have fun slicing through a couple dozen of them. They got to feel like big damn heroes returning to town as 10th level heroes after leaving as young 'uns.
This of course still left Allustan missing and they head out for the showdown with Ilthane (who I bumped up to a huge adult).
All around good time.

[Warped Savant]

Tim Emrick wrote:

Quote:

Torch/Shadow Lodge Campaign

(roughly chronological within subtier; multi-table specials not included do to logistics)
Lv 1: 5-08, 6-10, 9-16, and Murder's Mark (all slow)
Lv 2: 0-01, 0-14, 1-45
Lv 3: 2-15, 2-17, 2-19
Lv 4: 3-01, 3-18, 4-19
Lv 5: 9-04, 5-12, 5-15
Lv 6 5-16, 2-23, 2-24, 4-21, 4-23, 9-21 (all slow)
Lv 7: 2-06, 2-07, 2-09
Lv 8: 3-12, 3-14, 4-03
Lv 9: 4-22, 4-24, 2-25, 6-07 (first 2 slow)
Lv 10: 2-04, 2-26, 3-20, 3-22 (last 2 slow)
Lv 11: 4-12, 4-20, 9-07
Lv 12: 9-25, 10-22, 10-23

Where only one part of an arc was tagged Shadow Lodge, we tweaked the schedule to fit in the whole arc. Between those additions, and the number of relevant scenarios at that level, we're currently playing all of 6th level in slow mode. (We are doing 2-24 tonight.)

Level 1 is mostly repeatable filler. We avoided quests because you have to play pregens for those, and we only wanted to play our new, weird PCs.

Hi Tim, sorry, one other question for you... Are there any of these scenarios that you would count as filler / that you would take out if levelling didn't matter? (I assume the four level 1 scenarios aren't part of the story based on your comment, but I'm curious about the rest.)

[Toshy]

Jenner2057 wrote:

Last week we got to begin book 6 "Gathering of Winds" of my PF conversion of Age of Worms.

Brazen question, might your Age of Worms PF conversion be something you're willing to share or do you want to keep it to your own (understandable considering the work it must have taken)?

[Toshy]

Dragon's Demand
Next game will be at the end of august.
The group fixed the secret door in the basement to hide some stuff they want to keep for themselves. Since they didn't take it, just hid it in hopes the clercs wont find it (a possibility I didn't consider before) they technically didn't brake contract with lady Origena (which only forbid them to TAKE anything) and I went along with it, rewarding their wit.
They will explore the cave next session and decide what to do and tell (or not) afterwards.
I encouraged them do think about what they would like to do, if their characters have some longer downtime, so we could play it out rather quickly, before going on to the auction.

Homebrew Campaign
Nothing new here, still havent played again (mainly because of time issues, festival season still going) after one of the players left .
We took a detour with a friend dming a session of HeXXen 1733 (alternate baroque Europe, which is flooded with creatures of the night, after the opening of the gates of hell in 1640)
Definitely something else than pathfinder, both thematically and technically, but interesting nonetheless.
That friend might fill the vacant spot in my PF camapign, but first we'll wrap up the current plot-arc with the remaining three players and then decide what to do.

[Jenner2057]

Toshy wrote:

Jenner2057 wrote:

Last week we got to begin book 6 "Gathering of Winds" of my PF conversion of Age of Worms.

Brazen question, might your Age of Worms PF conversion be something you're willing to share or do you want to keep it to your own (understandable considering the work it must have taken)?

Absolutely! I have no problem sharing it at all! Mostly, I just used the excellent stat document that Sc8rpi8n_mjd put together and made available on the following thread:

link

I'll be honest, D&D 3.5 and PF 1 are so close, I made a lot of the changes on the fly that I needed to beyond that document. If you have any specific questions about location changes I made to move things to Golarion, I can certainly start a thread over on AoW subforum. Just lemme know!

