Fantomas's page

Contracts: The various local representatives need to sign an agreement with Kintargo otherwise the areas of land that they represent still belong to Cheliax and the Chelaxian army can come and go from those areas as they please.

The Kintargo Contract makes it so that Cheliax can't attack the areas that are considered to be in Ravounel rather than Cheliax.

Thank you!!

As for the Council, 3 of the 4 heroes are from noble families, so they are actually on the council. It looks like that's where I screwed up - I had it where Rexus knew about the council and was able to dig up the names of the five families.

Yikes on the Hold Monster stuff haha. Hei-Fen seems like she was used differently in every single campaign.

I just ran most of Urchin's Maw. I looked up the 5e whirlpool rules (they're in Ghosts of Saltmarsh) and it added a lot to the game.

Once the battle with the charybdis was done, I had the group encounter the seaweed siren outside the cave. I love this monster so much. The group seemed very intrigued by it, and were clever enough to realize that a silence spell could pretty much shut it down.

They explored the underwater caves (the water pressure forced the necromancer to tell her undead to go back to the surface).

Things got a little weird when the group somehow mistook the mithril tuning fork for a stripper pole, and the group ended up having a strip-off with the skum. The less said, the better!

They came upon the drowned devil but we had to stop there.

I have decided to cook up a special mission for Vyre. The group LOVED Vyre when we played through book 3, so I think they'll enjoy a return to the city. One of the heroes is romantically involved with Mantice Kaleeki, and another one has parents locked up in the asylum as part of her backstory.

I'm not exactly sure what they'll be doing there... I am going to scour this site to see what stuff other people have come up with for Vyre.

I kind of assumed that Urchin's Maw would be flat, but for whatever reason, it came off really well and we all enjoyed it tremendously. I love Hell's Rebels.. I don't think any published campaign will ever top Skull & Shackles, but this one is right up there with it.

Contracts: The various local representatives need to sign an agreement with Kintargo otherwise the areas of land that they represent still belong to Cheliax and the Chelaxian army can come and go from those areas as they please.

The Kintargo Contract makes it so that Cheliax can't attack the areas that are considered to be in Ravounel rather than Cheliax.

Thank you!!

As for the Council, 3 of the 4 heroes are from noble families, so they are actually on the council. It looks like that's where I screwed up - I had it where Rexus knew about the council and was able to dig up the names of the five families.

Yikes on the Hold Monster stuff haha. Hei-Fen seems like she was used differently in every single campaign.

I just ran most of Urchin's Maw. I looked up the 5e whirlpool rules (they're in Ghosts of Saltmarsh) and it added a lot to the game.

Once that was done, I had the group encounter the seaweed siren outside the cave. I love this monster so much. The group seemed very intrigued by it, and were clever enough to realize that a silence spell could pretty much shut it down.

They explored the underwater caves (the water pressure forced the necromancer to tell her undead to go back to the surface).

Things got a little weird when the group somehow mistook the mithril tuning fork for a stripper pole, and the group ended up having a strip-off with the skum. The less said, the better!

They came upon the drowned devil but we had to stop there.

I have decided to cook up a special mission for Vyre. The group LOVED Vyre when we played through book 3, so I think they'll enjoy a return to the city. One of the heroes is romantically involved with Mantice Kaleeki, and another one has parents locked up in the asylum as part of her backstory.

I'm not exactly sure what they'll be doing there... I am going to scour this site to see what stuff other people have come up with for Vyre.

I kind of assumed that Urchin's Maw would be flat, but for whatever reason, it came off really well and we all enjoyed it tremendously. I love Hell's Rebels.. I don't think any published campaign will ever top Skull & Shackles, but this one is right up there with it.

I've been running book 5 (converted to 5th edition D&D) for a few weeks and I have a number of comments/questions.

Contracts: I just don't "get" the contracts. I keep reading it and I feel like I don't really grasp it at all. I was barely able to explain to the group why they needed to go around Ravounel and find authority figures.

If anybody can very simply sum up the Kintargo Contract for me, it would be a huge help.

Odexidie: My group SKIPPED going to Odexidie's! They got the talisman, they figured out how to use it and what it did. Then they just... didn't go. It hasn't been a problem, but it makes me think I gave the group too much info on the contracts so that they feel they don't need to consult an "expert".

The Terapasillion went fine. The group actually did attack the shadow dragon. They beat it into submission, more or less.

Ravounel Forest: I decided to use the Zephyr! That's the blue horse on page 90. I thought it was hilarious that it seeks a mate during mighty storms, so it flew around, breathed storm breath at the heroes, and ended up hooking up with the necromancer... the group really liked this.

The hags were cool. As this is a conversion, I got rid of the golem for scaling purposes. It turns out I should have kept the golem, as the group were able to deal with the hags without too much trouble.

Urchin's Maw: I am glad I went back and re-read the Acisazi stuff and the Scourge of Belial material. It's been a long time since we played through that book! All those little details, especially Sargaeta's monkey in a sailor suit, added a lot.

I decided to have the charybdis attack while the group was sailing along. They got caught in a whirlpool. The group all jumped on the monster and it is about to dive down into the whirlpool - I'll definitely need to read up and figure out how to mechanically handle the whirlpool.

So far, I like Book 5 a bit less than the others. I junked the whole warehouse mission, as it felt way too mundane for high level heroes to deal with.

Here's a clip of the group not being scared of the charybdis at all.

Lanathar, your group decided to "pull" an entire dungeon. That's not your fault!

I think one thing you might want to do is to plan for victory - if the heroes are defeated by the bad guys, Barzillai wants them alive. He can set up a public excruciation, to make an example of the adventurers.

And then, of course, the group can make a daring escape during the excruciation and regroup.

You shouldn't doubt yourself. In my experience, most people who try to run a D&D/Pathfinder campaign peter out within 8 sessions or so. You're deep into book 4! Your players wouldn't keep coming if you weren't doing a lot of things right.

Lanathar, I think it is cool that your group went through the balcony! They can hear the ritual going on, maybe peek down and see the priests chanting around the hellfire pillar. The group could find one of the infernal engines and quietly talk with the lillend or the rakshasa, while keeping an eye peeled for guards.

They can sneak around and maybe get the jump on the bad guys... seems like a tense experience, lots of fun!

I finished the Barzillai fight on Saturday. Thrune dropped the fighter but then he was slain. I was able to carefully narrate Barzillai's wounds - magic missiles blew open the chestplate of his armor, revealing scars on his chest. The silvered arrows fired by the group's undead minions tore open the hole, revealing a cavity where his heart should have been.

When Barzillai was slain, he groaned "Narcelia" and plopped to the ground. In the chest cavity the heroes saw the Chelish Crux.

When preparing this stuff, I found the beginning of book 5 a bit difficult. I have like two pages of notes on it. Thank god I did that... the group immediately opened the box and went through the contents.

I was a bit worried, once they identified the melancholic talisman, that they'd try to take use it to go to Odexidie's office right away! But they needed rest.

So they retreated to the opera house to heal and mourn their dead NPC allies. Then they went back to the Temple to loot like crazy.

They went through the whole place. While I am glad I ran this the way I did, I would definitely say that the group found this place very interesting. Almost every room, even empty, had cool traits to it. The party necromancer is all over that blood pool room that boosts necromantic magic.

The infernal engines, the "warm red carpet", the animate dream, all really cool stuff.

Once the engines were shut down, they flew up into the belfry. They'd taken Asmoden's arm, and I had hinted that they could reattach the arm and "redeem" him, but the group was ready for a fight and didn't try it.

So, we stopped there and will pick it up next week. I had written out little scenarios tailored to each PC for the devil's bells. It was too hard for me to come up with 5 scenarios for each hero, so I basically "assigned" each of them a bell.

Next time, they'll battle the herecites, deal with the bells, party at the Bleakbridge and then we'll jump into Book 5!

They are going to need to figure out a candidate for Lord Mayor, since they utterly destroyed Jilia Bainilus. I am sure their choice will be amusing...

Yep! We are playing 5e. I've been converting the path as we go.

I messed up a few things, but overall the fight went as I hoped it would. This Saturday they should finish off Barzillai and I'll make it so the hole where his heart should be is exposed.

I'm thinking about doing a thing where, if they find Asmoden's arm, they can somewhat redeem him by reattaching his arm.

I've been trying to customize the devil's bells encounter to link up with the backstories of the heroes, but I've been having a hard time with it.

I turned it into one giant mass combat. I'm not rolling out all of the NPC stuff, it's more of an abstract thing. I had decided that having the group go through there to "clear the dungeon" would take forever and probably be boring.

Essentially this is a combat with 3 waves of bad guys: Corinstian & priests, an erinyes, and then Barzillai.

Lanathar: As far as your concerns about Rivozair finding the heroes, Corinstian Grivener can use the scrying font in the temple to locate the heroes, correct? So, Corinstian could locate the heroes, and tell Rivozair where they are.

Personally, I think it would be awesome if the dragon attacks while the group is split. Two here battle the dragon on the causeway while the other two see it from a distance and try to get there as fast as they can. Seems like it would be awesome as long as the two heroes not in the battle don't get bored.

I ran the temple mass combat this past saturday, and it went extremely well. It was three waves of bad guys, and then on each turn, I'd describe one of the NPC allies fighting one of Thrune's goons. How the character did on their turn dictated how that particular battle went. A number of important NPCs croaked:

- Gut-Tugger, the awakened dinosaur, was killed by the hell wasp swarm.
- Both Solstine siblings were killed by clay golems.
- A member of one of the group's NPC Rebellion Teams, "Ice Cold Stan Boston" was killed when Zella Zidli applied a sleeper hold (my campaign is stupid).
- 1 of the kenku sisters was killed by a blood golem.
- Mantice Kaleeki was almost killed by a vampire spawn, but the heroes dropped everything to save her.

I was a bit concerned during the first phase, as the group mopped the floor with Corinstian Grivener. I screwed up the elevation. If you look at the map, I think that central area is raised, but then the central area is a pit. The means that the group doesn't have line of sight on the creatures in the pit.

I didn't realize that until it was too late.

I had the bells go off every round, though i "nerfed" the bell of infernal darkness. For this battle, the blindness was just for one round, rather than permanent. The bells worked great.

