Riding Bull's RotRL Rambling - Mixture of journal and newbie GM questions.


Rise of the Runelords

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Bouncing thoughts of my mind wrote:

Each time I'm about to post on this forum, I've felt the need to excuse myself for being RPG virgin/first time GM/asking stupid questions and expecting blunt answers. I'm thankful for all the help I've got and the great community here! I've read plenty of helpful discussion and figured I might be able to give something back by writing down my newbie steps as a first time DM. Maybe someone like me can pick something useful up from this topic in future.

For a while I was considering to start a full out campaign journal, but one of my players is already writing a really nice one (blog) and what I personally was more in need, was a place to vent my experience of past sessions and hopefully get some helpful replies and hard opinions at times.

And so begins the rambling.. We started playing early January 2014 with bunch (5+GM) of RPG virgins, after discovering roll20 and my desperate need of getting to test this (RPG) stuff with my childhood geek friends after Kickstarting Reaper Bones 1,5 years ago for board gaming proxies and then wondering what these "Pathfinder Iconics" were all about.

In the beginning there was:

  • Alpharius, lonely Spell-less Ranger on a personal mission.
  • Frank, castaway Barbarian attempting to fit in urban society after ending an argument with his dear Earth Breaker.
  • Harsk, laid-back Cleric of Iomedae spreading the just word and preparing followers for the war of the Wound.
  • Ilori, charming Elemental Sorcerer with bad burns in her past.
  • Vidarok, wandering Druid looking to purge the evil of forests.

From the starting 5, only 3 are still around. While Frank has gone missing, rumors say he has found his place as an arena fighter in Riddleport (player quit realizing this type of gaming wasn't for him). Vidarok has got himself killed. Twice. After a mere week of mourning for the loss of Vidarok, the group was approached by Ameiko Kaijitsu, who introduced them her old friend from times when she also traveled in search of adventure:

  • Alfred, hedonistic master of Axe and Shield, itching to get back in to action.

By now we've got well past mid point of second book and this is where I will pick up with my future rambling. If you'd like read how we've got this far, I urge you to read Alpharius's Journal.

Warning! Rest of this post may contain spoilers from AP: Rise of the Runelords.

= = =
Thursday 10-April-2014 Something of a voluntary session on roll20 in preparations of our full day live session on Saturday few days later. Harsk skipped this one while player of Vidarok got to introduce his new character, who was then tested before acceptance to group.
= = =

Sunday 14th of Lamashan, 4707

After Vidarok's second death at the Foxglove Manor, the group had spent their time of mourning by handling errands at town and taking slower pace before chasing on with their last clue. Ilori had made friends with depressed Shayliss, while Alpharius had been of at nearby forest determined to teach Faroth fight with undead before moving on. Harsk had been most active of the 3 as he had made himself and Iomedae well known around town while setting up a chapel in her name on High Street. He had passed the celebration of Day of Ascendance as it was now shadowed with the passing of Vidarok. Over the week they had met Alfred often at the Rusty Dragon and when he finally offered to join the group, Alpharius challenged him to a duel in order to test his strength. Alfred proved himself able first at the duel, and then at the forest on a boar hunt.

GM note: Harsk skipped a session and so I let rest of the players call the shots without me preparing anything in advance (first time really). This almost turned sour when instead of nice little boar hunt, I accidentally threw 6 dire boars (in medium size) at them 3 PCs.

Harsk has thrown me plenty of mechanical challenge with all his out of combat plans. He has so far joined forces at the Two Knight Brewery by buying share of the business and also bought an abandoned building in order to set it up as an chapel for Iomedae. While I really love the creativity, I feel guilty for not always being aware and prepared for all the little details and thus bogging down the sessions and discouraging others to engage in similar activity.

= = =
Saturday 12-April-2014 For the first time we gathered together in one place to play. This was really great experience and I honestly can't wait to do it soon enough again! Our longest session online has been 8 hours spent in Foxglove Manor, but this time we played 12 hours straight with only a few pizza breaks. We still played with laptops using roll20, but some of us rolled with actual dice and the actual role playing surfaced more, when we got to look each other in the eye and bring more of the body language in to the character.
= = =

Starting from: Moonday 15th of Lamashan, 4707

Couple days later they were back on the track as Ilori was keen to know if there would be property to confiscate from Foxglove's Magnimar home. Harsk had hired one of the orphan boys to clean and host his modest chapel while he'd be away. Despite Alpharius's objections, the group chose to take sea route to Magnimar on a freight boat called "Tall and Handsome". They had heard rumors of giant sea beasts lurking in Varisian waters, but what stormed the boat that night was no natural sea beast. Alpharius was first to wake to the sea chase where huge water elemental was determined to drown the ship. After everyone had been alarmed, they slowly chipped away the beast while Jack the captain of the ship spent his time laughing at the little chase, from his perspective one lost deckhand was one less paycheck.

GM note: I feel as if I had easier time pushing them to head Magnimar for better gear than to actually have them interested in chasing any little leads they got from Foxglove Manor.. Luckily the players took the hint and understands the learning curve I'm trying to manage and thus they found motivations for their characters to move on. On this note, I feel the biggest mistake I have made so far was allowing them way too much freedom in character creation. Of initial characters, only Harsk as a character was motivated to actually group up and help others in need, while rest of the players had hard time finding an angle how their loner characters would suddenly group up. 5 levels later, introducing new character and Alfred is all about looking for adventures and pushing for team spirit.

They wake up on the boat next morning at the docks of Magnimar and head out to settle at Kaijitsu Manor (which they got key for from Ameiko), before heading out for Foxglove Townhouse. With a citymap Alpharius bought from Sandpoint, they navigate the streets with ease and find their way around the city. While on a stroll in Naos, Harsk is met by a stern paladin with a smile on his face, when he sees the dwarf carrying regalia of Iomedae. The group gets invited to stop by at the cathedral, but they choose to keep going while the day is still young.

GM note: I am so thankful for all the advice I got from this forum on how to run Magnimar after first detailing Sandpoint to every single merchant. There was plenty of room for improvement, but attempting to give the districts personality more so than every single person, I was able to set some mood while not dragging the session too much with monologue.

"Wait.. Didn't we.. Is that.. How?" was the atmosphere when they entered the Foxglove Townhouse with a key that fit the door lock and found their hosts inviting them for a lunch that was about to be served. In a building with windows shut. Alfred unfamiliar with Iesha & Aldern took great initiate by being bit confused about the reaction of rest of the group and joined the table, quickly followed by Harsk scared of missing his share of the food. When the two sat down to dine, Ilori and Alpharius still stood confused in the entrance hall.

After making short work of their welcoming party, they went thru the building realising someone had been there before them and almost gave up on the search when Harsk finally noticed the keyhole and made quick connection with the lionheaded key.

GM note: While this encounter was great roleplaying moment on many levels and people were really having fun with the confusion, lack of great battlemap showed how visually oriented our group is as we tried to make sense of the map that comes with the AE (stairs leading to a wall?). I have also bought the AE interactive map, but to my disappointment it had the same maps at as good quality as the AE itself. The inconsistency of RotRL AE maps with what the PCs are supposed to experience is just silly at times, because they sort of have a visual setting, but maybe it isn't actually how it seems to be. For most parts I use everything I can find from the community created source, but for this encounter I wasn't able to find anything useful. On a side note, I have also noticed how my players already know to expect combat encounter whenever I load up a new map.. I wonder if I would be able to have them enjoy a combat encounter without actual battle map and tokens.. Or if I should just let it slide as is?

After getting a new clue in town, they decided to act on the intiative and only briefly stopped by at the cathedral of Iomedae for further clues. Harsk was welcomed to the local justice league with a new shield, painted in Iomedae's colors and enchanted with protective spell (+1) while rest of them got a divine blessing (bless for rest of the day) for their journeys.

GM note: at times I stress about details like how much a pint of ale should cost and then I throw around magical items and special spell effects like they are worth nothing.. For this particular campaign I feel it to be fine as the players are hardly optimizing their characters, but I guess I should be more conserned about it in the future. What I've learned is that value of money isn't really an issue and shouldnt be made big deal as the player wealth/lvl can change and happen in some campaigns over time of few days by going from lvl 1 to 20 in a month, and other campaigns might drag on over few years..

They eventually made their way to the Seven Sawmill, where they multiple times toyed with an idea of just burning it down.. Ilori did stick to burning arc and so I didn't bother my head with "what ifs". But when they made it to upstairs and she threw a fire ball in to the back corner I hastily ruled that the explosion is so swift it merely ashed all the sawdust and made only burn marks on the walls. At upstairs they were confronted with a familair face, when one of the two remaining cultists pulled of his hood and emerged as a character with torn ears known as Tsuto Kaijitsu. Ironbriar's only words in this fight were "Now, my apprentice, is you chance to have your revenge!" and he stood only for a few desperate rounds after that. Tsuto managed even less.

Going through the loot, they figured out to send a messenger raven and follow its flight and seeing roughly its destination. They attached a cut ear of former Justice along with a note stating "We are coming for you!" on the bird and then spooked by their own devious plan, decided to head sleeping at the cathedral instead of Kaijitsu Manor. In case the boogeyman whom trails they found at sawmill, decides to come for them..

GM note: Sawmills hanging ropes offered a nice little effect to the combat as the fight went on in multiple layers. PCs had multiple great moments as they fought their way up. I now think I should have sent Ironbriar looking for them when the fight paced out and the players got time to breath at the 4th floor. Instead I served them a dry pc-game solution of him and his last few minions waiting. If Ilori would have had it her way, she would have blasted the top floor with fire ball. Which she then did when she got upstairs and saw the scene.. I guess I should have let realism rule and set the place in fire, but I'm really clueless on how it should have worked. The player would really prefer Ilori to set things ablaze with each spell but I've so far preferred her spells to only make minor markings instead of exploding everything everytime.

I also got valuable feed back on the lack of personality on my BBEGs.. My cheap shot excuse is that each time a big bad evil guy is encountered, it happens at the end of a session and I'm honestly exhausted even if I'm having fun and would like to carry on. I just keep forgetting they are anything more than a set of spells and kills waiting to be slain. On Aldern I even went so far as to start next session with just a little monologue from him before he had his last breath (session before that ended on a killing blow). On the other hand, Ironbriar had nothing special set up to say and had I remebered to improv something, it would have prolly been same as with Elyrium and Nualia so far: "You are ruining everything!". Do you, other GMs prepare monologues/lines for you BBEGs along with spells? I think I should begin to. I'm now starting to see the (infamous?) RotRL pattern of: "kill the bad guy, find the note/journal containing the next clue" and might want to replace some of it with some more verbal banter during combat.