[Tim Emrick]

Warped Savant wrote:

Tim Emrick wrote:

Torch/Shadow Lodge Campaign

Hi Tim, sorry, one other question for you... Are there any of these scenarios that you would count as filler / that you would take out if levelling didn't matter? (I assume the four level 1 scenarios aren't part of the story based on your comment, but I'm curious about the rest.)

There were a number of 1st-level scenarios that mention the Shadow Lodge but don't have very much to do with it, so we decided to play some repeatables instead for that level. So, yes, that level was filler.

Night March of Kalakamedes is filler, and once that was added, Valley of Veiled Flame was added because of how its reward interacts with the former scenario's.

Beyond that, I'd have to do some digging through our group's discussion to figure that what else was filler.

IIRC, the player who worked out the initial draft found most of his information by combing through scenario tags for "Shadow Lodge" and using PathfinderWiki to identify all of Torch's appearances.

[Toshy]

Jenner2057 wrote:

I can certainly start a thread over on AoW subforum. Just lemme know!

I can just talk for myself, but to me that would sound very interesting. I don't want to cause you to much work though, as I probably won't have the time to use such a generous offer any time soon.

I'm more than happy to somehow be able to manage two campaigns (which are on a very rough once per month schedule)...

[Dragon78]

We gamed this past Sunday, got through 3 encounters this time. We might be(33% chance) heading to the final fight in Volume 3 of Reign of Winter.

[Warped Savant]

Tim Emrick wrote:

Warped Savant wrote:

Tim Emrick wrote:

Torch/Shadow Lodge Campaign

Hi Tim, sorry, one other question for you... Are there any of these scenarios that you would count as filler / that you would take out if levelling didn't matter? (I assume the four level 1 scenarios aren't part of the story based on your comment, but I'm curious about the rest.)

There were a number of 1st-level scenarios that mention the Shadow Lodge but don't have very much to do with it, so we decided to play some repeatables instead for that level. So, yes, that level was filler.

Night March of Kalakamedes is filler, and once that was added, Valley of Veiled Flame was added because of how its reward interacts with the former scenario's.

Beyond that, I'd have to do some digging through our group's discussion to figure that what else was filler.

IIRC, the player who worked out the initial draft found most of his information by combing through scenario tags for "Shadow Lodge" and using PathfinderWiki to identify all of Torch's appearances.

Awesome, thanks, Tim!

I had compiled a list of the PFS scenarios that Torch appears in / is mentioned in but sorting out the Shadow Lodge stuff was proving to be more difficult.
I'm planning on starting my campaign within the month; my group is quite looking forward to this.

[Azothath]

comment - the only thing with G.T. is he goes through psychotic motivational changes as PFS changes his focus as they cast him in different roles, dumps the Shadow Lodge (union busting), decides he helps and then opposes certain groups. blah blah blah. So some balancing/centering of the characterization is needed.

[Greylurker]

Tyrant's Grasp, I got eaten by a giant flytrap and realized I still had not replaced my lost dagger. So here is me in the gullet with a Warhammer and a Heavy Flail

And a Tree Feather Token

It worked but it hurt a lot...and then I fell out of the tree which hurt more.

[Arkat]

Greylurker wrote:

Tyrant's Grasp, I got eaten by a giant flytrap and realized I still had not replaced my lost dagger. So here is me in the gullet with a Warhammer and a Heavy Flail

And a Tree Feather Token

It worked but it hurt a lot...and then I fell out of the tree which hurt more.

Nice!

[Azothath]

Greylurker wrote:

Tyrant's Grasp, I got eaten by a giant flytrap and realized I still had not replaced my lost dagger. So here is me in the gullet with a Warhammer and a Heavy Flail

And a Tree Feather Token

It worked but it hurt a lot...and then I fell out of the tree which hurt more.

one way to tree a varmit!

might I suggest 4 obsidian daggers, a cestus or two, some bear traps, or a flask of defoliant?

