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PS meant to give a shout out to Conquest of the Bloodsworn Vale in addition to Curse of the Riven Sky and the Rivals Guide. Good stuff all around.

There seems to be a very great deal of hand-waving involved in setting up the PCs into being interested in Skirgaard, in travelling there and in arriving at the hit and run tactics phase of this campaign.

As written, it feels very rushed to me.

It's a huge gap in the AP, which, on reflection, I'm okay with. However, I think a great many GMs would benefit from some more hand-holding and express direction in seamlessly flowing the AP from Vol 3 to Vol 4 or at the least, more discussion here as to how all that was done.

There could be *easily* be a half-dozen or more game sessions getting from the end of Vol 3 to the start of Vol 4; I guess it depends on the GM and the group and their play-styles. Some prefer and demand a more natural and organic flow to APs where others are more prepared to metagame it.

What did other GMs do to bridge this gap?

FOR ANY PCS, THIS POST IS RIFE WITH SPOILERS, YOU ARE WARNED!

Hi Steel_Wind,

I am just in the midst of this now. We have spent 8 hours so far in-between books with another likely 6 to go, here is what I have done. Essentially, I am having them become agents of The Order of Titans. They were mentioned in the appendixes of one of the books...maybe 4? I have been watching a lot of Homeland so I kind of see them as "Assets" of the Order of Titans. This also gives giants another dimension...what will the group do when they meet a GOOD stone giant??

The party (quite by accident) includes brothers from Janderhoff. This gave us all sorts of role playing opps in between sections, especially when they returned the Nargrymkin to Janderhoff.

In the valley, I introduced them to a good Treant who had a ton of information for them through his fey spies. He revealed that Volstus had yet to recruit the cloud giants who were resisting. This resulted in Volstus becoming angry with a particular cloud giant named Zoarth, who lives on Mt Killaris near Skelt. This part I have cribbed largely from a Pathfinder Module named "Curse of the Riven Sky." When they finally killed Urathash, they found a couple of prized posessions of Zoarth, including his cat journal (read the adventure, this will make sense LOL) and a password protected Manual of Gainful Exercise (just in case they need incentive to go to him).

Following the Valley, they returned home to sell loot and report back. There they found that Ewigga had returned as a Witchfire, recruited a group of Annis Hags and were turning Shoanti against dwarf and generally making life miserable.

Once they dealt with that, Janderhoff decided that the group would be better off if they had died in the accident. They ran a fake funeral which gave the group the chance to run off and get a head start to Skirgaard and through off any bad guy spies. From there they were directed to the Kodar Kneecappers, reckless giant hunters (from Rival Guide). They direct the group to the priest of Torag in Skelt, this is where they will learn of the Order of Titan.

This required a crossing of the Bloodsworn Vale. They were able to take the recently re-opened pass all the way to Ft Thorn that Korvosa has done (Much to the chagrin of the Shoanti in the group). From there, they cross the much less organized Molthuni side of the Vale to Skelt.

This is where I am introducing the Curse of the Riven Sky in full. This adventure essentially involves a Cloud Giant's castle in full on assault by an army of Giants. It fits PERFECTLY. The plot of CotRS I am adapting in the following way:

- Zoarth (the main cloud giant in CotRS, whose castle is being assaulted), is actually brother to Renfral, the now dead engineer of the castle that Volstus has in the Volcano, setting of book 6.

- Volstus is raiding the castle to try and get Zoarth to share with him the secrets to flying the castle. Zoarth will not relent.

- I am actually having Jahlvoraz (who PCs didn't kill) at the castle, and Reingar (from book 5) acting as Volstus emissaries.

- At some point, the PCs will actually see Volstus. They will see him use the Orb and control the dragon. The PCs have been DYING to know more about Vosltus so this will steel their resolve to raid Skirgaard.

- Once they free Zoarth's keep, I will stop the Curse of the Riven Sky (it goes on from there in the book)

I have also been building the church of Urgathoa quite a bit in plans of using Dybellos as a key cog to the big ending...

Hope that helps. What are you planning?

Was thinking the same thing as most of you with respect to the forge. In fact, I had a particularly suspicious PC who would have never let the group re-light. Too bad Grenseldek just eviscerated him, haha.

