PCs: 1 dead, 2 captured. Now what? (Wrath of the Righteous)


Wrath of the Righteous


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Laure's players: DO NOT READ.

i'm a relatively new DM (have only run a few single-session things so far), and have recently started running Wrath of the Righteous. At our last session, my players threw me for a loop. Long story short, the cleric ended up dead, and the sorcerer (a pacifist charmer chef) and the rogue (an angry 13-year-old) ended up captured/surrendering to the traitorous underdwellers in H6.

The remaining two party members (inquisitor and fighter) are upstairs with the NPCs, and all four PCs are low on hit points, and out of healing and spells. They've been told they're welcome to return to Neathholm to rest up and whatnot, and they might do that, but i'm less concerned with what that part of the group does than how to handle the two captured PCs. Splitting the party aside, i'm almost wishing i'd just killed them all off outright, as i am having a hard time working through how to roleplay Hosilla as a captor. None of what i can find that's been written about her gives me much to go on. i've found some good info on Baphomet, but i'm not sure whether/how to work that stuff in as part of any interrogation that happens. Plus, they don't know anything she'd be interested in that i can think of, so how long could interrogation go on before she decides to just kill them? i want to give the rest of the party time to put together a rescue mission, but that kind of time is going to be hard to fill up.

i'm still getting the hang of how to manage the story and players and a half-dozen NPCs all at one time, and although i'm enjoying it, it's a little overwhelming. What i'm hoping for is a few people who are more familiar with the AP than i am, or have more DM experience, or both, who can help me think through my options. How do you handle captured PCs? What's up with Hosilla?


I haven't read through or run WotR yet, but half the party captured is a real problem. All the party captured can be interesting, but half means you have players doing nothing while the others mount a rescue, or players doing nothing while others are getting interrogated.

In my opinion, unless the other PCs are up for a quick rescue, that won't take a lot of game time (and it sounds like they are not) then you need to quickly resolve the split and get everyone together. As I see it, you have a few options.

One is just kill off the captured ones. I don't like this personally, and it could really piss of your players, but it certainly is an easy way to get everyone together with new characters replacing the dead ones.

Another would be Deus Ex Machina. The captured PCs are freed by an outside source. One obvious agent of this would be some good noble hero, but another would be a traitor or schemer within the bad guy group itself. One advantage good has over evil, is that evil behaves badly to other evil. I can't give any specifics that would fit with the path, but I'm sure there are NPCs who might want the PCs to kill their boss so they move up the ladder, kill a rival, embarrass someone or something like that. If done well, this could be a great hook.

Lastly, you could arrange for the other PCs to be captured and run an escape scenario. This would be tricky, but could be interesting. From what you have said the free PCs are with some NPCs, I presume these are written as noble allies, but it isn't impossible to have an NPC who is a traitor, perhaps deciding now is the time and turning on the others, most probably with poison or magic that lets them subdue without killing.

Hope these ideas help. If it were my game, I'd probably be going for the second option and find someone who could plausibly free the captured PCs.


I don't have WotR experience, but some general ideas follow:

One possibility would be to have your players take over two NPCs temporarily as a rescue party.

Another possibility (and this is advanced GMing) might be to separate your players temporarily. Take the captured players to one room, give them information, and tell them that once every (real-world) hour, you're going to give them an escape attempt. This attempt could be anything -- diplomacy, bluffing, bribery, escape artisting. If they succeed at an escape attempt they can rejoin their comrades, and you can gloss over the journey back to town.

Yet another is (if your players check their email) to play out a couple escape attempts, or what have you, over email before your next session.


For specific Wrath of the Righteous bits, I'd recommend posting in the Adventure Path's specific sub-forum. Readers there can offer good advice on things like "how to roleplay Hosilla as a captor" or the like.

In general, this kind of problem isn't uncommon. You can run it a few ways. If any of the players want to do brand new characters, you should discuss that option. They could represent recently arrived characters that the surviving PCs recruit for a rescue mission. At that point, you basically ignore any discussion of what is happening to the captured characters.

Another option is to have the captured characters transported to some kind of holding cell/dungeon/enemy base and run a side event in which they have to escape the cell, find their gear, kill the guards, and make it back to town. The players whose characters were not captured play fellow inmates at the dungeon and which go on their way when the PCs get back to town.

Alternatively, you run the same thing but from the point of view of the PCs who go away and have the players of the captured characters run new characters that were hired/volunteered to rescue the captured characters.

I'd also allow the players to choose whether to keep the one-shot character or go back to their original character after the side quest. And if things go so absolutely horrible, then, well, either the captured PCs are killed in the escape or the rescuers are tossed in jail with the captured PCs.

