Harrowstone: Detect magic and the five prisoner's special items

Hello. My players may soon be finding the five prisoner's special items and I know the wizard in my party will want to know which are magical and if so, what schools of magic. How have you handled this? It seems like in a sense only the Lopper's axe is ,magical, but, on the other hand, all the items have magical effects. Would you say that all are magical and if so what school of magic?

Also, it seems like the vault is not hidden behind sufficient stone to block a detect magic spell, so detect magic cast in the room would reveal the objects behind the wall, right?

Hello. My players may soon be finding the five prisoner's special items and I know the wizard in my party will want to know which are magical and if so, what schools of magic. How have you handled this? It seems like in a sense only the Lopper's axe is ,magical, but, on the other hand, all the items have magical effects. Would you say that all are magical and if so what school of magic?

Also, it seems like the vault is not hidden behind sufficient stone to block a detect magic spell, so detect magic cast in the room would reveal the objects behind the wall, right?

As I stated elsewhere. I would rule necromancy since their special powers are tied to the "lives" of the ghosts/haunts. If they have resididual magic like the Loppers, it also radiates universal magic.

My wizards didn't care to scan more than to know if something they found was magical or not. Also remind your players it takes time to do this, and ask the other players how they feel about the wizard spending all day doing magic radar.

As far as the vault, since it's only a DC 20 to find the vault, I'd be fine with them using detect magic to find it. Taking a 20 in here would do the same thing.

Hello. My players may soon be finding the five prisoner's special items and I know the wizard in my party will want to know which are magical and if so, what schools of magic. How have you handled this? It seems like in a sense only the Lopper's axe is ,magical, but, on the other hand, all the items have magical effects. Would you say that all are magical and if so what school of magic?

Also, it seems like the vault is not hidden behind sufficient stone to block a detect magic spell, so detect magic cast in the room would reveal the objects behind the wall, right?

The SRD provides on cursed items:

Identifying Cursed Items: Cursed items are identified like any other magic item with one exception: unless the check made to identify the item exceeds the DC by 10 or more, the curse is not detected. If the check is not made by 10 or more, but still succeeds, all that is revealed is the magic item's original intent. If the item is known to be cursed, the nature of the curse can be determined using the standard DC to identify the item.

The base DC to ID the properties of a magic item is 15 + item level. Unfortunately, the five items don't have levels assigned to them. For simplicity, I'd make everything but the Splatterman's spell book a L5 item, and the spellbook maybe a L8 item (reflecting the Splatterman's status as the strongest horror in Harrowstone).

So on a DC 20 or 23 spellcraft check, they could learn of the beneficial properties of the items, but need a 30 or 33 to learn that there is bad stuff, and can then make the DC 20 or 23 checks to understand the bad stuff. Note that Kendra has a +18 on the roll if the party has her look at the things with her Identify spell.

Only the Loppers axe is magical and none of them are cursed like a magic item. Your best bet to learn how they work is to use the Spirit Planchet over the course of a few days. The optional rules of questioning Rapping Spirit Haunts are another good source to figure things out.

So on a DC 20 or 23 spellcraft check, they could learn of the beneficial properties of the items, but need a 30 or 33 to learn that there is bad stuff, and can then make the DC 20 or 23 checks to understand the bad stuff.

That sounds very reasonable. I've been thinking over how to best let the players find out the properties of these items - it is obviously that they need to know if they are to be of any help, but i did not blatantly want to give out all the details either. I like the way of separating the good and the bad abilities of the items like this.

Your best bet to learn how they work is to use the Spirit Planchet over the course of a few days.

I would not. For my group that would ruin the "mysticism" and "scariness" of the Spirit Planchet. As i see it the Spirit Planchet is a perfect tool for adding some scariness and group controlled exposition by having it contact the departed spirits. Nothing ruins that by having it spell out "y-o-u--g-e-t--+-2--t-o--w-i-l-l--s-a-v-e-s".(yes you could say "more resistant to ghost intrusions from X" or something instead). Not to mention it would take forever and really trivialize the use of the Spirit Planchet to us. It would no longer be a dangerous tool to ask forbidden questions, but something the players is forced to use continuously to "clear" the items after they find them.

The optional rules of questioning Rapping Spirit Haunts are another good source to figure things out.

Is a nice way of doing it. But seems to me to not be a very intuitive way for the players to stumble upon - and also raises the question... how would they know?

