RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games
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Sweet, that will be quite timely for my campaign!(Finalizing the beginning of Ashes at Dawn)Consider one bought when it comes out!
Glad to hear it. I'm soliciting artists now for this project and several others and have a couple already ready to get going, so it should be a fairly quick turnaround. I gotta say, btw, that the illustrations newcomer Ivan Dixon turned over for the imminently forthcoming Mythic Monsters: Abyssal are amazing, and Steve Wood has already done some wicked undead for our Beasts of Legend series. Either one could bring some delightfully diabolical stylings to the living dead!
Can the Mi-Go, in theory, do their evisceration damage (2d6, plus 1d4 ability) 4 times per round, by hitting, grappling, releasing, then repeat, 4 times per round?
Hrm... it is something of a rules interpretation. The way I have done it is to not allow more than one successful grab during a full attack like this. So the Mi-Go can get all four hits in, but once they establish a grab they cannot grab again during the full attack. Though they still get up to four attempts to make the grab.
It can also be read that the full attack ends when a grapple is established. The problem is that a grappler cannot make a full attack (only the one being grappled), so once you become the grappler, the full attack is over... even if you immediately let go. Or maybe not? Again, depends on interpretation since a free action is one that takes no time and such.
If nothing else, it is especially violent to let them do 4d4+8d6+12 and require 4 DC 18 fort saves or take 1d4 ability damage for each failure. Then again, they are pretty vicious bastards.
A compromise is to treat each pair of arms separately. So they can grab and eviscerate once per pair in a full attack. So they can do at most 4d4+4d6+12 + 2x eviscerate.
Thanks. We played last night, and it ended up being a non-issue, because the Mi-Go had such a hard time hitting the PCs. And, even if grabbed, the PCs made pretty much all their FORT saves. I may think about adopting your compromise for next session, however, because we are in the middle of the fight and five Mi-Go are circling around to attack from the rear. And they are being smart by targeting the squishy cleric and wizard...
A separate question: Any suggestions for an ability replacement for channel smite for the Raven's Head, if it is going to be wielded by a hard-hitting barbarian? There is no way the PC cleric or wizard in the party is going to spend time in close combat melee, so it is a waste to give them a melee weapon. I could redesign it for the rogue, but then it would need to be a light mace, which seems like an odd choice for a Prince wading into combat with the Tyrant's undead hordes...
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If you're tweaking Raven's Head for a barbarian...
I'd be very tempted to upgrade the heavy mace into a craghammer, because SMASH UNDEAD GOOD. But if we're leaving it cleric friendly...
For it's special ability, a simple solution is that it allows its wielder to channel energy 3/day as though they were a cleric of their character level, and they can perform channel smite with that. A person who's already a cleric would get the additional bonuses on top of their existing ability.
So if your barbarian was L11, while holding Raven's Head, he could do a 6d6 channel energy, or dump one a round into adding 6d6 to his melee strikes.
Since the thing is already +3 undead bane, that should allow your barbarian to kick quite some ass with the thing.
Thanks so much, Zhangar! Those are really interesting suggestions. The only problem is the barbarian already kicks some serious ass, so something that adds a huge number of dice of damage may be a bit much, especially where it would give the party 3 extra channels a day (which wouldn't be the case if the cleric were wielding it). Of course, as written the weapon would be disruptive in the hands of a cleric of pharasma (which the PC cleric in my game is not), which seems super powerful.
Already the rhythm of the game is everyone else messes around at the margins and then the barbarian wades in and completely smashes all the monsters. I'd like to figure out something that is cool and thematically appropriate, but not TOO potent...
Maybe it would make more sense for the party's rogue to use the mace? I'd want to switch it to a light mace, but then maybe it makes more sense that the "symbol of offce for the Bishop of Caliphas" was a light mace? Kind of heavy to hold a heavy mace as a symbol of office. I guess I could use the same special ability you suggest, which would lead to crazy damage if the rogue is also getting sneak attack damage, but the rogue's damage is not, in general, as ridiculous as the barbarian's...
Getting Raven's Head should be a big deal - it's an artifact after all!
Do whatever you think would be best for your group. My version of Raven's Head wasn't even a melee weapon; I redid it completely as a caster's staff.
