Giantslayer AP - This is bad and I need help

[Dezea]

Hey,

I've been running Giantslayer up to book 5, and, as anticipated, this is not gonna work. Warning, spoiler ahead.
To sum it up, my players have been spending the last 3 books doing the exact same thing : go to the big giant stronghold, kill everything, profit.

There were some twist in the middle, rules to generate chaos in the giant army and a few (so, so few) interesting NPC, but that fifth instalement offer more of the same... But so poorly done it is making my eyes bleed and I can already see my players legitimately being upset - To be fair, I feel that this AP is incredibly lazy with it's structure, there was so many way to make this a big geopolitical conflict instead of a series of (mostly borings) dungeons.

For book 5, I want to scrap it entirely and turn it into an all out war. The BBEG will use his army and the heroes will need to take part in the defense of the world, either as general, fighters, spy, assassins and so on. I want it to be open on their side, but for once in that AP I don't want to confine what should be an event of geopolitical signifiance to the wall of a dungeon.

Tho... That leads me to (a lot of) questions :

- Have you ever run war in Pathfinder / DnD ? What are the traps of that kind of campaign ?
- My players will be lvl 13. We don't have crazy optimisation, but they will obviously be miles stronger that the common soldier. Any tips with dealing with this and challenging them accordingly ?
- Those are giants and they have an orb of Dragonkin. How would you use dragon in Warfare ? Also, how would you use the specifity of giant in a war - I'm sure we can go deeper than "just" having a crazily strong frontline.
- Do you have any article / books / podcast speaking about the warfare in fantasy ? I have really poor understanding of warfare tactics in general, and even more when it's fantasy related.
- How can you deal with the player simply spamming scry and teleportation to take out all of the enemy generals ?
- Also, I use my own settings and not Golarion, so I can't use any good idea related to that settings.

Thank your for your help ! Also, my apologies for my english, this is not my native tongue ! :)

[RNightstalker]

- Have you ever run war in Pathfinder / DnD ? What are the traps of that kind of campaign ?
- My players will be lvl 13. We don't have crazy optimisation, but they will obviously be miles stronger that the common soldier. Any tips with dealing with this and challenging them accordingly ?
- Those are giants and they have an orb of Dragonkin. How would you use dragon in Warfare ? Also, how would you use the specifity of giant in a war - I'm sure we can go deeper than "just" having a crazily strong frontline.
- Do you have any article / books / podcast speaking about the warfare in fantasy ? I have really poor understanding of warfare tactics in general, and even more when it's fantasy related.
- How can you deal with the player simply spamming scry and teleportation to take out all of the enemy generals ?
- Also, I use my own settings and not Golarion, so I can't use any good idea related to that settings.

Thank your for your help ! Also, my apologies for my english, this is not my native tongue ! :)

1-Trying to have the pc's be in the front lines and roll that out can be the battle that never ends, especially if you get to roll all the npc's...something more manageable would be like taking out the advance/scouting parties, interrupting supply lines, battlefield manipulation, espionage missions, wading through the crowd to take out the enemy champions...stuff like that.
2-the common soldier should look up to the pc's, be their heroes, etc.
3-Dragons can scout, run supplies, strafe the enemy troops while they're sleeping. Their fearful aura can be quite effective against the common soldier.
4-attack enemy weak points, protect yours, kill the enemy without treating your own like cannon fodder, etc. Ever watch Lord of the Rings?
5-There are ways to prevent people being scryed on, as well as preventing teleportation...you can also use their favorite strategy against them, and let them teleport themselves into a trap. Maybe the party needs to find an epic weapon or artifact to be able to defeat one of their generals to overcome an immunity or bypass crazy DR.

Also, Pc's are kind of designed to take out the enemy general, so don't discourage that line of thinking.

[Eldonauran]

Just have to pop in and talk about the Teleport spell specifically, as so many people seem to think "Scry and Teleport" will solve all their issues. Scrying an area still leaves you with roughly a 25% chance of being off target, or worse. There is also the line "Areas of strong physical or magical energy may make teleportation more hazardous or even impossible." that make it entirely within the GM's power to render the attempt moot.

So, unless they are springing for Greater Teleport (or similar), they are taking very real risks that can end badly.

[Kurald Galain]

Well, Giantslayer is known to be a relatively boring campaign.

A book that comes to mind that may help is Assault On Longshadow, which is part of another adventure path. It is about defense of a city; the enemy has a variety of strategies to undermine and later attack the city; the PCs can fortify or counterattack or recruit allies or sabotage, or all of the above but obviously they're on a timer. It's a few levels lower so you can't run it verbatim but I think it can aid and inspire you.


