What are your suggestions for Divided's Ire?


Savage Tide Adventure Path


The party just approached the island. What advice do you have for me?

I know I need to augment the existing encounters and have read other threads on that topic and taken notes on what has been discussed. But what about any concerns/challenges with the structure of the existing encounters, their descriptions, or other areas?

For example, I found some of the room descriptions confusing and wondered why there are two shades/color patterns on the map for interior rooms?

FYI

The players are smart and heavy tactical thinkers. They have 6 PCs (all at 17th) and 3 followers, the Blue Nixie (long story) and a full complement of crew.

Generally speaking they are well buffed and well armed and play smart. After extensive dealings with both devils and demons, they are in little mood for negotiations or general diplomacy. They recognize this is a jail break and feel confident in their strength.

They include a straight wizard, a warlock, a cleric, Jakara (totemic demon slayer from earlier), a Barbarian-Ranger, and a binder.


If I ran this again, I'd add more chaos. Rowing packs of demons under no-ones command. Random eruptions that rain hot magma on the bridges with a few rounds warning. The way I ran it, it felt almost deserted.

of course, doing this might make it too protracted a slugfest for a party like yours for mine, who are very good at sneaking, it would probably just have been flavor.


Could you share a link for those topics where the discussion is for changing encounters?

My party just entered and finished the fight with Vrocks and Lemorian golem. A totally dull and pointless fight since Vrocks couldn't challenge a party AT ALL. Bunch of low CR creeps can't do absolutely anything to a high lvl party, so I'll just remove the remaining Hezrous and put an advanced Marut as a prisoner, who will attack them as soon as they release him, since everyone of them got resurrected at least 3 times and thus are eglible targets for a Marut. And they're loaded with Holy/Evil Outsider Bane weaponry, so a change would do them good.


Erevis Cale wrote:

Could you share a link for those topics where the discussion is for changing encounters?

My party just entered and finished the fight with Vrocks and Lemorian golem. A totally dull and pointless fight since Vrocks couldn't challenge a party AT ALL. Bunch of low CR creeps can't do absolutely anything to a high lvl party, so I'll just remove the remaining Hezrous and put an advanced Marut as a prisoner, who will attack them as soon as they release him, since everyone of them got resurrected at least 3 times and thus are eglible targets for a Marut. And they're loaded with Holy/Evil Outsider Bane weaponry, so a change would do them good.

What about the Dance of Ruin by the Vrocks? Wouldn't that have some impact?

I thought about increasing the number of Vrocks.


Island size and descriptions appear at odds

1. Page 57 (Dungeon, June 2007) - Description of Paradise Island

"Other monsters, like fiendish dinosaurs, fiendish dire animals, retrievers, and demons of all types dwell in these jungles. If the PCs spend too much time here, feel free to have them encounter some of these deadly denizens."

The island is only about 1,000 x 1,500 feet of wooded area - that's not much at all, and certainly too small for that description of potential encounters.

2. Page 59 (Dungeon, June 2007) - Description of Prison Air Quality

"The air outside of the prison within a mile radius of Divided's Ire is foul and toxic. Each minute the characters remain outside, they must succeed on a DC 15 Fortitude save against inhaled poison ..."

Again, the combination of the two islands, all of Divided Ire, is small. The inset map doesn't show a mile radius from the center.

This makes me think that the islands might have been bigger and then scaled back in editing?

What do you think?


JustTim wrote:
Erevis Cale wrote:

Could you share a link for those topics where the discussion is for changing encounters?

My party just entered and finished the fight with Vrocks and Lemorian golem. A totally dull and pointless fight since Vrocks couldn't challenge a party AT ALL. Bunch of low CR creeps can't do absolutely anything to a high lvl party, so I'll just remove the remaining Hezrous and put an advanced Marut as a prisoner, who will attack them as soon as they release him, since everyone of them got resurrected at least 3 times and thus are eglible targets for a Marut. And they're loaded with Holy/Evil Outsider Bane weaponry, so a change would do them good.

What about the Dance of Ruin by the Vrocks? Wouldn't that have some impact?

I thought about increasing the number of Vrocks.

Do you seriously think that killing a couple of Vrocks in 3 rounds is beyond the scope of a party of 16th lvl adventurers?

And Dance of Ruin has a DC of 18. So even if Vrocks manage to pull off DoR, it means they just spent 3 rounds doing 35 dmg.

