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Looking forward to running this for the first time for our group on Monday but I ran into a couple of problems when doing my prep for this game.
So starting the thread to discuss these issues & some general clarifications.
Drollis (Please make more enemy's like this in future scenarios.....I am going to have so much fun running combat with this guy!)
Drollis Low tier
*Has one to many normal feats & is missing a monk feat & I have been unable to get his skills to match up, What are his Traits?
Drollis High tier
*Missing an ability score increase as a 8 monk 4 rogue. I would suggest adding to his wisdom.
*Damage dice for his unarmed strikes is wrong. Level 8 monk still it should be a d10
*What's the point of magic fang on his arm & leg with the amulet of mighty fist? Seems like a bit of a waste to give this to him at the high tear and not the low.
*Problem with his feats again as he is missing a monk feat & has one to many normal feats.
Basement Symbol of Pain
*the text for the Symbols on the upper level is that they have been attuned to not effect Drollis & his men. Is the one in the lower level the same in that it will not effect Kesoulla & her guards?
Kesoulla
So far have only gone through the high tier version
*Uses a 4th level slot for Divine Favour.... really subbing out a 4th level spell for a first level? Should that be the 4th level spell Divine Power?
*At the high tier I'm looking at 6 unassigned skill ranks
*Has 1 to many Feats.... Seems to be a reoccurring problem
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And more stuff
How to handle the Sigil Wafer as GM
-Is it a boon that we can assign to Chaotic Neutral Character if we also have that character pay for the atonement?
Kesoulla's Holy Symbol
-Nothing listed in gear so is it safe to assume that she has a tattoo focus?
Victory Conditions
Kesoulla's tactics say she makes a break for it if things go bad or PC's fall back and the conditions for victory say PC's need to kill or drive off cultist's. If she runs with the Sigil Wafer's is it still a win & what should be the total gold deduction from this outcome?
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Since the spoiler tag is in the thread header, I'm not going to spoiler my comments. Stop reading now if you don't want to know anything
Since when is Miss Feathers a woman? In City of Strangers, where "she" was introduced...
"Miss Feathers, despite the name, is a hulking, muscular man with a deep, booming voice and a quick laugh"
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Since the spoiler tag is in the thread header, I'm not going to spoiler my comments. Stop reading now if you don't want to know anything
Since when is Miss Feathers a woman? In City of Strangers, where "she" was introduced...
"Miss Feathers, despite the name, is a hulking, muscular man with a deep, booming voice and a quick laugh"
This has left me somewhat confused as well. Based on the description in "City of Strangers", I've always RPed him as a "bear". But now she's characterized as a transwoman? I'm confused.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, Contributor
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Since the spoiler tag is in the thread header, I'm not going to spoiler my comments. Stop reading now if you don't want to know anything
Since when is Miss Feathers a woman? In City of Strangers, where "she" was introduced...
"Miss Feathers, despite the name, is a hulking, muscular man with a deep, booming voice and a quick laugh"
My suggestion, don't mention gender at all. Use the picture and some role playing. Let the players make their own assumptions. Maybe the earlier Pathfinders were confused about Feather's actual gender. It shouldn't be too surprising that there is confusion regarding Feather's gender.*
@Kolby – glad you like Drollis. He was fun to write.
A couple quickie comments:
I just noticed an error on the map.
The Forbiddance effect covers the entire basement.
The Symbol of Pain is the Red X, not the letter P (It says that in the text also).
The symbol in the basement and the forbiddance effect are attuned to the guards in the basement.
A couple quickie links
Some stat blocks require the GMG or you can find them online
Thugs/ Guards/ Highwaymen (Encounter with Drollis/ finale)
Guards/ Sellswords (Final encounter)
Hope you guys enjoy.
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My suggestion, don't mention gender at all. Use the picture and some role playing. Let the players make their own assumptions. Maybe the earlier Pathfinders were confused about Feather's actual gender. It shouldn't be too surprising that there is confusion regarding Feather's gender.
