I'm running a play-by-Discord campaign for 4x PCs and we are having a great time — just hit 5th level. For us, the AP offers a nice story that's easy to create heroes for — the Broken Tusk scouts are stepping up to support their following and need to work together within the story, which makes for some strong emotional character arcs. The propulsive nature of the story is also appreciated — there's rarely a "what do your characters want to do next?" lull when the answer is always "FORWARD!" I would say it plays particularly well in a play-by-post format as many of the chapters have a constant flow from one cool/varied set piece to the next, where I can supply the connective tissue between encounters to move the plot forward. All in all, it's my favorite of the Pathfinder APs I've run to date in either edition.
At the end of red cat cave it's assumed the party keeps going on to find lost mammoth valley, starting the second portion of the hex crawl (with actual exploration), for the reaver squad encounter this assumes that Ivarsa has already found red cat cave and the map (which isn't necessary because she has already been to lost mammoth valley but I digress, I don't actually care about this minor thing).
My real question is how far back do you start the Burning mammoths from the broken tusks as they begin chapter 3? For continuity's sake you could continue plotting their position from chapter 2, but there is also a potential that your following has left them in the dust by like half the map, has anyone who has run this seen this as a problem (removing the looming threat) or do you just let your characters have the win but still have burning mammoth scouts/reavers in the valley to harry them since Ivarsa can teleport small numbers of troops ahead anyway?
What have you folks run across in this?
I ran it continuing their position from Ch 2 hex map — the Burning Mammoth were 28 days behind the Broken Tusk when the party left Red Cat Cave ... and recently reappeared on the Ch 3 hex map at the same time they were investigating the divination apaku! The players were pretty jazzed/scared to see the war machine back on their trail.
Amazing work artjuice. I downloaded the Ch 3 maps for our play-by-Discord campaign, converting the webp files to png (we play on Tableplop and I run off Mac). The rimecrag map turned out really great. I hope my players stumble into the box canyon!
@artjuice would love to see Book 2 maps if you're ever up for it!
My party encountered The Gardener twice and she was a pretty memorable foe – thanks in part to the good backstory helping the GM to give her motive and purpose, and in part to good art in Pathfinder #100.
I basically decided that if she's the gardener she'll usually be outside in the gardens that surround the Temple of Asmodeus.
So once when the party was Lv 10 or so, a pair of them making a "hell, let's make a random scouting run past Temple Hill while en route to other places" encountered The Gardener solo, and she cast a Phantasmal Killer and a Telekinesis and they ran ran ran back to the Lucky Bones and began dreading her.
And the second time was a prelude to their final assault on the Temple at Lv 12-13 (which can present an overwhelming number of high-level NPCs inside the temple). So I had The Gardener and the jorogumo who's also supposed to be inside (daughter of Vyre's Queen of Delights, whom the party had already picked a long-running fight with, on loan to the temple) defending the "entry" to the temple on a fun map full of topiary and fountains.
Moral of the story: you find the cool NPCs in these APs and throw them at your PCs and see which ones stick. And for ours, The Gardener stuck.
Name: Tango
Race: Tengu
Class: Inquisitor of Milani 11
Origin: Former head gardener of the Victocora Estate
Adventure: A Song of Silver
Location: Bleakbridge
Cause of Death: Fireballs from a horned-devil-bound dragon
The Gory Details:
The Black Ravens had left the breaking of the Bleakbridge blockade to their last mission before assaulting the Temple of Asmodeus – part of this strategy came from their realization that the Bleakbridge was very exposed to the skies and visible from the Temple’s upper tower, where Rivozair the devil-bound blue dragon had been living and surveilling the city. She had already lashed out at the party twice, once as they left the Opera House the morning after the Masq and once when the tengu, pursuing a couple Prying Eyes that Zella Z had sent out on recon, flew a bit too close to the balcony. They were rather afraid of her, especially noticing some of her unusual blue dragon abilities and having learned at the Records Hall that she’d been devil-bound.
The party infiltrated the bridge in the guise of dottari forces using a combination of disguise, bluffing and a chorus of illusory Asmodean priests produced from Lorelu the halfling ghost’s Deck of Illusions. They managed to mostly avoid revealing themselves while disabling the troops and captains, but Tango assumed his large Tengu Raven Form to take on Trex face-to-face and absorbed some volleys from the dottari troops in the process.
