oops. Thank you. I ate the "n"

This is a mistake. The attack of Andaisin is Melee +2 vicious scythe +16/+11 (2d4+6/x4 plus 2d6 and 1d6 herself)

Attack: +9 BA (for divine power), +1 str +2 for greater magic weapon +1 for aid + 3 str for divine power = +16

She also has Weapon Focus (scythe), which I assume makes it +17/+12, unless I've missed something myself?

This may already have been asked, but in the prologue to the Body Count quests, it states there are six of them, but only five are detailed. Was this simply a typo?

This may already have been asked, but in the prologue to the Body Count quests, it states there are six of them, but only five are detailed. Was this simply a typo?

The ones I show are:

The Hungry Dead -- 200 saved
Color of Death -- 700 saved
Plague Rats -- 400 saved
Vanishing Virtuoso -- 500 saved
Cure for Blood Veil -- 1000 saved
Subtotal -- 2800 saved

As was noted in a thread I cannot remember where, there is also saving Brienna at the beginning of the plague, and any other individuals added to the tally that the PCs cure along the course of the adventure.

If they manage to do all of the above five encounters plus Brienna, they make it to the top honors on the rewards table.

I do believe James mentioned somewhere, that there had been plans for one more event, but it was trimmed for either space or concept reasons, or some such.

There's also the people in the hospice themselves. If they arrange for them to be cured that pushes them into the top rank too.

There's also the people in the hospice themselves. If they arrange for them to be cured that pushes them into the top rank too.

That's right, there's Ruan, the 15 Varisians, the five dozen in the upstairs beds, plus those in the waiting room ... any saved count :)

James, any thoughts on how to deal with the door traps in the Temple of Urgothoa with the change of Channel Energy vs. Turning? I saw your post on the Scarwall thread, and hope you have some ideas :) Thanks!

James, any thoughts on how to deal with the door traps in the Temple of Urgothoa with the change of Channel Energy vs. Turning? I saw your post on the Scarwall thread, and hope you have some ideas :) Thanks!

I'd probably handle it the same way; assign a hit point total to the door traps and let that determine if channel energy turns the trap off.

Gamer Girrl wrote:

James, any thoughts on how to deal with the door traps in the Temple of Urgothoa with the change of Channel Energy vs. Turning? I saw your post on the Scarwall thread, and hope you have some ideas :) Thanks!

I'd probably handle it the same way; assign a hit point total to the door traps and let that determine if channel energy turns the trap off.

CEDP (Channel Energy Damage Points) aspected + or - (Positive or Negative), the aspect determining the kind of damage required.

So, haunt #1 might read as [+CEDP: 15], whereas the "Grand Lock of Thor's Chest Hair" might read as [-CEDP: 150].

James Jacobs wrote:

Gamer Girrl wrote:

James, any thoughts on how to deal with the door traps in the Temple of Urgothoa with the change of Channel Energy vs. Turning? I saw your post on the Scarwall thread, and hope you have some ideas :) Thanks!

I'd probably handle it the same way; assign a hit point total to the door traps and let that determine if channel energy turns the trap off.

CEDP (Channel Energy Damage Points) aspected + or - (Positive or Negative), the aspect determining the kind of damage required.

So, haunt #1 might read as [+CEDP: 15], whereas the "Grand Lock of Thor's Chest Hair" might read as [-CEDP: 150].

I'd still just go with hit points. Why reinvent a new type of acronym and point total when hit points do the same job and everyone already understands them?

Turin the Mad wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

Gamer Girrl wrote:

James, any thoughts on how to deal with the door traps in the Temple of Urgothoa with the change of Channel Energy vs. Turning? I saw your post on the Scarwall thread, and hope you have some ideas :) Thanks!

I'd probably handle it the same way; assign a hit point total to the door traps and let that determine if channel energy turns the trap off.

CEDP (Channel Energy Damage Points) aspected + or - (Positive or Negative), the aspect determining the kind of damage required.

So, haunt #1 might read as [+CEDP: 15], whereas the "Grand Lock of Thor's Chest Hair" might read as [-CEDP: 150].

