Post CotC Review


Curse of the Crimson Throne


Running the module as written, our party consisted of:

Reagan Bellemonte, of the famous Bellemonte family, a Dhampir Necromancer.
Roland Harsk, of the not quite so famous Harse Harsks. Roland was a Zen-Archer monk.
Caleb of Veldrayne, the Assling Warlord/Cavalier/Entrepreneur.

We had no difficulties starting at the first, and began to quickly breeze through encounters. Anything the Zen-Archer couldn't kill in one round, or the Necromancer couldn't control in one or two spells, we used diplomacy or bluff to bypass, or simply mopped up with an additional spell.

By the end of the campaign, we were level 14.
Lord Reagan Bellemonte of the Whispering Way (NE Vampire 1/Nec 3/Master Necromancer 6/Blood Magus 4)
Roland Harsk (LN Half-Elf Zen Archer Monk 13/Rogue 1)
Commander Caleb Veldrayne, esq. Proprieter of Caleb's Trading Company and Caleb's Dog Soldiers (Inventiveness ftw! N Aasimar Warlord 1/Outsider (Tiefling) 2/Hound-Master Cavalier 11)

Lady Andaisan? Two rounds. One to shoot her to death, one to control her with Command Undead.

The WHOLE of Scarwall? Ten hours. We had to rest for a few hours to get some spells back. Shortly after Scarwall was when we created our own time-dilation demi-plane.

The final encounters? Waltzed through the castle, dealing over 150dmg per round from the Zen Archer, with the occaisonal Finger of Death or battle-field shaping Spiritwall (Spellcompendium) or full attack from the Commander or Legatus (our 12HD Bloody-Skeleton Glabrezu) to clean things up.

We found the maps, apprehended the Fake Queen, gave her and a head-band of opposite alignment to Sabina Merrin, and reinstalled Juju Zombie versions of Domina Arabasti, Eodred the Great, and Lord Arbast Arabasti as the new Triumvirate Rulers of Korvosa. Easily controlled undead minions, to be sure, but their amulets of charisma and 3/day CL5 Gentle Repose should keep them in good order as they make their decisions and continue to govern through ETERNITY. With a 25k donation from the wizard to the city to continue running until they could pay the loan back. That should buy the city out of debt for a while. (6bp according to Kingmaker. Better ditch some territory to lower those control DCs!)

With the maps, we simply scryed the Sunken Queen herself, teleported to the area, used a bound imp to scout inside the building after handily finding the illusory entrance with permanent detect magic and a spot check of 50+, and then scrying on the imp servitor, teleported from the entry-way to the chamber of blood where Ileosa was conducting her ritual.

In the instant we appeared, one arrow was fired and a wall of iron was dropped over the entryway. The arrow did no damage, of course, but that wasn't it's purpose.

Remember the temple of Ergathoa from the fight with Lady Andaisen? Did you know the bowl of blood in there is Ergathoa's blood? We punched a vial of Ergathoa's blood into the ritual. You really wanna suck the life-force out of her? Go ahead. We'll let you.

She dropped her clones. The next round, Ileosa was dead from a single full-attack action from the Monk and a Finger of Death from the Necromancer. The dogs and the cavalier mopped up the simulacra. Demons teleported in, but the room was bisected with a Spiritwall at the 6.5 foot mark, giving medium creatures room to stand, but not allowing the PIT FIEND we had managed to anger through use of the Harrow Deck of Many Things any room to continue attacking us.

Round 3, the room is bisected, the simulacra are almost dead, the demons are teleporting away in terror. Round 4, no more simulacra. Two rounds of waiting, and a chance to cast a buff and Dimenson Lock the when the pit-fiend and erinyes came back. Round 6, everything starts dying. The pit-fiend runs to the top of the room and can't escape after a second Spiritwall is cast, and gets his Wisdom cursed (-6 permanently, sucka.)

Even with the GMs decision thta the fight was going to be too easy and giving DR 10/Serethtiel to Ileosa, and full HP for both the Pit Fiend and Ileosa, they were all dead by round 10. The pit fiend got one full round attack and while the necromancer was grabbed... he just dismissed the spiritwall, giving the Zen Archer a clear line of fire to the Demon.

Level 14. Too easy.


This reads like:

"My GM allows a bunch of crazy crap to fly that won't in most games, and somehow I think that makes me awesome."


Ibid.

Lady Andaisin has AC 24 and 114 hp, and if you're following the module-as-written she's unlikely to be surprised. It's a bit difficult to see how a group of three characters of level ~7-8 "shoot her to death" in a single round. (Not impossible; with crits all sorts of things can happen. But unless the menu included Arrows of Greater Human Slaying or something similar, it seems a bit unlikely.)

"One round to control her with Command Undead"... you need the ability to channel negative energy for that. Since none of your PCs were clerics, I do wonder how that worked.

Also, as an undead, Andaisin's Will save is +11, giving her a pretty good chance of saving against a 10 + level/2 + Cha bonus effect. Against a 9th level cleric with a 14 Cha, for instance, she'd need a 5. Not to say that Command Undead wouldn't be worth trying, or that it couldn't work -- just that it would be a lucky roll.