[Warped Savant]

Azothath wrote:

comment - the only thing with G.T. is he goes through psychotic motivational changes as PFS changes his focus as they cast him in different roles, dumps the Shadow Lodge (union busting), decides he helps and then opposes certain groups. blah blah blah. So some balancing/centering of the characterization is needed.

Thanks for the tip, Azothath!

Is there any particular thing / season / scenario that you can think of that I should watch out for?
Any suggestions on what to change / avoid?

[Tim Emrick]

Warped Savant wrote:

Is there any particular thing / season / scenario that you can think of that I should watch out for?

Any suggestions on what to change / avoid?

There is ascenario in one of the later seasons that finally reveals some of Torch's back-story, giving some context to why he is the way he is, and puts him in a much more sympathetic light. (I don't recall which one off-hand, but I'm pretty sure I'm not running it for our group, so I'm not going to go hunting for it right now.) If it wasn't for that one story, I think Torch would be pretty universally reviled.

[Davor Firetusk]

10-22 and 10-23 Passing the Torch each is playable at 12-13, 15-16 or 17-18 tiers great scenarios

[Azothath]

Grandmaster Torch on PFWiki
basically the character was an unexpected hit and they didn't know what to do with him. Working with 'the spider' and Thurl were a clear mistakes that made little sense. He would have allied, used them to cause trouble, then turned on them far earlier than in the scenarios as they were clearly crazy evil, self serving and not what his goals wanted.
His motivation is to get the decimverate out of the PFS or bring some accountability, so it is a union movement against bad management.
So read those two season 10 scenarios and then work backwards. Plant subversive clues to bring down the the two Evil allies and provide access to recovery experts, add helpers in scenarios (like before a battle a npc offers a key written hint or scroll on the sly with the epithet, 'a torch shows the way in darkness').

[magnuskn]

Welp, status report on the three campaigns I'm currently in:

Iron Gods: We are well in module two, it's all good fun, although I wish the location where at had some way to sell loot. My Unchained Monk is a really solid character who is carrying the tank role well for the party.

Ironfang Invasion: Also good fun, with the same "I wish we could sell some of that loot and buy some stuff" problem which the second module of Iron Gods has, only that we've had it since the start of the AP. My Sylvan Sorcerer is the group buff dispenser, which does not feel all that super good by itself, but the animal companion is solid (another high AC tank, which is necessary due to the other group melee, a Barbarian, having almost no AC) and in a few levels I'll be getting into the really good stuff.

Strange Aeons: Honestly, a damn slog of getting kicked in the butt and recovering from tons of ability damage. Also, really few ways to sell and buy stuff. The GM is kinda inexperienced with the system and also has changed a ton of stuff from the written module (and is always complaining that Paizo writing is bad), so the AP has not been very much fun, even with me playing my elven Alchemist I've wanted to play for a long time. After the second module, where we're at now, is over, I'll be taking over for one module with a 2nd edition conversion of Return of the Runelords, both because I'm chomping at the bit to start GM'ing 2E and also because I fear that this group, with which I've played for 25 years now, will fall apart if this unfun slog of a campaign continues like it has so far for another year.

[Davor Firetusk]

Sorry for sure Strange Aeons has been a slog especially the first 2 books which are really good. If it already feels sloggy you might well want to lean into Return because as is usually the case the middle books have the most potential to actually feel like a slog. I do think the books are all pretty good, but I do always look for ways here and there to remove XP filler encounters.

[Warped Savant]

Azothath wrote:

His motivation is to get the decimverate out of the PFS or bring some accountability, so it is a union movement against bad management.

So read those two season 10 scenarios and then work backwards. Plant subversive clues to bring down the the two Evil allies and provide access to recovery experts, add helpers in scenarios (like before a battle a npc offers a key written hint or scroll on the sly with the epithet, 'a torch shows the way in darkness').

Thank you for that, Azothath!

I'm going to start running the PFS Scenarios in 3 weeks so I'll read those two first to get an idea of the end goal and keep that in mind with the rest as I go through them.

And again, thank you, Tim Emrick, for the idea of running the Torch / Shadow Lodge scenarios.

