You're a better man than I, it only took me a decade or so to burn out.
I have to admit that sometimes I feel like they think I'm a trained monkey that they show up to watch throw dice and hoot at them.
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Update on Jade Regent campaign:
Made it to book 2 of Jade Regent. The party raided 'the farmhouse' and used various spells and intimidation methods to gain an advantage in a situation where they were outnumbered, and ended up forcing the enemy to back down. They've gained the info they needed to proceed, but it's made things kind of awkward: the PCs were probably supposed to murder them all. Now they've (a) missed out on a ton of loot, and (b) left witnesses who can identify them, which means they're going to get assassins coming after them.
Fortunately, I was very generous with the 'custom loot' you're supposed to give the party in book 1, so they're not going to be too far behind on party wealth. Maybe I'll have some wealthy assassins show up...
Occasionally I have all four players show up the same week. That's always exciting. The rest of the time, I'm glad I can throw in an NPC like Kelda Oxgutter to help out. (A shame the 'main' NPCs are too high level to routinely participate like this. It makes it hard to develop them as characters when they're rarely around.)
Unlike the first time I ran this campaign with a more progress-focused group that blasted through everything so fast the enemy never had a chance to respond, I've taken the time to read all about Kalsgard and think of ways to incorporate the setting. Maybe they'll challenge the High Skald to a poetry contest / rap battle...
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We will be starting volume 2 of Reign of Winter next game day.
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Skull & Shackles / Return to Freeport / The Smuggler's Shiv / Plunder & Peril / Fort Scury is going great!
They're nearing the end of book 4 when I realized there's enough of a tease of an enemy that they'll want to follow (I often leave loose ended enemies open in a "you can't find them? I guess they fled the area" type of way often enough that I want to surprise them with the antagonist they're worried about showing up scheming in Frerport so I'm using an early portion of Return to Freeport (and leveling up / changing the enemies) to suit my needs.
On the initial read-through I had missed how little "what's happening next" is shown but, thankfully, the AP is very much a sandbox in case the players want to go and do anything, and they're (probably) about to realize that a dungeon from Smuggler's Shiv is worth re-visiting in order to translate some of the ancient carvings.
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After a couple of weeks of side questing my group finally went after the Blood Skull orcs. They had a good start carving through the initial guards but the Tribe Protector slowed them down a little...not as much as I had hoped because of a 71 point Crit nearly annihilated the Tribe's best warrior in one hit but The party did take some significant damage. Still have the Tribe leaders to fight next week but with that they will have finished Book 1 of the Night Below.
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I am a player in Age of Worms, which our GM has converted to both PF1E and adapted to fit in Golarion.
Our group has been playing since D&D 3.0 in the early 2000-somethings. That was mostly a homebrew campaign. Then we came to PF1E and played Rise of the Runelords, Jade Regent, and Return of the Runelords in that order.
The latter started just before COVID and we ended up going from in-person games to virtual. Fortunately, our GM has used a VTT and some form of remote access since the late 2000's because players are occasionally out of town but still available to play. That made the transition easier.
Age of Worms we are doing as alternating in-person and remote sessions.
I'm also running 2 PbP games.
The first is Wrath of the Righteous which is on the forums. I started as a player, and we went through 4 GMs in book 1. Two had to quit, and two ghosted on us. After GM #4 vanished, I volunteered to step up and run the game. We're in book 2.
The second 1E campaign is just wrapping up Ire of the Storm, and we will probably follow that with Seers of the Drowned City.
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You're a better man than I, it only took me a decade or so to burn out.I have to admit that sometimes I feel like they think I'm a trained monkey that they show up to watch throw dice and hoot at them.
harangue-o-tang.
I. Am. Slain.
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Jade Regent Book 5 is proceeding slowly - the party knew we were being followed by a ninja who was taking occasional potshots at us, so we decided that the best way to put him off our trail was to go on a sightseeing tour of various bathhouses, mulberry orchards and interesting landmarks (i.e.roleplaying a game of Tokaido). Eventually we caught up with the ninja, and had a bit of a fight, followed by a long day's shopping and food tasting.
I think we are supposed to be putting Akeiko's sister on the throne or something, but the sightseeing tour takes precedence.
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We finished Hell's Rebels a few weeks ago. Sadly Barzillai went down way too easily, despite having received very substantial buffs and still using his empowered version as the base (with an even more empowered version held in the background). My melee players found a feat/build combination which negated the high AC advantage of Barzillai almost completely, i.e. in my hopeful calculations they would miss most of their attacks on their consecutive attacks, while halfway reliably hitting their primary attacks. The problem turned out to be that the players ping-ponged attacks of opportunity of each other with a high crit build and the Outflank teamwork feat (as well as the Improved Outflank teamwork feat for easy positioning) and Opportunist for the Rogue and Slayer. Barzillai was shredded in one round of his 1000 HP I gave him when they got in position.
