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SunAndSpring
Dec 4, 2013

HerraS posted:

What would a list of classes arranged by ease of play that included 13 True Ways and the Glorantha classes look like? Thoughts?

I'd say Ranger, Paladin, and Barbarian (and the barbarian variants in Glorantha), are the dead easiest, so they're definitely on the bottom. Hell Mother, Earth Priestess, Storm Bull Berserker, Trickster, and Occultist probably top the charts, with tons of options to keep track off. Everything else falls in between.

Really the Glorantha classes are a lot more involved, save for maybe the lame Barbarians.

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-Fish-
Oct 10, 2005

Glub glub.
Glub glub.

If you're in the VHS Fansub playtest tonight we're gonna have to reschedule, sent out an email with more details.

HerraS
Apr 15, 2012

Looking professional when committing genocide is essential. This is mostly achieved by using a beret.

Olive drab colour ensures the genocider will remain hidden from his prey until it's too late for them to do anything.



SunAndSpring posted:

I'd say Ranger, Paladin, and Barbarian (and the barbarian variants in Glorantha), are the dead easiest, so they're definitely on the bottom. Hell Mother, Earth Priestess, Storm Bull Berserker, Trickster, and Occultist probably top the charts, with tons of options to keep track off. Everything else falls in between.

Really the Glorantha classes are a lot more involved, save for maybe the lame Barbarians.

I guess putting the classes in tiers would be a lot simpler than trying to rank all of them in relation to each other. I'm thinking something along these lines?

Most complex
Occultist, Hell Mother, Earth Priestess, Storm Bull, Trickster

Semi-complex
Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard, Commander, Druid, Monk, Storm Voice

Semi-simple
Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, Chaos Mage, Necromancer, Rebel, Wind Lord, Zorak Zorani

Simplest
Barbarian, Ranger, Paladin, Troll Warrior, Orlanthi Warrior

I'm assuming I've misplaced a few since I haven't been able to see them all in action at the table. Thoughts?

djw175
Apr 23, 2012

by zen death robot

HerraS posted:

I guess putting the classes in tiers would be a lot simpler than trying to rank all of them in relation to each other. I'm thinking something along these lines?

Most complex
Occultist, Hell Mother, Earth Priestess, Storm Bull, Trickster

Semi-complex
Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard, Commander, Druid, Monk, Storm Voice

Semi-simple
Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, Chaos Mage, Necromancer, Rebel, Wind Lord, Zorak Zorani

Simplest
Barbarian, Ranger, Paladin, Troll Warrior, Orlanthi Warrior

I'm assuming I've misplaced a few since I haven't been able to see them all in action at the table. Thoughts?

I'd move the Chaos Mage up a bit. While you don't have to make choices, it requires a lot of complicated book keeping.

Ragnar34
Oct 10, 2007

Lipstick Apathy
Maybe it depends on whether you're using warp abilities. I have a chaos mage player who didn't mess with all that, and things have been pretty simple so far. You've just got to skim a list or two for every turn. Not so bad.

On an unrelated note, icon switchouts we've got going in Stone Thief:
Emperor replaced with Odin (by which we mean Tony Iommi or someone like that, because our Odin is the god of sick riffs)
Archmage out, Balder in (ie David Bowie)

I think this is happening because of the way the High Druid is standing in that one picture from the core rulebook.

UrbanLabyrinth
Jan 28, 2009

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence


College Slice
At a glance, Occultist looks like it'd make a good Psion class (removing the Unique flavour). I could see Delayed Magical Healing not really matching the new flavour though - how much of a benefit would I be giving if I removed that? Any other obvious occultist->psion problems I'm missing?

01011001
Dec 26, 2012

HerraS posted:

I guess putting the classes in tiers would be a lot simpler than trying to rank all of them in relation to each other. I'm thinking something along these lines?

Most complex
Occultist, Hell Mother, Earth Priestess, Storm Bull, Trickster

Semi-complex
Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard, Commander, Druid, Monk, Storm Voice

Semi-simple
Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, Chaos Mage, Necromancer, Rebel, Wind Lord, Zorak Zorani

Simplest
Barbarian, Ranger, Paladin, Troll Warrior, Orlanthi Warrior

I'm assuming I've misplaced a few since I haven't been able to see them all in action at the table. Thoughts?