How would you use dragon in Warfare ?
Go high over the frontline, sow terror and destruction on the rear guard and/or the villages they're protecting, set the whole thing on fire and retreat. Next night, do it again. Essentially, be a heavy bomber.


Also, how would you use the specifity of giant in a war
Ignoring quite a lot of terrain obstacles including city walls by stepping or easily climbing over them, and creating such obstacles for humans that are just ignorable by giants.


Do you have any article / books / podcast speaking about the warfare in fantasy ?
Look for some relevant GURPS books. Much lower power than L13 D&D, but still usable.

[Rynjin]

Giantslayer and Ironfang Invasion are unfortunately pretty boring campaigns for the same reason: you fight too much of the same thing (Giants and Hobgoblins respectively). No other campaign does that, even the "designated undead campaigns" (Carrion Crown and its sequel Tyrant's Grasp) have a shocking amount of enemy variety even aside the fact that undead themselves are a lot more varied and interesting than Giants and Hobgolins.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Rynjin
Giantslayer and Ironfang Invasion are unfortunately pretty boring campaigns for the same reason: you fight too much of the same thing (Giants and Hobgoblins respectively).

I haven’t played Ironfang, but I’ve relied on it extensively for ideas and NPCs, and I have to say I’m impressed with what they’ve managed to do in terms of hobgoblin builds. There’s much more to it than just fighting hobgoblins; there are some gems in the bestiaries, and lower levels in particular have some good wilderness survival scenarios.

There are some issues with later books, especially in the final book, that do irk me; but overall I really like this AP.

[Kitsuneymg]

Re:teleporting

The giants have a flying citadel in book 6 and it fiat blocks all teleportation and (iirc) other flight magic. So using that in “book 5” as cover for their army would be a good idea. That stops scry and die and makes it loads harder to just wade in and kill everything. If you decide to have them go to war, then bring in the citadel sooner rather than later.

[Rynjin]

I haven’t played Ironfang, but I’ve relied on it extensively for ideas and NPCs, and I have to say I’m impressed with what they’ve managed to do in terms of hobgoblin builds. There’s much more to it than just fighting hobgoblins; there are some gems in the bestiaries, and lower levels in particular have some good wilderness survival scenarios.

There are some issues with later books, especially in the final book, that do irk me; but overall I really like this AP.

We played through book 3 before the GM just couldn't do it anymore. Book 1 is really good but starting in book 2 you're fighting 1 of 2 things most of the time:

Groups of Hobgoblin Slayers
Troops

It's just a boring slog from the mid-point of book 2 on. We got to the big siege section in book 3, GM looked ahead in the book to doublecheck stuff and just...broke. Like straight up said "I can't do it anymore, it's too boring" and everybody pretty much agreed.

We started War for the Crown after that instead, which is infinitely more interesting.

[Kurald Galain]

It's just a boring slog from the mid-point of book 2 on. We got to the big siege section in book 3, GM looked ahead in the book to doublecheck stuff and just...broke. Like straight up said "I can't do it anymore, it's too boring" and everybody pretty much agreed.
The point of the big siege section is not what exactly you're fighting, but all the options the PCs have to recruit allies, scout, sabotage the enemy, fortify the city, and deal with enemy saboteurs in the city. All of those options are the point, and the OP here can use that regardless of whether the enemy is hobbos or giants or something else.

I get the impression that your GM was burnt out, but if he describes the big siege as a series of battles against hobgoblins, well, it's not that.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Rynjin
We got to the big siege section in book 3, GM looked ahead in the book to doublecheck stuff and just...broke. Like straight up said "I can't do it anymore, it's too boring" and everybody pretty much agreed.

Sounds more like a GM issue, since there’s definitely more to work with in that and later books.


Originally Posted by Rynjin
We started War for the Crown after that instead, which is infinitely more interesting.

This is another of my favorite APs, not least because it gives us the lamp blighter, a cunning little monstrosity that still creeps out my players. One party member and two party companions lost eyes to this thing…and they still haven’t gotten them back.

[Rynjin]

The point of the big siege section is not what exactly you're fighting, but all the options the PCs have to recruit allies, scout, sabotage the enemy, fortify the city, and deal with enemy saboteurs in the city. All of those options are the point, and the OP here can use that regardless of whether the enemy is hobbos or giants or something else.

We did this bit, but dropped the campaign before the actual siege.


I get the impression that your GM was burnt out, but if he describes the big siege as a series of battles against hobgoblins, well, it's not that.