For the second wave, the erinyes flew above and rained down arrows on the group. She was a much bigger threat! It turns out that my waves worked out perfectly - increasing in difficulty without being too overwhelming. Thanks to the song of silver being in effect, the necromancer's skeletal archers fired off volleys of silver arrows that did a lot of damage to the erinyes.

Once the erinyes was dealt with, Barzillai jumped down from the balcony. I don't know if any of you use syrinscape, but it has a "Barzillai taunt" button that I love. The syrinscape sound set for Hell's Rebels is absolutely awesome. They even have a different sound for each of the Devil's Bells.

The group began fighting Barzillai, but we ran out of time. We'll pick it up next week. We should get to the infernal engines and the profane belfry too, I hope.

You can check out the mass battle on youtube here.

Warped Savant: I wish I had done something similar with the Solstines! I'll be introducing them tonight.

We'll be playing in an hour or so. I prepared the big fight at the temple, we should at least start it tonight. I'm running it as a mass combat. As the group's allies fight all around them, the heroes will fight three waves of bad guys:

• Corinstian Grivener and some priests

• The Erinyes from the Ruby Massacre. She had got away. I could have sworn there were more details about her in book 3 but I can't seem to find them now.

• Barzillai. Assuming the group wins, I'm going to have him die (I don't like the scenario where he returns on the Bleakbridge). When he dies, I'm going to have him moan "Narcelia...", the sister he's obsessed with (detailed in book 6). I'll also try to narrate his mortal wound in a way that it tears open a hole in his chest, revealing that he has no heart and that there's stuff stashed in there.

For the big battle, I made a list of named NPCs and during each character's turn, I'll describe an NPC fighting one of the many bad guys in the church, and we'll do a die roll to see generally how the fight goes. I'll give the character a chance to help if possible.

My favorite thing about this big battle is that there are some really random monsters in there. The Gardener - a giant green woman. And the "shining child", which cracks me up. Can't wait to describe it!

I originally was going to do more elaborate preparing, but I tend to over-prepare and it suffocates the game, so we'll see how this goes.

I've been running this adventure path and converting it to D&D 5th edition along the way. I absolutely love Hell's Rebels and my group likes it a lot as well.

A few weeks ago, I sat down and prepared the rest of the path. Now, I can link/foreshadow things 100 times better and it has made my games "deeper", if that makes sense.

A few notes for those running the path who might not have read all the way through:

Jackdaw: When the group frees Jackdaw, she can tell them about how when she sang the song of silver, a pit fiend named Ougorthan appeared and killed two of her fellow OG Silver Ravens, Kyda and Amyreid. This info made my group extremely paranoid when singing the song of silver! the group meets Ougorthan in Book 6, page 43.

Thirothryn: I had Jackdaw also mention that later, a ghael azata named Thirothryn contacted her and vowed to hunt down the pit fiend. Thirothryn is captured and in hell in Book 6, page 53.

Red Dragon: Have the group find out that Barzillai once killed a red dragon named
Adrakash. This will hopefully impress the group and it foreshadows undead Adrakash's appearance in book 6, page 33.

Hag: Maybe work in a reference to an evil old hag named Nasperiah who used to abduct Kintargans. She's now a witchfire down by the soul anchor in book 6, page 36.

Noble: Place Carliss Mayhart as a prisoner in Kintargo Keep!! Check out book 5, page 20. He was part of a scandal/murder that was probably big news in Kintargo until the Night of Ashes took place.

Figurine: It is noted in Book 4 on page 57 that Barzillai himself owns a corrupted silver raven figurine of wondrous power. It burrows into your body like a scarab of death. I had him send this thing to deliver a message to the group and when they touched it - burrow. Worked out great.

Asmoden: I had Hetamon Haace (he is a love interest of one of the heroes in my campaign) tell SOME of the story of Andax Tasetas, the priest who was brutalized by the Asmodeans and eventually became the undead entity Asmoden in Book 4 page 57. I wanted to tell his tragic tale and mention that his arm was cut off, as this might make the subsequent discovery of this dude's arm more interesting. Hetamon is unaware, however, that Andax lives on as an undead abomination.

Solstines: Also, if possible, place the Solstine siblings (they are described only as "hot-headed would-be rebels" in book 5) in this book somewhere, fighting on the side of the rebels. They should die. This will set up the group's encounter with Raenna Solstine in Book 5, page 21.

Aside from all that stuff, I love the authority points gimmick but there came a point when I just stopped tracking the numbers and went by feel.

Once I found out that there is a scrying font in the temple of Asmodeus (book 4 page 51) I would decide a time of day that Corinstian Grivener would scry on the group, and then see what the group was doing/saying at that time. This ultimately enabled Barzillai to use the orb of storms to trash the group's folding boat and nearly drown them when they were crossing the river.

In my game, the group is about to fight the blue dragon Rivozair for the second time (the group surprised attacked the dragon while it was blowing up buildings during a reprisal).

I felt like the Song of Silver performance should have been more dramatic, so I fleshed it out a bit. I toyed with the idea of having the pit fiend Ougorthan show up, and having the rest of the group hold the pit fiend off until the performance was done. I probably should have done that!

Instead, I let the group learn that a pit fiend had attacked when Jackdaw performed it way back when. They were very paranoid. I had the group roll initiative:

Round 1: Small pieces of the opera house ceiling fell, the building shook. I asked each player what they did, they positioned themselves, ready for an attack.
Round 2: The ceiling glowed silver, the performer (Fio, the party's bard) began to hover and glow.
Round 3: Fio let out a magical pulse that spread through the entire city. I had her and the heroes make checks to withstand it, stunning them on a fail. The group's weapons glowed as the boons kicked in.
Round 4: Fio chose who got the individual boons. With each choice, a silver beam of energy struck that character, who had to make a save or be stunned.

Once it was done, they heard the devil's bells ring and a loud roar erupted from the temple district. Barzillai had ordered Rivozair, the blue dragon, to go to the opera house to destroy the silver ravens.

After that battle is dealt with, there's nothing left to do but to attack the Temple of Asmodeus. I've been dropping hints/clues about the temple, having the devil's bells ring out over the city, and making sure the group knows that the bells supposedly can do things to non-believers of Asmodeus inside the church.

I've also made it clear to the heroes that there are TONS of bad guys in the church. When preparing it, I was kind of groaning - this church is full of combats. If I ran it as a "dungeon", the church would take months to get through and I think the group would get bored.

Instead, I am going to run it as a sort of mass combat. The group is rallying all of their teams and allies, such as the Order of the Torrent, tieflings from Red Roof, etc. I'll run this as the group fighting waves of major foes (probably 3 waves, starting with Corinstian and ending with Barzillai) while their NPC allies fight the other monsters that inhabit the church.

I absolutely LOVE this path and look forward to it every week. We play on twitch and you could watch our stuff on youtube if you're planning on running this path, although unfortunately up until around episode 30, I wasn't able to foreshadow properly because I hadn't read the whole path.

Of the things I really wish I could have foreshadowed, it would be the businesses on the bleakbridge (would have been great to use when the heroes go shopping), the church of asmodeus (I'd have loved for them to visit the church and check out the "gift shop" inside), and generally I want another crack at running the dinner in Book 3 (which is one of the coolest things I've ever run). It went pretty well, but I wish I had read everything bout Hei Fen so I could have really depicted her in a more menacing manner while she was sitting at the table with the adventurers.

Our latest episode (where they sing the song of silver) is right here.

We finished up the spy thing and did the Free Captain's Regatta last night. It went incredibly well. When we just got rid of the battle map (which I guess I am just really used to after all the 4e I've played) people really came alive. The group really liked going back to letting the fight play out in your mind, rather than pushing minis on a grid.

I made details for the ships in the regatta which might come in handy. I put them in the order of final placement (excluding the PCs of course):

1. The Wormwood: (Obviously we know who this is...) Captain Harrigan and First Mate Adelita Doloruso
2. Barnacled B*@$&: (this ship is rammed and sunk in the race by the Wormwood, sole survivor is a crew member named Zarina Visk) These are naval enthusiasts from Widowmaker Isle, Captain Betty Burlingame
3. Kelizandri's Favor: (From Zeibo on the Ushinawa Isle where there's geisha's and a petal seminary) Captain Descrita, a mysterious geisha with a fan, a deadly sorceress
4. Redcap: (Eladrin from Little Oppara on Taldas Isle) Captain Lady Eveningheart who is gracious, beautiful and elegant
5. Pharasma's Price: (From Vilelock on Shark Island, a shady and lawless place) Backstabbin's Bork Bridain, a real dirtbag, and his first mate, Allen of the Poor Reptation (wh's actually an ok guy, he just makes terrible first impressions)
6. Bonny Witch: (the captain is from Zhenbarghua on the Cannibal Isles) Captain Ntocqlo - he wants to win the race to earn a new home. He is a recovered kuru and wants to found a place where others like him can live safely away from the blood queen.
7. Wave Wraith: (From Lilywhite on Motaku island) Captain Ellen Shimmer - a crude elf
8. PC Start position
9. The Strix: This is of course the ship the PCs met in book 2 at Rickety's Squibs, with Captain Merril Peggsworthy and his awesome magic sword. He is friends with my PCs.
10. Sullied Strumpet: (From Parley Point on mainland, a friendly place with many brothels) Captain Fiveteeth and his first mate Tracy Gums
11. Stormrunner: (From Pex in Hell Harbor, a rough and rausous place with many being placed in stocks) Captain Ramshackle Ryan, likes to put his crew in stocks on his ship, a cruel disciplinarian
12. Promise's Bounty: (From Yelligo Wharf, sell people to Dahak cults) Captain Blackskull - wears all black, worships Aashaq the dragon
13. Sea's Largess: (From Drenchport, cult of the eye) Captain Gale - obsessed with the Eye of Abendago, thinks it is a forming god
14. Skullduggery: (From Plumetown on The Smoker, a place with lots of gambling, magical soothsayers and a volcano) Captain B~%!$$+ Gnawbones - this crazy degenerate is known to drink his wine in a very dangerous way
15. The Albatross: (From Ngozu in Mgange Cove, many crew onboard are missing their right hands, all believe in Mfuello the Jourenyer a wendo spirit) Captain Zgatho a superstitious fellow who holds a smoking censer on a chain

My biggest worry for this session was the DCs for the regatta. It broke down like this:

The pilot has a +2 from WIS
There are 3 magic items on the ship that gives +2 each to sailing checks (Besmara's bones, Jalhazar's wheel, and the charts of the fair winds) So that's another +6
And then, because they are trained, they get their skill dice added to the roll. That's 1d6. And the rogue gets to roll twice and take the higher of the two.

