Pathfinder RPG

[Sheff]

Hi all,

Does anyone have any experience with playing this or Dungeons and Dragons 3.5, especially GMing?

I've played for a few hours with a group where we spent most of the night wandering lost in some woods, I enjoyed the combat but the story was a little lacklustre.

A few friends have asked to give this a go, with me being the gamesmaster and I'm a bit worried that the scenario will get a bit bogged down with travel and other mundane tasks (I'm used to Call of Cthulhu where we usually skip most of that stuff) - is it ok to ignore some of this or will doing so lead to problems further down the line?

 

[Sheff]

Thanks everyone, I'm using Hollow's Last Hope as a starter just to see what everyone thinks before using an adventure path.

A bit of travel is needed to add to the tension as it's time limited but I think I'll base the timing from decisions of the group as much as possible rather than random rolls on the encounter list.

With regards to formations and procedures for doors etc, I think I may through a few things at the group first so they can try to establish that themselves, then ask if that's what they'd like to do as standard unless they say otherwise.

The party seems quite good, we have a human druid, half-elf cleric (undead lord), an elf witch and possibly two rangers or one ranger and one rogue.

 

[Sheff]

Just thought I should post an update, my wife has invited another person to the night so I'm now looking at:

Human cleric (undead lord)
Human druid
Half-orc druid
Elf witch
Human ranger
Half-elf ranger

Due to the size of the group I'm going to try to create as many opportunites to avoid combat as possible.

When GMing CoC I've been able to handle groups of this size quite well before but it does seem quite a daunting prospect, especially as there are going to be four additional bodies in the forms of companions etc. when the rangers get to level 4 there'll be at least 12 in the party!

 

[Sheff]

You can give them a lot of fighting to do in forests, the rangers and druids should be pretty good at that.
Do you understand magic? It has so many uses that some people don't think about.

I play in a group of 7, the only rule the GM has is no gnomes. We have a gnome. And a demon who was CE but messed up on some dice rolls and became LG. Hilarity ensued but not as much as the accidental camel fisting incident....

The module that I'm using involves searching throught a forest, there'll be plenty of opportunites for them to use charm animal and wild empathy... they'll probably end up killing everything in sight.

I'm still learning about all of the insane stuff you can do with magic, I'm a PC in a rise of the runelords campaign (Elf cleric of Desna with the travel and luck domains wielding a longsword and eventually a composite longbow) and have been looking at all the ways you can abuse fly etc.

I'm adding puzzles where the group will need to use their cantrips and orisons so that if they fail a roll or do something wrong they can try again without difficulty, hopefully it'll be a nice learning curve for them.

 

[Sheff]

Well the first session went well last Sunday, with a mix of people really getting into the roleplay and a couple enjoying the combat and remaining silent during information gathering etc. I'm pleased that they solved my riddle without any prompting, and avoided starting a fight with absolutely everything.

It took a little longer than I anticipated as the group struggled to figure out where they needed to go, they have two of the three items from Hollow's Last Hope. If I were to re-do it, I'd probably ask the group to either elect someone to speak or at least take turns in decision making as they were quite... enthusiastic.

 

[Sheff]

I'm fortunate in that the group I play with tend to think the same way, we delegate speech to our most diplomatic player (Gnome Bard with a hat fetish).
This of course does not stop us from chipping in with useless and silly comments which the GM takes on board in an attempt to stitch the Gnome up.

You need to get them to play to their strengths and target those that you think will be best at dealing with the situation.

Sadly the character with the highest diplomacy score is a crazed cleric necromancer, although he does roleplay it quite well.

I think it may take a while for everyone to establish how they want to play and for me to work out what their strengths are, I do have to compensate for someone who has exceptionally poor dice rolls (he is very good at Warhammer leadership tests though!) - perhaps giving bonuses for adding details in combat etc.

 

[Sheff]

Letting the Necromancer become the leader would certainly be interesting. He is currently planning a kingdom he wants to build when he's a higher level, involving public transport facilitated by undead and a decent sewearge system.

..and of course yearly cullings to help maintain the undead population.

I have said I'm not running a kingmaker style campaign so most of this will be out of game, I think the rest of the group are going to decide he's the main villain!