Pathfinder 1E Advice for way of the wicked?

[Mr.E_Danger]

I don't know the specifics of where she may be buried, but i do agree that it's probably somewhere down south. I doubt Lord Havelyn had that posting when she was alive. Regardless, I think you handled it well. I agree that while thorn may want everyone else to suffer and die, i think disrespecting her or her memory would be a HUGE problem for him.

Sounds like you've got a good evil party. Should be a lot of fun as stuff starts to get sticky!

 

[Fooly_Cooly]

Wow. Thats quite the can of worms. Well as long as your sure about that PC then it should be alright for now. However I think that might def cause a drawback in later books. Unless i was mistaken in the reviews I read. I like how curios your group is. and dont worry about how evil your group is. Mine has been going around using profession torturer to skin ppl alive then dump oil on them light them and fire then bash their head in with a mace. I might follow your example and have them tone it down a bit .

 

[Joshgenti]

How do people deal with PCs wanting to steal everything? I have one PC in particular who keeps wanting to steal & murder every merchant in town who has anything remotely valuable or useful.

Anyone else have that problem? Have suggestions for how to handle it?

 

[Mr.E_Danger]

Well, my PC's are not all that evil, so I haven't run into that problem myself. Where are you, that your PC's can steal everything?

I guess the only advice i could give you is to try to stay true to how towns and villages would handle stuff like that. Anyone seeing any stealing would be very vocal and loud, trying to attract attention. If there is a murder or a rash of robberies, the town guard would definitely get involved. Maybe that means more active patrolling, a lot more guard presence throughout the town, or even an enforced curfew. As far as murders, this goes even doubly so. If a lot of people are dying and the town guard can't do anything about it, they may even go so far as to request help from larger cities or communities. They may try to enforce a martial, where citizens don't have the freedom to be out and about after dark.

Depending on how tough your PCs are, maybe make some NPCs that are just as tough. remember the longer they fight out in the open, the more guards can come and swamp them. If some or all of them get arrested, then they've got to escape again!

to quote Blackalicious, "So if you're blessed by the talent, utilize it to the fullest, be true to yourself and stay humble." Good luck

 

[N'raac]

I guess the only advice i could give you is to try to stay true to how towns and villages would handle stuff like that. Anyone seeing any stealing would be very vocal and loud, trying to attract attention. If there is a murder or a rash of robberies, the town guard would definitely get involved. Maybe that means more active patrolling, a lot more guard presence throughout the town, or even an enforced curfew. As far as murders, this goes even doubly so. If a lot of people are dying and the town guard can't do anything about it, they may even go so far as to request help from larger cities or communities. They may try to enforce a martial, where citizens don't have the freedom to be out and about after dark.

Or, being a D&D world village, they may hire some adventurers to end this scourge on their town. Make sure the adventurers they hire as as optimized as the PC's!

 

[gdmcbride]

Joshgenti,

Talingarde is a very lawful, very well-defended kingdom. Merchants can call upon knights and soldiers to defend them. Clerics of Mitra can use divination magic to track down criminals.

The trick is this ... as long as the PCs are having fun being bandits, then there is no problem. Make the thievery missions challenging and exciting. However, eventually petty banditry is likely to get boring. So then, you can get them back on track by having a well armed group of Mitra priests and their knights chase them off.

Gary McBride
Fire Mountain Games
Check out our kickstarter! Creature Cards

 

[Systole]

Just want to say that I'm playing this as a solo-ish campaign on GITP, and I am having a blast. I'm playing a young noble revolutionary who converted very enthusiastically to Asmodeus and went antipaladin after being recruited by Thorn. I'm pretty sure this makes it easier on the GM, because the character is driven by patriotism rather than EEEEEEEEEEVIL. So while he has zero moral compass, he tends not to do disturbing things for the sake of being disturbing.

Interestingly, there has really been minimal straight-up combat. When combat happens, it's almost already been arranged so that the fight is short, brutal, and thoroughly one-sided. I think my absolute favorite so far was baiting

Spoiler

Shanda

into an ambush and then killing her in one round with a Smite Good crit. There have been one or two scary exceptions, however. Even in his pajamas,

Spoiler

Thomas Havelyn

turned out to be a terrifying combatant.

