So I have an interesting problem. I am actually at the start of module 6 but it involves the pit fiend here. One of my PCs has been slowly moving towards Dr. Doom style insanity the whole AP and he has been subtly acquiring allies such as a Korvosan lawyer, a priest of Asmodeus and even Verick Vancaskerkin from CotCT.He left the pit fiend alive at the end of module 3 and coerced Verick into making sure no one entered SC. Then over the next module he employed the other two allies and has enlisted them in drafting up a contract that protects him and promises the pit fiend both freedom, negative level recovery and revenge on Karzoug in exchange for power and protection from the pit fiend. I may have messed up in my interpretation of some of these forces for this to be possible but it is far too late to back down now.
My problem is that I am having trouble figuring out how the devil will counter this, because the plan seems sound and he has taken plenty of precautions.I do not mind if the does become pit fiend bound, I just want it to be trickier for my PC so he will have more payoff for all the effort he put into shaping this character's fall and what not.
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If the contract is solid and the pit fiend agrees, let it happen. Keep your eye open on behalf of the pit fiend for loopholes, and occasionally, when the player is in real trouble, have the pit fiend offer a new contract for further aid in exchange for voiding the old one. Nothing is eternal, after all.
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My problem is that I am having trouble figuring out how the devil will counter this, because the plan seems sound and he has taken plenty of precautions.I do not mind if the does become pit fiend bound, I just want it to be trickier for my PC so he will have more payoff for all the effort he put into shaping this character's fall and what not.
I'll echo blahpers' great suggestion and add that it's not the worst idea to utilize the hivemind of the forum to collectively problem solve a tricky intelligence greater than our own. The board might be slow to respond, but that's the only drawback I can see. Hit us with particulars of the contract and world/campaign and I'm sure more than one person will be happy to help find the holes and wiggleroom in the contract.
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I'll echo blahpers' great suggestion and add that it's not the worst idea to utilize the hivemind of the forum to collectively problem solve a tricky intelligence greater than our own. The board might be slow to respond, but that's the only drawback I can see. Hit us with particulars of the contract and world/campaign and I'm sure more than one person will be happy to help find the holes and wiggleroom in the contract.
My problem is that I am having trouble figuring out how the devil will counter this, because the plan seems sound and he has taken plenty of precautions.I do not mind if the does become pit fiend bound, I just want it to be trickier for my PC so he will have more payoff for all the effort he put into shaping this character's fall and what not.
Heck, some of us are even lawyers!*
In the "Infiltrating the Fort" section of Part Two, it says that "Ogres can see in the dark, so night is likely to be a bigger problem than it is an advantage for the PCs." However the range of ogres' darkvision is only 60 feet, which means the guards on the gates can barely see to the far sides of the bridges, let alone anywhere else outside the fort. Doesn't this mean that night is, in fact, almost certainly the best time for the PCs to approach the fort, as they'll be able to get far closer without being detected than during the day? In particular, if they want to enter via the pond, then there's almost no chance of them being detected at night, surely?
Two items to consider:
- how do you interpret 60' of dark vision - all good to 60' and then complete blindness in the 61st foot? or is it good vision to 60' and tailing off in quality thereafter? I lean toward the latter.
- how are the pc's able to see? Do all of them have darkvision? If not, no way they can sneak anywhere. If there's enough ambient light for the non-darkvision pc's to function, there's enough light for the ogres to spot them. You can't be stealthy if you're blind. (and I don't care if the rules don't say that or even say the opposite - it's simply not true.) Humans (as an example) without any light are blind.
Those are both good points. I see darkvision as tailing off in quality, with the range being the limit at which the creature could normally have a reasonable expectation of seeing something.
Even if some of the PCs can't see in the dark, then I'd give those PCs a -4 on their Stealth checks (as they would get for being blinded). The ogres are going to have susbtantial range penalties to their Perception checks - which you'd need to roll even if the PCs are outside their darkvision range, as the ogres might hear the PCs. It still seems to me that darkness is generally going to help the PCs, at least in getting into the fort undetected. The night may not be completely dark, of course, but the PCs would presumably wait until any moonlight or starlight was only sufficient to make the conditions unfavourable, if not terrible!