I'd still just go with hit points. Why reinvent a new type of acronym and point total when hit points do the same job and everyone already understands them?

Precisely to avoid the dilemma referencing it being potentially damage-able by means other than the one intended. Call 'em Haunt Hit Points to make it simpler I suppose. (HHP) - keeps the hp protocol, but the fact that they have a distinctly seperate hit point source - one not subject to damage in ANY other way - rather warrants a (slightly) different mechanic to track that damage. :)

Just a suggestion of course.

A DM's Familiar dataset is now available for Seven Days to the Grave on the DMF downloads page.

My players have caught on too quickly that the coins are involved in the plague and want to head straight for the ship wreck.

My advice for this is take great care. The Sea Hag nearly did my party in, and they were a party of 7 at the appropriate level. You may want to think about dialing down the amount of Environmentals you throw at the party. If you go with a complete interpretation of the underwater rules, most parties tend to be quite a bit weaker. Missile weapons are all but useless, only piercing weapons work with any reliability. Spells are so situational that they are all but useless. Good luck to a party under level in those environments.

That being said here are some thoughts on how to at least give them second thoughts on continuing. That ship is quite a ways down there. It is in the deepest part of the river. If they don't have waterbreathing or something similar they may not even be able to get down to the boat with any time to do anything but go back up for air. Unless they are 5th level there is no way they can cast the spell and the potions and scroll's are ultimately under your control. If they want to buy them, well to bad there is only 1 potion and 2 scrolls and they happen to be running oh say, 1500 gp each ;) perhaps not that steep but don't hesitate to use the market here.
Now...if they do manage to figure out a system to go down there, there isn't any light past about 20' let's make it 10 feet, it is the Jegarre river after all...(Eeeew). That ship is a heck of a lot further down than that. Darkvision is nice, light spells are easy to come by but this is another excellent time to point out the difficulties. How do you cast a spell with a Verbal Component Underwater? Hmm, aren't the Cure spells Verbal? hmm...Wands require a Verbal also. My bet is they will start to see this as something they may want to wait a while for.

I hope this is the right thread to ask this question.
I may soon have my party (lvl6): Fighter, Abyssal Sorcerer, Ranged Ranger and Life Oracle exploring the sunken "Direption".
I did not like the prospect of the actual Yvicca encounter and instead created my own "urban legend":

Would you think this is an appropriate replacement? I generally find the underwater encounter pretty tough when no-one remembers about freedom of movement and a pushover if they do.

This leads me to my second question concerning the Jolistina encounter.

I have another question, maybe this will get answered... :P

Pseudodragons in Korvosa: They are Korvosa's noble pest, like flocks of white doves would be in our cities, maybe.
They are a symbol of the city and are revered for keeping the imp population in check.

Fact: The party rescues Majenko from his prison aboard Barvasi's HQ, he (Majenko) promises to help the party.

Question: How do you handle the highly abusive potential of an aerial spy with ,literally, a thousand eyes?

Example: "Majenko (as cohort or familiar), would oyu be so kind as to snoop around a bit and ask some of your pseudodragon friends what is going on in the palace. They like to roost there, don't they? Best they keep an eye on the Queen and her bodyguard. While they're at it, they can check out some of the following estates, too..."

It is not so far fetched to imagine a party to try out tactics of the sort. My party has (luckily) abandonded the tactics after I told them that the palaces is being avoided by the dragons since the king's death, cause their nests get disrupted constantly.

Question: How do you handle the highly abusive potential of an aerial spy with ,literally, a thousand eyes?

In my campaign, the group decided that Majenko should lay low (ie; fly to some forest and don't be too close) for a few weeks to start with, since he would be considered a valuable enough "possession" that his former "owner" would likely pay for multiple instances of scrying magic and similar to try to find his current location.

They figured that two-three weeks would be sufficient for Barvasi to give up, and Majenko then returned to fulfil his promise of servitude. Unfortunately the campaign ended soon after his return due to real-life happening, but I would have allowed them to use him as an airborne scout.

The important thing to consider is that he's an intelligent being, and wouldn't do anything that would be overly dangerous (unless he would consider it fun!).