Well Since the majority of the items are not magical, detect magic & identify won't help at all. Short of a Legend Lore or some other more powerful divinations they're stuck. Honestly using the spirit planchet with rapping spirits or asking Vesorianna might be the only two readily available methods.

Using the planchet also helps stretch out the days. Without something to delay the PC's (like only gaining one answer per successful check per day on the research topics) they'll cruise through all the Ravengro related material or skip it entirely to head to Harrowstone.

Having run this already I definitely would keep the action hot and heavy in Ravengro for at least a week before opening up Harrowstone too much. Using the random encounter tables, allowing haunts to reset and move around are all good ways to keep the PC's on their toes. Granted I don't give XP rather I use SKR's step system so I can use the great resources like the in-book bestiary and haunt write up to fill up the adventure.

It's an interesting debate. This is what the module says:
"Possession of these items can aid in confronting the five key spirits, although each of the items bears a curse due to its spiritual connection to one of the five prisoners. These curses remain active until the object’s previous owner is destroyed. The unique effects these items have upon their respective haunts cannot be learned via typical item examination, but using a spirit planchette to communicate with the spirit in the item can reveal its use. At the GM’s discretion, other methods of communicating with spirits could also function similarly."

So, upon reflection, I'll probably say that only the Lopper's +1 handaxe radiates magic. All of the items will radiate evil. It is a little funny to think of the items having spirits that can be communicated with independently of the ghosts themselves.

In any event, my players seem to have forgotten about the spirit planchette? How would you give them a nudge to use it? Maybe just have the cleric do a religion roll and tell her it occurs to her the spirit planchette might be of some use?

I agree with what is said in the thread, by "RAW" the Spirit Planchette seems to be the best use.
If you want to reintroduce it to your campaign giving a knowledge religion roll to remember that these items are a way to get information from spirits is nice. If you are heavy on role playing/immersive game play you might want to do something else ... like having the needle start moving on its own.

And remember, at times, the APs are rushed, time is spent on the wrong items, contradict the rules or simply does not mesh with a particular group. The thing to remember with these APs is that ever GM should take care to modify and fit them in with what their players prefer. The AP authors, while excellent and creative men and women, are not capable of writing something that fits perfectly with every group. Us GMs are the ones who have the privilege of taking the SUGGESTIONS they make and fitting them in to what our group wants.
The Harrowstone module is good, one of the best i have ever seen, and my group have been enjoying it immensely - but there are weak spots: The mechanics of the Father Charlatan fight, the items and how to identify them, the shallowness of the village population and the trust issues (if not entire system) and the spirit Planchette.
All of these issues are particularly annoying because they had such potential.The fluff is fantastic and they all have really great potential but, at least for some groups, falls short due to mechanic issues.
The Spirit Planchette, besides its awesome fluff, is somewhat boring and forgettable mechanically - especially in how it interacts with the 5 items. If one wants to change it there are some excellent suggestions in This thread.
The reasons why i found the Planchette "too much mechanics and too little fun" is that it is too slow (not an issue for a general fall-back to have in your bag - but if you are forced to use it for 5 items in a row before going on......) and have a too high chance of failure. This can discourage groups who are either in a hurry/having nothing else to do or those who are interested in role playing solution since having to spend 5-10 5-minute-days questioning it with 50% miss chance is more of a drag then "fun". And it feels a bit anti climatic to have spirits from beyond the grave spell out "+-2-t-o-w-i-l-l-s-a-v-e-s-a-g-a-i-n-s-t-h-i-s-g-u-y".

Ways to fix this is to either make them learn-able through magic means and keep the planchette as a "look beyond the veil of death and face the consequences" kind of thing and not a replacement and equal to good old boring identify.
Alternatively, and the route i somewhat went with, was to have the items volunteer the information themselves.

Alternatively, and the route i somewhat went with, was to have the items volunteer the information themselves.

Thanks for all your ideas! They are fantastic. I especially like your idea of how the board might reach out to the PCs in the night and how the ghosts' personal items might in a twisted way be aligned with the PCs (while still carrying a negative side). I like the idea of one of the items calling out to the PCs, drawing the PCs to it to help defeat one of the ghosts.

I'm curious how it actually looked in gameplay having the items "volunteering" information. Did you spell it out letter by letter or find some quicker way of delivering the info??