No mention is made of the secret door between areas B36 and B37. How difficult is it to detect from either side? Do the surviving Black Arrows know about it?
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I assume it's equally hidden on both sides since you wouldn't want intruders who approached either side to find it. Given it's not provided, I would use the DC for the secret door B10 which seems similar - 25.
The presence of an alternate path into/out of the Keep would seem like knowledge the Black Arrow leadership would have. Jakardros was second-in-command and should know and given Vale was good friends with the Black Arrow architect, seems reasonable for him to know. Kaven? Probably not.
So, my PCs have just finished dealing with events at the Graul farm and have rescued the surviving Black Arrows, but at the cost of two of their own: the cleric died to Mammy Graul's spells (I'd rebuilt her as a gravewalker witch and tweaked her spell selection; black tentacles provided a murderously effective blockade in the one-square-wide hallway leading to her bedroom) and the magus mixed it up in melee with Hucker and ended up on the receiving end of a Power Attack critical hit from his ogre hook. I figure the Black Arrows aren't going to be immediately ready for an attempt to retake Fort Rannick; they'll need some time ro recover from their ordeal at the hands and hooks of the Grauls and to help the PCs make plans for taking the fort back from the Kreegs. This gives the PCs themselves time to figure out what to do about their fallen companions.
Turtleback Ferry is a small settlement with 3rd-level spellcasting available, and the most notable local spellcaster is a 5th-level cleric of Erastil; no-one in town has the means to cast reincarnate, raise dead, or similar. I'd rather not require that the PCs trek all the way back to Magnimar or a similarly large settlement to get their fallen companions raised; they've only just arrived in the Hook Mountain region, after all. If I were to err on the side of PC convenience, I might contrive that there just happens to be a 7th-plus level druid passing through town who can cast reincarnate before heading on his merry way.
My other thought is that, asking around town, the PCs might be told vague stories about a 'fey princess' living in the heart of the Shimmerglens who might be able to help them out... sending them to Myriana and discovering that part of the story "ahead of schedule." Myriana is certainly capable of casting reincarnate and might be persuaded to do so, though of course she'd expect the beneficiaries to do her bidding (retrieving Lamatar's remains from the Kreegs) in exchange for her aid. I don't know if there's any RAW recourse to declare the spell's effects 'fleeting,' lasting only so long as Myriana wills them (and able to be dismissed in moments, should she feel that the beneficiaries are not doing as directed), but this feels like it might be in keeping with her nature both as a capricious nymph and as a tragic undead creature, bound only in a fragile way to the mortal coil, and helps avoid the feeling that the presence of someone willing to cast reincarnate is a contrived convenience.
Thoughts on this? I'm planning on giving Shalelu and Vale to the players whose characters are dead until the latter can be brought back, just so they have a 'playing piece' for this part of the game. Are there any consequences of the PCs finding out about Myriana and Lamatar before taking back Fort Rannick rather than afterwards that I'm failing to anticipate?
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Are there any consequences of the PCs finding out about Myriana and Lamatar before taking back Fort Rannick rather than afterwards that I'm failing to anticipate?.
Other than the encounters being a bit overpowered (unless you level them up ahead of time) I can’t see it being a problem. Especially since Shimmerglens isn’t super important to overall storyline and could be optional anyway iirc. Love some GM magic to get creative. Also, this would force them to recover Lamatar and return with part of him. Could be a good way to “motivate” the PCs to hurry their plans.
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Are there any consequences of the PCs finding out about Myriana and Lamatar before taking back Fort Rannick rather than afterwards that I'm failing to anticipate?.Other than the encounters being a bit overpowered (unless you level them up ahead of time) I can’t see it being a problem. Especially since Shimmerglens isn’t super important to overall storyline and could be optional anyway iirc. Love some GM magic to get creative. Also, this would force them to recover Lamatar and return with part of him. Could be a good way to “motivate” the PCs to hurry their plans.
