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We just finished our Ironfang Invasion campaign.
So I'd like to say two things:
1. Congrats to our group for finishing our 12th adventure path. 12 finished, 4 unfinished playing on Sunday afternoons since 2005 (starting with Age of Worms). About a dozen different players, some coming and going, but a great bunch of folks!
2. Spoilers for Ironfang Invasion...
So we stormed the Onyx Citadel and killed the leadership. We shut down the Transposition Engine and took the Sardonyx Shards controlling the Stone Road, leaving most of the Legion trapped in the Onyx Vault. Negotiated a truce (even if only temporary) between Nirmathas and Molthune. Yay! Everyone lives happily ever after.
...
Then I look up the "official" ending in the Lost Omens guide. General Azaersi is allowed to live and settle her people in the Onyx Vault? And given a kingdom up in the Mindspin Mountains? What? After the Legion launched a hostile invasion resulting in thousands of people dead? We'll just give her a kingdom to rule? I'm sorry, but did anyone actually have a campaign end this way? That just seems crazy to me!
Anyway, a pretty fun campaign none-the-less.
I am curious what class/level/race everyone is playing in their current campaign?
Female Aasimar Monk(Scaled Fist) Level 6(My Character)
Male Gnome Arcanist level 5/Sorcerer Level 1
Female Half-Elf Druid Level 6
Male Samsaran Inquisitor(Witch Hunter) Level 6
Female Aasimar Shaman Level 6
Night Below
My group has been clearing out a nest of Grells. It was going well until it wasn't. The Psion failed just about every save he had to make that night. When the Feeblemind dropped him the group decided it was time to run, jumped right over a 30 foot cliff with Grell behind them shooting with their Lightning Lances.
Managed to get back to the Gnome town, paid for a Heal to fix the Psion up and are planning their next move.
We will be playing this Sunday baring any issues....knock on wood.
Main group, Homebrew Campaign, started a few years ago, I'm the DM.
My players managed to defeat/save the (somewhat mad/mind controlled) mage in his tower, as two of them were down it was a close call since the bard needed a Nat 20 on his Sleight of Hand Check to snatch the magic tome from it's pedestal, as the ranger/rogue with much fitting stats was to afraid to get closer.
After that they got some useful information where to go next to stop the other evil mage (who caused the other one to get mad in the first place) from getting his hands on the artifact he seeks.
I expect them to return to magnimar and then decide how to get into the ruins of celwynvian. Prepared multiple routes, by foot/horse, ship to riddleport or find and pay someone to teleport them.
Happy to get going again since we had a "summerbreak" caused by colliding schedules and the last game was in June.
On the other hand I DM a homebrew One-/Twoshot for another group this weekend consisting of two totally new players who want to check out pathfinder and two players from the main group. If the new ones feel like it, I'll probably run The Dragons Demand for this group.
I've dramatically changed Book Two of Rise of the Runelords; the party is six strong (seven with the DMNPC I was running before we had the last two players join and I'm writing them out of the story at the end of book 2) confronting a cult of Norgorber inside the Magnimar Sewers. The cult thought they had lured the party in and knew their strategy; but the party decided at the last minute to just kick the door down.
The party is now in a combat against 121 cultists of levels between 3-12. They have killed 27 CR2 Faceless Stalker variants, 2 regular Faceless Stalkers, and 1 level 12 Inquisitor VMC Rogue with PC wealth. They also managed to get some poison gas piped into the room to knock out a large number of the cultists.
They have taken 9 points of damage. Luck has played a significant role, but I have been doing some behind the scenes tuning to make sure the other 90 enemies pose a threat. Well, whatever of those that are conscious.
Jade Regent progresses, slowly. I have kept two of my original players. I added the 'Baleful Coven' side-adventure in the appropriate place - it was good! I also intend to do 'Under Frozen Stars' - note to anyone else doing this, you're supposed to foreshadow it during book 2, which I didn't, though I've compensated by adding a diary to the Vegsungvaad's hoard pointing them in the right direction.
Memo to self: if ever designing an RPG system, make sure it's really easy to run interesting encounters, because if it takes planning (like having to look up all the enemy's spells before the session to see what they should cast), then you basically have to decide what your players will be fighting in advance, which reduces agency and spontaneity.
It doesn't help that Book 3 is 50% random encounters that are designed to use the boring and unbalanced caravan combat system.
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My main game is a small group of four (myself included) that recently reconnected. Two were veterans from my old days playing AD&D/2nd edition, the third is a longtime friend that joined us in the waning days of 2E D&D. We meet twice a month at one player's house.