Once the combat ended, I asked each member of the party what they were doing next. A couple wanted to loot the bodies, a few others wanted to check out the shops, the witch started scribbling a note to send back via raven figurine to the Lucky Bones. Nobody healed, least of all the inquisitor. They’d already fought 3+ encounters this day, so resources as well as hp were dwindling.
At this point it was around 11pm on a Saturday night. We’d gathered for my wife’s birthday and she’d requested a fun combat session, so we’d all had a good dose of night coffee along with our other typical game-night indulgences.
Me: Everybody roll Perception [begins making the sound of heavy wings beating]
I didn’t even need to ask whether they wanted to go late. The gleeful looks on their faces said it all. (I did, however, decide to refrain from summoning the barbed devil because we’re all in our 30s/40s and coffee is not speed.)
Rivozair rolled a Nat 20 on Initiative and began closing the distance between the tower and the bridge – or rather, a Minor Image version of her form flew head-on towards the bridge, while her Invisible form looped around to approach the span lengthwise, hoping to catch the unawares party in a nice straight line. Hey, even with her devil dealing she’s still an illusion-loving blue dragon.
“How did we fight this thing last time?” asked the guest player running a buffed-up version of Hortense the Hellknight.
“We always just run,” my wife said.
The party did a good job of finding nooks of cover on the awesome tactical Bleakbridge map that comes with the print version of AP 100. The Hellknight loosed a volley of arrows when the dragon was only 100 ft away, and I rolled high behind-the-screen to allow her to pass the Will save and see through the illusion. “FAKE DRAGON!” she began shouting.
The real Rivozair lit up the exposed Hellknight with her breath weapon and make a large dragon-y loop. The party cowered and healed and buffed with what resources they had left, finding their standard ranged options limited against the dragon’s AC 37 and resistance/immunity to fire/electricity. When she landed atop one of the guard towers, the inquisitor and swashbuckler swarmed, braving AoOs to set up a flank.
Rivozair regained her breath weapon and chose to target Tango, rightfully judging him to be the most threatening combatant. She then flew off, unwilling to leave herself open to full attacks. Her SR managed to keep the gnome sorcerer and elf witch at bay, although she did eat one pretty nasty Cone of Cold.
Tango and the flying swashbuckler launched into a brave but risky pursuit, and on her next turn Rivozair immolated herself with a fireball, resisting most of the fire damage but severely wounding her melee threats. This cat-and-mice game continued, Tango’s hit points dwindling precariously as they chipped away via AoO each time Rivozair flew out of melee, until the dragon fled a clustering group of attackers hovering above the Yolubilis and fired her last fireball back towards her pursuants.
I snapped a photo for posterity of the mighty 10d6 dice roll that reduced Tango to -14 hp, exactly his negative Con. The photo is time stamped 2:27am:
3-3-3-4-5-5-6-6-6-6
Tango’s body plunged into the river below. He was saved from sinking to the bottom of the Yolubilis by the elf witch’s Prehensile Hair, and meanwhile Rivozair decided to try to put an end to the swashbuckler with a toe-to-toe, full-attack duel. Gojee Shakes the former Chelish navy man managed to dodge enough attacks to stay alive, and he slayed the dragon with a crit from the mayor’s heirloom rapier Reprisal.
The party plans to return Tango’s body to the Silver Star’s shrine of Sarenrae, where the witch will Raise him from the dead and the beaten-down party will recover their strength from the Dawnflower Font before beginning their assault on the Temple of Asmodeus.
Will the lore needle stack with the bonuses from Heightened Awareness (ie. "+2 competence bonus on ... all Knowledge checks that you are trained in")? If my trained Knowledge Religion is +14 and I cast Heightened Awareness, could I RAW use the needle to attempt an untrained Knowledge Nobility check at +16?
And since all the skalds are rocking out here, I wanted to ask a separate rules question (without intending to derail): how do y'all (and your PFS GMs) interpret the "1 full round" casting time for Spell Kenning? Is it a full-round action that completes on your current turn, like spontaneous-cast metamagic? Or a one round casting time that completes at the beginning of your next turn, like a summoning spell?