What makes Cleric/Necromancer less complex than Bard/Sorcerer/Wizard? They're certainly more complex than chaos mage as far as decisions per turn.

Some of these are a bit difficult to classify too because talents can definitely alter complexity to some degree, like if you take more active Ranger/Paladin/Barbarian talents instead of passive ones.

UrbanLabyrinth
Jan 28, 2009

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence


College Slice

UrbanLabyrinth posted:

At a glance, Occultist looks like it'd make a good Psion class (removing the Unique flavour). I could see Delayed Magical Healing not really matching the new flavour though - how much of a benefit would I be giving if I removed that? Any other obvious occultist->psion problems I'm missing?

Adding to this, how would this feel as a Psion (Occultist) talent:

quote:

Psionic Fist
Your style of psionics emphasizes close-range fighting. There are two advantages and one possible drawback to your style.
You gain a +2 bonus to AC. Phrase it as quick reflexes, tough skin, or fields of invisible psionic energy, as you choose.
You can regain focus while engaged with enemies without taking opportunity attacks.
You use your Constitution modifier instead of your Wisdom modifier to determine the damage you add to all your psion powers. This also applies to the Hewer of Truth and Warp Flesh talents, if you have them.

Adventurer Feat
When you miss with a psion power against an enemy you are engaged with, add your Intelligence modifier to the damage you deal. At 5th level, add double your Intelligence modifier; at 8th level, triple it.

Champion Feat
Once per battle when you manifest karmic rebuke, you may target two enemies engaged with you instead of one nearby enemy.

Epic Feat
Once per day when you expend your focus to manifest a power, pick one of these effects:
If the power targets an enemy, each enemy engaged with you becomes an additional target of that power if it’s not already targeted by the power.
If the power provides a benefit to an ally, each nearby ally gains the same benefit if it’s not already affect by the power.

ProfessorCirno
Feb 17, 2011

The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

01011001 posted:

What makes Cleric/Necromancer less complex than Bard/Sorcerer/Wizard? They're certainly more complex than chaos mage as far as decisions per turn.

Some of these are a bit difficult to classify too because talents can definitely alter complexity to some degree, like if you take more active Ranger/Paladin/Barbarian talents instead of passive ones.

I can't speak for Necromancer (and I do not think it is less complex, incidentally, at all), but Cleric really isn't super difficult. Pick a few good dailies, throw one or two down a fight, and bash people with your hammer and/or zappo them with laser beams. Cleric is less complex because they don't have the myriad of interactions a lot of other casters have - it's almost all dailies.

EDIT: I'm gonna say Bard is one of the most complex period, if only because of the insane shenanigans you can get up to with Jack of All Spells. It's not Earth Priestess complex, but if you really get into spell combos, it gets bad. The bard is just all long term complexity rather then immediate complexity.

ProfessorCirno fucked around with this message at 09:05 on Jun 29, 2016

01011001
Dec 26, 2012

That's true, actually, it's much easier to lean on at-wills/basic melee standard actions as cleric because you have 2 uses of a quick action encounter spell and quick action daily talents.

Shouldn't have lumped bard in there, I'm not about to contest that being a step above the others in complexity. On the bright side it's pretty difficult to screw up a bard.

E: forgot to mention cleric's encounter offensive spell too which is a mistake because it's quite solid for what it is.

01011001 fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Jun 29, 2016

ProfessorCirno
Feb 17, 2011

The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!
The main thing about Jack of All Trades is that it is very specifically any spellcaster's spell.

If for example you wanted a horrifying front line bard, you could easily grab the most absurd daily buffs from several classes. Thank you Chaos mage, I will take +3 AC and dealing damage to everyone that hits me. What's that necromancer? Half the time an engaged enemy attacks me they take a giant grip of damage? Or I can heal a ton of damage every single turn and get a free action attack against any enemy who misses me with a low roll? You shouldn't have! Why, cleric, d12 basic attacks - you shouldn't have!