I agree, Zhangar. I'm making it a light mace that the rogue can wield effectively using weapon finesse and with your channel smite idea (although I haven't decided if it will be at whatever level the PC is currently at, as opposed to at some set CL). The party seems excited about it.
I'd make it scale with the weilder's level - Raven's Head's actual level is 20th, and having it generate an effect as lower than that without explicitly tying it to the strength of the user would feel weird to me.
An actual cleric of Pharasma wielding this would eventually channel energy as though they were 24th level.
I think that seems sensible. I think my only concern is the PCs will soon be 11th level, so that would be 6d6 channel smite on the part of the rogue, without using up any of the cleric PC's daily channels (in contrast to the normal channel smite feat). I'm a little concerned that will be too potent against the undead in Ashes of Dawn.
On the other hand, it is only 3 times a day, and the modules are getting increasingly challenging. In fact, we almost had a TPK last night in the fight with the oracle, Mi-Go, and Gug (who really is an effective damage dealer). The wizard teleported the party out just in time, but the same challenge still awaits them when they return to the tunnels.
6d6 isn't really that much. It averages out to 19.5 extra damage three times a day. And since it is a limited resource, it will constantly be held in reserve just in case it may be needed later in the day... unless the player is impulsive, at which case they'll be gone by the third hit of the day, heh.
Channel smite also gets halved on a save, which severely weakens it.
And the vampires in Ashes in Dawn have channel resistance.
I don't think your rogue is going to have a good save DC. If anything, it's going to amount to another +3d6 damage 3 times/day - it's the +3 undead bane that's going to consistently give results.
Thanks all. I'm persuaded!
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Quick question for everyone.
I'm weighing the difficulty of the first encounter within the Recondite Order. My players (one in particular) are notorious for doing 80-120 damage a round. (add a witch into that and things get uncomfortable)
Is there any reason (given the rules for perception) that the various groups within the temple (excepting the slugspawn) wouldn't funnel into the main hall and attack the group?
I read the section about Caleb and his cultist assistant and it suggested that they didn't attack until someone came into the room so I was wondering you guys typically handled it.
Also they are planning on going in the middle of the night to investigate. If I were being generous I would say this takes four of the cultists out of combat until they are armored and have cast their spells and raise their perception notice DC's considerably but...
I was considering they might be up given the recent departure of the Vizier. Desperate to reach the skum because of his infection.
I am planning to throw the Octopus at them almost immediately afterward so I guess my question is...
Is (9 Cultists, 1 Caleb, 1 Scion) + (4 Slugspawn) + (1 Giant Octopus) too much for one day of adventure for 4-5 9th level characters. Am I being too harsh?
I added the octopus to the devilfish encounter.
Nah, I threw the entire temple at my party pretty much, since they inadvertently alerted the scion. The travel domain cleric popped a scrying sensor into the temple's back area, and the scion immediately noticed it and popped its own scrying censor outside. So the cleric and the scion just wound up looking at each other through censors.
The entire temple was on alert immediately, so the rest of the party just walked in the front door and attacked.
The cultists are pretty weak, so I wouldn't be worried about those.
Also, as cultists of Dagon these guys got their spells back at nightfall. If anything, they're MORE likely to be active at night.
Funny just about to run the recondite temple and was thinking the same thing. Given I now have six players in my group I'm inclined to have two chuuls in the mix.
Don't make two chuuls just make it mythic
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Only three of my players showed up. That encounter was very nearly a death knell for all of them. The paladin used all of his lay on hands, and the rogue went to -11 (one away from death) but they succeeded.
The highlight for me DM wise was when two of the party ran into the chapel (which was filled with a fog cloud) and left the paladin in the Bethel with no idea he was going to get swamped by 4 cultists, the Scion, and the Vicar.
Command did a huge amount here, since they were routinely failing will saves.
The Vicar threw up his destructive aura, the paladin got surrounded by priests and sneak attacked down to near death (6 hp).
They were narrowly victorious and now have to face the octopus on one of the docks as the town tries to send off a local who was kind to them to her fate on the Tern Rocks.
Sounds like a great fight! Like everyone else, the encounter in my campaign also turned into a battle royale. No reason all the opponents wouldn't come running to help at the sounds of battle.