We are a session or two from wrapping up book 1 of a heavily expanded Runelords using parts of Giantslayer weaved in, and replacing most of book 5 with "Into the Nightmare Rift" (Shattered Star 5). Book 6 will be merged with book 6 of Giantslayer as well. I'm aiming for an old school GDQ feel, maybe minus the Q.
Other highlights include...
1) Cadrilkasta from Shattered Star 5 (Karzoug's former mount) fancies herself as master of Guiltspur and does not want Karzoug returning. She also knows Volstus has a horn that can control Dragons (not just reds IMC) and fears it.
2) Arkhryst lost his lair to the frost giants many years ago but now most of the Frost Giants (that are still loyal to Karzoug from their olden days) have migrated somewhere northeast (Xin-Shalast) so he'll meet the players in book 4 after they deal with the Stone Giants and task them with cleaning out the rest of the village (Tomb of the Ice Queen, Giantslayer 4) in exchange for revealing where the Runeforge is.
3) Drow. In my world, House Rasivrein has been nearly destroyed for secretly worshipping an unknown deity (bringing Lolth to Golarion) by other houses that were allied against them. Matron Vulissakra has two large forces looking for lost cities to claim as both a place to live and hopefully to find powerful artifacts to destroy Zirnakaynin one day.
Xin-Shalast is one, the other is Ilmurea (Serpent Skull AP). I plan on using a large band of these Drow as allies to the PCs. While they do the heavy lifting in Xin-Shalast, the drow will fight the Frost Giants in the background in a heavy war like set piece in exchange for the city to be theirs when the PCs are done and a vow to never plague Varisia. The PCs will need their help.
Book 1 started with a mashup of "We be Goblins" and part 1 of the "Brinewall Legacy" (Jade Regent 1) as a Prelude insteasd of directly from the festival. In short Zantus was overdue from Magnimar bringing back butterflies for the festival, and Ameiko's pal Aldern Foxglove was supposed to hitch a ride with Zantus on his way back, so there were technically two to rescue, etc.
My 2nd group is Carrion Crown with 6 of us meeting for an extended weekend B&B meetup we do every January (we are old guildmates from World of Warcraft that have been together since launch). One of us is my player from the regular game, the others are all from different states, except one who drives in from Canada.
We tried 5e and Pathfinder. They chose Pathfinder. This is our 5th meetup.
We started CC last year and are about to begin book 2.
My campaign will be getting a little cut back. Long Story short, I had a Heart attack 2 weeks ago.
So to lighten my load on various things I will be running Night Below twice a month and someone else is going to run a different campaign the other two nights while I clear out my decks of various different things causing me stress right now.
We finished the 2nd volume of Reign of Winter last game session and will be playing this Sunday.
One of my groups has just finished Book 3 of CotCT this past Saturday. Halfway through the AP already! ... They weren't that fast with RotR. Maybe the more focused approach of an urban AP has been helping. I might celebrate with a one-shot session using one of the shorter Paizo modules. (Possibly "The Godsmouth Ossuary", seeing as the party will be arriving in Kaer Maga soon and that could give them an early introduction to that weird city.)
The other group has just started exploring Brinewall Castle in Book 1 of JR. Things are going more slowly there, but part of that is because I added a plug-in adventure from Legendary Games. (Also, the newest player is also new to Pathfinder too and there are two other players in that group who sometimes suffer from analysis paralysis.)
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So our other DM is going to run Tyrant's Grasp. Spent our game session making characters
Group is
Human - Incanter (Spheres of Power) who if I understand what he is planning is going to be a Red/White deck Magic the Gathering wizard
Tiefling - Trickster (from Kobold Press) as I understand it it's basically a Wizard/Thief hybrid class
Aasimar - Paladin (Hospitaler archetype) with his eye on the Holy Vindicator Prestige Class
and me Human Armiger (Awakener) from Spheres of Might. Basically a Fighter who summons Ghosts from his weapons.
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Our last game session got cancelled....so hopefully the next one will be good.
This Saturday my new group will start Dragon' Demand.
Dwarven Bloodrager/Fighter, Elven Eldritch Archer, Catfolk Oracle and Halfling Rogue. Happy to have not that much to prepare, as it is a written adventure.
Next Saturday my main group will continue their homebrew campaign in search for an ancient artifact hidden in the drow and spider infested ruins of Celwynvian and hope to reach it before the evil mage, even though he has a head start of a few days.
