With Kingmaker finished, our group is now moving on to their third Pathfinder Adventure Path, and the first one that isn't by Paizo. Instead, for the next few months we'll be playing through The Way of the Wicked, a campaign for Lawful Evil characters by Gary McBride of Fire Mountain Games.
Dave was unable to make the first session, but Greg, Tim, Michael and Lee were all on-hand, and we began by generating characters by the method recommended in the adventure: one stat of 18, one of 8, and the other four rolled in-order on d10+7. In retrospect, this was a mistake: certain classes in Pathfinder very much require a good secondary stat, and with no way of ensuring this, the characters are much less effective than they should be. Oh well: I can just kill them off and we can start again.
The characters that were created were as follows:
Lee: Rainar, female half-elf Witch, Str 8, Dex 10, Con 14, Int 20, Wis 14, Cha 10, imprisoned for Witchcraft.
Tim: Vesper, female vishkanya Ninja, Str 8, Dex 20, Con 9, Int 10, Wis 6, Cha 14, imprisoned for Murder.
Michael: Varan, male human Fighter, Str 20, Dex 8, Con 12, Int 11, Wis 8, Cha 9, imprisoned for Duelling to Death
Greg: Rilwen, female aasimar Sorcerer, str 8, Dex 12, Con 15, Int 17, Wis 10, Cha 20, imprisoned for Arson.
The game began with the characters imprisoned for crimes the definitely did commit! And to be executed in three days. They were in the dread Branderscar Prison, on an island with only a narrow bridge connecting to the mainland.
It began with Rilwen being visited by a beautiful lady, Tiadora, who had charmed the prison warden. Tiadora informed Rilwen that her patron would like to see the four of them break out and travel to his mansion, where they would be safe. Why? They showed 'promise', whatever that meant. To aid them, she gave Rilwen a veil, and then left. Rilwen realised the veil had a number of useful items stored magically inside it, including some lockpicks, and made sure Vesper got the veil as he was chained up with the others once more.
Once night fell, Vesper unlocked all of them, and she and Varan took the daggers the veil contained. As Vesper tried to unlock the cell's lock, one of the two guards on duty heard him, and came to investigate. Varan slew the guard with a dagger as Vesper finished unlocking the cell, and the group slew the other guard as he came to help his friend. Drunken singing from below alerted them to the fact that the rest of the guards weren't aware of their escape attempt.
I should note that Varan had taken three feats: Power Attack, Weapon Focus (axe) and Furious Focus. This meant that, wielding the guard's longsword, he was attacking at +6 and dealing 1d8+10 damage! Everyone else was doing almost no damage, and this would become important later on. Vesper was attacking at +5 and dealing 1d4+1d6-1 damage... if sneak attack worked.
With the guards dealt with, they continued to explore their environs, discovering a captive ogre who was talked into working with them. Finding nothing else of use, they descended to the ground floor, where they discovered two guards in the passageway out (and more drunken singing from the nearby barracks). Vesper stealthily ambushed the guards, and Varan and the ogre slew them quickly, before they could raise the alarm.
Creeping over to the outer wall, the group used a window-patch from the veil to make their way through it, and from there went along the bridge to the mainland. Unfortunately, two guards and a dog were waiting there on the other side of a gate, and they were armed with bows. The group thought about it, and then ran back along the bridge and dived into the water, as the arrows struck Rilwen in the shoulder. How the group didn't drown is beyond me: they took damage from hitting the water, but were finally able to swim to the mainland, where they made their way into the moors with the horns of the prison sounding behind them.
None of the group were trained in nature or survival, but somehow Vesper was able to guide them unerringly across the marshes to their destination. Rainar gave warning of a giant toad that was lurking nearby, but they were not able to kill until it had grabbed Rilwen in its mouth and rendered her unconscious. Tending to her wounds, the group made their way to the manor, where they were greeted by Tiadora.
"Oh dearest," she said, looking at Rilwen, "What have you done to yourself?" She escorted them to guest rooms, where they were fed and healed, and then escorted to the master of the house: Cardinal Adrastus Thorn, high priest of Asmodeus. He offered them a choice: Serve Asmodeus in retaking the land from the mewling brats of Mitra, or to die. The group chose to help him, and signed contracts to prove their loyalty. They were rewarded by silver amulets of Asmodeus and iron headbands of disguise.
