Run through 4 books of LoF (spoiled a lot)


Legacy of Fire


Alright so here's our party (we call it the "pretty rich party"):

male Half Orc Paladin (mounted combat build)
Female Halfling Bard (whip user, generally uses maneuvers)
Female Human Fighter (collegiate fighter alt rules, Falcata user, average stats (4 x 14's and a 16 to start) lots of skills)
Female Human Druid/Sorcerer/Arcane Hirophant (adjusted prestige class -- Poor BAB/HD, 2+ Int skills, not plant/animal channeling -- everything else is there)

Our Fighter took the charming and Looking for adventure traits, while everyone else took Rich Parents (in the case of the Hirophant it is actually Haleen that left her well off before she disappeared).

The paladin has been spreading the faith along with his seed as much as possible (the party for the most part ignores his antics) who's horse is named miracle -- he's a bit slow in the common sense department, but a strong hitter.

The bard is the primary target of the paladin's antics and ignores/derides him constantly. She is quick with both the buffing and the trips/tangle foot bags (which she has amazing luck with) and such. If it does a status effect she'll generally use it. She also got mold speaker.

The fighter tends to be simple in her pleasures and sticks near the druid mostly. She hits as hard if not harder than the paladin usually and has surprised many with her constant use of abilities that are typically "not fighter" she has excellent skill use and a good will save as well.

The Druid/sorcerer was built before the APG stuff came out as a "witch" of sorts. This is my character actually, and she would rather be a homebody running a fortune telling/ curio shop if it wasn't for Haleen running off all the time and her home being threatened. She's mouthy to everyone and doesn't have much tuck with authority, while trafficking in poisons, spirits, alchemy, and fortune telling regularly. She is originally from the area the Witch Queen has conquered -- supposedly a distant relative too -- her family left after she told her parents about meeting a dark man on a horse once. She met Haleen later and is confused by her more than anything. She sticks near the fighter because she reminds her of Haleen and they have taken a house together in the new town.

**********

Now on to the story:

Book 1:

Okay I hate pagawmis. No not because they are a "nuisance" but because they are horrible monster design. A CR 1/2 should never have DR, SR, shatter and an unluck aura all at once -- it's just stupid.

Beyond that:
Book 1.
We cleared out the monastery easily enough: The earlier pagwami's in the room with the sharp stuff were a bit of a problem (BTW, the poisonous snake as an AC is a bad choice) but a quick bluff by the bard got them to come out where they were easily killed -- at the same time the fighter walked past the baboons and drew them out. Two of them were convinced to back down by the druid one wailed on the fighter while the other was dropped quickly. The fact that there were several strength 20+ creatures in the first area of the dungeon surprised me since they were quite capable of delivering a TPK by themselves with little warning. We missed the bird the first time through and after leveling ended up going against the king. Quite frankly I was both disappointed and dismayed by the... lack of forethought in this encounter (indeed in the first part of this book). Even without the unluck Aura the king had quite the AC which was all the more frustrating due to the aura. he ended up surrounded while we spent round after round simply trying to hit him -- he couldn't really hit us either but that was little conciliation. After he finally died and we got the whip everyone moved in and we continued on. Quick note between wild empathy and a well timed cause fear spell we chased the bird off with no problems too, but left that area and the nest allow after that.

We ended up doing the old Temple of Nethys next (yeah after we were done the DM told us that he was afraid we were going to die doing it). It went very well for us honestly -- we found the secret back door underground first and fought the weretiger before anything else. He went down to a tangle foot back and actually managed to get stuck (natural 1 on the dice) and failed to get out -- the fighter and paladin both had pole arms with them and used those to kill the thing quickly. In the end we took no damage from that encounter though this was due completely to luck and good tactics. The rest of the area was fairly easy and we went on to the city. After making friends with the harpy and killing the Hecuva (the druid stopped the paladin for falling for the trap with a "Hey stupid -- do you really think the gnolls are just going to leave a priest of serenrae alone around here?"). The goblin that came out got his pants set on fire and we chased him back in -- we weren't attacked immediately because the creature inside thought the goblin with his pants on fire was absolutely the funniest thing they had seen (the druid did this) -- we ended up clearing out the dome easily enough (Haleen helped) and against the advice of the druid went to take on the demon.

The temple went quickly enough and we opened the door to the demon. First off I found the idea of simply straight up confusing the whole party before they even have a chance to engage as potentially TPK material -- bad idea for a first book even if it is the last boss fight in the book. We however made our saves and ignored the illusion (it didn't help that the druid who was taking care of the prisoner had a medically necessary surgery in the middle of the night -- seems the prisoner needed his heart opened up completely to relieve the pressure there and he didn't survive -- yes success was made on that bluff check!). The bug took damage quickly and almost escaped out the door -- but the druid/sorcerer hit the door with the open/close cantrip and the door closed buying the party the time it needed to finish the monster off.

