Ascalaphus Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden |
thistledown Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East |
Linda Zayas-Palmer Developer |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
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).
melferburque |
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.
andreww |
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:
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.
Furansisuco Venture-Lieutenant, Spain—Mirande de Ebro |
Hmm Venture-Captain, Minnesota |
Juniper Berrythwaite |
3 people marked this as a favorite. |
A great GM will make the characters all want to move to Averaka. They will write songs, marry bakers, and sweep chimneys. ;)
Hmm Venture-Captain, Minnesota |
Ascalaphus 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.
Ascalaphus 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.
Ogren Runeaxe |
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.
Ogren Runeaxe |
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.
Ascalaphus Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden |
Ogren Runeaxe |
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.
Ascalaphus Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden |
GM Lamplighter |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
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?
CanisDirus |
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.
Mr. Bonkers |
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...
thunderspirit |
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.
Quentin Coldwater 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.
Terminalmancer |
From the text:
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. :)
Ascalaphus Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden |