[PF] Preparing to GM Rise of the Runelords

[ArcanistSupreme]

I recently purchased this adventure path (Anniversary Edition), and after reading the first section and glancing through the rest, I am super excited to get into this with my group. One minor hiccup I'm having is with the setting; I am 100% new to Goalrion (sp?) and thus unfamiliar with the history, the territories, and the cultures.

For the most part, this isn't really an issue. But one of the very first handouts is translated from Minkaian, a language I didn't even know existed before today. How do PCs gain access to this language? Is there a list of languages for this setting somewhere? What about languages like Halfling, Elven, and Goblin?

Are there any other setting-specific details that I'll need to familiarize myself with that are not described in the adventure path?

EDIT: And are there any suggested tweaks or devices that others familiar with the AP have used that improved the experience?

[Squirrel_Dude]

Ho boy. Alright, so Minkaian (http://www.pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Minkai) is a language from one of the Oriental nations in the Golarion setting. I can't tell you much more than that, as I haven't spent much time with those settings, and I don't know the context for that handout. Here is a list of Human languages of Golarion. (http://www.pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Human_languages_of_Golarion) In general, each region/nation has it's own unique language, with the "common" language being Taldane. Each race normally has its own language, too. If characters want to learn a language they merely need to invest a point in the Linguistics skill, which increases their languages known by 1 (or more if you have certain traits/feats or racial abilities).

As for setting specific details that you would need to familiarize yourself with, I can't answer that. I can try answer a couple questions about the setting, as I have the Inner Sea World Guide, but I'm not familiar with the adventure path.

Welcome to learning about Golarion. It's a big place.

[ArcanistSupreme]

Ho boy. Alright, so Minkaian (http://www.pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Minkai) is a language from one of the Oriental nations in the Golarion setting. I can't tell you much more than that, as I haven't spent much time with those settings, and I don't know the context for that handout. Here is a list of Human languages of Golarion. (http://www.pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Human_languages_of_Golarion) In general, each region/nation has it's own unique language, with the "common" language being Taldane. Each race normally has its own language, too. If characters want to learn a language they merely need to invest a point in the Linguistics skill, which increases their languages known by 1 (or more if you have certain traits/feats or racial abilities).

As for setting specific details that you would need to familiarize yourself with, I can't answer that. I can try answer a couple questions about the setting, as I have the Inner Sea World Guide, but I'm not familiar with the adventure path.

Welcome to learning about Golarion. It's a big place.

:smalleek: So...many...languages... Oh well it still seems manage- HUMAN languages?! How many non-human languages are there?!

[Squirrel_Dude]

:smalleek: So...many...languages... Oh well it still seems manage- HUMAN languages?! How many non-human languages are there?!Here's the list in the Core Rulebook (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/skills/linguistics.html#_linguistics). It's that plus 1 for some monster races, and for some unique monsters (Aboleth).


Can you tell me where the Rise of the Runelords campaign takes place. As in: how far across the continent does it go? Unless it's too far flung, you probably aren't looking at more than 4 or 5 extra human languages popping into the game.

[Keneth]

Be prepared to help your players and improvise, because the story is straightforward, but following it is not. Try not to railroad them too much, but instead think ahead of what might happen if they don't follow things through as described in the book. Also, if you're not gonna be playing on a very regular basis, make sure to recap what was happening in previous sessions, and remind your players of important quest items which can otherwise quickly be forgotten in the heap of loot and trivial information.

Also, like most pre-made adventures, the encounters are bizarrely imbalanced. The conversion in anniversary edition helped this issue somewhat, but it also left a bunch of poorly converted stat blocks and errors. They are designed with an entirely dysfunctional below-average party in mind, so most encounters are gonna be bulldozed by any party that knows the first thing about D&D, and then every once in a while there comes an encounter that can completely obliterate the party that was doing just fine until then. Plus, it doesn't take into account any of the non-core classes (like alchemist), which can trivialize encounters that would otherwise be challenging.

Most of my time when preparing to run a RotR session is actually spent redesigning and tailoring encounters to each respective party.

[ArcanistSupreme]

Here's the list in the Core Rulebook (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/skills/linguistics.html#_linguistics). It's that plus 1 for some monster races, and for some unique monsters (Aboleth).


Can you tell me where the Rise of the Runelords campaign takes place. As in: how far across the continent does it go? Unless it's too far flung, you probably aren't looking at more than 4 or 5 extra human languages popping into the game.

As far as I can tell, it takes place entirely within Varisia, and mainly the Lost Coast at that. But I'm still familiarizing myself with the AP.


Be prepared to help your players and improvise, because the story is straightforward, but following it is not. Try not to railroad them too much, but instead think ahead of what might happen if they don't follow things through as described in the book. Also, if you're not gonna be playing on a very regular basis, make sure to recap what was happening in previous sessions, and remind your players of important quest items which can otherwise quickly be forgotten in the heap of loot and trivial information.

I'm pretty good at improvising since my group does what I expect only about 5% of the time. The AP also provides tons of background information, which helps enormously with making things up on the fly and nudging PCs in the direction that you want them to go.


Most of my time when preparing to run a RotR session is actually spent redesigning and tailoring encounters to each respective party.

Ugh. I was probably going to have to do that anyway, since I think I'm gonna have 5 PCs. I thought that the CR 1 encounters seemed weak, even for level 1 PCs. Lame.

