4-25 Secrets Stones Keep [Spoilers]

[Pirate Rob]

Hi there, I've got some questions about CR and number of critters in encounter C5.

The heading for the encounter says CR 9 or CR 12 yet the subtier headings are listed as CR 8 and CR 11.

That doesn't really cause any problems but I thought I'd mention it.

My real question is for the subtier 8-9 encounter: how many of the CR6s should there be?

My basic CR math tells me that there should be 3 to get to CR 11, but that 2 would also work for an encounter on the low end of 11. Just wanted to make sure to use the right number.

Thanks.

[John Compton]

The encounter should be CR 8 and 11 respectively.

In Subtier 8–9 there should be 3 of the [foe-creatures] to make the CR 11.

[Larcifer]

Ohh ohh excited to see how this one turned out!!!

[Pirate Rob]

Thanks John.

[bugleyman]

What I really want to know after reading page 18 is: Who doesn't like Wontons? ;-)

[Majuba]

Some minor stat block issues from my read-thru (in addition to the one above - thanks for posting early Rob!

Spoiler:

Pg 7, Tier 5-6 Kogan AC & FF are two too low (armor bonus). Could be an equipment adjustment as the Acrobatics appears 1 high as well, but nothing quite fits.
Pg. 9 Tier 8-9 Magra needed to put 8th level ability score increase in charisma instead of dex to cast 5th level spells.

[Pirate Rob]

Majuba wrote:

Some minor stat block issues from my read-thru (in addition to the one above - thanks for posting early Rob!

** spoiler omitted **

Spoiler:

Kogan AC:
AC 20, touch 12, flat-footed 16 (+7 armor, +1 deflection, +3 Dex,
+1 natural, –2 rage)

AC and touch both appear correct to me, although flat footed should be 17, unless I'm missing something? (Also don't forget the dodge bonus vs melee)

Majuba: What slots are you running 4-25? Maybe we can share some of the prep?

[Drogon]

Larcifer wrote:

Ohh ohh excited to see how this one turned out!!!

Well, it looks pretty good. Easily one of the richest stories I've ever seen in a dungeon crawl, so you deserve a, "Well done!" on that front. The conversation with the stele, with all its cryptic dwarven clues, will be great fun to play. I love that kind of history instilled into role playing.

And, wow, am I looking forward to that final encounter. That is going to be a blast to run. Only thing I could wish for is that those guys had been worked into the (visible to the PCs) background of the rest of the adventure. I may have to come up with some sightings for players to have while making their way through the citadel and across the causeway.

PS - Kudos for putting not one, but two items into the tier 5-6 treasure that are not only tempting, but cannot simply be purchased with a PC's existing fame limits.

[Cybit]

Ran this last night with no prep time, definitely messed up some of it, but oh well. >_<. Group was low tier, with no dwarves. (PS: Have a dwarf for this series. Makes life much, much better.)

the Map:

As a note: If you want to draw the map to scale, get a MondoMap -- you're going to need it. The place is huge. I'd personally Theater of the Mind the entire first part of reaching the citadel; there's nothing that is positional dependent, and it saves you a ton of map time.

The second part of the citadel is one of those crazy diagonal maps...I just rotated it 45 degrees and it made everyone's lives significantly simpler. This is also a huge area, but however, positions may matter due to the potential for combat

First Encounter:

So, assuming the party does not sneak up to the banner, Shield Other and Sanctuary are cast already. They went the duel route, so I had the orc call for a fair fight, and make enough lawyer-level comments such as "No more spells" or "Our men fight as they are right now", which tipped at least one player off to cast detect magic on the orc champion. Once it was revealed that he had Shield Other on him, the players could use bluff / diplomacy / intimidate to get Magra mad enough to dispel the Shield Other.

Anvil & Hammer:

Don't mess up like me and not read all of B1 to B6 before describing things to the players. I messed up a couple of the handouts & sayings, but it is a really cool scene if you do it all correctly. So read B1 through B6 before you start describing B1.

Second & Third Encounter(s):

At low tier, the guardians kicked the holy hell out of my group. +15 vs AC for 2d6 + 15? 10 Hardness? 15 ft reach? Yikes. The players are either toting adamantine weapons or they need to get to the stele ASAP. The rogue was able to UMD the stele the turn before the guardians turned 2 of the PCs into mush. I had the rust monsters show up in 8 rounds after they opened the door, so they ended up using the guardians to annihilate the rust monsters.

[John Compton]

Cybit wrote:

First Encounter

Brilliantly played!

