How did your Giants' attack on Sandpoint go?


Rise of the Runelords

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I could get DR 16/- by level 13. that would be so awesome. Combine that with the party cleric having shield other on you so you only take half damage and you could survive almost forever.

Sovereign Court

My optimized PCs after an initial surprise, where they underestimated the opposition, and some initial bad planning, easily crushed everything in their path, with barely a sweat.

Except with the Dragon, they had trouble with him, until it failed a suggestion check.


Mark_Twain007 wrote:
I could get DR 16/- by level 13. that would be so awesome. Combine that with the party cleric having shield other on you so you only take half damage and you could survive almost forever.

Just have a care not to ovedue it... sometimes one more point of DR isn't worth what you might be giving up with a key feat or Rage power. It wouldn't be worth bumping Come and Get Me, for instance. Just something to keep in mind.


Mark_Twain007 wrote:
I could get DR 16/- by level 13. that would be so awesome. Combine that with the party cleric having shield other on you so you only take half damage and you could survive almost forever.

One last thing (sorry about the threadjack) - there's another option I've been toying with where the character takes four levels of Unbreakable Fighter first and gets Whirlwind Attack by 5th level before investing fully in his Barbarian career... its up to you if you think its worth it.

Feats & Rage Powers:
1st - Combat Expertise
1st - Power Attack
1st - Diehard
1st - Endurance
2nd - Dodge
3rd - Mobility
4th - Spring Attack
5th - Whirlwind Attack
6th - Superstition (R)
7th - Combat Reflexes
8th - Lesser Beast Totem (R)
9th - Stalwart
10th - Beast Totem (R)
11th - Improved Stalwart
12th - Reckless Abandon (R)
13th - Raging Brutality
14th - Greater Beast Totem (R)
15th - Extra Rage Power: Increased Damage Reduction
16th - Come and Get Me (R)
17th - Extra Rage Power: Increased Damage Reduction
18th - Witch Hunter (R)
19th - Extra Rage Power: Increased Damage Reduction
20th - Ghost Rager (R)

Scarab Sages

Jimmy "Big Daddy" Ho-Chunk wrote:
If it helps, here is the gridded Sandpoint Map I cooked up with for the raid. I printed it out and attached it to a big piece of foam board.

Even though my raid is over, I tried to take a look at it for curiosity's sake, but I can't get the link to come up with anything. All I get is a big empty graphic cube with an X in the upper right, as if the picture link is no longer valid.

Scarab Sages

Wiggz wrote:


One quick recommendation - since this character was built as a tank, I suggest using a reach weapon early on to take advantage of Combat Reflexes and gain some free attacks. Lesser Beast Totem gives you the claws necessary to make adjacent AoO's. When you get Come and Get Me, carry a reach weapon and a standard two-handed weapon so that you can use whatever is appropriate for the foe you face.

The thing most of my players in PFS forget is that those natural or close in weapons, such as claws or armor spikes, are only available for AoO while wielding reach weapons if they take the "to-hit" penalties for two weapon or multi-weapon fighting. Otherwise, those claws or armor spikes aren't available when the enemy closes or passes by. I've had to hammer this into the heads of my homebrew players a few times, but they got it eventually.

Still, barbarians can be deadly with the proper build. I like the fact that your barbarian's wear heavy armor. Sucks to loose the extra movement, but I've seen so many barbarian builds rely on extra HP only to die to it.

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William Sinclair wrote:
Jimmy "Big Daddy" Ho-Chunk wrote:
If it helps, here is the gridded Sandpoint Map I cooked up with for the raid. I printed it out and attached it to a big piece of foam board.
Even though my raid is over, I tried to take a look at it for curiosity's sake, but I can't get the link to come up with anything. All I get is a big empty graphic cube with an X in the upper right, as if the picture link is no longer valid.

Grrr... That is so weird. I don't get a preview either when checking it not-logged into google docs. However I can still download it anonymously.

I'll work on it and see what I can do to fix that. Sorry!


William Sinclair wrote:
Still, barbarians can be deadly with the proper build. I like the fact that your barbarian's wear heavy armor. Sucks to loose the extra movement, but I've seen so many barbarian builds rely on extra HP only to die to it.

My players have started to realize this when I was lamenting the fact the ogrekin in the game who missed its only attack before being swarmed by the group (cornfields may be nice for hiding in, but when the cleric can fly and then reveal his location to everyone else, it doesn't matter) because said ogrekin wasn't able to take a third of the Barbarian's hit points with one strike... well, they sat back and went "oh [censored]"

I'd not be at all surprised to see the Barbarian being given extra protective gear once this is over with. Assuming of course that he doesn't die during the retaking of Fort Rannick....


Hey, Jimmy, is the map in five or ten foot squares?
Five foot seems a little off....


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So I saw this and wanted to add how our party did because I think this will get a few laughs.

First our party consisted of at the time of a dwarven barbarian/fighter (me), an elf druid, an oath of vengeance tiefling paladin, and a gnome rogue all level 10 characters. We had just gotten done with Barl and were back in Magnimar by this point figuring out what we should do next. Since the attack was going to be a month away, the barbarian decided he needed to go home because he had a nagging feeling that he needed to go home to see his clan (and cool side quest that the GM had me do to get full barbarian) and hires a gnome wizard from the Pathfinder Society to get him there. The paladin had also decided that he needed to leave for another calling and thus left but we fortunately ran into his wizard adopted brother, also the player's character from before he switched to the paladin, and told him of the attack that was coming. He then used his new fancy teleport spell to get the rest of the party back to Sandpoint to get ready for the attack.

The day of the attack comes and the first sound they hear is an explosion coming from the north gate where a giant had chucked a boulder at it and made a big hole in it. The wizard who flew there had seen what had happened and tried to intimidate them away by using silent image to "repair" the hole in the wall. This did nothing and so the giants attacked. By the time of round 3 came the wizard felt the "pop", as the GM put it, of a teleport spell go off 60 feet in the air because the gnome wizard had botched the spell with the newly full fledged barbarian.

So here's the barbarian, 60ft in the air with no where to go but down, great way to start off the new new refurbished character no? Luckily though the GM let me start my rage and activate my new acquired "Unbound" enchantment on my adamantine breastplate to negate some of the damage thanks to the temporary hp from the constitution raise. Plus was a great entrance to fall like a meteor from the sky!

So the attack goes on and now that the barbarian had returned, we were able to fight the giants without issue. We came to the bridge and both the wizard and the druid cast "Wall of Fire" on the bridge to make the giants jump off the bridge into the river. Everything was fine until the red came along. Seeing the barbarian as a threat he decided he was going to just stay in the air and use his breath weapon and fly by attacks. The druid, shape shifted as a bird with the gnome riding her dire wolf companion run to the church to make sure it was safe; while the wizard and barbarian went to battle the giants at the mill and river. Then Terak had appeared with his cohorts out of the river who were easily dealt with. Terak blew his horn to attract the dragon, before falling into a hole that the wizard had created.