You could also take some GM liberties and say the surviving PCs rushed back the next day, tried to find their friends, got beat up, and ended up in the same dungeon. Now you run the escape attempt! Railroading is generally bad, but framing a narrative with cinematic description of heroic actions leading to a scenario that reunites the party while hand-waving away split-party problems can be acceptable.

Either way, this is a side quest. It has a few major benefits. First, it gets the players some extra money, treasure, and experience to help the next time they run the fight with Hosilla. At the low levels, a new sword or a few potions can help a lot. It also provides some players experience with other classes and how they fit into the group. It is also a fun event where the benefit is immediate and obvious and doesn't have any large overarching plot (which can sometimes be overwhelming and oppressive). It also gives them a chance to play a different sort of mini-adventure.

I'd say design the escape in a way that focuses more on exploration and clever thinking (how do you get out of the cell, how do you avoid the guards, do you help other prisoners, do you try to find the armory to steal stuff, how do you take care of problems before you find the gear, etc) than raw combat. The end goal should be escape/rescue, so don't make it too hard and be a bit... fast and loose with the encounters and situations.

My personal choice, based on what I like to do as a GM, would be to describe a failed rescue attempt (10-15 minutes of storytelling), put all the players in a dungeon, and run the escape over a session or two. Emphasis on skills and non-combat actions, though not necessarily stealth. Make my players puzzle out the best solutions, rather than just cut a path to the exit, though I'd have to make sure the players (maybe by overhearing a guard) understand that combat is not the optimal escape option.


Thanks, guys.

This might be inexperience talking, but i'm not overly concerned about the split party. The idea i have right now is that Hosilla will prefer to keep the two captives separate, so they can't help each other escape and so she can question them separately. So that requires me to deal with the two players separately, which almost makes things easier. In order for each captive not to overhear the conversation Hosilla is having with the other captive, i can handle interrogation/PC actions via note-passing. Sure, that'll slow down gameplay for the other half of the party, but i can effectively have both halves of the party active simultaneously. That just leaves me with how Hosilla acts.

You've given me some other ideas, though, which are helpful to think through. i hadn't thought of giving any of the players temporary characters while resolving this (goodness knows there are enough NPCs to go around already in play). And the deus ex machina options hadn't occurred to me. The player of the dead cleric is planning a mongrelman oracle, who can be picked up easily enough if the uncaptured group goes back to Neathholm to recharge; grabbing a few extra townies of reasonable level for the captured characters' players to take on could easily be handled.

i also appreciate the suggestion of posting in the AP-specific subforum. i don't want to violate any anti-cross-posting rules, though, so should i see about getting this thread moved? How do i do that?


Here's the problem. D&D is a Game, and in order to have Fun, you must Play. Sitting around waiting to be rescued is not playing and thus not Fun. Nor do I have much fun playing a temp.

Splitting the group is the same- half the play-time, double the work for the DM.

Just ask the players. Do they want to sit out and wait to be rescued- or just have their PC dead or even NPCed from now on, assuming they could be rescued.

My suggestion is to have the two captured do new PC's. Then if the new group wants to rescue the prisoners (which they should) then after they do so, they can put the other PC into "back up status".

But other than the fact they are PC's- why doesn't the BBEG just kill them? Honestly that's what'd be done. No rich ransom, too much risk keeping them- dead.


Send a PM to one of the administrators. Liz Courts is probably a good bet. http://paizo.com/people/LizCourts


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DrDeth, that's exactly my quandary. It seems that murderizing them is exactly what any Big Bad would do, especially one who's paranoid, and especially as keeping them alive is high risk/low reward. My problem is that i as a DM feel it isn't fair to just whack PCs. And i as a player wouldn't appreciate that, either. As you said, it's a game and it should be fun. But you're right to suggest asking the players what they'd prefer. And i appreciate your insight about temporary characters.

Lloyd, thanks; i'll do that.


Yep, few DM's think to just ask OOC. It's perfectly OK to do so, and in fact it's generally a Good Thing.


You should do interrogations via one-on-one emails before next session as much as possible. For the hour it takes you to handle two interrogations, that's an hour the other players have nothing to do but sit around. It is suboptimal.

Murderizing isn't always the best case. There are any number of reasons they want to capture people, such as ransom or hostage or information or experimentation or for the hell of it (greatly depends on who this Hosilla person is and where that person fits into any bad guy hierarchy).

