As to reviews.
I only post 5/5 star reviews in pathways unless its for a Rite Publishing product (I swear I posted a 4/5 star review of ours once but I could be wrong). It would be improper of me (or at least have the appearance of impropriety) to post a lesser review of another companies product. I also do my best to offer balance one review for Rite Pub one for someone else, this limits me from being a total shill.
Finally there is my simple feeling that I want Pathways to recommend products to purchase. I want to be positive. If its reviewed in pathways its because its the best product that from the last 30 days.
In that case would it not make more sense to scrap the star system if it is pointless anyway and instead of calling it a review section, call it a recommended products section.
BTW, my group is now towards the end of Serpents of Scuttlecove, so I can post my conversion notes (which include a fairly significant side-trek into the mainland mid-way through) if there is any interest.
Very interested, and anything you have for The City of Broken Idols as well.
After many discussions with our DM about the module (I'm also running another group through STAP but they're in SWW at the moment) we felt that the worst section was the endless trip into the depths which really needed to be more glossed over.
Agreed our group felt that was just a series of encounters in order to level up. They couldn't be avoided, offered no real roleplay opportunities and it just seemed a long slog to the centre of the earth.
I've done a conversion of The Lightless Depths. My party ran through it a few months ago. It's a pretty disappointing adventure being a straight dungeon crawl down to the city unfortunately.
This hasn't yet got the last few encounters on it, because the group advanced faster than I predicted so some was done on the fly.
Link to encounter list (Note this is for a party of SIX) - Lightless Depths
I replaced the Kopru with Shadar-Kai, it seemed logical if the Tear used the spirits of the ancestors to form the curtain that it touched with the Shadowfell. They had more to lose if the Tear is damaged as well. Never did the stats for Emraag the Glutton, unfortunately. I didn't bother with the Troglodyte disease since disease are barely a hiccup in 4E at Paragon level.
I actually had the Tear make a link between the Shadowfell and Prime Material plane. But that the tear had also accidentally linked through to the demonic planes, which was getting bigger over time. The influence was small to start with but was increasing, hence the tear needed to be destroyed to seal the breach.
I've more detailed write ups of the earlier encounters which I'll post if people are interested.
Looking at the side view map and the conclusion of the adventure...
Spoiler:
Did anyone else think that it should have ended with them rocketing out of Golgesmera on half a dinosaur skull on a jet of water? Like in Journey to the Centre of the Earth? Then City of Broken idols would begin with them being dumped in the middle of the place?
Yeah, it seems like they were jammed in there for historical reasons, but it feels kind of wrong the way the adventure is designed.
Been looking at coverting them to 4th Ed, but decided it wasn't worth the effort the more I look at it the more I wonder why they are in the adventure at all. Must be just for historical reason as already suggested.
Spoiler:
The adventure is basically land based. Out of water the Kopru, not only are restricted to speed 5ft, but don't get their claw attacks. They are described as nearly helpless in the 3rd Ed MM2.
Still not sure not to what to replace them with...
Here's the Skill Challenge I've worked out for the PCs meeting Emraag.
Spoiler:
Skill Challenge: Negotiating with Emraag the Glutton.
Level 14 Challenge: Complexity 3 = 8 success before 3 failures. XP 3,000 (plus quest bonus)
The characters need to persuade the Dragon Turtle to not attack shipping.
Primary Skills
Diplomacy (DC 18 or 23): If the heroes present the money and goods Lavinia gave them the DC 18 otherwise DC 23. If they refer to the money as a "tribute" they gain a +2 bonus to Diplomacy checks until they fail one. Heroes can earn four successes this way.
Intimidate (DC 23): Remarkably Intimidate can work on Emraag, he is old and fearful that Baaragrauth wishes to expand his territory. If the PCs can convince Emraag that they have killed one of the other Infamous Seven (having the skull of Temauhti-tecuani along lowers the test to DC 18), and could deal with Baaragauth. Emraag will claim Baaragruath is beneath his attention, if they players imply that he is scared of the Dragon Eel they automatically fail this check. The PCs can earn up to four success this way.
Heal (DC 18 or 23): Unlocked via Perception check. Something appears to be irritating Emraag during your meeting treating this irritation improves his attitude, four success can be gained this way.
Secondary Skills
Insight (DC 18): Reveals Emraag responds well to flattery, but poorly if it is implied he is weak, and that he responds better to Diplomacy than Intimidation. A second successful check reveals that something appears to be bothering him as he rubs his armoured scales against a rocky outcrop throughout the negociations (the Perception check DC drops to 18).
Bluff (DC 18): The PCs can try to convince a Emraag that they worship him like a God. This strategy can backfire if Emraag sees through their ruse. Each time they succeed in a Bluff check, they gain a cumulative +2 bonus on all other checks in this skill challenge. The first time the PCs fail a Bluff check, they can no longer use this skill in the challenge and the bonus they gained (if any) turns into a penalty.
Perception (DC 23 or 18): Notice a fungal growth between it's armoured plates, opening Heal as a Primary skill.
Nature (DC 18): Helps identify the fungus and a effective treatment lowering the Heal checks to DC 18.
History (DC 23 or DC 18 if PC has spent an extensive amount of time with the Olman): Knowledge of the creatures history gives a +2 bonus to Diplomacy or Intimidate checks.
Aid Another
The characters can aid each other as normal on Secondary skill checks during this skill challenge. However Emraag grows weary of having several inferior creatures talking to him directly. Each time a PC attempts to aid on a Diplomacy or Intimidate check, the DC needed to aid increases by 2. In addition, a failed aid another attempt grants the target PC a -4 penalty to his next check. This penalty is cumulative. It is impossible to use Aid other with the Heal check asEmraag will not allow more than one person close to him at a time.
Alternately A Tough Solo encounter if the PCs fail at or don't attempt conversation.
The Carpet of Flesh idea is good; for extra spice use support critters that benefit from the Carpet's Aura (i.e. can target Will), e.g. a Grell Philosopher (MM), some Ghost Legionnaires (MM2), or something similar which still somehow suits the adventure's themes.
Thinking of using the Ghost Legionaries as part of a sunken city in an encounter on the way to the Glutton.
I've switched out the Harpooners for a pair of Wailing Ghost (Banshee) (previous victims) and a Blightborn Troglodyte (levelled to 13) as a necromancer that is controlling the group.
Just working through some encounters for Lightless Depths, not my group has six players so these are 13th level Encounters for a party of 6.
Spoiler:
Not done Emraag yet.
First Encounter moved out to the landing stage and caves
2 Scytheclaw Drake
1 Troglodyte Deepscourge
6 Troglodyte Warrior
3 Troglodyte Bruiser
All levelled up to be 12 level. Not sorted out the Vial Rigidity yet, but I'm thinking any bite or claw attack that bloodies a player they will contract the disease.
Replaced the single Black Pudding with an encounter with a Carpet of Flesh (Dungeon 373) and three Kuo-toa Harpooners. the Harpooners can drag people onto the carpet from a greater range. Not sure if they will actually be Kuo-toa or reskinned to some other race.
Any feedback? I'm using Google Docs so I can invite folks to see the files I'm working on if you like.
The Kopru may well be replaced - I've got a grand idea to place a bunch more Fey creatures into / under the Isle, so The Lightless Depths and/or City of Broken Idols is where I'm going to need to add in a bunch of Firbolgs, Fomorians, Cyclops etc.
The Kopru did strike me as odd creatures to be featured in the Lightless Depths since they are amphibious the lack of water seems to be neither here nore there for their success. I'd be tempted to replace them with some air breathing race.
So my initial planning has the tiers broken up as follows:
Heroic - There is no Honor - Here there be Monsters
Paragon - Tides of Dread - Serpents of Scuttttlecove
Epic - Into the Maw - Prince of Demons
So what sort of level do you think the party should be starting the Lightless Depths?
To me the end of Tides of Dread is definitely the start of Paragon. This is where my group have played up to in 3rd Ed and I'm now planning on switching to 4th Ed.
