Newish User: Curse of the Crimson Throne content?

Arsha · May 3rd, 2019, 12:57 PM

I'm a new GM getting ready to start Curse of the Crimson Throne. I read in the sticky about an encounter pack for Crimson Throne and that would be an ideal aid for me in the campaign. However, there is no link on the post to the pack which made me think that perhaps it is already included in the HL Pathfinder content, if so how do I find that and use it? I suppose I'm just very confused and overwhelmed with all the available builds and all the custom content.

charlieluce · May 3rd, 2019, 02:54 PM

The player material from Curse of the Crimson Throne is included in the base Pathfinder content, but to get the Encounter Library with all the encounters pre-built (and no need to own any Bestiaries) it's a separate $24.99 purchase. You can get to the store page to purchase it within Hero Lab by selecting License > Purchase Data Package or selecting Gamemaster > Show Encounter Library and clicking on one you don't have (like Curse of the Crimson Throne). Once you've bought the library it will show up in your Latest Updates for download.

Since I don't own any of the Bestiaries I bought the Iron Gods library when I started running the AP and I found it a very useful product.

Arsha · May 3rd, 2019, 07:08 PM

Oh, thanks! I'll have to consider that now... I own Bestiary 1-4 so I'm not sure if I can justify buying this pack.. hm. Thanks again!

Mathias · May 4th, 2019, 10:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arsha

Oh, thanks! I'll have to consider that now... I own Bestiary 1-4 so I'm not sure if I can justify buying this pack.. hm. Thanks again!

You'll get more than just the monsters from the bestiary - all of the NPCs with class levels will be ready to go, with all their equipment, and the monsters with templates will already have everything set up.

Ualaa · May 5th, 2019, 08:57 PM

I'll echo Charlieluce... every adventure path encounter library I've bought has been a great aid to my preparation.

And this is from someone who owns everything HL available, aside from adventure paths we've not played yet.

I wouldn't hesitate to buy one, for an adventure we were running next. They're a massive time saver for me.

Minous · May 6th, 2019, 06:01 AM

I'll third that. Ive built many an encounter from a scenario, and Ive used prebuilt encounters. If you want to spend a couple hours extra for each fight, feel free to re-do the work yourself. For me however, its much nicer to just be able to pull up an encounter and use those.

Arsha · May 6th, 2019, 10:11 AM

I have a question for you guys who are swearing by the pack! Are you printing out the encounters or do you GM with a laptop at your side? My laptop doesn't have HL on it and even if it did it runs super slow, so I'm more likely to run my game with print outs...

Minous · May 6th, 2019, 10:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arsha

I have a question for you guys who are swearing by the pack! Are you printing out the encounters or do you GM with a laptop at your side? My laptop doesn't have HL on it and even if it did it runs super slow, so I'm more likely to run my game with print outs...

I run both ways, my current set of character sheets is 128 pages (a couple of those are blank to make two sided printing work) for the second part of Plunder and Peril.

PS. Thats also just one copy of each type of monster's sheet.

charlieluce · May 6th, 2019, 03:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arsha

I have a question for you guys who are swearing by the pack! Are you printing out the encounters or do you GM with a laptop at your side? My laptop doesn't have HL on it and even if it did it runs super slow, so I'm more likely to run my game with print outs...

I run from my laptop; it's a six year old Acer with a Core i3 but I can still run Hero Lab, MapTool, PDF-XChange, Firefox, and Notepad on it for games.

Ualaa · May 6th, 2019, 05:18 PM

I generally open the portfolios of an encounter, tweak them a little and then re-save as my own file.
I'll name them the page of the adventure, so they're easy to find, when I'm running the adventure.

I have the heroes in their own portfolio, and then import the adversaries from the purchased (and usually tweaked) adventure path file.
With Realm Works, it has the option of adding the portfolio to the active/running portfolio, so that will be a bit easier.

I generally run with Hero Lab, Realm Works (was just doing monsters, and sharing snippets into the Player View based on monster knowledge checks) but I want to put a lot more information into RW for the future campaigns.
I'll have a physical copy of the adventure.
And the PDF of the adventure open, too.

Lots of references, basically.

I'm generally running:
- Hero Lab
- 2 clients of d20Pro (GM and Players)
- Realm Works
- Adventure PDF
- Syrinscape

I've contemplated streaming (XSplit Broadcaster) our Player Monitor view of d20Pro, along with audio for context since we roll dice and such, but a couple of the players have literally no filter and are sometimes vulgar and always crude... so not sure I want to subject viewers to that.

Arsha Junior Member Join Date: May 2019 Location: Ohio Posts: 4 May 3rd, 2019, 07:08 PM	Oh, thanks! I'll have to consider that now... I own Bestiary 1-4 so I'm not sure if I can justify buying this pack.. hm. Thanks again!
#3

Ualaa Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2013 Location: Vancouver, Canada. Posts: 813 May 5th, 2019, 08:57 PM	I'll echo Charlieluce... every adventure path encounter library I've bought has been a great aid to my preparation. And this is from someone who owns everything HL available, aside from adventure paths we've not played yet. I wouldn't hesitate to buy one, for an adventure we were running next. They're a massive time saver for me.
#5

Minous Senior Member Join Date: May 2015 Posts: 830 May 6th, 2019, 06:01 AM	I'll third that. Ive built many an encounter from a scenario, and Ive used prebuilt encounters. If you want to spend a couple hours extra for each fight, feel free to re-do the work yourself. For me however, its much nicer to just be able to pull up an encounter and use those.
#6