I'm not sure what to say on that I certainly based him on the City of Strangers Feathers. I'm not sure if it was a deliberate change or an inadvertent edit. Maybe Mark has a comment on that
That's really all I'm asking. Feather's change in gender does not seem to be something that impacts the mechanical aspects of the game, nor does it seriously impact role-playing either outside of the awareness there was a change. I find it hard to believe that it could be an editing error, unless the scenario was solely developed by someone completely unaware of Feather's presence in City of Strangers. S/he has largely become an iconic NPC since CoS while a majority of the GM's I have spoken to really having fun with his/her role-playing opportunities, myself included. If there was an intentional gender change, I would have expected some reference to it in the scenario text, or perhaps a notice somewhere on the website as to the change. If he was supposed to be a woman originally, then why make the change feel underhanded, as if no one would notice? So, this was either an error in editing, which I don't understand, or it was an intentional change, that again, I don't understand. I think GM's will have no problem adapting Feathers to either gender, but IMO, he was created as an awesome NPC, and it's disappointing "she" was changed. Hopefully, someone (Mark?) can comment.
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I saw this too and it popped out immediately.
Some of my thoughts on the changes:
Although I find it hard to believe it was just a mistake, because like you said Miss Feathers has become an iconic NPC for Kaer Maga. It could be just that a mistake.
As Dennis said the picture is ambiguous enough, although I pictured him with a 5'o clock shadow coming out from the make-up. Just his statement alone leads to me to think this was a concsious descision.
Perhaps its because Pathfinder RPG has now become the leading RPG game system it now has to appeal to many more (i.e. younger)gamers as its popularity has increased. The last thing they want to do is offend someone's parents (remember MADD in the 80's) with less rational sensibilities and all that and bring ill repute to the game.
However, GM's can just go ahead and describe/RP the NPC as they like.
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Thanks Dennis, I can't wait to see the look on a players face when I describe Drollis's first "attack".
I intend to play miss feathers the way that character the same was introduced to me by our VL and the way I have tried to run him in other games. Funny story is one of the people playing just did city of strangers under me with a different character and some funny role-playing resulted in Miss Feathers running out of that characters room pant's down crying about not being pretty enough for him. Good times
I intend to really play up the opium house feel of the opening part provided my table stays 18+ as our sign in sheet is showing me (actual game day who knows).
It makes more sense to have the symbol of pain as the x, otherwise it forces the defenders to run to the other exit & really clump up.
Any comments about the stat blocks issues for Drollis & Kes Dennis?
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, Contributor
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I haven't had time to look at the details on the stat-blocks. One thing I recall off the top of my head is that one of the feats from Drollis' stat block is not listed as a 'monk' feat in the monk class write up, but in the text of the feat itself.
The divine favor thing is almost certainly an error, but I suspect it's not going to affect play much. By the time she's in melee things are likely winding down.
Developer
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Making Miss Feathers a woman was a conscious decision. Three years have passed since the last scenario in which she appeared, and her statistics changed sometime during that span. How GMs choose to roleplay a transgender character isn't really something we can control, so that's something each person is going to need to decide on their own. We decided to treat the character seriously and not for comedic effect, if that's any indication on the choices we made.
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Part of it issue might come from his monk/rogue selecting finesse rogue at the high tier but also having it as a feat selected in the low tier.
For Kes i just removed Scribe Scroll to sort matters out with out any game effect.
On a new topic the wisp's are a very interesting aspect that actually could be a hard fight depending if a team's castor does not realize the source of the electrical damage aura and losses important spells and line up in nice line's for them to run through.
I could really see groups blowing through lots of spells & wanting to rest after that encounter. Which goes back to the victory conditions. Kes gets away = party win since they just had to drive the cultist's off?
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Well the note players find a note on Drollis that says she is leaving tonight so players rest = "win" but no treasure. Makes sense.
This is what I am doing for tonight
*Drollis
-damage dice on unarmed strikes has been corrected to a d10
-Extra ability point remains unassigned (should go to wisdom.....)
-Feats and skills will not be changed. I still think there is a problem here but RAW.