Name: Laria Longroad
Race: Halfling
Class: Brawler (Snakebite Striker) 9 / Rogue 1
Origin: Kintargan coffeeshop owner and covert smuggler, Laria was upgraded from NPC to full-on PC when a new player assumed her character sheet at Lv 3 and rebuilt her as a Snakebite Striker
Adventure: A Song of Silver
Location: Basement of the Fair Fortune Livery
Cause of Death: Hei-Fen and the unholy power of Norgorber
The Gory Details:
The rechristened Black Ravens, after surviving an ambush at the hands of the Skinsaw cult, decided to take the fight to Hei-Fen, who had holed up in the basement of the Fair Fortune Livery.
Defeating a first wave of traps and cultists upstairs, the Ravens descended into the basement and were quickly smacked with a Flame Strike from the wererat cleric.
After being hit by the tiefling bloodrager's Lightning Bolt, Hei-Fen retreated to the large chamber with the dirty cistern, with most of the party in hot pursuit (the jorogumo, tracking the party, used Suggestion to draw the tengu inquisitor back upstairs for a solo combat that he only barely survived).
Laria Longroad had attracted Hei-Fen's attention at the dinner party in Vyre by flirting with the Queen of Delights. Hei-Fen suspected that Laria was Manticce's favorite – indeed, after dinner the halfling went to bed with Manticce and willfully accepted a 17-day Dominate spell. Manticce had recently teleported to Kintargo to help Resurrect some fallen resisters (Jilia, Rexus, Lady Jarvis), and the witch had placed her Ward hex (+4 to AC and saves) on Laria. Still, the cleric of Norgorber was definitely gunning for Manticce's precious pet halfling.
As the Hasted party moved into the cistern room, Hei-Fen cast Confusion, addling the mind of the bloodrager and the ifrit bard. Laria, with her newly silvered fists (a huge Lv 9 boon to anyone regularly brawling against devils and lycanthropes), charged into melee, feinting and delivering a solid sneak attack to the wounded, flat-footed cleric.
Sensing her opportunity, Hei-Fen cast Harm defensively and delivered a devastating jolt of negative energy. Laria, even with her Ward bonus, failed the save. Those 120 points of damage were more than enough to drop her to 1 hp, thereby ending the Ward and alerting Manticce that her girlfriend was in trouble.
Standing toe-to-toe with Hei-Fen, Laria decided to forego withdrawal/healing and tried to finish off the cleric (who was down to 42 hp). With a Hasted brawler's flurry, the halfling lined up 5 punches against the cleric's jaw. But Hei-Fen's AC 29 is no joke, and Laria only managed to hit once.
Hei-Fen made the same calculation – instead of healing up, she wanted to finish off Laria. Conveying the murderous power of Norgorber, Hei-Fen channeled negative energy. Laria failed her save, and 6d6 was enough to drop her from 1 hp to dead.
The bloodrager managed to shake off the Confusion long enough to charge in and kill Hei-Fen, who in her moment of dying felt satisfied having completed one glorious murder for Father Skinsaw. The ifrit – the only other PC who's died in our campaign – carried Laria's lifeless body back to the Lucky Bones, where the brave halfling jumped to the very front of the Queen of Delights' lengthening Resurrection queue.
it's one round casting, the only casting I'm aware of that a full action but not one round is metamagic with spontaneous casters.
This is a fair interpretation. It's a sloppy bit of writing by Paizo to include that phrase "full round" in such a key and unique class feature when they've otherwise been very careful to implement two distinct casting labels: "one round" and "full-round action."
Most of the feedback I could find from the skald playtest assumed that kenning worked like bard metamagicked spells (one full-round action to cast). Making all kenning spells one round to cast renders most in-combat spells pretty useless. Now, that may be a fair aim for the kenning ability – spontaneous-casting skalds are tapping into unknown magic, and they shouldn't be able to make such mental leaps quickly or while under duress. I just wish the ability had been written more clearly.
Simplifying the text to "spell kenning always has a minimum casting time of one round" would have solved this ambiguity. Maybe they'll fix it in the upcoming, hotly anticipated ULTIMATE SKALD hardcover?
A question for all the skalds out there: how long does it take to cast your kenning spells?