They were 11th level (in 3rd), so I was initially thinking 16th (in 4th), but that might be a little high.
Have you considered what levels for which adventures, because if you have I'm only starting my conversion work from about halfway through, so I'll be happy to share anything. But obviously my work would be more useful if it matched peoples expectations. No point in me doing Lightless Depths as a 16th level adventure if people think it should be for 12th level characters.
As it is Troylodytes which seem to be one of the main opponents in this are poorly suited for Paragon Tier adventures.
Character: Shallasar (Sea-elf)
Adventure: Tides of Dread
Location: Off the coast of the Isle of Dread
Catalyst: Wandering encounter with Megalodon.
He dived overboard to fight it, got bitten, got swallowed whole and died to it's stomach acid, one round before the rest of the party killed it.
There was a funny side, this player's earlier character (a Truedive Shifter) died at the teeth of a Savage Huge Shark, when it bit him in it's death throws after he had killed it.
I had Olangru use his Illusion ability to make it appear as if one of the PCs was sleep-walking off the cliff.
Had stuff go missing (dropped of the cliff by TK) so that the party began to think one of the NPCs was behind it.
I had him recover the body of a dead NPC (I had about 20 NPCs make it off the Sea-Wyvern, which the party then escorted south) that the party had buried and rig them upside down on a cross like the zombie they meet later.
I had him abduct and execute some other NPCs. When a party member flew up to where he was holding a father and an infant child he abducted he gave the player the choice of which one he could save. Teleported away with one and let the other one fall (PC flew down and caught them).
After killing the Gargoyle king, one player cut its head of desecrated it and stuck it on a spike (believing the gargoyles were behind the spooky stuff) as a warning. The next night I left them alone, the following night the Bar-lgaru attacked in force, an NPC was abducted, and the next morning they found his head on a spike desecrated in the same manner. The NPCs wife then flew at the PC blaming him for teaching such foul acts to the demons (which I thought was nice).
The elf, the dwarf, the sorcerer and the ranger can all be disposed of easily with his abduction ability. He just grabs them, teleports out of his layer to the top of a high tree and leaves them there. The whole process takes 2 rounds.
The problem with Olangru particularly is played intelligently he is a TPK waiting to happen.
Start Invisible, pounce on the spell caster (with a good chance of knocking them into minus hit point with his skirmish damage*). Touch the nearest low will save character (the party tank for example) and abduct them to say 3 miles above the ground and let them drop. Olangru has boots of levitation so he can do that trick, the other Bar-lagur can't (they could still teleport so that you end up dangling over the edge of a cliff or that fire pit for example).
Go invisible again teleport back, pounce, and pick another weak will character to abduct to massive falling damage.
If you play them exploiting the Greater Teleport at will and Abduction ability like that they are certainly worth more than CR5 and CR9.
I did use Olangru to teleport our party Sea-elf directly above the fire pit and drop him, but the player luckily remembered the chain hanging from the ceiling so I gave him a Reflex Save to grab it. Tense moment for him there.
*Weird that he's a Scout when they are listed in the Fiendish Codex as advancing by HD not class levels. Scouts with Pounce are just unbalanced... although at least his levels are not non-associated.
6-As suggested by someone on these boards, replacing the ending of TSWW with an encounter with Emraag the dragon turtle in The Lightless Depths makes their mission a much tenser and anticipated encounter during that adventure and it's great foreshadowing. Avoid a full on battle with the dragon turtle. Perhaps ground the ship on him and have him take a few chunks out of it and breathe on some of the crew, then wreck 'em on the beach as written.
PC: Shallasar - Rogue, Sea Elf.
Adventure: Here There Be Monsters
Location: Temple to the Demogorgon
After jamming his dagger into the winch to stop the poor kidnapped Tristy* being lowered into the fire pit he returns to battle the Bar-lgaru, meanwhile Dalrin flies up and uses Dimension Door to take Tristy to safety.