I have to prepare some encounters and "what-if-scenarios", but probably will be able to do so before the session, otherwise I'll just improvise (wouldn't be the first time xD)"
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In January, one of my players who has been with me from nearly the beginning of my gaming life has offered to start running a once a month game, with stand alone adventures, the old school kind where the players are wandering as much as the monsters and everybody has a high old time. I'm very excited by the prospect of being an actual player for the first time in YEARS as well as being hopeful this will help me overcome the panic attacks when I try to GM now.
Woohoo! When those games start I can actually contribute to the thread!
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The group finished off Kings of the Rift and are now 19th level, the look on the players faces when told they were being assaulted by 33 dragons was priceless. They have found and destroyed the Dracoliches phylactery. I did add a little something extra to the phylactery as I thought just smashing it seemed a bit boring.
They used divination to determine how to destroy the phylactery by smashing it with a holy weapon while being held in the hands of an innocent child and then having to kill said child as the dracoliches soul was now in the child. They figured out a way to do so by simply resurrecting a volunteer from their home town. Honestly, I had no specifics set for this, it was just a thought exercise.
Now they are off to simply destroy the very pissed off Dracolich
This Saturday my new group will start Dragon' Demand.
Dwarven Bloodrager/Fighter, Elven Eldritch Archer, Catfolk Oracle and Halfling Rogue. Happy to have not that much to prepare, as it is a written adventure.Next Saturday my main group will continue their homebrew campaign in search for an ancient artifact hidden in the drow and spider infested ruins of Celwynvian and hope to reach it before the evil mage, even though he has a head start of a few days.
I have to prepare some encounters and "what-if-scenarios", but probably will be able to do so before the session, otherwise I'll just improvise (wouldn't be the first time xD)"
Dragon's Demand is a really fun module!
Some groups might be resistant to sticking around and helping at the beginning, and there's a gap in the middle where, as written, it becomes flat-out hard to justify waiting around.There's a month-long gap in the middle during which my group left and sold the mcguffin (ultimately, it didn't actually affect anything). If I were to run it again I'd either reduce the amount of time before the auction or have it so that the guards escorting the criminals from the opening of the module aren't back yet so the mayor has temporarily hired the PCs and is paying them to stick around town and act as guards, especially with all of the high-valued stuff that is going to be auctioned off soon, and all sorts of unsavory people that could be skulking around town (up to you if there really is or not, but Apsis Consortium is always a good option).
Dragon's Demand is a really fun module!
Some groups might be resistant to sticking around and helping at the beginning, and there's a gap in the middle where, as written, it becomes flat-out hard to justify waiting around.
As I said, we have to entirely new players for this one, and a stated that I'll run a module as I don't have time to run more than one full homebrew game at a time. They understand and are fine with the occasional "rail road" for the sake of the module's story.
To run it like the guards come only back at the beginning of the auction and the players are paid to stay in town as guards is actually a nice way to keep them in town, I'll probably use this.
Sadly one of the new players was sick yesterday so we couldn't play. As one of the new players work shift Sadly the next possible session won't come up this year anymore :/
Now I just hope that next Saturday the homebrew game will go on as planned.
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Finally got to play, didn't get that far, but at least it was something.
Continuing with Tyrant's Grasp and entering the Palace of Teeth
...where I spent like 80% of the time paralyzed and getting my teeth ripped out.
thank god magic healing can fix that or I would be gumming my way through the rest of the campaign.
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I am not looking forward to encountering that palace.
Strange Aeons continues apace, last week seeing us getting our debriefing from the Sleepless Detective Agency before preparing for our journey on the river next session.
Meanwhile, I’m starting to construct my last run of PFS scenarios for a new player. We’ve got just enough adventures that only Cyzzane should need to use many of our replays to accomplish it.
Nearly at the end of Book 3 of Jade Regent, my most heavily rewritten chapter yet. The Under Frozen Stars plug-in was, predictably, better than the main book. Currently trying to figure out where to add 'Ruby Phoenix Tournament' into Book 4. I've allowed the group to find a Scroll of Greater Teleport, so they can in theory zap themselves straight there once they find out where and when the tournament is taking place, as long as they're willing to temporarily abandon the caravan. Then I just have to figure out how much of the actual book to run, since a high proportion of it is linear dungeons full of unexciting encounters designed to provide XP for anyone still using XP...
Didn't get a lot done last session and will not see each other until January 7th.