Yeah, asking players is always a good idea. You sit down and say "Ok, so here's a recap - 1 dead, 2 captured, 2 hurt bad. We have a few options: I can say the captured characters died and the players roll new characters, I can launch a rescue operation with the captured character's players running NPCs, I can launch a break out with either the surviving character's players as NPCs or have them also captured and run it that way... what do you guys want to do?"

As the GM, ultimately you are simply there to facilitate the challenges and adjudicate the attempts to solve them while providing atmosphere and a story. If your players want to try an escape or a rescue, it is your job as the GM to make it the best darn escape or rescue you can!


How much of the area did the defeat? The cultist have a potion of cure light wounds each in area. They are quite easy to defeat if if you are capable to some decent damage. Easy to hit and low hit point. As long as your two remaining players aren't too low in AC this could get the 2 potion of cure light wounds.

If they really low on HPs have a Mongrelman from the other camp show up to help out. Have Lann show up to help out.

Also don't forget that Aaravashnial has two potions of cure light wounds as well and can cast some spells. Heroism and Magic Circle against Evil. So +2 AV and +2 to hit with a +4 to saves. Add then have him summon a few monsters to help out during the fight. Hostilla shouldn't last long against that even if your 2 remaining you players only have couple hp left.

Once the rescue is done conveniently change the ring of climbing to a scroll of raise dead in the hidden chamber. The scroll can be used by the inquisitor and it's worth 1125 gp, the ring at 1/2 is worth 1250 so a fair trade and gets you party back together.


Asking the players outright is a good suggestion, as is handling the interrogations via email.

How much of the area did they defeat? H1-H4, and H10. They didn't look into H5 well enough to find anything there and decided it looked unpleasant, so ignored it. Once they cleared H2, they did a magic-and-evil sweep and detected both in H4 and H10, so opened both doors (thankfully not simultaneously) and found the cultists in H10. They killed one and the other fled. i think the unidentified potion was from one of the cultists. (Next time they level up they'll probably be better at identifying things. Of the party members capable of Detect Magic, only one has ranks in Spellcraft; they are learning why that's a bad idea.)

i don't remember how many hp the remaining players have. i know the rogue is at exactly 0, and the others are well below full, but i'd have to double check on that.

Lann is actually with them; sending him for help is a good idea. Aravashnial is also going to be helpful. i forgot all about his potions. He and the sorceress were getting along pretty well, and she was keeping him distracted so he wouldn't become obnoxious, and now her capture will definitely make him start trying to take the lead (both because his new buddy has been captured, and because he's no longer distracted and CLEARLY these guys need a professional). Unfortunately, my players as a group are a little passive, so they might actually let him call the shots. i'd really rather not play both sides! But you're right that he should definitely come into play, with potions if nothing else, and i know his preference is to go down that rope ladder, blind and everything, and show people how it's done, so we'll see what happens. At least my players will receive conflicting input from the NPCs. Horgus isn't remotely interested in going down any rope ladder, and Anevia is likely to vacillate. She just wants to get back to the surface. Whether making a run for it or rescuing the captives first will be quickest/best is arguable. So hopefully with those differing viewpoints, the players will recognize their need to make the decisions.

If the sentries from H6 realize there are more people up in H4—which they should, as the rogue was yelling for help before she was knocked out—that might give Hosilla a reason to put the captives on ice for awhile while dealing with the rest of the party. Sure, they're in bad shape, but they can always run away, and they do have NPCs with skills (i forgot to break Anevia's leg in the first session and never managed to rectify that, so she's actually at full ability, unfortunately or otherwise). If i can keep Hosilla occupied for awhile doing something other than interrogating, that'll help me out. Roleplaying her in the role of captor is tricky enough without having the captives occupy her full attention for hours. She's going to get tired of them really quickly, which is part of the problem—how to mount a rescue attempt BEFORE she kills them off but AFTER the other PCs have regained some fighting ability.

Good call on switching out items when convenient, too. i'm considering swapping some of Hosilla's spells as well. No harm if she hasn't used any yet.


Has the party used the gift of cure light wound potions they got from the mongrelman village?
If the Blind Elf (Neither me nor my players can ever remember or spell his name) still has most of his spells left that can help a lot in a fight he has Summon monster III and II. Also the wand of false life can boost the pc's a lot.
You could have Hosilla and the remaining mongrelman attack the PC's they have to climb up a ladder to get at them which splits them up and could give the pc's a chance. If Anevia can get sneak attacks with archery on a couple of them that would help whittle the numbers down. She probably does not want to be cornered in a dead end and wait for the pc's
As others have suggested have a couple of Mongrelmen help them , the 3 from the collapsed watchtower owe them, based on later chapters you could make these level 1 rangers and use Wendaug's stats. Let the captured/dead pc's run them for the fight.
Given the weakened state of the party you could also remove some opponents The tiefling with Hosilla and any mongrelmen the pc's have not seen yet could go.
If the player of the dead character wants a new pc have him show up. I needed to introduce a new pc at about this point. My back story for how he got there was that I had him fighting the demons above around the Riftwarden library and got hit by a prismatic ray spell which attempted to shift him to another plane, but due to his proto-mythic nature and the lingering effects of the broken wardstone instead it teleported him to the location of the other pc's. That would give them 3 characters or he could just eander over from the village having arrived just after the pc's


Unfortunately, the party has used every one of the potions Chief Sull gave them, and pretty quickly, too. But that wand of False Life—good call.

You're also right to point out that Hosilla would be very concerned about enemies camped on her doorstep. She's in a fairly defensible location now, in that the PCs have to go down the rope ladder single-file and can easily be picked off (as the dead and captured ones were), but while that same bottleneck will affect her if she goes up, she also has no egress. If the PCs don't leave, or if they figure out a way to get down the ladder without being picked off, her defensible location is going to become her grave. i would guess that would leave her feeling pretty urgent, no matter what questions she's got for the two captives. And good suggestion on making the three from the watchtower into rangers.

i like your backstory on how your new PC showed up. My player's new character isn't fully developed yet, so i don't know how his campaign traits and backstory might play into things, but as he's a Neathholm native i think it'll be pretty easy to either pick him up if they go back to rest, or send Lann for reinforcements. But your story is great.

Scarab Sages

Easiest solution: The mongrelmen agree to send two of their own to help rescue the PCs. Let the two captured PCs play a couple mongrelmen rangers (level 1-2, depending on where you're at) and help stage a rescue. When they find the old PCs, maybe they have a lot of nonlethal damage and lethal damage, MAYBE a point of ability damage or two, from torture and such, but otherwise alive.

At that point, maybe the mongrelmen help with the rest of the base, then depart back home. It'll make it easier, but so what, they had a harrowing experience with getting captured already, let them have the victory :)


Oh—nonlethal and ability damage. Good thinking.


If you want to do the rescue, then bringing along the extra monglemen for the players without PCs is the way to go.

As for why Hosilla has not killed them: after interrogating them and finding out they know nothing, have her throw them in a room to wait to become sacrifices for some demon.
You can even role play out the interrogation and capture over email before the game, and use it to feed the players the hints they need when they get back to the surface. (Rather then the blatant note that lists all the safe houses that the adventure uses.) Makes the capture seem like a bonus, and does not impact the rest of the adventure at all.
Heck you can still throw in the note, if the PCs don't bite on the info from your role play.


Mrs. H. - When's the next session? Let us know what you guys do and how well it goes!


You could have them find another lucky cache of healing potions to heal up to full. Then have the players without characters run mogrelmen working with the remaining group and go to rescue their comrades... and Hostilla is starting up a ceremony to sacrifice them to Bathmat. Er, Baphomet.


Bathmat: LOL!

Our next session is Monday the 28th. i will definitely post an update. You guys have given me some great ideas to think through, and i really appreciate it.

Grand Lodge

I'd like to add support to the idea of the captured and dead players being able to run some mongrelmen rangers (or whatever) for the rescue.

You might also think about letting the captured PC's roll for the chance to gain some intel like ScrubKai suggested.

The new character could even be another refuge from the surface who's made his way to Neathholm, a mongrelman or tiefling native to the city, or another prisoner of the cultists, awaiting sacrifice.

The important thing is to make sure that all the players can keep, well, playing while going to rescue their regular characters. Try to make the temp characters have something weird, or odd ball to make them interesting to play. And if the group collectively likes them, they could be NPC's that continue on with the group in part 2 and beyond.


Heck, the new PC could be a cultist who had a crisis of faith and turned on the cult to help the heroes (because of a god-provided vision, because never truly committed, because mythic inspiration of the player's actions, whatever).


WARNING: This is really long.

So, The Plan: i wrote up a set of narratives for each captured PC. One of them was knocked unconscious while being taken captive, so hers was less detailed, but the other's was two pages of being searched and bound and tied to the leg of a stone table in the extremely bloody kitchen, so by the time Hosilla showed up and cast Persuasive Goad, she was good and terrified. (This was the tiefling sorceress, who had nothing but Acid Splash for combat spells because she's a pacifist and a chef. i was really not wanting to kill her because i'm fascinated to see how that will turn out.) So Hosilla, being paranoid, asked who sent her, and when Rasia said "Nobody! i swear!" Hosilla said, "Do you take me fore an idiot? Who do you work for?" Rasia did her best to explain that she'd just fallen down with these people during the battle upstairs and they were just trying to get to the surface, and Hosilla asked which one of the party was the assassin and Rasia had NO idea how to answer that. The player and i were passing notes for this; the idea was that he and i (and the rogue's player and i) could get that done while the other players decided what they wanted to do, so that everything more or less worked out in real time, but the player of the dead cleric hadn't had a chance to finish his new character yet, so basically he finished that up while we were note-passing, and the other two did a little chatting about strategy but it wasn't all simultaneous like i imagined.