The dragon comes and we had all regrouped to fight the dragon at this point. But he didn't come down to the ground because he didn't want to deal with the barbarian.

So the wizard concocted a plan.

He flew over to the barbarian and told him to drink one of my potions of enlarge person, flew up to 50 ft in the air to then ready a action to cast a spell as soon as the dragon flew by the wizard. Well Longtooth flies by and the wizard's spell goes off. Telekinetic charge was the spell he prepared and I will post the link at the bottom of the page, but basically it's a spell that lets the wizard "throw" a willing target at another target within his spell range and receives a +2 on the thrown target's to hit.

I hope where you can see where this is going at this point....

The wizard chucks the barbarian at the dragon in mid-flight and with the luck of Haste and the blessings of the Patron Saints of Gaming, Gary Gygax and David Arneson, manages to grapple the dragon and make it plummet to the earth. Damage was taken from the fall and the grappling process began between the two, with both attacking with their natural attacks, co-signing the other to death. The barbarian had to activate diehard because he wanted to strangle the life out of this dragon even if it killed him in the process.

Well the Wizard flew in and Dimensioned Door-ed him and the barbarian away to prevent him from dying. The dragon managed to get away and didn't last very long before the wizard managed to fly to it and admonishing ray it out of the sky, thus killing it on the spires of the Church.

The Wizard then started to interrogate Terak from his hole and when he realized he wasn't going to get any information Dominate Person his mind and got what he wanted, in addition to a guard for his newly formed magic shop in town.

Fun shenanigans were had by all, hope you enjoyed this story! =)

Telekintetic charge: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/t/telekinetic-charge

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Hey hey folks,

Okay so to update the Sandpoint Maps I did.

1. I've switched it over to a .zip file that lists all the stuff including some alternate version. Hope that makes it easier to get!

2. I've included the original photoshop file (Sandpoint-Grid-Map.psd) in case you want to modify it.

3. I've included a printable version (Sandpoint-Poster-Grid-Map.pdf) in case you want to put it on foam board or whatever.

For running it. I'll be using little flag markers on long pins to show where people and bad guys are at.

To answer the question from Bigrig107. The scale is about 20' per square.

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Angar Anvilface wrote:


epic stuff of epicness

That...

...was AWESOME!

Sczarni

My party wiped out the giants at the north gate and used a combination of dimension door and fly spells to move around. They killed Longtooth before he even got to the cathedral (2 sorcerers chain casting lightning bolt did the trick). I was a little sad I didn't get to set the town on fire. A bunch of people got abducted though, since I added more giants to the raid knowing how powerful my group was.


My Characters smashed the raiders... almost.

Spoiler:

The ranger and wizard got up really early, botched their perception checks to notice the giants, and then went about their lives. When the raid started, the ranger went to the north gate while the wizard went to wake up the others. The ranger took out the giants at the north gate rapidly with the conveniently placed giant-bane arrows from the last adventure. The rest of the party got out of the inn just as the giants were crossing the bridge. The rogue went to climb the cathedral, while the wizard and druid demolished most of the giants with the barbarian on cleanup duty. The monk, though, ran up to the north gate to help the ranger and saw Longtooth on the way. He went to the top of the guardhouse and started insulting the dragon, who decided that the monk was conveniently placed on his first target. The monk lived (barely, he rolled a 2 on his reflex save) and taunted the dragon to come down. The dragon landed and the monk hit him with a critical that caused him to lose his memory for the last 1d3 hours (I love critical cards). The dragon flew around until he found Teraktinus who ordered Longtooth to attack the annoying wizard and barbarian who had been following him. The barbarian could do nothing and continued following the giant leader while the wizard (hyperventilating a bit at this point at being the main target of the dragon) summoned a giant wasp that got demolished with a single bite. The dragon fried him down to 1 hit point where the wizard hit him with a empowered lightning bolt and ran. The dragon flew off after being mostly killed outright while the giant leader got taken down by the others. Unfortunately, the giants made off with half the Scarnetti family and the brewer.


My group's getting ready to do this now. It's going to be interesting (and I will be increasing the number of giants so it's still a challenge) as the group decided, upon learning of not only the giant assault on Sandpoint but also that a bit of the magic belonged to the Black Arrows, to recruit the Black Arrows to help protect Sandpoint in exchange for their magical equipment back.

So they have Jadardros, Vale, and Orik (who had the misfortune of joining the Black Arrows just prior to the attack on the fortress) helping them out; further, they saved Kaven's life from being killed by his former compatriots and sent him to Sandpoint to become a guard under Hemlock. I don't know if I'll have him actually have reached Sandpoint yet or not; I don't think it's quite been a week, so there is a good reason to state the caravan he's in has reached Sandpoint yet.

I also have one player who retired, and this is the perfect place to retire her barbarian character; I figure I can just have her character and the former cohorts (who still are existing as NPCs for interaction, but who I'm not allowing participate in combat because it was making things too easy for the party) take on the Giants at Northgate. (BTW, how tall is the walls at Northgate? I couldn't see any information on their height.)

Given that the party also recruited and paid for heavy and medium armor for six town guard to act as a "SWAT" team of sorts, and I figure various fights might end up being less than hectic. Really the only ringer is the Dragon. I'll have to wait and see what tactics and battleplans the group comes up with upon reaching Sandpoint.


Fireballs. Lots and lots of fireballs.

The group had a few days to prepare (thanks to a teleporting kobold wizard to quickly get them back to Sandpoint from Hook Mountain), and said wizard spent those days prepping scrolls of fireball.

The party set him and the flying kobold alchemist in Sandpoint Cathedral's belltower on the morning of the attack.

Full set of enlarged fireballs prepped (4 or 5, if I remember right) and normal fireballs (5 or 6)

Fireballs at the north gate. Fireballs at the east bridge. Fireballs at the south bridge. Stone giants and dire bears dying en masse to fireballs everywhere.

Longtooth showed up and put a bit of a damper in that plan, until the barbarian jumped on the group's flying bard, got flown over to the dragon, jumped off... and passed his CMB check to grapple the dragon. Longtooth landed on the cathedral's roof, proceeded to tear into the barbarian... only to be sent away whimpering when the barbarian went to town on him.

Meanwhile, the flying kobold rained alchemist bombs down on Terraktinus, and once Longtooth was gone the barbarian leaped off the cathedral roof, chased Terraktinus down, and lobbed his head off.

I'm positively frightened by my group at this point, after they lodged Mokmurian in the ground (by casting stone to mud, then dispelling the effect, then casting obscuring mist over him), after they rooted Xanesha to the roof of the clocktower with a well-placed tanglefoot bag, and after the barbarian took of Nualia's head in three rounds (while the rest of the group was running away, frightened by Yeth Hounds).


I wouldn't think Fireball would have the range to reach all of those regions. And Mokmurian's goggles would let him see through the obscuring mist.


Fireball is 400 feet plus 40 feet/level. Assuming the caster is 11th level, that's 840 feet. Looking at the Sandpoint map, that would seem enough for me to strike at Northgate and both bridges from the top of the Cathedral. You should be able to hit anywhere in town except for the most southern area of the harbor and the noble estates along Schooner Gulch Road. Of course that doesn't mean there wouldn't be consequences for dropping fireballs on wooden bridges or in streets bordered by wooden structures - who needs a dragon to set fires when the arcane defender will do it for us? :)

Still taking out giants who are raiding and kidnapping is probably worth a few buildings catching fire...


At level 10, standard fireballs have an 800ft range.

Enlarged fireballs have 1600ft range.

He was able to hit everything. EVERYTHING! (It was kind of amusing, though... seeing waves of giants going down under those things)

Also, I accidentally the wrong name. I meant Barl Breakbones, end of chapter 3.

I'll keep Mokmurian's goggles in mind so I don't screw up that fight. :P


I really hope the Eldritch Knight player doesn't peruse this forum discussion. ^^;; Because if he realizes he just has to perch on the Church and have an open field of fire on the enemy... especially with 2 Mythic Tiers... that said, in that situation a certain aerial unit could always lead in with a flight-driven charge and power attack with a bite and give him a really really bad day. ^^;;


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Butch A. wrote:
NobodysHome wrote:


What's that called? A 'chaos' of gnomes? (My wife suggests a 'conflagration'.)
I think it's probably a 'cacophony of gnomes'.

Just to jump back here... I think it is "A bedlam of gnomes."


The attack on Sandpoint has begun. It is not looking good for the giants.

First, two caveats. My players have two Mythic Tiers (with the Eldritch Knight having the Mythic Archmage ability to cast any spell - which he's used to great effect in fact - the other two casters just have the ability to recast any spell, with the Imperious Sorceress with Dual Path with Marshal (which she uses to far greater effect). And second, they have very high stats. As such, I have boosted the stats of all monsters by +3 per stat to compensate. I also boosted numbers to a small extent.

Unlike illyume, I didn't give the players much time to prepare. Instead, they had a party at Turtleback Ferry while the Cleric used Teleport (Travel Domain) to send their companions and the Black Arrows back to Sandpoint to warn the Sheriff and Mayor of the upcoming raid. After the end of celebrations, they teleported back themselves and that's when I revealed tothe players that their efforts to build a bank and orphanage was stymied by bandit raids, and that the Scarnettis were offering to sell supplies for the bank - either for 3x the cost to ship it in from out of town, or for half ownership of the bank.

The Scarnettis had also blamed the bandit raids on the fact the Heroes of Sandpoint weren't in town. Instead they were helping some hick village barely anyone had heard of rather than helping keep their town safe. Several merchants had listened to Titus, especially having lost shipments to the bandits, and the Scarnettis had turned some of the town against them. This lasted only so far as the town meeting where the giant raid was revealed.

Titus tried to lay blame on the Heroes of Sandpoint. Several intimidate/diplomacy checks later and they had basically done a humiliation conga on Titus and made him look completely useless. That said, when the PCs suggested that Titus should go help them scout for giants in the morning? He agreed. No way not to and save face. He also swallowed his pride and offered to pay for Symbols to be cast on the bridges that would target giants rather than the inhabitants of Sandpoint. And while Ameiko had rented out their rooms, she offered to let them stay at her manor as she didn't have much use for it.

First thing in the morning the Halfling Cleric got up for a morning run and made a Perception check in the upper 30s. She noticed the giants on the nearby ridge, warned her companions (one of whom also made the check) and they got the warning to town - and townsfolk started heading to the church where they'd in theory be safe. They decided to go with two Symbols, one on each bridge, with Symbol of Slow. (That burned two Mythic from the EK, so no regrets.)

When the attack started, they'd buffed up walking to the gate, and promptly fireballed the giants (and used a third Mythic point). And then hit them with an ice storm. And summoned a mythically-enhanced Hound Archon (which lasted one round, mind you). And one giant survived long enough to flee on round three. The entire fight was via ranged attacks with the giants moving up while throwing rocks. The only damage was to a former cohort and one hit on the sorceress which was absorbed by Greater False Life and Communal Stoneskin.

At which point, realizing other attacks were likely underway, they Teleported to the northern bridge area... and found three giants and three dire bears. (I'd forgotten the bears shouldn't be affected by Slow, and all three were hit, along with one giant.) That fight took the rest of the session... but other than one stone thrown at the sorceress (which again was absorbed by stoneskin and Greater False Life) and one dire bear biting for minimum damage against the Arcane Trickster/Swashbuckler (and thus being absorbed by stoneskin) the giants and crew did nothing. This was mostly due to the Swashbuckler's armor class of 37 (Celestial Armor, Shield spell, Dexterity of 26 modified, Dodge, Amulet of Natural Armor +2, Combat Expertise, and +1 Ring of Protection), the use of Rime Ice Storm to slow most of the combatants, and good tactics. I probably should have had several more giants enter the fight with another wave but... I didn't think about it.

The game session ended on Round 8 of the attack with the group having just seen the dragon land on the Sandpoint Garrison. In all likelihood the group is going to consolidate and teleport to the Garrison and if it works attack Longtooth. It should be interesting to say the least.


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The combat actually lasted through Round 16. We have a new player (Ranger 10/Rogue 1, axe-thrower) who was tracking the giants to Sandpoint and who ended up joining in during the fight, but her fight mostly involved one giant so it didn't significantly unbalance things.

I assumed the extra player would unbalance things, so I added two extra giants (with +3 to all their stats) to the list. I also planned on having Longtooth join in the fight by having Terakinus call for him; that was delayed slightly but it played out quite dramatically.

The group actually started initially to run to catch up to Longtooth - they saw him land on the garrison and felt he was the biggest threat. But the best route to reach him led them in the path of Terakinus and his warband. Needless to say, things got ugly fast.

The NPC ended up the first target of the giants. With her very high armor class, she was a roadblock that wasted a lot of actions trying to kill her - and the one successful hit was deflected by a Mirror Image.

A Sickening Entangle by the new Ranger did manage to catch one giant, but otherwise did little to stop them. In fact, that giant and the Ranger would exchange attacks for the rest of the combat - the stones did more damage when they hit, but the Ranger hit more often. The giant surrendered at the end (at a third hit points) after conditions for a rout were met.

After two of the giants were dropped, Terakinus blew his horn and summoned aid - next round, Longtooth (upgraded to a Young Adult Red Dragon with 2 Sorcerer levels and +3 to each stat) appeared and proceeded to flambe half of the group, and really did the only significant damage to the group (dropping the cleric below half, eliminating the False Life spell of the sorcerer, and singeing the Eldritch Knight). And then the Sorceress retaliated with a Rime Ice Storm... and next round I had Longtooth reenact a Skyrim Dragon hit with Dragon Rend. Reflex saves allowed the cleric and sorceress to avoid being crushed by a falling dragon, who then took a nasty bite out of the cleric. And then Sasha proceeded to Intimidate the Dragon she grounded.