The following day they were eager to share their exploits with the head of the cathedral, only someone went and mentioned they had been acting at the Seven Sawmill. The Paladin of Iomedae, Vincent Valentine was taken back by this, for he had heard rumors of highly respected Justice of the city being found slain at the very same sawmill this very morning. The group tried to excuse their way out of it, but nothing they showed to Vincent would hold Ironbriar accountable in front of the court. Harsk proposed a hearing in a zone of thruth and Vincent agreed to this as he still sensed the justice and valor in this little comrade. Small formal hearing was held in the cathedral and in Vincent's eyes the groups reputation was as clear as their word true for their actions, but this wasn't something that would pass in front of the city council and for this reason, they agreed that the group would stay in town while a scholar and well known linguistic of Pathfinder Society would encrypt Ironbriars journal in hopes of more hard evidence before Vincent would take his knowledge to the city Justice.

GM note: I think someone of the players even mentiond, that this served them well for actually first time really having consequenses for their action. They had just been joking how letting Tsuto live had now clearly been a mistake, and that would be the last time they take prisoners.. And now taking the guy standing next to Tsuto would have saved them a lot of trouble. A moment earlier they had considered the paladin a coolest guy in town (for free shield & blessings) and suddenly he is putting a crime on them. This also points out how my lack of verbal play in combat for Ironbriar left them clueless of his identity untill they had slain him and gone through his belongings.

= = =

So there's that. Ramblings and brain freezes of a 12 hour live session (+ short online session from couple days before that) from newbie GMs perspective. I propably left something out, but this is a start.

For more detailed journal from our games, I want to once more promote Alpharius's Journal (blog).


Oh and in case someone wants to give hints considering future events, please use spoiler tags! My players might be reading :)


Honestly, most of my BBEGs never got a chance to say anything as my party's modus operandi became, "Silence the paladin. Run in swinging."
Kind of eliminated the need for monologues.

Sounds like you're doing a good job of enriching the city. But yes, if you run the BBEGs as-written then many of them are going to die due to stupid tactics. You might want to improve their tactics a bit.

As you write things up, I'll spoiler anything that needs spoilering. For example:

The next step:

Xanesha's an infamous party-killer. Even her 'weakened' version in the AE edition should kill at least one PC. Make sure you play her to the best of her abilities; many a party has had to flee her to fight another day, or do something epic (jumping off the clock tower while grappling her) to win the day.

She's one of the most memorable fights of the entire AP. Don't nerf her or give her bad tactics.


Oh god, you're really pushing me to catch up with the Journal here, aren't you :)

*goes back to write*


NobodysHome: I guess that would excuse me if they'd figure to silence them! But all the way from Erylium it's been bunch of corny one liners or none at all. At Nualia I was so tired that she never said a word and just slashed at them. I guess you could say that it suited the character, but I doubt I then descriped the character enough to make it look suitable for her.

So.. maybe instead of prepping monologues, I should atleast prepare their descriptions in the language we are gaming, so I don't try to translate on the spot and then leave it to some half assed Finglish. Might even set myself in to correct mind set to then throw couple improv one liners beyond "you are ruining everything!"

Alternative resolutions to Sawmill?:
Would you mind telling what you would have done if they'd burned the sawmill on the spot? One of the players was supporting the opinnion, that most macigal fires don't cause actuals fires, but I'd like to let the sorcerer to burn something at some point if I'd have an idea how to keep it in sensible limits.

For what I've read, "let's burn it" is sort of mind set that every group goes thru at one point or another, but easily dergraes to boring sessions to each side.

Tomi: I'll be only providing the teasers while I let you descripe the events in full glory (and a pinch of seasoning) at your own pace :).. My aim here is to try and discuss topics which I feel troubled with, but rather not waste gaming time bothering you guys.


Hey, one of my favorite languages is 'Finglish'! I think only 'Swedlish' comes close in the number of 'fascinating' translations it produces! :-P

To your question:

Spoiler:

Burning the sawmill would have produced an interesting situation: If they were careless and were seen, they would have become wanted criminals in Magnimar. This would lead to some interesting possibilities for side quests, along with serious repercussions in terms of the AP (Mayor Groboras certainly wouldn't ask *them* to go investigate Fort Riddick, for example.) I would have done my best to continue the story, but I would force them to flee Magnimar on pain of capture/execution, and then most likely use Shalelu as a hook into Book 3. ("I know a place you can hide. My stepfather is second-in-command at a fort filled with wanted fugitives and the like. You could hide there until the heat dies down.")

This punishes them severely; they're a bit low-level, and the sawmill has oodles of treasure (somewhere around 20,000 if I recall correctly), so they lose XP and money with this approach.

If they're not seen, I'd have Ironbriar escape easily enough (he's got enough hit points to survive the fall off the roof, and Invisibility would let him make a clean getaway), so if they know Ironbriar is behind everything, they can see him strutting around in public as if nothing ever happened.

If they don't know about Ironbriar and they burn the place, they're destroying their loot, their XP, and all their clues. It's really hard to feel sympathy for them if they go that route.

And don't worry... in Book 3 "burn it" is the recommended practice for pretty much every place they go...


Riding Bull wrote:


** spoiler omitted **

What Nobodys Home said - and....

Spoiler:

Any Paladin would fall (in my game) - the sawmill isn't the only building around and setting a fire in a city (even if the mills are slightly separated) is a major bad idea (see Chicago).

I'd most likely make a note of shifting everyone's alignment to chaotic.

I'd add 2-3 wrath marks on the sin card.

The sawmill contains any evidence at all that could be used to prove their innocence. Without that they have made an enemy of Magnimar - Justice Ironbriar - the cult of Norberger (sp?) etc. I'd also have Xaneshia move from Magnimar on the news and setup a new base of operations with a keen interest on taking out the party - thus lots of ambushes and such assuming they make it out of Magnimar.

Burning things down is so lame - why adventure if you just want to nuke the world? My party burnt Thistletop (the fort) after they were done (they didn't find a good 1/4 of the stuff) and now that treasure is gone - they'd need weeks of hard labor to sift through the ruins to get back into the dungeon (which being Thassilonian didn't burn).

Heck I'd most likely make sure they heard rumors of the vast horde of magic that was found ruined in the ashes just so they realize how much they missed out on.

A mature approach I suppose would be to stop the session for a moment and make sure the party is notified pre-burn that if they have no issue with destroying treasure as a time saving tactic - you'll have no issue using sunder against them as intelligently has possible. After Magnimar you get to fight alot of ogres and giants - many of which are terrifyingly good and breaking the PCs equipment.


Regarding BBEG's: there's only so many variations on "I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids." Not to be a Runelords defender but it's not the only AP or only adventure with the "limited exposure, limited charactization of the BBEG" problem. And this isn't even a game mechanic problem per se, it's storytelling problem. Almost by definition the BBEG and the pc's are antithetical - there isn't a lot of common ground for negotiation or relationship building. Further by the time they are aware of each other, they each have a strong incentive kill each other. Any of the "BBEG toys with the PC's" lines are always more than a bit contrived - either the players are a threat and the BBEG should stomp them like he/she/it does all other enemies or they are not a threat in which case surely the BBEG has something better to do with his/her/its time (conquer the world, free Cthulhu, make breakfast, and so on.)

Let's take Ironbriar in your post above. Your players appear to have followed a very predictable sequence - from townhouse direct to sawmill. They have had no chance to encounter Ironbriar (unless it was part of the expanded Tsuto story line from earlier) and for his part he may not even know who they are or that they are in town. But even if he did know and had some reason to interact with or try to manipulate them, the moment Ironbriar encounters them in the sawmill he must kill them. He can't let anyone outside the cult see him in the regalia with the other cultists in a clear leadership role - his cover will be completely blown. Let's see - kill the intruders or the life I've spent a century building is ruined? Kill the intruders wins every time.

Regarding your alternate sawmill question...

Spoiler:
Like the other responders, I would discourage the pyromania approach. I would remind my players that these towns do not have modern fire departments with modern firefighting technology. Starting a fire at a sawmill is just as likely to lead to a conflagration spanning blocks as it is to solving their tactical problem. I'd probably go further and talk to the player and encourage them to find a different character motivation. A focus on fire magic can be cool; setting the home or lair of every villain on fire, not so much. The consequences are going to be consistently bad for the pc's. Or should be anyway.


I thank you all for your take on the issue! After your advice I brought it up with Ilori's player and we both immediately agreed that burning buildings was certainly not what he was hoping to do and he was merely making sure I would stay firm on the ruling in the future. So for now, magical fire will only burn what it hits, but will not start fires on its own, thus I don't stress about burning buildings with fireballs and he doesn't stress about burning loots. All good in Golarion on that matter!

Well.. if it wasn't for this sad event.

So quick update on the group:

  • Alfred, hedonistic master of Axe and Shield, itching to get back in to action.
  • Alpharius, lonely Spell-less Ranger on a personal mission.
  • Harsk, laid-back Cleric of Iomedae spreading the just word and preparing followers for the war of the Wound.
  • Ilori, charming Elemental Sorcerer with bad burns in her past.

Time (and hopefully next session) will tell if Ilori will be brought back, or if they'll meet an other friendly face on their journeys.

Last session brought up a new set of thoughts/questions and that is why I'm here rambling about it, so let's get to it!

Warning! Rest of this post may contain spoilers from AP: Rise of the Runelords.

= = =
Monday 21-April-2014 After bit of group drama (caused by frustrated GM. keep your sugar levels up and stay happy people!), we postponed our gaming night from Thursday evening to Monday midday, so that everyone could attend the session. What was planned (at least I thought so) to be another 4 hour roll20.net session, stretched itself to an amazing 8 hours. Again.

I love these long ones!
= = =

Oathday 18th of Lamashan, 4707

After getting into bit of trouble with their honesty and eagerness to claim fame, the group was passing their time within city of Magnimar, as agreed with the Paladin of Iomedae, Vincent. He had given the group his word, that he would delay his reports until Ironbriar's memoirs would be encrypted.

The group however had one more lead to follow and as it seemed to be within city limits, they chose to act on it.

Day after their initial accusations, they woke up at Kajitsu Townhouse where they had settled on arrival to Magnimar and from there headed towards docks and after some shopping, onwards to Underbridge.

GM note: After initial despair about the size of the city, I now slowly start to catch on with how to describe events happening around the PCs without making everything I say seem like a set up for next encounter.. And yet the players are catching on to them and reacting, thus giving even more life to the events. It also helps with suddenly turning one into an actual encounter, keeping the players guessing and actually focusing more on character behavior instead of preparing their mechanics every time I start describing new scene.

They quickly learned why there was only a little traffic between docs and Underbridge as only a block or so in to the Shadow, they saw a body of a man hung on the wall, with his chest bare and 7 pointed star cut on it. It had certainly been there for some time yet it seemed no one had done a thing in attempt to help or remove the body.

They noticed sounds of rumble on the roofs, somewhere above them, but saw nothing as they navigated the narrowing corridors between two story buildings towards the tall tower-like building they had seen the messenger birds flying to.

After they were already deep into the Shadow, a woman's voiced greeted them from behind a corner. She spoke to Alpharius by name and asked others to step aside as she was there only to claim his head..

GM note: So I try to throw a bit of challenge at them from my newly acquired NPC Codex (This book is great for ideas!). CR10 fighter in front of them with 3 CR4 rogue adds jumping on to them from the roofs (they managed 6 dire boars by 3 of them, what could go wrong here!) and they cut through it like butter. Sure she hit hard when she hit home, but she didn't last long. More than anything, purpose of this encounter was to tie one of the characters more in to story and on that I seemed to manage as the PCs started to question Alpharius while going through the bounty hunters belongings. I allowed them to have most of the loot that was written on NPC Codex and that produced unexpected acts later in the session.

They eventually arrived to the clock tower and after assessing it from outside, they entered the building trough the door at ground level with bit of hesitation.

They encountered the flesh golem as written but the poor thing barely managed to get out of its blankets before it was already a puddle of blood on the ground.

GM note: I was expecting this too to be a challenge for them, but the thing really barely scratched them. Surely their good reactions & positioning was big part of it, but it felt so wrong to watch this big scary boogeyman go down in few rounds when they had been so afraid of it couple nights back. I feel like DR5 really isn't issue enough for them to even worry about overcoming it when they roll 10-15 for damage.

A question raised during this fight and it troubles me still. How do you handle knowledge checks for a character that is 19 year old girl, rolls high, but for sure hasn't seen similar thing before.. I mean sure I could throw mechanical info at them, but I'd really like to veil it in story. So I clumsily explained that the thing reminded her of her bedtime stories and what she recalled from them (but with ton of "ummm"s and "errrrrr"s and "wait how do I explain this so that it sounds believable for a small-town-girl-turned-sorcerer to know?"). I guess now that I wrote it like that, I could use similar solution in future, but what solutions do other GMs use? Or do you just hand out hard facts even if it doesn't fit the character?

For how little effort they needed with the flesh golem, they seemed awfully hesitant to move upwards on the ladders and stopped to discuss this every now and then. Harsk the Cleric, who almost jumped to his doom through a window at Foxlove Manor, was so afraid of the stairs that after evaluating the steps for a moment, jumped down once to feel steady ground beneath his feet.

GM note: Great role playing guys! Even if the map of stairs was pain :)

Only few moments after a bell had rang from top to bottom and Ilori had fell along with it, she was surprised by Xanesha. Harsk and Faroth (animal companion of Alpharius) had made it to bottom at this point and tried to defend her, but Ilori was quickly slain, shortly after Faroth.

When Xanesha's head rolled on the floor, there was Alpharius the Ranger mourning for his deceased animal companion, Harsk the Cleric channeling positive energies and Alfred the Fighter was already running along the inner wall of the tower with his boots of spider climb (recovered from the bounty hunter) to loot Xanesha's lair. Oh yeah and Ilori was lying dead at the bottom of the stairs, but none remembered her when there was pets to be mourned and treasures to be looted!

GM note: I mean I guess I could (should?) have modified the critical spear strike on Ilori to give her a fighting chance, but on the other hand she had had the chance to escape upwards on the stairs while Faroth was fighting for his life in her defence. After a quick judgement call I decided to let it happen as dice called and pierced through her, knowing that if her player wanted to stick to this character, they had resources for her resurrection.

I guess I should also bring up that I clearly altered Xanesha's tactics quite a bit as she chose to scout out and make the move to engage if opportunity arises. This was result of feedback after the Ironbriar encounter where he had stayed waiting. Xanesha was also more verbal, but maybe to my players disappointment, she barely spoke in common.

There was also similar knowledge check shenanigans with the illusion demon (as with the flesh golem), as Ilori tried to recognize it as well. I guess now that I think of it, she probably has heard a lot of scary bed time stories..

= = =

That's that for tonight's story time!

For more detailed campaign journal, I once more (and last time, I promise!) point you towards Alpharius's Journal (blog).


Yeah, Knowledge skills can be really rough, especially for non-wizardy types. I figure buying points in the skill means that the PC is spending all those nights at camp reading up on the subject -- I mean, they bought the skill point, and that means the character invested some hours in learning things.

So she just happened to have read a book about them at some point.

And if the player says, "She doesn't read books," just look him straight in the eye and ask, "Then where does her knowledge come from?"

And the best part? If he comes up with a good answer, USE IT!!!


That is exactly what I'm going to do! I let them explain where they have gained the information after they have rolled, so they can then adjust their explanations to their roll instead of "She was always fond of demons and has been to every lecture about them.." *roll 1+5* "..but currently can't recall any of it!"

And thus I have easier time to adjust what I tell them based on their explanation and roll.

Another knowledge check related issue I tend to have, is to figure out how to tell them which knowledge they need, without giving out what type of enemy they are facing. This is more of an issue when the ranger would like to make knowledge check to recognize his favorite enemies. So far he has been good sport thou and acted in character even if on meta level he knew otherwise.


My absolute favorite example of Knowledge check entertainment.

It's the GM note about 4 paragraphs in...


1 person marked this as a favorite.

A few semi-random comments...

A character's skill roll in a Knowledge skill isn't just what he/she has learned through study but what he/she remembers right now. So adding skill points doesn't have to correlate directly to book study (though it can) it just may be the character's life experiences are helping him/her make better use of the knowledge he gained via learning in the past.

Age is no prerequisite for knowing things. I'm a bit over 19... okay WAY over 19 but I've never seen a Roman Centurion before yet if I saw a squad come over the hill, I'm pretty sure I'd recognize them (I'd be very temporally confused but I'd recognize them.) And I bet my 15 year old son would too. How can that be? Because we've studied material about them. And that's what putting ranks in knowledge skill means - they've studied that area. Related note: considering a 19 year old female as young or a girl is a very modern conceit. For an overwhelming majority of cultures across human history, 19 was well past age of majority and when you were considered an adult and expected to be about adult things - working, marriage, etc. So your 19 year old sorceror would bristle at being considered a "girl" with the connotation of inexperienced or immature.

Am I reading the post above correctly, Riding Bull - you are expecting a ranger to make a knowledge check to recognize his favored enemy? Where did I miss that in the rules? Pretty sure that would draw a protest from any ranger player I've ever known. This is a person who's has made it his professional vocation to kill species X. I think he should recognize them on sight. Knowledge check to know the Bloody Claw orc tribe uses poisoned arrows or that the Fevered Skull orcs aren't from around here? Yea, good to go on the knowledge check. But recognition? That should be automatic unless illusion or very effective disguise is in play.

I would suggest you let players auto-recognize common, archetype creatures - that's a goblin and that's a dragon and that's an orc and that's a drow and so forth. Other less common, more mysterious or bizarre creatures can call for a check. "What the heck is THAT!?" <insert successful knowledge check> "That is the Sandpoint Devil."


Thank you for your input Latrecis!

I totally agree that age isn't prereq for anything and my wording may have been misleading, but it was more of a figure of speach of the thoughts running my heads in that moment of gaming. It was coming from knowing the background of the character, where she has discovered her sorcerous blood by spontaneously burning down her home and family in middle of the night at age of 12, and then wandered aimlessly for past 7 years before ending up to Sandpoint this fall. Certainly there is room to come up with ideas for where she is getting all her knowledge of Flesh Golems and Demons.. But I just staggered in the moment as I tried to veil it in story instead of just giving mechanical info out.

I don't stress about it as much with goblins or similar "common" sights. Same would go for dragons just as you suggest.

I'd just like to have logical explenations for character knowledge and clearly book study is the easiest way to explain it, but I'd love to come up with more creative solutions and this is why I brought it up.

On the matters of Ranger knowledge, I may recall incorrect, but I think it was Alpharius's (spell-less Ranger) player who told me he had an ability to recognize his favored enemies with knowledge checks even if he didn't have ranks in them and we have played it based of that. Now that I think of it, I guess it could mean he gets to recognize them intantly even if he has no points in that knowledge, but I have to check that with him. In obvious scenarios this is not an issue as I let him instantly recognize human from elf (like goblin from dragon) when it is visually clear to the character, but what would you have had me do for example on Ironbriar who I explained to them as hooded and masked humanoid? Should he still be able to tell tall humanoid from another and recognize his favoured enemies? The way we have played it, is that if he isn't sure in character (low knowledge check), he tells me his bonus's and I apply them if it actually is his favored enemy.

Do keep in mind the name of this discussion and my intent of bringing up these newbie GM issues! I'm grateful for every bit of knowledge that guides me on this learning experience :)


Welcome to the wonderful world of DM'ing where every answer is right and every answer is wrong! Including those from old, curmudgeon DM's that lurk on internet forums.

The most important thing to call out is that you are already doing things right - if you and the ranger player have agreed on how it works, that's 400 times better than any advice you can find here.

Favored enemies are the defining characteristic for Rangers. Barbarians rage, bards sing, fighters master weapons, rogues steal, clerics heal, etc. I'm always reluctant to mess with the core feature of a player character's class. If a ranger doesn't have favored enemies, he's just a fighter with some nature skills. So messing with favored enemies is something to do very cautiously. And rarely.

I did mention that disguise might interfere and maybe it could but even then I would think carefully about letting a disguise prevent favored enemy bonuses. If the creature is polymorphed or invisible, sure. But a disguise would have to be very thorough to work in my opinion. Let's look at Ironbriar for instance. He's wearing the reaper's mask - as I look at the picture of it in the appendix (AE version) it seems very unlikely to hide his ears (a clear elvish giveaway) and even beyond that it appears to have holes or slits that permit viewing the underlying flesh, etc. A mask can readily conceal your identity but concealing your race is much more difficult. What other race could he be even with the mask, being that tall and skinny? And does Ironbriar speak, even to cast spells? Voice might be a race giveaway. Elvish movement is also likely distinctive. Especially to a person who has made it his life's passion to study them (even if in a homicidal or serial killer kind of way.)


Latrecis said wrote:
..but even then I would think carefully about letting a disguise prevent favored enemy bonuses.

As I said, the way we play it is that he gets his bonuses every time for his favored enemies, but he might not know that he is fighting one. The way I described Ironbriar, there was no telling if he had pointy ears or not, so he told me his bonuses and had he been human, I would have applied them to his rolls.. But now that you say it like that, I think I've been bit of a racist and only thought the ears to be only giveaway for elves.

But could you still explain this sentence: "A ranger may make Knowledge skill checks untrained when attempting to identify these creatures."? That sort of makes it sound like ranger doesn't really know his favored enemies, doesn't it? :D

I understand that practice is best lesson to learn this game and it is important to adjust the game per group, but I also like to reflect my rulings and group issues with larger population of the internet to widen my perspective on issues we face and hopefully get new ideas, like just now from you :)


Well in the grand scheme of things a Ranger knowing that it's an aberration or elf, or evil outsider - doesn't really give the stuff a knowledge check usually would give - I never thought about this before (my group just got a ranger recently - no one ever wants to play them among my players for some reason) - so now that I've read this thread I've come up with my own take...

Rangers (in my game) will always be able to identify favored enemies (type only) if they want more info they'd have to take the knowledge skill (like anyone else). The only time I'll not allow the auto-know is with illusion or actual use of disguise (not just a mask) - and with illusions I'd make a case by case depending on the illusion - (for an example disguise self doesn't change movement) to allow my ranger an automatic will save to note something is off.

Thanks for this - considering I've not had this come up in my game yet it has saved me alot of thought.


Well, you learn new things everyday. I've pasted a variety of quotes from the Core Rulebook before. Bold emphasis mine.

Ranger class description, p. 64: A ranger may make Knowledge skill checks untrained when attempting to identify these creatures.

Knowledge skill - p. 100
You can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster’s CR. For common monsters, such as goblins, the DC of this check equals 5+ the monster’s CR. For particularly rare monsters, such as the tarrasque, the DC of this check equals 15 + the monster’s CR, or more. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster. For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information. Many of the Knowledge skills have specific uses as noted on Table 4–6.

Table 4-6 - p. 101
Identify a monster’s abilities and weaknesses: DC = 10 + monster’s CR

Taken together this paints a confusing picture so my initial incredulity/negative reaction to what you were doing was out of bounds. My apologies. Taken literally it could be read that a ranger needs to use knowledge checks to id favored enemies but I do not believe that is the rules intent (and if it is Paizo got it wrong!)

First the language in the Ranger class description says may make Knowledge checks untrained... It does not say a ranger must make Knowledge checks. I think the intent is (and should be) that a ranger may make untrained knowledge checks to identify the favored enemies abilities and weaknesses not id the monster itself. Why? Because the if you look at the Knowledge skills, many are needed for identifying various types of monsters (Arcana - constructs, dragons, magical beasts; Local - humanoids; Planes - outsiders; Religion - undead; Dungeoneering - aberations; etc.) Yet for all the types of potential enemies on the ranger list (Core, p. 64) only some of the associated Knowledge skllls are class skills for the ranger. Normally, knowledge skills cannot be used untrained so the line from the class description is meant to give rangers access without skill points if desired.

I would suggest the line be amended: "A ranger may make Knowledge skill checks untrained when attempting to identify the abilities and weaknesses of these creatures." I mean, really, a ranger gets +2 or +4 or +6 or more on Bluff, Knowledge, Perception, Sense Motive, Survival checks as well as attacks and damage against this kind of creature, yet he/she can be confused about whether the creature in front of him/her is one? "That might be an Orc, I'm not sure - they can be so hard to recognize... But when I am sure, I'm really good at killing it."

By the way, if the creature is disguised, I would suggest it's a Perception check, not Knowledge check to recognize the truth (for which the Ranger would get his favored enemy bonus.)

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

The language on that is rather strange. Knowledge checks can be made untrained, but information gained from them is capped at DC 10 unless you have a rank in the skill. Technically, removing the "trained only" phrase means little unless it also removes this cap, so I'd do that.


The single most-terrifying thing about Latrecis' post is that it indicates I've been doing knowledge checks according to the rules.

I think the world is ending.


Yeah I'm a softie when it comes to knowledge checks - I print up a card that has info that is relevant with things like 'if hit you must make a moderate to difficult fort save' - some abilities I'll give out others I keep intentionally vague - if they make the check (I preprint the DC on the card with the skill needed) they get the card (which includes a pic of the beastie).

The nifty thing about that is they call for a check - make it - I toss 'em a card and it lets me deal with bookeeping while they read it over (and if they want to let the party know they have to tell them - instead of everyone hearing it at once).

I do the same thing with NPC's and magic items as well - it's a bit of my bag of stuff - you loot something and get nifty cards for the neat items - and adding a nifty picture of the ring you got adds a bit to the immersion. My players have been loving it - although I will admit it's a bit of work on my end.


I appreciate your input once more Latrecis. On the light of things I think I'll ease up on the favored enemies of the ranger and let him be more keen on spotting details so that he doesn't need to separately recognize them.. Which indeed sounds bit silly now after discussing it a bit.

I try to improve on the knowledge checks overall, mechanically and with the story aspect of it.

One more thing that bugs my head about knowledge checks, is the way to ask and/or let players roll them. Sometimes they remember to ask: "would I know something about it with arcana?", and then I tell them which knowledge is correct, for which everyone with that knowledge then instantly rolls and I tell what they know based on highest roll. We've been going at it from different angles at time, where at one point only the player in turn would get to roll, so they'd have the spotlight (couple players preference I think), but I think last time we had everyone rolling simultaneously again. When they forget to/don't bother asking, should I ask them if anyone with knowledge X would like to more about it?

I'd love to do that stuff Ckorik, specially for all the items! But it seems awful lot of work for things that they'll then give a look at and most often sell out. Only item I've made a handout for so far, is the pendant with a familiar star symbol on it.


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I've taken some expediencies along those lines:
- For things like Survival checks and Knowledge rolls, I first evaluate any Take 10s because that would be something the PCs could do or would know casually. Speeds up the table, and the players appreciate it.
- If Take 10s aren't enough, I let the PC with the highest skill be the "lead xx", and the others are assisting. This makes sense -- if three hunters are tracking a deer, they'll let the guy with the most experience tell them what to look for, and they'll be extra eyes for that person. If three people are trying to recall a fact, they discuss it to jog each other's memories.
- With that, it's the one PC with the max skill's roll that counts (rewards PCs for investing in skills), but the others with the skill contribute (makes them feel they're not wasting their points)
- HOWEVER, for a quick roll when they don't have a chance to communicate (for example, a monster jumping from the underbrush and attacking them), they cannot assist each other because they don't have time, and everyone has to roll separately to try to recognize it.

So far it's worked well, and it's pretty fast for larger groups.


Riding Bull wrote:

I appreciate your input once more Latrecis. On the light of things I think I'll ease up on the favored enemies of the ranger and let him be more keen on spotting details so that he doesn't need to separately recognize them.. Which indeed sounds bit silly now after discussing it a bit.

I try to improve on the knowledge checks overall, mechanically and with the story aspect of it.

One more thing that bugs my head about knowledge checks, is the way to ask and/or let players roll them. Sometimes they remember to ask: "would I know something about it with arcana?", and then I tell them which knowledge is correct, for which everyone with that knowledge then instantly rolls and I tell what they know based on highest roll. We've been going at it from different angles at time, where at one point only the player in turn would get to roll, so they'd have the spotlight (couple players preference I think), but I think last time we had everyone rolling simultaneously again. When they forget to/don't bother asking, should I ask them if anyone with knowledge X would like to more about it?

I'd love to do that stuff Ckorik, specially for all the items! But it seems awful lot of work for things that they'll then give a look at and most often sell out. Only item I've made a handout for so far, is the pendant with a familiar star symbol on it.

Knowledge skills can be tough. You want to reward the players for investing skill points. You want to encourage the players to ask questions instead of spoon-feeding them answers. You want to be be sure the players understand what you're trying to communicate about the world and what's going around them. And you want to make sure the players can follow the key plot points so they know what to do next or what their best options are.

Sometimes those items are in conflict. And sadly there isn't any easy rule - it's more art than science.

I try to focus on items like the following:
- is it important for the players to have this information? Than I will just call for a Knowledge <whatever> check.
- is it reasonable that character with the skill would "know?" Example: if the players are getting attacked by some awful incorporeal thing doing negative energy damage and they're carrying on "What is that thing!?!?" I will gently remind the cleric (or anyone else) that a Knowledge Religion check might be helpful. In this case the player has not connected the rule mechanic with the story action.
- would it be more interesting if the players knew the information? Then ask for knowledge check.

All of that isn't to say you should just hand it to them or stop them from coming to the wrong conclusions. If they confuse an Otyugh with a Rust Monster because no one can make a Knowledge Dungeoneering check, that's not necessarily your look out especially if no one put ranks in that skill.


In general I'd say for monsters it's 'super important' to the players minds - but less so in practice.

Very very few monsters have a 'if you don't know this you die when you discover it' type of ability - until you get to high levels, and by then either your party will have the skills needed or they are big enough to deal with the fallout.

The big thing is to not hide plot points behind checks - if you want backstory known - it's ok to have a KC behind it - but there should be an alternate way to gain the information if they can't figure it out (journals, NPCs, rumors, whatever they are all good for this kind of thing) - it *is* ok to give backstory info easy in a KC (with a low 10-15 needed) and then hide useful and or special information at much higher points (10 gets you info and story, 15 gets you that the foozle didn't like cold iron, 25-30 or more depending on level might give you a weakness or possible secret entrance).

At least that's how I look at it - I want my players to know the story - I want to reward them for skill investment - and I adjust this kind of thing based on the players - because if you have that one guy who makes a mindchemist and his knowledge rolls are 30+ - well I try to keep stuff I don't want to just hand over in the range where he needs a 13+ on the d20 - not everything but I have my limits lol.

Hyper focused PC's can be a real pain at times - as long as everyone is having fun though I just roll my eyes and go with it.


Once again, I'm grateful for all the point of views you guys have given! Knowledge checks are a topic I did a lot of research on when we were initially starting yet getting all these tips now and to applying them with some gaming experience is what makes it all click.

For the first time do I actually realize a reason to write down some of their skill modifiers.. Eases the game a ton if I actually prepare for their Knowledge Checks. So far it has been something that bogs down the game with a player asking what skill applies to the enemy they are facing, me checking, then everyone rolling and them discussing if it is ok that everyone rolls simultaneously or if they should only get to roll on their own turn for some spotlight. Meanwhile I'm trying to come up with fair explanation for the highest roll.

I'll be trying to ease those moments in the future and apply every bit of thought I've gained from this discussion!

On more things to ramble about:

Current Al-Team + Ha-Man:

  • Alfred, hedonistic master of Axe and Shield, itching to get back into action.
  • Alice, street smart Magus from bazar of sails accompanying the group to seek out who was behind the murder list.
  • Alpharius, lonely Spell-less Ranger on a personal mission.
  • Harsk, laid-back Cleric of Iomedae spreading the just word and preparing followers for the war of the Wound.

Warning! Rest of this post may contain spoilers from AP: Rise of the Runelords.

= = =
Monday 27-April-2014 The Group was assumably expecting a slow session of loot management and social encounters with the would-be-victims by exposing the "murder list" that they had acquired at the end of last session. A self fulfilling prophesy I guess, as one of the players announced an hour before H-hour, that he has been tempted by the spring sun to spend the afternoon outside. This resulted with the remaining two survivors of last session second guessing every action they took with all the loot they had and that slowed down the session quite a bit. So the session started with only two players while player of Ilori was expected to join us by the time his return would occur in form of a new character.
= = =

Oathday 18th of Lamashan, 4707

The day was well past midday, that much was certain when the group started to head out from the bottom of the clock tower. Harsk was pulling a cart filled with bags of coins, jewels, loots and remains of Ilori & Faroth, the companion of the Ranger. They had covered the cart with Cloak of Elvenkind to protect its content from public eye and made their way with little trouble straight to Kajitsu Townhouse where they were had set up their base of operations. Harsk set out to spend rest of the evening counting the coins, evaluating the jewels and going through rest of the loot. Meanwhile Alpharius set a small pyre to burn Faroth's remains while they were indecissive with Ilori's remains. He eventually fell asleep next to Ilori's cold body (Yeb!) while browsing a book about monsters of folklore he had found few days back.

Fireday 19th of Lamashan, 4707

Morning after, Alfred woke up next to a courtesan somewhere at Lowcleft where he had headed last evening after unloading the cart with Harsk. That's as much he remembered as he had fully had intention to drink himself to sleep.

GM note: Oh I like how the "drawbacks" force habbits on the players. Not that I would enforce it and I probably wouldn't remember to grant him the debuff, would he forget to spend a night drinking, but it does set up some fun roleplay situations.

At the Townhouse, Harsk had already left to spend his day praying at the Cathedral of Iomedae and maybe find out something about their situation with the Paladins.

Alfred was about to go through the list of names they had recovered from Xanesha's lair, but was unable to find the note anywhere. He had bit of an argument about losing it with Alpharius untill they came to a conclusion that they had met an invidual who had made an habit to "find" their belongings when they were on a stroll at Bazar of Sails. They made their way down to the docks and when they found a person the knew by name Garnet, she was already coming at them with accusations, list of sihedron murder victims on her hand. Her assistant had snached the list from them and Garnet was now infurious to find her name on the list along with some merchants that had gone missing.

GM note: Garnet Alexandros is my version of the Sabriyya Kalmeralm, princess of the market, that I introduced to the group early on and while I know in my head what and how she handels her business, I realized mid game that this was going to be mediocre setup to introduce new character to the group because of how I had played her so far. However I had already set up the scene with former Ilori and tried to carry it out, realizing I was about to force ton of loop holes on to them.

After bit of guestioning from Garnet's side, she acted part of a victim and told the group she'd have one her own to follow them to make sure whoever threatened her life, would be dealt with for certain. This is when she called Alice out, whom had been eavesdropping all of the conversation. After introductions had been made and Alpharius wasn't really accepting any of it, Alfred droped an honest question of "well if she is out with us, ain't you in danger here?" to which Garnet, honestly, answered that she'd be higly unlikely in danger really.

GM note: I still have it in my head as it is, and it seems reasonable. Garnet runs a business with many con artists at her disposal and is quite able herself. She isn't really threatened by death threats as she assumes to be target of quite a few outside of the docks. She however is intrigued by the information she has gained and want's to have one of her own to see what it is about.

The way I played it out however, ended up looking like at first she is in trouble and then I go out saying "nah I'm not in trouble", which then left the players questioning "so umm.. why would we take this Alice with us?" and quite rightly so.. I guess I'm gonna feed them some meta info (if they don't read this) to try to make it more understandable for them.

Rest of the day the three of them went around town, Alice trying to befriend with them by sharing some insight about the town.

= = =

Short session but still I managed to include couple of points of interest that I'd like get opinnions about:

  • First of all is the player absence at short notice. So far we had agreed that after time for a session is settled, it is still naturally fine for someone to bail out for reasons life. However with summer season closing in, last minute drop outs because of summer could grow into an issue and while we have come up with solutions of our own, I was wondering if other groups have anything sort of "summer break"? The fear our group had, is that if we'd attempt to have break over summer, most of them might lose interest even if they currently love to play it. On the other hand I'm bit afraid of burn out if we keep the pace of once per week going.
  • Second is the case of new character introduction. As our group is new to the game, there is plenty of enthusiasm to try out all the possible classes and combinations, so I'm expecting new characters more often than resurrections. Alfred was easy as an old friend of Ameiko, whom the group has taken in as the friend in Sandpoint. Introducing new character in completely new town was a lot harder thou and I think I tried to find an edge to it that wasn't quite doable.. To sort of "force" a character into the group. What methods have you used to introduce characters to the group and which ones have out shined others?

Thanks for all the discussion so far! This thread is doing exatly what I hoped to achieve with it and hopefully it will help someone else with similar topics one day.


Riding Bull wrote:
    * First of all is the player absence at short notice. So far we had agreed that after time for a session is settled, it is still naturally fine for someone to bail out for reasons life. However with summer season closing in, last minute drop outs because of summer could grow into an issue and while we have come up with solutions of our own, I was wondering if other groups have anything sort of "summer break"? The fear our group had, is that if we'd attempt to have break over summer, most of them might lose interest even if they currently love to play it. On the other hand I'm bit afraid of burn out if we keep the pace of once per week going.
    * Second is the case of new character introduction. As our group is new to the game, there is plenty of enthusiasm to try out all the possible classes and combinations, so I'm expecting new characters more often than resurrections. Alfred was easy as an old friend of Ameiko, whom the group has taken in as the friend in Sandpoint. Introducing new character in completely new town was a lot harder thou and I think I tried to find an edge to it that wasn't quite doable.. To sort of "force" a character into the group. What methods have you used to introduce characters to the group and which ones have out shined others?

Ooooh! I never knew how to do a bulleted list before! Thanks!

I will preface this statement with, "Americans are far less tolerant of last-minute dropouts than Europeans." I used to deliver technical training for a living, and when I taught a class for a certain European mobile company I was told, "Watch out! They're on European time!"
Sure enough, my "10-minute" breaks stretched to 30 minutes, my "1-hour" lunch was 3 hours, and to my infinite irritation, the students then complained that they hadn't had enough time to finish the labs.

That being said, my feeling about last-minute dropouts is that they're extremely annoying and disruptive ("I already planned this fight for 6 PCs, and now I have 4. How do I adjust the monsters?"), so I almost vengefully like to run without the players. It's completely unfair to those who do show up to cancel a session for someone who drops out at the last minute. Do your best to adjust accordingly: Weaken the monsters, lower the number of mooks, but definitely run the game and allow things to happen naturally. If the plot progresses, the plot progresses.

Your concern about "losing" the game is very valid. We are trying to run a 9-player(!!) game, and it just doesn't work well. Scheduling issues make us miss 4-6 weeks at a time. As a result, our Kingmaker game died outright. Our Second Darkness game was my 'refuge from the world' in playing Leilani, but at once per month it's hard to remember her motivations, feelings, and emotions from the previous session. I think any break of more than a month is dangerous. Multiple monthlong breaks may kill an AP.

New character introduction is far easier. Just post here for ideas. Rise of the Runelords is a campaign that readily allows the introduction of new characters from all over the world, so just get the PC's race, class, and background, and we can help you integrate them. It's remarkably easy in this particular AP!


Alpharius was SITTING next to Ilori's body, ON A CHAIR, reading, dammit! :D

EDIT: And I wouldn't be too worried about the loopholes with character introduction. The haziness of Garnet's motives, combined with the suspicion of Alpharius and his general distrust of people makes for awesome RP potential. How long will it take for Alice to win the trust of Alpharius? How long will it take for Alpharius to let go of Ilori who he was teenyweeny-kinda-little-attracted-to-but-only-subconsciously-if-anyone-asks ?


Tomi Heikkinen wrote:
Alpharius was SITTING next to Ilori's body, ON A CHAIR, reading, dammit! :D

...with a fork and spoon...


NobodysHome wrote:
Tomi Heikkinen wrote:
Alpharius was SITTING next to Ilori's body, ON A CHAIR, reading, dammit! :D
...with a fork and spoon...

C'mon, Harsk had casted gentle repose on her :D


NobodysHome: Oh 9 players sounds rough even when you finally get around table.. Any issues with everyone having enough "spotlight" in game? With no personal experience so far, it's sort of hard to grasp how well the players recall what has happened last session even after just one week break, but it often takes us the first hour of gaming for everyone to "warm up".. When we started the game in January with some 2-3 hour sessions, I think the sessions were fine in order to learn the game mechanically in small chunks, but a lot of roleplaying (and story) potential was lost. After a while I realized we should have started with something lighter than a full AP. RotRL AE book was just something I had happened to buy after CRB and IWSG, intrigued to see how they write these campaign books.

I think we have now settled our last-minute dropout shenanigans (which, in the players defense, was previously considered fine) in a civil manner and everyone agreed to try to stick to the scheduled sessions.

Oh and I should have guessed to look for topics about character introduction! Big part of the charm has been to allow the player of a new character know more background on certain aspects of the scene and then together come up with the plot, but it wouldn't hurt to do some research to expand the pool of ideas in future.

A certain player of Alpharius did mention the risk of "Walking Dead" scenario (the same player whose character then spent a night next to a dead corpse! That much remains true!), where new character will be introduced each session after a character death in session before, but I can't figure any reasonable solution to it if a player of a dead character really wants to try out new class.