Then, Uziel was supposed to come in and tell Hosilla that the guards said there were more PCs up the ladder, as the rogue was yelling to the fighter, and the narrative read that Hosilla asked Rasia how many there were but Rasia was a little worse for wear at the time and couldn't properly answer. (Turns out the player agreed with that, given the fear and torture, so the nauseated condition and -1 to Int and Con that i assigned as a result of torture wasn't even necessary to make her incapable of providing good intel.) So Hosilla went over to the rogue (the angry 13-year-old) and said, "How many are with you? Answer or you will suffer pain!" And the Adaline said "Why should i tell you?" and Hosilla made good on her threat. (Adaline had a dislocated shoulder from the scuffle of being captured; i gave her -2 to Dex and Str.)

That all went pretty well, i think. Then we switched over to the rest of the party. i have been having a hard time doing the NPC role-playing (so many personalities to worry about, and playing an NPC feels so different from playing a PC), but i think i did a pretty good job at it this time around.

Falthera (the fighter) had been in H4 and heard Adaline screaming to her, so she looked down the rope ladder just in time to see Rasia being muscled away. She called Laried (the inquisitor) in from H2 and told him what little she knew, and he was all ready to throw himself down the ladder and do something about this, despite having 5hp and no way to improve that. (His player has been really laid-back, and it was awesome to see him get so passionate about this.) Meanwhile, the NPCs are all still in H3, so Aravashnial hadn't even been able to overhear this, so he was loudly demanding that someone get back in there right now and explain what was going on, and he and Laried got into it. Aravashnial is an arrogant Riftwarden about to be left, blind in a corner, by these morons. Laried wasn't about to waste time, and Falthera was right behind him, so when Aravashnial called for them to come back, Laried flatly refused. So Aravashnial actually summoned a constrictor to bring one or both of them back if necessary, which was somewhat funny as they didn't realize at first where the snake had come from. "It won't hurt you if you come back here." "Oooh... it's HIS snake." Falthera went back, and he said "Now look. i appreciate that you have been taking on the dangers we've faced while we've been down here, but i ought not to have allowed that and clearly my negligence has proven catastrophic. Now tell me exactly what the situation is, who is left, and what they're able to do, and we'll make a plan." He insisted on going down with them. Horgus threw a fit at that point. Clearly, this was a fool's errand and everyone down the ladder was already dead anyway; they should just leave them. They'd only die in the attempt to rescue the obviously dead PCs anyway. So i got to roleplay him arguing with Aravashnial, which was less weird than i thought it would be. (i got to roleplay a little of Lann, too; Horgus didn't want to be left alone upstairs with "that," which Lann didn't appreciate.) All in all, i think the roleplaying of NPCs went really well. Much better than i expected. i mean, i talk to myself all the time, but roleplaying conversations between multiple NPCs feels super awkward.

In the end, Horgus stayed upstairs (he locked himself in the pantry), Lann went back for reinforcements, and the others went downstairs. Aravashnial levitated down the ladder, and he handed Anevia his spell components so that i didn't end up playing both of them, and Rasia's player ended up handling the constrictor, so it wasn't too complicated after all. Then there was some hedging about who was going down the ladder first, so Aravashnial kept up the obnoxious party-leader attitude by pointing out that the snake wasn't persistent and they had better get a move on while it was still around to be useful, and Laried said "Whatever, i'm halfway down the ladder already."