At that point, she used Strangling Hair, which was still running from a previous fight, and Longtooth was taken out of the fight. Two Cones of Cold later and not only was Longtooth down to -2, Terakinus was in the negatives as well (and the NPC made both Reflex Saves and with Evasion took nary a point of damage). The last giant promptly surrendered. And that's when things went weird.

Apparently the art for Longtooth? Makes him look kind of cute, if you're into that sort of thing. Sasha wants to tame the Dragon. And considering Sasha needs to roll a 1 to successfully Intimidate (because a 1 is not auto-failure in skill checks)? She could successfully browbeat it even before using magic on it.

Yeah. She wants to tame a dragon. And given they have defeated the dragon, with Sasha doing most of the damage (and her specialty being cold magic which is Longtooth's bane)? I could see it in theory working. I mean, if Sasha were an evil NPC, I could see her dominating and controlling through fear and intimidation a dragon... the fact she's good aligned but that fearsome (hilarious really as she's a short attractive blonde sorceress from Irrisen) doesn't change the equation by that much.

Not sure how I'm going to deal with this. I mean, in-game if Longtooth fled the battle he'd be willing to negotiate... so there is a dynamic for the group working with the dragon as a captive.


Kairos Dawnfury wrote:
Did anyone run this with NPCs? I'm really curious how it would go!

I have the answer for you if you are still interested. I am a PC in a party of 6.

Our group was torn between stopping the giants at sandpoint or heading to jorgenfist and prevent them from attacking. Only the mage in our group did not know that the giant had already left the fortress and the good aligned characters figured it would be best to fight away from the civilian.

For one games we incarnated the NPCs of the town. Our group was composed of : Father Zanthus, the sheriff Hemlock, the Jubrayl Vhiski, Kaye Tesarani and the bard Cyrdak Drokkus. The last member of the group was my former character who had died when our group got ambushed in Fort Rannik. He was a rogue poisoner and had been revived behind the scene without the rest of the group knowing. (He was pretty craft but lost most of his level through the strange ressurection he had.)

The city had been warned by the main party that the giant could attack so we were on alertness. We were evacuating the people into the ruins below sandpoint when the giants attacked. Our group saw them coming the north path and we rushed to bottleneck it.

The bard casted enlarge person on hemlock and he bottleneck the giant while the rest of the group sat on the sideline, striking from the shadow from the top of the walls or flanking. Kaye was casting minor spell. After the initial assault we rushed towards the church to try and block them south but we weren't fast enough. The giant had already poured down the southern part of the town and we were stuck in a firefight against the dire bear and the giants that came to meet us at the step of the church.

When we were finishing the last giant, we regrouped to see the red dragon who began to rain death from the sky. Luckily it missed up and Zanthus restored the group as much as he could before we ran after the dragon into the western part of the city. We were trying to make a plan to get the dragon while running through the panicked and flaming streets. That's when the plan came to us. The dragon had burned down the Theater and the bard suddenly boosted in voice to insult the red wyrm's mother. That's when it got really pissed and charged the bard, diving down the streets to get the little punk.

The Hemlock and the bard got trapped in front of the beast's dangerous maw, seperated from the rest of the group. On the other side was the priest, Kaye and jybrayl who flanked him while my rogue climbed up the rooftop. As an experienced monster slayer, he tried to chop at the dragon's wing to prevent it from moving too much. Unfortunately, the dragon proved too strong. He could only breath one group at a time but Hemlock fell. And at that point the dragon breathed on the group behind him. Zanthus died and Hemlock bled to death. Jubrayl got away by hiding in a house and my rogue stuck to the shadow at the wyrm was taking Kaye within his claw and flew away with her. We're all sad that the flamboyant bard survived though but it was pretty amazing.

The giants then spoke to the conquered town and made it away with it's prize, a good bunch of unnamed PC, a few named one and stone from the Lighthouse.

The attack was relayed to our druid who was in communion with the gods at the time and recieved the vision of sandpoint's attack, while we were traveling the storval.

All in all I think it was an amazing experience although it is a very challenging fight. The npcs are pretty much low level and require a high strategy to win even the first battles. Kaye's kidnapping was pretty dramatic. The dragon is an impossible odds against the npcs of the town. If any party of NPC face it, it is most likely one will die or even wipe. And that will only draw the dragon away. It is unlikely they will actualy slay him.


My group decided to take a fairly poor option with this encounter; they posted one member at each entrance to the town. As you might expect this resulted in a party member death and some failure to cover their bases adequately. They stopped Teraktinus and managed to capture and interrogate a giant, but they basically lost all the objectives in the south end of town - brewery, Scarnetti Manor, etc.

On the plus side there was a lot of good roleplaying in the leadup to the raid, as they went around trying to convince various NPCs with class levels to help in the defense. Some of them actually did some interesting things in the fight, including one of the Shoanti bouncers from the Pixie's Kitten, who took down (well... finished off) a stone giant himself. He's now got a name and will probably be a recurring character when I get around to running Crimson Throne next.


BTW, I forgot to mention Part 3. I'd planned as part of the Scarnetti subplot (wrapping it up in fact) to have two assassins attack. They had one target, the Eldritch Knight (who was a bastard scion of the Scarnettis and Titus' half-brother). The enemies were a Bone Oracle corrupted Aasimar (with a halo) and a Gunslinger/Slayer Tiefling, with the Gunslinger using a double-barreled pistol.

I should have hit the EK with a Dispel Magic to remove that Stoneskin. If it had been removed, then in all likelihood the EK would have gone to negative hit points. Even with it, it was a hard fight. The finale had the Bone Shaman threaten to kill half the town if he wasn't allowed to take the Tiefling with him. He failed in his Concentration check to cast Circle of Death, and the Cleric earned a Wrath Point when she basically ripped him several new holes when she realized what he had just tried to do to Sandpoint.

Longtooth sadly died during the fight when an Area Effect Spell went through his magic resistance. Such a pity. Heh heh heh.

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I just ran this last night, and it was easily one of the most epic sessions I've run during this campaign. The party teleported back to Sandpoint after returning Lamatar's body to Myriana, so they didn't have much time to prepare. They used that one day of prep to try to prepare the town as best as they could. Octavius Deverin, the party's wizard, scribed several scrolls and armed every arcane caster in Sandpoint with a wand of magic missile. They negotiated with Titus Scarnetti, Octavius' foil, and got him to agree to assist - he pulled his strings with House Valdemar to get them to use their ships to evacuate the citizens from Junk Beach if things got out of hand, but that's really all he could do. Fociss, my Abadarite inquisitor, went back to his old mentor, Jubrayl Vhiski, and pledged that he would work for him again if he used his men to help aid in the defense. Jubrayl, of course, agreed.

On the day of the attack, they rushed to the North Gate. While the guards and Sczarni were outmatched, the additional Sczarni presence alerted them to the giants' arrival with time to spare. They fought for two rounds before Octavius pulled out a scroll of wall of fire and encircled the three giants within. They all pulled back and more or less cowered within. Selene, the elven fighter, and Fociss both rushed towards the flames and waited for the giants to come out.