We are going to start Strange Aeons next week with a new GM, one of the players of the group, where I get to play my mad elven Alchemist, Doctor Ogol. Looking very much forward to it!
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Sadly Barzillai went down way too easily
A common problem in Pathfinder boss fights. It's even worse if your party has more than 4 party members.
Sadly Barzillai went down way too easilyA common problem in Pathfinder boss fights. It's even worse if your party has more than 4 party members.
In this case it was a question of players builds coming together way too well... nobody in the party expected the teamwork feats to work so good at the start of the campaign and it was actually the guy playing a Cavalier/Hell Knight who had to talk the players of the two kukri dual-wielding characters into taking them.
This, and the Pathfinder 2E Remaster, are the two reasons why I've decided to eventually move on from 1E. The players are now finding combos which make me essentially helpless to work against them. Doesn't mean that they'll be taking them every time, but it sucks as a GM to always have to anticipate that.
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The players of my homebrew PF1e have successfully completed their adventure that was two years in the making. They tackled a level 20 gestalted BBEG that had 10 mythic tiers, while they possessed only 17 levels and 8 mythic tiers. The final fight lasted about five hours in total, and took nearly two game sessions to complete. I had intended them to be a little higher level (and mythic tier) before they sought him out, but they chose otherwise and managed to survive, if barely.
Their reward was three character levels and two mythic tiers, in addition to a personal miracle from the divine entity they had been serving. So, once they've leveled up, completed any retraining they wish, and are ready for epic level adventures, their characters will see further play. Until then, they've got a new campaign to explore, also homebrew.
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Let's hear it for homebrew games! Woohaa!
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After a long hartty battle with the Orcs my group has now finished Book 1 of the Night Below. Was a little touch and go Party front line nearly fell when the Orc chief charged them but after the Druid's Badger companion took him down, the rest of the orcs just kind of fell apart.
Next week we take a break from pathfinder while I tweak some of Book 2 to better fit my group, so we will be playing "Chariot of the Gods" for the Aliens rpg.
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Started volume 2 of Reign of Winter, didn't get much done but still got through three encounters(two combats, none of us made our perception checks to fight those gremlins). Also spent good chunk of the session buying stuff.
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I had to retire from gaming this week. I was really excited about getting things up and running again with a new location and new everything else. But then something happened and I realized I probably can't do this anymore. I just hope it's not permanent and I can one day put myself back in the harness.
Thanks for coming to my Whattabummer Talk.
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I had to retire from gaming this week. I was really excited about getting things up and running again with a new location and new everything else. But then something happened and I realized I probably can't do this anymore. I just hope it's not permanent and I can one day put myself back in the harness.
Thanks for coming to my Whattabummer Talk.
I hope whatever happened resolves so you can enjoy your hobby again.
Skull & Shackles / Return to Freeport / The Smuggler's Shiv / Plunder & Peril / Fort Scury is going great!...they're (probably) about to realize that a dungeon from Smuggler's Shiv is worth re-visiting in order to translate some of the ancient carvings.
Hey! It worked!
During book 3 a PC traded the information about the temple at the end of Smuggler's Shiv to get the info they needed for what their current goal was.Last week the group was talking to an expert on ancient lore and she mentioned that she was able to trade information to learn that there was a newly rediscovered temple on an island in the western portion of the Shackles. She commented that she didn't have anything valuable enough to get the exact location but did learn that someone else had bought the location. (The group doesn't realize that the BBEG of the campaign had been searching for the temple so now I'll be able to have him set up in the secret place it leads to and that him having access to it is what's prompting parts of the campaign).
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I hope whatever happened resolves so you can enjoy your hobby again.I had to retire from gaming this week. I was really excited about getting things up and running again with a new location and new everything else. But then something happened and I realized I probably can't do this anymore. I just hope it's not permanent and I can one day put myself back in the harness.
Thanks for coming to my Whattabummer Talk.
Thank you. It will probably involve a major adjustment to some meds to be able to control my worsening panic and anxiety disorders.
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It will probably involve a major adjustment to some meds to be able to control my worsening panic and anxiety disorders.
Those can be really tough. It's good that you are already seeking help for that. It can be a long road to get the meds just right, but just starting is so important.
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It will probably involve a major adjustment to some meds to be able to control my worsening panic and anxiety disorders.Those can be really tough. It's good that you are already seeking help for that. It can be a long road to get the meds just right, but just starting is so important.
