|
All spoilers, since it involves the end game of Seven Days to the Grave.
So my group is composed of the following:
Aaron - Human Monk 6
Capziellys - Elf Scout 3/Ranger 3
Kail - Human Swashbuckler 2/Fighter 4
Silvanus - Human Illusionist 6
Waydon - Half-Orc Druid 6
They have fought their way through the Temple of Urgathoa, pausing only briefly for 15 minutes to let Sil prepare a spell in one of his blank spaces. They rescued the prisoners, negotiated with Ramoska, and then hit the Leukodaemon room.
They fought off the cultists, but weren't able to stop the last one from smashing and nearly destroying the daemon's tube. I ruled that just breaching the integrity was all that was needed to destroy the spell, so after a full round of no combat (gave them some time to prepare), I had the daemon bust out. Needless to say, they had to flee pretty quickly. With DR 10/good and SR, and them nearly out of spells and low on HP, they couldn't take it. Waydon was killed by a nasty arrow crit on the way out, while the rest fled to the surface.
After reincarnating Waydon (in the form of an Elf, to his sadness), they headed back down to the Temple. It had been over an hour now, so I had to think about what happened. When they first burst into the Temple, they set off the alarm spell but moved rather quickly, so I hadn't had the Grey Maidens guarding G2 pick up on them (it says Physicians in one spot and Maidens in another, so I assumed Maidens), and besides the daemon and Lady Andaisin, they were all that was left. As the daemon didn't really have a way out of the Temple, and neither did Lady A, I had to wonder. As Lady A cast a lot of her short term buffs when she heard combat in the next room, those had worn off. Of course, she would go look for the party, but the daemon had broken free and was also wandering around.
I decided that she wouldn't try to take it herself until she was certain that the party was dead or not coming back, so I had her wait in the eastern-most rooms while the daemon went rampaging west. When the party returned, they came back to a gruesome sight of dead and diseased Grey Maidens torn up and beneath the daemon. Thankfully, they chose wisely to purchase a lot of Bless Weapon oils and quickly applied those before rushing into battle, to much better success.
Here come my two questions, as we left off right after the battle.
1. Lady A has most of her short term buffs gone, and possibly some of her long term ones (it's been probably 90 minutes or so since the party first set off the alarm and she cast them). What would she do? Would she try to attack the party right after they finished off the daemon? Would she have been waiting in the wings for this? Maybe retreat back to her 'sanctuary' and await their coming? Her whole temple has been destroyed, Rolth killed, Ramoska left. What would she do?
2. Secondly, I'm having second thoughts about Reincarnate. I was always able to accept the lack of racial choice as part of the price to pay for such a cheap 'raising', but I dislike a few things about it. Rolling a race with both a physical bonus and penalty is much worse than rolling a race with just a physical bonus, with the way the races work now. Rolling an elf, it meant that not only did he lose his +2 to str from being a half-orc, but he gained a +2 bonus to Dex AND a -2 bonus to Con. Add to that that he was already pretty depressed that he wasn't a half-orc anymore, and I was feeling pretty bad for the guy.
I'm wondering if, in the matter of racial bonuses, that what is given or taken away should never remove the total +2/+2/-2 rule (or just +2). So in the case of the Elf, maybe he loses his +2 to Str and gains a +2 to Dex instead, but doesn't get the -2 Con. It just feels pretty crappy that he could have ended up even, but now he has +2/+2/-2/-2.
I dunno, does anyone have any good house rules they use for Reincarnate? Obviously it should never be as good as Raise Dead because of how cheap it is, but I think the races rolled need to be better evened out.
Thanks!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I can tackle the first question...
While I'm usually all about NPCs having dynamic responses to events unforseen by the adventure, in this case Andaisin probably doesn't do a thing. Shes a fanatic. She's in good with her goddess and she knows it. Once she hears that alarm and casts her spells she likely kneels to pray and doesn't stop for the next hour. About the time her spells wear off she's probably like "Hey, where's my big test of faith," goes out, sees the daemon, and is like "Oh, it's still coming" and goes back to wait. She likely sees this all as a test of her perverse piety and if that tests sees her confronting a group of do-gooders without the benefit s of her magic, that's simply as Urgathoa wishes it. So really, I'd say do nothing and just run the encounters as presented--without Andaisin's buffs. Kind of a surprising accidental tactic on the PCs' end, but it might make the final encounter a good deal easier... at least at first.
I dunno, does anyone have any good house rules they use for Reincarnate? Obviously it should never be as good as Raise Dead because of how cheap it is, but I think the races rolled need to be better evened out.
I would return the prior minus if you're deducting the prior bonuses of the race before death. Clean the slate, so to speak, then apply the new bonuses/penalties of the reincarnated race. That would feel the most fair to me :)
|
|
Thanks for the advice Wes, I think that's what I was leaning towards. She seems to be the 'play it patient' type and does have that ego to go with her piety, so waiting for the heroes seems fine.
As for Reincarnation, the problem is the whole 'only affects physical traits' thing. The 'by the book' way is to have him keep his +2 Wis, -2 Int, and lose his +2 Str. Then he would also gain the +2 Dex and -2 Con from the Elf, leaving him with +2 Dex, +2 Wis, -2 Con, -2 Int. If I had him drop the -2 Int but keep the -2 Con, then why not go all the way and drop the +2 Wis and replace it with the elves +2 Int? Man that'd be a change of pace.
I'm currently leaning towards keeping the modifiers even at +2/+2/-2, but with as little change as possible. So, since he only had one Physical bonus before and no penalties, it seems easiest to get rid of said bonus and replace it with the Dex bonus.
Any other ideas?