Thus ends the first book.

Second Book:
So we travel up the lava tubes into the bottom of the House of the Beast. The fighter's player was absent and my son rolled for the fighter that night -- out of 12 attacks he confirmed 11 critical hits with the GM's dice -- this made for a great night for us. We ended up retreating out part of the way through out of paranoia and did a head on assault two days later -- but before that the druid charmed the giant spider and had it attack the gnolls (the druid has taken the vermin heart feat).

Quick note here: After going through 3 snakes as animal companions I decided to go with a boar next. This has been a wildly successful move for me. The boar has been our tank since then using light armor proficiency and its gore (with improved natural weapon later) with power attack to great success. In some ways he easily made up for the druid/sorcerer's lack of over all spell power very well.

The rest of the temple was honestly a cake walk. We crawled that dungeon with a fine toothed comb and even had a fairly easy time in the crypt beneath it. I believe a lot of this was great tactics by us, and the fact that we set our own pace too. We didn't rush ourselves and didn't bite off more than we could take at any point.

So ends the second book.

Third book:
Right so we go back to Katapesh, spend some time shopping, free some slaves, and get attacked in the middle of the night. After the druid got done harassing the pactmaster's lackeys and scoffing at their inability to keep the law in their town the party threw a box into the water then went and found a mage that teleported us straight to our kidnapped friend. Good for us bad for everyone else -- we made a deal with a captain and had the thing kill the jackel lord for us. Clearing out the warehouse proved easy after that and we continued back to the house to open the scroll for ourselves (we didn't want to sell it anyways). In the prison we had met a girl that the wizard seemed to like -- turns out it was the genie from the second book and he followed us into the scroll, at which point he promptly got a pineapple inserted in him by the paladin (at the end of a lance).

So ends book three.

Book Four:
Right so the hydra didn't do much and the druid used wild shape to find the goat we were after. It did manage to stone the druid but dropped soon after. Collecting the plates and horns we travelled to the snake things and had a talk with them. They turned the paladin into a turtle for being obnoxious and we left to find the few people still around to offer them the chance to escape. The town at the base of the spire was empty but we found the ore, and the smithy gave everything to us for free, after the druid said, "well if you are going to stay and be dissolved anyways why charge for it?" The cat joined up with the fighter and the dragon stayed behind as well. The jinn at the pleasure palace were happy to have a chance to leave.

Then we got to the earth guy. We got him to come out to talk with us by telling his servant, "Look we are going to dissolve this world anyways, we just want to give him a chance to leave". When the earth person came out the bard made a 40 on her diplomacy check to get him to hear us out. This was followed by a 38 diplo check and a 40 diplo check (her dice were hot that night 20, 18, 20 were her rolls) and he sent us to talk with the snake people again. When we got to them they wanted to know why they could trust the would be king to which the druid replied, "Well just hear him out -- if you don't like what he says just turn him into a turtle and we'll have some soup before we leave." Got a 38 on my diplo check and after a few more we went back to tell the earth guy that the deal was on. He took us down to the crystal and BOOM we were out of the scroll... in a very hot place (to be continued this friday).

********************************************

My thoughts over all:

Book 1 started poorly, and had an odd point for an end boss -- but worked over all. I did not like the set piece dagger but it was well handled over all IMO. Pagwamiis are bad design though.

Book 2: Standard dungeon crawl and well done. It could have been a bit more over all but I liked it. The rewards were good.

Book 3: We kind of glossed over much of this book -- it was a bad time of the year overall for the game (around the holidays) but it was very enjoyable. Several unique points and plenty of room for the players to handle things how they want too -- I liked a lot.

Book 4: Buddy this was great. Plenty to see and do with lots of ways to go about things. Normally I would be miffed with pocket dimension followed by planar travel, with a distant dungeon before all this but it's worked out pretty well so far.


On Pugwampis: you seem to be giving them more credit than they deserve. Consider the actual statistics of the Pug; SR 7, DR 2, and AC 13. Before unluck aura, a standard caster has a 75% chance of punching the SR, a standard fighter type has a 60% or better chance to hit AC, and most attacks will deal more than 2 damage per hit. Without unluck, a pugwampis (or even 4 such) would be a quick hit to kill, maybe two. They've only got 3 hit points. With unluck, it makes them interesting. In truth, the dangerous parts of these encounters aren't the pugs themselves, but the environmental hazards in each fight.