Later in the fight Olangru badly wounded use his abduction ability on Shallasar to teleport right above the middle of fire pit, dropping him into it while he levitates above. It seems certain doom for Shallasar, until he reaches out with his free hand, grabbing the chains hanging from the ceiling and hanging from one arm stabs Olangru with his cold iron shortsword killing the demon.
my players also reacted against the railroading of the crash.
Mine too, although they accepted it, after all an Adventure Path tends to have a certain amount of rails to it. Here There Be Monster, runs like a steam train though. What with the two key trick used twice to force folks to check all parts of the dungeons. Then coastal path stopping to force them inland, etc. etc.
Still Tides of Dread is just wide open, and makes a real change for an Adventure Path.
One thing I'll say is it depends on the situation, early in the adventure path I wouldn't change in at all.
The first two adventures are tough enough without changing a thing. Six players will just mean they probably won't have as many losses, less likely to have an accidental TPK and probably won't need to rest as much. It will still be a pretty fair challenge.
If they are fighting a solo opponent, you might want to add a minion or two just to tie up a couple of players for a few rounds, but I wouldn't scale up the big bad guys, for reasons mentioned above.
Later in the campaign, Sea Wyvern's Wake and HTBM. I due to the fact there is plenty of opportunity to rest between encounters on the voyage and marching the coastal roads I found I was easily able to double the number of minions in some encounters without the players worrying, since they might only be facing one encounter a day at most. Of course you need to be careful if you do that. I think for one Gargoyle encounter I upped the number of gargoyles from three to six, and when they finished them with no trouble I had three more arrive in another wave.
I've not got on to the rest of the campaign yet so can't comment.
I'd advise any Knight character not to focus too much on the Mounted combat side of things in most standard D&D games. I've played a Knight in Red Hand of Doom and that's mainly open terrain, yet still Mounted Combat feats weren't the best option, because enemies will just target your mount once they realise it's you main advantage and mounts just don't last long.
Also your other class abilities don't work well when you ride off away from the rest of the party. Shield Ally is much more useful than Mounted Combat.
In reality the they will spend more time caring for their Armour than in it, at sea and in the humid hot jungle it would just be a real pain, but this is fantasy so if you hand-wave all that stuff who cares? And a dino riding Knight could be fun!
A Knight can work in Savage Tide, but might have some ethical problems later on in the campaign.
They see no reason to go to the tar pits, and have decided that a sea encounter
Without Tar you can't repair the Sea Wyvern, or improve the palisades. Hot tar is also a very effective siege weapon. It also allows waterproofing of buildings (I hope they are building homes in Farshore).
And they still see no reason to go to the tar pits?
Delfedd wrote:
my characters have finished every encounter in twelve days
How did this happen have they been teleporting everywhere?
The distances involved just to get to the mountain caves to meet the bat god, should take several days at least.
Heck just getting to the mainland is nearly a whole day by boat, then I think it's nearly two walking to get to the Great Wall from Mora.
After blowing themselves up a few times, they figured it out, but because of the failed Will save on the second activation (by the cleric!) they were left thinking it had failed while they fought the cleric.
And the party were left to fight a crazed cleric, of course all the great spells for dealing with characters non-violently are cleric spells, the warmage couldn't provide anything to help so the fighter tried grappling him. At which point the Cleric reminded them that he had the travel domain and hence Freedom of Movement power to escape the grapple, and so I had him do Blade of Blood and slash the fighter. In the end the cleric feel to subdual damage, but it was one of the harder fights they have had.
I think with a 25% per hour encounter rate with Terror Birds they will soon catch up. My players said it reminded them of the old "Deserts of surprisingly heavy traffic" which is what they renamed the Deserts of Desolation to as they were anything but...
Actually it says "Socially expected interaction", the social expected interaction between a demon and a mortal is it eats you.
The "socially expected interaction" between a pirate and his victim is he robs, you and in this cause you are likely to be left alive.
Even with wild empathy the "socially expected interaction" between a T-Rex and his prey is that he swallows it whole.
If anyone else on the diplomats side is actively engaged in combat then it's fine to rule negotiations aren't even possible, since the person isn't going to listen to argument while being stabbed in the ribs.