Nearly at the end of Book 3 of Jade Regent, my most heavily rewritten chapter yet. The Under Frozen Stars plug-in was, predictably, better than the main book. Currently trying to figure out where to add 'Ruby Phoenix Tournament' into Book 4. I've allowed the group to find a Scroll of Greater Teleport, so they can in theory zap themselves straight there once they find out where and when the tournament is taking place, as long as they're willing to temporarily abandon the caravan. Then I just have to figure out how much of the actual book to run, since a high proportion of it is linear dungeons full of unexciting encounters designed to provide XP for anyone still using XP...
Iss book 4 the Forest of Spirits? As a player I found the dungeon bits some of the most fun in the campaign because we got a proper combat challenge having to go through multiple encounters without resting. I felt it was a good change of pace from the ‘one random encounter per day’ routine we had got into.
My players are more into role-playing than combat challenges. Plus, I already changed book 3 enough to add in some multiple-encounter days. For example, having removed the caravan combat mechanics, my Dead Man's Dome final battle against the undead hordes involved wights, skeleton archers, an undead mammoth, zombie wolves, ice elementals, the shaman from the village returning as a wraith, a Cold Rider, and a storm ghost smiting them with lightning. The alchemist actually had to worry about running out of fire bombs for the first time.
(Also, IIRC, in Forest of Spirits as written, there really isn't a need to do the big dungeon without resting whenever you feel like it. Just leave the dungeon and go back to the caravan.)
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The Night Below has gained a new player, a Deep Gnome Unchained Rogue named Omar. After a little bit of shopping and item creation the group sett out for the spot on the map marked Dragons and is confident they can deal with the Behir they know is there. After a brief skirmish with some Quargoths they can hear the sound of something massive moving towards them
The Druid made an interesting couple of Belts. We use the Unchained Item creation rules for any permanent magic items. First Belt was a CON belt made from Death Dog pelts and a bit of Ankheg chitin. Mutated in the middle of crafting and gained a Quirk. When worn by it's creator, it doesn't give off a magical aura.
2nd Belt was a Strength Belt for the Armiger. Druid was hit with inspiration part way through but failed to follow through. Belt gained a quirk but not an immediately visible one.
It's a Mood Belt
Changes color with the wearers mood
I'm making a list of colors and moods
and since they are in the Underdark and most of the group has darkvision, they will probably never know
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My players are more into role-playing than combat challenges. Plus, I already changed book 3 enough to add in some multiple-encounter days. For example, having removed the caravan combat mechanics, my Dead Man's Dome final battle against the undead hordes involved wights, skeleton archers, an undead mammoth, zombie wolves, ice elementals, the shaman from the village returning as a wraith, a Cold Rider, and a storm ghost smiting them with lightning. The alchemist actually had to worry about running out of fire bombs for the first time.
(Also, IIRC, in Forest of Spirits as written, there really isn't a need to do the big dungeon without resting whenever you feel like it. Just leave the dungeon and go back to the caravan.)
In my game the final boss of that dungeon wasn't just sitting back and waiting for the PCs to come and clean their clock. If the PCs retreated she was sending reinforcements into areas the PCs had taken from her near limitless stock of hobgoblins and oni.
So the PCs had to besiege the dungeon in shifts (my players have a PC and a back-up PC active in the caravan), while the NPCs held the taken territory against reinforcement.
It was quite a tense dungeon that never let up, with active opposition and some incredible set pieces and more than one character death as players tried ot push as far as possible so they wouldn't lose ground later.
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Well my guys have begun Part 11 of AOW, they had a fun encounter getting in the middle of a lovers quarrel between the lillend bard/sorcerer and a slightly crazy lich. They were not expecting a talky encounter
They then had a nice battle at the entrance to Dragothas domain featuring some earthcancer centipedes, mindkiller scorpions and a 17th level Ulgurstasta(sp) sorcerer Of the three empowered disintegrates I got off only one stuck.
... AOW ...
Are you running AoW with the original 3.5 ruleset or PF1? Or some other ruleset?
If PF1, what changes have you made to the AP and its monsters?
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... AOW ...
Are you running AoW with the original 3.5 ruleset or PF1? Or some other ruleset?A combination of the two, I use some 3.5 stuff for the adversaries to spice things up and removed the "useless' feats from them
If PF1, what changes have you made to the AP and its monsters?
I have made way too many changes to list here, It's molded around the players backstories
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Starting a new Friday bi-weekly group at the FLGS for the store owner and a couple of friends. We’ll be playing an AP. I sent them 6 possibilities to discuss and decide between. I think we’ll make the decision tonight and I’ll get to preparing things.
I’m currently trying a GURPS Lost Lands/ Absythor/Barakus mash-up for my weekly group. If the GURPS piece crashes I’ll move that campaign to PF1 as well.