[Squirrel_Dude]

As far as I can tell, it takes place entirely within Varisia, and mainly the Lost Coast at that. But I'm still familiarizing myself with the AP.Cool. *Opens up Inner Sea World Guide*

Region: Varisia
Common Languages: Taldane (Common), Shoanti, Varisian

Anything else is probably unique on purpose.

[Drachasor]

Yes, you start in the city of Sandport, the village of idiots. Seriously, to excel in Sandpoint one need merely to sometimes perform adequately in life.

Galorian in general has a ridiculous number of languages. This always strikes me as a way to punish people that don't use magic. Not intentionally, I'm sure.

[Vanitas]

Yes, you start in the city of Sandport, the village of idiots. Seriously, to excel in Sandpoint one need merely to sometimes perform adequately in life.

Oh, just like the real world, then. :smallwink:

[Drachasor]

Oh, just like the real world, then. :smallwink:

Naw, in the real world people exceptional people manage to reach heights beyond occasional adequacy.

[Andrewmoreton]

The note in Minkain is in that language because the family of the two people sharing the message originate in the far east a long time ago. It is used because pretty much only Ameiko, Tsuiko will be able to read it. However any obscure language could be used it is not in itself relevant to the plot.

The only languages you are going to need are
Common (Most of the settlers who founded the town speak common because it was the language of their homeland)
Varisian(Many of the locals speak Varisian and are of that descent)
Shoanti (one of the native tribes, mainly live in land there are a few in Snad point)
Thassilonean (This is a dead ancient language which may prove useful but its obscure only scholars would speak it and learning it mid campaign works fine)
Giant(may be useful)

Background wise I have not needed anything beyond the Rise of the Rune Lords anniversary edition. I have used some of the other background to flesh out religions etc but that was not necessary. The last adventure in the shattered star series has a lot of information on the Rune Lords which I find useful for color but it is far from necessary

If your group is larger than 4 or reasonably optimised you will need to adjust boss encounters to make them more challenging as Keneth said(Or just have Nualia roll a lot of crits and disable 4 of 5 pc's on her own).

I have not had a problem with keeping my players on plot except at the end of part 1 were they wanted to hunt down all the other goblin tribes (I talked them out of it by pointing out how boring it would be to fight multiple tribes of Goblins and by pointing out that it would mean a multiple week gap in playing while I actually wrote up all the tribes) I let them do it at level 10 when I could just handwave it as a downtime activity

[Vanitas]

Naw, in the real world people exceptional people manage to reach heights beyond occasional adequacy.

We live in the same world as Paris Hilton and the Kardashians, don't we?

[Drachasor]

We live in the same world as Paris Hilton and the Kardashians, don't we?

Are you saying everyone in the world is like that?

[Keneth]

The languages really aren't an issue. Besides, any average party of adventurers is gonna stock a few scrolls/potions of comprehend languages.

[Kudaku]

You'll visit Sandpoint, Magnimar, Turtleback Crossing, and spend some time in the Varisian highlands, but as far as I can remember the AP never leaves Varisia.
The Anniversary edition should hold the information you need to run the AP, but if there's something you're not sure about there are various ways to find out more about the setting.

The Rise of the Runelords player's guide (http://paizo.com/products/btpy8bd9?Pathfinder-Rise-of-the-Runelords-Players-Guide) has information about Sandpoint and Varisia and is a great starting point for your players when they're creating characters.

The Pathfinder wiki (http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Varisia) is an excellent source of information, but it's also littered with adventure path spoilers - I'd be careful with linking it to your players.

The Rise of the Runelords has its own forum (http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/adventurePath/runelords) on Paizo.com, complete with lots of helpful posters who are running or have already run the AP. It also has the "player resource (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2i3wa&page=14?Community-Created-Stuff#695)" thread which has a ton of user-generated handouts, maps, etc. Well worth a read.

If you don't mind spending a bit of money you could also pick up the Inner Sea World Guide (http://paizo.com/products/btpy8ief) ($9.99) for excellent general information about Golarion and/or the Player Companion for Varisia (http://paizo.com/products/btpy8tim?Pathfinder-Player-Companion-Varisia-Birthplace-of-Legends) ($7.99) for specific stuff about Varisia.

Finally, I'd like to note that Golarion is a "kitchen sink"-campaign setting. It was specifically and intentionally written to be able to accommodate wildly different campaigns, such as traditional high fantasy (Varisia), classical trannsylvanian vampire/werewolf/frankenstein horror stories (Ustalav), House of Cards-esque backstabbing and political intrigue (Cheliax), post-apocalypse with rudimentary firearms (Alkenstar), and pretty much straight science fiction (Numeria).

This means the world can seem a little anachronistic at times - for instance 4000 BC Egypt (Osirion) and revolutionary France (Galt) exist in the same timeframe.
Try not to let that bother you - most APs will limit themselves to a single country and so these differences will most likely never come up in actual gameplay.

[Vanitas]

Are you saying everyone in the world is like that?

No, I mean that it is perfectly possible to succeed in the real world if you perform somewhat adequately once or twice in a lifetime. Not even that sometimes, some people are just lucky. I don't believe that is "idiot".
Anyway, I doubt you'll change your mind. Keep thinking Sandpoint is idiot. I'll keep thinking it's at least as idiot as standard western society.

[ArcanistSupreme]

I lost track of this thread and forgot to thank all of you for your suggestions. This is all great stuff; my party has completed the first part of Burnt Offerings and is loving it!