There's a lot of AMAZING dailies that only effect the spellcaster that are meant to be defenses for skinny robed wizards or to bring the attacks of lesser classes up to par. You can use them to make yourself a goddamn juggernaut. Multiclass with Ranger to make things even more obscenely unfair. While it's true a bard could stack up all the high damage dailies, I think you really are better off going for buffs to augment your already potent melee.

PublicOpinion
Oct 21, 2010

Her style is new but the face is the same as it was so long ago...
Yeah, Vampire Form on a bard is powerful stuff. It only kicks in at level 9, of course, but you turn into a goddamn monster.

Turtlicious
Sep 17, 2012

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Ranger necromancer multiclass, 1 Skeletal Minion, 1 Ranger Pet, 1d4+1 undead summons every single fight.

01011001
Dec 26, 2012

ProfessorCirno posted:

The main thing about Jack of All Trades is that it is very specifically any spellcaster's spell.

If for example you wanted a horrifying front line bard, you could easily grab the most absurd daily buffs from several classes. Thank you Chaos mage, I will take +3 AC and dealing damage to everyone that hits me. What's that necromancer? Half the time an engaged enemy attacks me they take a giant grip of damage? Or I can heal a ton of damage every single turn and get a free action attack against any enemy who misses me with a low roll? You shouldn't have! Why, cleric, d12 basic attacks - you shouldn't have!

There's a lot of AMAZING dailies that only effect the spellcaster that are meant to be defenses for skinny robed wizards or to bring the attacks of lesser classes up to par. You can use them to make yourself a goddamn juggernaut. Multiclass with Ranger to make things even more obscenely unfair. While it's true a bard could stack up all the high damage dailies, I think you really are better off going for buffs to augment your already potent melee.

How does jack of all trades work with chaos Mage spells anyway? Can they just pull the selected one out at will without having to do all the random-roll horseshit? Because that seems like it's almost better than actual Chaos Mage due to actually being able to get what you want.

ProfessorCirno
Feb 17, 2011

The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

01011001 posted:

How does jack of all trades work with chaos Mage spells anyway? Can they just pull the selected one out at will without having to do all the random-roll horseshit? Because that seems like it's almost better than actual Chaos Mage due to actually being able to get what you want.

As with all other jacked spells, you choose a single Chaos Mage spell and can now cast that, the end. You only get one which I suppose balances it, but in the end, Jack of All Spells remains incredible and a little absurd.

djw175
Apr 23, 2012

by zen death robot

ProfessorCirno posted:

As with all other jacked spells, you choose a single Chaos Mage spell and can now cast that, the end. You only get one which I suppose balances it, but in the end, Jack of All Spells remains incredible and a little absurd.

Actually no. Wade posted about it earlier in the thread or maybe last thread. When spell jacking you pick a category of spells. Every turn you draw stones. If you don't get that category you just do regular bard stuff. If you do you can cast the spells in that category like a chaos mage. No there's not really anything saying it works like this.

Mr. Prokosch
Feb 14, 2012

Behold My Magnificence!
Nobody has any idea how that works, just negotiate it with you GM.

ProfessorCirno
Feb 17, 2011

The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!
That's absurd and dumb, and completely contradicts the entirety of how Jack of All Spells works, sooooo

Like, even without having literally that one Chaos Mage spell, there's still a massive plethora of options available to you, and every time a spellcasting class is released, you gain more options.

But the way JoAS is worded, without question, you choose the Chaos Mage spell and it is now one of your dailies.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

ProfessorCirno posted:

That's absurd and dumb.

Welcome to Chaos Mage!

PublicOpinion
Oct 21, 2010

Her style is new but the face is the same as it was so long ago...
Jack of Spells was insufficiently future proofed. I don't want to miss out on casters with interesting mechanics just because of how they'd interact with the bard.

djw175
Apr 23, 2012

by zen death robot

PublicOpinion posted:

Jack of Spells was insufficiently future proofed. I don't want to miss out on casters with interesting mechanics just because of how they'd interact with the bard.

Let's be honest, Jack of Spells was insufficiently present proofed. It is hands down the strongest talent in the game on an already good class. We make jokes about banning Evocation, but Evocation has nothing on JoS.

fosborb
Dec 15, 2006



Chronic Good Poster

ProfessorCirno posted:

That's absurd and dumb, and completely contradicts the entirety of how Jack of All Spells works, sooooo

Death of the publisher

ProfessorCirno
Feb 17, 2011

The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

djw175 posted:

Let's be honest, Jack of Spells was insufficiently present proofed. It is hands down the strongest talent in the game on an already good class. We make jokes about banning Evocation, but Evocation has nothing on JoS.