[magnuskn]

Davor Firetusk wrote:

Sorry for sure Strange Aeons has been a slog especially the first 2 books which are really good. If it already feels sloggy you might well want to lean into Return because as is usually the case the middle books have the most potential to actually feel like a slog. I do think the books are all pretty good, but I do always look for ways here and there to remove XP filler encounters.

We'll see how it goes. First we have to finish book two, maybe it gets a bit better later on.

[Azothath]

Warped Savant wrote:

Azothath wrote:

His motivation is to get the decimverate out of the PFS or bring some accountability, so it is a union movement against bad management.

...

thank you

secondary overall goal:

a goal of the scenarios (and Torch's primary) is to expose The Ten (or not). So PCs interacting with the leaders is part of the social & "insider" storyline. I will say a costume ball would let the Ten mingle freely with the plebs butttt it was never done and many social skill checks missed. Can you say yearly new PF Coming Out Ball (I hear bridgerton music)...

Honestly, the PCs are not motivated or ever see the downsides of the system. To provide that I'd drop hints that the PF Soc is buying generic loot at 40% {rather than 50%}. Any bursar will refer them to management where they may learn 5% pays for training, salaries, food, library, building maintenance, etc. Where's the other 5%?... lol... Also note the random nature of the assignments, groups ARE NOT curated even when previous groups have failed (thus the deadly nature of some scenarios like Elven Entanglement).

[Dragon78]

We finished volume 3 of Reign of Winter last game session and yesterday had our first game in volume 4. We only got into one fight since the rest of the time was spent on leveling and buying/selling stuff.

[Michael Brock]

My home group is closing in on the end of Book 1 of Mummy’s Mask. Having essentially six players new to either PF or RPGs in general has been a blast.

[TriOmegaZero]

Finally completed the What the Helms Hide quests for our PFS run. Only took a couple months to fit them into the schedule. Next we might be sending the team on a beer run for one of my favorite VCs. Not sure when it’ll happen, but Monday nights have opened up a lot.

[Greylurker]

With my Night Below Campaign, The group is getting closer to the City of the Glass Pool. After sitting out a Month in a Dwarf Mining town making magic items, they started hitting the Derro caverns.

I used the Unchained Simple Monster creation rules to make some Mind Flayers to add into the mix. Might adjust the Stun Blast so that there is a Save each round. Very nearly had a TPK when the Druid and his Badger were the only ones still up after the Flayer blasted them. The Stonelord Paladin even had to get his Earth Elemental involved (normally only uses him for scouting, cause it's only a Medium Elemental and not that tough)

[JDawg75]

We are currently running the Ruins of Azlant, and I think we're about halfway through it. I've got a dwarven fighter with a Dorn-Dergar that I am having a lot of fun with. I'm going down the Dwarven hatred style, along with a few other tricks and he's a beast.

It's not the most exciting AP, but our group is having fun.

J

[Warped Savant]

Because I've needed a change from Pathfinder and wanted to use a much more simple system, but I love Paizo adventures, I'm now running "The Grandmaster Torch Chronicles" using the PFS Scenarios listed by Tim Emrick HERE but using a system called Broken Compass (which will transfer over to Outgunned: Adventure once those books are out).
So, with the system being called Broken Compass but it's Pathfinder scenarios we've decided it's "Broken Wayfinder"
First session, PFS 00-01, went really well! Converting on the fly was easy, players liked / are curious about Grandmaster Torch, 3 players played through the entire scenario within 3 or 4 hours, which is much nicer than me running a PF Adventure Path for 6+ hours a week.

I don't know if the simplicity of the system will be appealing enough to keep it fun for months on end, but we'll see how it goes!

[Oli Ironbar]

It went down in our Kingmaker campaign!

Our lead city now rivals Absalom in size and culture and outpaces it in economic productivity in bringing online our mines on the moon (darn pupal Cthulhu tried to stop us).