This, though, is where things got weird. They went through the guard room (H6) and when they got to the doorway to the dining/common room (H7) i started describing what they'd see through the doorway, and Laried went right in. My original intent was that Hosilla and Uziel would already be there by then, but he just walked in. i have had this problem more than once and i need to figure out how to just roll with it—but if PCs walk into a room before i'm finished describing it, it seems like the room has to be empty of adversaries. Otherwise, it feels like they just pop into existence as the PCs enter, which twists my brains around regarding surprise rounds and all that. i don't know why i get that way, but it keeps happening. So since the room was obviously "empty" when Laried entered, the only thing to do was let them roll Perception and Stealth to see if they could hear Hosilla and Uziel in the kitchen (H8) or vice versa, and yeah, everyone could hear everyone, so Hosilla and Uziel came out but Laried rushed them and so the battle did not go remotely as planned—ESPECIALLY as i COMPLETELY FORGOT the two guards from H6 AND the two from H7. Yes. FOUR mongrelmen who apparently disappeared into thin air as soon as they brought the captives to Hosilla. The PCs ought to have run smack into Hosilla and her gang as they entered H7, and there should have been FOUR MORE combatants in the mix, but instead the whole thing was sort of dumb. i swapped Uziel's stats out for the "Noble Indiscretion" NPC pregen (fighter 1/rogue 1), but even with that, forgetting those extra four guards meant the fight was not as awesome as i'd planned. To be fair, it was going to be hard to make it a balanced fight anyway, with such a weird party makeup.

Besides that, though, i decided that Uziel would be wielding Radiance, and that if things went south, Hosilla would lean over to him and whisper something, grab the sword, take her potion of invisibility and just jet. i imagined this tragic, heroic thing where Uziel's eyes go wide ("Noooooo!") as he realizes she's abandoning him to be killed, and all he can do is whip out his dagger from his spring-loaded wrist sheath and fight for the remainder of his doomed life (in my mind it all happened in slow-motion), but instead one of the PCs got a critical hit on him and he went down pretty quickly. So then Hosilla did lean down and grab his sword (after taking the potion of invisibility), and i gave the PCs fair opportunities to try Perceiving her as she made good her escape, so the end result was the same—Hosilla escaped with Radiance, and Uziel bled out on the stone floor—but in a much, much less epic way than i imagined.

So then they found Rasia and Adaline. Rasia had ZERO interest in doing anything other than getting out of that horrible place as quickly as possible, especially since Hosilla had disappeared and they couldn't find her ("That woman was mean" was repeated several times). So Adaline, Rasia, Aravashnial, and Anevia went back up the ladder (Aravashnial is very concerned about all of this, including Rasia herself, who was so shaken that she's considering Burning Hands or Shocking Grasp for her new spell instead of Charm Person as planned). Adaline passed out at the top of the ladder, as she'd been at 0hp (technically she should have passed out long before she got to the ladder at all, but we didn't think of that). i think they would have left all the loot, note and all, down in Hosilla's room except they hadn't seen the dead cleric's body yet and Laried didn't want to leave him if he was in any way alive, so he ransacked the place while Falthera tried to get him to stop and just come up so they could get the heck out, but in the end they did get everything. (Including all of the captured AND dead PCs' belongings, and i really ought to have had some things go missing, but i didn't think of that either. And the Rasia's weasel, Spice, made his stealth check, so he had skittered off into the shadows and came back later.) i think Laried ended up just grabbing Uziel's corpse rather than looting him properly, as Falthera was nagging him to stop looting and just go. (Seriously. These players.)

Then when they got to the top, Lann was just arriving with backup, including the new character—a deaf half-elf life oracle who happened to have fallen through during the battle and had made his way to Neathholm just in time to "overhear" (he reads lips) that some healing was needed.

So the end result is that everyone (except the dead cleric) survived, and i think i played the NPCs quite well, and everyone really got into it and were very happy to level up afterwards. So despite not being able to have everything happen in parallel as i'd planned, and the new PC not really having an opportunity to show up until the end, and one terrible misplay (the missing mongrelmen), all in all it was a smashing success.

Now then:

1) What in the world happened to those four mongrelman guards?
2) Should i be concerned about all this excess loot? (They got not only their own stuff back, but all of the dead cleric's and Uziel's.)
3) i am not sure if i should feel bad about Hosilla making off with that sword. It made more sense when i thought he'd be alive (or at least conscious and fighting) when she took it.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

1) They could have been off on a patrol, or off raiding the other mongrelmen. If you want an encounter you could put them after (H) on the way up to the city. And as I'm sure you know now, room descriptions never include the inhabitants as the writers can't assume that those creatures are there.
2) I wouldn't, especially now as it doesn't mean much. If characters recycle often then it could be an issue. Some parties bury the loot or have them donate gear to Drezen or churches in the future. And this AP gives out an excess of loot.
3) The sword could play out as being important. I would at least give them the chance to meet Hosilla again.

Good luck and have fun. I would not want to do this AP as a new GM.


Sounds like an awesome time! Few points:

Don't let your PCs act while you are describing what they see. If they try to enter a room, say "hold on, I'm not done describing things" and then keep going. Alternatively, assume they completely failed any perception checks necessary to detect anything you haven't yet said and have them walk in on a room of guards. It should only happen once, heh.