As for inside the palace.. I highly doubt that pseudodragons would be allowed to fly around there. They generally keep to the rooftops; they don't go inside buildings. If a pseudodragon was discovered sneaking about in the palace, I imagine the guards would make short work of it. Especially now that Ileosa is in charge, but I doubt it would have been tolerated even under a benevolent ruler.

From what I understand the queen wants to kill certain people because they don't conform to her expectations of what a citizen in her country should be.
This reads like someone with a an extreme case of one-sightedness. Was that all there was to it?

"Because I want to" is a bad reason to kill anyone, much less orchestrate genocide.

The more direct reason for the plague is actually in a later book (book 6, iirc). Ileosa's plans start early in the campaign, and play out all the way through. My players became suspicious early into the book, with the physicians showing up only days after the outbreak, but all that aside my understanding of the motivations is:

Ileosa is not meant to be 'sugar and spice' in this campaign, after all.

The more direct reason for the plague is actually in a later book (book 6, iirc). Ileosa's plans start early in the campaign, and play out all the way through. My players became suspicious early into the book, with the physicians showing up only days after the outbreak, but all that aside my understanding of the motivations is:

** spoiler omitted **

Ileosa is not meant to be 'sugar and spice' in this campaign, after all.

Thanks for the spoiler. That makes more sense.

For those still (or currently) looking for it, there is a sidebar in Chapter 5, page 44 that include more encounters that the PCs could save more Korvosans to kick up their saved count for the end of the book.

I'm having a few problems with this campaign, mainly along the lines of the Eversmoking Bottle that the PC's recovered from, Griggz, I believe it was. It is an incredibly powerful item. The PC's managed to bypass the majority of the Hospice and Temple by unleashing the Eversmoking Bottle and simply walking through everything. They ended up setting off the Alarm in the Temple and so when they entered the Blood Vats chamber with the majority of Priests, Plague Doctors and Rolth all in one chamber, the ones who did all the damage were the Doctors and Priests.

Rolth was practically ineffective because all of his spells require line of sight to work. He could shoot of his Enervation or Ray of Enfeeblement, but that imparts a 50 percent miss chance, which any retarded wizard would know is a bad idea, and he couldn't use his Wand of Magic Missile because he couldn't target them. The most effective spell he cast was lightning bolt, which hit the Rogue and Monk... wait, no it didn't. Darn that Evasion. The not-quite-Mystic Theurge took damage, but even he made his save and then just healed it all back up within a couple rounds. The most damaging thing Rolth did was hit the Ranger with his Enervation as he was chasing him around the catwalks, but unfortunately, the Ranger happens to have Humans and Undead as his favored enemey's so when he tried to Dimension Door out, the Ranger critically hit him and... dead Rolth.

The Eversmoking Bottle almost completely nullified potentially the most dangerous character in the Temple, and I say that because if he hit with the right spells on the right characters, fighting Andaisin would have been a sure death sentance for the Party.

My other concern is the amount of Wealth available in that temple. All the Priest's have +1 Breastplates, an over a 1,000 GP item, and Doctors have the Plaguebringer masks, each a 2,000 gp item. There are 14 Breastplates and roughly 16 masks, and that's not to mention the stuff on the 3, main baddies. After the half pricing, a rough estimate puts the total temple value at somewhere around 35,000 GP, and I'm not factoring in the stuff from the Gray Maidens because my PC's left all that behind. I also know that they have gone far above and beyond the call of duty curing the plague and will earn the maximum reward.

I need help on figuring out how to deal with the Eversmoking Bottle and the incredible wealth the PC's will be getting.

stuff

Two thoughts:

Ok, I haven't seen this question thus far on the boards so I thought I'd touch on it. Has anyone addressed the initial timeline from Part 1 to Part Four for 7 Days?

Part Four begins the 'missions' for the PCs to complete as they look for a cure and delve into the secrets behind the plague. Looking into the missions however, it seems they'd have to be at least a week or more into the outbreak since Racker's alley is piling dead bodies, and it takes an average of 7 days for the typical person to die from it (the younger/older having lower saves and cha/con scores to fight off the disease). Part 3 however is only a few days into the initial exposure, so should there be a few days of 'filler time' before they start receiving their missions? Has anyone added anything in particular or did your groups just jump right in with their own ideas?