Seeing this, the GM literally dropped a Tarrasque out of the open sky onto our capital in the middle of a fight with a party-killer boss built and run by a second GM who had played with us before and was back in town for the day.

We had to end the session before the final fight was resolved in airship to ship combat with the session boss on a linnorm and the BBEG on an ancient black dragon mount. The party rogue/beguiler did take down the black dragon mount with a stockpile of named bullets that our followers kept prepared every hour of every day for four in game years, slowing down the BBEG. But she will likely escape since our spy network leaked the secret that the city's air defenses are trained to kill her on sight, having lvl 12 Qinggong Sensei monks battlemind linking every crew member to every other crew member, making 1 nat 20 on one attack result in a nat 20 on every attack in that volley.

We had to run the numbers on the Tarrasque after the session using the Tarrasque Army statistics, but there is an 83% chance that our 4 main armies (run by each of our 4 PCs) will take it down within 1d4 rounds, exceeding its regen if it remains within the city. But thankfully, for our citizens' sake, it grew wings and seems to be pursuing the party out of our capital and (I'm guessing) back into the plane it came from, which -- I'm all but certain -- is our final destination, seeing that the cracks in the sky are closing in around us each round of combat.

5 out of 5, would play again indefinitely.

[Arssanguinus]

Reign of winter, book 6' Maftets. Siege of the castle, water bridge about to bring what itbrings. Witch waiting to blast it.

[Azothath]

soon Game #3 of PF1 Home Game based in Absalom. Party is bastard sword wielding Rouillé Clr-VarPlgrm(Feronia)1 Wiz-Divnr7, {other} Mesmerist 8, {other} Wiz-PoiAdh 8, {other} Druid-Goliath 8. It is somewhat unstructured and loose with the druid & AnmlCmpn dino as the martials. Put down evil cleric of urgathoa, engaged in intrigue with various nobles & trying to stay out of a doublecross (or just missed too many clues, lol). Some crafting to do then off to a sea voyage next week.

[Dragon78]

We gamed his past Sunday. We spent a good time leveling one player but still managed two combats, hand waved a easy one, and avoided a 4th combat.

[Toshy]

Dragon's Demand
The group fought the zombie thing guarding Hunclay's Cave but had a harder time with it than they anticipated. They decided to keep the loot for themselves and we proceeded with the timeskip.

The magus used the time to copy all spells he could use and chilled the rest a the temple of Shelyn.

The oracle spent his time walking through the city and helping people where he could and gained the support of some townsfolk.

The rogue/alchemist decided to as maffei to teach him aklo so he could maybe try to understand some of the things written in the book secrets of the dreaming dark.

The fighter decided to take a trip to cassomir to sell some stuff they didn't want to sell in bellhaim (namely the ancient tomes if Hunclay).

After that they attended the auction and decided to skip everything and the rogue followed clausyre after he stormed out, as he found him suspicious but lost track of him. Meanwhile the group decided to bid on the mansion, but where interrupted by Aeteperax' minions.

After successfully defending the townsfolk the accepted to become dragonslayers and will head for Tula's crypt in the next session.

Unknown to them, I have decided that as an additional reward for defending bellhaim, they will be gifted Hunclay's Mansion, as a future base of operations for possible games to come after the module comes to a close (assuming the succeed and are still alive).

[Arkat]

In my alternate Saturday night group, we're in Book 5 of Hell's Vengeance.

My AntiPaladin (Traxis) decided he wanted to be known as a "Hellknight" so in one of the party's audiences with Queen Abrogail, he expressed his desire to take the Test (he's not taking any levels in the Hellknight PRC, however) and since our characters are all Bound Agents of Thrune and she trusts us, she agreed to have a Hellknight Signifier summon an appropriate Devil for my AntiPaladin to fight.

Our characters are all 14th level at the moment so the perfect opponent was a Horned Devil.

So the Lictor of the Order of the Godclaw sponsored Traxis (so he begrudgingly agreed to joint his order temporarily), the Signifier called the Horned Devil and the Test began.

