Advice Running Rise of the Runelords An. Edition for 1st Time

[unseenmage]

This Sunday I'll be running my first PF game. Have a copy of the Anniversary Edition of Rise of the Runelords and a few friends willing to whip up some first level characters to play start it.

I've read the first section of the book and plan to reread it the night before. Buuuut, that's all the planning I have down so far. :smalleek:

Thoughts? Suggestions? Advice? Harrowing tales of player misadventures?


A player did ask about guns and my stance on them. I told said player I would be going with whatever the standard was in Golarion, at least until I learn more about the gameworld. I never feel very comfortable changing stuff until I get a better grasp on what's normal for a given world.

Additionally I intend to weave in some DragonMech stuff because I am a glutton for punishment. Still need to figure out how much DragonMech can be woven in at what stages in the adventure though. I intend it to be light, at least at first. Certainly nothing to upset the narrative. Windrow dressing and coolness factor increases only, y'know.

[ngilop]

Going to link posts ive written on this very subject before instead of retyping all of it over again

Post #1 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=16906014&postcount=6)

Post #2 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=16906339&postcount=9)

Post #3 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=16906339&postcount=9)

Post #4 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=14616570&postcount=21)

hope that helps a bit :)

[Arc_knight25]

The first chapter isn't to bad. Everything is pretty much set out for you.

You have the raid, then you have odds and ends in town to do so the players can learn more about the people in town. This is also a great time to add in back story events for your characters. After that it is time to continue the plot, then a dungeon crawl. You have some more down time after the Dungeon crawl. Once that down time is done its another dungeon crawl and your at the end of the 1st Chapter.

I'm running this as well, and we are almost done the first dungeon crawl. I have some back story events planned then they are off to another dungeon crawl.

So to answer your thoughts on prep time, you don't really need to do to much early on, the first chapter really holds your hand as you go.

[unseenmage]

Thank you both. At some point last night I remembered that Paizo has forums for just these types of questions and went-a-searchin'. Still glad I asked here though.

[mostholycerebus]

The more you can draw the group into the town, the better the game will play, and be much more memorable. Encourage character backgrounds that are tied to the town, get them to buy homes there, make the NPCs friendly and colorful and part of the PCs non-adventuring life.

[Ssalarn]

On the question about firearms, most Paizo APs are not written with firearms as an assumption, so there's very little support for them. Since RotRL predates the existence of firearm rules by a fair chunk, there's literally no support or consideration for them in the adventure. I'd generally advise against it.

[unseenmage]

Looks like I've got an Alchemist for sure, a merchant Bard is schedules permit, and another late player with character undecided.

If need be I'm prepared to cycle in a new DM-NPC every time there's downtime.

Thoughts on survivability of 3 or even 2 players getting through this thing alive?

[Ssalarn]

Looks like I've got an Alchemist for sure, a merchant Bard is schedules permit, and another late player with character undecided.

If need be I'm prepared to cycle in a new DM-NPC every time there's downtime.
Thoughts on survivability of 3 or even 2 players getting through this thing alive?

Depends on system mastery and group composition. If that third player is a Summoner, Druid, or even a Cavalier/Samurai, they should be all right. The Bard and Alchemist alone are going to struggle though, unless they've really got their teamwork down tight and have perfectly complimentary builds. There's a few fights in RotRL that are just going to be brutal, and where I've seen even relatively seasoned players with 5 strong party members struggle (for example, the mill and tower fights really kicked my group's collective ass, and they had a human Cleric (Crusader), human Warder (Hawkguard), aasimar Slayer, elf Wizard (Void school), and a half-orc Fighter (Viking) ), so, I probably wouldn't recommend 2 for those encounters. Maybe throw in a seasoned sheriff or plucky guardsmen to help watch their backs.

[ngilop]

It would be a bit difficult if there are going to be 3 PCs, even more so if only 2.

My suggestion would be to start everybody at 3rd ( 4th level if only 2 with maybe 200 extra gold of bonus one off magic items like potions of cure light wounds, scrolls, or what not)

And maybe give them a throwaway NPC, and by throwaway I mean the 3rd level fighter 1st level ranger in town who just happened ot have been in a drunken stupor during the goblin raid and now wants to make it up by assisting with a raid on thistletop for instance)


but keep everything else the same.

I am going t be running a pathfinder game for a 5 people starting at 5th level soon ( hopefully the end of summer if nto earlier)

I might even post my changesto this site so that others, such as yourself, can see what I have done and how you can adapt it to your own table.