Oh, there are always the running jokes about the party mysteriously deciding that "X" is the ideal number of party members, when that just so happens to match the number of players. So if they lose one, they pick a new one up. But they don't pick any more up without losing one. Silly, but some suspension of disbelief is necessary.

Although some GMs argue that 9 is do-able, I would say, "Don't." Yes, mechanically you can make the fights work. But the roleplaying suffers immensely. And this is with 4 players who hardly say a word outside of combat! I can't imagine 9 players, all of whom wanting a turn in the spotlight, managing to get anything at all done.

Our 3-player group is spectacular. Our 5-player group was "pleasant". Our 9-player group is a chore. Even the kids' 3-player group I run on Wednesdays is less dysfunctional.


In Tomi's journal, I was just wondering about all the ability damage players suffer through all the haunts -- I know he writes in-character, but it looked like they were going through the haunts but not taking the ability damage nor as much damage as is written. And the manticore didn't go off! :-P

I fully approve; most GMs agree that if you do full damage the PCs quickly lose interest in exploring the house. So I'm wondering whether you did the ability damage and Tomi didn't read about it, or if you chose not to because it made the players more interesting in finishing the story.


Oh ability damage did happen, but Alpharius didn't personally experience any of it and what happened to others, I explained verbally how "Vidarok had clawed his face so bad he looked less charismatic" while simultaneously I was messaging privately with the player what was happening to his character and let them explain rest of it. I guess Tomi just didn't emphasise those events that much. Similarly the Manticore did attack Harsk, but rest of the group were so focused chasing Iesha that they pretty much ignored Harsh's player who was cursing about that haunt.

I'm guessing inexperience was a key factor for the players to carry on despite the ability damage :)

You can see Tomi mention Harsk being exhausted when they are leaving the manor and I recall that referring to Harsk having taken guite a bit str dmg at some point.


Awesome! Thanks!


Re-reading your Journal, NobodysHome, I realised our group also ignored the story aspect of the Misgivings apart from connecting few of the haunts with others. I think my lack of preparation in pre-translating the window arts and few other scenes played major part in this thou, as I was gagging on words, trying to come up with translations on the spot. After playing fantasy games in english for 15+ years and preferring to read fantasy books in english & watch movies without subtitles, the fantasy lingo is quite awkward to translate!

I tried to tie some of those Misgivings ends with Ironbriars ledger off-mentioning those events over years.

Spoiler of future events.. Not for my players:
I am working my mind off for other than combat encounters to happen on Yondabakari river. Maybe on stops at the small villages on the way. Ideas are welcome for my searches haven't been as fruitful as I was hoping for.

I'm also considering off railing them into search of some artifact from The Sunken Queen with a secret quest given to Alice, latest addition of the group. I could then try for the first time to build my own dungeon with some more traditional dungeon crawl.

I got few questions in mind from our 1st of May -game, but I'll save them later to one write up with our coming Friday game. Heroes are about to embark from Magnimar!


Too late to edit.

Considering previous spoiler:
Finally found great discussion considering what I was looking for! Here.


Journeys of the A-Team & H-Man continue to raise questions for a newbie GM. Following is combination of two sessions from past days. First one was 4 hour long session of Magnimar dalliance, 7 days spent in game time with very little actually happening. Second one got the story moving again.. Yay!

Warning! Rest of this post may contain spoilers from AP: Rise of the Runelords.

The Group of Strangers, wandering the lands of Varisia:

  • Alfred, hedonistic master of Axe and Shield, itching to get back into action while still finding time to have a drink to seal each day.
  • Alice, street smart Magus from bazar of sails accompanying the group to seek out who was behind the murder list.
  • Alpharius, lonely Spell-less Ranger on a personal mission to find his brother. Might just aswell tag along for now.
  • Harsk, laid-back Cleric of Iomedae spreading the just word and preparing followers for the war of the Wound.

= = =
Thursday 1-May-2014 With Xanesha slain and Alice in party, I was expecting to throw the players in to new adventures already. This official hangover day of Finland however moved slooow in game as I was trying to fast forward one week of time, but managed to throw something new at them almost daily. Big GM note at the end of it.
= = =

Fireday 19th of Lamashan, 4707

Lord-Mayor Grobaras had fainted in front of the group at the end of last session and this is where the Group picked up. They were instantly led out of his oroperty without Xanesha's letter, which they had handed over to Grobaras just a moment before he had fainted. They were waiting outside of the property when they were eventually approached by finely dressed lady called Eiko Carol, servant and counsel of the Lord-Mayor, who wanted to have a private talk with the Group for she had read the message as well and told them there were signs of real trouble brewing in central Varisia. She handed Xanesha's letter back to them and agreed to meet the Group next morning at the cathedral of Iomedae as the group was bit suspicious of her motives to let her know of their hideout at Kajitsu Townhouse.

Starday 20th of Lamashan, 4707

The Group met Eiko Carol at the cathedral of Iomedae as agreed and by the time she had explained the lack of communication that had been going on between Fort Rannick and Magnimar, she was already handing the Group sacks of platinum to buy them into doing her a favor and meeting Lord-Mayor Grobaras again. She was asking the Group to "let him persuade them" into going, a thing she knew Lord-Mayor Grobaras was reluctant to do untill she'd tell him she has found group willing to go for only half the price. She had already paid a hefty down payment to pribe the group, which she had.. commandeered.. from Lord-Mayors treasury in hopes to finally have someone act on the issue that she saw as an major threat to Magnimar territory, but had been shun aside by Lord-Mayor who considered Fort Rannick just a waste of money in the first place.

Sunday 21th - Fireday 26th of Lamashan, 4707

They meet Grobaras who takes great pride in having the Group head out on this mission of his. He acts like it's all his idea all along, while Eiko is there firmly standing by her Lord-Mayor, holding her act together as she has done so many times before. They agree to wait couple more days before taking a riverboat heading inland.

Those couple days the group spends on tasks of spending all the gold they have on new armors to forged of mithril and enchantments to be added. Harsk takes few days off to visit his own temple in Sandpoint to see how his hired hand is running things and finds out that few more of the orphanage kids have taken to hang out at the temple, hoping to become knights one day. He leaves them funds to buy practice swords and shields from Das Korvut before heading back to Magnimar. As he was about to leave Sandpoint, a familiar face caught up on him. Shalelu had stopped by at Ameiko's and heard all that had happened since the goblin raids and was keen to join Harsk for the return trip to meet up with Alfred, her former travel buddy.

Towards the end of their time in Magnimar, 24th of Lamashan they were visited by Vincent Valentine, the paladin of Iomedae, who had received translation of Justice Ironbriar's journal. He was relieving them of any doubt as the journal incriminated Ironbriar for what the Group had accused him of and much more and Valentine agreed to take this journal as an evidence to other Justices, leaving the Group unmentioned.

They end the session on morning of 26th, heading towards the riverboat dock's with Eiko Carol.

GM note: So to sum up this session, I found myself constantly guilty of pushing them on and out of Magnimar acting like "move along, there's nothing to see here" after first few days of Eiko & Grobaras. We were discussing after the session if there would have been an alternative way to run this session in shorter period of time, but it's hard to do when they acquired sums of gold over the week, went on to spend it and then added more days for the waiting time. For armor crafting I just threw rough guesses and went with it, full plate mithril armor taking 3 days of work for example. I had the crafting time for item enchanting halved, so that 2000 gp worth of enchating was one days work. Assuming I got those rules correct in the first place..? Each day I allowed them to announce if they wanted to do something special and each day someone had something in mind, which I then played along resulting long one on one roleplay moments that had other players waiting. I don't make them roleplay and bargain every buy they make, but I do have them visit the markets and the mage tower, to have a chance to introduce characters and give life to the world.. But that might be still too much, slowing down the game..? Had I just announced at the start of session that "one week later, this happened" they could have then spent all their gold at once, but would have had less effect on the meetings with Eiko, Grobaras and Vincent.

= = =
Friday 9-May-2014 I had packed a lot of anticipation on this one as I wanted to once again try my wings on forging something myself for the boat trip. I wanted it t be more than just combat encounters, but I knew for certain there was going to be 4 other people who were expecting some of that good old sword & sorcery to happen aswel.
= = =

Fireday 26th of Lamashan - Oathday 1th of Neth, 4707

They board up on a steam engined riverboat of Wetwit brothers, two halflings, captains of this grand ship. Just as the boat is about to leave dock, a couple, man and woman, runs on board exhausted. Boat is by no means big and with the Group(4+Animal Companion), Shalelu, 2 halflings and a human couple, there isn't really room in the small cabin for all to sleep in. Only Alice is either too stubborn or lacking manners and forces herself to sleep with the couple, while rest of them sleep on deck, risking the chilling weather to catch them.

Days pass by with Shalelu sharing rumors of Mushfens, Alfred & Harsk playing card while drinking from the clerics bottomless beer pint and the halfling brothers taking turns on wheel while other one is cooking or sleeping. The couple acts shy initially, seemingly unwilling to get to know the Group, but after the jolly card players push enough, the man joins them for a night. After relaxing a bit over the course of card play, the man goes on telling how his wife can actually cook a bit of magical drinks and offers to sell couple of healing ones for such nice people. Alice hears this and offers to buy two, only to find out some days later that she had been sold bottles of river water with Magic Aura cast on them.

GM note: Because of high bluff roll, I didn't even ask her to roll sense motive.. I could have let the player know that something was off, but chose not to.

They are set to reach Wartle on the third day, when Shalelu and Alpharius notice a will-o'-wisp floating through air towards the riverboat from Mushfens. Shalelu notes immediately that those things are never good news as they feed on fear and death of others. The will-o'-wisp lands on the bow beam, bright blue as ever and Shalelu starts to look around the boat for trouble assuming something is off. Alpharius hears two big splashes on southern shore and soon notices two large fins chraging towards the boat in water. He has enough time to alert everyone before two big scrags (water trolls) reach the boat. Everyone gets to shine a bit as the beasts fail to connect a single blow and with Alpharius's new flame arrows, their regeneration doesn't seem to be an issue either.

GM note: The moment of realization for a newbie GM to watch all those damage rolls and following moment of wonder if I had given them too much gold in Magnimar..

Wetwit borthers, captains of the boat rejoice the heroics of the group and when they reach Wartle, home of the Wetwit's and other Halfling families, a jolly song is already written of their acts before night fall. The Group gets to experience the hospitality of thankful halflings families as they wine & dine almost all the way to dawn before falling asleep. Barely an hour later the Wetwit's are already waking them up, for the travel shall continue.

GM note: I tried to throw a sort of riddle competition at them in Wartle while feasting, but they all turned down the old grumpy halfling who was challenging them. Off the window goes those preparations :)

As they take off from Wartle on dawn of fourth travel day, the couple seem to have abandoned the boat and assumably moved on by foot. All of the Group exhausted for not getting a full nights sleep, choose to sleep all day and let Shalelu stay up to keep watch.

Days roll by slowly with little to do on the riverboat, but as they make it out of weaves of Yondabakari River, they gain travel speed and by the eve of 6th day, they reach small fisher village of Pendaka, where the Wetwit borthers announce to be dropping them off. From here the Wetwits don't dare to cross Claybottom Lake as there is said to be monsters living in this lake and it is safer to cross it with the ferries of locals, made out of giant turttle shells.

Group decides to spend the night at the Pendakan ferrymans huble home and pay generously for the stay.

Fireday 2nd of Neth, 4707

They arrive to Turttleback Ferry on a following morning, greeted by heavy rains from a deep dark cloudy sky. They stroll around the village and eventually meet up at what seems to be the only local tavern. They ask around a bit and hear bits of stories about a place called Paradise that used to, but is now at the bottom of the lake. They hear how none of the Black Arrows have been around for some time now and how the damn rains are ruining the soil if it keeps up like this, some drunk cursing it to be doings of the dragons. They spot a familiar mark tattooed at neck of one of the tavern customers and pull him out for questioning but after gaining what they assume to be all of it, they let him go and set out to head for Fort Rannick.

GM note: Here I got a feeling we were actually playing efficiently. I was trying to descripe only facts that mattered and the players managed to make decissions on spot in character without asking everyone else about everything. And when they considered being done, they announced it in clear manner. Progress!

They had barely made it past Skull River, when they heard faint sounds of groaning wild cat. Shortly after, Alpharius spots sounds of dog barking closing in from north. Shalelu acts on the sounds of the wild cat and they manage to free & heal the animal just in time as 5 hounds close in to pick a fight. By the time the master of the hounds gets there, 5 hounds lay at ground, bleeding to death and the master turns on his heels, crying for mommy and trying to run off.

They catch the ugly, foul-mouthed beast who after bit of threatening slips few facts among the cursing and after Shalelu spots the Black Arrow insignias on him, she gets frustrated enough to end the beasts life.

GM note: After first fight I already hated the concept of "GMPC" in combat. I was technically taking turns against myself with Rukus vs Shalelu & Kibb and had players waiting while I tired to locate facts of every character. On the other hand, I got to intervene on the interrogation of Rukus, by having Shalelu act out of her typical character and put an arrow through Rukus's head when the players had had all they could, but tried to push for more. Dick move? Atleast none of the players voiced an opinnion about it.

Rukus had given them a rough direction to follow, but Alfred had Kibb on leash, pulling him directly to that direction aswel and when they reached the edges of Graul Farmstead, Alpharius decided to sneak along with invisible Alice to scout what was up ahead. They spotted unfortunate Crowfood and made short work of him in few quick blows, avoiding the risk of rising alarm just yet.

GM note: With Alpharius rolling some 40+ stealth, I just couldn't have Crowfood "know they are there". But come on with those damage rolls already..! I understand that we are exactly at levels where Magus should shine (he builds her to shocking grasp build, but is there even really other ways to build Magus if you want to be throwing spells with your blade?) and Alpharius acquired quite a gear with all the platinum he got from Magnimar. It isn't that I really am bothered with how well they perform but.. I'll get to my point at the closing words.

After quick decission making and scouting on at the two buildings, they decide to raid the barn first. Kick the door in and none of the 3 Ogrekin get to even react as a surprise attack is launched.

GM note: 14 AC and 25hp? Was there supposed to be fight? :D I spent more time describing the deformations than the fight lasted..

While they assess the first room, they see Kibb rushing up to scratch at the door on the ledge.. Alfred follows to pick up the leash and opens the door. Just as he steps in with a torch in hand and turns to let others know what he manages to see in the light of a torch, he is attacked by a giant spider. Alice, who was already about to follow him, is quick to react and runs in to give the spider quick slash of her swords and in one critical blow, she cuts the beast in half.

GM note: Oh wow! I'm happy for him.. but as we end the session, player of Harsk the Cleric is in awe of the damage & attack rolls of others. He dealt 1 point of damage all session and due efficiency of rest of the team and inefficiency of the bad guys, he didn't need to heal anything either and his buffs weren't really required. While players of Alfred and Alice have got the benefits of buying level appropriate gear, player of Alpharius hast just done his research and knows how he wants to build his character. Player of Harsk on the other hand clearly enjoys the game, but might not be so much interested in being in top gear at all times and now I'm afraid of him falling too much in to background at combat, especially if the group keeps knocking encounters down on surprise round and require no healing.

They end the session releasing 3 human prisoners from a cramped cage and as Shalelu gets emotional to meet one of them, that same man sees Alpharius's shape behind her and in weak voice makes out words: "Macharius? Is that you?"

= = =


= = =
Thursday 15-May-2014 Being bit worried about how easily the group had initiated the attack on Graul Farmstead, I felt the need to up the ante to serve them some challenge. I scoured the forum topics of "Community Created Stuff", "The Hook Mountain Massacre" and "Things you've changed, and things you should have" for ideas of what I could do differently from story as written. I ended up making a heavy change on Hucker Graul, which while.. different.. seemed quite boring gameplay wise in the end. Explained below.
= = =

Warning! Rest of this post may contain spoilers from AP: Rise of the Runelords.

Fireday 2nd of Neth, 4707

Picking of from the barn at Graul Farmstead, they had just released 3 men whom they now questioned a bit. Alpharius was keen to know why one of them had called him by his brother's name, but after the one eyed man pushed aside the topic realizing this wasn't the Macharius he had known, the group asked the 3 men to wait at the barn while they would finish rest of the ogrekin.

GM note: I straight up OOC-asked them to not even entertain the idea of asking the three fellows to tag along. I explained that I honestly would rather not play solitaire with unarmed men as I'd rather have the game be their show and not me alone.

Alpharius made good use of his new Gloves of Reconnaissance on the main building and found two ogrekin simpletons lost in their play, clearly not aware of "food" being untethered at the farmstead. He waved everyone to follow and they moved in from the kitchen door with Shalelu on their tale. Kibb the mountain lion stayed now back to defend the Black Arrows.

Moving through the buidling, Alpharius was letting everyone know what he assumed to be behind doors based on the few looks he had made thru walls outside of the building. He hadn't gone all the way around the building, but made assumption that a door on west end of a corridor should lead out of the building to a backyard and so Alfred pushed the door open only to be greeted by gloomy room smelling of filth. 3 ogrekin sized zombies pushed themselvs towards Alfred while oversized female figure started casting spells.

Zombies were quickly torn apart and just as everyone started to turn their focus towards the oversized lady, magical darkness started to fill the room from behind and something hit Shalelu in the darkness.

GM note: I modified Hucker Grauls gear and combat tactics as suggested by user Gluttony on thread "Things you've changed, and things you should have". I did all of the following:

  • Switch Hucker's Combat Reflexes feat for Blind Fight.
  • Switch Chuckles and Drooler's Dodge feat for Blind Fight.
  • Remove Hucker's +1 hide armor and potion of cure moderate wounds.
  • Give Hucker mundane hide armor and 2 oils of deeper darkness (one to put on his weapon, one to serve as treasure, or backup in case he needs to use another).
And so when he approached the room, he applied the oil on his ogre hook and went on searching for prey at hands reach. I may have understood something wrong, but as dim light was reduced to magical darness and light to normal darkness, Hucker was still unable to see anything with low light vision and thus I plaeyd it so that he was just adept at fighting like this and looked for prey by feeling his surroundings and blind fight explaining that he knew what he was doing.

In the confusion created by the sudden darkness, Mammy Graul dimension doored to another part of the building to be more prepared for the combat and when Hucker sensed being overwhelmed in force, he quickly retreated to basement. As the darkness pulled back from the room, the group moved quick to follow and found Mammy Graul now flying mid air in the room where Alpharius has noted the two simpleton ogrekin. Flying did little to help her as Alfred bashed her with shield mid air and rest of the group followed to finish her.

GM note: I had her with mage armor pre-cast, but rest of the spells she had to cast over combat due being as much surprised in her chambers as Alfred was surprised to walk in. I managed to attempt to curse Alfred in her chambers and then blind Alpharius's animal companion, but that's all she got of. All thou I now realised I forgot last of her images and displacement which would have given her more rounds.. I'm reeeeeeally bad and keeping up with buffs & debuffs on BBEG's.

After finishing her off, Alpharius took some time to try and figure what had come to Duath, but as the beast didn't show signs of recovery, they moved on downstairs and straight to tendriculos's lair. Only the room was filled with magical darkness and after previous experience upstairs, Harsk with his darkvision knew he would be able to see in areas lit by torches and so Alfred threw couple in while the dwarf explained what he was seeing.

Alpharius decided to look for alternative entrance and ran back to where they had descented downstairs. He opened the door leading west but instead of alternative rout, he found 3 dog sized rats.

Meanwhile Harsk was preparing to fire crossbow bolts at the plant, unable to see Hucker from where he was standing.. Untill the magical darkness suddenly wore off.

GM note: I had the darkness situation going for couple rounds while they killed the rats, but uncertain how the situation would develop, I eventually had the magic of Hucker's deeper darkness run out from his hook and released the tension from tendriculous lair by allowing everyone head right in. Now again, second guessing my decission, I guess I should have had them figure out to wait the effect wear of or come up with other solutions, but I had a gut feeling in that moment that they'd rather whack their way through..

As the magical darkness faded away, the thrown in torches and a light spell on Alice's blade gave enough light for everyone to charge in on the tentacle-plant-monster. Hucker considered this opportunity enough and charged in with his ogre hook.. Only he was shaken enough to hold the ogre hook upside down for some rounds.

In the middle of fighting the tendriculos managed to grab Harsk in it's bite and started to suck him in. The situation seemed desperate as Harsk was being swallowed whole and just when last of the dwarfs beard went in, Alpharius shot two decissive arrows that tore the plant apart and Harsk fell out of it's carcass, petrified.

GM note: Should swallow whole happen next round after target is grabbled by bite, or should the target first be moved towards the grabbler? Swallow whole talks about having target in mouth, but as there is no better definition for mouth, I had assumed bite equals mouth. My players how ever argued on this and so I had the tendriculos spend one turn pullin Harsk in while applying bite damage. On third turn he got swallowed but I chose not to apply bite damage third time and only applied acid + paralyse.