The whole fight lasted about 11 rounds. Traxis took some heavy damage early, but after he got all his spells up and abilities going (about 8 rounds), he took the Cornugon down in 3 more rounds.

The Cornugon was unconscious so Traxis asked for permission from Abrogail, Moloch, Asmodeus, and Hell itself for permission to consume the Cornugon's Heart and Essence. He also asked that he be given dominance over his own Spirit and the Cornugon's spirit so that he could serve Abrogail, Moloch, Asmodeus, and Hell better.

A glowing red pentagram with smoke billowing from it immediately appeared in the air over Traxis. He took that as receiving the permission he was seeking and immediately cast Enemy's Heart (which got through the Devils SR), and performed the coup-de-grace with his sword. He then tore out the Cornugon's heart and ate it before Queen Abrogail and the audience in her arena.

After a standing ovation from the crowd in the arena, he recited the vows to do the Measure and the Chain stuff and was recognized as a true Hellknight by Infernal Majestrix Queen Abrogail herself.

After being anointed a true Hellknight, Traxis swore his loyalty to Queen Abrogail above all others on Golarion.

I'm hoping the GM saw where I wanted this whole to end up (Half-fiend (Half-Horned Devil*) template), but it's ok if she (the GM) didn't. In the story I will wite about my AntiPaladin, it will definitely happen.

*Yes, I am aware there is no official Paizo-approved Half-Horned Devil template, but I spent a few hours researching and put one together. It’s pretty much equal in power to the Half-Fiend template found in Bestiary 1, or maybe slightly less powerful.

[Tim Emrick]

Warped Savant wrote:

Because I've needed a change from Pathfinder and wanted to use a much more simple system, but I love Paizo adventures, I'm now running "The Grandmaster Torch Chronicles" using the PFS Scenarios listed by Tim Emrick HERE but using a system called Broken Compass (which will transfer over to Outgunned: Adventure once those books are out).

So, with the system being called Broken Compass but it's Pathfinder scenarios we've decided it's "Broken Wayfinder"
First session, PFS 00-01, went really well! Converting on the fly was easy, players liked / are curious about Grandmaster Torch, 3 players played through the entire scenario within 3 or 4 hours, which is much nicer than me running a PF Adventure Path for 6+ hours a week.

I don't know if the simplicity of the system will be appealing enough to keep it fun for months on end, but we'll see how it goes!

Cool, I'll have to let my Torch group know! I'm running Part 3 of Heresy of Man for them tonight. Our PCs are currently 7th level, and will be 8th after this session.

[TOZ]

Torch was right!

[Warped Savant]

We had to take a couple of weeks off so we've only played the first 3 scenarios with Grandmaster Torch in them, but Silent Tide (as previously mentioned), The Many Fortunes, and Delirium's Tangle have gone really well and they like the information broker, but they wonder why he's always submerged in water :D

I've added a large handful of scenarios to the list I was planning on running due to them being important to the Shadow Lodge (like "The City of Strangers, Parts 1 and 2), as well as others that involve Amenopheus, the Jeweled Sages, and the Sage jewels because one of the players is in the Osirion faction and they look like they're appropriate for the GMT storyline.

Next Sunday is the first part of "Eyes of the Ten", which will be the first hint of the overarching plot for the group, so I'm looking forward to that, and then they'll be headed to Kaer Maga to learn more about the Shadow Lodge. (I'm so glad I don't have to worry about what level the group is!)

[Yours is mined]

Chapter 5 of Reign of Winter is in the books, and we are currently grinding our way through the early stages of Book 6.

The initial fight in Book 5 was EPIC! New to the location, we players all wondered what the heck was going on. But we soon adapted once the Big Guns arrived ;)

RoW has been a great campaign, though I might have enjoyed Strange Aeons slightly more.

Our most awesome GM P has announced we will be commencing Tyrant’s Grasp in the new year. I will likely be playing an Oradin for the first time, if anyone has any build advice.