I've been dealing with this crap since at least 2009. Things have gradually gotten worse over time and my medications haven't been adjusted for a while. I've been gaming 38 years and it's something I love more than pie. And that's a lot. But the last two games I tried to run saw me have panic attacks inside the first 15 minutes and have to shut them down. We've had a couple of months on hiatus, but I sat down Saturday and begin to seriously plan our new campaign and I Freaked.Straight.Out.
Brain stuff, man. It'll kill ya.
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@ DungeonmasterCal
All the best mate, I hope everything works out for you.
@ DungeonmasterCal
All the best mate, I hope everything works out for you.
Thank you!
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I'm playing my only character for almost 24 year (from grayhawk to faerum and then changed to golarion via interplanetary travel)we play epic games and the gm always give us some home brew adventure or change adventure to epic (of course he change all the cr of the adventure path and this almost take him 3-5 week in the conversion) and the principal rule that we have in the game is that: until the last pc of the original party dies or retire the game never stop. Right now we are playing rise of the rune lord's (cr 38 whit the conversion that my gm do) i only play new character when there is a new gm and our gm is conversing the game or take a break
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Still using Pathfinder 1e, as we have since it was released. Campaign of the Year on Obsidian Portal in 2011 and still going strong. It's part of a campaign series that began in 1979.
https://spelljoined.obsidianportal.com/
That's so awesome. One of my group back in 2012 created an Obsidian Portal site for our campaign at the time. No one but he and I ever visited it. :/
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Well. We finished Curse of the Crimson Throne (Ileosa gave it a good go, but, yeah... not good enough) and also now the Hell's Rebels AP and Rasputin Must Die! single adventure are over, so now I'm a player in three campaigns! Good start, too, on the first two (module two of Ironfang Invasion with a new character and the very start of Strange Aeons), the third will follow in two weeks time with Iron Gods.
Of course I can't really stop myself from already preparing already for what happens in a few years (or months in case of Ironfang Invasion... I'll be on a "one module each" exchange basis with the current GM, meaning when he finishes module two, I'll start with Hell's Rebels first module), so I'm on the side prepping a full conversion of Return of the Runelords to second edition I got from Pathfinder Infinite. Which, turns out, still is a good bit of work, since the gentleperson who posted that conversion mostly linked to statblocks on AoN and just adjusted them, hence I got to complete the statblocks for a system I haven't even played yet. Yeah, it's pretty time-consuming. ^^
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We play in person and still play PF1. My players just finished Book 4 of Mummy's Mask. So far, so good. A lot of character deaths in the dungeon though.
So, way of the wicked, since its popular for some reason.
Upon conferring with the Oracle Lady Aimi, my Bloodrager Dylan and her has a most excellent idea on how to troll the "oh so righteous" forces of good.
You see, none of us is actually undead!
So we pretended to be Vampires. Disguise kit, check. Fairly real Vampire teeth? Check, technically they are demon teeth because my Bloodline is Abyssal, but who cares. Fake Necril accent? Check. Yes, we learned Necril to better pretend to be Vampires.
Ridiculous Vampire outfit? Check. Actually, the cloak is kind of catching.
The Bloodrager changes, a lot of makeup and eyeliner make him look like an unusually swole Lead Singer from the far realm of Gogoryeo.
Well, yay, the good guys loaded up on all the anti Vampire things!
The dark figure is elated
Bwhahaha! The fools are going to sunlight us! And channel positive energy! And my Gm allowed me to pretend being some kind of monster while Bloodraging! Ahaha, this is going great! I pretend to be hurt by the channels!
Uhhhm, why is our antipaladin going down?
I wonder why he could self heal? Well, should I put my potion of cure serious wounds into him to revive him? Battle is joined, and the channeling and firey effects of a joint group of battle nuns and adventurers pursue nohing but theatralics!
Oh wait! A lootbearing foe is trying to run away! I MUST GET HIM!
And lo, sheer greed saved the Antipaladin who took necromantic affinity and didnt tell the party.
Lol
I hope your gm use garlic and mirrors before using all the useless arsenal the next time (and some fireball just because you guys scared the arcane caster)
I just found this thread and thought that I should add to the chaos ...
Roughly a year ago, both my RotR AE APs finished after several years of play. (I'm both groups' PF GM.) Honestly, I cannot remember when we actually started both campaigns! Probably around 2013 or so.
Then I ran some Beginner Box games from FFG's Star Wars/Edge of the Empire as a palate cleanser and to introduce a new player to one group, then jumped back into the PF saddle with CotCT RE for one group and JR for the other one. (JR was prefaced with the "We Be Goblins" adventure with pre-generated characters.)
