Really, my party is just loving this whole idea. I have roleplayers, problem solvers, combat junkies and some unknowns totally fired-up! We ran the first session, and it was just roleplaying at the table to gain insight and knowledge, maybe BUILD those future relations with those NPCs and they loved it! NO combat for 4 hours. HOW crazy is that?
All right, really, my question is on hexploration. I stumbled across a rule modification that I REALLY liked (I posted a shout out), regarding putting the day into basically 4 phases. Sweet. All in.
NOW, there are some hexes in the game, that have pre-set locations, encounters. Yes? IN those hexes, would I ALSO roll for random encounters? Or, pretty much, that set piece is only thing to be found.
I'm a little confused, deeply appreciate feedback and comments. Thoughts? Tips and tricks?
Thank you!
Creative Director
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My advice for the hexes that have encounters in them is to not roll random encounters initially. Once the encounter there is resolved, feel free to roll random encounters if the PCs revisit.
That said, my strongest advice for random encounters is to keep an eye on how your players are enjoying them. If they're bored with stretches of no action, then more encounters should happen. If they're frustrated at having trouble making plot-progress or because they spend too much of the session dealing with random encounters, then fewer encounters should happen.
Die rolls should spur creativity and suggest things, but they shouldn't rule the game when it comes to things like random encounters; you as the GM should absolutely curate them and adjust things as needed to make the game more fun at that moment.
Have fun! :)
That said, my strongest advice for random encounters is to keep an eye on how your players are enjoying them. If they're bored with stretches of no action, then more encounters should happen. If they're frustrated at having trouble making plot-progress or because they spend too much of the session dealing with random encounters, then fewer encounters should happen.
^ All of this. Sometimes random encounters are great to cause unexpected things to happen which can build the story on its own, and also reinforce the idea that these are untamed, not-safe lands.
Other times... I know when my group is heading toward a quest that we are really keen on doing, having everything stop for a meaningless random encounter just deflates everyone.
Also note that if you're using the companion & camping stuff, there are a lot of ways to reduce the random encounter chance. We were using ALL of them, which is probably a signal for how many random encounters we prefer (not a lot).
We're not using the camping rules anymore for the most part, but you get the idea.
Thank you both, it all makes sense with your thoughts and suggestions. VERY much appreciated!
Session TWO, kicks-off this Wednesday!
I like camping rules in theory, but in practice RAW they cause way to many random encounters. Honestly, this is the hardest part of running this AP for me. Realistically, there should be A LOT of random encounters. This is the Stolen Lands. An area of the River Kingdoms that is so dangerous that no nation has been able to settle and hold it. So if you treat it with the respect it deserves the party should be engaging with a lot of random combat encounters with beasties and bandits.
However, those encounters can just get really dull. There's only so many times you can fight dire wolves, kobolds, bandits, spiders, etc.. in a wilderness biome map before the players just want to get on with it.
Honestly, the best way to do it is to create custom encounters with detailed RP. Instead of a random wolf attack, come across hunter being attacked by wolves who then meets PCs and eventually settles in their kingdom.
But those types of random encounters can take a lot of time to prep, and introduces NPC bloat.
The struggle is real for me, this AP takes A LOT of energy from the GM. Also, the kingdom management needs a lot of work to make it playable.
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The Random Encounters tables give you a 5% chance of a Severe encounter of the area's level, a 40% chance of a Moderate one, a 30% chance of a Low one and a 25% chance of rolling on the table of the area 1 level below.
The latter ends up in a 5% chance of a Moderate encounter of the original area's level, a 40% chance of a Low one, a 30% chance of a Trivial one and lastly the 25% chance of rolling on the table of the area 2 levels below the original one.
Which then ends up in a 5% chance of a Low encounter of the original area's level, a 40% chance of a Trivial one, a 30% chance of something below Trivial and the 25% chance of rolling on the table of the area 3 levels below the original one.
And then we have a 5% chance of a Trivial encounter of the original area's level and 95% chance of something below Trivial.
Summing the numbers, it gives the roll a 5% chance of a Severe encounter of the area's level, a 41,25% chance of a Moderate one, a 40,3125% chance of a Low one, a 10,3125% of a Trivial one and 3,125% of something below Trivial.
When Camping, the sidebar on Random Encounters suggests one per camping session.
Low and Trivial ones (not to mention those below Trivial) will then be a mere training exercise for the PCs, Moderate will be interesting but not that much of a challenge and only the Severe ones might actually be memorable.
Once your PCs become bored with spending rounds slaughtering low-level threats, just describe how the Low and lower encounters happen with either the creatures giving the party a wide berth or the party killing them all.
Play the Moderate and Severe encounters only.
You might even bypass playing the Moderate ones too in the same manner as above and only play the Severe ones, which will happen only once every 20 Random Encounters.
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For my camping, I've taken inspiration from Fabula Ultima...
1) Watches are taken in pairs, not one-by-one, with players RPing with each other to build deeper intercharacter relationships and earn hero points.
2) Random encounters are very rare and almost never result in Encounter mode. On night watch you'll mostly encounter friendly or at least neutral NPCs attracted to the safety/warmth of a fire. This is where I like to break out the harrow deck too if it feels right to give the party an oracle or to foreshadow upcoming stuff.
3) If there is going to be combat, it most likely won't be wild animals but bandits, etc. setting up an attack that makes sense narratively.
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For normal overland travel, I like to also give a basic description of terrain features and a mood and then let the players describe the cinematics of a directors cut scene (like two towers from LOTR style travel). The player describing the scene can earn a hero point.
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As for frequency of encounters during travel, I agree with what James said above... how eager are the players to get to the next beat or are they really into the feeling of the wilderness exploration... that will also determine how many times we repeat the camp/overland travel loop between the starting point and destination rather than a fixed number of times per hex traveled. We might do the loop for every hex on the way to Oleg's Outpost, but it's okay to "montage" the travel a bit more after you've established your Kingdom. Likewise, I'm not there yet but I imagine early on we'll lean into the Kingdom rules hard, but probably transition towards less focus on them if they start to feel stale... Basically, we're not playing a simulation board game so refer to the First Rule of Pathfinder as needed.
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I don't think I described my approach to overland travel well so let me give an example:
GM: "Long plains stretch ahead with rocky outcroppings. The party feels a mix of hope, knowing that the elvish pin you found means you are headed in the right direction, and urgency, to catch up with the orcish column before harm comes to your friends. Who wants to describe the directors cut cinematics of the scene for a hero point? Make sure to cue the other players to contribute to the scene."
Ranger player: "A long shot of the party descending, the dwarf huffing to keep up as the ranger leads, eyes always on the horizon. A drone shot over the column of orcs zooms in on the hostages carried on their shoulders. We get a cameo of the dwarf" (dwarf player: "Just Breathe") "The party comes up a ridge standing at its top we get a cameo by the elf." (elf player: "We're gaining on them") ... etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE1fR9_Lcko
And the point with this kind of travel is that we could be covering 1 or 5 hexes depending on how I want to pace the game.