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I made this timeline up to help me describe what was going on on other parts of the battlefield during the Crimson fleet attack on Farshore. Hopefully, someone will be able to make use of this (IMC, a control water made me redo a lot of this on the fly).

Format

The entries will be made in this format:

*[timestamp in rounds; the zero round is the point the scheduled battle sequence begins] : [events occuring this round]

Timeline of Doooom

*0 : Ships 1, 2, and 3 drop anchor some 200 feet from shore; ship 4 drops anchor some 300 feet from shore. Ship 4’s captain tries to pick a spot with least obstructed line of sight to shore. Ships 1, 2, and 3 are supposed to avoid anchoring in the middle of the harbor to avoid giving ship 4 line of sight problems.
*1 : Yuanti ship (ship 4) deploys flesh golems (*splash*)
*2 : Ship 4 begins deploying launches, ship 5 drops anchor some 250 feet from shore
*3 : Ships 1, 2, and 3 fire ballista at shore
*4 : Ships 1, 2, and 3 begin lowering launches
*5 : Ship 5 begins firing ballista at shore
*6 : Ship 5 begins lowering launches
*7 : Ship 4’s launches afloat; crew begins boarding. Four yuan-ti, captain, and another pirate stay aboard, with 24 pirates boarding launches.
*9 : Ships 1, 2, and 3s’ launches afloat; crew begins boarding. Captain and ballista operator remain onboard each ship, with 28 pirates from each ship divided up into four launches per ship.
*11 : Ship 5’s launches afloat; crew beings boarding. Vanthus, vrocks, captain and ballista operator remain onboard ship, with 24 pirates loading onto three launches.
*14 : Ship 4’s launches away; expected travel of 300 feet at 30 ft/round, with two additional rounds for launches loaded on far side and another two rounds to gain speed
*16 : Ships 1, 2, and 3s’ launches away; expected travel of 200 feet at 30 ft/round, with two additional rounds for launches loaded on far side and another two rounds to gain speed
*18 : Ship 5’s launches away; expected travel of 250 feet at 30 ft/round, with two additional rounds for launches loaded on far side and another two rounds to gain speed
*25 : Six launches from ships 1, 2, and 3 reach shore (7 pirates per launch). Depending on circumstances, the first signaling plumes and resulting fireballs from ship 4 should begin in a couple rounds from now.
*26 : Ship 4’s first pair of launches reach shore (8 pirates per launch)
*27 : Six remaining launches from ships 1, 2, and 3 reach shore (7 pirates per launch)
*28 : Ship 4’s last launch reaches shore (8 pirates)
*29 : Ship 5’s first pair of launches reach shore (8 pirates per launch), flesh golems heads appear above waterline 20’ from shore
*31 : Ship 5’s last launch reaches shore (8 pirates)
*31 : Flesh golems appear on shore
*V (is for Vrocks) : Vanthus, peering through a spyglass from a window in the captain’s quarters of ship 5, orders the vrocks to begin be ready to teleport into the fight with 30 seconds. Ideally, you should have Vanthus issue this order at such a time as would allow the PCs to engage the vrocks after dealing with the flesh golems and either before or after dealing with the yuan-ti. If you do have the vrocks arrive before the PCs have focused on the yuan-ti, it might be wise to position the vrocks someplace where the yuan-ti won’t be able to fireball the PCs every round, either because the PCs have cover, concealment, or there is a lack of living pirates who can throw targeting flairs.
*V+1 : Vrocks cast mirror image on themselves
*V+2 : Vrocks cast heroism on themselves
*V+6 : Vrocks teleport into Farshore

So my party foiled Olangru's first abduction attempt. I'm not sure I'm running Olangru and his mates correctly, and I know I strayed from the text of the adventure, so I figured I'd check in with you guys.

After getting my players quite worried about being stuck in the Fogmire (they followed an Olman road away from the stone ruins only to arrive at the ruins again an hour later, from the opposite direction; then sent a flying scout up only to retreat once they realized there was no visibility above the tree-tops), they decided to bed down for the night in the ruins. As per the suggestion in the adventure, the fiends teleported in invisible. However, I didn't follow the direction of the adventure by making the fiends attack in the first round. Instead, the two mates chose locations to arrive at that would allow Olangru to move away from the campsite with a grappled victim more easily, and Olangru teleported directly next to Urol.

The first round was appropriately frightening. The three fiends all made their Move Silent checks versus the rogue-on-guard's Listen, so in the surprise round three orangutan-like beasts appeared from no where with no warning. Olangru grappled Urol; each of his mates attacked one of the prone NPCs that might be able to make movement out of the camp harder for Olangru. The arrangement of camp was by chance/player decision. The mates would have attacked PCs instead if it had been PCs blocking the escape route. Unfortunately for Tavey, he was criticalled and killed in one attack from one of the mates. The other mate attacked Avner, wounding him badly.

The next round consisted of Olangru moving 25' with Urol grappled (standard action) and the two mates attacking Venakalie and the sorcerer (the other PC on guard). The rogue got an attack in, while the sorcerer retreated (taking an attack of opportunity due to a failed cast-defensively Concentration check). The rest of the party (three other PCs) got up from their bedrolls to join the fight.

The second full round consisted of Olangru pinning Urol (a standard action) and one mate making a full attack and another stepping out of reach and turning invisible. The mate that turned invisible did so because the sorcerer unloaded on it, the rogue sneak attacked it, and the fighter Improved Tripped it, leaving it at about 30% health.

The third full round consisted of all three fiends teleporting away but Urol making his Will check to avoid being abducted.

The abduction attempt would have been so much easier if Olangru just had ranks in Concentrate. He couldn't cast defensively, so I house-ruled that you didn't have to Concentrate to cast spells in a grapple if you had your opponent pinned. Is this how the rest of you are handling this? I don’t want Olangru to have to kill everyone just so he can make off with a victim with little fuss. I guess he ought to have simply made a touch attack as part of casting Greater Teleport, as long as only Urol was adjacent to him and no one with a significant melee attack was threatening Olangru.

In the end, I think I might have done better to stick with the text of the adventure, having all three fiends charge in during the surprise round, probably killing two NPCs and badly damaging the sorcerer. Olangru could have turned invisible the next round and moved somewhere with good access to Urol, then moved adjacent to Urol in the third round and risked an attack of opportunity when he made a touch attack on Urol as part of casting Greater Teleport.

I guess I'll get another chance at this, since I still need Olangru to abduct someone. Venkalie is probably the best candidate, since the party likes her, and I think Olangru will take a different victim if he determines his preferred victim has a high enough Will save to avoid abduction.

I'm trying to put more work into preparing the play atmosphere for my STAP campaign, such as prerolling weeks worth of weather and what-not. I've realized, though, that I ought to try using otherworldly day/month references, espcially for the date sensative stuff like journal entries or letters. Can someone direct me to a resource that would define such things for Greyhawk?

I am considering adding psionics to STAP. My group has no experience with psionics but has expressed an interest in trying it out. I realize that I would need to do some work to modify some NPCs to use psionics, as well as adjusting treasure to include psi items. (As a side note, it would be neat to see some sort of guide psi conversion notes in Dungeon noting that such-and-such recurring NPCs would be good candidates for conversion to psi classes.)

Any psi success/failure stories out there from the previous APs?