Rise of the Runelords: A player's perspective

I've mentioned previously how I am a player in a Pathfinder: Rise of the Runelords campaign with our group of friends. We recently finished up the final chapter in the six part adventure path which we played over 4 years. The games were scheduled monthly over this time period. We started the campaign with in person play, but due to some members of the group moving due to job related reason, we have been playing online for the last 2+ years of this campaign.

Some preface here on a couple of things. First, I had previously DM'd a good chunk of Rise of the Runelords for a separate group several years back. That group only lasted up through book 3, but I was pretty familiar with some of the encounters and story based on this, I had to reserve much of that meta knowledge during the course of this campaign and did a fairly good job of that. Second, Pathfinder is certainly not my favorite D&D system, but I do enjoy facets of it, especially as a player. My biggest complaints are the need for constant rule referencing and interpretation that is required, sometimes this can really pause the game action as it devolves into arguments, which sadly were a bit common place at times, the DM of this system has be very heavy handed and resolve things quickly or it can really get out of hand. The late game play somewhat boils down to going nova on an encounter, retreating back via magical means (teleport) and then returning once refreshed and doing the next encounter. I'll touch on this a bit more further down the read.

I'll try to keep this as spoiler free as possible, but there are probably many who have played this iconic adventure path at this point, so....read on at your own risk.

The adventure opens in the scenic coastal town of Sandpoint during a festival. The PC's have just arrived in town for various reasons and can participate in games and get to know the local NPC's presented here during the course of said festival. Of all of the chapters we played through, I felt like Sandpoint gave us the best opportunity for roleplay and verisimilitude in the setting, it was probably my favorite home base we played through. As the festival draws to a close, goblins emerge and assault the populace raising general havoc and the adventure officially gets kicked. The PC's will then investigate and take on tasks to put the pieces into place as to why and how this happened. The characters will eventually learn that a disgraced former member of the town is organizing the goblins and using them towards a more nefarious purpose. To stop this the players must venture to a large goblin fortress, and the dangerous dungeon below it, clear it out and save Sandpoint from this particular menace. 

Book one of this adventure is probably my favorite. I'm biased towards low level D&D play, but Sandpoint is really great hub setting and the plot to unravel what exactly is going on here is really well done, even if it is in the standard find the monster, kill the monster, find the note / clear sequence that Paizo is famous for. During this part of the adventure I played a bard, which I had a lot of fun with. Thinking up witty or funny songs to sing to the table with my abilities, likely to their annoyance. I wasn't as useful in combat which I'd hoped, and there is a lot of combat. So when presented with the option to reroll before continuing on book 2, I took it.

Book two of the six part adventure opens back up in Sandpoint after some much needed downtime for our heroes, but all is still not safe for the beleaguered populace in this sleepy town. A series of murders, with rumors of a serial killer start emerge. The victims foreheads inscribed with a now familiar symbol, linking them to the fabled runelords which were hinted at in book one. Of course only the players can solve this issue....with some investigative work and uncovering what turns out to be the work of ghouls, the players follow the trail of clues to an isolated manor, enjoy a fun romp through a haunted mansion diving into the depths to confront the serial killer. As the onion of mystery peels back further, it turns out he was merely a puppet for a larger cult operating in the neighboring much larger city of Magnimar. The players venture into the larger populace though not nearly as fleshed out and believable as Sandpoint to confront the cult and eventually meet its leader, who happens to be a naga wizard. This final encounter of book two was certainly one of the hardest of the adventure path, in fact, the one we encountered in our campaign managed to escape to plague us later on down the line. For this part and the rest of the campaign I played a down on his luck rogue / thief / trap-fixer guy named Kyrill Four-Finger. I really enjoyed the rogue and wish I would have started out on this character, but poor Kyrill had a rough go of it throughout the campaign as we get further into it.

As we move along into book three, the expanse of the "cult" the party has been chasing seems to be much larger than originally feared. The symbology of the Runelords, ancient powerful wizards of old, is tied into everything we are finding and the breadcrumbs now lead us north towards wilderness border town of Fort Rannick. Our DM for this campaign mostly hand-waved much of the overland travel, preferring to get us to the destination and more of the written story elements of the campaign. I don't mind this, but it does break the immersion a bit if you feel as if your character jumping place to place in what would otherwise be a very large area to explore. Again, we encounter another small village, this one again missing the hooks that Sandpoint had from book one. Questioning townsfolk turned up a few leads, one of which is a side jaunt to the lake that surrounds much of the town. Turns out to be a red herring, but it did result in my first character death in the jaws of giant gar. The group was able to scrap together enough of our loot to get me raised, thanks high magic setting! Right around this level of progression, many Pathfinder characters are coming into their own and starting to really push the power curve. I regrettably did not follow an optimization guide for this character and was mostly picking abilities and feats based upon flavor or roleplay elements, this would bite more and more as the campaign progressed. I digress, but eventually he take the bait to explore a garrison that was recently overrun in the area, the work of ogres and giantkin. Turns out this group of oversized humanoids were working towards breaking the dam north of town and flooding out many lives. Some really fun and flavorful encounters through this section of the adventure path and by the skin of our teeth we save the dam and many lives in the process.