So the rogue has +8 +1d6. That's an average roll of 11.

Then you factor in assists.

So I made the DC a 20. Considering the rogue would roll that skill die twice, and the PC assists could give a +2 or +4, it felt right. It worked perfectly.

I also allowed auto success for cool ideas or uses of disrepute.

I did bump the DC to 22 when inside the Eye of Abendago.

This path is great. Next week our heroes explore the Isle of Empty Eyes. The cyclops stats were tricky, that's for sure.

We had another good session last night. IMO this is a fantastic adventure path. Usually I will look forward to a particular section of an adventure when I run these things, but right now I am actually looking forward to all of the rest of book 3 and book 4!

I made some further changes to my modified "trail of spies". When I was reading up on Zarskia Galembor, the head of the spy ring, I decided to change her. I love the "ship in a bottle" monster in book three on page 86. So what I decided to do is to make Zarskia a master of these things (which have bound water spirits in them).

My players got to the brine banshee wrecks and found a ship in a bottle in a sealed chest of Captain Jalhazar. This ship in a bottle isn't a monster, but it does have a water spirit in it. I decided that this has 3 magically shrunken Cheliax spies in it! Zarskia used her magic to put them in there. The spies think they're just going home, but they're actually probably going to get their heads cut off by Valeria Asperixus' axiomatic bardiche, just to tie up loose ends!

I've decided to get rid of the whole Giles thing.

On the sail of this ship in a bottle is a secret message from Zarskia to Druvalia Thrune. My heroes will use magic to figure out that this is from Zarskia, and they'll be able to discern her (the clerics at the temple of the hidden name can do it) and go to her place in Port Peril.

They'll fight the dusk kamadan (which is a really cool monster) and then deal with Zarskia, who has a TON of ships in a bottle at her command! It will be a crazy fight, one i am much more interested in rather than the alchemy gimmick she has going on.

Also in the adventure I ran, I changed it so that the upper half of the Brine Banshee is in the territory of a gargiya (monster from book 6, page 84. Obviously i de-leveled it a bit. My party is 4th level (they'll hit 5th at the end of next week's session).

Here is the Gargiya:

Gargiya AC 12 HP 52 Bite +6 6 dmg, Tail slap 5 dmg push 15
STR 21 DEX 13 CON 18 INT 2 WIS 10 CHA 10 Immune Fire Swim 50
- Scalding Scales: Anything touching it takes d4 fire. Melee weapons become heated and wielder must make a CON save or take 1 point of damage. Metal weapons can melt from repeated use!
- Boiling Seas: 1x/ minute, the gargiya can concentrate the heat from its' body, causing seawater within 20 feet of it to boil! Those within the boiling water take d4 damage (CON sv DC 13 for half). 2 rounds in a row of exposure to this means you fall unconscious if you fail your save!
- Dying Gasp: When reduced to 0 or less, the gargiya goes through death throes, ejecting its' molten core, dealing d8 fire (DEX save DC 13 for half) to all those within 20 feet.

A truly awesome monster!

We were running this bi-weekly for a while (sometimes even monthly!) but we recently started playing weekly and it's given us a much better sense of the rules. We just did the first section of Book 3 last friday.

Most monsters have a +5 (lvl 3) to a +8 (lvl 14!) to hit. And many monsters have an AC of 13 or even 11! The game seems to intend to keep to-hit bonuses low, but in general in D&D players figure out ways to get their bonuses higher than intended. For now, the PC to-hit rolls work - they hit most of the time. I'd say they're doing a bit too much damage (particularly the fighter).

Some of the monsters, like the ogre, are a bit dull. In 4e lots of monsters had cool powers. In "D&D Next" they each have one little gimmick which sometimes falls flat.

The rogue player is quite confused as to when she gets her sneak attack and whether advantage grants it. Right now her damage is sometimes 1d8 +2d6 (martial damage dice at lvl 4) +4. The whole martial damage dice and skill dice concepts being put into the core is... well, it makes it clear to me that Next will not be the "final" edition. The CORE of d&d to me is simple. It's original red box d&d with the negative ACs turned into positives and a streamlined saving throw system. That's it! No fiddly extra dice! Skill dice to me is clearly a "gaming trend" concept rather than something that will be a core part of the game forever.

As far as my campaign, I really stretched out book two a lot. I even incorporated the Isle of Dread into it (and added material from the Savage Tide capaign - mostly the colony of Farshore). The heroes fought the green dragon Xiureksor, and I'm happy to report that the new edition's dragons work very well! It was truly challenging and an epic fight was had.

I've been reading ahead in the path, and unfortunately sometimes I feel like paizo could do a better job making the material more cohesive. For example, In book 3 our heroes go before the Hurricane King to get their letter of marque. The King's crew is there eating and drinking. His crew is detailed in the final book of the series, but unfortuanately they are not detailed at all in book three. So I cooked up a little list that you might find useful..

The Hurricane King has quite a motley band of sailors:

- Eight weresharks in hybrid form
- Kirrian "Sweetlips" Vortheen, a bard
- 2 dwarf boatswains
- Tsadok Goldtooth, his half-orc first mate, a former gladiator struggling with bloodlust
- Hyapatia, a raven-haired woman. She is the consort of the King and had two aurumvoraxes - 8-legged, gold-furred cats (Hyapatia is secretly a lamia matriarch!).
- Averine, a rough-voiced pirate wench
- 6 prostitutes (Averine is in charge of them)
- Omara Culverin, a bald, dark-skinned woman with a musket. She is a business woman.
- "Powderpot", an unhinged monkeyman alchemist
- Bilgerat Jacobi, bald and shady pirate (who tried to sabotage the rigging challenge)
- Haines Byne, a fine rigger (who competed against the PCs in the rigging challenge)

You can have your PCs rub elbows with some higher-level pirates that they will one day likely do battle with (in book 6).

Next session, my players will meet with Tessa Fairwind, and she will send them on the "root out the Cheliax spies" mission. I read through this and it is a whole lot of "I'll tell you what you want to know if you go on this quest for me". And then the PCs go find the various spies to find they're already dead! It seems like a very complicated bunch of side-quests with little payoff. It kind of feels like filler, to be honest.

So I am going to cut out a lot of it (but I am going to add in the Whalebone Pilk encoutner from book two - it is awesome, and somehow despite 9 sessions of book two I never was able to squeeze it in). I am cutting out the druid ship (It could be cool but could also fall flat), the illusionist wrecker (also might be cool or might be frustrating for the PCs), and the naga (I am concerned about the naga's deal where she doesn't want the PCs to actually kill the rival naga), and more.

My streamlined plan goes like this:

1. PCs go to the temple of the hidden name, given clues to find the wreck of the brine banshee.
2. Search for brine banshee, attacked by Whalebone Pilk.
3. Explore the wreck of the brine banshee, find a clue that points to a spy.
4. Go to spy's house outside of a town (this is a blend of two separate "spy encounters". They meet with the spy, but as he starts to talk, the assassin Giles strikes. I'm going to try and make the Giles encounter a "sniper" battle, where Giles is up in a tree sniping from a very far distance, and the heroes will have to go from cover to cover firing back and closing in... or do something clever to take him down or lure him out.
5. Giles talks, and gives up the location of Zarskia. PCs go and deal with Zarskia (and her really cool dusk kamadan, which I know my players are going to love).

This is much simpler and IMO less frustrating than the series of "fetch-quests" in the book.

We had a real interesting session last friday. I gave the players a printout of the "scrolls" scrimshawed on the whale skull found in Riptide Cove. I converted a few spells. I have no idea if they will work out ok, but I guess that's part of the fun:

(lvl 2) Alter Self: Duration: 1 min/level Target You
When you cast this spell, you can assume the form of any Small or Medium creature of the humanoid type. If the form you assume has any of the following abilities, you gain the listed ability: darkvision 60 feet, low-light vision, scent, and swim 30 feet.

(lvl 2) Blur: Duration: 1 round + level Target: creature touched
The subject's outline appears blurred, shifting, and wavering. This distortion means that attacking creatures have DISADVANTAGE

(lvl 1) Enlarge Person: Duration: 1 minute/level Range: 30 feet Target One Creature
This spell causes instant growth of a humanoid creature, doubling its height and multiplying its weight by 8. This increase changes the creature's size category to the next larger one. All equipment worn or carried by a creature is similarly enlarged by the spell. The target has ADVANTAGE on all to-hit and damage rolls!

The heroes got their ship squibbed. They fought the naga. I changed its' spells to 5e ones. It shot magic missiles out of its' eyes (no to-hit roll). This was the beginning of the players' realization that monsters cast the same spells they did (unlike in 4e, which we are all used to, as we have played it for a very long time).

Then came the bees. Nobody got paralyzed. 5e fights are different. The PCs don't get hit much, but when they do, it's bad. I'm still struggling with monster to-hit bonuses.

They be-friended Pegsworthy, and then set sail on their ship with a name I probably shouldn't repeat here. Prior to the session, I sat down with the weather chart from (I think) book three. I rolled out about a month's worth of weather. And wouldn't you know it, on the very first day I rolled a severe tropical storm and a hull breach. If the PCs couldn't roll well to downgrade it through piloting, they were going to lose their ship!

One of the rogues was piloting. I gave her advantage due to her skill mastery~! And she rolled... a pair of 2's. The ship was going down!

The heroes and crew abandoned ship. The crew clambered into two longboats, while the heroes used Besmara's Tricorne's power to turn into a small boat, and they boarded that. For EIGHT HOURS, the three tiny boats tried to stay afloat in the raging storm. I rolled on the weather event chart eight times and used those results as the basis for the narration. The main result was that the three little boats were seperated, and one crew boat was sunk and attacked by sharks. The PCs survived the storm and rowed all night to the port peril mainland. The third boat, nobody is sure what happened (giving me wiggle room to have those npc crew show up somwhere down the line if I so desire).

Our heroes slept on the beach, and then explored a bit. I had them end up near a settlement I'd created, originally intending for them to raid. It was home to worshipers of Dagon - weresharks! And they had captured a mermaid from a nearby underwater merfolk dwelling, and were intending to sarifice her.

