Well Group A got off to a REALLY smashing start. Well sort of. I mean honestly it ended well and it certainly (I felt) brought me a new respect to how much a good group can and does improve the overall play.

Group A (or A2 if you want) consisted of the following: Rob B. playing a TN male human Spellbreaker archetype Inquisitor of Pharasma by the name of Locke; Matt (a new player in town but old school gamer), playing his first Pathfinder RPG game as a TN male human fighter in full plate doing sword and board with a bastard sword by the name of Drek (or Dren I forget exactly); Rob's friend and fellow from his home town Patrick (who I started calling Scott for some reason) (they both live 15 minutes from me in Morgantown in Fairmont WV), playing a LE human male aberrant blooded sorcerer by the name Ben Adaephon Delat. (Yes I know where he got the name from. I still like it!); and my friend and fellow DM at times, Adam who joined in because he had time, playing a LE human Tielfling (Oni-Blooded) Sword Saint archetype Samurai.

Needless to say it was...interesting getting them together.   Patrick's character was the only one that was ready to go, as Matt just joined us along with Adam. Rob's character was ready but I wanted to save up getting him together with Patrick's and the rest.

Fortunately with Adam joining us, I found the perfect way to get both him and Matt to join in after they finished their characters.

Originally I had slated the PCs to be a kind of 'replacement' unit for the other PCs (They've gone missing after success at Schloss Caromac.) That still applied but then I used the Judge from the previous book (Judge Embreth Daramid) to 'free' the Oni and the human sellsword from prison. (The tielfling having killed a guard in a dispute that began over his looks. Thus he was awaiting murder charges; the sellsword committing a drunk and disorderly.)

I also had some pre-made PCs of sort. (mostly NPCs to assist what I thought would just be a two man game until Matt showed up followed by Adam.) I quickly ditched them by having the paladin I made punch the sorcerer in the nose and leave. (Yes he lost his paladin hood. But he'll get back if I need him!) Then I had the party cleric leave because I had 4 PCs...and I figured if they needed healing, they could afford to buy their own potions.

Anyway the Judge informed them of what was going on, that she was willing to hire them for this job to follow up on the PCs lead on the Whispering Way. So she offered them 300 pp for the initial run with an additional 300 for their success. (Though she had to pay 305 for the sellsword who was uncertain about the Oni/Tielfling.)

Naturally they were willing thanks to the cash and also because, hey Death Cult! I also managed while Patrick was the only PC there to get him a tad more integrated by mentioning the previous event/trial of the Beast. It was pretty nice to explain stuff to him and maybe give him a great detail of the campaign world.

Anyway I basically followed the same script I used on Group B with only slightly different results. The PCs were more suspicious of Vharkis and his crony (I made up a name folks! I just kept going back to Silver eyes!) But they at least were willing to check out the tower. The fight with the Weaverworm was made more awesome by the simple fact NO ONE could make the required knowledge checks. Still it did slow down Rob's character when she hit him with her claws. So again, a good monster for the PCs to face off against.

I threw in Duristin before I threw in the trap, which in the whole balanced out. I kind of wished I had done the trap...but eh.

Then of course I had the PCs meet Rhakis again (after they had discussed with Duristin some facts about werewolves). Thanks to that, they figured out Silver eyes is a were-creature. Rhakis gave up the ghost/goods after being caught (He's not a stupid man.) He then told them about the worm and its abilities. He also explained the local tribal system amongst the werewolves. The mention of the anti-paladin of Jezalda(sp) made Rob's character Locke perk up a bit. (Not sure why but eh.) After that we broke for the evening.

I must say it's been REALLY fun having a group that's committed to the process. Group A has strong personalities but it also has a strong commitment towards group oriented goals. It doesn't however sacrifice them at the expense of others. We'll just have to see how much longer this goes. (I hope for a while!)

Mean time, Group B awaits!

Some times it is just best to take whats given to, roll with, and some times it works.

Such was the instance this week with Group B's session of Carrion Crown.

I had worried they might run off BEFORE they found out about the goings on in the Shudderwood, not to mention not bother finding the packlord's heart.

Fortunately good planning (and the simple fact I had them at 8th level when they still should be only 7th) made this setup more workable.

To explain: in the module there's a lot of event based stuff the PCs get involved in. I stuck with that but only to extent I felt it allowed me to get the PCs to figure out something might be amiss.

One part of that is, instead of having the werewolves/Primals be a chance encounter of sorts, I made it so they instead showed up at the lodge gatehouse. I had already told the PCs that we were going from medium XP advancement to slow, so the fact I had two different groups of Werewolves...made the encounter a tad more memorable.

I've decided if I run this for Group A (though I might skip it since they'll be more interested in whats going on at the lodge than Group B), I'll make it so that it occurs in such a way to allow them time to reach the gatehouse.

