Pyrogoth's page

Name of PC: Malaki
Class/Level: Rogue 7
Adventure: Hook mountain massacre
Catalyst: never tried even once to foresee enemy's strengths, also going first in a tough room.
Story: Malaki is a former member of the Red Mantis. He fled to Sandpoint to find a more quiet position with Jubrayl, actually waiting for overthrowing him and taking revenge on his assassin mentor. His name is a pun that means "ill-gotten gains" in french.

Malaki is not really an assassin, thus his eviction from the Mantis, he only wants to sell poisons or various drugs. If it wasn't for these stupid laws that go against fair trade and entrepreuneur freedomship...

His greed score started high, and skyrocketted during the second chapter of the adventure as you can guess. But Malaki, though great to be around, was never taking the time to analyse his opponents and often going first in a room, heavily relying on his arsenal of homemade powerful poisons. His carelessness already had got him below 0 hp against Xanesha, and he finally met his bane in the Graul farm.

They arrived at the Graul farm during a heavy rain time and took care of the whole House swiftly and quietly (quietly enough...). Then they went for the screams of tortured agony coming from the barn. They burst in the room, Malaki ahead to sneak attack an ogre. But they get distracted by the hounds eating Jakardros leg alive while another ogre was raping Kaven. Enough so the ogre spider, which had spotted Malaki, caugth him in its webs. The damage was sustainable but he failed every single poison check and dropped to 0 strength.

The party was severely wounded, in the middle of the forest, during a cold and storming night. With no access to enough restoration magic for a significant healing, not even talking about the other members of the team, (the black arrows all had significant stat damage, and the priest was also down in wisdom and strength) they barely made it to turtleback ferry and Malaki stayed in coma for several days. He finally died from heavy internal bleeding, right before the party decided they had to try an assault on fort Rannick.

Shouldn't the answer be more roleplay ?

I mean, Magnimar city watch is one army, each giant tribe is one army, the rocs, wyverns, and other big monsters are less straightforward to assign, but you get the point.

Does it stretch the ultimate war rules too much ?

You have a lots of very good publications. But be carefull. Books like Varisia, birthplace of legend, of inner sea guides, or my last aquisition "Magnimar, city of monuments" all are really, really good, but may contain spoilers.
Usually its small things, it really depends on how much meta game you can tolerate. I'm a DM that doesn't mind so much because most of my players are also DM and its hard not to discuss this or that book. For exemple It's okay if they know every entry in the bestiary.

However, your players can wander on the wiki. As far as I can tell you won't find spoilers if you don't actively look for some. (http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Sandpoint)

I would like your opinion and expertise on an extension I've been writing for the end of chapter 4.

Basically it's the war for Jorgenfist and the Library.

The AP states that most giants disband when Mok dies. But thanks to several very nice submission on this forum, and a sentence on the AP saying how the library is likely to attract very significant interest in all Varisia if not Golarion when rediscovered... I realized all the potential for very nice roleplay in dealing with the consequences of this rediscovery. It is entirely optional to the campaign since it doesn’t prevent the PC to reach the runeforge and Xin-shalast in any way, but I like it.

I’ll give you what I came up with so far, be careful it contains spoiler from last chapters:

1) At the death of Mokmurian, several giant tribes want to claim the library as theirs. While some, like Conna if she’s alive, will be reasonable (or intimidated) and not prevent the PC to use it, many consider it as a forbidden place and an heritage for the suffering of their ancestors to the hand of the rune giants, and want it untouched, buried or worse. At the beginning it’s all diplomatics and eventually beating the crap out of a giant leader or two, but this is Varisia, and may it be by the will of Desna or other gods, some rumors reach Riddleport and the Cyphermages. They instantly mount a convoy of importance, and decide to announce themselves. Since every good political leader has a spy in Riddleport, ambassadors from magnimar and Korvosa also find a way to reach the site. By this time the library is on every good military map of the realm, and electricity starts to fill the air.

2) Karzoug himself, certainly not ready yet to lose its grasp on the library but still filling his mana, sends his very best to deal with the issue : some rune giants (1 to 4 seems reasonable). With enormous might and overwhelming power, they coerce back the army of giant and aim to retake Jorgenfist.

3) Understanding that this is the greatest threat to them all, Korvosa, Magnimar, Riddleport and some dwarf, elves, and Shoantis try to unite. After some skirmishes, all army will gather to settle this once and for all. Not without the PC potentially being inside, Korvosa and Magnimar secretly looking for a way to prevent the other one to reach the library first, and so much more.

4) By the end of the war, it is acknowledged that something is rising beyond the reach of human armies, and the PCs are among the most powerfull adventurers of Varisia therefore they qualify to seek Karzoug and find a way to stop him.

5) chapter 6.

That being said, I’m trying to put some number on each sides.

On the monster side we have : (remember to add many NPCs)
-100 ish stone giants
-30 frost giants
-42 ogres
-some giant and ogre reinforcement like hill giants, taiga giants, couple of storm giants...
-various rocs (2), wyverns (3), dire bears (20), mammoths (10), giant spiders and other big monsters...
-3 dragons (including longtooth) , Karzoug could send one more
-1 to 4 rune giants (those are really terryfing)
-up to 12 lamias
-small bands of orcs, koblods, goblins or lesser creatures… may be 400 mens

On the Magnimarian side I estimated the following (thx the very nice book, Magnimar city of monuments)
-City military : 400 trained soldier and 900 conscripts + a fair share of siege weapons from the navy + 30 Abadar paladins, and led by no less than a lvl 13 priest. (though I may need to keep some at magnimar for law enforcment)
-order of the nail : a dozen lvl 6 to 8 Hell Knights, fully mounted and heavily equipped, with twice as much squires.
-Around 150 fighters from various mercenaries, thugs, criminals, small churches, all looking for a piece of loot.
-25 lvl 6 adventurers of various class
-Mage guild of Magnimar, 18 wizards and sorcerers led by a lvl 15 wiz and a lvl 11 wiz ( !!!!!!!). And they bring 6 stone golems and 25 angelic guardians (lesser brass golem).
-Various conscripts and gards form other cities (including sandpoint) : 300 good men

WOA !
Riddleport should be something like 800 men, less organized but more brutal, and the Cyphermages, (still need more data)

And I still have to add Korvosa and some dwarves, elves, and a couple bands of shoanti barbarians.
It’s gonna be SO epic !

