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I ordered items on 11/22, and they're still pending. I know there is a backlog from the Great Golem sale, but. . . Can you give any sort of timeframe for when these orders will actually ship out? Thanks.
I wonder how many player deaths we've collectively seen due to Yetis? Quite a few, I think. For a while, my players were calling this AP "Reign of Yetis."
Actually, I had Solveig travel with the party from Whitethrone. In my game, the "distraction" the PCs managed to create only lasted so long before the Winter Guard reasserted dominance in a major way, striking into the heart of the Heralds of Summers Return's lair. So Nadya, Solveig, and Bella all fled from the destruction and joined the PCs in the Hut before it left Whitethrone. Then, I gave Solveig one scroll of Raise Dead from her old hideout (an item she grabbed literally as the walls were falling down around her). So long story short, I included a replacement PC cleric should things go horribly awry, or if the party needed some back up heals of some kind, and 1 freebie Raise Dead, which the party used on the Oracle. This led to a pretty awkward and uncomfortable "Why did you kill me?" conversation between Viktor and his killer. Both players are keeping it in character, though, which is good. No one stormed off angrily or anything!
Got a new one. Name: Viktor
This is unusual for my group, but we had an inner party conflict that resulted in a PC death. The CG oracle of Milani decided that he was not going to heal the LE Summoner (who happens to worship Asmodeus), because the summoner had informed the group that he may, from time to time, summon devils to help with combat. After a particularly nasty battle with the Animate Dream, the Summoner requests healing from the Oracle, who denies him. . . the next thing I know, the Summoner's eidolon is pouncing the Oracle, killing him in one round, as he was still hurt from the previous battle. Meanwhile, Tryva, the third raven oracle, is just watching the party implode in front of her with a bemused expression on her face (as much as a raven can look bemused). Much heated RP ensued. . . and I'm still trying to figure out where that came from! Needless to say, the party was not pleased at seeing their main source of healing killed by one of their own. They're all the rest of them various flavors of Neutral alignment, so there was no immediate retribution. The funniest thing about it all was that the Summoner kept claiming that it wasn't him, that his eidolon decided on his own to kill the guy because he was angry he wasn't getting heals after all of his hard work. . . :/
They crammed EVERYONE into the teleporter and beamed upstairs to find Radosek, his goat, and Mierul waiting for them. All that AND a doppleganger? Ouch!
Tangent101, are you still on book 1?
How's the new generator using UE coming? :)
I'm also going to shoot you a PM.How cruelly tantalizing for the rest of us :P Yeah, I'd like to know too, since our last game ended with the party and the Hut staring at each other toward the end of book 2. . .
Good - I want my Paizo Game Space already!
I'm thinking of Winterguard Rangers to have the same kind of dynamic with their witches as Warders do with Aes Sedai from the Wheel of Time series. Specifically, the Black Ajah members that still have warders.
Marislova, embittered against Baba Yaga's servant as she is, could probably be convinced to join up with Nazhena and retrain her Ranger levels into Ranger (witchguard) levels. That's a cool idea - I like the idea of Nazhena as a recurring villain. My wife is playing a winter witch, and Nazhena is going to try and recruit her to the dark side. She probably won't go for it (and the Black Rider mantle/geas could potentially prevent her even if she wanted to), but it should still make for some good RP.
Probably not, but that sounds pretty awesome! Tell me more. . .
That was more along the lines of how I expected it to go. I've been concerned with the survivability of the winter witches throughout this campaign. There are a couple of min/maxers in my group, one of them an archer specialist. It's not uncommon for him to do 20+ dmg an arrow, and currently he can get off four a round without haste. Thinking about this made me remember a ranger archetype I had seen: the Witchguard, sworn defenders of the witches of the north. Nazhena will have one with her for sure, maybe other witches as well. Aside from being a balancing factor, if ever there was an opportunity to use this archetype for npcs, THIS is the campaign.
There's a fighter (archer) in my party that took out Logrivich with 3 arrows - even with him being upgraded to a Juvenile White Dragon. Crit happens! Most anticlimactic dragon fight ever. . . The fight with The Gobbler was good, though. My wife's witch character was swallowed whole, and she had already had her voice stolen by the attic whisperer. She had Radosek's wand of ice spears, and had to use UMD to activate it (since she couldn't speak), while the rest of the party flailed ineffectively at The Gobbler's hardness. She speared the stove a couple of times, and finally was able to crawl out of the ruined furnace. Good times!
