Has Anyone Played Ironfang Invasion?

[Palanan]

Anyone here either run or played Ironfang Invasion?

And if so, is there a campaign log? I’m especially interested in how the first book plays out in practice.

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[Eldonauran]

I've actually GM'ed for the Iron Fang Invasion, up to book 3. Unfortunately, we did not keep a campaign log but from what I recall, it was a fairly ... interesting ride. But that was mostly because of my players and their particular tendencies to inject chaos into everything they do.

I don't want to ruin the start of the adventure, because it starts off with a bang and things get rolling immediately. However, we did have a season zero for the campaign and I gave them several pointers in how to build their characters to be able to participate in most of the activities required in the first book. They had the idea to build a party of all dwarves. I had the idea to start them all out as NPC classes, to give them the feel of actually being townies that get thrown into leadership positions. I started them off as 2nd level adepts, warriors, & experts with a key ability of their intended PC classes (like Rage, Animal Companion, or Sneak attack). They got PC ability scores and max HP (I give Max HP for the first three levels) and upon reaching the exp they needed for 2nd level, I let them instant-retrain one of their levels to a PC class. Half-way through their second level of exp, I let them retrain their last NPC class level and upon reaching 2nd level, they were 100% a PC class. Most of them had NPC followers at that point that they were grooming for leadership positions (not saying for what because spoilers).

Starting that way ended up a smashing success and the mini-adventure we were able to run as a introduction to the adventure, which culminated in all the players knowing each other through background reasons and meeting up in the tavern for a small celebration from their successful task... Well, it made the impact of the beginning of the adventure that much more poignant.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Eldonauran
Starting that way ended up a smashing success and the mini-adventure we were able to run as a introduction to the adventure, which culminated in all the players knowing each other through background reasons and meeting up in the tavern for a small celebration from their successful task... Well, it made the impact of the beginning of the adventure that much more poignant.

Sounds like an excellent way to start out the campaign. What was the mini-adventure? Did you use a lower benchmark for XP, since you were starting with NPC classes?


Originally Posted by Eldonauran
I don't want to ruin the start of the adventure, because it starts off with a bang and things get rolling immediately.

Not to worry—I’ve looked through most of the books for this AP and read the first book in detail, so I know how it starts and where it goes from there.

So I’d be very interested to hear more details about how your all-dwarf party dealt with the beginning of the campaign, where the bad guys literally kick in the door. In particular:

1. The opening section seems a little odd, in which the characters are supposed to scurry between several key locations gathering supplies and followers. I’m not sure how that works in practice, especially if hobgoblins are supposedly roaming everywhere killing everyone. Did your PCs go on the scavenger hunt as the AP assumes, or did it take a certain amount of DM coaxing to guide them along?

2. The bridge in particular seems like a necessarily railroaded aspect, in that if the PCs don’t flee across the bridge then the rest of the first book won’t run as planned. Destroying the bridge also seems like something the PCs might need to be encouraged to do. How did that play out for your group?

[Eldonauran]

Sounds like an excellent way to start out the campaign. What was the mini-adventure? Did you use a lower benchmark for XP, since you were starting with NPC classes?I wrote a quick two-day scenario that brought the characters together in preparation for a holiday feat that happened to occur during the start of the adventure. Two of the characters were part of the same mercenary group stopping in for resupply. Another was a ranger-in-training and trapped/hunted, so was bringing in food and fine furs to be sold. Another was an adopted member of the mayoral house that ran the town. The last was a priest in training. All of them knew of each other because they were part of the few dwarves that frequented the town, and having some small issue crop up that everyone else was too busy to address gave us a good excuse to send the group out into the woods to solve it. The mayor's daughter seeking to live up to her duties, the ranger-in-training to serve as a woodman guide, the two merc (a to-be barbarian and his magic wielding buddy) and the local in-training priest of Erastil to keep everyone healthy.

A short summary of the 'adventure' was just a group of wolves that were picking off some prized farm animals that were needed for the feast. I didn't give them any experience but I did give them some 'gear' as an award that helped in the upcoming events.



1. The opening section seems a little odd, in which the characters are supposed to scurry between several key locations gathering supplies and followers. I’m not sure how that works in practice, especially if hobgoblins are supposedly roaming everywhere killing everyone. Did your PCs go on the scavenger hunt as the AP assumes, or did it take a certain amount of DM coaxing to guide them along?Since the characters were already familiar with the town and what survival entails, they had heavy incentive to scavenge enough resources they would need. They also had some heavy connections with the local NPCs and each of them felt compelled to attempt to rescue them. I only had to coax them NOT to take on the army directly, mostly through showing hints of higher level defenders of the town battling in the distance... and eventually losing.


2. The bridge in particular seems like a necessarily railroaded aspect, in that if the PCs don’t flee across the bridge then the rest of the first book won’t run as planned. Destroying the bridge also seems like something the PCs might need to be encouraged to do. How did that play out for your group?As a border town, the locals had contingencies in place for orc raids or similar things to happen. One of which is to ensure that their bridge was not to be used against them. The mayor's daughter was given that information and only had to 'remember it' with a knowledge local check, and maybe a reminder from a certain NPC they kept alive from the initial ambush.