Luckily the Shimmerglens doesn't have any combat encounters as written unless they screw up negotiating with Myriana. And a single level 10 enemy should be a winnable fight for a level 8 party, though ghosts are always a danger if you're not prepared for them.
I've been trying to figure out how long it takes to navigate the Shimmerglens myself. It's not that big of a forest and Whitewillow isn't that far from Turtleback Ferry, but getting there through circuitous row boating seems like it would take a while. I'll probably just make it a day trip for simplicity's sake.
Gonna start running this AP in 2E. For, you know, numerous reasons I'm not super keen on running Hook Mountain Massacre as-written. Any good enemies to sub the ogres in for? Or even other modules that would fit in well as a replacement, even from other APs? I was thinking of Asylum Stone from SS, but I worry my players may end up wanting to play SS after...
Hey all, does anyone know a good way to play up the link between Black Magga and Lamashtu? My group has had plenty of interesting encounters with Lamashtu and I made her and her servants an integral part of the AP. I am looking for ways to stay as close as possible to the AP, while also letting Black Magga be part of Lamashtu's plans to take revenge on the PCs for killing all her altars and servants so far. Black Magga retreating after a few rounds of combat seems weird from this point of view, but I also don't want to kill my PCs outright.
Maybe have a Deus Ex Machina save the day? Maybe make Black Magga weak to other deities that are enemies of Lamashtu? Maybe let the monster ignore the PCs and kill as many innocent townsfolk as possible to spite them?
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Hi Lawrencelot,
I think there are two main concerns to work out here:
1) Is your party so well-favored by the gods (or a particular god) that having something akin to the herald of a god show up to fight The Black Magga is reasonable? I don't know the specifics of your story, but while RotR certainly puts your party in a position to royally piss off Lamashtu, the only god I can think of you might want to get involved just to keep things from going Lamashtu's way is Pazuzu, the demon lord.
2) Heightening the Black Magga's importance will make her a distraction from the main plot (which is supposed to be time-sensitive at that point). No matter how big and bad you make her, if her first appearance or mention is in the same session she dies, she's unlikely to have a memorable impact beyond "hey, Lamashtu's creations are just the worst, right?"
Here are some thoughts about how to play up TBM's importance
- Does your party still have that bestiary of Lamashtu's monsters from Book 1? The Black Magga could potentially be in there, letting the party learn her legends.
- The annis hags of the Hook Mountain Clanhold might be aware of her presence in the Storval Deep, and might have been intending to 'watch over her as she sleeps.' She is her Mother's precious Daughter, after all.
- Swap TBM for a lesser Mother of Oblivion and run the encounter as-is, providing a hint that there is an even greater threat out there.
Personally, I was very dissatisfied with how The Black Magga was introduced and used in this AP, and I created a dungeon and several recurring servants around her. If you're out of time to provide lore and hints about her before she's introduced, I think a little divine intervention (perhaps some big healing and buffs) permitting a straight fight is fine, though it may feel a little out of nowhere to your players. Ultimately, if you want the Black Magga to feel important, you're probably going to have to make her important, rather than a distraction. I think the Annis Hags are the most obvious people to do that through, but it's really about the amount of effort you want to put in here.
Hi Askar, thank you for sharing your thoughts.
1) not really, they just pissed off Lamashtu. I had a cleric of Sarenrae who has since left the party, and we still have a paladin of Iomedae. But having someone help them would of course steal some showlight from the party and...
2) this is a good point too. Having BM retreat would be better than having her killed right away somehow. Though my PCs have been pissed at all the enemies running away from them so far in the campaign lol. Maybe there is another option besides getting killed, killing the party, or retreating.
-Everyone forgot about it but I think they still have it. Yes, I could let them recognize BM from that book, that would add something.
-That makes sense, the more links the better imo.
-I'd have to think about this, it might be a good solution too, and in this case it's fine if they kill it.
Could you show a rough outline of the dungeon and servants you created?
If all else fails, I think I will just run the encounter as the AP suggests, but have her say something like "you're lucky I'm not at my full strength yet, when I recover I will show you what Lamashtu's wrath really tastes like" before retreating.
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Hey again, I'll give you some info for The Black Magga's role in my campaign.