They never did. Since these guys were impulsive and not used to working together, none of them actually wanted to cross the flames, so they huddled together in the center and waited.

On Round 3, the second group of giants appeared, and the Sandpoint Five (plus Shalelu) made a fateful decision. They split the party. Shalelu, Doril (the gnome locksmith-turned-tomb-raider) and Akades (the paladin/cleric of Ragathiel) raced towards Tanner's Bridge while Octavius, Selene and Fociss remained at the North Gate. It would take the departing group several rounds of running to reach the area the giants were looting. Fortunately, Akades had cast a blessing of fervor on the group, so they were moving much faster than their usual 20' move speed.

At about Round 4, they noticed Longtooth in the sky, circling over the bay with the Valdemar ships. He was slowly circling around the city, and clearly enjoying the screams of terror his presence was causing. With a dragon in play, the North Gate group realized they had to do something, and Fociss and Selene leapt through the wall of fire. They focused their attacks on a single giant, and within a round dropped him. They were confused when the other two turned and fled, but weren't too concerned by that at the time. They rejoined Octavius atop the wall, now focused on dealing with the incoming dragon threat.

Meanwhile, the Tanner's Crossing group arrived around round 8, just as Longtooth landed atop the Garrison and breathed upon it. Fortunately, it was stone, but that didn't really comfort the party too much. The Tanner's Crossing group was not pleased when they saw that they were up against two stone giants and three dire bears. This fight went very poorly from the start. The paladin was very quickly grabbed by one of the dire bears, and while they were able to drop that one with a combination of sneak attacks and bastard sword slashes, there were too many combatants. Doril was grabbed next, and when one of the giants critted Akades, he was knocked unconscious and unceremoniously stuffed into a sack. The third dire bear rushed Shalelu and grabbed her, and started biting chunks out of her. Things were looking very, very bad for that group.

Oh, and a round later, the stone giant general, Teraktinus, took the field.

Rounds 8-11 saw the North Gate Three getting into position to attack Longtooth through a dimension door. They realized he was heading towards the Cathedral, so they entered the square in front of that edifice. Fociss blasted the dragon with a searing light, and Octavius hit him dead on with a lightning bolt. This attracted the dragon's attention, and he landed on round 10. I misread how frightful presence worked, and I forced the party to make a save versus dragon fear at that time. It caused Selene to flee for 15 rounds, which was not the result I wanted. As it happens, though, Octavius had been saving a cone of cold, and caught Longtooth in it. He failed his save again, and now realized that these lowlanders had teeth. He fled, vowing vengeance upon them later. Rather than have Selene sit out the rest of the fight, I ruled that his departure from the field meant her fear was over. They decided they needed to get to the other group, and cast a second dimension door. Once the rest of the party was on scene, the remaining giants and bears were quickly dealt with, but both Akades and Shalelu were unconscious and stable.

Things kept getting out of hand. The general's war party was moving northwest through town without encountering any real resistance, and they heard that another group of giants was spotted on Round 13 at the Two Knight Brewery. They were too beat up to immediately give chase, so they spent a round or two just healing, and then they split the party again. The North Gate Three raced after Teraktinus & Co., while the Tanner's Crossing Three remained behind another round or two to heal. After the healing was done, they rejoined the race to catch up to the initial group. As the North Gate Three raced after the giants, Selene noted smoke coming from the noble villas across the bay. The group's heart sank - the giants were hitting the party right in the feels. Then they noticed it was Scarnetti Manor that was on fire, and they immediately declared it "no longer a problem," continuing after Teraktinus.

The North Gate Three finally caught up with Teraktinus on Round 18, in the shadow of the Old Light. They immediately engaged him, focusing fire on him. They did a crapton of damage, but he managed to get a full round of attacks off on Selene. Fortunately, he missed several, leaving her at 5 hit points. He fell on Round 20 or so, and the remaining giants sounded the retreat.

All in all, there were several tactical mistakes made by the party, but they survived. Their relative slow movement made it difficult to get to where they needed to be in town. They realized a few rounds in that they should have gathered mounts to move from area to area faster, and while splitting the party seemed like the best plan at the time, it caused a lot of problems. Still, the giant attack was thwarted, though the Two Knight Brewery and Scarnetti Manor was left undefended. I need to decide what damage was done to those locations, and, more importantly, who died in the fighting, and who was captured and taken back to Jorgenfist...


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You know, I like the stories where the party DOESN'T have movement ability better. My story was utterly boring compared to most: A levitating paladin to Smite Evil and take Longtooth out of the picture. A sorcerer with Dimension Door to drop the barbarian on the latest threat. And a bard to make everyone better.

Yeah, they felt like epic heroes at the end, but it was nothing like the epic battles I'm getting to read here...

Dark Archive

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

That's pretty much my takeaway here, NH. Mobility here is king. If you can 'port from hotspot to hotspot, the giants don't have a chance. If you can't, then they get to cause more problems.

In both cases, both our parties saved the day, it's just that mine had to sweat a whole lot more than yours. Neither approach is wrong, but I get where you're coming from. I always enjoy putting the Fear of God into my players with something like this. They did say the fight had the right level of "pucker factor," which is a very technical term.


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Interestingly, my group just did this two nights ago. And the story starts just like Misroi's... After returning Lamatar to Myrianna and escorting the surviving Black Arrows (and Shalelu) back to TBF, they teleported back to Sandpoint. Shalelu stayed with the Arrows - the wizard couldn't bring her on the first trip anyway and the collective group decided there was still danger to TBF from ogres and giants, etc. She did give the group a letter for them to take to Ameiko (letter provides an update on what's going on with Jakardros and the highlights of all the things the pc's have done - just in case the group needs an additional witness or character reference - the pc's deliver the letter but don't know about the contents. Yet.)

As it turns out the Mayor, based on reports from Magnimar about the Skinsaw cult and her own experience with them, has every reason to trust the pc's. After she and the rest of town's leaders have a "bring me my brown pants" moment, they discuss options. Evacuation is discussed but discarded - take too long, where would they go and what happens if the Giants attack while they're in the middle of packing up, etc.? Hiding in the smuggler's tunnel is also considered but it's at best a short term option and the pc's are concerned the giants are after something in the dungeon/runewell level and if they come upon the townsfolk trapped in the tunnel, it would be a slaughter. And the Mayor had both ends of the tunnel sealed up with at least 20 feet of brick and stone - she never wants another problem from under her town. (Disappointment is in her future.)

In the end, the non-combatants are put in the sturdier buildings in town - cathedral, garrison. Others are moved south of town and fishing vessels, etc are prepped for Dunkirk like exit if needed. The militia is called out and stationed mostly at the wall. The pc's (elvish wizard - conjurer, dwarven fighter, human cleric of Saranrae, half-elven bard) decide to station themselves atop the cathedral for the central position and commanding view. Earlier in the campaign the wizard made wands of fly and haste - these were very helpful in retaking Rannick and they come in helpful here as well. The cleric intends to cast scry on Teraktinus first thing in the morning after getting spells but fate intervenes. No one spots the giants and the attack begins the day just after sunrise.

