My party will be hitting the Sevens Sawmill this Sunday. There are 6 7th level PCs, a (full level) animal companion, and a cohort. Taking inspiration from Joey Virtue's 6 PC changes thread, I have been maxing HP and adding mooks. However, with the exception of the throne room in Thistletop where I boosted Ripnuggets levels, the bards levels, added another goblin champion, and a 3rd level Sorc, these guys have still been rolling things. Nualia only lasted about 4 rounds, Skinsaw Man the same.
Aasimar Paladin
Human Warpriest
Ifrit Sorc/Oracle (building to EK)
Human Ranger (skirmisher/infiltrator) took boon companion to boost his wolf
Aasimar Shaman
Drow Ninja
Yes, I do regret letting a couple of these hit the table. That damage is done now
So, I've got the following changes in place for the Sawmill:
All cultists gain are Cleric 1 / Rogue (Knifemaster) 4 with the following feats: combat expertise, gang up, improved initiative, stealth synergy and the rogue talents finesse rogue and offensive defense. 44 hp
There is 1 extra cultist in each encounter. Given the chance, they cast Shield of Faith before moving in to unleash sneak attack death
Ironbriar is rebuilt as a Warpriest (Cult Leader) 8 with the following feats skill focus (linguistics), orator, wpn focus, wpn finesse, wpn specialization. Trickery and Charm blessings. 80 hp
Spells
1 - Bless, Command, Divine Favor, Murderous Command, Shield of Faith
2 - Bear's Endurance, Bull's Strength, Owl's Wisdom, Silence, Undetectable Alignment
3 - Aura Sight, Dispel Magic, Glyph of Warding
Tactics are to set the glyph at the top of the final staircase (blasting) against anyone who doesn't worship Norgorber. At the sound of the blast (or combat outside if the party finds and disables the glyph) he begins buffing
1st round- 1 swift (fervor), 1 standard, move action to stand from desk, 5 ft step toward door
2nd - 1 swift (fervor), 1 standard, move action for trickery blessing, 5 ft step to door
3rd - 1 swift to activate armor and wpn enhancements (fervor), move to open door, 5 ft step through, casts Bless as his standard.
At this point he has bear's endurance, owl's wisdom, divine favor, and shield of faith up, has a +1 unholy shortsword, and a +1 on his armor. Plus, is rocking undetectable alignment from that morning.
4th - swift cast aurasight (so he can see good aura to hit with his unholy sword), can re-up his trickery with a move if he needs, and can drop one of his offensive spells or move to attack.
Thoughts? Will this be too strong for the group? It'll be their introduction to dispel magic and silence.
For Xanesha, I'll just max HP and run as written. They will run into a Lvl 5 Lyrie with the scarecrow and face 4 stalkers instead of 3.
4) Finally, as to Lyrie, I did a 5th level version of her a while back as part of the Lyrie Scenario. Feel free to use it. This version is more of a lone wolf than a team player, and is built accordingly, but a 6d6 Fireball or a Suggestion spell will work just as well regardless.Doug M.
Doug, that's exactly where I took her from :) Except, I'm giving her the spells from the spellbook in Ironbriar's chest. I'll add in 4 for her lvl 4 and 5 gains. She'll hit the Scarecrow with a lightning bolt to heal him (and hopefully catch a PC or 3 in it too).
Well, 3 of my 6 players called off for yesterday's session. So, I couldn't run them through the meat-grinder above. The 3 players had a fun day more focused on role-playing and I made sure they killed enough time to just whet their appetites for the Skinsaw Cult for the next session.
I had them running around on errands in Sandpoint, then get detained by the guards when they got to Magnimar. They wanted to know why one was wearing the symbol carved into the victims of the Star Murders (Sihedron Rune). They were eager to spill everything they knew to the Justice to clear up any trouble and prove their innocence. They told him all about how they'd investigated, tracked, and killed Aldern Foxglove, that they were now looking for a Xanesha and the Seven that she was Mistress of. The Justice arranged a meeting for them with the guard captain heading up the murder investigations within the city and thanked them for all the hard work they had done. They met with the captain the next day and shared details on what they knew about the murders in each location. Both sides were troubled that there were so many more murders than they knew about.
The Justice was of course, Ironbriar, and the guard is his patsy. Capt Robins is a nice guy trying to do his job and solve these murders, but Ironbriar has kept him off the true trail. Ionbriar immediately reported to Xanesha and informed the Faceless Stalkers who their victims would be and to set an ambush. I scaled it back to the as-written 2 Stalkers, since we only had 3 PCs and a Cohort. They found Foxglove's secret stash right before we called it a day.
Well, they decided to clear out the mill on Oathday at midnight. I cut the numbers of cultists back to as written, with all of them and Ironbriar in the workshop. I ran Ironbriar as detailed above, catching 2 of them with warding glyph and giving all the cultists one round to prepare. I didn't hold back too much with the Paladin not there. I don't use CDG against a PC in the negatives. I dropped the Ranger to negatives in the 2nd round, would have killed the Rogue outright if he hadn't activated the False Life on the sihedron medallion, the Sorc/Oracle was 3 hp from dead, and his Bard cohort got dropped to near dead late in the fight. The saving grace for the PCs was the Shaman having just learned Ball Lightning and using both of her castings of it to burn cultists down. Plus, that many people in one room bunched the bad guys up for Burning Hands. Ironbriar died to several minor wounds, then catching 2 scorching rays in his face. He did scare the crap out of the Sorc by dispelling his Shield spell. I held off of casting Silence to get Ironbriar into melee. Taking away the Sorc casting and Bard performance would have probably killed the group.
I'd say it was a good rebuild of Ironbriar to offer a challenge. Giving the Cultists Gang Up and having 13 in one room was borderline TPK, but there was just enough luck and tactics on the PCs side. They broke out aid another and defensive fighting for the first time to survive. The fight probably took a total of 3 hours and they weren't keen on going to the Underbridge in yesterday's session. I plan to just run big X as written.