I started HTBM with half the party on the boat, an Aquatic Elf in the water and the rest of the party washed up on the shore (by DM fiat). I'd done a complete crew and passenger list. All the PCs start concious but the NPC's some were on the Sea Wyvern, others clinging to rocks in the bay, some missing (lost at sea) other floating around on the water, some washed up unconscious on the shore and others washed up drowned.
The first adventure was rescuing as many NPCs as possible while dealing with one Masher after another. With libel use of dimension dool, fly and other movement spells they were able to save a good number of the passengers and crew. The important NPCs were washed a shore further along the beach and so not in danger. Arriving after that combat.
They seem to be on top of things, virtually every complaint I had about the Fortress article was corrected with the Death Knight one, and now hours after complaints about the Savage Tide Spoiler on the wizards forum that's fixed too.
Still would have prefered Paizo to be doing print editions, but at least they are listening.
Vanthus Vanderboren: Vanthus featured as a villain in Dungeon magazine's "Savage Tide" adventure path. Appearing as a human foe throughout the first two adventures, he returns as a half-fiend after visiting the Abyss and being transformed by the Flesh Forge. Following his death at the hands of the PCs, Demogorgon turns him into a death knight, and he bedevils the PCs again only to meet a second death. Upon this second failure, he is transformed into a larva, and the PCs meet him in this lowly form during the last adventure.
Talk about inconsiderate, could the folks at Paizo do what they can to get it removed before all my players read it. Assuming you are still on speaking terms with WotC.
Personally I see it as Urol is underestimating, working on a best case scenario, he probably expects it to be a very civilized stroll for the trip to the village.
I used them with the entangle ability, if the Party Cleric didn't have the Travel Domain they would have been in real trouble.
Also once they kill on Assassin Vine the horrors can just animate another one, my players quickly learned to close with the horrors as soon as they could. Not being able to charge (without a Balance check) as the sargasso is difficult terrain made things tough as well.
It's very easy to play the horrors intelligently and massacre an unprepared party, have the horrors hold back and use the vines to entangle and attack the party.
But the horrors aren't that intelligent (Int 9) so I generally had them lumber forwards to attack the party and then they aren't so dangerous.
So, hang on a second. You're complaining about removing the main point of getting a Rogue to shine (Sneak Attack) and then saying they should have removed the main point of getting a Rogue to shine (dexterity-based skills)? Isn't that a bit of a contradiction?
Jump is Strength based, balance is hardly a primary skill choice for a Rogue either, it's like an optional extra if you can max Disable Device, Spot, Search, Tumble, etc.
D&D is a game, and it's a game about heroics and adventures and saving the world, not about strip mining.
Ah but to survive those adventure you need stuff, and to get stuff you need loot. So when a big load of loot is just staring you in the face, it's sometimes hard to ignore. Especially when the next purchase you were considering was a suit of adamantine full plate.
I hope Darthloser doesn't mind but I had a flick through the adventure (since we have completed it) just too satisfy my curiosity as to what creature types there were.
Of the 36 monsters in the adventure 26 are immune to criticals, and 7 cannot be flanked. Of the 3 remaining their movement abilities or the battle location mean it is unlikely that you would be able to flank them even with tumble.
Personally I think the fact that a rogue will never get to use a key class ability (sneak attack) during the whole adventure is something that should have been picked up in editing not changing the doors to adamantine.
I established early on that the magic of the Wind Dukes infuses the metals and ceramics in the tomb, and when pieces of the tombs are removed, the magic that holds them together quickly erodes.
Doesn't that cause a problem when they discover treasure they should/could be taking chandeliers for just one example.
Less you mention Allustan the better, I wouldn't be surprised if our group didn't lynch him next time we see him. His only roll seems to be getting into trouble or running away at the first sign of it.