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Jack of Spells gives you three spells from basically any spellcasting class, which is of course real loving good, but it doesn't destroy encounters the way Evocation does.

Jack is the best talent a bard can take no question and significantly increases their power. In that sense it is too strong. But Evocation allows a wizard to run over encounters with ease. It's overpowered.

Razorwired
Dec 7, 2008

It's about to start!
Had anyone ever had a problem interpreting the Javelin of Faith Adventurer Feat? I just had a Cleric get super pissbaby over the fact that I wasn't letting him get away with splitting the Attack damage and the d6 rider.


djw175 posted:

Let's be honest, Jack of Spells was insufficiently present proofed. It is hands down the strongest talent in the game on an already good class. We make jokes about banning Evocation, but Evocation has nothing on JoS.

As a raw talent I'm with you. But the big problem with Evocation comes from a specific spell combo that JoS doesn't allow. Evocation + High Arcana + Arcane Barrage tends to throw half the Adventuring Day.

KirbyJ
Oct 30, 2012
My friend is gearing up to run Eyes of the Stone Thief and he's lamenting that there's not a lot of documentation of people's experiences or actual plays for him to get a real idea of how it goes. Has anybody done anything with Eyes of the Stone Thief? He's looking for real experience moreso than reviews based on readthroughs. Appreciate it!

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

Razorwired posted:

Had anyone ever had a problem interpreting the Javelin of Faith Adventurer Feat? I just had a Cleric get super pissbaby over the fact that I wasn't letting him get away with splitting the Attack damage and the d6 rider.

quote:

Javelin of Faith

Ranged spell
At-Will
Target: One nearby enemy
Attack: Wisdom + Level vs. PD
Hit: 1d6 + Wisdom holy damage.
Miss: Damage equal to your level.
3rd level spell 3d6 damage.
5th level spell 6d6 damage.
7th level spell 6d10 damage.
9th level spell 8d10 damage.

Adventurer Feat: The spell also deals +1d6 damage against an undamaged target. At 5th level that increases to +2d6 damage; at 8th level it increases to +4d6 damage.

It's absolutely clear to me that this was intended to read as an extra 1d6 against the same target, to encourage you to use it against full-health targets first.

However, I can see where the player is coming from in that the imprecision with which the rule is stated could very well let them take it to mean as "any other target, as long as that other target is undamaged". A clearer way to say it would have been "If you attack an undamaged target with this spell, it deals an extra +1d6 damage" or something of the sort.

Put your foot down, or compromise.

moths
Aug 25, 2004

I would also still appreciate some danger.



KirbyJ posted:

He's looking for real experience moreso than reviews based on readthroughs. Appreciate it!

I ran last year's Free RPG Day adventure, which included guidance for using it as an intro module for Stone Thief. If he can track down a copy, that could be worthwhile.

01011001
Dec 26, 2012

Razorwired posted:

Had anyone ever had a problem interpreting the Javelin of Faith Adventurer Feat? I just had a Cleric get super pissbaby over the fact that I wasn't letting him get away with splitting the Attack damage and the d6 rider.


As a raw talent I'm with you. But the big problem with Evocation comes from a specific spell combo that JoS doesn't allow. Evocation + High Arcana + Arcane Barrage tends to throw half the Adventuring Day.

The evocation problem exists with most multi-target wizard dailies. Like, look at any of their max damages vs. standard troop hp at that level.

fosborb
Dec 15, 2006



Chronic Good Poster

moths posted:

I ran last year's Free RPG Day adventure, which included guidance for using it as an intro module for Stone Thief. If he can track down a copy, that could be worthwhile.

I ran this last week in preparation for Stone Thief. Two notes. The only legal way I know of to get it is buying the 13th Age Monthly Volume 1 through Pelgrane for $25. imo worth it though, lots of other good stuff and the one shot really is very good at setting up the adventure. Two, it's written for level 2 characters and Stone Thief starts at lvl 4. The friend will need to pump up the numbers and abilities so players don't steamroll everything.

I love love love the book and we're playing first time proper in the dungeon this Thursday. I'll post some thoughts about actually using the book in play after that.

waderockett
Apr 22, 2012

The latest 13th Age Monthly issue is TEMPLE OF THE SUN CABAL, an adventure for 4-6 5th level players. The outline came from last year's 13th Age Adventure Design seminar at Gen Con, where we took audience suggestions and did a rough adventure design on the spot. I foolishly volunteered to turn that nutty thing into a publishable product.

However! While writing it, I realized that a sun cult performing a ritual to summon something awful from the sky would make a GREAT lead-in adventure to a Wild Garden dungeon crawl, much as Make Your Own Luck can be your intro to a Stone Thief campaign. So now there's another SA-inspired 13th Age product out there.

http://site.pelgranepress.com/index.php/temple-of-the-sun-cabal/

(Also, it fixes the underpowered hydra from the core book. While editing TEMPLE Rob realized the monster design math was wrong on that one.)

waderockett fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Jul 5, 2016

waderockett
Apr 22, 2012

KirbyJ posted:

My friend is gearing up to run Eyes of the Stone Thief and he's lamenting that there's not a lot of documentation of people's experiences or actual plays for him to get a real idea of how it goes. Has anybody done anything with Eyes of the Stone Thief? He's looking for real experience moreso than reviews based on readthroughs. Appreciate it!

There really isn't -- I know people have run chunks of it, and might be running full campaigns, but I've only seen mentions on Twitter.

I know Sean Clark has run The Gauntlet several times - they might want to ask him. https://heavymetalgm.wordpress.com/

Also, maybe ask the Google+ and Facebook groups if anyone there has run it and can share their experiences.

Loa Vecre
Jul 27, 2014

KirbyJ posted:

My friend is gearing up to run Eyes of the Stone Thief and he's lamenting that there's not a lot of documentation of people's experiences or actual plays for him to get a real idea of how it goes. Has anybody done anything with Eyes of the Stone Thief? He's looking for real experience moreso than reviews based on readthroughs. Appreciate it!

My group (of which I'm the GM) is starting their final dive now and while I haven't done a proper survey among them, I can share my own opinions on this:

On the whole, I'd say running EotST as a campaign on its own is an idea that looks better on paper than it is in practice. It's neat, don't get me wrong, and it has some brilliant set pieces in there (we just had a blast with the Pyramid of Skulls), but it's also a microcosm of some of 13th Age's worst excesses in terms of encounter-building and pacing:
- It's a sentient dungeon that eats other places and adds them to itself, which is their way to handwave the usual "random encounters for no reason" bits, but it doesn't take away that 90% of the module is nothing but a jumbled pile of random, unrelated encounters.
- Encounter balance is all over the place. Certain encounters are marked as "killer" and are supposed to be very nasty, which does usually check out. In practice, some regular random encounters are even more murderous than the killer ones with no warning for the GM whatsoever.
- It starts at level 4 and ends at level 8, so unless you slow-roll the level-ups (never, EVER do this), you're going to have to skip either about half the zones or half the areas in every zone, more if you want to do the revisits with a twist. This is assuming you want to end at level 8.
- 90% of anything in this book has no real foreshadowing, proper wrap-up or gets any sort of mention whatsoever outside of its own paragraph. The strongest entity in the entire book has no build-up, is never alluded to, and gets sprung on the players quite literally if they choose to go right instead of left at a random junction.

I'd say EotST functions better as a scrapbook to occasionally pick an appropriate set piece from to add to your own campaign than as a campaign unto itself. There's quite a few gems in there, but it's a horribly unstructured mess.
That said, if your friend is prepared to roll up his sleeves to do some liberal cutting and can keep a watchful eye for any difficulty spikes, it's definitely doable to hammer this thing into an enjoyable campaign. And from what I've gathered among my players, they've overall had a good time during the campaign.

For the record, here's what our EotST runs have looked like ("T" stands for topside stuff from the book). This obviously contains some minor spoilers, like area and encounter names:
1) Maw and Gauntlet (notes: Medusa fight should be "killer". Skip this on their first run. Minotaur can instagib softer PCs at full HP.)
T1) Glacier's End and getting an Eye.
2) Sunken Sea and Ossuary (notes: Sahuagin Host encounter should be "killer", we never fought the Flesh Sculptor so I can't comment on that.)
T2) The Brazen Comet and the Inverse Observatory.
3) Gizzard, Deep Keep and most of the Maddening Stairs (notes: skip Magical Throne Funtimes unless you're players know drat well what they're doing in combat and even then, you should've been foreshadowing the hell out of it during previous runs/topside stuff.)
T3) Escaping the Clock of Hellhole (WOOPS I ROLLED A 2), gearing up for the last run.
4) Being run right now. We just went through a short revisit of the Gauntlet (Medusa still wiped the floor with them), and I'm going to send them through the Onyx Catacombs and the Heart (with a pit stop at Deep Keep since they own it now).


It's been just over a year since we started the campaign (weekly sessions with the occasional hiccup), if you want a feel for the time scale. Hopefully this information helps.

UrbanLabyrinth
Jan 28, 2009

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence


College Slice
Is there any way to get Make Your Own Luck other than the 13th Age Monthly vol 1?

fosborb
Dec 15, 2006



Chronic Good Poster
Ebay? Like seriously I'm pretty sure :filez: isn't even an option.

A bit silly for what was a free product, but it's Pelgrane's content and I needed something in 30 minutes so I ponied up for the monthly volume (and didn't regret it for all of the additional content).

xiw
Sep 25, 2011

i wake up at night
night action madness nightmares
maybe i am scum

Cpig Haiku contest 2020 winner

KirbyJ posted:

My friend is gearing up to run Eyes of the Stone Thief and he's lamenting that there's not a lot of documentation of people's experiences or actual plays for him to get a real idea of how it goes. Has anybody done anything with Eyes of the Stone Thief? He's looking for real experience moreso than reviews based on readthroughs. Appreciate it!

I ran the entire thing during a 15 month campaign. Used Boltstrike Tower, then a bastardised version of the high druid organised player adventure, then Erde Manor, then kicked into EOTST.

The overall course of it:


* Initially the Thief showed up and ate the town they were using as a base. They delved in through the Maw, reached the gizzard, killed the Architect, and got kicked out.
* They then visited New Port and followed up on a bunch of plots from pre-EOTST, and researched enough to find out they needed Eyes. They started hunting the Prince of Shadow's one - they visited Shadow Port (and did Shadow Port Shuffle from the OP adventures), then got wrecked by the opposition (used the orc assassins) who ran off with one eye. From there, they went for the other eye (I wrote a bunch of overworld adventuring here, using the Lightsmiths as the owner - the overworld observatory from the book left me pretty cold, but I had a lot of fun with the setting. They used the star boat, I added a bunch of stuff around requiring horoscope adjustments etc and some side quests involving Niven sunflowers.
The Lightsmiths ended up crashing out of the overworld after using the Eye as a prism and getting living dungeon infestation in their flying tower, and the Stone Thief ate them before they hit the ocean. Expedition 2!
* THis time the PCs went gizzard -> ossuary, rescued the Gravekeeper who offered to open them a path to the depths, and were diverted by the Vizier who sent them to the Grove. From there they hit Deep Keep, and took the (totally awesome, one of my fave surprises) option of claiming the God Tick in the name of the Crusader. Since the Thief was now pinned to the ground by the hellhole, it tore off Deep Keep as a whole and fled, leaving them with a castle on a pillar in the ocean in full Roger Dean painting style.
* At this point our heroes were getting ready to kill the Thief - they had an Eye, the ritual, the ability to convert it to destruction, and just needed a power source. So they decided to go steal the Lich King's source of power and lure the Thief to eat Necropolis. This was mostly driven by one of the PC's one unique thing ('i invented lichdom and that bastard stole the secrets of undeath from me') and the safe passage scroll from the Ossuary. Improvised this sequence with lots of decaying court liches gossiping against each other. The PCs then stole the lich king's cat and called up the Thief to devour the whole place.
* Final delve, starting at the Maddening Stair - this was a running skirmish as various liches and their minions tore the upper levels apart. They pretty much ignored everything in the Pit and headed straight for the Onyx Catacombs to do the ritual - this whole level came down to a defensive fight as the Masters awoke and unleashed forces and began their own Ritual of Binding in a hurry. They managed it and tore the whole dungeon apart from catacombs to maw - at that point I gave them archivults to ride out through the bleeding ectoplasmic collapse as they landed on the shores of Necropolis with the swallowed volcano eruption happening behind them, and the final fight.
* We then improvised out the whole aftermath - I gave each of the players a question to answer about what their PC would do postgame, tying up loose ends.