Starting a new Friday bi-weekly group at the FLGS for the store owner and a couple of friends. We’ll be playing an AP. I sent them 6 possibilities to discuss and decide between. I think we’ll make the decision tonight and I’ll get to preparing things.
I’m currently trying a GURPS Lost Lands/ Absythor/Barakus mash-up for my weekly group. If the GURPS piece crashes I’ll move that campaign to PF1 as well.
They picked Reign of Winter tonight so I guess we have character creation and Session 0 next Friday.
They picked Reign of Winter tonight so I guess we have character creation and Session 0 next Friday.
I love Reign of Winter!
Careful with the snow rules, it can easily cause a TPK (Ultimate Wilderness provides better / more varied rules for snow).Also, check out "On the Siberian Line" by Legendary Games as a really good add-in for later in the campaign. (Seriously, I can't suggest it enough.)
They picked Reign of Winter tonight so I guess we have character creation and Session 0 next Friday.I love Reign of Winter!
Careful with the snow rules, it can easily cause a TPK (Ultimate Wilderness provides better / more varied rules for snow).
Also, check out "On the Siberian Line" by Legendary Games as a really good add-in for later in the campaign. (Seriously, I can't suggest it enough.)
Thanks for the heads up! I’ll check out both!
I’m excited. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve really run PF1. I’m excited to get back to it, and a little nervous. I’ve got one player who is relatively new to rpgs and another who’s really only played 5e. My other players are old hands but we’ve all got some rust to knock off when it comes to PF1. I’ve run more SWADE the last couple of years than anything else.
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RoW, have not played that one in a while.
The lodge is incredibly deadly,(Well really the first half of the first book) even more so if the party is not level 2 by the time they get there. I'd recommend finagling things around if you have to such that the party reaches the lodge after leveling up. I'd also recommend you have Rohkar kill the sick bandits and reanimate them as zombies with his scrolls before the party arrives, it makes more sense (credits to someone on the paizo forums for that idea).
ROW is kicking our low level asses, we are still level 1, and both of our frontliners went down because he frozen skellingtons won init :).
I’ll have to look at the encounters. Maybe start them at second level. My intention was to do milestone leveling. At least two of my players are not going to be CharOp centered, probably three so giving them the extra level up front may be helpful.
Stat generation was going to be a 15 point buy, but pushing it to 20 might also work, instead of the second level.
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Right now on the kingdom side of Kingmaker we have expanded right up to the borders of Pitax after creating a massive bridge across the southern Hooktongue Slough. Hopefully this prompts Pitax to show their hand and attack us first, but if not, we plan to use Epidemic to spread cackle fever throughout their armies (not anything deadly on the chance that it becomes a true outbreak and hits our side as well).
We also have a flying castle, which was planned as the crowning achievement of our strength, but we met the BBEG at its christening ceremony. She is even more deadly than originally written with mythic ranks and spells, so keep her from attacking the kingdom directly, we have built a small fleet of plane-shifting psychic flying skiffs and trained elite units equipped with +3 bane ammunition to bypass her DR.
On the adventure side, we are preparing for a dragon fight with a few contingencies to either draw it out into the open and then knock it out of the sky (muskets combined with the wingclipper feat) or trap and kill it in its lair (scrolls of earthquake combined with and endless supply of perfect ice).
I’ll have to look at the encounters. Maybe start them at second level. My intention was to do milestone leveling. At least two of my players are not going to be CharOp centered, probably three so giving them the extra level up front may be helpful.
Stat generation was going to be a 15 point buy, but pushing it to 20 might also work, instead of the second level.
My group was 20 point buy, 4 players, all with at least 2 other APs under their belt. (Sorcerer, Ranger, Earth Kineticist, and a poorly built Oracle)
The lodge in book 1 took out 3 out of 4 of them (even with Ten-Penny Tacey not starting off on the side of the enemies), and the 4th only survived by taking advantage of the terrain outside.(NOTE: The milestone levelling is poorly written, the PCs should be 2nd level after the lodge; the book just says "...by the time they find the winter portal in the Border Wood.")
The fight at the portal could easily TPK the party if Hommelstaub uses half-decent tactics and the group has visibility problems due to the snow.
Also, I didn't use the gaes because I didn't really like the idea of it and my group was, thankfully, invested enough to do what needed to be done even though the Kineticist PC was vehemently against helping witches (to the point of refusing the fairly major bonus everyone receives partway though book 1 because he didn't want any 'gifts' from them).