In re-reading Forge of the Giant God for the umpteenth time, I really think that the lighting of the forge and whether they do it or not is immaterial. The PCs should likely be pursuing the captured Shinnerman's Fortune residents. Therefore, if they have any ability to track, they will end up exploring all areas except E-J and N-U. Most importantly, they will also end up doing V-Z including the Cathedral which is obviously where they discover the motivation for book 4, so I guess I am content to see where the PCs go with this.

If it's about exploring all the areas, you could have someone in each of the two other off shoots using slaves from Shinnerman's Fortune and off the PCs go.

I have two Janderhoff dwarves in the group, so after they finish Redlake Fort, likely this week, I see them going 1 of 3 ways:

1. Straight to Steelhand's tomb.
2. To Trunau to sell items.
3. To Janderhoff to sell items.

If they go off to Janderhoff, am toying with them having a meeting with a Sky Magistrate or the like. They would obviously be concerned of the Storm Tyrant's plans and would likely really push the PCs to carry on and foil what plans they can.

In terms of the forge, Dwarves are greedy. If they could get their hands on a weapon this powerful, they used to have mining interests in the area--what if they ask the PCs to re-light it and offer some sort of reward? Then Dwarven armies could descend and secure the valley once more while the PCs go off to Skirgald?

Just some thoughts, but on the surface, yeah re-lighting the forge seems unnecessary although the mission doesn't require it in the long-run anyways, unless something comes up in book 5/6 as I haven't read those yet.

Ok, this may have been asked, but when the drakes attack the riverboat and abscond with the old warhorse, the horse is taken off to the drakes cave. Once in the cave the horse is dropped off in the front (unwounded?) while the drake goes into the back of the cave, around a corner, "feasting on a rotting cow carcass" while the horse waits patiently for someone to come along and save him.

So why doesn't the horse just run away out the front of the cave?

Did I miss something?

I think (don't have the map in front of me) that it's all water outside the front cavern, so perhaps no where to go? Further to your question, why would the drakes leave the horse alive at all to go eat the rotting carcass?

kirkspencer wrote:

Curtisin wrote:

That's a fair point, hadn't thought of that one, unless Skreed either ran into serious trouble (placing a large number of corpses around would sort that, but then surely someone would know already) or he retreated after taking a beating in the initial run-in and is doing the "Dr. Jones" approach, waiting for the PCs to clear the remainder and then coming along to take it from them.

I've seen that a place or two as well and it may be the way I take it.

Right now, though, I'm leaning toward just making it a slog. The march down the hill, the toss-bucket, the giant - after that this last bit is a walk in the garden, right? (sarcasm, please note).

The thing is, I'm leaning toward thinking it locks into the mind that this is, well, it's an attempt to stop a war. Not a small cult or a nasty demon but orc hordes braced by giant masses. And while it's been a bit since I ran Giants, it seems like the enemies were almost endless then, too.

That said, I'm leaning toward a serendipitous scroll or two. I'll see how it looks when we get to that point.

I'll be throwing my players a Scroll of Nap Stack. I'm running 3 players through, so they're already a bit short changed, but I've got two casters, so sleep is essential to them. I do however, want to press upon them that there's very little time for rest in the middle of a war.

I'm still not sure whether I'm going to play "Dr. Jones" or not. I guess I'll decide that once I see the outcome of Crusher.

I think that is a great idea...I might do the same. Thanks. In fact, you could have Silvermane given it to them for saving them. Or, once the inner quarter is secure, perhaps Kurst surveys the damage alongside Tyari Varvatos from the Sanctuary. She could likely cast it for them and might be a nice touch.

One fun thing that I did was run two sections as ambushes:

- For L6 & L7 I basically had orcish archers with readied attacks at the tower's murder holes. Once they saw the PCs, they shot, then I had two of the buildings' orcs come out seperated by a few rounds. Then I had Kagak come down to beat his drum, motivate and generally cause havoc. In the process I had the PC barbarian to -11 (he could go to -12) and the battle mage at (-4), the PCs ALMOST had to fall back to the safe zone before a natural 20 killed Kagak and turned the tide.

- I also ran L8 & 9 as an ambush. Basically I got them into that alley with Urnsul, before the the beast tamer and her dogs emerged from the smoke. I cut out the orcish raiders from L10 because they were exhausted and well beat up by then.

Hey...I told them to bring back up PCs! This group enjoys what they call "battle with consequences" and I want to reward them for smart battle and punish for dumb moves.

Overall this is a lot of fun doing this AP!

If I'm reading the pacing right, casters are almost certainly out of spells by the time they face Crusher, much less the final battle.

Am I reading it right; if so are other GMs just planning to let this run its course; if so and if not how do you plan to deal with it?

personally, it feels like the scenario becomes unfun for casters when they spend the last half trying to contribute without casting spells or getting into close melee. I could be wrong, though, and so the question.

Hey Kirk, I was really glad to find this thread because we are playing it right now. In fact, we are just at the point where the PCs level up to 3 and are about to engage with Omarst Frum at the assault of the west gate of Inner Trunau.

Basically in getting there, one barbarian and one battlemage fell but were brought back with healing. Where they stand now (Group of 5: barbarian, battlemage, slayer, cleric, rogue) is to be almost out of spells, although I did give them that wand of cure light wounds and with the potions they found I don't suspect healing will be an immediate issue.

I was going to run that final assault with Frum with a few mods:

1. In reading the adventure it never made sense to me that the PCs would secure the inner quarter, then run outside to the barter stones, then somehow come back to fight a giant. So they are going to go straight from the closing of the Inner Quarter to Crusher. Depending on how the waves of orcs go with Frum, I ***might***introduce a light catapult that flings the flaming bodies of Trunauan guards at them. Thought this was a particularly grisly touch.

2. After closing the inner quarter gates, I was thinking you could do something like have Kurst ride up and tell them that the inner quarter and Trunau common (the area they entered from, can't remember the name at the moment) are all secure and that the battle appears to be shifting in their favour the lower quarter, giving the PCs once they get through and light the fire at the hopespring (FWIW I agree with the previous sentiment that the exploding piece seems gratuitous. If you are giving them a rest however, do it, if not, don't maybe)? Then, they could be woken up with the message at the Longhouse that all hell has broken lose at the hopespring and Trunau's guard have been driven back by a giant?

Am trying to decide what to do...might just make a judgement call when I see how wasted they are at the end of the battle with Frum and the Orcish waves.

So a note on the assassins... we played that event last week, and here is how I modified it:

Since some of the PCs were established in town and some were new, they were planning on splitting up for the night. I had Kurst get a message to them that afternoon to tell them that, while he was helping his father at a family friend's house, they could have leave to stay in his and his father's private rooms off the side of the longhouse (which put all the PCs in the same building, with 4 small rooms). The party quickly decided that they did not need to set a guard (partly because they felt safe in town, and partly because the wolf encounter was that evening, so they thought they were "past" the fight for that day).

None of them passed a perception check (only one even could have, with a 20), so they were asleep when the battle started. I estimated a Coup-de-grace would be too much (3d6+4 would probably kill them all), so instead I figured the assassins each would delay an attack until one gave a signal. I also removed the sneak attack damage. Lastly, I decided to make the damage 1d3+2, rather than 1d6+2 (partly because I rolled a 5,6,4,6 on the attacks). This put each of the PCs at around half, with an AoO about to happen as they got up from their beds. Even nerfing the damage in the surprise round like that, the party barely made it out... really, they were saved because they had a witch with the sleep hex, and he put 2 of the assassins to sleep while the others coordinated to have them tied up before they awoke. Add to that one crit, and the last assassin fled.

The interrogation that followed was fun! I had the assassins tell the PCs that they were told to kill the people staying in those rooms... since the rooms were usually occupied by the Grath family, now the PCs aren't sure if they were the targets, or Kurst and Jagrim!

All in all, it was a tough battle, and the players had a very strong relief when they made it through. It also taught them that they are not safe in the city.

Sounds like you had a lot of fun. When I ran this part I had Chem Larringfass move them into one room because she had a series of traders coming through the next day who needed the single rooms. In the PCs backstories before the campaign they had been doing odd jobs for her here and there so it worked for them.

In the attack I was going to actually kill one of the PCs just to get their attention, but when one of them rolled a natural 20 on their perception, they noticed anyways. One of them still almost died!