Questions about Heresy of Man 2 & 3


GM Discussion

Grand Lodge 5/5

*******SPOILERS IN THIS THREAD FOR Heresy of MAN 2 AND HERESY OF MAN 3! YOUVE BEEN WARNED!*******

Im GMing Heresy of Man 2 and 3 this coming Saturday for Cape Comic Con in Cape Girardeau, MO, which Ive never run or played before. Ive had ample prep time, but havent gotten around to serious work on it til this week. Ive read through the threads for each of the mods individually, but id like suggestions from those who might have tips, and hoping to get a few questions answered.

HoM2 questions:

1. Is there a purpose of room 1? Act 1 takes place entirely on the stairs, and Act 2 is in room 2, so do I need to even bother drawing that room out?
2. Unless Ive missed something, the only way in or out of the place is by Disable Devicing the door, with a DC 35 check. What if they dont even have DD, or simply cant reach a 35 even with taking 20? How are they supposed to get in or out? Also, if they can take a 20 and get the 35 needed to get in, I find the "oh no, we're trapped" element to be completely lame, since its the same flipping check with the same DC to get back out.
3. I dont think Im understanding the antlion sand trap. Do you sink to the bottom of the 20ft-deep trap? Or just move to the middle? It doesnt list anything about suffocating under the sand, so im inclined to think the latter, but that would be dumb. Thoughts?

HoM3 questions:

1. The Doru Divs list in their tactics section that they become invisible when they arent attacking or otherwise casting a spell at the opponent. Is this supposed to be the really good kind of invisibility like a quicking has, or is this just a 'if it has nothing better to do on its turn' type tactic? Im guessing the latter, but I wanna make sure.
2. if the PCs want to jump through the cloud into the 'pool' of water near the beginning of the mod, A) would there be enough (in your opinion) to cushion their fall, B) what kind of fall damange would you give them? (*doesnt know where the rules for non-lethal fall damage are*)
3. Picture of the BBEG?

Thanks for the help!!

The Exchange 4/5

HoM2 Answers:

1. Yes, there is a purpose. The body of the corpse is not on the stairs. The Pathfinder fell down the stairs, triggered a trap, and died instantly from the combination.

2. I mean, you can hack at it with an adamantine weapon, summon a creature who can burrow, cast stone shape, cast dimension door, etc. Or you can complete the scenario and get the tome which has directions on how to unlock the stone door.

3. I'd say they slide to the center of the sand pit. It's the movement on the sand that allows the ant lions to know that something is here. It's not quicksand, it just sucks to climb out of the center of the pit.

HoM3 Answers:

1. If it has nothing better to do or is in an "oh crap" situation, it will go invisible. It values the element of surprise!

2. I wouldn't consider it a 'pool' because on page 7 it says that the sides of the whole extend down 15 feet, and the cavern's sandstone floor lies 100 feet down below that (total 115 feet). Even if there is water down there, it is negligible for the fall. Also, box text on page 9 says the water there is a shallow pool that came from the fountain room high above. Lastly, add in the extreme heat down here and you can ensure that the water does not stay in pool form for long.

Or you can GM rule the amount of water there is significant and follow these rules.

3. Can't really help you there.

Grand Lodge 5/5

HoM2 Response to answers:

1. I was conflicted on that one, cause I couldnt tell if it was supposed to mean on the bottom couple steps, or off of them, and actually into the room where it says 'bottom of the stairs'. Works for me, though.
2. Im used to GMing for lower level groups, so I didnt think of any of the rest of those options, outside of hacking at it with adamantine weapons, lol. The book I knew about, but that didnt solve the 'what if they cant even get in' issue.
3. Sounds good.

HoM3 Response to answers:

1. K
2. Makes sense, and thanks for the link.
3. Ah well. I figured if it wasnt in the actual mod then it wouldnt be anywhere else, either.

Thanks for the help!

The Exchange 5/5

HoM 2:

1. Like the other poster said the corpse is at the foot of the stairs. I generally will put it about 2 squares out so they don't realize the trap is right there and gain the possibility of them not checking for traps and getting hit themselves.
2. The way out is with the puzzle piece that they get from the Sphinx. The way I describe it is that when they get back there, they see the stone covering the exit, however, there is a depression in the stone – roll INT check to realize that it's the same shape as the puzzle piece that they got.
3. I don't do the Antlion trap as a swirling quicksand, I let the PCs start to go across and then they come up and attack them
.

HoM 3:

1. answered
2. I describe it as a waterfall – they slide through and land in the water, I let the water be deep enough that they wouldn't take falling damage with the water getting shallower towards the edge. This allows for some interesting combat maneuvering with they engage shybala.
3. answered

Grand Lodge 5/5

I really hate these friggin boards. I just typed a long response and it didnt let it go through and now the text is gone.

2/5

So I'm prepping the series for my local PFS group, and I must say that these two scenarios have me worried. We're not a group full of min/maxers and most of our player base includes fairly well balanced characters. Anyone who has run it have any advice on how not to kill the whole party?

Dark Archive 5/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Maps Subscriber

Run the tactics as written. don't pay attention to the fact that the BBEG in part 3 doesn't math out right to reverse engineer his stat block... the errors all appeared to favor the PCs.

other than that... if the party dies... some group of 7-11 pathfinders is gonna be getting an assignment to retrieve them (off-screen).

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