I think it would work just fine, but remember, Ringeirr is the party's connection to the Heralds of Summer. Without their help, they'll be unlikely to enter the Market area where the hut is located. Not to mention, it's going to be harder to rest, heal, buy/sell equipment, etc without the help of the resistance group. It's still doable, but it's going to take some adjustment if they cut Ringeirr out of the loop.
I've got a few new entries to add, and this time from The Shackled Hut. Here's lookin' at you, Jim Groves! Names: Eiliff Blood-Eagle, Artemis, Kressimir
The Gory Details: Alright, so a few background details. The party has six members, plus both Nadya and Ringeirr actively participating. Consequently, I have to adjust all the encounters up 1-2 CRs (usually one). All of my winter wolves have the advanced template, and I removed the sickened effect for this particular encounter. Additionally, I gave both winter wolves the same gear as Greta, making them off-duty guards spoiling for a fight. In hindsight, this bumped the CR up to CR9 - significantly more difficult than the original encounter, but not beyond all bounds of reason. Kressimir, the druid, is wearing the rimepelt and appearing as a winter wolf in human form. The two off duty guards, seeing an unfamiliar face and spoiling for a bit, decide to start harassing him. The winter wolves start asking questions about the rest of the party, and Kressimir tells them that those are his slaves, and they'd best leave his property alone. Being animals at heart, one of the winter wolves decides to show Kressimir how wrong he is, by marking his territory: he urinates on Ringeirr right in front of him. Kressimir responds by unsheathing himself, and returning the favor right in the guards face. It was quite literally a pissing match. Two great axe crits and 3 party member deaths later, the rest of the party is left with a whole alley full of corpses to deal with. . . PROBABLY not how the encounter was envisioned by the author, but hey, these games take a turn for the weird sometimes!
The Dawn Pipers have a LOT of control in the First World. I mean, c'mon - they shape their surroundings with their EMOTIONS. However, to answer your question, I do think it's totally plausible that a party could let that forest slip over with them into the First World. It just might be harder to gain access to the Hut once they're in the Dawn Pipers playground. Also, there's the dimensional shackles to think of. . . they're artifact power level, so they may prevent the Hut from transitioning over even if everything else in the area does. Wouldn't that be a pain if the party thought they'd be clever and let the Hut go to the First World, only to find that they were stranded there themselves with no way out?
Thanks Ansel, I had missed the CL of the item (just assumed it was the same as the intended item). Sylgja rewarded my group with the scroll. I kind of wondered what the point was in it being there in the first place if the remedy for the curse was so easily reached... Granted, the PC did have to suffer through it for a little while, but it wasn't very long and didn't have a huge impact. It's really not as simple as all that, depending on how things play out. Considering that the curse doesn't actually become evident until the character is injured in combat, the player may not even know they're cursed when you meet Sylgja. Even then, if you assume (which I do), that Syljga's scroll is at the minimum caster level for the type of item (CL 5), she needs to roll a 15 or higher to get rid of that particular curse. That's pretty bad odds. Her scroll still came in handy, though. . . a barbarian in my group was suffering from a feast of ashes curse. Honestly, I fudged the roll. That's probably what will happen with me, too, when she finds another remove curse. That, or I'll allow chopping off the finger to work, if she goes that route.
Keep in mind that said item is really only CL 10, not 15. That makes it a bit easier to remove (and detect). Is it not the same caster level as the item it was intended to be?
The Snows of Summer sees the introduction of a: Spoiler!:
Ring of Lifebleed (CL 15). Per the RAW, removal of a cursed item requires succeeding against a DC of 10 + the caster level of the cursed item. . . how are the rest of you dealing with this? One of my players has this item, and the DC is nigh impossible for low level characters to make. A 10th level character would have to roll a 15 when casting remove curse. . . The Shackled Hut mentions that: Spoiler!:
Sylgja may offer to remove the curse with her scroll. . . How, by rolling a 20? This just seems like an incredibly powerful cursed item, and the adventure doesn't seem to offer any real method of removing it. It almost seems like the authors forgot that the Pathfinder version of Remove curse doesn't work automatically like the 3.5 version. Advice?
This. I'd never give up my Pathfinder AP subscription, but every once in a while I venture elsewhere for a truly exceptional adventure path. This is one of those! Aside from getting the hardcover compilations, I'd recommend adding on the NPC cards. There are SO MANY NPCs that the PCs have meaningful interactions with, and it can be difficult to keep them all straight, both for the GM and the players. There's quite a bit of mystery/intrigue/investigation required for this AP, so remembering who's who is kind of important.
I predict there will be enough of a surge in the last three days to get us all three acts in separate hardcovers, if past Kickstarters I've pledged to are any indication. At least I hope so!