I stopped throwing cannon fodder at my party long ago (especially creatures that they already fought), because:
1) there are many of them, meaning combat will get lengthy and difficult to manage
2) players find it boring

So when I want to challenge my party I calculate how much XP would they get, and find something of higher level, intresting and challenging.


Erevis Cale wrote:

Do you seriously think that killing a couple of Vrocks in 3 rounds is beyond the scope of a party of 16th lvl adventurers?

And Dance of Ruin has a DC of 18. So even if Vrocks manage to pull off DoR, it means they just spent 3 rounds doing 35 dmg.

I understand your concerns but am taking a different approach. There are, after all, as written, 16 vrocks (8 on patrol, and 8 in the rookery). I am changing that to two sets of 9 configured as follows:

4 x 10hd (standard MM stats)
4 x 20hd (advanced per MM)
1 x 30hd (advanced per MM)

This means the Dance of Ruin goes from DC18 (10hd) to DC 23 (20hd).
The Spores do amazing automatic damage.
Then the Stunning Screech goes from DC17 (10hd) to DC 27 (20hd) to DC 32 (30hd).


Advancing the Lemorian Golem from Huge (30 Hit Dice) to Gargantuan (36 Hit Dice).

I found some anomalies in the makeup of the Lemorian Golem when I decided to advance it. Specifically:

1. Skill Points - Constructs, if they have Intelligence, only get 1 skill point per level + Intelligence modifier, and quadruple that at first level. The Lemorian Golem, unlike most constructs, has a reasonable intelligence of 11. That means 3+HD for skill points. The first one was 12 HD with 15 skill points, yet it showed Listen, Spot, and Climb as all at 16. The second one (in Divide Ire), has a similar problem.

2. Ability Scores
a. Strength - The Huge (30HD) Lemorian Golem shows an increase in Strength of 10 from the Large (12HD) Lemorian Golem. MM shows this increase in size as only +8 strength - oh well, at least the adjustments based on this are correct.
b. Dexterity - Advancing from Large to Huge should cause Dexterity to lower by 2, but that doesn't happen to the ability scores, either.

3. Saving Throws - the Saves for the Huge (30HD) Lemorian Golem are incorrect - they should be Fort +12, Ref +12, and Will +11. Constructs have poor saves which equate to (HIT DICE div 3), so:
a. Fortitude = 30 HD / 3 or ... +10 combined with Greater Fortitude Feat (+2) for +12. No con bonus as constructs don't have a Con score.
b. Reflex = 30 HD / 3 or ... +10 combined with Dex 14 so +2 mod means +12.
c. Will = 30 HD /3 or ... +10 combined with Wis 12 or +1 mod means +11.

4. Flat Footed AC - for 30 HD Lemorian Golem should be 25 (not 27 as appears in the stat block):
-2 AC for Size
+2 AC for Dexterity
+17 Natural dexterity (+14 base with +3 added with size increase)
BASE AC = 27 (matches stat block)
TOUCH AC = 10+DEX+SIZE = 10+2-2=10 (matches stat block)
FLAT FOOTED AC = 10+NATURAL+SIZE=10+17-2=25 (stat block shows 27; left out size modifier).


Lemorian Golem (Divided's Ire) at 36 HD (Gargantuan) has these altered stats:

AC 29 (-4 size, +2 dex, +21 natural), Touch 8, Flat Footed 27
HP 294 (36d10,+60 construct size, +36 Improved Toughness Feat)
SAVES Fort +14, Ref +14, Will +13
BAB/GRAPPLE +26/+55
MELEE 4 Tentacles 4d6+17+2 vile (3d6 - size, 1d6 Improved Natural Attack; +17 from 44 STR; +2 vile from 2 Vile Natural Attack feats)
ATTACK +41 (BAB+26, STR+17, Size-3, Wpn Focus+1)

FEATS
12 HD (published) grants 5 feats
1. Ability Focus (howl)
2. Combat Reflexes
3. Improved Critical (Tentacle)
4. Improved Initiative
5. Weapon Focus (Tentacle)
30 HD (published) grants 6 additional feats (11 total)
6. Cleave
7. Great Cleave
8. Improved Natural Attack (Tentacle)
9. Improved Toughness
10. Greater Fortitude
11. Power Attack
36 HD (published here) grants 2 additional feats (13 total)
12. Vile Natural Attack (1st instance)
13. Vile Natural Attack (2nd instance)

In addition, for the special attacks:

1. Howl DC 28
2. Rot DC 28
3. Constrict goes to 3d6+25

Final note - from 2x2 5' squares with 10' reach to 3x3 with corresponding 15' reach (so no overlight of it in the 30' high ceilings (15' high + 15' reach).