Your players will never know what they miss unless you tell them. They have no idea about the guards. From there point of view, the fight wasn't less than it could have been, it was as awesome as it was! After a demoralizing defeat like they had the previous session, a bit of an easy triumph is always a nice morale booster.

Loot comes and goes. If you are concerned, remove/transmute some gear in future hauls. Trade out things that are similar to what the players got from the dead character. In my games, the players never lost a character until rezz magic was available, so I required PC swapping to involve the dead character's share of party loot being zeroed out; used to rezz them and then provide funds to pursue another choice in life. They take their gear with them, so the issue is moot. The downside is that WBL is rarely accurate on long campaigns and new characters are often under-geared in most ways.

Another option is have Hosilla show up in another part of this, or the next, adventure with more levels and underlings (like the four guards, also leveled up). It can either be as a miniboss, replacing some less important monster in a planned fight, or as a one-off "I'm going to kill you and bring your heads to my new master! Then I will be forgiven for my failure at stopping you before!"


MurphysParadox wrote:

Sounds like an awesome time! Few points:

Don't let your PCs act while you are describing what they see. If they try to enter a room, say "hold on, I'm not done describing things" and then keep going. Alternatively, assume they completely failed any perception checks necessary to detect anything you haven't yet said and have them walk in on a room of guards. It should only happen once, heh.

This.

Or Player ignores description .
gm Ok without looking around at all you rush in and immediately take a suprise round as you carelessly rush in on the large dragon.

Players who choose to ignore the GM die. I had a player in a one off game who talked about magic the gathering for 40 minutes in the climax of the game. Finally finished and said he did something at which point I pointed out the dwarves had finished stabbing him to death 20 minutes ago, but he had not bothered listening.

I would certainly have Hosilla turn up again with the sword, she could be at one of the safe houses or join the garrison at the grey garrison.

I am running this bit of the campaign at the moment and I don't think you should worry about the small amount of extra gear from the dead pc. By the time they get to spend any of it they will be at the defenders heart , they will have around 15000gp between them (mine did) and the extra 200gp from a cleric is small fry.
Particularly as a 4400 gp sword ran off (+1 cold Iron, ignoring the potential for it to improve if it bonds with a pc , which is up to you as you have no paladin and its ultimate evolution as a Holy avenger would not help them without a house rule allowing it to work for a none paladin)


Wow, i am grateful to all of you who took the time to read my extremely long post. It turned out a lot longer than i meant, and i really appreciate you reading through it despite its length.

Seannoss, you make a good point about the AP's written balance of loot. Given that this one is Mythic i guess shouldn't be too surprised if it ends up being both overpowered and overly lucrative. Now it occurs to me also that if the PCs had managed to kill Hosilla and the four missing guards, they would have ended up with even more loot, so the AP probably did take that into account. Good call. (Even if the guards didn't have much on them, more = more.)

i appreciate you saying that this is a tough gig for a new DM. i don't think i had any idea what i was getting into when i picked it—i just liked the story. Getting my feet wet has turned into sloshing through a river up to my armpits, but you know—we are all having fun, and i am learning a lot. So thanks for the encouragment. :-)

MurphysParadox: Good ideas. i've got a side conversation going with a few other DMs i know and they are all saying the same thing about hitting pause if the PCs rush in, and if they don't listen, let them learn the hard way. It's really helpful to hear so much consensus on that. Most issues seem to be very situational or preference-based, and having one tried and true solution i can work on implementing helps me tremendously.

i've outlawed resurrection or anything like it in my campaigns—i simply don't like it; i feel death should be permanent or else it isn't something to take seriously—so unfortunately, the cost of resurrecting something won't help with redistributing PC wealth. But it's starting to sound like i don't need to worry overmuch about that.

i really like the idea of Hosilla coming back at the PCs with a motive for targeting them. If she took the sword with her (and maybe that was a mistake), she'd be facing less trouble for leaving them alive than if she'd lost it too, but that sword is probably a minor concern compared to them knowing the location of all three safehouses in Kenabres (along with the passphrase... that was a seriously embarrassing info-dump, but i had too many things going on last night to bother trying to fix that.)

JohnHawkins: Ooh, Hosilla at one of the safe houses or the Grey Garrison is not a bad idea. i will definitely read ahead with that in mind.

Your story about the long-dead PC made me laugh out loud. :-D

That's very helpful to hear you speak out of your own current game experience. And wow, that is a ton of cash. i will definitely not worry about the extra PC equipment, then. Another helpful consensus, it seems!