*Kes
-feats unchanges, shes not going to scribe any scolls so should not effect game
-divine power will be used for the 4th level spot. Not leaving a first level spell in a 4th level spot after Dennis said its a mistake. "Should not matter" but with a scroll of heal and grace Kes might be able to strech out melee combat enough to get a chance to cast this or at least have a spell that can be subed out for inflict critical wounds
All indications are that I will be running the high teir tonight so will post a review of how the game goes tomorrow.
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Developer
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If he was supposed to be a woman originally, then why make the change feel underhanded, as if no one would notice? So, this was either an error in editing, which I don't understand, or it was an intentional change, that again, I don't understand.
Hey, folks! I'm the developer on this adventure, so I'll be answering your questions. The change was deliberate. I talked with Mark about it, and we wanted to present Miss Feathers as a woman because that's what she identifies as (in our view anyway). Presenting her as a man the first time around (and not having a whole lot of detail on her) means folks had a couple different interpretations, clearly.
She could have identified as a man the first time she appeared and then transitioned between then and Feast of Sigils. There's not a lot of detail on the subject since it's not germane to the adventure.
I'd suggest if you played her as more of a bear in the past you either stick with that interpretation when running for players who met her that way, or give a bit more explanation behind the change.
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Developer
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There were a few errors in here, so we're going to put up an updated version as soon as we can. Here's the rundown of the changes we're making:
Text about the symbols in the lower temple has been updated to make it clear they're attuned to Kesoulla's allies.
Kesoulla's 4th-level divine favor changes to divine power.
The map on page 15 will have the Symbol of Pain text and symbol removed. The X represents the symbol.
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Developer
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Kolby, see the changes above for most issues you talked about. As for the others:
- Note that the high subtier version of Drollis has 7 levels of monk instead of 8.
- We're not seeing any problem with Kesoulla's skill ranks!
- She has Scribe Scroll as a bonus feat from the Rune domain.
How to handle the Sigil Wafer as GM
-Is it a boon that we can assign to Chaotic Neutral Character if we also have that character pay for the atonement?
Kesoulla's Holy Symbol
-Nothing listed in gear so is it safe to assume that she has a tattoo focus?Victory Conditions
Kesoulla's tactics say she makes a break for it if things go bad or PC's fall back and the conditions for victory say PC's need to kill or drive off cultist's. If she runs with the Sigil Wafer's is it still a win & what should be the total gold deduction from this outcome?
1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. If Kesoulla runs off and escapes with the sigil wafers, the Pathfinders are still successful; they ran the cult out of Kaer Maga. They do lose out on her gear, so have them find the normal amount of treasure in some other form but don't give them access to the items that were in her gear list.
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Where are the entrances to the basement area? I'm not seeing them on the map, and I must keep skipping over the description of them.
EDIT: Wait, I think I spotted a staircase in area B6, the southern part. Where's the other one?
EDIT OF EDIT: I'm also confused about the abandoned building portion. The PCs breaking into an abandoned building, there is a 50% chance that a boarded up door leads to area E. Except I can't find any area E.
Also, where does the hidden exit (Perception 30 to notice) lead to in the basement?
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I have another question regarding B1. In the 7-8 tier, the description says it is a symbol of sleep, while the actual trap is listed as a symbol of pain. Which is correct?
I also have a player who I am pretty sure is going to want his animal companion to eat a sigil wafer. Should animal companions be able to eat souls?
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, Contributor
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Ok, sorry to take so long to get back to you.
Area "E" is actually the alley between the buildings. Originally I had a bigger map and the ally was extended to include more buildings. In a last minute change I narrowed the map down to two buildings and clearly didn't update the text. To be honest, it's probably easiest to just ignore the text about exiting to area E entirely.
The stairs in the basement lead to the secret door in the north end of the alleyway (its mentioned in the GM text right under the afore mentioned "Area E"), but doesn't appear on the map.
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Hah that's the problem I had with Drollis, I had him marked in as a level 8 monk when i was doing my prep still at the higher tier (seriously he should be, he needs the help)!