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Here I come with another moral quandary and 'What would you do?' question.
So I posted the full run down of what happened in the last session in my thread but the short story is that the group ran into the tick swarm and used an entire bag of grenades to disperse them which also resulted in heavy damage to that wing of the house.
The problem is that everything in the house now knows that they are there. I have justified everything staying put except one.. The Hounds of Tindalos.
My group got savaged pretty badly last session and I don't wanna toss too much at them at a time but I also can't justify the Hounds just staying where they are.
They are about to attack the marsh giant. Should I have the Hounds of Tindalos teleport in and use the situation to try and nab some food?
What would you do?
I find the combats get far more interesting when they get all dog-pile-y. I'd say give them a few rounds of party-vs-giant before the hounds pop by to see what's going on. You could have them come in one at a time or together.
This is the fun part of being a GM; keep a feel on the pulse of the combat. If the players are doing well, you can throw more at them. If it is going poorly, the monsters just... don't show up.
Maybe the hounds were ethereal when the explosions went off and they didn't notice. Maybe they just don't really care.
Also... aren't they stuck in that bed room? I vaguely remember something like that from the book.
I don't recall the hounds being stuck in that bedroom, but the hounds don't have any allegiance to Voltiaro, et. al, so there's no reason they would show up to help. I would probably just have the hounds stay in the room upstairs; maybe they like the angles of that room for some reason. Heck, they probably previously heard Voltiaro and the others in the mansion, but didn't go downstairs to attack, so it seems like they like to stay in the bedroom upstairs.
On the other hand, no reason that ALL the evil clerics wouldn't pile on for a battle royale in the room where the giant is. The module seems to contemplate that Voltiaro will just hang out upstairs and then be stuck taking on the party all by himself. I think that doesn't make any sense for him to do that. The fights are a lot tougher for the PCs when they can't just pile on one opponent.
And be aware that there will be BIG decisions to made on this same issue once they get to the Skum tunnels. Major potential for a monster pile up there too.
I thought I'd share this exciting, high stakes tidbit from our game. In the skum tunnels, the last room before the dome, there is a dimensional shambler who supposedly tries to shove PCs into the body mulching machine. Instead, and in accordance with the bestiary description for the creature, I had it dimension door and grab the party's wizard. Then it spent a full round plane shifting. The PC wizard failed his will save, and then used a hero point to succeed. His terror at being transported to a scene with scores of Mi-Go attacking a planet was priceless, before he barely managed to pull back and resist the shift. Sure the shambler is now out of the battle, but it was awesome.
By the way, how, mechAnically, would it work to have someone shoved into the body mulching machine?
I believe the machine does like 10d6 a round? IIRC, it's listed as a hazard.
My party managed to bullrush a mi-go into the machine.
Re: the hounds - my vague recollection is that they don't manifest until someone enters their room (which contains the book with instructions on how to summon one).
My party managed to commando blitz the place while under a silence spell, so the high priest never heard anything and was taken by surprised. He got trounced pretty soundly, though the spawning canker that erupted from him did a little better.
The marsh giant DID notice their presence (the sorcerer stepped out fo the silence to blow up something I think?) and snuck up on them, but they killed the giant in like a round or so.
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Thanks for all the input guys.
I think I am going to leave the Hounds out of it. The text does appear to imply that they are kind of out of phase and investigating the summoning of the Shantak.
After mulling over the balance bringing the cultists into the fight totally depends if my often absent sixth player is present for the game.
Things will likely go smoothly anyway. The paladin has all of his smites left.
It is an interesting fight, as all around this level are. If they can close with and take out the Vizier (Vicar? Whatever; the head priest) or at least prevent his casting, he is much less dangerous. Or if they just fill him full of arrows.
I believe my party fought the giant, then the ticks, then all the non-phased creatures in a big brawl (though anticlimactic because the monk cornered the leader in the library and the druid-as-wind-elemental just picked up the other cultists and held them in the central stairs as a whirlwind), then the hounds, and finally the big flier on the roof.
Combining fights is a good tactic to get through a lot of combat in one go, reducing play time spent on recovery and on planning/buffing, keeping tensions high, and teaching players to be more careful when blowing up sizable sections of a building.