Cybit wrote:

Second and Third Encounters

Yep, the earlier of the two is a tough encounter; that's in large part why the stele option exists. I'm glad to hear that in the end things turned out alright for everyone. Were the final encounter's creatures able to chew through the constructs?

[Cybit]

Couple of additional notes

First Encounter:

I almost didn't even have them make checks on Magra, just because they came up with some amazingly awesome taunts & comments. They hit a pair of 30+ bluff and diplomacy checks, so they would have made it anyway I think, but they enjoyed messing with the orcs.

Second and Final Encounter:

The players correctly surmised that the final encounter creatures would see the constructs as a bigger target, and thus positioned themselves in AoO position for the creatures. On top of it, they arranged themselves a certain way such that the juiciest targets would be behind the constructs regardless, increasing the chance that their plan would work. 2 of the four creatures didn't even survive the AoOs (2 PCs with Combat Reflexes, boo), and the constructs + the PCs decimated the remaining two. In a straight fight, I'm decently certain the constructs would still dominate the final encounter's creatures. The constructs can almost one shot them, max damage on a non crit might actually take a creature out.

I ended up misplacing the stele right behind the constructs (right up the initial set of stairs), so an additional twist was thrown in where the PCs were attempting to distract the constructs from smashing the one person who could use the stele into dust. On the bright side for the PCs, this also meant they could get to the stele much quicker, which I think is the only thing that saved them. The rooms are REALLY big, and it takes someone hauling butt multiple rounds to get to the stele. Those constructs will be doing 44 damage a round most likely (the to hit is so high). Unless the players are toting adamantine...oof, I think melee characters die in that fight.

When they activated the stele post fight, they got to use the big center room (C4 I think?) as a viewing room, which made the holographic images the stele produced to show them where another Sky Citadel was far, far more epic. Rather than just contact the Citadel located in the WorldWound, I had the stele show the PCs, Google Earth style, where they were, and then trace a path around Golarion to where the next one was.

[bugleyman]

One minor point: When including words like "Stele," can we get a pronunciation in the mod? I looked it up, and got different answers from Merriam-Webster (stēl), another online dictionary (stē-lē), and my GM (stel). :P

[Cybit]

Apparently it is pronounced like the metal "steel". Had a player in the game who has an AA in Arts, and he told me how it was pronounced because otherwise I would have driven him insane. :D

[Rusty Ironpants]

Cybit wrote:

Ran this last night with no prep time, definitely messed up some of it, but oh well. >_<. Group was low tier, with no dwarves. (PS: Have a dwarf for this series. Makes life much, much better.)

You did an admirable job running this with little prep time. The fact it was sunday night after the con and much beer was consumed was a contributing factor as well.

I am just glad that Roland, My Delver, was able to take care of all the traps and use UMD to fool the Stele into thinking he was a dwarf!

[Cybit]

Yeah, the group was dead if you didn't use UMD to get the stele to work for you.

[Doug Miles]

A couple of interesting twists occurred when I ran this last week. To mess with metagamers, I brought every construct mini I owned and lined the walls of the Council Halls (area C) with them after the players solved the entry riddle. "Oh, they're just statues" No one wanted to set foot in the place. A PC put up deathwatch and asked if he saw any constructs. The room description says "The animated constructs are able to pass through squares containing other statues with ease, as these statues shift and step out of their path to make way for the guardians." I told him they all appeared to be constructs (kind of gave too much away considering it only works out to 30' but the reaction was priceless).

A player identified the presence of rust monsters earlier. He had a bright idea--what if a fast flying PC went and searched out the rust monsters and lured them back to the Hall? The rest of the party could retreat to the safety past the broken bridge. He thought the rust monsters would neutralize the constructs. In reality it would be the other way around, but they could have safely triggered the fight and damaged the guardians in the bargain. I just told him there could be some unfortunate consequences to his plan, but it stood a chance of working. The players didn't do it in the end, but I'm interested in what you other GMs would have done in the same situation. How many rust monsters would you have them lure back, and based on the outcome would you skip the final encounter?

Also, as mentioned above, the party would have been hosed without a UMD-trained sorcerer who made an end-run for the stele. He saved their bacon.

No one could speak Dwarvern, they had scrolls of comprehend languages and a wizard trained in Linguistics. I was generous with them, but did I miss something? If the PCs have no means to speak Dwarvern are they hosed?

[Iammars]

Doug Miles wrote:

No one could speak Dwarvern, they had scrolls of comprehend languages and a wizard trained in Linguistics. I was generous with them, but did I miss something? If the PCs have no means to speak Dwarvern are they hosed?