@Adam
I thought it should be a symbol of pain for the low tier.
The way I handled it was that in the description for the basement it gives info that might help. Above the temple is basically an entire block of empty buildings other than the drug house. Though no map of this block is provided with the adventure if the PC chose to scout the surrounding area than they have the % chance of breaking into the building that contains the secret hidden exit that leads down to the temple (Stairs with the P at the bottom) It gives a mechanic for groups that would rather scout or sneak than walk through the entrance of a drug house.
My person view for the companion nibbling on a soul
-Why would someone want to infuse a trusted, beloved animal companion with an essence of evil? I would count it as an alignment infraction for the PC.
-If they wanted to eat the wafer as well then that's another one. If that character had ever had a prior infraction or warning then I would rule that they were at a high risk (I would strongly recommend that the character be removed to my VC/VL) of having that character removed from society play for repeated evil actions if they chose to follow through on that course of action.
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Hey everyone,
I am going to be running this for my VC here in St. Louis soon and I want to make sure I have everything in order before I run this. After seeing all the errors that this scenario has, I re-read the scenario to make sure that it flows and here is what I found:
I have added small comments in my copy of the scenario to make up for the changes that were discussed in this thread (Improved Grapple vs Ki Throw), the swap of the 4th level spell Divine Power vs Divine favor, and the mapping errors. Hopefully, a edited version comes out soon! :)
*CONFUSED SPOILERS AHEAD* (Not for sure how much this gives away but I will spoiler them anyway)
I'm trying to make sense of this map and how it is explained. There are two buildings (B1-4 and B6) with an alley separating them. There is a way to get into the left building with Drollis but I'm not seeing how to get into the second one. Per the information block, the players can find the secret door or use the double door entrance into the building with the Will o' Wisps, BUT it states that the double doors are " sealed up so tightly as to be inoperable."
Does this mean it is unusable? Can not be opened? What's it made out of? Can it be beat/smashed down?
Can we get the stats of the Symbol of Sleep since in the low tier it has the stats of the Symbol of pain (Unless we should just use the symbol of pain since it's already in the scenario)
B6: It says in the Title (Cold Storage CR12 or CR14) but yet under Subtier 7-8 it says CR 11 and Subtier 10-11 it says CR 12. Is there something else that needs to be added that I am missing to get the subtiers up to the correct stated CR.
B6 again:
Stated in the Traps box under B6, it states this: "In each subtier, a symbol of scrying is scribed on the southern wall in the space marked with an X. The symbol has no effect on this encounter, but triggering it alerts Kesoulla."
How does this get triggered and can we get the stats for it by chance to see if they detect it or notice it? Does it emit an aura? Sounds?
Part Three:
Both tiers have Forbiddance. How does that trigger? Any time a PC enters into the AOE? Meaning, if a PC walks in it, BOOM, they get hit. Then they walk back up the stairs and back down into it, do they get hit again? Same with the Symbol of Pain?
This scenario is great and has alot of storyline in it and I hope that I can project just how revolting the cult is and how they mean business. I just wish it was a bit more clear in the stats.
Thanks for the help and I want to thank Logan for a extremely good scenario!
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My person view for the companion nibbling on a soul
-Why would someone want to infuse a trusted, beloved animal companion with an essence of evil? I would count it as an alignment infraction for the PC.
-If they wanted to eat the wafer as well then that's another one. If that character had ever had a prior infraction or warning then I would rule that they were at a high risk (I would strongly recommend that the character be removed to my VC/VL) of having that character removed from society play for repeated evil actions if they chose to follow through on that course of action.
Just having your character eat a wafer is not grounds for removal from the campaign. It is only if the character's alignment is evil that they should be removed. Of course I would apply the alignment penalty to the druid for having his companion eat it, but that would be cleared up with an atonement spell, and using two wafers doesn't seem to be any worse than eating only one. My question was merely as to whether it's possible for an animal companion to benefit.