The group takes a few rounds to "buff up" - fly, haste, mage armor and the like. By the time they're ready, the giants and bears are attacking the town and mauling the tannery, etc. They are worried about the gate but Hemlock and the militia are there and no one can oppose the new threat, so they fly off to confront them. They took out the giants and bears after a few rounds - most impressive moment: the wizard summoning a celestial ankylosaurus.

After defeating the bear/giant group, they headed back to the gate (where the boulder assault continued.) Most flew but the wizard "rode" his dinosaur in that direction (he has hordetongue which lets him "talk" to it.) While they are en route, the dragon appears, putting just about everyone in norther Sandpoint who can see him into dragon panic. The group alters trajectory toward the dragon while it bathes the garrison in flame and lands on the roof. Even with their hasted flight it's going to take a couple rounds for the pc's to get there and the wizard hits it with a couple magic missiles spells. The dragon ignores him and heads for the cathedral but when the wizard hits it with a lightning bolt, he can ignore the mage no longer. He wheels around and breathes on the wizard - who uses a hero point to take an immediate action to dimensional step out of the flames.

While this is going on, Teraktinus and his group ford the river and begin their attack on the town - yelling about greedy merchants and taking prisoners. The pc's decide (correctly) the dragon is the greater threat and ignore them for now.

The dragon closes on the pursuing pc's (where the wizard went) and mauls the cleric good but he makes one of the classic blunders - do not engage pc's in melee. The are some semi-tense moments but the bard uses heroic inspiration to give the cleric another action for healing, and the dwarf, moving slower even with haste finally closes and the group executes the 'concentrate fire on that superstar destroyer' maneuver. Shortly thereafter, a dragon carcass takes out a couple, hopefully empty, buildings. Another group of giants is ravaging the brewery in search of beer and Teraktinus reaches Old Light. The group ignores the giants at the brewery and heads for Teraktinus (though they consider splitting up.) The group has to be more careful as they engage these giants since they know there are prisoners in sacks - no fireballs. The cleric even holds off on Holy Smite since he doesn't know how it might affect neutral captives.

The wizard summons some lantern archons and the bard hits Teraktinus with giant bane arrows they got from the Black Arrows. The dwarf gets smacked around some by the dwarven bane pick but giants aren't really a match. The cleric has embraced his healbot role and does a great job of keeping everyone upright including sacred bond on the dwarf. While they confront the giant leader, the pc's spot fire at one of the noble estates and the giants at the northern gates finally break in and begin mauling the guards and the White Deer Inn. From their aerial position (some pc's are still flying) they can see Ameiko and Gaven are engaging the giants at the brewery. (I've upped the timeline and added the giants at the gate to keep the pressure on.)

At this point the group decides they have to split up. While the rest finish off the giants at Old Light, the wizard teleports to the White Deer. Just in time to see a couple guards get crushed by the giants who were in the middle of destroying the inn. Hemlock is fighting beside his brother for what it's worth but they aren't going to last long. The wizard summons a couple Hound Archons but by the time they arrive, Hemlock and a couple more guards are down. The archons do a good job to distracting the giants and absorbing damage while the wizard hits the giants with acid stream. He uses another hero point to get off a cone of cold - he pauses briefly worried it might hit survivors hiding what's left of the inn but he goes ahead - he wants to take out the giants quickly enough to have a chance to save the dying men. It works pretty well - the giants have poor reflex saves - the giants fall and this gives Father Zantus and a couple of other clerics from the temple a chance to dash out and help the fallen guards.

Meantime Teraktinus has fallen and the last of his companions, who has watched the pc's kill the dragon and his leader fails morale and tries to run for it (Flee! Flee for Lives! "Denothor like") The bard and lantern archons run him down and he dies shortly thereafter.

The overall giant morale breaks and the two at the brewery flee having captured Ameiko and Gaven Deverin. The group pursues - it doesn't take much of a survival check for them to determine the giants have met up with another group and a wagon. The group follows and manages to catch up to the giants a few miles outside of town. Again they have to be careful - there appear to be captives in the wagon. That doesn't stop the wizard from dropping a stinking cloud (hey! it doesn't do damage!) and a well placed holy smite leaves a couple giants blind as well as nauseated. The disarray helps the pc's engage the giants in waves and after some dicey maneuvering that keeps the cleric alive, concentrating fire from the bard and wizard with scorching ray, the giants fall. The cleric uses the last of his healing to restore Ameiko and Gaven to consciousness. And there ended the giant's attack on Sandpoint.


Our group attacked the giants at the north wall. The Martial charged, the bard buffed, the sorcerer cast magic missiles and the investigator followed the martial. Stones were thrown and took out the investigator (he is squishy but had ablative barrier up so part of his damage was non-lethal). The other three killed the giants.

The party brought the investigator back up who healed himself full and drank an infusion of fly to follow the party.

The dragon was perched on the roof of some building and was lighting the town on fire from there. The investigator wanted to close with the dragon to entangle it, but before he got there the dragon took flight. The party pursued the dragon by various means, some running hasted, some flying. The investigator drank an infusion of chill shield.

When the dragon lit the theatre (or something like it) on fire an NPC paladin attacked him and was taken out in a full attack. But this full round action occupied him long enough for the group to catch up. The investigator used dragon breath (ice), the martial charged the dragon, the bard buffed (he seldom did something else) and the sorcerer joined in with the frost damage fun.
The dragon was pissed by the frost spells and used his breath on the party. The investigator was saved by his chill shield for no damage, the martial soaked up the half damage, the sorc was too far away and I don't remember how the bard fared. Then the investigator joined the martial in melee. After one round of close combat in which the dragon once more dropped the investigator but was dealt damage by the chill shield it fled.

The investigator often used chill shield + ablative barrier when in melee (later added thorn body) and often acted like a Roly-poly toy but dealing nice damage while doing so.


Most memorable fight of the AP so far.
Party of Monk, Summoner, Paladin.

Monk and summoner were on mook slaying duty while the Aasimir Paladin flew around on overwatch waiting for Longtooth. He had also conscripted every archer in town as a mobile-holy-antidragon force(there's a feat where using up most of your smites you can give smite to others.

Monk and Summoner had no problems with the giants and dire bears but Teraktinus stayed back. Monk chased affer him.

Meanwhile, Longtooth shows up to be pincushioned by 20 arrows of smite! Only 1 actually hit for damage tho, which was a crit, dealing about 12.

Then the paladin jumps at him with all possible buffs he and summoner can put on him and he crits the dragons head clean off. Much joy in the land.

UNFORTUNATELY, while the monk was dealing decent damage toTeraktinus while giving chase, Teraktinus eventually turned around and crit for max dmg with his X3(4?) pick and gave us our first player death.

