Paladins and Haunts in Foxglove Manor - advice needed


Rise of the Runelords


Hello! I have mostly been a lurker on these forums, but I have seen others who have posted questions and had great responses. Perhaps y'all can help me out as well!

I have a group of 6 PCs that are quickly approaching the Misgivings. I am extremely excited to say the least! (its taken us 1.5 years to get here...) I am trying to tailor the haunts to fit my PCs and my goal is to maximize fun. I think I have it all figured out, except there is a wrinkle.... the party has a paladin in it and he will be immune to all of the effects of the haunts. This isn't a problem per say, but I want to make sure that I am not preventing some of the most exciting/fun/interesting haunts from occurring by assigning the Vengeful Haunt to the Paladin.

Haunts - PC Assigned - Reason
Burning Haunt - Male Monk - previously infected with a rage curse (I made it up) from touching the runewell. Since became a monk of the lotus to focus on peace, but still struggles with rage. Good saves, but hilariously botches them often.

Festering Haunt - Male Halforc Wizard - This guy loves fire, but also most ok with the undead and experimenting. He allowed a party member to wear the shiedron rune without telling them what it does because he considered it to have more benefit for that person than the possibility of it going wrong. Did tell the party later on.

Insane Haunt - Male Human Cleric - This player is a bit random. The PC is the healer, but not firmly attached and loyalty of the player is somewhat questionable. PC is known to kill wantonly at times.

Obsessed Haunt - Female Human Bard - target of Aldern so appropriately placed and too late to change now. Very wrathful, would have worked very well as Wrathful Haunt... oh well.

Vengeful Haunt - Male Human Paladin - Garet "Egorian" Thrune, displaced prince of Cheliax on the run from assassins and agents of Thrune. He plans to one day return and take back the throne. In the mean time he has found himself holed up in Sandpoint and intrigued by the events occurring.

Wrathful Haunt - Female Elven Rogue - Is the only other female PC. Works for a LN order whose goal is to stop chaos from overtaking the world. Sorta betrayed in the backstory. A killer when she needs to be. Not particularly wrathful, much more methodical.

So, I think I have everyone down. I can mix it up a bit if need be. As I said above, I do not know how these playout. Vengeful Haunt for the paladin means that both the Dancing haunt caused by the piano and the Iesha's Vengance / scarf haunt will be bypassed. Seems to me like that is one save or suck and one entertaining Haunt with obnoxious ability damage removed. Is there a better place to put the paladin (assuming I can make it work RP wise) to avoid particular "not fun" haunts?


Greetings, fellow traveller.

I think the way you assigned the haunts fits what's written in the book.
Then again, I see everything written in an AP as a suggestion--usually a good one--which I change to better fit my group.
Now, you're the GM so if you think haunt "A" would better fit PC "Z", what keeps you from changing things?

That said, I'd definitely take it easy on the haunts in B15, B18, and B22.

Besides. I used the haunts mostly to tell the story of Aldern Foxglove and his ancestors showing the great tragedy behind "the haunted house on the hill".
Even if they made their save or managed to destroy the haunt (which only happened once) I had the haunt play out in full to tell the story.

We had great fun and I hope it'll be fun for you and your group, too.

Ruyan.


Thanks for the response! In the case of the Paladin, by RAW, the Haunt would even activate, right?

He is immune to mind effecting fear effects. So the conditions for the haunt are met, but it immediately fizzles.

I think what I would do instead is have the scarf attack his face, but he easily pull it off himself. Perhaps the dance will cause the Piano to play wildly, but the paladin does not feel compelled to dance.


If there is a Fear-related aspect to the Haunt's saving throw, then it will go off but the Paladin will auto-save. Others will still witness it though. As for the scarf... I think having it ineffectually attack his throat would be amusing. :D Have it finally tie an ascot and lie limp. :D


I am definately going to have the scarf attack him. I think that he will get to see the visions as well...