The PCs never visited the sunless sea, dungeon town, or marblehall.



Advice:
* Give lots of opportunity to do stuff on the surface and build businesses/organisations/fortresses in between adventures - it gives you something to eat later.
* The custodians are your main mouthpiece NPCs - they are great, as they can show up, argue with each other, mess with the dungeon, and aren't vulnerable to OH I SHOOT HIM AND CRIT PC shenanigans. Play them up hard.

Good stuff: I really really liked the overall structure of the book - my GMing style is about throwing lots of stuff at the players and only fleshing out what they were interested in, and I found the writing was just the perfect level of detail for that style of play. By comparison the OP adventures are nowhere near as useful. The fights were generally great.

Bad stuff: With 6 players a lot of the tough fights were anticlimatic - particularly the final one. I doubled its HP and it still went down like a chump. The whole final level is really weak.

Here's my incredibly messy extra content notes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dY9xjykjdjEvp_3Yc9PEuOOOKxlGDtOW3LWkWYArS80/edit?usp=sharing

xiw
Sep 25, 2011

i wake up at night
night action madness nightmares
maybe i am scum

Cpig Haiku contest 2020 winner

Loa Vecre posted:

- It starts at level 4 and ends at level 8, so unless you slow-roll the level-ups (never, EVER do this), you're going to have to skip either about half the zones or half the areas in every zone, more if you want to do the revisits with a twist. This is assuming you want to end at level 8.
- 90% of anything in this book has no real foreshadowing, proper wrap-up or gets any sort of mention whatsoever outside of its own paragraph. The strongest entity in the entire book has no build-up, is never alluded to, and gets sprung on the players quite literally if they choose to go right instead of left at a random junction.

Yeah, I think it's definitely up to you to foreshadow the overall shape of the place - I was really liberal with talking up stuff that was going to show up later and I had a lot of setpiece fights end up as far talkier than the book intends.

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

Almost-exactly-three-years late KS The Reliquary just sent out the completed PDF to backers. It seems to have ballooned a bit from the original "here's 60 magic items" to a 400-page tome with "298 new magic items, 40 item sets, 38 new feats, 26 adventures, 20 NPCs, 10 new spells, 5 new races, 5 random tables, 1 new cleric domain, 1 new wizard talent, and hundreds of plot hooks".

With no index, table of contents, or page numbers.

quote:

You won’t find an index in this book. Nor page numbers. Nor a glossary. The book is laid out in no particular order, but instead is arranged in a peculiar order. This book is intended to be leafed through, to be searched, to be delved into… in short a sort of page-based dungeon of ideas. I give you no map, but only hints. Similar ideas are grouped together. NPCs that have a relationship to each other are found together. Marginalia gives a new twist to the main text, but it doesn’t always directly relate to the page that it is on, and it often links to something else nearby.

SunAndSpring
Dec 4, 2013

Evil Mastermind posted:

Almost-exactly-three-years late KS The Reliquary just sent out the completed PDF to backers. It seems to have ballooned a bit from the original "here's 60 magic items" to a 400-page tome with "298 new magic items, 40 item sets, 38 new feats, 26 adventures, 20 NPCs, 10 new spells, 5 new races, 5 random tables, 1 new cleric domain, 1 new wizard talent, and hundreds of plot hooks".

With no index, table of contents, or page numbers.

Jesus Christ, this is like the tabletop game equivalent of "It's not a bug, it's a feature!"

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

The most mind-boggling part is that the book was written by ASH LAW.

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My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

I'm trying to work out whether that's more annoying in a physical book or on a pdf. The pdf is currently ahead slightly.

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