Dennis: Thank you for the help. If you wouldn't mind answering one more question, the Shadow Lodge and Lantern Lodge faction missions don't list a Diplomacy DC required. Since I don't know Miss Feathers' Charisma score, my default would be to set it at 25, since they have the opportunity to reduce it by up to 9 points if they have met her before and if they bribe her.
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Sigil wafers do not specify a creature type they do or don't work on, so the assumption is that any creature can benefit from them. In the case of eating two, you can't get the benefits of more than one wafer, but each one contains a portion of another sentient being's soul, and consuming one involves the permanent destruction of that soul fragment (from an unwilling nonevil creature). So each wafer eaten should be its own evil act and shift alignment toward evil as a result. And yes, I'd ding a PC for feeding one to his animal companion, and ding him twice if he ate one himself in addition to making the animal do it.
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Mark: Of course. However, you can't get more evil than evil. If a neutral PC eats one and feeds one to his animal companion, he doesn't get SUPER ULTRA evil. He becomes evil, and requires an atonement before the end of the session. I would call it two evil acts, but I wouldn't ask for two atonements.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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B6 again:
** spoiler omitted **
I second that, especially since a Pathfinder Savant has a chance to not trigger that
@Adam - I would consider requiring an atonment for each evil act, otherwise a player could just go as evil as they wanted for an entire scenario or module and only have to pay for one atonement at the end
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Is it still an evil act for a PC if they do not realize what the wafers are? Suppose they attack Drollis without participating in the Feast and afterwards find some "funny-looking crackers."
Would a curious PC who happens to munch on one still need an atonement? Just wondering, as I know a couple of PCs who would likely be excited to "steal the dwarf's snack crackers."
(I was thinking of having any such PCs feel a "taint of evil" as soon as the cracker hit their tongue, and giving them the option to spit it out. This would guarantee that consuming the cracker and needing an atonement was an informed decision.)
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Adam, its not just a matter of a character going from evil to super evil, its that repeatedly commiting evil acts gets a character removed from socity play. If a player keeps making a character do evil thing reguarless of how many times he pays for atonement that character is suspose to be retired.
Though I might be a bit harsh (hey I gave the boon to my character as a present for making it to 33 games and paid the atonement costs) if a character does some thing that's an evil act, is told its an evil act, is warned that what he about to do is another evil act, does it again anyway and had been warned about commiting evil acts before,,,, well I have my view.
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First, one or even two regular evil actions is not enough, in my humble opinion, to allow for an alignment shift. It's only because the wafers specifically state that an alignment shift happens that atonement is required. Since atonement allows you to become neutral good from neutral evil, only one casting is required.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, Contributor
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@Nathan King
The building on the east is entered via the door right next to the 5 in the "B5" label. The double doors that are blocked are the doors on the opposite (east) side of the building. If the PCs decide to hack through the doors, treat them as a wooden wall (you can find the hardness and hit points for wooden walls in the Core book).
Symbol of scrying is in Ultimate Magic (Link). It's a 5th level trap spell so the Perception DC and the Disable Device DC is 30.
The encounters in Cold Storage are CR 12 and 14 respectively, the headers are incorrect. Run the encounters as is save...
For Subtier 10-11 the text mentions a single "Ancient War Wisp" but the stat block for sub-tier 10-11 lists "Greater War Wisps (3) CR 12". That would make this very close to a CR 16 encounter... which I don't believe is correct.
I've got an email to Mark and Logan about this.
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One cast of resist energy by 7th level (20 resist) or 11th level (30 resist) makes the wisps very kitten like. The group I ran through it suffered 6 points of damage outside of damage done by lighting form & flame strike from all the full round attack actions of around 10 rounds, thanks to resist energy communal over 25 "hits" for 6 damage.