The heroes attacked the weresharks. The head priest cast radiant lance, and rolled a 20 on the party wizard. Now, in major battles, on a critical, I roll on the little chart from (I believe) the players guide, where you can gain a scar or lose a limb... prompting you to get a hook or a peg leg. Well, I rolled a 19 on this chart, and the wizard lost his right hand! Despite this, the heroes were victorious.

The player of this wizard always likes to make evil spellcasters. He snatched up an unholy book of dagon, intent on secretly studying it. I dug up Dragon 349, with James' Jacobs awesome Dagon article and converted it. The player is insanely excited about this... (Because the current playtest only goes to level 5, he will be able to access greater powers at level 3 and 4)

Thrall of Dagon

- To become a thrall of Dagon you must successfully contact an evil aquatic creature and sacrifice a living, intelligent, non-aquatic humanoid to the contacted evil aquatic creature. Then you must perform the first invocation...

- First Invocation: You must perform a 2 hour ritual at any ocean shoreline. This involves chanting and self-mutilation with sharpened sea shells. At the end of the ritual, your body shifts and transforms. Your skin grows pallid, your hair grows thin and stringy, and thick webbing grows between your fingers and toes. You gain a swim speed of 30 feet and a +5 to swim checks.

Once this is done, you gain these effects:

- Sea Longing: If you spend more than a day out of sight of the ocean, you grow irritable, distracted and disoriented, suffering a -2 penalty to WIS saves and WIS skill checks. While on the sea or under its' waves, you have +2 to initiative and DEX saves and skill checks

- Song of Dagon: 1x per day, you can invest any spell with the sonic descriptor (low bass rumbling sound). Creatures affected must save or have DISADVANTAGE for 1 round.

- Thrall to Dagon: Once per day, you can perform an evil act. You then can gain advantage on one roll that day as a reward.

- Voice of Rapture: Your voice takes on a strangely calming deep basso quality that seems deper and commanding than it should. You gain +2 to intimidate and singing checks.

Once you hit 3rd level:

- Second Invocation: A 4 hour ritual on any reef or atoll at sea. It should be one mile from the next closest stretch of land. This ritual involves lengthy chants invoking Dagon's name, self-mutilation with shark's teeth and sea urchin spines, and the sacrifice of one living, intelligent creature. At the end of this invocation, your body deforms further. Your eyes grow bulbous and watery, gills form along your nexk, and patches of scales grow from spots along your flesh. You gain darkvision 60 ft, and the ability to breathe water as well as air. Your natural AC is now a 12.

You gain this:
- Contact Dagon: Once per day your mind can be placed in contact with Dagon, to learn information. For one hour after this, you have a +2 to INT saves and INT skills as your mind is bolstered from contact with your alien lord.

Once you hit 4th level:

- Third Invocation: Takes 8 hours, must be performed on the open sea out of sight of any land. The ritual involves non-stop chants invoking dagon's name, self-mutilation by allowing sharks and other aquatic predators to chew and gnaw at your body and the sacrifice of at least 7 intelligent good-aligned creatures to these aquatic monsters. At the end of this invocation, your body deforms fully into a horrific amalgamation of fish and mollusk. You gain a +2 to STR and CON and a tentacle attack as a natural weapon.

He lost his right hand, and asked me if he could have a tentacle replace it. I am thinking once he does the first invocation, instead of one tentacle, he'll have six little tentacles around a fanged mouth - same as the symbol of dagon.

They rescued the mermaid, who promised to have her people head out to sea and hail a ship as a reward for saving her. She was true to her wod. A few days later, a ship from firegrass isle arrived.

Firegrass isle was the closest "named" isle to where the heroes were, So I figured that would make sense. This is the isle with three pirate ships who raid Aspis Consortium ships despite the Hurricane King's treaty with them. This has lead to a situation where these three pirates are blamed for anything that goes wrong with the aspis consortium.

So I rolled randomly to see which of the three ships was coming to help. It was called Bold Folly, run by Captain "Bent Beak" Charney. He saw that our heroes had 2 points of plunder that they'd carried from the wereshark settlement to the beach, and decided he'd give the heroes a ride and keep the plunder. He cackled and made the heroes load all 20 tons on while he and the crew laughed and mocked them.

And of course, that lead to another mutiny! The adventurers jumped the captain, his first mate, and the three brothers who fought as a unit, and in moments they had themselves a new ship!

The crew had no intention of serving the heroes for long, so what happened was that the heroes went to port peril, let the crew go, and recruited a new crew from the city. I almost forgot something about port peril - all incoming ships and cargo are quarantined for one week. That's a weird little rule, but I like it.

After gaining infamy, recruiting a crew of misfits (as part of my prep, I created about 30 npcs to draw from when needed), the heroes sold their plunder and prepared to once again sail to rickety's squibs for a squibbing.

5e is still nice and breezy. I am very loose with the rules. I will definitely need to tighten that up as we go. I am also worried about magic items boosting the heroes' power to an unbalancing level. For now, all items found are +1. Once they hit 4th level, I may make a few +2.

Well that sure is a handy post! Thanks! We've played three sessions so far (we play every other friday). We finished Wormwood Mutiny and are about to begin Raiders. Things that have come up:

- Sleep and Cause Fear are very powerful. It feels almost like an "auto-win" button. But... the PCs have yet to run into an enemy who casts it on them! That will be the true test to see whether or not the spells are "broken". Sleep, after all, requires no save. I just roll 3d8, and that's how many hit points worth of PCs fall asleep!

- The player of the rogue feels useless in combat. The fighters do a pile of damage due to their extra dice. The rogue, however, has to work to get his sneak attack dice. Often, he must spend a round maneuvering to get it. I am now changing it so it is more like 4e - the thief gets the die in "combat advantage" situations - flanking, when the enemy is prone, etc.

- I hate attacks of opportunity. I wish they wouldn't have bothered with the "withdrawal" rules. It is so nice to just run around willy nilly without the game grinding to a halt.

- I was worried about the bad guys' hit points in the mutiny. My players had been tearing through all obstacles. The mutiny fight ended up being the PCs vs Plugg, Scourge and Maheem. I ended up giving them both Plug and Scourge an AC 17 and gave them 35 and 40 hit points respectively.

That's just some of what's been going on. Will have more notes after tomorrow's game! 5e right now is obviously unpolished and creaky, but it is very promising and we all are very happy with it. It's also fun to be in on it at such an early stage.

Anyone doing this? The new batch of rules came out the other day, just in time for me to implement them. I ran the first session tonight. It went very well. I absolutely love this path and couldn't wait to start running all these pirate NPCs. A few issues cropped up:

- The biggest one is the rogue trait called Skill Mastery:

"Benefit: When you determine the bonus for each
of your skills, you use your associated ability
modifier or +3, whichever is higher.
Additionally, when you make a check using any
of your skills, you can take 10 or the result of the
die roll, then add any modifiers."

Now, the suggested DCs go like this... Easy: 10, Moderate: 13, Hard: 16

My plan was for the daily job skill check DCs to be in the DC 10 range. But the Cook's Mate could take 10 on most of her jobs! I had to talk to the player and kind of tell him that I couldn't run all of these checks every day and have him never have a chance of failing. I played it by ear, he was cool about it.

- Another concern was the one on one fight with Owlbear. I was concerned that he'd be either too easy or too hard. So I secretly ball-parked his hit points. I just watched how the fight went and scratched in the hit points once it was clear what was a fair amount. As it turned out, one of my awesome players immediately figured out about his blind spot and pummeled the guy! The stats I used are here:

AC 9 HP 20 +2 to hit d4+3 damage

Owlbear is a great character. The heroes genuinely pity him.

- As has been discussed on these forums, the addiction rules are scary. So for rum rations, what I've done is this: Con Save, DC 5. Fail = Intoxicated (You have disadvantage and take d6 less damage when you are hit). As fr as whether they get addicted, If someone sticks out as failing all the time, at the end of the three weeks I'll narrate that they have a yearning for rum and go from there.

- Not sure how non-lethal damage works. It came up with the whipping. What I did was say that non-lethal knocked you unconscious, and the damage went away once you took a full rest.

5e runs real quick an easy. It's working great so far. Can't wait to play again next Friday.

I have been running Beyond the Mottled Tower, and it is awesome. The encounters are just mind-blowingly great. My players are loving tossing monsters into blood chaos and lava.

If you are playing this campaign and it's feeling like a slog, trust me, it gets better. I'm reading Haven of the bitter glass and I am honestly thinking it's the best 4e adventure out there.

In addition, the author has created the "roleplaying encounter", which is simple and clever.

Sorry for the brief threadjack, but could you tell me why you thought Thunderspire labyrinth was a campaign killer? I've been thinking of trying to work it into a homebrew Nentir Vale campaign I want to run and I'm wondering what about it you thought was so bad.

Fantomas wrote:

I would suggest that you keep playing Scales of War. I am running it, group just hit 11th level, and it's been good but not great.

Pros:
- The Low level adventures are better than Keep on the Shadowfell and Thunderspire Labyrinth. Thunderspire, in my experience, is a total campaign killer. The Horned Hold will rip all the gaming passion from your soul. It is utterly dreadful.
- The second Scales of War adventure is awesome. The final series of encounters are legendary.
- Overlook, the city, is really cool. Definitely wander around and get to know the districts. It's one of the best things about the whole path.
- The adventures I'm getting to now both look to be awesome. Beyond the Mottled Tower will give my party much-desired revenge against an old enemy. And Haven of the Bitter Glass is looking like a path-saving mini-masterpiece, if your party is actually looking to do some role-playing.

Cons:
- Official 4e adventures take a long, long time. Individual encounters can take much longer than an hour, even if every player is focused and even if your DM waves the battle off when it's clear the PCs have won.
- While I personally liked the third adventure in the SOW path, lots of people hate it. The plot is weak. But IMO, the place you go to is extremely cool and makes up for it.
- The overarching story barely connects at all. If your DM doesn't adjust the plot, the players are left feeling like they don't know what's going on, or who the uber-bad guy is, or anything. By the time things are revealed, nobody cares.
- The character backgrounds provided in Dragon magazine supposedly connect the PCs to the path. They don't. It's all up to your DM to link them.