Our vroup came to the consensus that, if a dwarf was in the party, the GM needs to warn him away from the X3, expanded crit, dwarf bane, pc killing machine.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Picks are x4. And yeah, I was sweating bullets when my party's fighter was standing in front of him with single digit hit points. One more strike might kill her character, but a crit might do enough damage to kill the player too!

As for warning them away, I don't know about that. The party is high level now, and sudden death is a thing. Resurrection magic is readily available and sets the party back about 7000gp. One PC dying at 10th-11th level is an equivalent setback as one PC getting a wasting disease at low levels. Besides, that dwarf PC is going to be a giantslaying machine here in a few sessions. He'll get his revenge soon enough.


Jimmy "Big Daddy" Ho-Chunk wrote:

Hey hey folks,

Okay so to update the Sandpoint Maps I did.

1. I've switched it over to a .zip file that lists all the stuff including some alternate version. Hope that makes it easier to get!

2. I've included the original photoshop file (Sandpoint-Grid-Map.psd) in case you want to modify it.

3. I've included a printable version (Sandpoint-Poster-Grid-Map.pdf) in case you want to put it on foam board or whatever.

For running it. I'll be using little flag markers on long pins to show where people and bad guys are at.

To answer the question from Bigrig107. The scale is about 20' per square.

Wow. Thanks a lot for that map. As the attack will come in my campaign in the next session or the one after that, this comes in very handy. I´ll report here how the attack went.


Sorry, to jump on such an ancient thread, but I have this fight coming up in 3 weeks and am hoping that someone still looks at this :)

What I was wondering was if anyone has tried putting the map into something like Roll20, then just having everyone use that to track movement as if it was any other map? To me that seems easiest, but I don't know if I'm really being an idiot with it.


I did exactly that. Required alot of zomming in and out, but worked. Somewhere (maybe the community created content thread?) I found a gridded map of Sandpoint.


Java Man wrote:
I did exactly that. Required alot of zomming in and out, but worked. Somewhere (maybe the community created content thread?) I found a gridded map of Sandpoint.

Sweet, thanks for the info, I'll have to go searching for that map


GustavoMalek created this one that I used https://m.imgur.com/a/Dg0rW

I still can't format a link properly here, but you should be able to cut n paste that.


Java Man wrote:

GustavoMalek created this one that I used https://m.imgur.com/a/Dg0rW

I still can't format a link properly here, but you should be able to cut n paste that.

Got it, thanks


I have another question about this battle, and that is Longtooth. I've never played a dragon, nor even fought one as a player. Any tips on how best to scare the hell out of my players with him without accidentally causing the TPK or doing something stupid that lets them kill him in 2 rounds?


Well, he's a Dragon, and a Red one at that, so he's arrogant, hot-headed, and in this case, young. Could be reckless, especially since he's impatient and starts to head out early, if I recall correctly.

To really grasp his power, he can do flybys in the streets and burn citizens as they flee (might catch some giants). When he goes to land somewhere or take off to the air, he could grab a guard and chew through their armor, dropping the corpse a round later to fall at the party's feet.

I don't know your party, but my party uses rolled stats (standard 4d6, drop lowest) and had a Rogue/Fighter, Paladin, and Sorcerer/Dragon Disciple (and an asleep Witch). I upgrade Longtooth by a few age categories (I believe up to Adult) and it was a good challenge for them.


Fair Strides wrote:

Well, he's a Dragon, and a Red one at that, so he's arrogant, hot-headed, and in this case, young. Could be reckless, especially since he's impatient and starts to head out early, if I recall correctly.

To really grasp his power, he can do flybys in the streets and burn citizens as they flee (might catch some giants). When he goes to land somewhere or take off to the air, he could grab a guard and chew through their armor, dropping the corpse a round later to fall at the party's feet.

I don't know your party, but my party uses rolled stats (standard 4d6, drop lowest) and had a Rogue/Fighter, Paladin, and Sorcerer/Dragon Disciple (and an asleep Witch). I upgrade Longtooth by a few age categories (I believe up to Adult) and it was a good challenge for them.

Thanks, I lost a player in my party, so to compensate for only 3 players, I've had them all running a level above plan (book says 11 for this battle, they will be 12, but only 3 players). They are all very experienced though, so they really know how to max out their combat, which is why the tear through most every fight with ease. I have thought of aging longtooth a bit, but didn't want to make him impossibly strong either. They'd easily dispatch of him on his own, but with 13 giants and 3 bears also in the mix, I presume they'll be running out of all their spells, heals, etc. before the end.


Mmm, that's a possibility. For reference, my fight with Longtooth was with a 12th-level Paladin and Dragon Disciple (the Rogue/Fighter really didn't do anything to Longtooth) and I had allowed the Dragon Disciple to buy a Scroll of Form of the Dragon 3 (he had just asked about 8th-level scrolls and asked if he could find one; I told him as long as it wasn't a Demiplane spell, and I'd be charging an extra 50%). That fight did not last long, but it was close for the Dragon Disciple.

Here's my Longtooth:

Longtooth, Adult at CR14:
LONGTOOTH
------------------------------
XP 38,400 CR 14 HP 212
------------------------------
Male adult red dragon (Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 98)
CE Huge dragon (fire)
Init +4; Senses blindsense 60 ft., darkvision 120 ft., dragon
senses, low-light vision, smoke vision; Perception +20
Aura Flame (5ft, 1d6 Fire), frightful presence (180 ft., DC 21)
=====================================================================
DEFENSE
=====================================================================
AC 37, touch 12, flat-footed 37
(+4 armor, +4 Shield, +21 natural, –2 size)
HP 212 [306 at max] (17d12+102)
Fort +16, Ref +10, Will +13

DR 5/Magic, SR 25
Immune: fire, paralysis, sleep
Weaknesses: vulnerable to cold (+50% damage from Cold)

=====================================================================
OFFENSE
=====================================================================
Speed 40 ft., fly 200 ft. (poor)

Melee: (Power Attack is -4 for +8)
Normal
+2 bite +30 (2d8+20/19–20)
2 +2 claws +30 (2d6+14)
2 +2 wings +26 (1d8+8)
+2 tail slap +26 (2d6+20)

Power Attack
+2 bite +26 (2d8+32/19–20)
2 +2 claws +26 (2d6+22)
2 +2 wings +22 (1d8+12)
+2 tail slap +22 (2d6+32)

+1 crush (2d8+17, Small creatures, DC 24 Reflex save negates) or 4d8+17

Space 15 ft.; Reach 10 ft. (15 ft. with bite)

Special Attacks:
breath weapon (50-ft. cone, 12d10 fire damage, Reflex DC 24 half, usable every 1d4 rounds)
Fire Aura (1d6 Fire to everyone within 5ft at start of turn)

Spell-Like Abilities (CL 17th; concentration +20):
At will—detect magic, pyrotechnics (DC 15), suggestion (DC 16)

Spells Known (CL 7rd; concentration +10):
3rd (5/day)- Fireball (DC 16), Haste, Twilight Knife (7 rounds)
2nd (7/day)- Blur, Scorching Ray, Bull's Strength
1st (7/day)—mage armor, true strike, Ant Haul, Shield, Delusional Pride (DC 14)
0 (at will)—arcane mark, detect magic, flare (DC 12), mage hand, open/close, +2