A few days later, having healed and equipped themselves, the group were summoned before Adrastus, who had a little test for them: they had to descend to the cellar and find a pendant he'd left there before dusk on the next day (so they had 24 hours). The group immediately undertook the quest, and discovered that each room in the quest had little homilies to aid them written on the doors... not that they paid enough attention to them. Rilwen immediately demonstrated this by falling into a pit trap in front of a false door, despite the warning on the door to avoid being deceived! When she got out, the group searched much more carefully, and found a vial of alchemist's ice in a hidden compartment as well as the door out.
The next chamber they essayed without problem: paying attention to the message and using the ice to destroy the violet mold growing on the true door out. The third chamber was totally dark, but between darkvision and Rainar's light spell they were able to see and destroy the globe of darkness in the centre of the room. Varan was attacked by a vampiric mist, but the group were able to destroy it before he was drained of all his constitution! (He lost 3 points, however).
With two choices of where next to go, they went north, finding a torture rack and a terrified squire of the knights of the land, who they tortured and then killed for information. Upon learning of some of the traps to come, the group next found two mithral cobras, which Varan was able to slay, but not before he lost a couple points of Dexterity to their fangs. This was quite difficult - and none of the other characters were able to damage the cobras: Rilwen couldn't get past their spell resistance, and Vesper couldn't get past their DR 5/-.
The next chamber brought them to their goal: a pendant of silver on a (surprisingly) untrapped podium, and the stairs leading out. Rilwen was doubtful, however. Heeding the words of the squire, she determined the stairs were trapped, the pendant was fake, and there was a secret way out, which the group took. Good for them!
Unfortunately, the group then failed to be very secret, alerting a shrieker to their presence. They left until it fell quiet... but then it screamed again, and they knew that the zombies the squire had told them about was in its chamber. They opened the door, and attacked. Unfortunately, the zombies were very, very strong. Rainar had powers over the undead, but even her powers could not control these zombies, and she found herself facing them alone after the rest of the group ran. One of the zombies hit her with its greataxe, and scored a critical, dealing 39 damage. Rainar fell dead, and everyone else ran through the previous chambers until the returned to the manor above. They hadn't found the pendant, but they still had most of the night and day left to retry.
At this point, we ended the session. Poor Lee - slain by a Draugr. With the exception of Varan, most of the characters were underwhelming, partly due to the stat generation system we used and partly due to poor choices. Rilwen had taken a dual-bloodline option which meant she only knew one first level spell: magic missile. Let me tell you, 1d4+1 five times a day isn't that useful. Rainar was mainly just giving monsters a -2 to hit, and Vesper just didn't have the damage. 8 Strength? Ouch. I may adjust some of the stats before the next session. The group also did very badly for Perception and other key skills - and the lack of good healing is a real killer.
Otherwise, I really enjoyed running the adventure, and - for the most part - the players enjoyed playing in it. Despite the situations being similar to those a good party might find themselves in, the very fact the party is evil (and their character selections enforce that) does change how things are dealt with. I'm not tracking XP, instead just levelling when the adventure says they should; thus the party attained 2nd level when they reached the manor. We had a short break then to level-up, which made Varan even scarier, but didn't do quite enough for everyone else. I think Tim will be very glad when his ninja reaches 5th level and does significant sneak attack damage. Tim was handicapped by not quite understanding how Ki points work with the ninja: one of the real drawbacks of Pathfinder is that it is not a game for casual gamers: you need system mastery, especially with published adventures.
I ran this adventure with only three 'books' apart from the adventure: the Core Rulebook, the Bestiary and the GM Screen. The players were allowed to use any official PF source they liked. I was very happy to find full statblocks in the adventure, so I didn't need the Bestiary except for looking up monster abilities; unfortunately, "Amorphous" wasn't in there - it was added with a later book. I'll probably ditch the Bestiary for the next session and instead make a booklet containing all the important keywords with rules text: I'm really not a fan of having to look up much, especially as Pathfinder is one of four versions of D&D I'm trying to run.
So far, the adventure seems tough but fun and we'll get the niggles out of the PCs with the next session. I allow a lot of rebuilding when things don't work, so we should have the characters settled in the next couple of sessions. This first adventure (The Knot of Thorns) covers levels 1-5, which means we probably won't finish it next week! My biggest worry is that writer's block may delay the final adventure of the AP too long; my group runs through APs very quickly. (We haven't been playing for a year yet, and we've already finished two!)