That's not much of a CR 16
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So here's my report for the low-tier of this I ran yesterday:
When they got to the Lethe house, a few of my players went in while others and animal companions guarded the door. I was surprised that no one tried to scout around the building, but I shrugged it off. Drollis met the cleric and she flashed a Lissalan tattoo that she had received earlier, and that immediately put me in a pickle regarding how he should react to her. I decided that he had received forewarning and was going to still assume that there was hostility, and it didn't help that the cleric couldn't Bluff to save her life ("Oh yeah, I've totally heard of the Feast of Sigils!"). Most of them elected to go on the tour and participate in the feast, although when it came time to cut themselves, Valeros stood up, much to the delight of a Lethehead who was ushered in to take his place.
The funniest part of the feast was the few characters who tried to NOT eat their wafer. Eventually they caught on that it was a good thing to eat, but I was amused. After the feast, the dwarf initiated combat with the symbol of pain, and after spitting some tobacco into Valeros' eye, he was immediately felled by a natural 20 gunslinger bullet (unfortunately, he had already deflected a previous shot). The goons tried to flee and failed.
The Andorans failed to convince their man to come with them: he said he would take the Lissalans over having the Church of Asmodeus after him; as a result, they left him chained to the table so he could think about it more. Then they got to the Cold Storage room.
Oh man, those Wisps. I loved this encounter. I had them moving all over the place, and easily tricked the party into getting three of them with the flamestrike. Because of the invisibility, the cleric without Selective Channelling ended up healing one of them almost back up to full at one point, not knowing that the injured Wisp was just in range. The encounter went on a little long, although I was happy to give the players something to fear after the anemic dwarf and his two anemic goons. Eventually the druid realized she had a wand of resist energy, but it didn't get to see enough use, because her animal companion then ate one (well, grappled and destroyed, but she eats things), while Valeros managed to crit the other into submission.
The forbiddence effect really spooked them, especially the one who got a whopping 42 damage. The negation of summoning also made the encounter less trivial. Less trivial, because they ended up killing the goons VERY quickly and more-or-less trapped her in her room. Still, we were running out of time, so the quick victory was welcome.
Can we have more Will-o'-Wisps in encounters?
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Full run down from a 4 person high tier
Players:
Level 10/1 Paladin/Duel Cursed Oracle {Tank}
Level 7/2/1 Monk/Barbarian/Cleric {DPS} *hyper optimized
Level 11 Cleric {Healer}
Level 10 Mystic Theurge {negative energy}
Adventure started and one player was part of a funny encounter with mis feathers. Had some fun with the personality and it took us about 20 min before the party even left to begin the mission.
The Lethe house got side tracked a bit as some faction mission of "I want to go look for this person" side tracked 2 members but after a couple of checks we were back on track & the whole party walked right through the front door without asking any questions. In retrospect I should have put one of the tough's outside on guard duty/bouncer but o well in they went.
Drollis was done in full Scottish and I really has some fun with him, Tank was crushing out 30+ diplomacy checks so Drollis really warmed up to "Pretty boy" and he was more than happy to invite them to the ritual & some samples of Lethe (which the DPS burned once they stepped out of the drug house).
Came back & all the players were scared to sit down at the table & do the ritual. The negative energy cleric decided he would got the boon. After that point people wanted to smash symbol which started combat.....Drollis was nailed by an metamagic touch of idiocy and never got to act in the first round as his charisma got dropped to 0. Mooks got bent over by the party, I think one got one hit in before they were all goners.
A grumpy Drollis woke up 80 min later striped of loot and after some verbal sparring they left him tied up in his office ****he was unharmed otherwise**** the party moved on & I started making escape artist checks for Mr Grumpy.
Wisps were a huge disappointment, Healer put of resist energy communal in the first round after the first Wisp attacked & meant that other than lighting form they had no real way the damage the PC's. Seeing how this fight was going & because I rolled good Drollis made his return, & actually got to do a dirty trick in the paladin's face but then the party closed the door and I was left with a choice... was he going to keep getting in to the Wisp room or just head down stairs and warn the mistress so away he went.
Party finished off the Wisps with a bit of humour since they were stuck not able to do any damage and the players closed the door. People went downstairs to find everyone waiting for them.