Interestingly, when my character met

Spoiler

Timeon

in the basement, instead of torturing him, Taevos character talked him into converting to Asmodeus and then had him murder his former boss in order to seal the deal.

Spoiler

Timeon

is now a GMPC inquisitor and has been incredibly useful. I can't imagine what it would have been like without him.

 

[Mr.E_Danger]

Systole, sounds like you're having a lot of fun being a bad guy! I don't know who shanda is, but i'm sure she got what was coming to her. Ha. My PCs though Havelyn was pretty tough as well, they just barely survived the fight with him. Despite just barely surviving against Havelyn, they did handle the rest of the Balentyne and Mad Martin pretty well.

My group is on Book 2, and have discovered and mostly explored the Horn of Abbadon. While they have not started the main quest, I believe they will be starting it this coming session. Since that's when all the fun begins, I'm looking forward to how things play out.

 

[Curmudgeonly]

Just in case some of you were not aware, Book 6 just went on sale on Paizo.com

 

[Jables1987]

Hey all, I'm playing in a Way of the Wicked campaign, annnnnd I need a little advice, as a player. If you could try to go easy on spoilers, that'd be appreciated. My party looks like this:

- LE Human Anti-paladin of Asmodeus (even if he says he's N, he's not; he's far too dogmatic and rigid)
- NE Human Wizard (My character)
- NE Suli Oracle of Urgathoa
- NE Dwarf Fighter/Barbarian
- N Bard (don't get excited, he's been slipping since we started)
- NE Undine Vitalist

Spoiler

That being said, the party ran into (what I feel was rife with stupidity) some strife over the vampiric mist during the trials. When we first encountered it, the DM had it open by speaking in Aklo, which both myself and the Oracle speak. In a flash of desperate inspiration, I called out to it in Aklo, "Eat the bard, we wizards are bad for your health!". The DM asked me for a Diplomacy check, and with my glaring -1 Cha modifier, I burned my "Villain" Point to boost my roll; it netted me a 25. The mist replied that if we let it feed on one person, it would spare the rest of the party. Excited, I informed the party, and in a split second, things became divided. Myself and the oracle wanted to fetch a servant from upstairs and feed them to the mist, so that we could pass easily, and preserve a potentially powerful ally. The anti-paladin, however, demanded that we take the inscription on the door literally, and burn the creature to death. I declared that I wanted nothing to do with what I felt was a stupid, wasteful mistake, and immediately went back up to the mansion to retrieve a servant. My reasoning is that some random human was easier to obtain and mind control than the creature we had at hand. The anti-paladin set about trying to prepare a clever attack involving fire, which our bard (whom I do not have the most shining opinion of) immediately jumped in to assist. Fortunately, I returned before they completed their plan, and after feeding the mist, we were able to pass. Things came to a head, when we returned to the mist's room with the thrice-damned squire in tow (again, our anti-paladin demanded that we take the door's inscription literally, reasoning that by giving us information, the squire had served us well, while completely ignoring that the mist was obviously a potent ally and likely expensive to replace). The squire flipped out when he saw the mist, who wanted to feast on him; I decided to encourage the mist, calling out in Aklo that we had brought it another offering, in the hopes that the mist would at the least manage to kill the squire.

Well, that didn't get anywhere. They killed the mist, without my or the oracle's help (we shared the opinion that what the party was doing was foolish). I guess, what I would like to get some advice on, is the following:

- Any input or conjecture on how my DM is going to have the Cardinal react to what's going on thus far; the party is stupidly adamant about keeping the squire alive.
- Without saying why (the oracle and I have both been quite adept at spotting opportunities, and we're not even out of the trials yet), how useful could the mist have been to us?
- Does anyone have any suggestion on how I can survive this campaign personally? My character doesn't worship Asmodeus (or anyone, really), and he refuses to wear the circlet we've been given unless it's an emergency. He's managed to identify the disguise self portion, and with some serious study, has been able to ascertain that there's a powerful enchantment on the circlet that HIDES another magical effect, which my character and I do not trust at all.