Some of the human children born to fosterlings are returned to Illmarsh to be raised by human parents. (p. 7). Any children born of a skum/human mating are "invariably deformed". (Bestiary 1, p. 253)
The adventure doesn't seem to mention any specific people who were fostered the other direction, though the phase door allowed such people (or any of their descendents) to move through it. Have any of you made any such NPCs? Bastards of Golarion suggests that they'd have natural armour, but I don't think we have any other guidance on what they'd be like.
The normal mechanics is that the skum-spawn human are deformed humans with no special modifiers, and live as humans until they'd normally die of old age.
Shortly after their apparent "death" a skum-spawned male will make the transition into a skum, and I believe as such lose their prior class levels and become standard skum. (There aren't any female skum.)
They functionally die and are reborn as full monsters. It's kind fo like someone being killed by a wraith and rising as a new wraith; it wipes the slate clean.
Which is why Illmarsh doesn't bury its dead; it casts the "bodies" into the sea, where any that are actually proto-skum and transform and join the clan.
Approximately 1/5th of Illmarsh's population are proto-skum - the males become skum upon death, and the females presumably pass on the skum transformative gene to their human children.
Edit: IIRC, a skum-spawn needs to "die" of natural causes at the end of their normal human lifespan to "mature" into a skum. A skum-spawn who dies of violence before hand will not transform.
I didn't realize it was the end of their natural lifespan. Neat. I'll have to look into that.
Very neat, over-all.
So one fifth of the population (all male, I assume) is deformed in some way? Thank-you for that data point. I'll have to ponder how to represent that.
One fifth of the females are too. The women don't become skum upon "death" but they could have sons that do.
It's the "Illmarsh look." Google the "Innsmouth look" for ideas.
But wouldn't they be keeping any female infants? They're so low on breeding stock they need to pay for little girls, so it seems illogical that they'd give any way.
You know, just in case there was any question that these people are evil.
No, the skum keep the female infants.
But any of the contaminated sons who grow up as humans in Illmarsh can in turn have contaminated daughters, who in turn would have contaminated children.
Now that I'm thinking about it, Illmarsh just has more men than women in it, simply because so many of their daughters go to the skum for fostering. I don't have the AP chapter handy anymore, but I think it's every couple's first and second daughter that go to the skum?
Fourth and later daughters also stay with the family. I was just disputing whether one fifth of the females of Illmarsh would be deformed. My point was that I didn't think that they would be, but I have since come around.
Males descended from skum (and thus destined to one day transform into skum) could father first/fourth/fifth daughters who would theoretically be deformed by staying around Illmarsh.
So the number isn't zero, but is it still one fifth?
IIRC, one-fifth was the number given by the AP.
I honestly don't remember reading any of this stuff about deformed villagers in the module! And searching for "deformed" or "fifth" in the PDF doesn't turn up any references. Anyone have a page reference for me? If it's there, either I really blew it, or the author did a lousy job of placing the information, or both...
The 1/5 number seems to be Zhangar’s invention, as is the idea that human/skum hybrids seem to die when they go through the metamorphosis to skum. Worthy ideas, but not canonical. Use them or not, as you like.
Tbug, in my game I made reference to the Piper of Illmarsh looking weird: wide-set eyes, a grey undertone in his skin and bald patches in his hair. When my players get to Illmarsh, I’ll add those features to various NPCs’ descriptions.
Ok. Glad I didn't miss anything. I love the idea, and wish I had known before my party spent so much time in Illmarsh. They are close to finishing up the skum tunnels now. Maybe when they return I can mention it as something they hadn't really noticed before, just as a creepy end note. I should also figure out some way to wrap the Piper of Illmarsh back in...
The metamorphosis stuff about skum transforming upon "death" is from the actual skum monster entry. The transformation explicitly occurs when they would normally die of old dage.
