Party taking a mini-vacation after Skinsaw, what to do with Hook Mountain (Spoilers)


Rise of the Runelords


Through their own actions the party allowed Xanesha to get away. It was shortly after this that they were contacted to look into the goings on at Turtleback Ferry and Fork Rannick. Several days out of Magminar the party decided to deviate a little from taking a direct path and instead do a whole lot of crafting.

There is only 1 character with Craft Wondrous and Craft Magic Arms and Armor and after making this, that and the other for the party, they party has now spent just over 6 weeks in the wilds before continuing on their way to Turtleback Ferry.

My question for everyone who has run this before (this is my first time running a pre-written campaign though have 30+ years of playing experience) is what should have been happening in the meantime. X would have gone to L and between the two of them I would assume there's a lot going on but I'm a little lost for exactly what I should have had happen and how to, for lack of a better term, punish the party for taking so long. I have a few ideas such as a small adventuring group already 'agreeing' to help X and L with their endeavors or having influential members of the town being rallied again 'meddling adventurer types' and what not but I'm thinking there should be more.


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber

Depends on how much work you wanna do.

Easy method - just let it keep rolling - make a big deal of the calamity at TBF with the Paradise sinking 4 weeks ago and all the people that got hurt. Then continue as scripted - let them know that Rannick fell 3 weeks ago. They'll feel pretty bad, but you don't have to do any extra work. X fades into the background to try to start all over with another group in Magnimar - she spends the time worming her way undercover and finding a new lair, her future activities play no part in the AP, she still does bad things, just below the radar.

Method Two - X escapes, goes to TBF, links up with Lucy and its now even more awful - both of them together would be a death grinder. Lay it on thick as above.

Method Three - X escapes and goes somewhere out of the way to set up again...say Sandpoint where she starts charming people and doing murder cult fun. Lay it on thick as above in TBF, and hope they do it all over again after taking Rannick, to give X even more time.

Method Four- The bad guys plot continues during there 6 week crafting binge. Kreegs do their thing, taking and holding Rannick sending weapons on. The flood happens, and Black Magga tears the town up. The Grauls spend weeks having fun with the surviving Black Arrows. X and L finish their bit here and move on to the stone giant stronghold. Lay it on EXTRA thick about all the stuff that happened.

Now, I'd be inclined to be SOMEWHAT easy on them - it's a bit unfair to punish a player (and the rest of the party) for trying to take advantage of the feats they've selected, especially when one party member has devoted 2 feats to helping the party, but 6 weeks crafting is a LONG time to wait in the middle of a potential rescue mission. Personally I'm a fan of "Three", but you have to judge your players.


6 weeks? They come to Ilsurian, where people say that just yesterday the flood came and destroyed their docks. Luckily, because people were at the varisian circus, nobody got hurt. Saddly, some debris points that TF wasn't so lucky. After such amount of water, maybe there is no town there anymore. And when party comes to TF, they see damage from flood, floating dead corpses from Black Maggas rampage, some surviviors. Few of them would outright blame the party for the disaster. If they will introduce themselves as Magnimar agents of course.
It's not about punishing players, but don't center the world around them. Bad guys don't just sit and wait for heroes or prepare petty schemes. They act. Example - Barl attacked Rannick as fast as he could, because he knew that Arrows will come again, in greater numbers, to investigate the clanhood after he killed two of their scouts.


Lorax is on the right track on options but before we go too far on providing consequences for the players I think we need to review the role of the GM here. It's a bit unclear exactly which items the group was crafting - were they specific items based on what they expect at Hook Mountain (ie things they would only desire after knowing about their destination) or more generic items (ie things they've wanted for some time?) Yes, the player's should be able to use their crafting feats and the GM has a role in helping make it happen. So, too late now, but the GM should be discussing what the players are planning and give them crafting time prior to kicking of timeline-driven plots.

And have there been crafting windows in other places in the campaign? Am I assuming too much by concluding the players know book 2 is over and book 3 is starting and may think this is a reasonable time to craft items? And that once Book 3 starts in earnest there won't be any such time?

It also may not be at all clear that there is urgency. The pc's know its several days to TBF and it was a similar time for the message from TBF to Magnimar (plus however much time the Mayor dawdled) so really, how urgent can it actually be to get there? If something bad was about to happen when TBF sent the message, it almost certainly has happened already.

The players have also just come into a huge amount of treasure that screams "shopping or crafting spree."