 Moving right along here as we enter book four of the adventure path. Unfortunately the last three entries in this adventure path weren't up to the level of the first few, but we made it fun none the less. With the area around Fort Rannick safe and secure, we return back to Sandpoint as rumors of war and other giantkin start to threaten what I would consider our adopted home. This certainly gave us more push and inspiration to see to the defenses and aid of the good people here. I wish the adventure kept the focus more regionally focused around Sandpoint, as I felt more immersed in the dealings there. Arriving just in time to mobilize some defenses for the town as stone giants emerge on the horizon, along with a dragon. I believe the original adventure intends for this be a red dragon, but the group prior to me joining had play through the introductory boxed set which included an encounter with a black dragon. Our DM subbed this in as rightfully he should. The battle within the town feels like it is building towards this epic and powerful encounter against the giants who are being swayed by the influence of the Runelord, but....it never really manages this epic feel. A series of encounters that we mostly trounced, closing with the fight against the dragon in which our party cleric basically one shot with a spell and Sandpoint is saved once again....the characters should drink for free here for life at this point. We follow our story leads and decide to strike back at the giants and specifically their leader who is continuing to marshal his forces in the mountain range north of Sandpoint. Another long overland travel that we hopped through culminates in the characters finding a large fortress and a growing army. I did enjoy this part here that included more subterfuge as we obviously could not take on the entire army, but we had to slip into the fortress and confront the leader. Another dungeon dive and a multiple series of encounters against the Stone Giant leader reveals that a Runelord was indeed guiding the actions here and now we have a name, Karzoug!

Who likes dungeons? I like dungeons!!! Book five a series of dungeon crawls as we first look for where to find Runelord enemy, followed by a series of dungeons that help to unlock a means to better to defeat this all powerful wizard of yore. The Runelords magical aptitude is in line with the seven deadly sins: greed, lust, gluttony, etc. Some clues are found in and within Sandpoint, which apparently sits upon an ancient dungeon, who know? Followed by trek into the wilderlands in search for the Runevault of these Runelords. The most memorable encounter by far of this book is an engagement with a white dragon that is the guardian to the entrance to the vault. We managed to drive it off, but it was very touch and go, including having to fly through the air to catch our cleric before he fell to his death. The vault of the runelords are segmented mini dungeons that can be explored at the party's leisure and we ventured into most of these before finally revealing a means to empower our weapons against our foe Karzoug. I had my second death of the campaign in the midst of these dungeons, the unlucky result of a save or die phantasmal killer spell....good thing we have a cleric.

Finally we've made it....book six. We have a general heading, a lost city in the mountains, so off we go...The lead in encounters as we explore the mountain prove to be quite dangerous, a haunted mining cabin and wendigo...it was no joke. In fact...I died again from the death explosion of an ice worm in this area....make the reflex save....no, no I don't think I will...sigh. This book can be a real slog, specifically once at the lost city of Xin-Shalast. The encounters are very fun and challenging, but they sort of feel like a treadmill to get to the BBEG at times. Another couple of deaths, one to another save or die spell from a trap in Karzoug's tower....I'm telling you the dice were a vice this go around for me, but I do appreciate the save or die aspect carrying over from my beloved B/X, you listening 5E? A lot of the encounters here were met by a fully rested and charged party, our sorcerer with access to teleport, was able to taxi us back and forth at this point to basically go nova in fights and then recover, go back, rinse and repeat. Is this gaming the system?...hmmm.....maybe, but the more I read into it, this seems to be an accepted and expected part of late game 3rd edition gameplay with its set piece encounter focus. I do love some of the challenges of these combat encounters, some of which would eat up our entire 4-5 hour sessions of play....that's one encounter.....4 hours....Pathfinder guys haha. The final encounter is quite epic and I won't spoil it, but Karzoug is certainly very powerful and without some fluke missed saves on his part and lucky saves on ours we may not have won out....two other party members did fall in this final encounter and by the skin of our teeth we've saved the world. Upon exit I thematically let my poor old rogue gracefully slump against a wall, trailing last words, as a heart attack finally takes him onto the great dungeon in the sky.

So final thoughts on Rise of the Runelords...it certainly is a very epic and very good adventure path. Some may complain it is sort of vanilla D&D, but you get a wide variety of adventure locals and adversaries....giants, dragons, undead and the evil wizard at the end. It harkens back to those childhood games between my friends around my mom's dinner table...and at the end of the day you feel heroic. The Pathfinder adventure paths can be treadmilly at times, bread crumbs of clues and info to get you to point A to B, but in doing so they tell a really great story if you can keep up with all of the lore. In my games I try to have the players create the story, but I'm not opposed to taking part in the story that is presented as a player. If you have not played or run this game, I do highly recommend it, if nothing else use the Sandpoint setting and town in your games for an excellent starting local. Thanks again to my DM for seeing us through this four year campaign, it was an amazing time.