I do think that the limits on use and failure chances of the planchette are a little silly. The GM can give as much or as little info as he/she wants based on the inclination of the spirits, so I don't see the need for artificial limits on the item that may just cause the PCs to say, forget about it.

I'm going to study the alternate write ups on the thread you linked to...

Thank you for your kind words.

My group probably have a habit of going a bit overboard with role playing and accept cheesy and cliche elements in the name of a good game. We also tend to avoid too much mechanics outside of combat (For instance we never use the diplomacy or sense motive skills to decide the outcome on important interaction, they are just mood setters pre-negotiation or slight modifiers/ways to remember tactical mannerisms etc). So my way of dealing with the items/5 spirits somewhat reflects this.

Regarding the items what happened in our game was that the aspect of the Splatter man contacted the PCs in pretty much the way i describe above using the spirit planchette. It should be noted that this was BEFORE the players actually found said items. All this conversation really resulted in was hinting to them that they needed to find the items and remembering the Spirit Planchette.
I plan to keep using the planchette as a sort of spirit radio in our further adventures - picking up static, dying wishes, strong emotions and such from departed spirit in its vicinity.

Originally i wanted to have the planchette give out the details for the items and further exposition, but found it rather cumbersome to do. I wanted to avoid having to spell out stats or even short line them (your will better be able to resist the mental control of X.. etc) and wanted to use the opportunity to create more connection to the prisoners, whom the players by this time already had done the research on.
I figured that if i had to go cliche to make an event i might as well go all the way. What happened was that the night after they found the items all the players (four of them) entered into a deep dream. Here they each experienced the life and death, in first person, of one of the 5 inmates (Lopper being the odd man out). They saw flashes of the murders committed, the time spent in jail and their non-so-final death. Each experienced the dreams as if it was their own doing and felt the strong connection to their items that each of these men had when alive.
When they woke in the morning each player simply 'knew' approximately what affect (somewhat different then per RAW) it would have using their own weapons against the spirits.

Probably a somewhat cumbersome and railroady way of doing things - but we did this between sessions and it was a good way for each player to build up great appetite for the next session, and made hunting down the spirits both more personal and, surprisingly, more scary. (having seen first hand what mosswater marauder did with his club while alive, or the careful meticulous psychopathic way splatter man dealt with his victims added expectancy and fright towards their fights)

The intention was to keep the mystery of the Spirit Planchette on one side (which i'm sure will be an interesting item further into the campaign) - but also help build personal connection to the antagonists using the weapons.

Originally i wanted to have the planchette give out the details for the items and further exposition, but found it rather cumbersome to do. I wanted to avoid having to spell out stats or even short line them (your will better be able to resist the mental control of X.. etc) and wanted to use the opportunity to create more connection to the prisoners, whom the players by this time already had done the research on.

I figured that if i had to go cliche to make an event i might as well go all the way. What happened was that the night after they found the items all the players (four of them) entered into a deep dream. Here they each experienced the life and death, in first person, of one of the 5 inmates (Lopper being the odd man out). They saw flashes of the murders committed, the time spent in jail and their non-so-final death. Each experienced the dreams as if it was their own doing and felt the strong connection to their items that each of these men had when alive.
When they woke in the morning each player simply 'knew' approximately what affect (somewhat different then per RAW) it would have using their own weapons against the spirits.

Great ideas! My PCs have not found the items yet, so I think I'll borrow your idea and have the planchette on its own spell out "help me help" or something like that, and answer perhaps a couple follow up questions ("who is this?" "book"; where are you? "vault storage room"). I may also borrow your dream idea. I have already had each of the PCs haunted in nightmares by one of the ghosts, so it would make a lot of sense to follow that up with the PC being contacted by the spirit of the ghost's item.

I'll see after this week's session how it all plays out. They are just about to fight the Piper (they went through the side door and have not visited the first floor yet). I expect that, however that fight goes, the cleric will be exhausted of channeling and the party will be forced to leave the prison and rest, which would provide an opportunity for the messaging from the spirit planchette...

Sounds great. Let us know how it turns out!

I wish i had your idea of early haunting/nightmares so that i could have made it a recurring thing - as i see it any slow build up of them as antagonism really adds depth to the story.
Hope your players have fun!