Book One overall: the boss location works fine, the indict seal in particular being a nice addition to keep low level folks out of Xulthos' lair until they're ready to fight him. As long as Almah is the players' boss, the hook to fight Xulthos will work fine.

Better the TPKs happen early in the game than late in the campaign. An early wipe means not much is lost in story, a late death can be a campaign breaker, and even when the GM is skilled enough to tie the new characters to the game, the entirely feels disjointed.


Quote:
Female Human Fighter (collegiate fighter alt rules, Falcata user, average stats (4 x 14's and a 16 to start) lots of skills)

This part bugs me... How is 25 point buy AVERAGE?


Abraham spalding wrote:
Even without the unluck Aura the king had quite the AC which was all the more frustrating due to the aura. he ended up surrounded while we spent round after round simply trying to hit him -- he couldn't really hit us either but that was little conciliation.

When I DMed this encounter my party had a similar experience. Although our Bard was able to take him below 50% hp in one hit (critical with Magic Stoned sling bullet from the Druid), it took the rest of the party surrounding him and aiding the Fighter (that's +10 to hit, not to mention buffs) a good 10 rounds to get the last few hits in. All the while the King kept missing himself and I was tempted to end the battle with a "OK guys, eventually you wear him down and [fighter] gives him a death blow. Good job!"


The trick, as it were, in fighting the pug chief is to have your melee combatants use combat maneuvers (disarm, trip, grapple) to remove the chief's capacity to harm party members while issuing a debuff and, in the case of grapple, deal damage as well. Yes, if the players retain poor combat tactics and think everything is going to be a melee smash cakewalk, they'll get their rear ends handed to them. Use some of the combat maneuvers, and the chief is easy street.


Erevis Cale wrote:
Quote:
Female Human Fighter (collegiate fighter alt rules, Falcata user, average stats (4 x 14's and a 16 to start) lots of skills)
This part bugs me... How is 25 point buy AVERAGE?

Average as in "Doesn't have any 18's or 20's", not as in "We used the average point buy". We used 25 point buy for this campaign.

To Ryzoken:

The trick is to not put such badly designed creatures in a game. Combat Maneuvers won't be much better since you still have to roll twice for each maneuver -- and at those low levels each attempt (to grapple) is going to provoke until you actually grapple him.

As noted we were not getting hit by him -- that wasn't the issue -- the issue was the stupid 10 rounds it took to kill him while he was sitting there being ineffectual. Even the DM was getting frustrated at the inanity of it.

Yes lets consider the Pugs:

SR 7: Means a 30% chance of failing + if you do succeed another 30% chance of failing -- this translates into a 48% failure rate for spells (30%+30% of 60) inside of the aura.

The fighter has a 60% chance to hit -- minus the reroll which means only a 42% chance to actually hit -- any hit he does make subtracts 2 from the damage too.

Yes without the unluck aura they would be quick to kill they are supposed to be quick to kill they are CR 1/2! IF they were CR 1 then yeah maybe a bit tricky -- but these buggers should be able to be killed by a commoner based on their CR. Which means the designer screwed up.

Now to the boss fight:

The druid didn't want to mess with a demon that was so powerful that people that were supposedly better than the party couldn't handle it. It was a common sense issue -- however beyond the confusion upfront when you come in there wasn't too much problem with the fight over all. Some of the abilities seemed a bit much but in the end we cleared him in... 4 rounds I think. The bard did manage to get off a sound burst that the demon failed against which gave us one free round to wail on him -- this was good as if he had focused on attacking one opponent at a time he would have dropped the paladin the first round, the fighter the second following with the bard and druid/sorcerer. As it was he spread out his attacks and got caught with some full attacks due to the failed save throw.

I'm not saying the hook is bad -- I'm saying part of the design to the encounter was bad -- if you are planning for 6 books a damn good chance at a TPK in the first book doesn't inspire competence in your ability to keep things good later on in the series -- it suggests you don't really have a feel for what you are doing.

All in all I've found that since the first book we've had a very easy time -- part of that is unorthodox tactics I think and part of it has been some serious luck (like the boy rolling so many critical hits in the house of the beast or making all those Diplo checks in book 4).


Quote:
SR 7: Means a 30% chance of failing + if you do succeed another 30% chance of failing -- this translates into a 48% failure rate for spells (30%+30% of 60) inside of the aura.

Move outside of the aura. Even the short range spells at lvl 1 have range of 25 feet, I don't really see the problem.

Sounds to me, you were just using bad tactics.

When I played LoF, Pugwampis were hilariously annoying and after our monk grappled their king, he was down in 2 rounds.