While other's started recovering, Alpharius quick to go looting and sharing gold openly, giving Shalelu barely anything of the share and leaving her bit irritated.

GM note: I wouldn't expect them to share any of the loot with NPC:s, but I do consider openly sharing the loot unevenly without explanation in front of her should stir some sort of reaction from her?

===

And that is when the 30 year old boys on their computers at 01:00 AM realised they had 4 hours to sleep before waking up for work next morning, so we cut the session to 5 hours length.


Yay, Gluttony! Without any bias whatsoever, I'll say all of her stuff is golden!

Answering a few of the questions from the last two posts from my point of view:

(1) I -never- hurry my PCs along, as I feel strongly that PC/NPC interaction is what makes a world feel "real". So I had entire sessions where my PCs did nothing but wander towns, visit shops, talk to NPCs, and waste prodigious amounts of time with no combats at all; my favorite sessions were those that lasted 8 hours without a single combat roll. On the other hand, my group is all 40+ and enjoys the world more than the combats, so your experience may vary.

(2) Yes, the ogrekin are easy kills. They're supposed to be more revolting than terrifying.

(3) Mamma Graul is an easy kill. She's in a small room, so her flying does her no good, and her zombies are worthless. Only people who significantly modify her have her last more than a couple of rounds.

(4) Deeper Darkness lasts 10 minutes per caster level, and it's unbelievably frustrating as a player. But you played it correctly -- normal light goes to darkness, and dim light goes to deep darkness, and then only the people with Blind Fight have a fighting chance. It's a great feat.

(5) Swallow Whole reads: If a creature with this special attack begins its turn with an opponent grappled in its mouth (see Grab), it can attempt a new combat maneuver check (as though attempting to pin the opponent). If it succeeds, it swallows its prey, and the opponent takes bite damage.
There is clearly no delay here: Round 1: Bite + grab. Round 2: Second CMB roll to swallow.

Hope that helps!


Why wouldn't you expect them to share any of the loot with NPC's? The distinction between PC and NPC is a game conceit. In the context of the world, Shalelu is another sentient being of no more or less rights than any of the PC's - her life was risked just as much as theirs. Unless she has joined under a formal relationship such as a cohort or hireling, I fail to see why she isn't entitled to a full share of any loot (or XP for that matter.)

If running one NPC (Shalelu) amidst the party is challenging you (and it can be hard) than your life is about to get a lot more difficult, considering the players just rescued 3 more NPC's that in the assumed script of the AP accompany the PC's at least through recovery of Fort Rannick, if not the remainder of Book 3.

Those NPC's also pose another possible loot dilemma for you. Some of the treasure the PC's find in the house belongs to the Black Arrows. If it is not returned to them, they're basically useless. So "proper" disposition of loot is a topic you may want to discuss with your players.

One age-old solution to this situation is to have the PC's run the NPC's at least in combat. You can handle the out of combat role-playing and veto any particularly strange or out of character actions for the NPC but it takes the overhead of running them in a fight off your hands. This might work for you here but there is a problem - one of the NPC's isn't all that he claims to be so if you let them run all except for him, it singles him out for attention (what's so special about him? etc.) Perhaps you can ask your players if they're interested in running the NPC's for a time - you might get lucky and only some will, that way it's not odd that you retained control of one or more.


I agree, Gluttony has thrown some great ideas over the threads and thus I wanted to apply some!

NobodysHome: I know how the Farmstead went for your players atleast. No silencers among my players just yet :) ..I might be reading magic rules wrong, but I guess deeper darkness should be 50 minutes at minimum? I has it last for propably 20 minutes considering the time the group spent upstairs after initially encountering Hucker when he sneaked in to backstab Shalelu.

I sort of wish we'd be able to spend sessions with characters just living the world and me being able to make players enjoy it, but after each such session there is far less "that was great!" comments than after sessions of big fights. It might be just the rush of our first campaign and their eagerness to level up their characters. Maybe (hopefully we do keep playing!) in 10 years we too are able to focus more on the little stuff after they have tried out every class combination :)

Yay for being correct on the swallow whole! One of the players actually noticed yesterday that it is also stated on grapple rules that on successful grapple the target is moved next to the attacker and thus there would have been no need to spend next turn moving him anyway.. Oh well, now we know! :) Thanks again for your input!

Latrecis: I think I actually am on your side on the matters of loot sharing with NPCs, but what I tried to say is that would they have handled the situation of loot sharing more discreetly (maybe promising Shalelu a rough cut later), they could have come out good with Shalelu, but as they didn't, I played Shalelu accordingly annoyed of it. She actually then went on to loot a certain bow from a chest in the next room and left rest of the gear there.. Letting the players to choose what to do with the magical axes and rapier found there.

It ain't so much about Shalelu being challenge to handle, but the boredom of me playing dice alone for most of the combat while players got nothing to do. And so your idea of letting players take charge of good guys in combat is an option.. It would also serve practice for them if they'd like to consider the leadership feat.


In Book 6, when the party rescued Ayruzi and gained her as a follower, I took the "Players run the NPC" approach as well, and it worked wonderfully:
- The players spent a HUGE amount of time choosing her spells each day, and were very gratified when their choices paid off.
- The players didn't enjoy the added complexity of running two characters, so there was no spotlight hogging. Instead, Raesh and Shiro's players kept slipping Ayruzi's sheet onto each other's stack of papers, and whoever had her in their stack had to run her. It was a lot of out-of-game fun as they came up with clever ways to slip Ayruzi into each other's stacks.


I agree about NPC's being entitled to expect a share in the treasure. However, if an NPC is coming along with the players with such an understanding then as a GM you should make sure there is something there that can be "her share" as what is written in the book is intended for the players. So you probably want to increase the treasure you are giving out to accommodate that.

Peet


So you wouldn't say that her share is written in already? Considering she is written to join them for their travels by this point (and so, my players, now you know :D). I'd certainly increase treasure for any non written NPC's accompanying them but I feel like treasure as written is fine as it is for her to share it. Atleast for now.

I've now made character sheet for Shalelu in roll20 and so all of them are able to play her actions in combat. I also copied her "tactics" so they have general idea of how she acts during combat. Next thrusday will show how that works for us and if they adopt it to keep combat flowing, I might make sheets for all allying NPC's.

If only I'd done this to certain sheriff back in the day, we might not have a running joke of "Is she gonna 'Belor' or actually do something?"


TBH she almost went full-on Belor (what, she did damage probably twice) and after all, we saved her friends, so 3gp is enough for her :P

But granted, as a player I didn't even consider her as a team member who has joined us, so that clarification, should it have come earlier, might have inclined Alpharius to toss a few more coins at her direction.

... that or our noble and righteous Harsk should handle all the coin sharing :P


I do think Alpharius was true to his character as to not share too much of what he considers his own, but on the other hand he seems to fancy Shalelu a bit and so it was rather odd moment for her. But as you say, I'm quite certain a certain cleric will step in at some point to even her share from his own.

To full-on Belor = Stand still all fight without even rolling for initiative.

As she was active every round and took the sneak attack to her back in place of Alpharius, she hardly went full-on Belor and was actually grievously wounded :)


I had to go back and re-read what my party did. Unfortunately, since I already had a GMNPC, I had her constantly staying back to "guard" things. At the Graul homestead they did the barn first, then she guarded the rescued prisoners while the rest of the party searched. At Fort Rannick she stayed outside in case the party didn't get out. Once the fort was freed, she stayed there to manage it.

So I made her a virtual non-combatant, but the party insisted that she get a share of the reward from mayor of Magnimar. Since their approach was rather, er, intimidating, he hesitantly upped the reward so that she got an equal share with the players, without costing them any loot.

So it's a hard call; Shalelu would certainly expect something if she was helping, but I managed to keep her out of most fights, so the party wasn't consciously stiffing her. Giving her a portion of the reward money seemed reasonable.

If she actively came with the party into the Graul homestead or Fort Rannick (or beyond), I think she'd expect an equal share, as she was a fellow adventurer, and she would be nonplussed if they said, "Well, you volunteered to tag along. You never asked about money."
At that point, since she's Chaotic (Good?), I think she'd help herself to what she considered an honestly fair amount of the loot. And she'd hold a bit of a grudge towards the stingy party.

Disclaimer: I'm a strong opponent of WBL. I find that any party with even half WBL steamrolls CR-appropriate encounters, and it's supposed to be a "guideline", not an absolute. I never reduce loot, but I never add loot just because PCs aren't at full WBL. Amusingly enough, even with this attitude every group I've GM'ed has ended up above WBL. That's probably why I don't worry about it. Gotta admit, my 6th-level Life Oracle whose total worth is 2253 g.p. is getting a bit frustrating to play...

That out of the way, you cut the loot 5 ways instead of 4. The PCs are still receiving 80% of "expected" loot. I wouldn't add anything.


I guess the "Belorgate" is biggest of the reasons I didn't even dare to have her suggest that she too would stay back with the prisoners while as mentioned, I asked them to let the prisoners themselves stay back. But for that very reason she contributed and is considering her equal to the loot unless given reason to believe otherwise. I sort of left a chance for an explanation and diplomacy roll but none picked up on it as they were confused for her reaction. She even made snarky remark to Alfred, her old travelling buddy, about the company he now adventures with but got only silence as a response.

She certainly does have bit of a grudge towards Alpharius for now. Her actions after that small dispute were drawn from her "chaotic" nature as she then muttered and pushed forward alone, only to find a chest full of equipment in the next room.

Even as being completely newbie GM, I've realized to let WBL be one of those less worried topics and have been only occasionally checking if it seems to be even close. I just assume it is in the nature of AP's to have somewhat correct loot distribution.

Once again, I am sincerely thankful for everyone contributing to our groups newbie issues, but would like to ask for use of [SPOILER]-tags whenever discussing RotRL details beyond my latest "Journal update". To make that easier for everyone, I will end all of my future updates with summary of where we are in the AP.


Not to go all cloak and dagger, but it might be best if you discouraged your players from reading this thread. We'll do our best to spoiler tag things, etc. but even assuming we're perfect at it (very dangerous assumption) just telling us where you are in the AP doesn't necessarily indicate which details your group has already encountered and which ones are still unknown to them.

You're doing a good job of bringing up GMmy topics (great job actually) and it'll be simpler to respond to you in kind without worrying about whether we're spoiling something for your players. Or heaven forbid giving your players some unintended ammunition in a "discussion" with you.

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