As you can see from these posts, I've decided what to do for some of S'Sharra's area:

1. Vrocks advanced and added 1 to each group
2. Lemorian Golem advanced

I still need to think about S'Sharra. I'm thinking of advancing her in Blackguard from 4 to 6 for some of the additional abilities, and then considering either additional limited classing in either Mortal Hunter (BoVD), Ranger (hunter), Barbarian (chaos element), or Sorceror.

I have other ideas for additional areas but tomorrow will be the S'Sharra work. We game on Thursday and I need to complete the Pleasure half by then (so over the next two nights).


Finally, some thoughts on atmosphere:

Spoiler:
1. Per adventure, Abyss imposes -2 CHA checks on all Good and Lawful creatures (-4 for LG). That will hurt any dispel work against undead, among other things.

2. Forbiddance is in effect which will prevent Good Summoned creatures from being employed by the PCs, a common strategy that buys them time.

3. Outside air quality will have a DC 15 Fort (D6 Wisdom/2D6 CON effect) although Heroes Feast will probably prevent this.

4. Sympathy effect in prison (DC 28 Will) comes into play, especially if the party believes they need to retreat.

5. Doors offer poison DC 18 Fort (D4 Wis/D4 Wis; addiction threat) but again Heroes Feast will probably prevent this one, too, until it is dispelled.

6. I am adding an Unhallow over the complex (per BoVD description of a Great & Powerful Malevolence site on page 36) so:
a. magic circle vs good means all have +2 to AC, +2 resist Saves
b. -4 turning undead check
c. Death Ward in effect for all direct DemoGorgon workers (old staff, S'Sharra)
d. 1d4 round local dispel if successful Dispel Magic DC 25 (again per BoVD)

7. I am also adding a Desecrate over the complex (only natural, really, I am surprised it wasn't included) so:
a. -6 Charisma check for turning undead (it is all really adding up now)
b. +2 profane bonus to all Undead attack, damage, saving throws
c. +2 Hit Points per Hit Dice for all undead
d. 1d4 round local dispel if successful Dispel Magic DC 25 (like Unhallow)

8. Outside I am adding, per BoVD, rain of blood
a. Will Save DC 20 or -1 to morale for 24 hours

All of this adds up (both to include buffing up Vanthus and his cohorts as well as weakening the party. Turtling will be hard in this scenario.


to me, played well, S'Sharra is strong. I have 5 optimized players (without cohorts) and i think that, with right tactics, she will give more than a headache to my players. ;)

i think you are right about the vrocks and lemorian golem.
augmenting the monster and/or changing the spells and/or the feats can give a good fight to the player's.

ps: tim, your atmospher is great ;)


PCs just successfully defeated the 36 HD Gargantuan Lemorian Golem and the party of 9 Vrocks (1 30HD, 4 20 HD, 4 10 HD). Innovative strategy applied by them, and no PC deaths, and they are far from depleted. But the augmented creatures definitely made the fight more interesting.

It is just entering round 7:

Rounds 1-3 Lemorian Golem
Rounds 4-6 Vrocks (they were scheduled for top of round 4 and that was just when the golem was defeated).
Round 7 (they will start next session)
-they face S'Sharra who had just cast a targeted greater dispel magic on the 17th level wizard who was currently shapechanged into a 12-headed hydra. Her targeted dispel ended Hero's Feast, Resist Fire (30), Fly, and ShapeChange.
-PCs recognized that besides the Vrocks they were finishing, someone else was around so a Purge Invisibility by the Cleric didn't work since she was outside the range (barely).
-The warlock was close enough and with his day-long see invisibility, saw her after a full round search, used a quickened invocation to target her (fizzled against her SR), and shouted a warning to the party.
-The Swashbuckler charged to the general area where the invocation fizzled out, picked the wrong spot, so missed. (S'Sharra has Greater Invisibility on).

It will be an interesting fight.


Shouldn't the Lemorian Golem get 1.5 time strength bonus on the tentacle attacks since they are all primary (note: some creatures can have 2 natural weapons as primary; this golem, with two heads and four tentacles, has all four as primary) and it has no secondary weapons?

The build in the earlier installment didn't include it, and the build in this installed (Into the Maw) didn't include it. Why not, or was this a mistake?

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