The scenario is pretty explicit in having some low number of rounds before the harpies get their screech on.

Maybe I shouldn't speak for Dennis, but it seems to me the GM should gauge how long to wait to spring the harpy attack on the players based on how well they handled the first encounter. If they disn't break a sweat, hit them immediately. If they got pretty roughed up, stay in combat rounds, but give them a couple to get healed up.

TetsujinOni wrote:

The scenario is pretty explicit in having some low number of rounds before the harpies get their screech on.

Maybe I shouldn't speak for Dennis, but it seems to me the GM should gauge how long to wait to spring the harpy attack on the players based on how well they handled the first encounter. If they disn't break a sweat, hit them immediately. If they got pretty roughed up, stay in combat rounds, but give them a couple to get healed up.

Exactly the imprecision that I wanted to convey with "some".

I wouldn't go below 1, though, just to have a shred of pasties on the "it's not one encounter, really" dancer.

"Some" works, or you can use this as a guide.

"Some" works, or you can use this as a guide.

Some saves wordcount for stat block items. <G>

I am reading through the scenario tonight getting ready to run it for tomorrow. The image provided in earlier posts in this thread is very helpful; I was having trouble visualizing how the side rooms D and E were supposed to look.

I did notice something that I think is a mistake, however:

Dennis. just played King of Storval Starirs it was one of the top three senarios of all 4 seasons that I have played or gm'ed.

I liked the Grand lodge facction mission.

I am reading through the scenario tonight getting ready to run it for tomorrow. The image provided in earlier posts in this thread is very helpful; I was having trouble visualizing how the side rooms D and E were supposed to look.

I did notice something that I think is a mistake, however:

** spoiler omitted **

I noticed that that the scroll of wall of stone was a bIt off too. Why was the wall only 15 hp? At CL 9, shouldn't the wall be 30 hp?

Anyway, I ran this the other day at Risen Rune in Sydney. Party was a powerful high tier of 4 players but still suffered one character death, although he was brought back with a bteath of life spell. Had a blast running it though, a great scenario overall.

I'm running this tonight. Has anyone goet any new last minute info for me? :)

...about the Wall of Stone - is it supposed to be DC 29 for UMD? Is it supposed to have 30 hp?

Looks like I'm running this at tier 7-8 tonight with 3 players and a GM NPC. Dear god this could get ugly..

Tier 7-8 isn't bad. My group did it easily with 4 pregens and 2 PCs. Hill giant Will saves are weak at that level and can be exploited.

So, we finished enough of the stairs for them to be feature-complete. Still need to figure out what we're doing for the statues.

Without further ado: The stairs!

That's... a lot of foamcore. But, without the platform supports... the stairs themselves (except the central landing) fit in a single tote for transport. It's actually EASIER to move than the full sheet of foamcore I had for the central stairs at GenCon.

Still to do: Statues, and a riser platform to replace the stacks of smoothfoam (styrofoam) supporting the upper tier of the map.

No combat shots from the middle.

I gotta do something about playing these mods, without a spell caster, at U-con.. I dunno my familiar killed most everything, that wasnt trapped in a black tentacle coming to scratch your itch mess.
Also Swiftbrook, drilled the King from 200+ feet away and dropped him in a single volley of arrows.. =/= mileage may vary.

Wow... these are awesome, Great job TetsujinOni!

So, we finished enough of the stairs for them to be feature-complete. Still need to figure out what we're doing for the statues.

Without further ado: The stairs!

As a fellow terrain–junkie, that is awesome!

I had dreams of doing this full-scale, including height. By my calculations, it would go from floor to ceiling, with the middle courtyard being conveniently at table height. It would require full–size people for the statues, and they would have to be willing to stand there for the whole session.

As a fellow terrain–junkie, that is awesome!

I had dreams of doing this full-scale, including height. By my calculations, it would go from floor to ceiling, with the middle courtyard being conveniently at table height. It would require full–size people for the statues, and they would have to be willing to stand there for the whole session.

So, we need to start a Kickstarter?

Myron Pauls wrote:

As a fellow terrain–junkie, that is awesome!

I had dreams of doing this full-scale, including height. By my calculations, it would go from floor to ceiling, with the middle courtyard being conveniently at table height. It would require full–size people for the statues, and they would have to be willing to stand there for the whole session.

So, we need to start a Kickstarter?

I was thinking of hiring some mimes, spray–painting them grey, and making them stand still for 5 hours. It couldn't cost that much—there can't be that much demand for mimes. :)

I'd have to put a funny hat on one of them for the harpies to roost on. For added realism, I could add some pigeon poop.

I'd figure you would need to install a little door in the back of the mime's head and hollow the insides out to install the nesting area... I guess a hat works.

I generally know that high level tier's are supposed to be tough, whatnot with the fact that you are pathfinder and everything, so you pretty much expect it in some way. But it felt slightly too tough at one point altho I was fairly pleased with the scenario.

Basically, I have only one objection here.

Dennis Baker wrote:

I meant for Queen Lareecan to have "Rapid Shot" not "Rapid Reload". Most likely it's a non-issue, she has plenty of spells and abilities to put the hurt on the PCs without a few extra arrows flying around.

This will be changed when we get back from Gen Con. I don't know how that slipped by Dennis, Sean, and me before hitting print. Oops!

Bump for editing. This still needs to be updated.

Let my post serve as a lesson to overconfident players that bawk at a GMs warnings of scenario difficulty.

Without getting into to much detail, a group of four at APL 9.5 playing up to 10-11 finished this game in under an hour. After they swept the first fight they got utterly rolled by the second. There was no coup-de-grace, no successful harpy song, no lucky crits, no janky rules shenanigans -- they were just outmatched. The harpies ripped through them like wet newspaper. Aside from the stealthed shadowdancer escaping, it was a TPK.