This campaign is freaking awesome, and needs to be put into hardcover. Hop on this kickstarter while you have the chance!
The last official update for this was back in February. Anything new to report?
My players are deathly afraid of Yetis, as they've had to face two so far (the random encounters have not been kind to them). They've taken to saying "Don't feed the Yetis!" among themselves. . .
I don't see anything wrong with it. It's less powerful than a fire caster blasting everything, and it's unlikely to be that effective at high level against creatures with a semi-decent will save. It's really not much different than a cleric trying to command undead in an undead heavy game.
haven't run this one yet, but the second encounter of the first module will almost certainly kill at least one person.I certainly hope so. There haven't been nearly enough fatalities reported so far. ;) My players would disagree! Level 1 was brutal for them. Oh, and as an aside, I also killed three horses they took from the High Sentinel Lodge. With coldness.
Awesomeness. Thanks, Bwatford!
I'm using a combination of the Record of Lodoss War soundtrack, a few select tracks from the game Secret of Mana, and an odd track here and there for winter travel/mood music. I'm also letting each player pick a theme song, and when something significant happens with their character (or they just do something really cool or dramatic), I'm going to play their theme. Btw, I'm having trouble finding any good travel music for trudging through a snowstorm. It seems most people find snow falling to be relaxing or peaceful, and make music accordingly. I want something that is slightly disconcerting, but has a definite "snowy" feel to it. Any suggestions?
Can't wait to use your Winter Portal map tomorrow!
We have an arctic druid in my campiagn also, but he took the fire domain instead of an animal companion; kinda interesting. He worships the god of volcanoes and winter from Tien. Yeah. . . my player took the Water domain, which makes more sense to me. Of course, his offensive abilities are next to useless in most encounters, but he's getting a lot of mileage out of the utility/defensive aspects of it.
Oh yeah, also. . . Again, from SoS:
Does it become the next category of cold (severe cold)? Or does this not happen until the party goes through the party into Irrisen? How often do they need to make checks past High Sentinel Lodge, but before they go through the portal?
The way I'm currently running it, if they get fatigued and it's not remedied, they become exhausted at the next failed check.
From Snows of Summer: "Those who have taken nonlethal damage from exposure suffer from
That definitely implies that frostbite has some additional effect, but like Alientude, I can't find anything describing what frostbite does. Some clarification would be awesome!
I thought the same thing, Tangent. Even my players were surprised he didn't have any sneak attack. . . they just assumed he'd have a level of rogue, since he's leading a bunch of bandits.
I think it's kind of mean to throw a 3rd level cleric with channel negative at 1st level characters, especially when said cleric really could care less if his allies live or die. SO with that in mind, I used channel negative once. It was still almost a TPK.
Your map was a big hit. I only revealed a small portion at a time, since their visibility was 40 feet at the time due to the snow. The whole party was engaged, standing over the maze of ice blocks trying to decide where to go next. I look forward to using the rest of the maps!
Thanks, I had the same question.
I'll be using the Soulbound Guardian map tomorrow. Thanks!
Thanks, that's what I was looking for. Not that my players will much appreciate the increased danger; their only random encounter thus far has been a yeti, and someone died from it. :O
What percentage chance are you using for random encounters? How often are you checking? Unless I just missed it, I didn't see that spelled out anywhere. I've been checking once per day with a 25% of an encounter.
Plus, Nadya's got some hot pigtail action going on. Nice.
I'm actually finding the opposite problem in the RoW game I'm running. Several of the players have winter-themed characters (winter witch, arctic druid, etc). They have cold resist, but a lack of fire attacks, and man, it is ROUGH going for them.
The environmental effects are extremely hazardous for level 1 characters. The way the map is spaced out, they're probably going to have to make a check about every other encounter location, since it takes longer to travel through the snow. You factor that in with the party being basically unable to flee from nearly any encounter due to hampered movement, and the forest itself becomes a pretty formidable foe.
Alright, I've got a couple. Name: Calistria
Poor guys. A Yeti is a REALLY rough random encounter at level 1. Long story short, the party was spending a LOT of time camping out in the woods, taking their time, and eventually encountered this fearsome killer. Name: Pugnex
This guy had the misfortune to be knocked into the negatives at the base of the stairs when Rokhar came strolling down. Easy meat for a seasoned killer like Rokhar.
In fact, Game Space might be a great solution for those of us who want some of the 3.5 AP's re-released with the PFRPG ruleset. Instead of printing up something that will negatively affect their subscription model down the road, why not make a "Curse of the Crimson Throne" Game Space exclusive?
Good questions! I'd like to know as well.
It's sad, but true.
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