=====================================================================
Str 35 | +12, Can carry (3672 LL, 7344 ML, 11880 HL) / If Ant Haul, can carry Giants away at (11016 LL, 22032, 35640 HL)
Dex 10 | +0,
Con 23 | +6,
Int 16 | +3,
Wis 17 | +3,
Cha 16 | +3

Base Atk +17; CMB +31; CMD 41 (45 vs Trip)

Feats:
Hover, Improved Critical (bite), Improved Initiative,
Power Attack, Vital Strike, Weapon Focus (bite), Weapon
Focus (claws), Improved Vital Strike, Multi-Attack

Skills:
Acrobatics +16 (+20 when jumping),
Appraise +20,
Bluff +20,
Fly +20,
Intimidate +20,
Knowledge (arcana) +20,
Perception +20,
Spellcraft +20

Languages Common, Draconic

Gear:
amulet of mighty fists +2, gold-and-amber ring (worth
500 gp), silver armband (worth 2,500 gp)

Grand Lodge

My party is only halfway through the raid, but here's what's been happening so far.

Set Up:
The party found Mokmurian's note to Barl a few minutes after defeating him, but weren't sure how to gauge how immediate a concern it was. They used commune with Lamashtu in our previous session to see how immediate the concern, and got two pieces of information: the raid was "soon" and Teraktinus was in "The Tors." Despite this, they hadn't stopped Lucretia from flooding Turtleback Ferry yet, so they decided to stay in the region long enough to mop up that mess.

They defeated Lucretia, safely lifted one of the floodgates, and then took over Fort Rannick to make sure they could get the reward money from the Lord Mayor. This, in all, took about 4 days, and they spent an additional day in Magnimar to pick up their reward and sell loot.

I thought it would be a bit funny for the powerful PCs to show up deus-ex machina style, and my players actively thought the idea of repelling the raid as the town's NPCs would be fun, so I fashioned up some character sheets for them:

Savah Bevaniky (Fighter 3 / Unchained Rogue 5)
Vivienne [OC shopkeeper] (Alchemist [Vivisectionist/Beastmorph] 8)
Delilah [OC druid] (Lycanthrope Druid [Feral Child] 7)
Aneka Avertin [PC cohort] (Unchained Rogue [Sylvan Trickster] 8)
Shayliss Vinder / Hestia (Changeling Vigilante [Warlock] 8)
Calypso [OC sex worker] (Witch [Seducer] 8)
Jasper Korvaski (Paladin [Sacred Servant] of Abadar 8)
Cydrak Drokkus (Bard [Court Bard] 8)
Hannah Valerin (Priest [3pp] of Gozreh 8 / Alchemist [Vivisectionist] 1)

The party split up the first eight characters among themselves, and Hannah is kept a secret, there to take over if a character dies.

The party has made extensive use of NPCs in the past, helping them with personal endeavors and enlisting them to deal with the larger ramifications of the previous 3 books' plots, so I chose the first 8 to represent the party's efforts. Hannah was made 9th level because I intend for her to typically be the most powerful NPC in town, but unwilling to become directly involved in the town's affairs as a spellcaster.

On the giants' side, I diversified the giants a bit to represent their different tribal ties and general inclination towards warfare (also represented in terms of their alignment). I also buffed Longtooth by making him a Juvenile elemental-infused red dragon with more magical items.

The Raid, Part 1:
The session began with a former PC, the Oracle of Waves Meridia, scrying the approaching stone giant forces, then telling Aneka to alert Sandpoint immediately. Aneka flew from Thistletop to the grove where Delilah sleeps (protecting a dryad friend of the party's, Daisy), and enlisted her help in getting there faster. As they reached the road, they spotted three stone giants, who began hurling boulders after them - but with their 60' move speeds, they sped past them and made it to north gate.

No sooner had the church bell been rung as an alarm than a stone crashed against the gate, and the raid officially began.

Delilah immediately tossed out a moonstruck, throwing the three giants into chaos as one of them began to attack the others. Savah Bevaniky arrived on the scene to support, and she, Belor Hemlock, and Delilah were able to begin pelting the giants from a distance with ranged attacks. The situation looked about under control, when Aneka spotted giants coming from Tanner's Bridge!

Vivienne, who had been coming to assist the north gate, drank a mutagen to gain flight and headed immediately for Tanner's bridge, followed quickly by Delilah and her companion, Angelfur (rocking an 80' move speed, thanks to longstrider and aspect of the stag. Even Delilah's entangle didn't slow the giants and their bears down for more than a second though, and soon River Street was consumed with panic as the giants started grabbing residents from their homes, and one of them attempted to set fire to the tannery.

Reinforcements from Aneka and Savah arrived two turns later, but just as they started to get the situation under control, things took a turn for the worst - more giants were spotted crossing the river, even more approaching from further south, and Vivienne spotted a red dragon hurtling towards the city. The party decided to dispatch their enemies as quick as possible, taking a huge amount of damage to slay every giant and bear with sneak attacks in close quarters.

When Longtooth landed, he announced his name and terrified dozens of people, but quickly made himself look like an idiot by doing all of nothing to the Sandpoint Garrison. Too far from Tanner's Bridge to be immediately handled, and too injured to possibly get hit by the dragon's breath, Aneka, Delilah, and Savah began running south down River Street, hoping to make it to Hannah's clinic and receive healing before continuing the fight. They were especially glad for their choice once Longtooth landed on Sandpoint Cathedral, as they knew their chances were far better against the 5 giants at the south of town than a single flying dragon. They were all melee fighters, after all!

Cue the appearance of the town's most notorious vigilante, wreathed in flame - Hestia emerged alongside Calypso from a Garden of Delight summoned atop Chopper's Isle. The two of them cast fly and immediately set out for Sandpoint's Cathedral. Hestia quite cockily said, "Looks like this one's mine," while steering towards Longtooth, confident in her newfound Ice Bolts and Flame Armor.

And that's where our session left off!

I know my party plans to try and divide and conquer next session, letting the giants enter the south of town while they heal, then try and take them all out at once (Delilah's spike growth and Calypso's confusion are pretty formidable, after all).

Cydrak and Jasper will be entering the scene on Round 16, fleeing Sandpoint's Theater as Longtooth sets it alight.

Depending on how the raid is going, the party will teleport in front of Turandurok Academy on either Round 24 or Round 26.

Additionally, Shayliss heard the call to hand over prisoners, specifically "fat, greedy merchants," and has come to the conclusion that these are Runelord puppets hoping to feed a runewell of greed, as the party kept her looped in throughout all of Book 1 and 2. Her plan to confirm this is to check the bodies of defeated giants for sidhedron brands or tattoos.

Meanwhile, Vivienne has come to the conclusion that these giants aren't here to kill, but to terrorize, and are trying to get people to flee the city - she doesn't have a hypothesis as to why just yet.

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