To follow up on this, my players have now found the five items. I said that they all had an unusual aura of necromantic magic (and the axe and spellbook radiated universal magic as well). This has had the effect of making the PCs terrified about the items, so I'm second guessing myself, but it did not feel right to say that 3 of the 5 items radiated no magic at all. (Also, my PCs are pretty cautious, so they would probably have been terrified in any event, because they know the items are connected to the prisoners.)

I now need to figure out how to reveal the uses of the items to the PCs. I actually used the planchette as recommended by Steve K, and the items communicated with the PCs and said "helpushelp." I let them ask a few more questions, but I don't want to use the planchette to give lengthy explanations. So the PCs know the items can be of use, but don't know exactly how. Upon reflection, I don't like the idea of just letting them roll to figure out the uses of such unique items, or the curses. I think I'll use Steve K's idea of having the items communicate their uses through dreams. Or, rather, after a particularly intense prisoner-specific dream, they'll wake up with the knowledge.

But what about the curses associated with the items? Should I reveal those too? I don't know if the PCs will feel it is unfair if I don't give them some way of discovering the negative side. On the other hand, they can make any DC roll given enough time, so that seems like an unsatisfactory option...

Should I have Vesorianna know more about the good and bad aspects of the items than the module as written?

Finally, they have already neutralized the Piper. Does that mean his flute is no longer cursed, even though he's not technically destroyed (but Vesorianna is stopping him from manifesting again)? Or do they stay cursed until Vesorianna has received the Badge and can actually clean the spirits from the prison?

First, apologies for the thread necromancy. After searching through twelve pages of forum threads this appeared to be the best one to pose my question without creating a new thread. I'm running HoH/ToTB/BM for my wife & sons while on COVID-19 lockdown, and I've run into an issue.

With respect to the Prisoner's Five Items, I was puzzled why the key to the property room (S16) has a Disable Device DC that's too high for the characters AND the key to the room is ONLY found in U8. My characters decided to go upstairs first (based upon the 'Vision of Imprisonment' I ran in the first part of the AP as they researched in Ravengro) and encountered both the Piper and Father Charlatan before they had access to the items. As written, they would have to go through 3/4 of the entire complex, potentially finding the keys (and the Warden's badge) RIGHT before they encounter The Splatter Man. This seems like a huge oversight; why have the items at all if you can't use them for 4-out-of-5 'bosses'?

My thought on 'fixing' this: put the key to the Property Room (S16) in the Warden's Office (S4) but have the Warden's key ring in U8 solely open the safe in his office. There's NO sense for the Warden to run around with keys to the property room while he's in the dungeon itself. As it is, it gives the impression that the Warden is walking around with the keys to every door in the prison, which seems to stretch the suspension of disbelief.

The bottom line is that I don't want them to miss the opportunity to see the Five Items and use them. My wife is playing a Cleric with the Knowledge Domain, and I'm adjusting the 'Lore Keeper' ability to allow a spellcraft check on the items and determine the basic properties. Its only the three of them, so I'm making a ton of other adjustments, too, which I won't detail here.

Anyway, thanks in advance.

I had the key locked up in the office safe so they got it early on. The big deal is probably the hidden storage aspect, the lock should probably be able to be broken with a crowbar. Something Lorrimor's (or many PCs') tools could into but not a rampaging escaped prisoner.

Storywise I said they kept the high emotional attachment murderer's tools so that if the prisoners escaped they could scry them down.

I had the key locked up in the office safe so they got it early on. The big deal is probably the hidden storage aspect, the lock should probably be able to be broken with a crowbar. Something Lorrimor's (or many PCs') tools could into but not a rampaging escaped prisoner.

Storywise I said they kept the high emotional attachment murderer's tools so that if the prisoners escaped they could scry them down.

The Safe's opening DC is equal to the Property Room's doors in (S16). I can see forcing the physical solution of prying it open, but my point was that unless you brute-forced the Property Room door or had an ungodly Disable Device check, you weren't going to get access to the 5 Prisoner's Items until most likely just before you engage TSM.

I definitely was worried my PCs would ask why the weapons were kept in the secret vault, particularly when NONE of the other prisoner's valuables in (S16) were detailed. I took a similar approach to yours; they could be used to scry upon the prisoner, should they escape. I also included the clothing each prisoner wore upon arrival; per the module text, they were stripped at their Induction, and it stands to reason that their belongings would be cleaned prior to being folded and stored in the Property Room until their...release.

I put the property room upstairs in the guard station.... place. It's been a while, haha.