#7-04 The Ironbound Schism (contains spoilers)


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Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ***

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Not really - I just would do the backwards calculation from the spell level in the Perception/Disable DCs if I couldn't figure it out another way.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

Minimum required to cast the spell, unless specified otherwise, seems to be the norm.

Shadow Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East

Well, we know that the trap was set by Belimarius. Do we have her stats anywhere? I know there's stats around for at least Karzog, Krune, and Lust.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Developer

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James McTeague wrote:

Yup, CL 11 sounds right. That seems like a reasonable inference.

(For those of you wondering where that came from - Perception/Disable DCs of a magic trap are 25+spell level, meaning that this is a 6th level spell equivalent. Min CL for a 6th level spell is 11.)

Let's use the minimum caster level of 11. Belimarius's full caster level is a bit much (and it's not unreasonable that her traps may have degraded over time).

Dark Archive *

are the CR ratings in this scenario correct? it looks like many of the encounters ratings are based on a single monster, despite there being multiples (four hill giants, two rocs, etc).

I'm all for running a challenging scenario, but if these CRs are underestimated, that could result in a bad time for the players.

5/5 *****

Christian Rapp wrote:

are the CR ratings in this scenario correct? it looks like many of the encounters ratings are based on a single monster, despite there being multiples (four hill giants, two rocs, etc).

I'm all for running a challenging scenario, but if these CRs are underestimated, that could result in a bad time for the players.

Yes, they look right. Looking at high tier we have:

Spoiler:
Encounter 1:
4 CR7 Hill Giants = CR11
2 CR9 Rocs = CR11
1 CR 12 Hill Giant
That comes to roughly average CR+3 or a CR14 encounter

Encounter 2:
1 CR9 magical beast
1 CR11 troll
3 CR 7 trolls = CR10
A CR9, 10 and 11 is roughly CR13 which us what it is listed as.

Encounter 3:
2 CR11 things
1 CR11 ettin
3 CR3 opponents who can pretty much be ignored for CR calculation.
3 CR11 creatures come to CR14 as advertised.

Dark Archive 4/5 5/55/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Spain—Mirande de Ebro

I have a question.
In the sidebar,"As a whole, the Averakans have 11 AC, and each successful attack from a giant deals 1 point of damage to them".
This AC is correctly?

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Minnesota

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Yep, unless the party interferes with it somehow, the giants are going to hit the poor Averakans every turn. It's the GM's job to make certain that the party cares enough about Averaka that the party wants to interfere!

Hmm

Silver Crusade 3/5

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A great GM will make the characters all want to move to Averaka. They will write songs, marry bakers, and sweep chimneys. ;)

4/5 5/55/55/55/5 ****

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Aww. Thank you, Juniper! That was my favorite PFS game of all time. I fell in love with Averaka so much that I have several characters (not only PFS, but in home games) that hail from there. It's the best little town in Golarian!

Hmm

Dark Archive

Planning to run this on Sat. Is it assumed the Averakans are on the map or should I use a miniature to represent them? What about Dhiara or is she considered part of the group of Averakans (assuming the latter since no stat block)?

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Minnesota

No miniatures needed. The Averakans are abstract. Same deal with Dhiara, but since she offers the potential of a reroll you may want to have a mini for her anyway.

Hmm

Dark Archive

And how long does the Averakans continue with the PCs? Thoughout the entire scenario or only until the 1st fight is concluded? If it's the entire scenario, I can't image them surviving until the end.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

I remember saying "I am indeed your general! Follow me!" and promptly flying off on my roc steed. The rest of the party then got dim-doored into position. By the time the Averakans arrived at the battlefield the enemy was already routed.

I suspect you're actually better off without them there as a liability.

Dark Archive

LOL Thanks, Lau.

Another question, you don't mind...

I didn't read how many runes Pahg-Vahr from Arcane Decay has at the start of the scenario. Can't imagine it being a lot since it was recently acquired, but maybe I should keep track when she uses her spell-like abilities?

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

I see only one ability that might cause another runescar to appear (arcane surge), and it can only be used once per day. I'd say she has "a few" runes because it's been going on long enough for the sane head to get scared. But it looks like she's not gonna reach 20 during the encounter and keel over.

Grand Lodge 4/5

John Compton wrote:

A few answers at a glance:

Runeslave Curse: There is a scroll of limited wish on two different Chronicle sheets that I know of. The description about what happens if you remove the curse is to accommodate those or the very unlikely situation in which a PC has a wish-granting magic item like a luckblade.

Bringing up John Compton's post to get one further clarification. The question he was responding to concerned removing the curse from Pahg-Vahr. It's the same answer for the players both before and after the scenario though, right? (At least until Seeker tier)

I'm not seeing any normal way for players to get a Lesser Wish for themselves from spellcasting services or scroll purchases in the main campaign. I'm running this on Thursday and I hope I don't have to break the bad news to any of the players, but I'd like to be ready if it comes up.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Ugh. Nevermind. I just read the chronicle and it has an 8 prestige cure available there already.