If you're looking to play a 4e campaign, Scales is a good

...

What was so bad about Thunderspire?

It's basically split into 4 adventures. The first one, with the Chamber of Eyes, is OK but very forgettable. Then comes The Horned Hold. When I ran it, it took forever. The encounters were all against duergar, who are boring. And the fights are elaborate but somehow still dull. And the purpose for going there is very dull and pedestrian. As I ran it, I ended up adding in side adventures to keep everyone from falling asleep. I ended up abandoning it after a TWO SESSION ENCOUNTER. That's about 10 hours we spent fighting Murkelmor. And it was not epic. It was boring.

Then, I have a friend who's running it. I did not warn him until it was too late. His party got to the Horned Hold. And a few sessions later, they stopped it and are thinking about just leveling everyone up to paragon because the Horned Hold was so boring that players had DROPPED OUT. And this guy is a good DM!

The Well of Demons in part 3 looks awesome. But I severely doubt many groups will get to experience it. Just say "no" to Thunderspire Labyrinth, people. If you drop it in a garden, all of the flowers will wilt and turn grey, and the bees will commit suicide.

cthulhudarren wrote:

Question for everyone who used/is using Tammeraut's Fate, it looks like a decent part of the plot dynamics is that the players are stuck on the island. Obviously this isn't going to happen with the Sea Wyvern. What changes if any did you make to account for this and keep the drama factor high?

Like Bacchreus, I inserted Tammeraut's Fate as Fort Greenrock. Instead of having been attacked by zombies (which seem overly common already in this AP), I had the locale be ground zero for a second savage tide. This allowed the players to be relatively certain that Kraken Cove wasn't a fluke and that Vanthus had passed this way ahead of them.

I expected my players not to stay a night on the isle, and didn't want to force them into it, so the best aspects of Tammeraut's Fate (the night time) wouldn't have come into play anyway.

Wow... thank you! I am going to do this!

This thread has been extremely helpful. I had been planning on running War of the Wielded, but then decided to check out Tammeraut and I like it alot.

I would suggest that you keep playing Scales of War. I am running it, group just hit 11th level, and it's been good but not great.

Pros:
- The Low level adventures are better than Keep on the Shadowfell and Thunderspire Labyrinth. Thunderspire, in my experience, is a total campaign killer. The Horned Hold will rip all the gaming passion from your soul. It is utterly dreadful.
- The second Scales of War adventure is awesome. The final series of encounters are legendary.
- Overlook, the city, is really cool. Definitely wander around and get to know the districts. It's one of the best things about the whole path.
- The adventures I'm getting to now both look to be awesome. Beyond the Mottled Tower will give my party much-desired revenge against an old enemy. And Haven of the Bitter Glass is looking like a path-saving mini-masterpiece, if your party is actually looking to do some role-playing.

Cons:
- Official 4e adventures take a long, long time. Individual encounters can take much longer than an hour, even if every player is focused and even if your DM waves the battle off when it's clear the PCs have won.
- While I personally liked the third adventure in the SOW path, lots of people hate it. The plot is weak. But IMO, the place you go to is extremely cool and makes up for it.
- The overarching story barely connects at all. If your DM doesn't adjust the plot, the players are left feeling like they don't know what's going on, or who the uber-bad guy is, or anything. By the time things are revealed, nobody cares.
- The character backgrounds provided in Dragon magazine supposedly connect the PCs to the path. They don't. It's all up to your DM to link them.

If you're looking to play a 4e campaign, Scales is a good choice. The official path (Shadowfell-Thunderspire-Pyramid-etc) to me doesn't look like fun until it gets high level, starting with nightwyrm tower (and kingdom of the ghouls - I cannot wait to run that!).

Converting a paizo path is another way to go, but that is a lot of work. I converted Shackled City, and while it was fun, it was not easy. All the rooms need to be made bigger and monsters need to be added, it's quite an ordeal. But Shackled City was just awesome. I'm currently also running a converted Savage Tide campaign, and that is going really well too - but again, there's lots of work to be done. Particularly if you want to use the affiliations.

Your last option is do some Living Forgotten Realms. That could be fun, but requires a lot of printer ink (or a DM who runs from a laptop I guess). The problem with LFR is that there's these connected adventures, but the level requirements are spread out to where you can't do them in a row. So you nibble on one plot set in Cormyr, nibble on another over in Baldur's Gate, and by the time you get back to Cormyr you don't remember or care what the heck is going on. Additionally, the published adventure, Sceptre Tower of Spellgard, was less than thrilling. And that's the only one they'll be making!

Good luck!

Updated the link so that clicking on it hopefully works now!!

Chapter Six Conversion to 4th Edition.

Feel free to download and peruse, use or comment.

Cheers
Blakey

One thing you may want to consider is to model the lich fight after an encunter in dungeon magazine. I don't want to spoil too much, but basically, the PCs need to wind their way around a ledge while minions pour out of a random tunnel (there were 6 tunnels in the adventure) each round.

The adventure is called "Siege of Bordrin's Watch", it's in the second free issue of Dungeon on the wizards site. The encounter is called "The Nexus" and is hands-down the best 4e encounter I've run.

Fantomas,

How did you deal with the Oblivion Doors? Did you convert them to something 4E-ish, or leave them as is, or just have them as normal locked doors?

Cheers!
Blakey

The Oblivion doors... I kept them the way they looked, but turned the first one they found into a skill challenge to find a way to pick/use magic the door. Failure meant that the door shot a beam at the offending PC. Success with one door taught them the "magic trick" of opening all the others, so from then on out all they needed was an Arcana check. It worked well, but again the damage for failure wasn't powerful enough. Though the party rogue never got over the damage he repeatedly took from the doors in Jzadirune.....

The problem with this is that Vhalentru's lair is ABOVE the rest of the dungeon. I decided to just leave it and see how it went. They did enter and fight the beholder before exploring the rest of Oblivion, and it threw them off a bit.

You might want to do a thing where they need an "eye gem" off of each of the other doors to open vhalantru's door. Or some kind of gimmick/device/magic word held by the flamewarders below.

Beware of Knock, obviously!

I scaled down the beholder in the MM and the fight went well. It wasn't too deadly, though one PC was turned to stone.

Hey Fanto (and other 4E converters),

How did you deal with the numerous places where the module expects the party to use powerful Divination magic but where similar spells/rituals don't exist in 4E?

For example, Chapter Seven the party acquire a Soulcage and on page 211 of the HC it goes through the various spells they could use to research it including Vision and Legend Lore.

I'm guessing two approaches to this:

1. Just give the PCs a straight forward Arcana check. If they don't score high enough then maybe Vortimax Weer can help them.
2. A skill challenge.

Sadly I'm really not quite sure how to run skill challenges under 4E yet (yes its probably time I figured it out!!) so I'm not sure how to design this. If it was a skill challenge, I expect it would involve Arcana but what other skills would prove useful? Also, what would happen if the Skill Challenge was failed?

Any ideas?

I will look at your conversions after work. Any time my group needed information, they went right to the church of Kaylin to use the Star of Justice. They used to find it funny to make me come up with a rhyming answer on the spot (though sometimes I was ready with a pre-made response).

Skill challenges are really tricky. I'd suggest that you look through the published adventures for examples. I'll look later, I'm pretty sure I have an adventure that has a "seeking knowledge" challenge.

Hmm, my party's 8th level rogue hasn't got that power. I won't be alerting him to it!!

Have you finished the campaign yet Fanto?

I ran the Tax Riot last night using lots of ideas you had come up with in terms of the conversion and it went off like a dream. So thanks for your help!

I wrote a huge response to this many days ago but this site ate it. I'm glad the riot went well, that section is one of the best parts of the campaign IMO.

We finished the campaign. Unfortunately I made Adimarchus too weak, so the final fight was nothing special. I'd recommend basing stats off of a monster in one of the newer supplements... like the Aspect of Tiamat from the Draconomicon. It would work well with the four snakes coming out of Demonic-Adimarchus' back.

Now the heroes are adventuring in The Abyss. They wan to go all the way to 30th level.

Good Luck!

Ladies & Gentlemen,

1) How easy was it for your group to get through the Starry Mirror? Would you have done anything differently to make the puzzle easier/harder?

2) Not mentioned in the book, but if a PC wanders around inside the SM for a while first, does he/she have to "walk the pattern" (heh heh ... Zelazny) starting from whatever color she/he happens to be standing in at that time, or from the color originally entered?

3) What's your favorite color? Red? NO, BLUE! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhhhhhhhh

;^D

Thanks,

FM

My party did not figure out the starry mirror. They weren't even close. I had to have an NPC figure it out. I also know someone else who ran it, and his group was baffled too. He was of the opinion that The Starry Mirror was ridiculously hard.

I haven't read it in a while, but I don't think you have to start from the first color...

Here's my take:

Continue to use the paralyzing spit on them until they're all paralyzed, then its game over for them since he could drag them out of the field and destroy them one by one, or even coup de grace them in the field with his bite. Don't forget with that antimagic field, they can't retreat out the way they came (the oblivion doors need magic to open).

Tossing stuff with telekinesis is a good one, too.

Last tactic, don't be afraid to have Orbius retreat if he seems ineffective. He can turn and disintigrate upwards til he hits the surface while facing his antimagic eye down to prevent pursuit. He can always show up later when the PC's aren't so prepared, to take his revenge (perhaps before the events of Foundation of Flames, or even afterwards with the cagewrights).

It's been mentioned, but the first thing I thought of was to have Vhalantru use his disintegrate ray to cut out some of the ceiling and have it collapse on them...

But IMO the best idea is to have him keep using the paralyzing spit until they're all paralyzed.. THEN drop the ceiling on them.

Remember, it says in the adventure that Vhalantru used his disintegrate ray to carve out Oblivion himself, so he is very good at carving up the stone as he sees fit.

Are you sure you want to continue the 2nd AP with the *same characters* ??

Diamond Lake is a really place to start out a group of new adventurers. In fact, my biggest gripe with AoW is that the action wonders away from "home base" and never returns! And it's totally different from Cauldron - so by moving it to there you'll miss out on a lot of what makes the first few adventures so special.

You're high level PCs from AP1 can always show up as "guest stars" at some point, in cameo roles...