Final combat was somewhat disappointing the 4 player reduction really put things in the players flavor, even with the add of Drollis. Forbiddence was a little scary to people but they all had monster saves (one fail the entire night) and the amount of healing the 1/2 damage did not really matter. Drollis at least got to spit again, did not work on the tank this time so ruled he got it all over the chest rather then in the eyes. PC's traded spell passed all saves and 4 rounds in all the mooks & Drollis were dead & Kes started to run. We were running short on time and with air walk and running Kes was fast enough to get away. Once outside it was basically can the one person who could see invis do enough damage before she was out of range. That Scroll of heal came in handy & Kes got away.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, Contributor
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Big Thanks for taking the time to write an in-depth review Kolby!
Prepared characters turning an encounter into a cake-walk isn't a terrible thing, that's a proper reward for being prepared!
As for Drollis, it isn't meant to be a super tough encounter, just something fun and different.
One of the problems with designing essentially 4 separate encounters using a few basic parts (high tier, low tier, six players, four players), is that there are always going to be some that are tougher than others.
Prepared characters turning an encounter into a cake-walk isn't a terrible thing, that's a proper reward for being prepared!
Well said!
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Most parties should have access to some form of resist energy or protection from energy, however. My players were complaining about how broken the fight was, but my druid player only remembered at the end that he had a wand to give everyone resist electricity 10. That and a few bags of powder would have made the fight absolutely trivial.
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Okay, so here's my session report:
Party is:
Lvl 10 Paladin/Summoner/Oracle/Dragon Disciple (plus a level or two of something else I think)
Lvl 8 Ranger/Inquisitor/Gunslinger/Rogue/Master Spy (I wish I was joking...)
Lvl 9 Witch
Lvl 10 Barbarian
(all human)
Playing subtier 10-11
So, party gets their mission and the taldan spy starts immediately on his faction mission, finding where the target is in town so he can better disguise himself as the boy. He then goes into the brothel to do his faction mission while the rest of the party talks to Ms. Feathers. Turns out to be a bad idea as the spy is usually the one who is good at remembering what they have to do.
Anyway, so they head over to the Lethe den. It occured to me that I didn't know the stats for lethe. I couldn't find them on a quick internet search, so instead I used my GMing Sleight of Hand to direct the attention somewhere else when someone went to start smoking them. The barbarian did identify that they caused some memory loss. The barbarian starts asking Drollis rather bluntly where Gelwin is. Drollis replies rather bluntly that it's none of his business and that he should stop prying in. The barbarian reads that as "I know and I'm not telling you", so he proceeds to try to go to the back of the shop. Init is triggered, and the witch slumbers the dwarf. One guard goes and wakes him up "Wonderful, he's 'fallen asleep' right when we need him. Again". The second one goes to the now open door and provokes from the barbarian, who takes it. Still alive, he closes the door and now that they've been attacked, the third guard pulls the curtain off of the wall revealing the symbol. Everyone fails but the paladin (really high CHA...) and so they all take 15 STR damage (!!!) Drollis offers for the party to leave, figuring that they would be out of town by the time the party recovered. They leave, dragging their companions behind them. One problem. The witch had a spite with a vampiric touch loaded. Kinda hurt the paladin a bit...
After a lot of lesser restorations later, the party attempts to go in again. First they decide to send the spy in to make sure everything's okay. The spy finds an empty front room with no new sigil and a lethe addict sleeping in the corner. ("Aw, he's so cute. I rob him.") Then he goes to the back to find the feast in progress. after informing Drollis that he's from the Magnimar branch of the cult of Lisalla, he finds out the details of the feast from Drollis. Drollis directs him down to where Kesoulla is. The spy decides to go down, but makes the fatal mistake of missing the advanced war wisps. After being struck by a lightning bolt, he bails, running back to the party.
The party decides to surround the back room, where Drollis and his guards are packing some last things before they leave. They beat up on them pretty well, but not before the witch dominates Drollis. They start asking Drollis what he knows. Based on no knowledge skills or spellcraft, he knows there's some protections downstairs but not what it is. He is then asked what the wafers do.
Drollis - "They trap parts of people's souls and make you stronger if you eat them."
