Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Virginia, USA
Posts: 335
|
Good afternoon.
A question for folks. I am looking at running the Ironfang Invasion Adventure path. I've never bought an adventure path for Hero Lab before. Lots of other content. I'd just like to get some input on the advantages and what folks that have bought them have thought about them and using them for running a game. Basically sell me on purchasing it. I appreciate the consideration. Thank You. Asandir Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum. |
#1 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 1,321
|
I've run around 85% of the way through the Iron Gods AP using the Hero Lab encounter library, and for my purposes it has saved me a bunch of time and money: money because it's the first Pathfinder campaign that I've run and it saved me from having to buy a bunch of Bestiary packages, and time because I didn't have to build the encounters and NPCs myself (while still being free to adjust them for my player's party size and build).
I'm not sure what the group is going to do after we're done with the Pathfinder 2nd Playtest and Iron Gods, but should I end up running another Pathfinder 1st AP (or possibly the Emerald Spire Megadungeon) I fully intend to buy the Hero Lab library for it. Currently Running: Pathfinder Second Edition Currently Playing: Pathfinder First Edition, Star Trek Adventures Former HL Games: D&D 4e & 5e, Mutants & Masterminds 2E & 3E, Savage Worlds |
#2 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2013
Location: Vancouver, Canada.
Posts: 813
|
Even basically owning everything for Pathfinder, I find the adventure path files to be very useful.
Mainly on the time saving... You could run the encounter, as is, if your group was at the intended power curve of what the author assumed. Load the portfolio for that room/area, and you're good. I basically load the portfolio, enable my default sources, and save. For example, I bought the HL files for 'Rise of the Drow' on Drive Thru RPG dot com; by default that source was not active for some reason... but if you're using something like Spheres of Power, you'd want to activate that etc. As far as Lone Wolf sources go, I've bought Rise of the Runelords, Iron Gods, Emerald Spire, and Summoner's Sidekick. All have been very useful. |
#3 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Virginia, USA
Posts: 335
|
our group is never at the intended power curve. LOL. We have a large group, minimum is 6 players, usually have 10.
Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum. |
#4 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 1,321
|
Yeah, I have six players and PCs were built on 25 points with an extra Trait/Feat for the less "gifted" races, so I have to beef up the encounters for the group.
Currently Running: Pathfinder Second Edition Currently Playing: Pathfinder First Edition, Star Trek Adventures Former HL Games: D&D 4e & 5e, Mutants & Masterminds 2E & 3E, Savage Worlds |
#5 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2013
Location: Vancouver, Canada.
Posts: 813
|
All my players optimize, to varying degrees of success.
We're never at the intended power level either, I generally need to modify things a fair bit. Still, having the kernel of what the adventure path assumes, and modifying or adding to that helps. It's easy enough to modify one, out of four things, delete the other three and then clone five or six of the one that had a template added or whatever. |
#6 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2015
Posts: 435
|
I ran Temple of Elemental Evil using MapTool and, I admit, I'm a bit OCD-ish so I used the PDF and copy/pasted the entire stat block and accompanying text into the token so that I'd have it available. I wrote a Perl script to clean up the pasted text because ... well, PDFs. Then I had a macro that read the stat block from the token and assigned values to various properties.
That scheme took me days to develop and weeks to perfect, and it significantly cut down on the time required to prep an area, but I would've paid dearly for the ability to skip all of that! (It just wasn't an option at the time I was running that campaign.) Having prebuilt encounters is definitely worth the money, IMO. |
#7 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Virginia, USA
Posts: 335
|
Thanks all for the input, I elected to go ahead and purchase the Ironfang Invasion Adventure path material.
Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum. |
#8 |
|
|