Well my group wants to go in an entirely different direction, so I won't be using AoW at all (though I want to some day, as it looks really good). Instead, they're going to adventure in The Abyss.

Thanks for the advice, though. I think it's cool that certain elements and NPCs cross over from path to path (although Celeste looks like a completely different person in each one). I am running the 4e Scales of War path for another group, and there's an NPC with the last name of Dourstone, which I think is one of the mines in diamond lake.

The bane of solos is this rogue power:

Walking Wounded Rogue Attack 5
You topple your enemy with a crippling blow and force him to
stumble around the battlefield.
Daily ✦ Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Melee or Ranged weapon
Requirement: You must be wielding a crossbow, a light blade,
or a sling.
Target: One creature
Attack: Dexterity vs. Fortitude
Hit: 2[W] + Dexterity modifier damage, and the target is
knocked prone. Until the end of the encounter, if the
target moves more than half its speed in a single action, it
falls prone at the end of its movement.
Miss: Half damage, and the target is not knocked prone.

Once that's applied, the PCs just roll off their slow effects (every round if the solo makes its' save).. Their speed is effectively a 1.

My players also roll off their daze and stuns in a carefully co-ordinated ballet of violence... The +5 save bonus usually works, but then there's another power ready to be unleashed right after it.

Maybe I'm being over-dramatic when I say they "don't work". The fight with the beholder went fine. It just seemed for a while there that solos posed no threat at all.

What I did for a lot of the cagewrights was to just take stats from the 4e books and "re skin" them. I also changed the final few adventures quite a bit...

For Shebeleth, I used the final encounter of Pyramid of Shadows. The bad guy has all these minion "clones" of himself, and he can shift between them. It was AWESOME.

For Ssythar, I just used a 17th level yuant-ti and some other yuan-ti for what turned out to be an epic battle in Shatterhorn. The yuan-ti dominate power wreaked utter havoc with the party.

For Dyr'Ryd, i made him an elite version of some demon, and gave him two initiative counts. It was great.

For the final battle with Adimarchus, I have it set up so that the interior of the soulcage that adimarchus is in is actually a sort of demi-plane inside. The PCs will go through a number of dream scenarios in this prison-plane where Adimarchus tries to tempt them to join him.

Once they pass through them, they will fight Adimarchus once and for all. I bought a Solar miniature, and am using a map from a 3e fields of ruin product (Hellspike Prison). The map is called The Temple of the Prismatic Flame. It should be epic.

So that's mostly what i did - just re-skinned existing creatures. And you can add in a power or two based on the original monster's stats if you feel it's necessary.

My players are planning on trying to adventure in the abyss once this is over. It's going to be great.

"The other biggest change was that when the party finally confronted Adimarchus they would, instead of killing him, travel into his Dark Dreams and Nightmare Realm where his Inner Demon was slowly corrupting Cauldron with maddening dreams.

I suggested the party entered the realm where they passed through doors and into Adimarchus' dreams (which they had progressively seen themselves) where they had to help Adimarchus avoid or redeem the actions he took which lead him to eventually losing his souls and mind. "

I don't know how helpful this is, but I just want to point out that I have been pondering how to change the Asylum adventure for 4e (I am not a big fan of the adventure, it feels very anti-climactic) and I think you just solved my dilemma.

My big problem is that Adimarchus is a sitting duck in the cage. My players will set up so that as soon as the cage door swings open, they'll unload all their daily/hampering powers and blast Adimarchus... it's just really lame for a final fight. My hookface fight was pathetic.. they had hookface hobbling around so that if he moved more than one square, he fell prone.. when he wasn't dazed or stunned.

But the concept of Adimarchus' cage being an entrance to a demi-plane allows me to create an entire adventure out of Adimarchus' demi-plane prison within a prison.

I know I want the final fight to be against Adimarchus as he shifts between angel and demon forms. But now I'll have to cook up two or three other encounters involving the major moments of Adimarchus' life. One should involve his time as an angel... one during the big fight against the angels, and then one involving Athux betraying him...

I didn't knew he had a French accent....(I'm french) but I realize that his name Dhorlot looks like the french verb Dorloter which means To Pamper in english.

Well I just saw the name as french, and i had read a thread on this site about Dhorlot... The thread mentioned having Dhorlot be on a rotating bed with pink sheets as the PCs entered... So I gave him the french accent and it was gold.

The heroes knew his name, but not the pronunciation. So when they came into his lair, they found the dragon lounging with a kuo toa female, who was stroking him lovingly.

The party warlord said "You must be Door Lot" (that's how the player pronouced it).

Dhorlot replied in his accent, "No, eet's... nnnDhorlot!"

The name meaning "To pamper", that makes it even better.

PulpCruciFiction wrote:

Yeah, I think they actually mention that the encounter is really only there to boost XP if the PC's are behind the curve of the AP at that point, and you should feel free to leave it out.

This is correct. When I developed the hardcover, I tried to make him a bit more relevant to the story, but were I developing that adventure today I'd just cut him out of the entire thing altogether. And not just because he's a half-dragon. :)

I feel the need to leap to the defense of Zarik Dhor!

My players loved Dhorlot. They got a kick out of his french accent, and they were just stunned that he was breeding with kuo toa, lizardwomen, and anything else he could make sweet, sweet love to.

So, when we got to the part where the mercenaries come in to play (I changed them from orcs to dragonborn, as I'm in 4e and it fit really well), Zarik Dhor was hired to keep an eye on the PCs.

Zarik Dhor was not subtle about this. He walked right up to them, his guards in tow, and said "Zo I zee you haff met my fazair!"... And from there it was two sessions of hilarity until they finally got to throw down with Zarik Dhor.

They loved every minute of it. And Zarik's picture is awesome.

This message has been paid for by the Dragon/Minotaur Love Coalition.

Blakey, I'll have to dig around and see what i have... unfortunately i write most of this stuff on paper, just starting to cut and paste instead...

One thing I just want to mention. I read the final adventure of the campaign - Asylum. And it's pretty underwhelming. It feels like it's not fleshed out enough. There's a whole city/town that could really use a lot more detail... and Skullrot itself has only a couple encounters inside.One of the encounters is absolutely ridiculous (an opera-singing demodand?? I can't see that playing as anything but ill-timed comedy in what should be a very dramatic, climactic adventure).

Not too thrilled with the lichfiend named "Dark Miracle" either. I can't tell if my players will laugh him off the map or not.

And I hate the idea of my PCs setting up to open Adimarchus' cage and then all unloading shots on the guy just as the door opens. They're going to fire off all their dailies and get the walking wounded/slow combo off right in the beginning, and Adimarchus will be hobbling around one square at a time for the rest of the encounter.

The switching from angel to demon form, however, should be good. If they unload all their big effects on the angel, and then he auto-shifts to a fresh demon-form, that might be cool.

I tested out the basics when they fought Dyr'Ryd, who has two faces. So I gave him two initiatives and attacks. It worked absolutely beautifully. It wasn't over-powering at all, either. It felt like a well-balanced challenge.

But the Adimarchus fight does not feel very climactic. I'm going to try to trick out the terrain and everything.. it's the final fight of the whole campaign, crazy crap should be happening!

WHAT exactly happens, i'm not so sure yet.

Hey glad to hear you're still rolling along!

How are you incorporating Shadowfell? You should definitely pick up Thunderspire... I haven't gotten to the well of demons (the third of the four dungeons in Thunderspire) but it looks awesome. And the fourth dungeon is guarded by an aspect of a god, which is a really cool encounter. You could change the god to a shade of adimarchus, perhaps.

What conversion notes are you looking for?

Did your players fight Dhorlot yet?

Adding an NPC is a great idea. Are you scaling encounters as per the DMG? If possible, you should find out who can make it and who can't days before you play. That way you can set up encounters appropriate to how many players. I think it's chapter 7 in the DMG, there's a chart. Just look up the XP total, and assign that XP worth of monsters per encounter, raising a few that are supposed to be more difficult.

An NPC sidekick is always a good idea. My party has had a number of actual minions as sidekicks. They began with a kobold named Tremble, who ended up as a member of the striders of fharlagn and is no longer a minion at all. They also had Meepo (from 3e's sunless citadel) with them, but he got frozen in the soul pillars adventure. Now they have bertrum, one of kravichak's derros.

NPC sidekicks are great for healing and balancing out a night when the players rolls go bad. You might want to make your dwarf a cleric or warlord, for healing purposes.

I don't know if anyone else out there is still converting this to 4e, but my group is rocketing through this adventure path and we are nearing the big finale. 27 sessions down, probably 6 more and we're done (I'm going to heavily alter and shorten 13 cages and shatterhorn).

We just finished foundation of flame, where Cauldron needs to be evacuated. The PCs are now 13th level. Some observations:

- 4E Skill DCs are either too easy or too hard. I had intended to run these encounters with the assumption that the heroes would work together, and important skill checks would be made by the PC with the biggest bonus. That would mean they'd have a myriad of bonuses for the roll: Trained (+5), Stat bonus (+4), Half their level (+6), and assists (+2 to +6 or beyond). That's about a +18 on average. The errata'd DCs, however, make this a cakewalk. "Hard" at lvl 12 is a DC of 21! That means the PCs would need a roll of 3 to pass!

So I went with non-errata'd DCs. And of course you know what happened. The PCs didn't work together... they bum-rushed the guy with the dangling baby. The baby died, the father died, and the daughter was crushed when the building collapsed.

My players grumbled after that session. We had some email talk about it. I decided that in the next session to use the errata DCs.

You know what happened next session! Nobody failed anything. But they sure enjoyed it more, so hey whatever. Skill DCs are tricky, that's for sure.

- Solo monsters don't work! I have no idea what to do with Adimarchus. My party will slaughter him. The latest example: Hookface. 15th level solo! I busted out the colossal red dragon miniature and plopped it on the map. Players freak out... and launch their slow/daze/stun abilities in succession so that the legendary dragon does little more then stand there with little birds floating around his head.

My players are pretty clever. The rogue uses walking wounded, which causes the victim to fall prone any time he moves more than half his movement. Then other people use slow effects on him. Slowed means Hookface can move two squares. But if he moves more than one, he falls prone!

Every solo fight is like this. They just don't work.