I feel like if a published campaign is boring enough that the GM gets burnt out midway through book 3 and the problem is completely eliminated by playing a DIFFERENT published campaign, it's pretty clear that the campaign is the problem.

We had some fun moments, but they all were despite the material in the book, not because of it.

[Kurald Galain]

I feel like if a published campaign is boring enough that the GM gets burnt out midway through book 3 and the problem is completely eliminated by playing a DIFFERENT published campaign,
Then you still don't know what the siege part of the campaign is like until you actually read that part :smallamused: It's not a series of battles, and it's largely not against hobgoblins either (it has a huge minotaur on the cover, and that's for a reason). More to the point, it has excellent ratings on both Paizo and Amazon.

[Rynjin]

Reviews aren't really a good sway for me, all I have is my personal experience that the AP went pretty sharply downhill after the tension of book 1.

[Peat]

Hey,

Tho... That leads me to (a lot of) questions :

- Have you ever run war in Pathfinder / DnD ? What are the traps of that kind of campaign ?
- My players will be lvl 13. We don't have crazy optimisation, but they will obviously be miles stronger that the common soldier. Any tips with dealing with this and challenging them accordingly ?
- Those are giants and they have an orb of Dragonkin. How would you use dragon in Warfare ? Also, how would you use the specifity of giant in a war - I'm sure we can go deeper than "just" having a crazily strong frontline.
- Do you have any article / books / podcast speaking about the warfare in fantasy ? I have really poor understanding of warfare tactics in general, and even more when it's fantasy related.
- How can you deal with the player simply spamming scry and teleportation to take out all of the enemy generals ?
- Also, I use my own settings and not Golarion, so I can't use any good idea related to that settings.

Thank your for your help ! Also, my apologies for my english, this is not my native tongue ! :)

The answers to these questions depend on what your group finds fun as there's a bunch of ways it can go but

- No, but the big traps I've found about wars in RPGs are 1) Getting caught in scenarios with a lot of dice rolling that slows things down 2) Making sure the PCs feel meaningful while making it clear this isn't just about them
- Throw enemy grunts at common soldiers, have enemy elites and heroes for the PCs (but sometimes letting them mow down enemy grunts to show how tough they are is fun)
- Depends what sort of warfare you want. Just heroic fun combats, like myth, chucking them at the opposition best on best works. If you want something more complicated - well, why do the giants want war? Conquest? Make the humans go away? Kill them all? Assuming the giants don't care about taking things intact, in a complicated scenario, I'd have the dragons and giants basically spread out, ignore hard targets, and just destroy as many villages and as much farmland as possible
- The Siege of Azure City arc in Order of the Stick is pretty good

But really, work out what the PCs want to do, and give them chances. Be the diplomats who bring together the grand alliance? Be the crack commando team that cuts the head off of the snake? Be the generals? A bit of everything? You can justify just about every spin going but it's best to know what they'll enjoy most.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Rynjin
...all I have is my personal experience that the AP went pretty sharply downhill after the tension of book 1.

That’s certainly fair, and I can imagine everyone was relieved to move on from that experience. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out with the vibe of the group.

That said, I’m looking through Assault on Longshadow now, and while there are certainly some hobgoblins, there are quite a few other creatures as well—including the primary antagonist and commander of the besieging forces, who is a unique and well-thought-out foe.

This would be Kosseruk, a minotaur strategist and philosopher of war. She’s one of the most interesting NPC opponents I’ve come across in an AP, and her writeup was an excellent vein of ideas to adapt to my own campaign.

So if your GM told you this book has only hobgoblins in it, then he wasn’t giving you a straight accounting, not by a long shot.

[Rynjin]

We've talked it over a few times, and the big thing is enemies like the one mentioned are fairly few and far between. There's a lot of "grunts" who are all very same-y (I think just getting to the siege we'd already had three separate encounters involving some combo of Hobgoblin Slayers and Alchemist troops), and the only way around that issue is to either skip everything except the most interesting encounters or retool all the existing encounters to be better.

We opted instead to run a campaign with inherently more interest. At least if encounters get a bit boring in War for the Crown (which they didn't through book 2), combat isn't really the focus anyway.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Rynjin
We opted instead to run a campaign with inherently more interest. At least if encounters get a bit boring in War for the Crown (which they didn't through book 2), combat isn't really the focus anyway.

All very fair. War for the Crown definitely has a wider variety of encounter types. Where else can you fight a giant catfish and a swan vigilante in the same book?

[Rynjin]

The Vigilante was such an amusing character to interact with after she was defeated.