They were awarded 0 XP, 0 Prestige, and 477 gold for their troubles.

Lessons learned:
- Don't ignore the harpy songs coming from the other side of the map.
- Don't leave your witch in the back of the group, out of range of healing.
- Do have a way to prevent full ranged attacks on you each round (wind wall, wall of stone, stone shape, feather token - tree, taking cover, etc.)
- Do have a way to escape when s#$* hits the fan
- At tier 7-11, you better have a way to fly
- If you're a spellcaster, have over 60 health at level 10

You've been warned.

Perhaps I'm missing something but why does the Scroll of Greater Teleport have a UMD check of 38? Sure I understand that it is a scroll at a caster level of 18 but why? Greater Teleport doesn't have any level dependent effects unless I've really missed something somewhere - seems like it should have been at a CL of 13 (so a UMD check of 33 plus a likely UMD check of 32 for the INT 17 requirement )

You can bring along one medium creature per 3 caster levels, so a CL 18 scroll allows for 7 player tables. Of course, this leaves animal companions and mounts a lot of walking to do.

I just ran KSS tonight APL of 7.5 a cleric 2 ninjas and a Gunslinger.
not an optimal party by any means. They had one PC death the Gunslinger
he got shot by the Harpy queen with 3 human bane arrows. The Harpy queen also tried to shot one of the ninja's but failed her percetion roll and shot the Elf with a human bane arrow for n extra damage. but in the end the Ninja's and the Cleric completed thier factin missions and the Gunslinger had completed his by grapeling the Harpy queen in flight and plucking some feathers. Fun was had by all. This was a real grinder scenario but it was very good.

Having played this on the weekend with a summoner, pistolero gunslinger, scout rogue and I (controller spell selection, Lust and trickery domains.) Tier 7-8.
First fight was done in 1 round with 1 giant getting shredded by everyone else, I then charmed the last giant and got him to help us (made going up the stairs some what easier.) Giants in the kitchen were fairly easy with a bluff that more fresh meat outside. First giant then took a swing at the eidolon and missed, I tricked the other one into chastising him by showing how its done (Murderous Command) the rest of the party then slaughtered them.
Harpies in the other hand were much more of an issue wall of stone sepperated the gunslinger from the rest of us, but a gap was made by our friendly giant (who then got blinded by the harpy queen and did nothing for almost a minute). We ended up on the receiving end of almost all of the queens bane arrows. It was touch and go due to our ranged people getting knocked down constantly. It was only when we realised we had 1/2hr left and one more encounter that I came up with a different solution to end the fight. I told the blinded giant to go get the king and help crush these harpies and hit the queen with a suggestion that she takes her flight and go hunt down that giant.
Final fight was pretty stright forward with me hitting the king with debilitating portent and once we found out he was a caster I tried a greater forbid action targeting him and the witch with the command no spells. The king passed but the witch didn't so she was out of the fight. With the rest of the party focusing on the king he went down fairly quickly but not before nearly killing the gunslinger (breath of life saved her). All in all it was a good challenge for a low tier party. Fun was had roleplaying 'steering' the giant around helping us.

I just ran this at high tier. The group played up. There was a 3 11's, witch alchemist fighter. A 7 rogue 7 magus and kyra. Valeros joined after apl was established.

Short order no one spoke giant. Diplomacy was off the table after the rogue died in the kitchen. A couple teleports later and the group had a "risen" rogue.

Harpy encounter was tough. But 0 deaths. Last encounter was pretty epic, Val died but the party paid for his res.

So most of the party was pretty skilled the key 11's made quick work of most of the creatures. Witch and alchemist and a trip happy fighter was fun to gm. I had the oppurtunity to tell the fighter with a trip attempt cmd 40. "You did not fail by more than 10.

All the 11s were down or close to death at least once in the scenario.

Good scenario. Granted a ruthless GM could totally kill a party during the last encounter. This is in the hands of the GM. Night watch and a giant party could cause havoc with characters not wearing armor. I perhaps mistakenly informed the party they could stay awake. My partys top perception was a 24. Thankfully they rezed the rogue.

Not sure when I will play this again. If I have a longer slot I will try to use the sleeping PC, un-armored fighter Greg Vaughn hard mode approach. The last fight is pretty Epic.

Gratz Dennis I had a chance to use my Eldrictch Giant from Wotc. First time using this guy in 7 years !!!

Being that Alchemist that Chris mentioned, I have to say that the fights playing up were epic. Not since this character was at level 1-3 have I either been out of bombs, or less than 3-4 left after a scenario (this character isn't designed to go Nova and spam bombs), and this one I was down to 4 after the 2nd/3rd fight, and down to 1 after the last fight(so glad we could sleep between the 3rd and 4th fight!). That was so worrying me that it made me worried we wouldn't make it, and I know that the level 11 witch was having the same thoughts.

I can easily see how both the third (Harpy) and 4th (Big Bad) encounter could have been brutal to any party--and from what I hear have done either TPK's or made whole parties flee--even a well balanced party. Both encounters were so well set up with the baddies having prepared themselves with spells/buffs that it is sure to make any set of players wince.

Chris is right, probably we all shouldn't have been on watch during the night--that likely saved the trip fighter, Valros and Kyra (who all had medium or heavy armor). The rest of us either had light or no armor and wouldn't have been affected. Additionally, while most of us had good perceptions (mine is +17), I think that is when all our dice decided to take naps (I think my highest perception roll was a total of 22).

Finally, I was happy to see that my force bombs knocked the female sorceress off of the King's shoulders AFTER he grew to Huge size...that must have hurt her (or at least her feelings).