In comparison, the "warm-up fight" nearly lead to a TPK. When the demodands began plummeting from the sky, I had three riding the frostforged wyrms from the draconomicon (which is an incredible book and is very, very useful for shackled city campaigns). That's six level 11 creatures against my 13th level party (and all the demodands did was stand behind the dragons and use a minor action to provoke a standard action out of the wyrms).

The breath weapons go off in round one, and almost everyone is slowed and bloodied! I forgot to use two of their bloodied attacks (which do 4d10+6 in a close burst 2!!), and if I had remembered, PCs were going to die...

- For the elemental fight, I used firelashers and placed some water barrels on the map. One PC ran over and used thunderwave ON A BARREL, sending it flying at a firelasher... it was such an awesome idea that I decided that he killed it.

- If Nidrama is friends with your PCs, consider having her fly up into the clouds to investigate the forming planar rift, get hit or something, and then fall into a burning building on a crumbling street. Then make a skill challenge where an acrobatic PC has to dash across the rooftops of the burning buildings, grab Nidrama, then race back as the buildings collapse.

It was well-received.. though again, the errata DCs were almost unmissable.

- And a personal observation. The 4E official adventures are BORING. IMO you are much better off running shackled city and wedging in encounter concepts from the official 4e modules. In my other group, I am running them through the official adventures (Shadowfell, Thunderspire, etc) and it's nothing but giant dungeon crawls. It got so boring I started making whole side adventures that involved more than placing miniatures on a map and rolling it out for an hour per room.

I am going to be taking that group off the 4e "track" after Pyramid of Shadows and running them through an "old school path" - Planescape's The Great Modron March.

That will free up the future 4e modules.. I can "raid" them for maps and encounters to use as I see fit.

With Shackled City for sale on this site for 30 bucks, I would highly recommend getting it and running it in 4E as opposed to Keep on the Shadowfell (or Scales of War, which is also boring so far).

I am looking for some help, any advice I can get is appreciated.

I have been running a Shackled City campaign converted to 4th Edition. We've been plowing through it, and should be finished within two months. The heroes will be about 16th level.

The players really want to go all the way up to 30th level. I am pretty sure I am going to convert Age of Worms to 4E (and powered to their level). I'll shorten many of the dungeons, but keep the story intact.

The heroes will probably be ruling the city of Cauldron (the volcano city from Shackled City). I am planning on not using Diamond Lake, but switching all of the Diamond Lake adventures to the city of Cauldron. The "Free City" will be easy to plop in, as I've referenced the city of Sasserine from the Shackeld City many times. Sasserine can be the Free City.

I am now getting ready to start dropping hints and foreshadowing the whole Age of Worms story for my party. What should I make sure that I do so that the Age of Worms story doesn't feel "added in"?

- I'll need to reference the wind dukes of aaqa, correct?
- Will there be any issues as far as politics? My party will likely rule Cauldron. Is the overall kingdom known as Redhand? Maybe I should have the prince of redhand visit them sometime soon?
- Any legends they should know?
- They've already run into the Ebon Triad faction, which was very memorable. How do the triad "cells" relate to one another?
- The heroes met Celeste (who's still trapped in a magic thingie right now) as well as Ekaym Smallcask (who they HATE). Do I need to position either of them in the free city for whatever their role is in Age of Worms?

I'm just starting to sift through all of the Age of Worms material. Any advice is appreciated.

So I'm pretty far into the Shackled City path, and I've read the criticisms of it: "The villains aren't foreshadowed" and "It's a meatgrinder" are the two I've heard the most (and also "The Starry Mirror is impossible to figure out").

I love this path, but as I prepare for what comes next, I am wondering what you all think are the best paths out there and how they stack up against The Shackled City. I think the one I will run next will be another conversion to 4e (ohh joy!) - Rise of The Runelords. It just looks awesome.

But I am wondering how you'd rank Shackled City among the others. Here's the main options and my brief, ignorant thoughts on them:

Age of Worms - This looks really, really good. But I've read that it, like the Shackled City, feels like it's not very connected.

Savage Tide - Supposedly in this one, the adventures flow together beautifully. But I personally don't like the "pulp" style, and I hear this is pulp-y.

Rise of The Runelords - Again, awesome. Though I've never seen a serial killer work in d&d.

Scales of War - I am actually running this for another group, but it's too early to say how good it is. I like running something in actual 4e, but wizards hasn't released much of an over-all plot. It's pretty generic thus far.

Dhorlot ended up becoming something of a legend in my group. When they burst in on him in his lair, he was on a big cushion, with a kuo toa female stroking him lovingly. He corrected their pronunciation of his name in his french accent...

So last session, the heroes ran into Dhorlot's lost son, the half-minotaur Zarik Dhor. The heroes have been tormenting the poor NPC ever since. It's pretty hilarious.

I believe the inns listed in the HC are:

* The Cusp of Sunrise (more of a private club than an inn)
* The Coy Nixie
* The Slippery Eel
* The Tipped Tankard
* The Drunken Morkoth
* Minutia's Board

I've got them listed in order from swankiest to sleaziest (at least, how they are in my campaign). Most of them don't play much of a role in the plot on their own, but during the Flood Festival my group played out the drinking competition and I had great fun detailing some of the bars. They can be useful for foreshadowing if nothing else... for example, the Drunken Morkoth can be used to flesh out the myth of the Lake Monster.

There's also The Brass Trumpet, which is closed... I think it is used as a bad guy hideout in later chapters.

My players for whatever reason chose The Slippery Eel as their watering hole of choice, but got banned for life after a bar fight with some sleazy dwarves. They've spent time in all but The Tankard and Minuta's...

I just finished up Test of the Smoking Eye in only 2 sessions (thought they went much longer than usual). It is a GREAT adventure for 4e. Tons of terrain that affects combat.

A couple notes for anyone else who will be running this in 4e:

1. Tremor zones work well if you have the zones roll an attack vs. REF on anyone in them, and if they hit, the target is knocked prone.

2. The driders perched upside-down on the ceiling in the cathedral makes for a really cool fight. Some of the players climbed the outside wall and we ended up with half the party fighting inside the cathedral and the other half up on the roof.

3. Again, my players annihilate solo monsters. They all have powers that daze, knock prone, and even knock unconscious. The bebilith was a cool encounter, but it could have been a cakewalk if the dice didn't go sour on them.

4. The plain of cysts.. they figured it out, but couldn't resist any of the distractions. Which was fine. I used venom-eye basilisks... I don't think they're ready for the stone-eyes yet.

5. The black dragon... Dhorlot is something of a legend to my group. So when they saw Vorkaire flying toward them, they seemed to want this dragon to be related or similar somehow. Didn't matter... It swooped down and the rogue used knockout to drop the dragon and the party kicked its' butt.

6. They had no problem with the level 9 rakshasa and his fire giant guards.. I had the lich (converted to a simple level 9 wight) use swarms of undead minions, which was freaking awesome. They had to wade through about 40 minions to get up the stairs to the test room. It was great.

Test of the smoking eye was a great adventure. But maybe in part because I abhor random encounters, the party is only 10th level going in to the next chapter. Up until now, their level progression matched the 3rd edition adventures.

Not a big problem. It was a fun adventure. And now they're going back to Cauldron, it's going to be awesome.

So wizards just posted Graz'zt's 4e stats here:

http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dramp/20081003

It's funny, I'm just running Test of the Smoking Eye and re-read about how graz'zt ties in to the shackled city story.

Anyone got any ideas on how to use Graz'zt in Shackled City? Maybe as a post-campaign event? I mean, they printed the stats.. might as well use them.

And who is that female behind Graz'zt in the picture? In my game, I have made Athux a female, and I might say that she is Athux.

OK took me a few days but here's some more stats for you to tweak... Alek ended up being a little too tough, he outshone the party a bit. 2 of the players had to stumble out into the desert, gushing blood, while alek and the party paladin continue to wage battle with Nabthatoron.

Fire Giant Level 9 Soldier 400 XP
INIT +6 Speed 7
HP 102 Bloodied 51 Resist 15 fire
AC 25 FORT 25 REF 19 WILL 19

Searing GreatSword: Reach 2 +16 vs. AC 2d6+5 damage, target is marked

(encounter)Sweeping Sword: Close Blast 2 Make a Searing Greatsword attack as a close blast

Iron Javelin: Range 15/30 +16 vs. AC d8+5 damage, target slowed until end of giant's next turn

Throw an anvil: Range 10/20 +16 vs. AC 3d6+5 damage

STR 23 CON 22 DEX 11 INT 10 WIS 10 CHA 11

Fire Giant Forgecaller Level 9 Artillery 400 XP
INIT +6 Speed 8
HP 100 Bloodied 50 Resist 15 fire
AC 23 FORT 26 REF 21 WILL 22

Smoldering Mace: Reach 2 +16 vs. AC 2d6+5 damage

Fire Pillar: Ranged 20 +12 vs. REF, d8+5 fire damage

(recharge 6) Flame Burst: Area Burst 2 within 10 +12 vs. REF 4d8+5 fire damage, ongoing 5 (save ends) Make a Searing Greatsword attack as a close blast

Throw an anvil: Range 10/20 +16 vs. AC 3d6+5 damage

STR 23 CON 22 DEX 15 INT 10 WIS 16 CHA 11

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I just used a drow poison from the DMG in the goblet that the angels offer the PCs (my players didn't try it)

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For the spellweaver skeletons, I just used skeletal tomb guardians (MM page 235) and added a set of arms holding discs with arcane runes on them (which you may decide explode when the skeleton dies for some serious damage?). These skeletons are INCREDIBLY deadly! Be careful!

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For the Nabthatoron encounter, I added in 4 barlguras (Subtracting Alek from the XP, this was an encounter three levels higher than my PCs).

Nabthatoron Level 13 Elite Brute XP 1600
Init +10 Perception +10 Truesight
HP 300 Blood 150 +2 to saving throws, +1 Action Point, Speed 8, Fly 8
AC 27 FORT 29 REF 25 WILL 25
Resist 10 variable (3/encoutner)

Pincer Claw: Reach 3 +16 vs. AC 2d8+6 amage

Double Attack: 2 pincer claw attacks. If both hit, target is grabbed.