Yeah, i seem to have the wrong mix of players for some of this loot to make any sense. When they encountered Millorn, they basically killed him in his bedroom while he was fleeing for his life (one PC ended up with the nickname "House Call Murderess" over that one), and then they didn't even loot him (the cleric and sorceress didn't allow it, actually, after the ruthless murderizing)—but as none of them could make use of a wizard's spellbook it was sort of moot. The paladin sword was looking to me like it was going to be another really awesome thing that nobody would care about, too. They could easily offload it, but there goes a great hook.

Okay guys, one last thing: i think i feel pretty good about everything (seriously, thank you so much!) except the missing guards. Two of them could simply have not existed, but the other two were the ones who'd captured the sorceress and rogue, so the PCs knew they were there and didn't find any egress to explain their disappearance. (To be fair, it seems the players forgot about them utterly, so i might be worrying about this more than is necessary.) i think i'm going to have to say that there was a secret passageway that the PCs didn't discover (they were in a huge hurry to get out), because otherwise this just doesn't make any sense. Although i am still trying to puzzle through for my own sake WHY they would escape through the secret passageway at all when they had just captured two people with hardly a scuffle; i would think they'd be feeling confident after that, rather than worried enough to run away. i suppose they did realize that there were more PCs upstairs, and they weren't particularly loyal to Hosilla (especially after she'd killed their leader and his lady), so maybe they just figured now was a good opportunity to get lost and leave that unfortunate woman to her fate?

i'll probably end up going with that, but if anyone has other ideas i'd be glad to have them.

Again, everyone, thank you so much for all your comments. i really appreciate it.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Did the PCs notice the missing guards? Its nice to have back end logic but if they didn't notice anything missing then you're fine. Those guards could have been fine with the hostile take over as well.
You may wish to reconsider your views on resurrection too, I think the AP is somewhat easy as printed but death is still a very real possibility. Or have a good idea why mythic heroes keep popping up.


I would imagine Hosilla is either at the Grey Garrison, or she fled to Drezen and is with Staunton Vhane.


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Put her in the Grey Garrison. Far too many GMs have complained the Garrison is a cakewalk. Having her there to back things up would be useful and thematic.


The only problem with the Grey garrison is it is largely deskari cultists and Hostilla is a Baphomet cultist. She would make a good back up for Jaxon.

Grand Lodge

You could also have her at Horgus' house, since the other Manor they were using did end up being destroyed and Horgus' would be one of the only buildings maybe standing in that area.

My PC's trapped her in dining room, she attempted to flee but the CAD fighter, put caltrops by the door to slow down anyone who got by them. An invisible inquisitor makes a lot of noise when she rolls a 1 on acrobatics and screams in pain at a broken ankle.


i'm so grateful to see all the ideas and recommendations on how to bring Hosilla back in. i still haven't had a chance to read ahead in the AP, but extra perspectives, especially as i know you guys are talking from experience, will make it all the easier to sort through the options as i go.

Staunton Vhane invokes both Deskari and Baphomet in his terrible info-dump note, so it seems to me that there must be a relationship between the cultists of each—maybe not one based on doctrine or which they want to see ascend, but based on overlapping goals and strategy. i could see something working out with Hosilla involving herself with a pack of Deskari cultists. (She'd probably just take over anyway, or do her best to; i imagine she's extra scary when she's on the run like she is now.) Or, i don't know whether it'd be doable to just say that the Garrison is full of Baphomet cultists instead, since i don't know what all the ramifications of changing that detail would be.

Seannoss, i am pretty firm on my no-resurrection rule, but you make a good point that i'll have to think about why there are so many mythic heroes lying about. What i told my players when we first started is that replacement characters will automatically match APL, but that mythic tiers are not automatic, so we'll have to discuss offline how they might have ascended (and, depending on how far in we are at the time, progressed). So far my only PC death has been before anyone has become mythic, which makes things easier this time, but you're right that mythic heroes are supposed to be even rarer than regular heroes, who are already exceptional. One option might simply be that Iomedae is now invested in the party and anyone else who merits her attention will find themselves being led in a direction that will eventually result in them meeting up with the others. As the PCs aren't supposed to realize at first that she's watching and rewarding them, it would be fairly easy, i think, to hand-wave that; it wouldn't have to be overt.

And no, the players seem to have forgotten the missing guards, but the way Hosilla took over the place suggests to me that they wouldn't mind leaving her to her fate. So i'm just going to say that they ditched when they saw a chance. Maybe they'll show up again; maybe not.

Raltus: Nice. i love it when creative solutions pay off like that; i bet your players really enjoyed that.

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