I know the bad guys have been working behind the scenes for awhile, and have had some time to set themselves up for watching the plague take hold, but it still needs its time to take hold and start killing.

Thanks

Ok, I haven't seen this question thus far on the boards so I thought I'd touch on it. Has anyone addressed the initial timeline from Part 1 to Part Four for 7 Days?

Part Four begins the 'missions' for the PCs to complete as they look for a cure and delve into the secrets behind the plague. Looking into the missions however, it seems they'd have to be at least a week or more into the outbreak since Racker's alley is piling dead bodies, and it takes an average of 7 days for the typical person to die from it (the younger/older having lower saves and cha/con scores to fight off the disease). Part 3 however is only a few days into the initial exposure, so should there be a few days of 'filler time' before they start receiving their missions? Has anyone added anything in particular or did your groups just jump right in with their own ideas?

I know the bad guys have been working behind the scenes for awhile, and have had some time to set themselves up for watching the plague take hold, but it still needs its time to take hold and start killing.

Thanks

I didn't really think about this last session when we played, but I explained to my players that by day two or three the city was loosing hundreds of citizens a day. The bodies pile up quickly, because the city has no means with which to dispose of even several dozen bodies a day let alone 100. If the temple of pharasma is responsible for caring for the dead, and at the sametime is trying to aid the living even several dozen bodies will probably pile up quickly. I also figured 2 or 3 days for your average 9 con human to kick the bucket. Especially as each day he takes con damage his chance of survival grows worst.

Hello, a player of mine wants in 6th lvl to take leadrship feat and have a paladin as follower. Since Abadar don't have almost any paladin, could you suggest a couple of dities that could have a paladin in the city( The temple of many perhaps)???
I'm rather new to this world( we used to play in Forgotten Realms) and still i'm not well aware of this world's dities.

Thank you in advance for any help.

Korvosa has four bigger temples: Abadar, Asmodeus, Pharasma and Sarenrae. There is also a smaller temple dedicated to Shelyn.

Of those Sarenrae is the most likely to have paladins, though Abadar and Shelyn have paladins as well. I'd choose a paladin who is aligned to one of the churches you want to use later in the AP. I'd go for Abadar or Sarenrae.

Of course, there can be paladins of any god present in the city, even if there is no church to their god.

I'm back with more questions this time!!!
My group got in the temple and last night managed after loosing too much time and having a bit of arguement with each other to make Mr.Arkminos to use his dimension door but i haven't made my mind yet to where!!! So after the noise of fighting Rolth and the other in G8 and spending time time destroying Arkminos' rooms I decided that the lasts of the priests with Lady Andaisin they are waiting outside.
Should I have Arkminos with them to revenge the destruction of his property?
Even without him they have used many spells so many of them may die.If they do so die (sorry but my "coma" button doesn't work) does anyone know of a module or two so as to be able to bring the new party back to this campaign route? I wouldn't want to start from lvl 1 again but from the sixth that they are now.

Thank in advance for any help.

The encounter with Lady Andaisin is tough enough as it is. I wouldn't add anyone else. Arkminos is a loner anyway, he wouldn't seek the company of too many others.

I see two options: you can have him run, maybe create or gather some more undead and confront the PCs again later.

The other option is much more appealing roleplay-wise. After he has noticed that his 'allies' have been killed, he might offer the PCs to help them find a cure for the plague. He could become some kind of untrustworthy ally, which creates all kinds of roleplaying opportunities.

Dear MrVergee thank you for your tips and i see your point. I'll try to follow ot though I know some of my PCs will say that i just let them live!!!
Still they are rather exhausted so there is a possibility that fight with Andaisin will prove rather fatal for them all. Do you have any module in mind for 5 or 6 level party (a new one as you can see) that will help me continue with the CoCT campaign??
Or any idea of how to introduce a new party to Korvosa and have the Escape From the Old Korvosa even if the current party dies???