Skum do not age, and barring death by violence or disease, they can live forever. Unfortunately, this near immortality is crippled by the fact that skum are incapable of reproducing among themselves, for all skum are male. The aboleths did not want their slave race to prosper without their permission. Yet terribly, this does not mean that skum cannot breed. Originally created from human stock, skum can impregnate humans, and the children issued from such unholy unions are invariably deformed. Those who are not born skum undergo gradual transformations throughout their lives, and when they would normally die of old age, such hybrids instead go through “the change,” shedding their wrinkled flesh and transforming into one of the ulat-kini. While most skum tribes lack the drive to perpetuate their race and would prefer to languish in their hideous sunken ruins, tribes settling offshore of remotely populated coastlines seem to be on the rise. Some such communities raid villages for breeding stock, but a few more insidious tribes form alliances with these desperate folk, providing protection and bounty from the sea in return for wives.
I'm trying to remember when I got the 1/5th figure from. It's either from the adventure, or from the short entry from Rule of Fear. I'll look at the books Thursday night if I remember; they're at a friend's house now that the campaign is over.
To remind them of the Piper's origin, if your players haven't hit the tick swarm yet, reskin it as a stirge swarm. Use the same stats except 1/2 damage from weapons (instead of none), flies, and fills a 10x10 cube instead of a 10x10 square.
I honestly don't remember reading any of this stuff about deformed villagers in the module! And searching for "deformed" or "fifth" in the PDF doesn't turn up any references. Anyone have a page reference for me? If it's there, either I really blew it, or the author did a lousy job of placing the information, or both...
When I quoted the bit about them being deformed I specified that the page number was from the Pathfinder Bestiary, but I didn't really call it out. As far as I can tell, the information isn't duplicated in the adventure path; we're just pointed to the Bestiary and have to work this stuff out for ourselves.
The transformation explicitly occurs when they would normally die of old dage.
Yes, but that’s not the same as saying that during their metamorphosis they appear to die.
Your interpretation of “when they would normally die of old age, such hybrids instead go through ‘the change,’ shedding their wrinkled flesh and transforming into one of the ulat-kini” works fine, but it’s not the only possible interpretation. I prefer a more gradual change myself, where the town’s old and twisted but unnaturally vital grandfathers slip out of their families’ houses at night and sneak down to the water, shed their ragged clothes and suck dark salt water into their growing gills for a few hours, then creep back home before the sun rises.
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@ KCC -- Fair enough. I thought I was being accused of making up the transformation out of whole cloth, which is why I quoted the PRD entry. Your take works just as well. Folks going with that should be sure to bring up the old men who are wearing scarves or high necked shirts, despite being in warm swamp weather (if your campaign is happening while it's warm, anyways - mine was set in winter).
I didn't think to do this when I ran it, but here's a odd thought to make Illmarsh creepier --
Make the Piper a folk hero, a vigilante who came in the night with his flocks of stirges and purged outsiders and unbelievers, only to finally be laid low by outsiders (the Sleepless Agency? I don't remember how long they've been around) and shipped off to parts unknown, to never be heard from again.
There might be a little shrine to him somewhere. It might even have a flute and a preserved, oversized, stirge - the piper's familiar? - displayed there.
Maybe they have rumors that he'll come back one day and continue his work, and children take up the flute (and play songs the PCs heard back when they fought the Piper!) in the hope that their playing will summon him back.
Being in a place that idolizes some guy whose evil spirit the party put down back at 2nd level should put them even more on edge.
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My plan is to have players witness a parent giving a child a plate of food to take to grandfather in the attic, and the child hesitantly carrying the dinner up an ominous set of stairs into darkness. Later, they’ll find that several families have grandfathers and great-grandfathers that don’t come out by day. The more doubt and uncertainty, the better.
I plan to reintroduce the Piper’s haunting music, too. The PCs will recognize its harmony in the eerie call of the Shantak.
An alternate take on the Piper would be to make him Manus Undiomede, the final scion of that house, driven mad by the discovery of his family’s pact and his own tainted ancestry. In this version, perhaps his father Cassius was the first victim of his lich dust + stirges MO.
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Actually, as testament to our esteemed author, you may wish to check out...
Of course, as always, this is only as canon as you want it to be. Still very interesting!
Thanks, Kalindlara! A cool connection.
Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice catch! I'm really impressed that Mr. Vaughn effectively cited his own work 2 APs (more than a year?) later!
It's really sad, then, that...
Also, as far as the human-to-skum thing, the only reference I can find is:
Half-human and half-skum hybrids, the <name> gradually transform over the course of their lives until they finally become fullblooded skum and join their people beneath Avalon Bay.