Even imprisoned however, Alaznist was unable to truly kill Magga, and could not discern a certain method by which to gain her powers - not to mention that attempts to cut her open and bathe in her blood led to the creation of writhing horrors that devoured her researchers. Ultimately, Alaznist abandoned hope for the project soon before the Cataclysm, and left the facility abandoned, while the Black Magga's unusual resistance to divine magic rendered her invisible to those searching for her - including Lamashtu's own servants.
The remains of this facility, as well as the land above it, became what is today known as Grubber's Hermitage.
Through a mixture of clever deception and coercion, The Night Witch impersonated Gozreh for years on Grubber's Hermitage, both aiding and using the people there as a well of souls to draw upon to aid her horrible work across Varisia. However, in one of her many journeys from Grubber's Hermitage (and The Black Magga's prison), a servant of Pazuzu known as the Red Bishop appeared, and bent the townsfolk to his will - including by exposing The Night Witch for what she is.
Since then, The Night Witch has paid visits to many other monstrous servants of Lamashtu, hoping both to prepare them for a coming general (Nualia) and hoping for their aid against Pazuzu's plots on the Lost Coast. These servants include the lamia priestesses of Jorgenfist and the hag's coven at the Kreeg Clanhold.
The Black Magga's other servants are the Night Witch's changeling daughters and fellow monsters she's brought into the fold, hoping to please Lamashtu by one day freeing The Black Magga from her prison - and, ultimately, delivering the land of Varisia to Lamashtu's grasp.
This dungeon was a mid-Book 4 adventure for Level 12 characters, and culminated in 1) meeting the Black Magga and 2) discovering that, 10,000 years ago, Xaliasa was a researcher in Alaznist's army whose allegiance to Lamashtu ultimately led to his decision to free The Black Magga, though he never succeeded before the Cataclysm.
If the Black Magga survives the encounter with your party (as she's expected to), don't make it as simple as following the flood of water to find her. In her brief foray over the land, she may have had the opportunity to use her dominate person power to some effect, getting the very beginnings of a new cult established in the OPPOSITE DIRECTION of where the party needs to be headed at the time. She doesn't create pointless destruction after her encounter with the party, so hopefully they forget about her.
Later, in the Clanhold, the Annis Hags are clearly upset - with the party for injuring her, and with Lucretia for having awoken her in such an irreverent way. Perhaps with Barl as well, for providing the crew to do Lucretia's dirty work.
If you'd like to have a follow-up, set it between Book 3 and Book 4, as the party is returning to Sandpoint. She's picked people off with domination on the ferry between Pendaka and Turtleback Ferry, and now she and her mind-slaves are here to pick a real fight! And if she is truly slain, perhaps Lamashtu conjures a mighty storm in her wrath, hoping to drown the PCs for this grave insult. Terrify them! And perhaps the PCs only survive as a result of divine intervention - not in a way that steals their thunder, but in thanks for all they have done to protect the innocents of Turtleback Ferry and Pendaka.
I hope some of that is helpful. Feel free to hit me up if you want more ideas in this vein - I think the Black Magga and the cults of Lamashtu are an underdeveloped, but very fun element of RotR.
Thank you so much for writing that all out! Some very interesting ideas indeed. I particularly like the witch and how the pact made BM weaker. Sadly I don't know too much about the Red Bishop though I've seen the name pop up every now and then, and I feel that having not only Lamashtu and Karzoug but also Pazuzu as a major force would make the campaign too complicated (we also had Norgorber in book 2). I think I will also make my own servant with BM as some kind of patron using Pathfinder second edition rules as we made the switch to that edition in my campaign (maybe an evil bard with BM as their muse). I can use that servant also for another plan I had related to Xanesha:
In Riddleport, I intend to have Xanesha make plans of taking revenge on the PCs, and finding an ally in Lamashtu while being full of wrath. The servant of Lamashtu with BM as a patron would be a good candidate for finding Xanesha, who does not have a master anymore, and converting her to the worship of Lamashtu so she can act out Lamashtu's and her own desire to take revenge on the PCs.