Erevis Cale wrote:
Quote:
SR 7: Means a 30% chance of failing + if you do succeed another 30% chance of failing -- this translates into a 48% failure rate for spells (30%+30% of 60) inside of the aura.

Move outside of the aura. Even the short range spells at lvl 1 have range of 25 feet, I don't really see the problem.

Sounds to me, you were just using bad tactics.

When I played LoF, Pugwampis were hilariously annoying and after our monk grappled their king, he was down in 2 rounds.

I'm not saying it's not possible to deal with -- however anyone in melee is going to have to constantly reroll any d20 roll they make (indeed the fighter was a bit lucky to not lose a weapon to shatter -- even with a +4 to her will save she had a 48% chance of losing it) including those grapple checks. I would return your question of my tactics (please note I only said how we ended up beating the king -- after we were out of spells because he had already handled several other fights getting to him) with a questioning of your understanding of grapple.

Also please note that with the king the entire room was supposed to be affected by the unluck aura -- moving out wasn't really an option unless you could draw him out of the room.

All in all I'm not saying the pugs were not capable of being handled -- I'm saying they were rated badly in the CR system.

Here's a question for you: Would you let a wizard summon one with a summon monster level 1 spell?

If not then it's not really a CR 1/2.

My final point about them -- how funny would they have been if it was your character that had his weapon shattered and hadn't hit anything in 9 rounds? IF a GM actually tries to use these creatures to even a moderate extent they could TPK a party.


Quote:
Also please note that with the king the entire room was supposed to be affected by the unluck aura -- moving out wasn't really an option unless you could draw him out of the room.

With a bunch of Pugwampis, yes. But if it was only the king, then the radius is 20 feet around him. And the room's length is 100 ft. and the width 80. I'd say there's plenty of room not to be in the 20 ft. radius.

Quote:
Here's a question for you: Would you let a wizard summon one with a summon monster level 1 spell?

Sure I would. Their Unluck aura affects EVERYONE that's not a gnoll, pugwampi or animal, so if they're willing to potentially reroll every d20 in campaign with lots of gnolls, go ahead.

Quote:
My final point about them -- how funny would they have been if it was your character that had his weapon shattered and hadn't hit anything in 9 rounds?

That's what exactly what happened to my Rogue witih a Shortbow. Then I pulled out a short sword, which got shattered too. Then I pulled out one of 6 daggers I had on me. Every adventurer should have more than one weapon, precisely for that reason. I carry around 5 usually (one slashing, one piercing, one bludgeoning, one ranged and one throwing).

Quote:

IF a GM actually tries to use these creatures to even a moderate extent they could TPK a party.

TPK... with their +3 attack rolls and 1 dmg per hit? Lol?

They're just annoying (and they should be), not dangerous (thus CR 1/2). It's not the designers fault you had only one weapon on you or you had bad luck with rolls.


Erevis Cale wrote:


Quote:
Here's a question for you: Would you let a wizard summon one with a summon monster level 1 spell?

Sure I would. Their Unluck aura affects EVERYONE that's not a gnoll, pugwampi or animal, so if they're willing to potentially reroll every d20 in campaign with lots of gnolls, go ahead.

They're just annoying (and they should be), not dangerous (thus CR 1/2). It's not the designers fault you had only one weapon on you or you had bad luck with rolls.

First point:

And in a campaign without a lot of gnolls? Say I want to use them in RoTRl or kingmaker? Still good?

We had multiple weapons -- and we aren't just talking about "bad luck" we are talking about wasting stuff on an almost 1/2 the time basis -- I'm sorry you have such great luck and can't roll below a 9. It seems to have addled your math skills.

Yes I am willing to say I could kill a party with base pugs if I gave it half a chance and it wouldn't even be difficult especially at level 1.


Actually pugwampis would be fine if they didn't have the shatter ability.

Very few hit points and not much offensive power but very difficult to harm. This in combination with strange terrain makes for very memorable and interesting battles even from the first level.

The shatter ability especially considering you have to save twice in the unluck aura is beyond annoying, its discouraging.

All that said my players had a hell of fun fighting them. Though they did complain they were underCRed.

The battle in the chapel was Epic, as they consumed all their healing potions, I refrained from using shatter and they got very very lucky in their attacks to the King.

By the way the I think the attack modifier of the King isn't +1 as printed but +6 due to his weapon finesse feat not factored in (so he should have hit you more often).


Quote:
By the way the I think the attack modifier of the King isn't +1 as printed but +6 due to his weapon finesse feat not factored in (so he should have hit you more often).

Weapon Finesse is a one-handed melee weapon. You can use Weapon Finesse only with light weapons. Also since he's using a small warhammer (and he should be using a tiny one), so he should also have a -2 penalty, making his chances of hitting even worse.

Quote:
And in a campaign without a lot of gnolls? Say I want to use them in RoTRl or kingmaker? Still good?

Dude, their Unluck aura also affects you, why would you want to summon them?

Quote:
Yes I am willing to say I could kill a party with base pugs if I gave it half a chance and it wouldn't even be difficult especially at level 1.

A party of 4 wizards with 8 con, probably. If we presume that average 5 player party has about 45 hp in total (my players have even more, but they don't have a wizard) it would take them a long, long time, even if we assume they will hit every time (which they won't). God forbid if they have any healing (and they do).

I'm sorry you had a bad time against them as a player, but if you look at the messageboards, you'll see that there's a bunch of topics dedicated to Pugwampis, just because they're fun.


I didn't honestly have a bad time -- I simply think they are badly designed for all the above reasons (at least at their CR). Please note that if you give the pugs any type of terrain to work with then not closing with them is a losing prospect too. I see plenty of topics yes -- and plenty of those posting agree with me as well.


You are right of course Erevis, "how could I possibly not have seen that" .

Abraham it would be interesting to see how your party does in the final two paths. I have the impression that both of them are much more dangerous than the third or the fourth one. Watch out :).

Dark Archive

John John wrote:

You are right of course Erevis, "how could I possibly not have seen that" .

Abraham it would be interesting to see how your party does in the final two paths. I have the impression that both of them are much more dangerous than the third or the fourth one. Watch out :).

and boy am i lookgin foreward to that fact!


Ok I've gone over the basics of what we've been through and what I didn't like -- now I'll cover what I have liked:

I do like the basic premise of the AP, and I enjoyed the hecuva (pissed off the DM when I called it just from seeing the picture -- didn't even mean to) the harpy alchemist was a nice touch and honestly the cursed magical items in the temple were a good point too. The temple of Nethys was enjoyable even if I didn't like that cursed weapon (we didn't have a problem with it thought, I just didn't like it). The bug demon as the last fight was interesting -- the only thing I had against this was the confusion buzz at the start of the fight. The year of down time was a nice touch as well -- Just wish we had gotten to explore that old fort at the top of the map (dm said no).

In the second book the magma caves were neat, and I liked the open play about how to go about attacking the house of the beast. Overall this part was fairly standard fare but I am getting tired of all the "Oh these are evil bad worshiping monsters so of course there is poop all over the place" thing going on (happened a lot in RotRL and some in the start of crimson throne too). The goblin was a nice touch as were the mutated gnolls.

Book three was just a blast all the way around. I like the basic premise of the kidnapping plot, I liked the dinner scene, the shopping was enjoyable and the 'dungeon' was a nice change of pace. Very "Hey you are big kids now" feel to it.

Book four had interesting NPCs and a fine flavor to it. The chance to see people choose to fade out or not was neat, and the isles were fun. I wish we had more time to go through it in a bit more detail but the DM was very busy -- and so were the rest of us -- I enjoyed the anti magic field (as did the fighter) while the sanctuary with the pool of floating water and dragon head was neat. The fact that Nex was so full of himself that it wasn't even funny was pretty evident too -- typical wizard ;D

Silver Crusade

So I take it you didn't storm the battle market and face Kardswann in Book 1? I thought that was the best part of the book and that was a much tougher fight for my players than the daemon was. Actually once Kardswann cast enlarged, he managed to kill the elf druid of one of my players in one hit...granted a crit hit, but still killed her.


Hehe. When my players attacked the battle market, they did so in a three pronged assault. The halfling sorcerer went in alone to meet with Kardswann at Jank's prodding, the two stealthy rogue types went outside and climbed the walls to enter the 3rd story balcony and the rest of the team waited outside to form a quick response element.

Combat started as Kardswann offered 500g for the halfling's head. The two rogues ended up behind Kardswann the next round and opted to attack in the hopes of assisting the halfling shortly after. The rest of the party rushed in on the ground floor after hearing the sounds of combat. So it was a three stage combat: Kardswann and Ugruk vs. the two rogues, the sorceror vs. Hurvank, and the rest of the team against 3 bugbears that had moved to block their entrance.

The astonishing part? No PC deaths. We're good at fighting losing battles, it would seem. In contrast, we often lose people in fights that just don't threaten a TPK. It's wierd. The more desperate the fight, the better our tactics get.


We went in calmly and were attacked, but we had the Haleen with us at the time, and really with the bard and druid/sorcerer boosting everyone we were fine in the battle market -- a pryotechnics spell against cardshank caused him no end of trouble and the fighter and paladin were smashing things well.

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