The problem is the particular haunts are ones that the party does not see all of. To their eyes the character is supposed to be spinning and dancing to nothing (maybe music) and relay info afterwards. Not as sure about the scarf.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
The PRD wrote:


Some haunts are persistent, and their immediate effects continue beyond the surprise round into actual full rounds. Persistent haunts continue to trigger their haunt effects once per round on their initiative rank until destroyed or they no longer have a target. All primary effects created by a haunt are mind-affecting fear effects, even those that actually produce physical effects. Immunity to fear grants immunity to a haunt’s direct effects, but not to secondary effects that arise as a result of the haunt’s attack.

So, looking at the Dance of Ruin, if a paladin was targeted by it, they would be immune to it. The direct effect is dance for 1d6 rounds, taking 1 Strength damage each round. As for what they see, I'd still describe it to them, but they don't actually have to make the roll. They feel the haunt's urging, but their god protects them from the negative effects.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Misroi,

I used your descriptions for the haunts and modified them to suit my party... I have LOVED them. We are playing on Roll20 and so when I haunt triggers I tell the player effected to check their journal. They then get to read the haunt and RP what happens.

If there is anything happening that the rest of the party can see then I describe it in detail. Its worked really really well so far.

As far as the paladin goes, I modified any haunts that he is immune to to. He still sees a vision and he still sees the haunt play out, but I modified it slightly.

Misori's haunt:
He is dead! Your husband, Aldern, has killed him! Not one moment ago, you were seated by the fire with the carpenter, the two of you reading a treatise on the founding of Korvosa, and the next, the carpenter was struck from behind! Aldern was there, his face a mask of fury as he struck the carpenter with a stone bookend. He discards his bludgeon and turns to you, his face red, his eyes accusing. “You harlot!”, he cries, grabbing at your dress and pulling you to your feet. “I am your husband! You are mine, and no other man shall lay a finger upon you! Not now, and not ever again!” He grabs the scarf you wear about your neck, and pulls it tight around your throat. Silently, you plead with him, scratching at his arms and kicking with your feet, trying to show him the book. But the carpenter fell upon it, and your vision swims. As the light fades, your husband is the last thing you see. The man you fell in love with has taken your life. How could he do this to you? Your last thoughts before you black out are those of rage.(Please make a DC 16 Will save. If you succeed, congratulations, you're safe! If not, you are paralyzed with fear as the ghostly image of Aldern Foxglove appears before you and seems to be pulling the scarf around your throat tight. Additionally, since you failed this first save, you need to immediately make a DC 16 Fort save. If you succeed, you take 3d6 damage – go ahead and roll that right now. If you fail, then you are suffocating. You are reduced to -1 hit point and you are dying.)

My version of Misori's haunt:
The scarf! He has it and he rapidly approaches you. It's Aldern and his face is twisted in rage. You can see that he has lost all control. As he approaches you notice the smell of whiskey on his breath.

Glancing to your left you see blood and a man lying face down on the ground. You do not recognize the man, but he wears clothing of a working man. His hands are calloused and dirt is caked under his fingernails. Beside the chair he has fallen out of you see a carptenders tool belt neatly set on the ground.

Aldern now dominates your vision. As he draws near the room begins to grow dark and your eyes focus upon the scarf. “You harlot!”, he cries, taking the scarf in both hands, bringing it around your neck. “I am your husband! You are mine, and no other man shall lay a finger upon you! Not now, and not ever again!”

Almost as quickly as the room started to grow dark, you feel a familiar warmth emmenate from your chest and fill your being. The darkness sheds away as you reach your hand up and easily shove Aldern and the scarf away from you.

(Looking at your hand you see that you are now holding the scarf. You shiver as you think of what Aldern clearly intended to do with it. Sarenrae has clearly protected you from the horrors of this ill fated house.)

For every time that he resists a haunt I try to make it very clear (but in character) that it is his god that is protecting him. It adds a nice bit of flavor!

We are halfway through the house and things are going really well.

Contributor

3 people marked this as a favorite.

Since no one else has mentioned it, the rules for haunt interaction were modified in Occult Adventures to include those otherwise immune to their effects so they can still experience them. And there are some other goodies there as well. Check out that chapter!