My Strange Aeons PC has just hit Lv 5, and I haven't yet found a satisfying answer as to whether the casting time for a kenning spell is "one full-round action" (à la bard/sorcerer metamagic) or "one round" (à la summons, enlarge, etc). In typical fashion for this awesome but under-supported class, the class ability writeup hovers somewhere in between ...
Quote:
At 5th level, a skald is learned in the magic of other spellcasters, and can use his own magic to duplicate those classes’ spells. Once per day, a skald can cast any spell on the bard, cleric, or sorcerer/wizard spell list as if it were one of his skald spells known, expending a skald spell slot of the same spell level to cast the desired spell. Casting a spell with spell kenning always has a minimum casting time of 1 full round, regardless of the casting time of the spell.
SO: If it's a full-round action for my skald to cast a spell I don't know from the bard/wizard/cleric lists, I can (in the spirit of bard metamagicking, and as long as I'm not staggered/disabled) use a standard and also sacrifice my move action to cast Ghostbane Dirge, and at the end of my turn my allies can immediately begin whaling on the incorporeal monster. If it's a one round casting time, I have to fend off disruptive attacks until the spell completes on my next turn.
Thoughts?
Given the imprecise wording of the class ability, I will say in advance that I'm more inclined towards RAI arguments and/or the experience of people who've played skalds and used this mechanic ...
Name: Quillon
Race: Ifrit
Class: Bard 8
Origin: Player in the Kintargo opera; upstairs tenant at the Silver Star before the Night of Ashes; author of the seditious operetta "Impotence," his work was subsequently banned in Kintargo under Proclamation the Tenth
Adventure: Dance of the Damned
Location: Western approach to the Menador Keep
Cause of Death: Elulae; or, too many bolts, followed by too many arrows, followed by hot and cold dice. Oh, and lots of illusions.
The Gory Details: Tonight's session began with the GM debuting his new tshirt, noting that the one with the holy symbol of Asmodeus he'd been wearing since the Night of Ashes wasn't working – the Black Ravens had managed to reach Lv 8 without a single PC death – and joking that his new "I [HEART] ASMODEUS" shirt would turn the tide. I am pleased to announce that prophecy is once again alive and well in post-Aroden Cheliax.
Determined to close the Menador Gap, the Ravens rode horses (on loan from Lady Aulamaxa) south along the Ravounel Road, encountering a trio of Hellknights of the Rack (who'd been delayed on their way to Kintargo by some pesky paladins of Iomedae) about a 30 minutes ride from the Keep. Two Hellknights were pummeled, pumped for information and slain. The third retreated south on horseback, back to the Keep, which was subsequently put on high alert.
After scouting ahead (and spotting the albino erinyes lurking atop the arch – "watch out, her bow is deadly" warned the witch), the halfling brawler (rebuilt PC Laria Longroad) and elf transformation witch used gaseous form and screech owl shape to squeeze through the arrow slits into C3a, but couldn't take out both soldiers before one managed to unleash a screaming bolt.
All hell broke loose, with the brawler clearing out the room and working to open the iron gate, the witch flying atop the battlements and casting silent fog spells to incapacitate the ballista, the tengu melee inquisitor buffing and scouting while invisible, and the gnome sorcerer (rebuilt PC the Newt) keeping as far away as possible, distracting soldiers from a distance with an illusory silver dragon and causing several crossbowmen to take defensive stances.
Quillon, having sculpted sound to transform every word spoken by a half-dozen Menador soldiers to "Down with Thrune," heard the gate opening and stormed forward. He absorbed several readied screaming bolts. Then Elulae threw up a minor image of a wall of fire blocking access to the west entry, but Quillon pushed ever forward, peering through the flames with his Firesight racial feat (and, quite tragically, rolling a 9 on the subsequent Will save to disbelieve the illusory fire). He spotted Elulae and decided not to storm through the wall of fire quite yet, hoping to benefit from its cover a little longer.
Meanwhile, the Newt redirected his own illusory silver dragon's attacks towards Elulae, who rolled a Nat 20 to disbelieve. On the next round, the albino erinyes gave Quillon a knowing wink and unleashed a full-round volley of arrows through her own nonexistent wall of fire. Three hits (I rolled max damage on two) and Quillon was at -10 hp (Con 11). Not good. But nobody was in a position to either see/hear him fall, or to be able to reach him. The best the Newt could do was to create a new major image of himself dragging a fake Quillon away, covering the real Quillon with a blanket of illusory rocks until help could arrive.
On his next round, Quillon grabbed our Big D20 and rolled to avoid bleeding out, needing a Nat 20 (vs DC 10 + negative hp).
A 2 came up.
But wait! The halfling with the once-per-day, reroll-saves-for-an-ally racial feat Lucky Halfling was technically within 30 feet of Quillon, albeit with an arrow slit between them.
So Laria Longroad rerolled Quillon's death save.
A 3 came up.
And with that, this GM has his first PC kill of the AP.
The witch is carrying Luculla Gens's scroll of Raise Dead, but Lucien Thrune has just crested the arch riding on the back of Zailosorn. So the shorthanded party, which is not optimized for ranged combat, has got some work to do before they can try to raise Quillon.
(Meanwhile, while the bard's soul is navigating the great waiting room in the sky, Quillon's player may take up the character sheet of the cowering genie Zorumar next week ... he is technically bound to serve Lucien, but there are bound to be other workarounds by which the mistreated kitchen genie can subtly oppose his master.)
I have a rules interpretation question re: Threat of the Red Jills.
One of my PCs is a kitsune slayer who spends most of her time in human guise. When the encounter with Scarplume begins, and presuming the kitsune is in human form, I'll have her roll a Disguise check (+10 racial bonus) to appear human vs the strix's Perception to determine whether Scarplume thinks she's human or just a shapeshifter in disguise.
Here's the question: if Scarplume perceives this creature as human, would the strix racial trait "hatred" give the sorcerer's attacks against the disguised human the +1 bonus to hit/damage? That bonus, RAW, is "because of their special training against these hated foes."
So would her attacks hurt more against somebody she perceived to be human, because of added anger and rage? Or would her advanced techniques not work against the kitsune because they're designed to target inherent human weaknesses, and thus wouldn't be more effective against a spry kitsune?
And off-topic but since we're discussing Vendalfek: he's taken up residence atop the statue of Calistria in the Wasp Nest, and keeps his hoard of exotic liquors tucked away in the statue's underwater drawer. When Treep Fushi was killed by Blosodriette's sabotage and my PCs wanted to hold a proper tengu funeral for the first victim of the revolution, Vendalfek produced a bottle of Taldan Fire Brandy and gave one of the great silly eulogies of all time.
One real-time month into the campaign, getting ready to infiltrate Hocum's:
1. Gojee "Razor Face" Shakes (CN male human swashbuckler/mesmerist), privateer aboard the Scourge of Belial; wields a rapier he's named Pinpoint; multi-classing in mesmerist after discovering the hypnotic skull of Nan Comerivos in the belly of the albino alligator
2. Knoxy (CN female kitsune slayer), barkeep and owner of the Thrashing Badger; ex-Asmodean who turned against the regime after they burned down her lifelihood; master of disguise and poison who carries three daggers in her Calistrian lust for revenge
3. Professor Proteus (CN male elf witch), scholar of biology and transmutation at the Alabaster Academy; a longtime Kintargo resident and long-fascinated with the Temple Hill Slasher; transmuter who uses the Synergist archetype to meld with Brady the owl familiar
4. Quillon the Bardiva (CN male ifrit bard), fiery and flamboyant opera star; former tenant (and acolyte) of the bard Shensen who lost everything in the fire at the Silver Star; wields a whip and the cutting power of his oratory to combat enemies of the opera house
5. Tango (CG male tengu inquisitor of Milani), head gardener of the Victocora Estate; faithful servant to post-Night-of-Ashes Rexus and friend to the Fushi sisters; burgeoning freedom fighter with his natural attacks and blistering invective against corruption
6. Zor (NG male tiefling bloodrager), demon-spawn and also the moral compass of the revolution; friend of Quillon, set-builder and stage-fighting expert for the Kintargo Opera House; charming drinker of ale, master of the longsword and bardiche
The party, upon discovering Nan's cargo of Varisian textiles in the Wasp Nest, rolled opposed Diplomacy checks to determine the name and colors of their new revolution – Gojee Shakes rolled a Natural 20 and, as a worshiper of Besmara, decided the colors would be black and white. Hetamon the Tailor is currently working on some discreet black armbands to mark the Black Ravens.