Until next time!
Dave was unable to make the first session, but Greg, Tim, Michael and Lee were all on-hand, and we began by generating characters by the method recommended in the adventure: one stat of 18, one of 8, and the other four rolled in-order on d10+7. In retrospect, this was a mistake: certain classes in Pathfinder very much require a good secondary stat, and with no way of ensuring this, the characters are much less effective than they should be. Oh well: I can just kill them off and we can start again.
The characters that were created were as follows:
Lee: Rainar, female half-elf Witch, Str 8, Dex 10, Con 14, Int 20, Wis 14, Cha 10, imprisoned for Witchcraft.
Tim: Vesper, female vishkanya Ninja, Str 8, Dex 20, Con 9, Int 10, Wis 6, Cha 14, imprisoned for Murder.
Michael: Varan, male human Fighter, Str 20, Dex 8, Con 12, Int 11, Wis 8, Cha 9, imprisoned for Duelling to Death
Greg: Rilwen, female aasimar Sorcerer, str 8, Dex 12, Con 15, Int 17, Wis 10, Cha 20, imprisoned for Arson.
The game began with the characters imprisoned for crimes the definitely did commit! And to be executed in three days. They were in the dread Branderscar Prison, on an island with only a narrow bridge connecting to the mainland.
It began with Rilwen being visited by a beautiful lady, Tiadora, who had charmed the prison warden. Tiadora informed Rilwen that her patron would like to see the four of them break out and travel to his mansion, where they would be safe. Why? They showed 'promise', whatever that meant. To aid them, she gave Rilwen a veil, and then left. Rilwen realised the veil had a number of useful items stored magically inside it, including some lockpicks, and made sure Vesper got the veil as he was chained up with the others once more.
Once night fell, Vesper unlocked all of them, and she and Varan took the daggers the veil contained. As Vesper tried to unlock the cell's lock, one of the two guards on duty heard him, and came to investigate. Varan slew the guard with a dagger as Vesper finished unlocking the cell, and the group slew the other guard as he came to help his friend. Drunken singing from below alerted them to the fact that the rest of the guards weren't aware of their escape attempt.
I should note that Varan had taken three feats: Power Attack, Weapon Focus (axe) and Furious Focus. This meant that, wielding the guard's longsword, he was attacking at +6 and dealing 1d8+10 damage! Everyone else was doing almost no damage, and this would become important later on. Vesper was attacking at +5 and dealing 1d4+1d6-1 damage... if sneak attack worked.
With the guards dealt with, they continued to explore their environs, discovering a captive ogre who was talked into working with them. Finding nothing else of use, they descended to the ground floor, where they discovered two guards in the passageway out (and more drunken singing from the nearby barracks). Vesper stealthily ambushed the guards, and Varan and the ogre slew them quickly, before they could raise the alarm.
Creeping over to the outer wall, the group used a window-patch from the veil to make their way through it, and from there went along the bridge to the mainland. Unfortunately, two guards and a dog were waiting there on the other side of a gate, and they were armed with bows. The group thought about it, and then ran back along the bridge and dived into the water, as the arrows struck Rilwen in the shoulder. How the group didn't drown is beyond me: they took damage from hitting the water, but were finally able to swim to the mainland, where they made their way into the moors with the horns of the prison sounding behind them.
None of the group were trained in nature or survival, but somehow Vesper was able to guide them unerringly across the marshes to their destination. Rainar gave warning of a giant toad that was lurking nearby, but they were not able to kill until it had grabbed Rilwen in its mouth and rendered her unconscious. Tending to her wounds, the group made their way to the manor, where they were greeted by Tiadora.
"Oh dearest," she said, looking at Rilwen, "What have you done to yourself?" She escorted them to guest rooms, where they were fed and healed, and then escorted to the master of the house: Cardinal Adrastus Thorn, high priest of Asmodeus. He offered them a choice: Serve Asmodeus in retaking the land from the mewling brats of Mitra, or to die. The group chose to help him, and signed contracts to prove their loyalty. They were rewarded by silver amulets of Asmodeus and iron headbands of disguise.
