So my Iron Gods group, consisting of an android cleric of Pharasma, a kitsune oracle, a dwarven ranger, a human conjurer wizard, and a catboy psychic, are... shall we say, 'eccentric.' They've sort of run slipshod over the entire campaign so far, with exploits including:
-Capturing Meyanda after a protracted android grease-wrestling session, and making her their new friend
-Getting stabbed by Sanvil Tret, only to throw him in a cell in torch
-Ruining all of Hellion's plans, then cornering him, then making him flee without managing to catch him
-Losing a character to Seerath, only to throw her in a cell in torch, alongside Sanvil Tret. They burned a res here.
Today, they met Furkas Xoud in the Choking Tower. He showed up, pouring out of the schematics on the first floor in the literal third room the group went into, and was like HELLO THERE, THE HECK YOU DOIN HERE?
So then our psychic proceeded to use his ability that let his mind affecting abilities work on undead, and cast Charm Person on the ghost, using his Persistent metamagic to make him have to save twice.
Aaaaaaand he failed, because one of the rolls was a 4. So Furkas Xoud is the party's good buddy for 8 hours.
The party is going through and accomplishing their main objective of learning about Casandalee right now while Furkas himself is going around and giving them a proper tour while finding the stuff needed to disable his traps and let them down into his dungeon to get things done. They've avoided making him angry, and have gotten him to clear out a good number of the random monsters. (since they were no threat to him and 'you wouldn't want your good buddies getting hurt') At this point, the only thing keeping them from skipping to book 4 after getting the information they need is a combination of:
-The wizard wanting Furkas's spellbooks, now that she's seen him cast cloudkill on some bird demons
-The oracle wanting access to the tower's production facilities for her tech crafting feats
-The Pharasmin cleric wanting to murder this Zyphus worshiping ghost just on principle.
I'm just sort of flabbergasted at the whole thing, even as I'm going through and giving them the guided tour courtesy of the big bad himself. They managed to ram the first book off the main path, and they sort of did it with the second book as well, but this? They're getting better at destroying the basic themes of the dungeons in this AP, and it's sort of beautiful to watch.
Also they're utterly terrified of doors, and after I told them how they had to open the ones throughout the tower the entire party went 'oh god, we're doomed.' That was fun, too.
God this sounds like a fun group to be DMing. Must be driving you nuts trying to keep up with everything and making changes on the fly, but the sheer audaciousness of the players keeps things stimulating and the insanity of it all makes for a fun read if nothing else.
The group I run has just finished the Valley of the Brain Collector and sounds like it does things so different from your group. For instance never takes prisoners (not sure they've ever heard of charm person) but still manages to find some way to derail things, but not as spectacularly as your group. Can't wait to hear how they handle things in book 4 (if they can befriend Binox or the Colour monster I foresee things getting REALLY interesting). Keep up the posts.
One note, Will of the Dead phrenic amplificaiton lets you bypass undead immunity to mind-affecting, but you still have to meet other spell targeting requirements. So Charm Person won't work on Furkas Xoud because he's Undead, not a Humanoid. You need a spell that works on any creature (like Charm Monster, Suggestion, Hideous Laughter, etc.) to affect undead this way.
One note, Will of the Dead phrenic amplificaiton lets you bypass undead immunity to mind-affecting, but you still have to meet other spell targeting requirements. So Charm Person won't work on Furkas Xoud because he's Undead, not a Humanoid. You need a spell that works on any creature (like Charm Monster, Suggestion, Hideous Laughter, etc.) to affect undead this way.
I would rule that it still works since the subtype of a ghost is augmented humanoid per the Bestiary entry.
I went with Redrobe's logic on this one. Literally just "It's a humanoid who became a ghost, there's literally no reason this shouldn't work without feeling overly pedantic. Besides, he has a +11 will save, he'll just make the dc 16 save twice and--"
>rolls a 4
orz this is my life.
God this sounds like a fun group to be DMing. Must be driving you nuts trying to keep up with everything and making changes on the fly, but the sheer audaciousness of the players keeps things stimulating and the insanity of it all makes for a fun read if nothing else.
The group I run has just finished the Valley of the Brain Collector and sounds like it does things so different from your group. For instance never takes prisoners (not sure they've ever heard of charm person) but still manages to find some way to derail things, but not as spectacularly as your group. Can't wait to hear how they handle things in book 4 (if they can befriend Binox or the Colour monster I foresee things getting REALLY interesting). Keep up the posts.
I believe that I shall.
it also helps that we do things via internet on discord, and Hellion was voiced entirely by the /tts command, so I'm looking forward to the climactic reveal of a robotic voice going 'Hellion says: Oh. It's you. Sigh.'
Trinam, I love that idea. My hat is off to you.