Silver Crusade

I really loved running the haunted house. I had little slips of paper that I gave each player as they triggered the haunt, so they'd know what their PC saw, but the other players would have no idea.

In the case of our group's paladin, I had him experience the haunt, see the vision, whatever, but then he just auto-made the saving throw. Also, remember that anyone close enough to the paladin will get a +4 bonus on their save.

Another thing I did, to keep things moving along faster, was to have them each roll 40 or 50 d20s and write down the results on a single sheet for me. I recorded their bonuses to init, will, perception, and whatever else I thought might come up (don't remember now - it was a year ago). That way, I didn't have to slow the haunt action to have them make the rolls - I just checked my page and crossed off the next number as it was used.

Contributor

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Fromper wrote:
Another thing I did, to keep things moving along faster, was to have them each roll 40 or 50 d20s and write down the results on a single sheet for me. I recorded their bonuses to init, will, perception, and whatever else I thought might come up (don't remember now - it was a year ago). That way, I didn't have to slow the haunt action to have them make the rolls - I just checked my page and crossed off the next number as it was used.

This is my FAVORITE gamplay-smoothing tactic for any game, and I highly recommend doing this, haunts or not. PCs get to have their own rolls used, and GMs can glide smoothly through Perception checks and subtle saving throws without messing up the narrative flow. Works particularly well for haunts, too!


For my party I had each haunt type, other than Obsession, associated with multiple PCs, so I could kind of tailor them to the PC in question as appropriate, and also switch things up so a single PC wasn't getting hammered room after room if they happened to navigate the house in the "wrong" order.


Brandon Hodge wrote:
Since no one else has mentioned it, the rules for haunt interaction were modified in Occult Adventures to include those otherwise immune to their effects so they can still experience them. And there are some other goodies there as well. Check out that chapter!

This is perhaps the one thing I like about Occult Adventures. The only reason I picked up the book was for when Paizo inevitably uses it in an AP or sets an adventure path in a region that the Occult is a major aspect.

Sadly it's just not my cup of tea. (The fact that a lot of magic spells were just handwaved as also being available for occult characters, rather than fully crafting new abilities, was another negative factor in my eyes. But that is my opinion and I know a number of people enjoyed it. Power to them.)

Shadow Lodge

For my Pally, I had him see the visions but immune to the effects so he could get the story as well.


I ran into something similar in Carrion Crown (haunts vs Paladin). I ended up making an exception for the paladin - instead of immune to fear, for haunts the paladin got +4 to the save. Allowed the paladin to still be impacted by the haunts (maybe) and also be ahead of the group vs fear. It also prevented the paladin from plowing into every room first, triggering the haunts to no effect, and bypassing the entire adventure. Not perfect, but a good solution.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I went the route of Cfet and I think everyone has enjoyed it. The best part about RotRL Huants is that they are tied to a particular PCs. There have been several instances of the paladin wondering around in an evil room but unsure of what to do about it. The party is loath to expend resources if they don't know if they might work so they have not tried to end the haunts with positive energy.

Eventually the PC with the haunt attached walks into the room and the Haunt activates. If the haunt is tied to the paladin, then he gets the story, but the story is modified to have Sarenrae (his god) interject into the story and protect/ help him overcome the evil.


My experience is that players mostly don't clue into the 'types' of haunts being tied to particular PCs, so you can get away with retargeting a couple of them if it will make for a more interesting scene.


I agree Ian. I actually screwed up and gave the player assigned to the festering haunt( evoker wizard who likes fire) the burning haunt (assigned to the Monk of the Lotus who used to have a rage problem.)

I don't think that the players noticed when I switched it out later and had the burning haunt correctly apply to the monk instead of the wizard. Although, this switch may have thrown them off the trail some...

I want to be careful with retargeting to make for an interesting scene because I think it could make my players feel punished for interacting with a room. At this point they have figured out that each room has a unique target in their party, but they do not know who the room will target. It has become a game of roulette of sorts.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder Adventure Path / Rise of the Runelords / Paladins and Haunts in Foxglove Manor - advice needed All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Rise of the Runelords