A few days later, having healed and equipped themselves, the group were summoned before Adrastus, who had a little test for them: they had to descend to the cellar and find a pendant he'd left there before dusk on the next day (so they had 24 hours). The group immediately undertook the quest, and discovered that each room in the quest had little homilies to aid them written on the doors... not that they paid enough attention to them. Rilwen immediately demonstrated this by falling into a pit trap in front of a false door, despite the warning on the door to avoid being deceived! When she got out, the group searched much more carefully, and found a vial of alchemist's ice in a hidden compartment as well as the door out.
The next chamber they essayed without problem: paying attention to the message and using the ice to destroy the violet mold growing on the true door out. The third chamber was totally dark, but between darkvision and Rainar's light spell they were able to see and destroy the globe of darkness in the centre of the room. Varan was attacked by a vampiric mist, but the group were able to destroy it before he was drained of all his constitution! (He lost 3 points, however).
With two choices of where next to go, they went north, finding a torture rack and a terrified squire of the knights of the land, who they tortured and then killed for information. Upon learning of some of the traps to come, the group next found two mithral cobras, which Varan was able to slay, but not before he lost a couple points of Dexterity to their fangs. This was quite difficult - and none of the other characters were able to damage the cobras: Rilwen couldn't get past their spell resistance, and Vesper couldn't get past their DR 5/-.
The next chamber brought them to their goal: a pendant of silver on a (surprisingly) untrapped podium, and the stairs leading out. Rilwen was doubtful, however. Heeding the words of the squire, she determined the stairs were trapped, the pendant was fake, and there was a secret way out, which the group took. Good for them!
Unfortunately, the group then failed to be very secret, alerting a shrieker to their presence. They left until it fell quiet... but then it screamed again, and they knew that the zombies the squire had told them about was in its chamber. They opened the door, and attacked. Unfortunately, the zombies were very, very strong. Rainar had powers over the undead, but even her powers could not control these zombies, and she found herself facing them alone after the rest of the group ran. One of the zombies hit her with its greataxe, and scored a critical, dealing 39 damage. Rainar fell dead, and everyone else ran through the previous chambers until the returned to the manor above. They hadn't found the pendant, but they still had most of the night and day left to retry.
At this point, we ended the session. Poor Lee - slain by a Draugr. With the exception of Varan, most of the characters were underwhelming, partly due to the stat generation system we used and partly due to poor choices. Rilwen had taken a dual-bloodline option which meant she only knew one first level spell: magic missile. Let me tell you, 1d4+1 five times a day isn't that useful. Rainar was mainly just giving monsters a -2 to hit, and Vesper just didn't have the damage. 8 Strength? Ouch. I may adjust some of the stats before the next session. The group also did very badly for Perception and other key skills - and the lack of good healing is a real killer.
Otherwise, I really enjoyed running the adventure, and - for the most part - the players enjoyed playing in it. Despite the situations being similar to those a good party might find themselves in, the very fact the party is evil (and their character selections enforce that) does change how things are dealt with. I'm not tracking XP, instead just levelling when the adventure says they should; thus the party attained 2nd level when they reached the manor. We had a short break then to level-up, which made Varan even scarier, but didn't do quite enough for everyone else. I think Tim will be very glad when his ninja reaches 5th level and does significant sneak attack damage. Tim was handicapped by not quite understanding how Ki points work with the ninja: one of the real drawbacks of Pathfinder is that it is not a game for casual gamers: you need system mastery, especially with published adventures.
I ran this adventure with only three 'books' apart from the adventure: the Core Rulebook, the Bestiary and the GM Screen. The players were allowed to use any official PF source they liked. I was very happy to find full statblocks in the adventure, so I didn't need the Bestiary except for looking up monster abilities; unfortunately, "Amorphous" wasn't in there - it was added with a later book. I'll probably ditch the Bestiary for the next session and instead make a booklet containing all the important keywords with rules text: I'm really not a fan of having to look up much, especially as Pathfinder is one of four versions of D&D I'm trying to run.
So far, the adventure seems tough but fun and we'll get the niggles out of the PCs with the next session. I allow a lot of rebuilding when things don't work, so we should have the characters settled in the next couple of sessions. This first adventure (The Knot of Thorns) covers levels 1-5, which means we probably won't finish it next week! My biggest worry is that writer's block may delay the final adventure of the AP too long; my group runs through APs very quickly. (We haven't been playing for a year yet, and we've already finished two!)
Until next time!