Silver Crusade 5/5

Additionally, the curse at the end is not something that has to get cleared to avoid being reported as dead. A PC can continue on even if they haven't removed the Curse of Belimarius.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Mitch Mutrux wrote:
Additionally, the curse at the end is not something that has to get cleared to avoid being reported as dead. A PC can continue on even if they haven't removed the Curse of Belimarius.

Right. I was clear on that part. My dread was more about giving the players a negative and significant boon that they had no reasonable hope of clearing.

4/5 *

Prepping this now, and wondering why the giants in the first encounter try to destroy the dam at all? It says Tulgra fights to the death to protect it; does she turn on the regular giants when they start attacking the dam?

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

From what I remember, for once, YOU are the one trying to destroy the dam, not the enemy.

Grand Lodge 4/5

GM Lamplighter wrote:
Prepping this now, and wondering why the giants in the first encounter try to destroy the dam at all? It says Tulgra fights to the death to protect it; does she turn on the regular giants when they start attacking the dam?

I guess that I assumed it was to gain a tactical advantage, although the morale entry for Tulgra does make that weird. I might have Tulgra shout at the giants, but I definitely wouldn't change their During Combat tactics or have them turn on each other.

I'm prepping for 7-8 tier and fortunately get to dodge that issue.

4/5 *

Lau: yes, the PCs are trying to destroy the dam, but as soon as they get within 30' the hill giants start attacking the dam. I guess it is to gain a tactical advantage - they are hill giants and so not very bright, so I think I'll play up the discord between the leader and her minions.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

In our playthrough we DimDoored and flew into the melee, so I guess that's what took it off the table for them.

4/5 *

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Also, is it dark or dim light for the dam encounter? The PCs leave the war council at dusk, and the sun rises before they get to the Winter Lodge, so it's night... Dim light means rock throwing matters in round 1, while dark means the party will get in close much easier due to the range limit on darkvision. Thoughts?

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Developer

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Let's go with dim light.

Shadow Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 ****

John Compton wrote:


Inverted Giants: Typically, two status-granting effects that are effectively the same source do not stack. For example, I do not believe that casting cause fear on a target twice would automatically make it frightened, for it's from the same source. I know the Intimidate skill states this explicitly for the skill. Barring my getting further clarification from the design team, this is how I'd run it.

But, to the original question - at the 10-11 subtier is it supposed to be 1 round per CL (or in this case, HD) on a failed save? That's pretty brutal, IMHO.

Dark Archive 4/5

So, I'm prepping this for Wednesday and I have some questions about the trap. I read it last Friday and didn't completely understand that part, but thought that if I read it a couple of days later it would make all the sense in the world. But it didn't...

So the questions: when exactly does the trap trigger? Is it already too late when they place their miniatures on Area D? Must they request the perception check when traversing between area C and D to notice it? And can you spot it while already in area D and still disable it to circumvent the problem when exiting (technically it was already triggered, so I guess that it is a no on that one, right?)

The downside of the trap is quite costly for people, and I do not want to frustrate players by stating they should have checked before placing their miniature on the map...

4/5 *

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber

The trap says "a PC who enters the cavern" and that they enter the map from the south (before they get to the barrier). I ran it so that they have to navigate around the barrier to enter the cavern, not just be on the map.

You can also deem this to be an optional encounter, based on the box above it, and remove the barrier and the trap.

5/5 *** Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht

I saw an interesting question on Reddit adjacent to this, and having played this yesterday, I was wondering something:
Are players allowed to target one of Pahg-Vahr's heads as separate creatures, or is it a "package deal"? Normally you can't, as most spells spell out individual creatures as targets, and Ettins are still one creature. But if that's the case, why is only one head cursed? I'm not calling the authors out as cheats, but was it in this case intended to treat both heads as separate entities, despite the entry not allowing it as such?

When I played this yesterday (thanks to Mr Bonkers, above), we specifically called out our spells (Feeblemind and Blindness/Deafness, both of which landed) to only hit the cursed half of the creature. We weren't sure if it worked, but at least I figured that if a curse managed to curse only half the creature, I could do as well.

Silver Crusade 4/5 5/55/55/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

From the text:

#7-04 The Ironbound Schism, page 16 wrote:


Pahg-Vahr’s situation is desperate. A few months ago,
she was exploring the spires of a nearby Thassilonian
ruin when an ancient curse triggered. The curse, which
can only affect giants, forces its target to excavate the ruin
inside the now-collapsed cave. However, the wizard who
wove the curse did not take ettins into account; Pahg-
Vahr’s right head, Pahg, is cursed, while her left head,
Vahr, maintains free will. Since the curse struck, Vahr has
watched in horror as the curse buried Pahg’s personality
behind a single-minded drive to follow the strange orders
in her head, and she is desperate to find a cure before Pahg
gets her killed.

It's definitely not a clear application of RAW, but... given that it's called out as a mechanism by the author, and Pahg and Vahr are treated as having different brains and motivations, I agree with how Mr. Bonkers let you affect them independently. For whatever my opinion is worth on the matter. :)

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

I think Mr. Bonkers made the right call in following the precedent established by the author. Also, it was hilarious.

I wouldn't normally do this since RAW there'd be only a single creature to affect entirely, but that would be inconsistent with the scenario. So it's a good occasion to bend things.

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