We tend to play only once per month, getting roughly 6 hours' worth of game time out of a 9-hour visit to my place. The rest of the time is taken up by socialising/goofing off, getting the game table ready, food prep and eating, etc..
Then there are the other games, the ones which I participate in as a player. They have shorter game sessions and rarely meet more often than once a month. Currently they include:
* Savage Worlds/Supers/Kerberos Club (steampunk superheroes in Victorian London, fighting off Fae and foreign plots),
* Hero System (the GM's homebrew pseudo-Earth with a fantasy/historical spin - our group of merchant-adventurers just hired what is probably a redcap to run security on our magical airship while we adventure off it),
* 3.5/FR (among other things, trying to help a now-a-ghost PC regain her body from the Beshaban avatar who high-jacked it), and
* Witchcraft (in which my 1990s Wiccan character has been traumatised by the discovery that the paternal side of her family are horrible necromancers who are plotting body-theft shenanigans).
The "other games" category has included a bunch of other systems and shorter campaigns or one-shots, but those have finished.
Some of the game sessions mentioned above have - at various points, for various reasons - been remote in one way or another, but we prefer face-to-face tabletop play.
I did briefly dip my toes into the play-by-forum-post game format (FFG's Star Wars system, with people not known to me in RL). Those campaigns either died quickly or got bogged down due to various reasons (people ghosting, inter-personal issues both real and imagined, and general computer troubles). I much prefer the tabletop model!
After two weeks of not being able to get everyone together, we finally start Book 2 of the Night Below. A nasty fight against a pair of Phernic Scourge (instead of Mindflayers) followed by a week long travel through the Underdark with a group of Deep Gnomes to reach their hidden city.
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Oooh, Night Below was fantastic.
This will be our last session for a month due to vacations and such, so I am hoping the group can finish this part(Prince of Redhand) though I am discovering that they really like being on the choo-choo. This section has a lot of directions which the players can take and I think it's thrown them for a loop
Oooh, Night Below was fantastic.
This will be our last session for a month due to vacations and such, so I am hoping the group can finish this part(Prince of Redhand) though I am discovering that they really like being on the choo-choo. This section has a lot of directions which the players can take and I think it's thrown them for a loop
Been having fun so far, and making various changes to better fit my group. Couple of my players are using some Spheres stuff and one is using Ultimate Psionics. As such they are encountering Sphere and Psionic threats.
I'm changing the Rockseer elves to better fit the Cave Druid and since I'm having the Deep Gnomes worship the same god as the Stone Lord Paladin (which they probably would anyway since I'm using the World of Titan setting for the campaign), I'll be giving the Stonelord the "kill all Derro" quest and the Cave Druid will fill the roll of "an Elf" for the Rockseers.|
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I DM'd that back in the late nineties for my group of underdark junkies. They also played the Menzoberranzan box set. Did you convert it to PF yourself?
Well I had to end the session after 3 1/2 hours, My Ng cleric was in line to present gifts to prince Zeech(LE blackguard). He then called the prince a tyrant and something else and broke the gift and threw it at his feet.
Bought the PDF of Night below off Drivethru and been converting it for PF1, then adjusting to tailor it for the group
We played last Sunday and got to level 5, next session will start with finishing leveling our characters. Also one of our characters was 1 HP away from death....stupid ogres.
Skull & Shackles / Return to Freeport / Souls for Smuggler's Shiv / Plunder & Peril is going great!
We're halfway through book 5 of Skull & Shackles and halfway through book 6 of Return to Freeport. I love how well the two intermingle with each other!
Ship-to-ship combat is rather boring so we've been using the simplified version from Return to Freeport (roll a sailing check every 5 rounds vs the other ship, whoever rolls higher gets to move the 'distance needle' up or down or stay even on a list of 4 or 5 distances). Since the point of ship-to-ship combat really does come down to "do we catch and board them or do they get away?" it works out quite nicely.
The first fleet battle went really well! Super easy rules, fairly quick combat, players all enjoyed it. Yeah, it's super broad strokes / very abstract, but overall it seemed to be a hit with the group.
Still running Jade Regent, now reaching the climax of book 2 (Night of Frozen Shadows). Had a potentially infectious cold, so for the first time ever I ran an online session, over Roll20.
It was easier than I thought it would be, though I had to spend some time screenshotting maps and cropping them to exact grid sizes before uploading them.
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Finished Strange Aeons last Friday over VTT with a group of international friends who got together via PFS 1e online.
Awesome campaign which began in January 2022, played fortnightly to three-weekly (depending on real life plans) and managed to perfection by our superlative GM P.
Book 1 was very good, but got eclipsed by Book 6 IMO.
Now, winter is coming for our group – Reign of Winter that is ;)