I am 100% in favor of giving the players/pc's consequences for their choices but only if they players are aware of them before hand. If the pc's have been told VERY clearly that bad things are happening and are going to get worse the longer it takes for them to get there, and still lollygag about crafting... Well, then consequence away! But if the players assume there aren't any consequences for their actions either because of precedent or because they don't understand the urgency... then consequences are not so good.


I would have the remaining Black Arrows under Graul custody be dead by now. Bigun is always hungry. This way they've lost some inside info into retaking Fort Rannick, but on the upside they get the leftover gear should they find it. Also, depending on what time of the year they get to Turtleback (my group plays with a calendar) the flood may have happened. I ran the flood at the beginning of Abadius, but that is up to your discretion. Since Lucretia has already marked her victims and the Paradise sank, it would make sense that she would then try to hurry the flood and fulfill her duty.

Since Lucretia and Xanesha now no longer have anything holding them to their assignments, maybe they'd report back to Mokmurian and get new assignments, fresh areas with unharvested greedy souls.


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An escaped Xanesha would probably not link up with Lucrecia. (I got the impression that X practically hates L's guts.) Instead, X would most likely join M at Jorgenfist.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber

I am pretty much on board with Ashkar and Latrecis on this one. Full on consequences if they knew and still kept crafting. If they didn't maybe say, "I should have told you guys this but this whole quest thing was kind of on a time table. Let this be fair warning that more excessive crafting/time wasting will have consequences."

In the even that that they did know and still dragged their heels I would even consider (in addition to what was put forward above) have the receded flood wrecked town now be occupied by the Grauls who have moved their whole family to the ruins and gathered up the few still living townfolk to start building a larder.

That is if you REALLY wanted to reinforce the terror caused by their actions.


Yeah, X and L have sibling rivalry in spades. X would never go to L and let her know she failed in Magnimar. She's more likely to meet up with Barl at Hook Mountain or Mokmurian in Jorgenfist. (And you can make that decision based on whether or not L escapes Fort Rannick alive. If she does and meets up with Barl, then have X go to Jorgenfist.)

I second the question of how much crafting time you've allowed prior to this. If it's been little/none, then I can completely understand them wanting to use the feats and gp they've acquired. If they've gotten plenty of time, taking a break in the middle of an assignment from the Lord Mayor seems like a really bad time. I meta-gamed a bit and flat-out told my players at points "You have 2-3 weeks of downtime, how would you like to spend it?" though I realize that doesn't mesh with certain play styles.


Pathfinder Maps Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Kalshane wrote:
Yeah, X and L have sibling rivalry in spades. X would never go to L and let her know she failed in Magnimar.

This much seems certain, based on the descriptions in the adventure path.

What she would do afterwards is anybody's guess, and I think X could just as easily try out another solo scheme in some new locale as team up with some other BBEG in a later chapter of RotRL.

My campaign is at exactly the same point. The previous session saw Ironbriar and his henchmen defeated, and although the fight was very close, Xanesha escaped with 3 hit points remaining - and the players had two dead and the third out with Deeper Slumber for a few rounds. Lucky thing she chickened out, since in theory she could have come back and done a coup de grace, but with only 3 hit points she bolted. The players are really disappointed that their 4th teammate couldn't make our session, but Xanesha's treasure mostly paid for their raise deads and restorations.

I'm planning on giving them significant downtime before launching the following chapter. The Lord Mayor is going to congratulate them, they'll be invited to all the posh dinner parties around town (since they'd already started sneaking into high society by getting Ameiko's family mansion opened up again) and really, the countdown clock on Hook Mountain Massacre hasn't necessarily started up yet.

My players aren't item crafters, and after 2 raise dead spells they haven't got loads of dosh to throw at NPC crafters, but it just seems logical to have some gap time before the campaign reignited in earnest.

I will use the opportunity to run at least 2 or 3 non-campaign sessions as well, if only to rebuild their confidence after a near TPK and give them some needed xp. Feels better that way than to arbitrarily boost their levels.


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber

I do think that even without making changes, the idea will come across pretty clearly that there is some sort of time table that they may be racing against. You don't need to modify the pace of events or "punish" them for taking the time off any more so than the AP does already. HMM does have the PCs sort of stumbling into things in the middle of the action.

Its letting X get away and them taking 6 weeks off that is actually more troubling. They should know she's bad news.

I do agree with X and L having a not entirely friendly rivalry - them teaming up is really just an idea to punish the PCs, if you feel that doing so is appropriate.

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