A campaign like ROTRL deserves a good battle don't you think ?

too bad this thread has not been given any attention, I'm trying to DM the war for Jorgenfist and the library.

Caught up with all this thread from the begginning and a couple others.

This has indeed been discussed a lot.

It doesn't look like anyone has seriously considered telling the tale of the failure of Skull's crossing. And since fort Rannick is already old, I guess no threat organized enough to think about demolishing the dam has arisen in the region.

After carefull consideration, it seems strange from the ogres to think they can take the dam down. It's the thickest thassilonian building around, with enchanted stone and all.

I guess the small flood caused by blak magga is good enough, with the threat of the dam failing someday. May be Mokmurian could think about it.

following my doubts on the dam section....

I did some research.
And I couldn't be more wrong. The dam is... well, let's say Karzoug was really someone..

First, just some numbers:
Skull crossing is described as 250 feet high (75 m). The worst dam failure ever witnessed in history is the Banquiao Dam failure in 1975. This dam was 60 feet high (25 m). wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam
I realize heigth is far from the only factor (though Storval deep is much, MUCH bigger than Banqiao former reservoir), and that talking physics in Pathfinder has little sense since gravity is just the will of the gods of nature.

That being said, the Banquiao Dam failure generated a wave 15 km wide and up to 7 meters tall, that devastated all land for more than 200 km, resulting in the drowning of thousands, and the destruction of countless cities.

According to these data, the failure of Skull's crossing has the potential to ERASE Ilsurian from the map, as well as Ashwood, half of the Sanos forest, and being felt even at Magnimmar (likely as a significant rise of the Yondabakari).

OH MY GOD ! and they just defeated the only castle near the dam !

for more, you should read this : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outburst_flood

Realizing that I am tempted to rewrite the back arrows as the necessary guardians of an apocalyptic threat.

Was this discussed elsewhere ? I'm fairly new on this forum and I know this AP has been discussed for a long time. Don't hesitate to send me to a more relevant topic if needed.

woa. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one considering BM as a debatable part of the AP. My party is getting close to this encouter, and I don't want to lose too much time on it.

At first I didn't get the point of the dam, at all. The loss of the fort is a really strong story (well written also) and I found the dam pretty confusing. The party doesn't really have to witness that ogres and sihedron linked enemies are psycopathic killers one more time. It's been like a smorgasboard of gore and death already. On this forum I found some idea to adapt it. One interesting I found was to have the black Magga attack the ogres and the party on the dam, and return in the water, threatening to go through if they realeae the water, or something like that, to at least give a meaning to BM.

Finally I don't want to change the AP that much, its well written and I'm afraid extensive modifications will have an unexpected impact on the story.

I'm not sure yet but either I will let them head directly to the dam (I believe they'll do that), fight the ogres, and witness the partial destruction of TBF by a the flood from the top of it, as an insight to what may happen in sandpoint. Its actually the stone giant first part that drove me to this AP, and I can't wait to get there.

Or, I will run the encounter as written, but just with giants snakes and dragon turtle, panicked by the flood. It's largely enough to threaten the children, and doesn't call for unnecessary investigation.

BM is still here, and I'll keep it as an epic side quest, exactly as I did for the sandpoint devil.
(though I like Latrecis viewpoint)

So I DM for RotR anniversary edition, great AP so far. We're having some fun at Magnimar right now and I started to work on chapter 4, though the topic is present in the end of chapter three : fighting giants.

I can say I have some experience with combat rules in pathfinder, and I'm wondering if I can personalize the fighting system to outlight the mightyness (and size) of these beings while allowing my players for bold moves (like climbing on their back to strike the head for the team rogue).

So first : has anyone (successfully) implemented new rules specifically for fighting giants in their campaign ?

I dont really know what I'm looking for, yet. But I've seen some things I like and will give a few example. It really has to make giants shine. In my campaign, I will expend a lot the lore of some stone and rune giants (we had goblins with names in the first chapter than we have for giants in the chapter 3, come on !). I want them to be complex and not just a bunch your other big monsters. I'm not that interested in rules for huge monsters in general like the black Magga of dragons, as they are few and already perfectly identifiable. I'm also thinking about treating them like I would treat NPCs, giving them various adventurers class levels (and related roleplay) but I fear this could turn out too challenging for my team.

few exemples :

Climb a giant : Make a grapple attempt, with size penalties reversed for the defender (so that the larger they are, the easier they are to grapple). If successful, you move into their space. They are not considered grappled, although you are. You have cover against the enemy you are currently climbing. To remove you the enemy can take a standard action to shake you off with a Strength check, and you may make Climb checks instead of Strength checks when opposing.

Huge size for tiny spells : by a move action, a giant can decide he will protect his body against spells and siege weapons this round. AoE Spells of weapons not big enough to entirely envelop it always deal half damage, regardless of the save throw.

dealing area of effect damage with each strike ?

a specific effect when throwing humans as improvised throw waepons ?

(sorry for bad english, I'm french)

I'm starting RoTR next week and to all that create, gather, comment or really just spread and devellop all that great content for this AP. Thank you a LOT.

You are incredible.