Mostly because when I ran this, it was in a haze thanks to Daylight savings time, and the fact I was still kind of trippy from some cough syrup (over the counter folks!) So I don't believe/feel it went nearly as a seamless as I'd hoped. Still killing off 6 NPCs made me feel alright. (Hey 5 Dire Werewolf 5th level and 7th level barbarians with greatswords against 6 regular human 4th level fighter guards? You do the math.) Still I wouldn't have minded knocking down a few PCs into the negatives...but that didn't happen. What I did get was a pretty memorable encounter for the sheer fact the PCs were like "What the hell is going on?!"

It was a good fight, (especially thanks to the Diehard feat). I fully expect the PCs to, if not win, chase off the werewolves. They did run, but having a tiger and a guy that can keep up with them didn't allow them much time.

Anyway the suspicious nature of the fact Estovion (the lodge warden) didn't show up to see what was going on kind of tipped off people, though not much.

The PCs got some rest and I also allowed them to meet with the Margrave, Cilas. I had hoped to run the Vilkas but I knew I had to run the giant tarantula spider first.  So I did, and the guards captured Pauchy the groundskeeper, who was evidently the only suspect...at first.

The PCs were VERY skeptical about his guilt, especially since he's kind of dimwitted (though evil!) They also were intrigued by Delgros' collection of animals. William's character, the druidess Calvina, was taken a back by the fact a nature lover like Delgros kept such a collection. However he quickly explained that most of the animals he found had been raised by him, or in the case of the spider, just kept to hold away from harming others. In any case they immediately went up to see Estovion. (Though the halfling porter tried VERY hard to stop them.) There they questioned him along with revealing the fact he had hid the journal about the Stairs of the Moon.

That's when he knew the jig was up, and I tried to get him to use his dimensional steps ability to get away. Unfortunately being surrounded in his study...didn't help much.

It was a quick fight and the PCs learned pretty much all they needed to convince them to go to the Stairs of the Moon and seek out Mathas.

It was a good session, though I think the missteps I made...I'll try to learn from when I run this part with Group A next Sunday.

Overall I'm pretty proud of myself.

Well weeks come and go, but gaming is still forever.

I'll start with Group A first since I didn't post about them previously.

I can honestly say, THIS was how enjoyable I wanted it to be. By that I mean a player of mine (Ben) finally had time to show up and game with us. His Ranger Howllin made a HUGE come back which helped with him getting me to introduce Mike's character, a cleric of Pharasma.

Anyway I started with Ben/Howllin, while I waited for Matt (our atheist fighter) to show up. It basically consisted of both us remembering just what it was he was doing. Fortunately he managed to sneak way, gather the local Lepistadt patrol and get re-outfitted in new gear via Judge Embreth Daramid.

It was a short enough affair as wasn't planning for Hollwin to show up.  That being said, it went well and got the story back on track for everyone.

The other PCs quickly ran into Hollwin, who, thanks to his half elven awesomeness, ran into them JUST before the reached the lodge.

That's kind of where the whole entrance to the lodge thing got a little...muddled. I was hoping they'd managed to make their Diplomacy rolls, (or at least Patrick's character, Ben Adelpha Delat, make his Bluff check) but that failed. Instead I had to run the werewolf encounter with Duristan.

It was pretty much a low keyed affair, PCs get attacked by dire boars, followed by setting up camp for the night, and then the two dire werewolves (I didn't set up the Primals as 7th level like I did for the other group; just 5th level). It went well enough and the PCs got a good laugh at Duristin's expense as he ran away.

Basically they came back, had the talk with the porter, and then met with Estovion. I think I should I have read that part more carefully because when they went down to the library, they found (unsurprisingly) the journal and the notation.

If I had truly thought it through, I'd have had Evositon try to bluff them but it didn't work out. Instead I kind of stupidly allowed them to find it...and that's when the trouble began. Estovion though DID manage to get away. Now I just have to run the whole "ghost werewolf" thing.

I was hoping to actually do that at the Lodge...but guess that means I'll run it that way with the ghost possessing probably the atheist fighter. It should be interesting.

That pretty much covers Group A. I'm hoping for a return engagement from my favorite player Ben. We'll see how it goes come April 1st.

Quote from: Nightfall;486520Yeah but he's also the one that keep arguing that because he uses a kyoketsu-shoge, he should get attacks of opportunity EVEN if the person is charging him.

Charging into melee (5') range against a target with reach provokes an AoO when the charger leaves the first threatend (10') square to get into range to resolve the attack; so the monk with a kyoketsu-shoge should technically be getting AoOs unless he's being charged by something that also has reach or a reach weapon.  The charge attack resolves regardless of the results of the AoO though (unless the AoO killed the charger).

Charging itself doesn't provoke AoO but any movement during the charge provokes as normal.

Quote from: Wolf, Richard;585044Charging into melee (5') range against a target with reach provokes an AoO when the charger leaves the first threatend (10') square to get into range to resolve the attack; so the monk with a kyoketsu-shoge should technically be getting AoOs unless he's being charged by something that also has reach or a reach weapon.  The charge attack resolves regardless of the results of the AoO though (unless the AoO killed the charger).

Charging itself doesn't provoke AoO but any movement during the charge provokes as normal.

It's kind of a moot point since I've already killed the Monk...