They're hosed until they get to the stele room - where there is a belt of dwarvenkind.

[John Compton]

Iammars wrote:

Doug Miles wrote:

No one could speak Dwarvern, they had scrolls of comprehend languages and a wizard trained in Linguistics. I was generous with them, but did I miss something? If the PCs have no means to speak Dwarvern are they hosed?

They're hosed until they get to the stele room - where there is a belt of dwarvenkind.

Sir Canayven Heidmarch's mission briefing (page 4) wrote:

"You're heading into a ruin that predates the common language, so make sure that somebody has the means to speak and understand Dwarven."

I made sure to have the VC mention that to give the PCs an opportunity to purchase some medium for casting comprehend languages or tongues if needed.

[Fromper]

John Compton wrote:

Iammars wrote:

Doug Miles wrote:

No one could speak Dwarvern, they had scrolls of comprehend languages and a wizard trained in Linguistics. I was generous with them, but did I miss something? If the PCs have no means to speak Dwarvern are they hosed?

They're hosed until they get to the stele room - where there is a belt of dwarvenkind.

Sir Canayven Heidmarch's mission briefing (page 4) wrote:

"You're heading into a ruin that predates the common language, so make sure that somebody has the means to speak and understand Dwarven."

I made sure to have the VC mention that to give the PCs an opportunity to purchase some medium for casting comprehend languages or tongues if needed.

Or to have someone look over their language list, compare to their ranks in linguistics, and say "I forgot to learn a language for one of my ranks in linguistics. I think I'll take Dwarven."

No, I'm not making that up.

[Bbauzh ap Aghauzh]

I would probably not allow that to work on the spot Fromper.

All skill ranks, feats, and languages need to be taken at the moment you level up. They can't be saved.

Technically if you forgot to get one of those things, you lose it.

However, I wouldn't make that determination as a GM.

But I certainly wouldn't let them just decide to take Dwarven after hearing the briefing.

[John Compton]

My approach would be to say, "Hey, I'm sorry that you forgot to assign that language earlier, but I think it's a little questionable to pick up Dwarven having just heard the briefing. After the scenario, I'm perfectly fine with your grabbing Dwarven to fill that empty slot, but for now it's going to have to remain as it is."

I do similar thing for people who forgot to assign all of their skill points or grab a feat in the middle of a scene in which that skill or feat would be key. As with many things, I'm more lenient about this with beginners and particularly low-level characters.

[Fromper]

Yeah, it was a little ify. The GM was apparently a softy and let him get away with it.

[JamesH]

This looks like a great scenario, but the mapping is going to be a bear. My kingdom for a simple map. And my budget will not allow me to have it done commercially. I'll do the best I can.

[Gwaihir Scout]

The first encounter is weird. There are two orcs that are very far forward, next to or before the banner. I don't see how they're supposed to stay "hidden" as the text briefly mentions. Best way I can see to get them there is to have them move there if the party decides to try the challenge.

[Matthew Pittard]

Gwahir: I had the Orcs coming in from those small little cut off side tunnel areas.

My Players went for the Test of Strength approach. The orcs started jeering and cheering as they formed a half circle behind their champion and also protecting the oracle at the rear. He actually died to damage as he absorbed far too much in a single round to compensate with his healing (damnable Crits)

As to the map. I actually defaulted to printing out the ones in the scenario and then using them as an overview. Obviously there was no key information on them. Sure it meant that the secret passage was visible but Metagaming aside it certainly is a lot easier to do then attempting to draw that complex. Its just way too big.

[Craig Bertuglia]

How in Cayden Cailean's Overcrowded Taproom does this not end in a riot of butthurt players who just lost expensive items to a herd of rust monsters???

[Monkhound]

Many solutions for that. Remember that this is a 5-9 adventure, and making use of terrain should be normal tactics by now:
Fireball is one.
Fly and hurl things from the distance is another.
Haste makes it possible to outrun and kite them.

My players had the monk and conjurer wizard (suddenly remembering Kyra had one of his MM rods) defeat them, while the paladin was cowering in a corner of the circular room (and laughing his a** off IRL).
Kyra was rusted out of her gear and started distracting the monsters with coins.

Anyway: My players had a blast when I ran it a few months ago.

[Ascalaphus]

We had a Kyra7 pregen who cast Fire Shield and then got swarmed by rust monsters. She lost everything - every last delectable metal coin - but we also had lots of crispy monsters.

Also, Make Whole can undo a lot of damage.