Doug M.


Mind, if everyone had fun, that's all that really matters.

Doug M.


Douglas Muir 406 wrote:

"One round to control her with Command Undead"... you need the ability to channel negative energy for that. Since none of your PCs were clerics, I do wonder how that worked.

Necromancer wizards also have their choice of turn or command and the channeling to power it.

Granted, the saving throw is typically pretty easy since Charisma is a dump stat for wizards unless they're built with 80 point buy or something.

Also granted, PCs are supposed to be level 7 at that point in the adventure, and you'd need to be a minimum of 11th to Command Andaisin.

So something doesn't add up there.


Well for starters I don't doubt the validity of the post, as he listed class and race combos and spells used it seemed to me that it's full 3.5 with anything goes and all splats. They were using spell compendium, templates et all. Also I'm not sure a vampire with 14 levels ever counts as a level 14 character due to the way the ecl system was set up (as in x more levels for being vampire) so there's that...

Scarab Sages

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber
Stewart Perkins wrote:
Well for starters I don't doubt the validity of the post, as he listed class and race combos and spells used it seemed to me that it's full 3.5 with anything goes and all splats. They were using spell compendium, templates et all. Also I'm not sure a vampire with 14 levels ever counts as a level 14 character due to the way the ecl system was set up (as in x more levels for being vampire) so there's that...

There's a lot of questions, the first of which is well brought up by Stewart.

The Libris Mortis specifically points out that any player wanting to continue as a vampire is limited to advancing as a vampire spawn. Vampire Spawn, as written as a monster class, has 8 levels. Assuming a vampire has 4 more levels (which is conservative), that character was level 26 equivalent.

Caleb seems to have levels in a 3.p class (Hound master Cavalier), and according to the boards, that gives him +1 level. Since he's an aasimar, that's +1 level as well.

The above assumes that this was a 3.5 game. Otherwise I'd be willing to guess that the DM was more relaxed with the rules, therefore a full translation into 3.5 didn't happen.

So yes, the final fight is easy for a level 26, a level 16 and a level 14. If you didn't have fun, I'd talk to your DM about running a normal game without handing you the keys to the kingdom.

Either that or I have a sweet level two party made up of a Tarrasque fighter 2 / Mind Flayer Psion 2 / Beholder Wizard 2 / Pit Fiend Rogue 2 to run through the same fight that may do better.


Congratulations!
For your achievements in ignoring rules and playing a d20 system like its Exalted, you win....

*drum roll*

The Internets!

*Cue Applause*


Modera wrote:
The Libris Mortis specifically points out that any player wanting to continue as a vampire is limited to advancing as a vampire spawn.

I suspect he was using this article by Sean K Reynolds that allows you to take a limited number of levels in a "template class".

I'm not surprised that a party of powerful characters using very specific tactics can blow through a normal module.


DOUG:
Command Undead is a 2nd Level Wizard Necromancy Spell (p256) of the Core Book. Note that at no point does it have any restriction on character level vs. undead HD. It lasts for 1 day (minimum) and is the bread-and-butter spell of the Necromancer. I keep at least 2 prepared.

Stewart: YES: We did use Spell Compendium. We also used Libris Mortis. Pathfinder is advertised as backwards compatible with 3.5 and everything 3.5 was vetted by the DM. Also used prestige classes from 3.5 sources (Master Specialist and Blood Magus) and the Outsider Hit-Dice the Cavalier took. Both are recognized as sub-par according to Pathfinder.

Modera: After taking a good hard look at the bestiary and the effects of being a vampire on the game, we came up with this:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderR PG/advice/vampirePCs&page=1#17
In order to balance it it still cost 1 level of progression, and was got spending CPA from the Whispering Way faction.

Why would taking pathfinder classes raise your level in a pathfinder game? That was Wizard (necromancer), Zen-Archer Monk, and Cavalier. Those are Core, Core-APG, and APG-Superstars. The Houndmaster Cavalier if you havn't seen it is an archetype that doesn't use horses, but dogs, and was the only universally accepted entry in the RPG Superstars contest this year. It was pretty fantastic and addressed a major weakness of one of the interesting classes from the APG.

Creatures we fought were from the Bestiary/Bestiary 2/Bonus Bestiary as well, and class-having humans/etc were given their pathfinder classes.

ACCORDING TO PATHFINDER: A tarrasque fighter 2 is a level 27 character, a Pit Fiend Rogue 2 is level 22, and a beholder and illithid can't be played at all. A vampire fighter 2 is level 4. -I- had issues with it too, hence my complaints to the DM that something needed to be done to mitigate the sheer raw power, and entreaties to the forums for help, and why my "Vampire" didn't have level drain, full fast healing or DR, dominate at anything much less will, or the ability to drain blood from anything but humanoids.

Non-pathfinder sources won't be allowed in our next game, but not-withstanding, the ALL PATHFINDER Zen Archer Monk was the one that made the whole module fairly trivial. Combat would start and be over before the cavalier would get his turn, usually, or he would move to engage and then it would be over at the start of the second round.

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