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Gonna start running this AP in 2E. For, you know, numerous reasons I'm not super keen on running Hook Mountain Massacre as-written. Any good enemies to sub the ogres in for? Or even other modules that would fit in well as a replacement, even from other APs? I was thinking of Asylum Stone from SS, but I worry my players may end up wanting to play SS after...
I would think that you could replace the ogrekin stuff with Realm of the Fellknight Queen and link it in the the ghost.
At the actually fort, just delete the ick and make the ogres act like really big goblins.
Yep, spoilers are fine in this thread.
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So once the fortress is re-claimed, it says the party can fix the water problem. Looking at the map, the geography does not make sense.
1) It says the tunnel goes up to the ledge 120' above the fortress but how do you get to the top of the mountain? I get the impression that they are supposed to climb the rock face from the ledge to the eagle nests?
2) It shows that the whole area behind the ledge is the Valley of Broken Trees. Which is as it is described "...a dry gulch..." There definitely is no river that is providing the amount of water that could possibly feed the falls.
3) The info blurb says there is a green hag that is poisoning the water. Green hags are a marsh creature, and there is no marsh at the top of the falls. And if it is solid rock, how would she be poisoning the water to the extent that it would contaminate the water source?
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I think the Valley of Broken Trees is just that, a valley.
It is down the other side of the mountain.
Before that is the mountain spring that feeds to lake.
Maybe it bubbles up in a small marsh?
According to the map I saw, it is a solid wall of rock hundreds of feet high that runs between the back of the fortress and the southern end of The Storval Deep. Because if it is a deep valley, then how would there be that much water to create the falls and persistently provides enough running water to create the moat which connects into the Skull River?
Or, do I just chalk it up to no one was paying attention to actual geography and physics when this was written?
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Looking at the map I have, and the pictures in the AP.
The solid wall of rock behind Ranick goes up and then there are about six miles until you reach the southern end of The Storval Deep. That's plenty of room for a valley.
I don't argue the presence of the dry gulch. But would I just take GM's discretion and say there is an Artesian Spring that feeds the falls, in which case I can just say there is a marsh area at the top of the falls for the Green Hag?
question about the zombies in Mammy's room... are they realy supposed to have 55 HP each (seems kind of steep of a creature listed as CR 1/2).HA! Originally, these were ogre zombies. We changed them to ogrekin, but forgot to fix their hit points. They should have 16 hit points.
Oops! My gamers wish that I had seen this before the game last night. Sorry, fellas!
Hello again all,
My group is looking to get Hook Mountain Massacre rolling after a long break following our completion of Skinsaw Murders. We've made it upriver to Turtleback Ferry, and after some roleplay to get the PCs and players attached to the townspeople, I anticipate hitting the Strange Firepelt encounter.
I have a question about the bear trap that Kibb is caught in. This is somewhat of a basic rules question, but I could not find what I was looking for under the Aid Another section nor with some Googling here and on Reddit. The trap is described as "a DC 28 Strength check (or a DC 20 Disable Device check) is enough to spring the trap and free the firepelt."
Knowing my players, the Fighter and the Barbarian are probably going to end up trying to pry open the trap while the Druid keeps Kibb calm. Intuitively, it makes sense to me that neither the Fighter at STR 19 (+4) nor the Barbarian at STR 20 (+5) can open the trap on their own; it is a bear trap and is designed specifically to prevent one person from opening it without tools or some other mechanical advantage. However, the two of them should be able to open it by working together. I could just hand-wave it and say they succeed with some effort and time, but I want them to feel the time pressure of Rukus and his hounds drawing near, and maybe force them to choose between readying for combat and freeing Kibb, so how do I translate this into a dice-rolling mechanic?
Aid another only gives a +2 advantage to the check, so they would not make it unless I also rule that a natural 20 rolled by the Barbarian (20+5+2) is an automatic success. Is there a better way to go about this, or something in the Rules as Written I am just not finding? If I let each of them roll and add their bonus, it becomes 2d20+9 to beat 28, and there's a decent chance they don't succeed on the first roll or two, setting up the arrival of the hounds.
Any advice? Thanks.