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Draconi Redfir
2010-06-09, 02:31 AM
all right, so as the most experienced D&D player in my circle of friends, I decided to GM a game for the rest of them, knowing them, I homebrewed up some playable undead races for them to play, and due to my own personal oath, I’m adding branches to the game, soas to try and avoid railroading to the extreme. Now here’s my issue.

Early on in the game, there is a path that splits in three directions, I already laced one path with enough kobolds to get them to level 2, plus a few extra things as a bonus if they can land perception checks / figure out the tricks. But for the other two paths, I made kind of a mistake. Each of these separate paths will give the players essentially half of the 3000 exp they need for level 2. (One path gives them 1550 exp, the other gives 1450 exp) the problem is I can’t seem to think of a way to add enough exp to these paths to boost the total up to the 3000 needed. One path already has a small village of goblins, the other sporting a village of humans. Any suggestions?

Rixx
2010-06-09, 02:40 AM
Pad it out with some RP encounters and give the remaining EXP for that.

SpekterofDavid
2010-06-09, 02:41 AM
More detials Pleese?

Draconi Redfir
2010-06-09, 02:49 AM
More detials Pleese?

anything spesific?

Dairun Cates
2010-06-09, 02:50 AM
Like all of life's problems, this can easily be solved with the adding of more Velociraptors.

Of course, adding roleplaying encounters works too.

There's also always the "later to be plot important NPC attacked by Bandits in a wagon" plot hook exp combo or the classic "roadblock/cave in that requires some rare mineral to make the explosive to move it".

Oooh. Or fake heroes trying to scam them out of their money. Or an annoying pickpocket that tries to turn the party against each other to steal their cart. Or a forest fire that needs to be put out. Or a rumor of a magic item that turns out to be less useful than originally though. Or...

You know what? I'll stop.

Draconi Redfir
2010-06-09, 02:56 AM
Like all of life's problems, this can easily be solved with the adding of more Velociraptors.

Of course, adding roleplaying encounters works too.

There's also always the "later to be plot important NPC attacked by Bandits in a wagon" plot hook exp combo or the classic "roadblock/cave in that requires some rare mineral to make the explosive to move it".

Oooh. Or fake heroes trying to scam them out of their money. Or an annoying pickpocket that tries to turn the party against each other to steal their cart. Or a forest fire that needs to be put out. Or a rumor of a magic item that turns out to be less useful than originally though. Or...

You know what? I'll stop.



i think now would be an apropriate time to point out that the whole lot of them are evil and undead minions of an evil necromancer looking for a new sorce of power after his old one was stolen. :smalltongue:

Dairun Cates
2010-06-09, 03:12 AM
i think now would be an apropriate time to point out that the whole lot of them are evil and undead minions of an evil necromancer looking for a new sorce of power after his old one was stolen. :smalltongue:

Holy crap. Are you kidding? The possibilities are endless. On top of LITERALLY being able to throw that other stuff at them and allowing them to evil their way out of it (with the appropriate consequences later), you can literally just string them along on different side quests for other power sources. There's a lot that can power a necromancer, and surely their master would be pleased to have a back-up.

Hell, have them find things along their way that their master could use and reward them for attempting to bargain for it or steal it. The best part, they can argue over who gets to give it to him.

Give them secondary missions like squashing every Paladin they see only to have them run into one 3 times their level. Or find out that the necromancer's books are wrong, and that artifact he wants is now built under a noble's home.

Also, for laughs, idiot high level rogue that tries to sneak attack them and gets angry when he finds out that they're taking what he's dishing out. Make him a reoccurring side villain.

Really though. That sounds like an awesome campaign rife with the possibility for some cool side quests. Just keep throwing events and new scenarios for them to act in.

Kaiyanwang
2010-06-09, 03:25 AM
Idea for a side quest: mites. Maybe mites hate the team boss and use giant vermis to hunt them.

Maybe the boss use a sending spell to say that a settlement of these fey is someway against his plans.

Small swarming flankers + a giant bug is fun. They could even bargain with the mite instead, convincing the boss to ally (RPG XPs).

Another_Poet
2010-06-09, 10:49 AM
Add some traps. Easy way to hand out XP without needing to change that arc much/at all.

Wagadodo
2010-06-09, 11:03 AM
Don't forget story award bonuses. And adding a class level to some of the things that might also drastically increases the amount of exp given out. Just don't make it anything to powerful, or might paying for it. Give one of the ba.. good guys level or levels in bard. Just make sure what ever you give doesn't have improved init. My group in Pathfinder have been able to one hit my big bad guys more than I care to admit, but I am running a published adventure.

Draconi Redfir
2010-06-09, 05:15 PM
Don't forget story award bonuses. And adding a class level to some of the things that might also drastically increases the amount of exp given out. Just don't make it anything to powerful, or might paying for it. Give one of the ba.. good guys level or levels in bard. Just make sure what ever you give doesn't have improved init. My group in Pathfinder have been able to one hit my big bad guys more than I care to admit, but I am running a published adventure.

I’m actually thinking of having the main antagonist be a player-character paladin. (Yes npcs can be pc's in this game :P) and I’m thinking of have him show up once they exit the dungeon from one of the other paths.


I think I’ll check out the mites thing, see if I cant pull out a decent amount from the small exp budget i have left XD

In hindsight, it was probably a bad idea to split such a small exp budget in two so early on XD ahh well. Thanks for all the help guys!

Draconi Redfir
2010-06-10, 02:58 AM
Idea for a side quest: mites. Maybe mites hate the team boss and use giant vermis to hunt them.

Maybe the boss use a sending spell to say that a settlement of these fey is someway against his plans.

Small swarming flankers + a giant bug is fun. They could even bargain with the mite instead, convincing the boss to ally (RPG XPs).

sorry to bump this thread, but do you think a hissing centipede (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/vermin/centipede/hissing-centipede) would be a good enough giant bug for the mite encounter?

i have also determined that if my current character dies, I am making a mite character.

Safety Sword
2010-06-10, 03:38 AM
i think now would be an apropriate time to point out that the whole lot of them are evil and undead minions of an evil necromancer looking for a new sauce of power after his old one was stolen. :smalltongue:

Fixed. And there's your idea :smallbiggrin:

Kaiyanwang
2010-06-10, 03:47 AM
sorry to bump this thread, but do you think a hissing centipede (http://http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/vermin/centipede/hissing-centipede) would be a good enough giant bug for the mite encounter?

i have also determined that if my current character dies, I am making a mite character.

I cannot see the link sorry :smallfrown:

Draconi Redfir
2010-06-10, 02:14 PM
I cannot see the link sorry :smallfrown:

try it now

Yora
2010-06-10, 02:26 PM
Page loads, but there seems to be nothing on it.

Draconi Redfir
2010-06-10, 03:28 PM
sorry to bump this thread, but do you think a hissing centipede (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/vermin/centipede/hissing-centipede) would be a good enough giant bug for the mite encounter?



click this one, not the one he quoted.

Kaiyanwang
2010-06-10, 03:47 PM
Centipede has (relatively) good climb and hide. Set the encounter in a wood.

Take 10 to hide. Use mite to lure PCs, then when they are engaged, the centipedes come out. Try to bite suddenly but not focus vs a single player or the chance to screw immediately one of them increase (unless this is your GM stale - perfectly legitimate).