Unfortunately, our wizard didn't have enough fly spells to go round (so we Dimension Doored across the pillar room) at that point and as we were all caught up in whirlwinds by the end of round 1 and dropped in the pit by the end of round 2 (he was able to save all but one of the party [poor Deree it isn't going to help his paranoia that he was the one we let fall into the pit] with a Feather Fall) and he couldn't target anyone with a fly spell. He did pretty much all he could.
I'm sure we could have "raised our game" if we had left the dungeon halfway through road back to Greyhawk (no teleport at the moment) and sold some stuff to get some more suitable items. But we didn't think taking all that time out suited our style of play. As it was it felt like we were being over cautious as we seemed to be doing a rope trick every two encounters.
Azaroth- I love your players, especially after the iron ball thing. They show serious smelting power, and are probably all dwarves. My kind of PCs.
Actually just me Grim (from Deree's dairy). Azaroth's playing an elven Wizard of all things, still he pulls his own weight in the party, just obviously that is considerably less weight than Grim. *grin*
Wolfgang Baur wrote:
However, the 1-inch-thick adamantine plating was an editorial decision. The text I turned over said it was an iron/mithral alloy for exactly this reason.
Hmmm, I guess the angry mob is knocking on the wrong door in this case.
Iron/mithral alloy would have been sensible, lots of effort to recover for considerably less reward, probably not even worth the effort. :)
Wolfgang Baur wrote:
Adamantine plating would probably be the same (thin coating).
I'm guessing the same editor made it an inch thick.
Wolfgang Baur wrote:
As to the pillar room, there's been a revised version of it discussed in a couple threads. Some groups have had a good time with it,
I suppose it play out differently for other groups, but for us it was just very frustrating, and the adventure had been pretty frustrating up to that point.
I think it was the fog at the bottom that actually was made it really bad.
We had a wizard who could do nothing because once the fight was in the fog (round 2) he couldn't target anything.
A rogue who could do nothing because of the DR, and no criticals and none of the traps in the room were actually traps.
All the melee types could only hit because they readied actions to hit back on being hit (so no full attacks) they were stuck at the bottom of the pit with the elementals using their reach to attack them while hovering in the mist above (doing full attacks). Even then the cleric had to use Blade of Blood nearly every round to get past their DR. And the Paladin was having to use Power Attack to get past DR, and so missing as often as he hit.
The Monk (who had the Cloak of the Bat) was the only one able to fly to get close and was kicking like crazy but again because of the DR10/- was doing very little damage.
So you have 2 out of 3 players stuck twiddling their thumbs, while the others took ages, about 10 rounds or more, to chip away at the enemies hit points.
Oh and thanks for popping your head above the parapet and posting in this thread.
Yeah but for 122 million gp, I think you'd make the effort to find a way to transport them. Heck just hack it into strips with an adamantine sword/axe, and take it out over several months if need be. You don't need to transport the whole door after all just the 1 inch thick plating, which you can remove at the location.
The "If anything tries to "cheat" this room by flying... the elementals fly up out of the fog to attack the party." line is particularly annoying.
Cheat the room? The room is full over pillars over what appears to be a bottomless pit, does anyone you really think the first thing an 11th level party is going to try and do is jump from pillar to pillar? What parties have all the characters with maxed out jump and balance skills?
Plus how is flying cheating? The Wind Dukes (who built the tomb) themselves fly! If anything jumping would be cheating. By cheating what Baur actually means is not playing the adventure exactly like he planned it when he wrote it. Penalising players for intelligent uses of their abilities is just bad DM'ing.
A room full of traps that can't be detected as traps and aren't rewarded as traps sure makes the party Rogue happy.
Mind you the whole adventure seems to be about crippling players abilities. I think there are something like three creatures that aren't immune to criticals in the whole thing, and most of the ones that can, can't be flanked due to special abilities so the party rogue or anyone with improved critical feels hard done too.
A variety of monster encounters is nice but If you've been fighting constructs (immune to Criticals and DR) for ages then fighting elementals (immune to criticals and DR) is not what I call variety, especially when you spice it up with an ooze (immune to criticals and dissolves all melee weapons).
Similarly one fight while falling down a pit is interesting the second is just frustrating.