Spy - "I eat one."
I start whispering to the Spy.
Witch - "I eat one too."
Paladin - "I'm destroying them."
Me - "How?"
Paladin - "With my weapon."
Okay then... Did I mention the paladin was Silver Crusade? (as if that was a surprise...)
Anyway, after the two slightly evil PCs actually are evil, the party has two main questions for Drollis. "Where is Gelwin?" and "How do you get past the will-o-the-wisps?" Apparently they got past the will-o-the-wisps by running really fast (read: I couldn't find the actual answer in the mod) and Gelwin was in the office. The Andoran Barbarian (heh! get it? all Andorans are barbarians!) starts trying to convince Gelwin to go to Andoran. The Spy hops in because it sounds fun and lets him know that his former employers did this to him. "But why would the Church of Asmodeus do this to me?" The witch wakes up. "You have two choices here - you can give me an in to the church of Asmodeus and then leave this place and head to Andoran, or I can ship you back to Cheliax as a bunny." Pretty successful Intimidate, would've worked on me (but then again I dumped wisdom.)
The party runs through the will-o-the-wisps room and makes it to the stairs where the barbarian comes into range of the forbiddance effect before init is rolled. The paladin and dominated Drollis surround Kesoulla as the barb takes care of the guard and the spy and witch refuse to enter the room because of the forbiddance. After reading the wrong stat block for Kesoulla at first, I fix her turn by casting blasphemy, paralyzing and weakening the paladin and barbarian. (Since the witch and spy had taken a step towards evil, they were unaffected by the blasphemy). Then since I have the paladin helpless and she just smited me, I figured I'd take the opportunity to cold ice strike her. Turns out that the oracle level is for Sidestep Secret and Divine Grace doesn't shut off it you are helpless, so her Reflex was unaffected by being helpless. We in Philly do love our cheese.
The rest of the fight turns into the barbarian, monk and paladin trying desperately to survive blast after blast at CL 13 being thrown down upon them as they try to hit AC 29. The witch managed to identify the blasphemy from earlier and the spy's player decided to look it up. "Guys, not that I want to metagame here, but I think that the cleric is much higher level than us. By a lot." (That's not metagaming! That's an appropriate inference from IC knowledge!) The paladin was desperately laying hands on herself as the barbarian manages to stay up barely. A couple heals were sent their way, but neither the witch nor the spy really wanted to walk through the blade barrier that was erected. The paladin was making all her saves, but by the time the dominated Drollis put the finishing blow on Kesoulla, the paladin was at 3 HP with no lay on hands left and the barb was pretty close to zero too. And besides the save on the forbiddance that the paladin failed, she made every single other one. The half damage was still seriously hurting her.
After finally dropping Kesoulla, the party searches around and finds more of the sigils. The barbarian runs up and eats one before the paladin can destroy them all with her weapon. (I had the paladin roll a know:religion before doing it. She got a 4. Total.) They decide to let the witch agony hex the will-o-the-wisps before going back up and rescuing the prisoners from the ground floor. They run back to whatever in they are staying while the Taldan spy slanders more of the one kid's good name.
After the mod, while the other three players are paying for their atonement, I inform the paladin player about the 50 soul fragments she destroyed by cutting them with her weapon. The spy said "Wow, and I thought I was evil..." Once again proving that the Silver Crusade is the evilest faction and that paladins are not to be trusted. I mean, what does the Silver Crusade leader really want with all those evil relics she keeps asking you to collect and bring to her?
I'll be writing a post about my likes and dislikes about the mod later. Both likes and dislikes are coming out strongly. That being said, it was a rarity. A 10-11 game that was really enjoyable w/ roleplaying and combat that fit in a 4-hour slot. Despite any objections I write about after I go to sleep tonight, it can't be that bad since I have trouble fitting all those qualities in a high-tier session, but Feast of Sigils felt really easy to run. (Well, except Kesoulla, but what do you expect from a Lvl 13 Cleric w/ offensive spells? I have never rolled 13d6 so much in my life...)