(Minor) Abyssal Bolt: Ranged 10 +14 vs. REF d10+6

(Encounter, Minor) Blasphemous Word: Close Burst 5 targets enemies +14 vs. Will d10+5 psychic damage, target dazed until end of glabrezu's next turn

(Minor) Chaos Word (Recharge 6): Close Brurst 5 targets enemies +14 vs. FORT d12+7 damage bypasses all resistances

(Encounter, Free) Arcane Fury: When bloodied as an immediate reaction, Nabthatoron can teleport 8 squares, recarges Blasphemous Word.Chaos Word/and can use those powers or an abyssal bolt immediately.

STR 26 CON 20 DEX 17 INT 24 WIS 14 CHA 16

Here's Alek's stats, based on Jaryn. I'm a little worried he has too many hit points, but the Nabthatoron encounter i made is tough.

Alek Tercival, Human Paladin Level 9 Elite Soldier

Medium natural humanoid XP 800

Initiative +8 Senses Perception +4
HP 200; Bloodied 100
AC 23; Fortitude 25, Reflex 23, Will 25
Saving Throws +1
Speed 6
Action Points 1

Greatsword (standard; at-will) Weapon
+14 vs. AC; 1d12 + 9 damage (plus an additional 2d12 damage on a critical hit)

Holy Strike (standard; at-will) Divine, Radiant Weapon
Requires greatsword; +14 vs. AC; 1d12 + 9 radiant damage. If Alek marked the target, he deals an additional 3 damage.

Thunder Smite (standard; encounter; recharges when first bloodied) • Divine, Thunder, Weapon
Requires greatsword; +14 vs. AC; 2d12 + 9 thunder damage, and the target is knocked prone. Can score a critical hit against a marked enemy on a roll of 19–20.

Valiant Strike (standard; at-will) Divine, Weapon
Requires greatsword; +14 vs. AC; 1d12 + 9 radiant damage; Alek gains a bonus to the attack roll equal to +1 per enemy adjacent to him.

Divine Strength (minor; encounter) Divine
Alek applies his Strength bonus (+5) as extra damage on his next attack this turn.

Divine Challenge (minor; at-will) Divine, Radiant
Close burst 5; targets one creature; the target is marked until Alek uses this power against another target. If the target makes an attack that doesn’t include Alek as a target, the target takes a –2 penalty to attack rolls and 6 radiant damage.

Rebuke (immediate reaction)
When Alek is hit by a melee attack, he makes a basic attack.

Alignment Lawful Good Languages Common,
Str 20 (+9) Dex 11 (+4) Wis 16 (+7)
Con 10 (+4) Int 13 (+5) Cha 12 (+5)

Feats Human Perseverance, Improved Initiative, Ritual Caster
Equipment:

Oathblade +2
Critical: + 2d6, or + 2d10 damage against a target marked by Alek
Power (Daily): Minor Action. Alek's next attack against a target marked by him deals an extra d6 damage per plus.

Actually I just looked over your document and I would recommend not throwing the 18th level fire giant at them. In the first adventure, I made the choker in Jzadirune (the one in the trap door of the stage that had the illusory play)a feygrove choker. It was level 12. The heroes were level 2. They couldn't hit it. It was choking the life out of one of them and holding the victim up so that the PCs were hitting their own friend by accident. It was immediately apparent that this was just a slaughter, and I confessed my error to their relief. I changed it on the spot to a cavern choker (level 4) and chalked it up to a 4e learning experience.

Then later, I threw the Grell at them, which was 5 levels higher. It dropped ALL of the party, except the ranger, who was able to kill the creature as it closed in on him.

Throwing stuff more than four levels higher then the party will lead to doom! Doom I tell you!

What I did for the fire giants, was place four 9th level giants in there (i don't have my MM handy). Two were one type, and the other two were forge callers. I believe they were all 9th level, there was probably some scaling involved. I just decided that one of the forge callers was Dugobras, and the other three were his friends/clan/family/assistants.

Same with Nabthatoron.. Although that should be an epic battle, so he should be tough. But I am planning on making Nabthatoron 2 or 3 levels higher than the PCs, and then adding in the demon flunkies. I'm actually opposed to making his allies straight minions though (at this point, the PCs just annihilate minions so they'll be a non-factor and won't add anything to the battle), So I might make Nabthatoron one level higher and then load up on some lower level demon allies.

Although... Alek is there. So that gives us xtra XP to play with. It's going to be a tricky encounter - as Alek is supposed to be killed. That means Nabhatoron will be focusing his attacks on him, and the PCs are free to unload. It might be a tricky battle to run. Alek HAS to go down for the story to work. Otherwise you'll really be in a tough spot to set up the next adventure.

I am actually thinking of maybe giving Nabthatoron an extra daily. A power he can use to annihilate Alek with. So that way, if Nabthatoron is getting his ass whipped and Alek is healthy, Nabthatoron can blast him with this new daily which drops the paladin immediately. "Demonskar Necro Blast" or something... a power that is ultra-effective against a good paladin. Ha ha, maybe I'll even make it a minor to cover my ass.

I also agree with your opinion on the mirror people. They're kind of cool, but ultimately they're useless and confusing. I might have one there, not to fight, but just so the PCs can drag information out of him.

Another note... my players like to knock people out instead of kill, so they can question them (In 4e, you can just declare your intention to knock someone out.. when they drop to 0, they're unconscious instead of dead).

I am certain my players will want to knock out at least one hag. I am thinking that these hags are ancient and nasty. How could a mere mortal get her to talk? Why, a torture skill challenge might do it! Any fan of the show 24 would probably enjoy a skill challenge like that, and my players love 24.

I run my next game friday, I should be doing some statting before then. I can post the stuff here once it's done.

Wish I read this earlier... My group is in Vaprak's Voice, hopefully they'll finish it in the next session.

For the mob scene, I counted the crowd as terrain. I also used the mechanic of rolling randomly to determine which way that the crowd was shifting. If you tried to move against it, you took an attack vs. REF and if it hits, the PC fell prone.

I changed things a bit, using Magma Striders from the MM as the monster. I did that because Magma Striders are cool, and when they charge, everyone adjacent takes flame damage. Seeing how I count all citizens as minions, this creates a horrific scene where all the citizens beneath the strider burst into flame.

I used a bunch of magma striders, using guards to attack the other ones. It also allowed for scenarios where friends of the party were in jeopardy across the map, and they had to get over there to save their friends. I also had in my head the idea of letting the rogue make an acrobatics check to run on the mob. As in, he jumps up and steps on them to travel, kind of like crowd surfing. I had described the crowd as packed like sardines.

My players were also furious when they saw Maavu simply casting spells to protect himself instead of helping. They almost didn't even want to meet up with the chisel.

They also were very confused about the whole Alek Tercival challenge thing... despite the fact that I had well established the Old Law of Peers long ago. I'd also dangled Alek in front of them numerous times, but they never really talked to him aside from one encounter which the warlock doesn't remember!

Traveling through the jungle.. I changed the encounters a bit. The gnoll ambush went really well. The gnolls were challenging!

I changed the other encounters. I'm in the process of streamlining a bit. I've decided to have a few cagewrights attack the PCs. This will give the PCs a good idea of the overall campaign story. And also, as some Cagewrights are killed, other villains will take their place. I want Orbius to be officially a cagewright, and Todd Vanderboren too (my players HATE Todd).

Anyway... I turned the pipe maze into a skill challenge, but it was pretty boring.

The heroes goaded the hill giants (I changed it so that 4 giants guarded the portcullis instead of one). I FORGOT about the noxious lake vapors, which would have changed the whole thing...

But my players taunted the stupid giants into charging down the corridor.

The fire giants were really, really tough. The forgecaller power to create a fireball-like explosion is devastating. The party almost ran. And when the broken, molten anvils started flying, it got crazy. It was a great fight.

They have retreated to the pipe maze to rest, and set up an eye of alarm ritual as protection. I am planning on having the ettins (2 of them!) disturb them. The ettins are dumb, and i will allow the pcs to trick them into letting the heroes get a full rest.

4e Ettins are awesome! Each ettin gets two complete turns per round (with separate initiative roll).

I'm a little worried about having the hags show up disguised as archons after the fight, because my players will see right through it. And I'm not sure how to stat out the amaranth elixir. +8 STR and -4 WIS seems goofy. I'm thinking of going +6 STR and -6 WIS so at least it's balanced.

And I haven't picked out a poison that's appropriate yet. Poisons are extra difficult because the DCs have been errata'd. It can get confusing.

Also am worried about the starry mirror. I don't quite get how they're supposed to figure it out based on the diagram around the throne. It seems like it will get frustrating and I'll end up letting them make a roll to get some clues.

And then there's nabthatoron... I haven't statted him out yet. I guess I'll look at your file, hee hee.

At least post the link here, I'd like to read. Reading other groups summaries helps me get ideas.

Yeah. the hulk had an AC 28. That is high, but remember that most classes have attacks against other defenses. And the party rogue has an insane plus to hit AC anyway. Add in the fact that I had the hulk attacking a building and simply confusion staring them away. Also add in a flanking bonus (+2) and magic weapons (+1), warlords and clerics giving others extra plusses to hit, and their powers knocking it prone, etc.

I just wanted to insure that the heroes didn't annihilate the hulk until he at least got his three rounds of action in. I'd bet you could easily get away with lowering it further. I didn't realise how well the confusion power worked.

I wasn't able to look at your conversions.. the site gave me an error message or something.

Here's the kuo toas. Feel free to tweak away:

Kuo Toa Guard level 5 minion XP 50
INIT +6 HP 1 SPD 6 SWIM 6 Darkvision
AC 20 FORT 17 REF 18 WILL 17
(base)Spear: + 11 vs. AC 5 damage
Slick Maneuver: A Kuo Toa adjacent to the target shifts to another square adjacent to the enemy
Light Armor, Light Shield, Spear
Alignment: Evil Language: Deep Speech Perception +4

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Kuo Toa Marauder level 5 Skirmisher XP 200
INIT +6
HP 63 BLOODIED: 31 SPD 6 SWIM 6 Darkvision
AC 19 FORT 17 REF 18 WILL 16
(base) Skewering Spear: + 10 vs. AC (+12 when bloodied) d6+4 damage, ongoing 5 (save ends)
(immediate reaction) Sticky shield: *when missed by a melee attack* +8 vs. REF, target's weapon is stuck on kuo toa's shield. (I ruled that reaching to grab it is a minor action and provokes an opportunity attack)
(minor, when bloodied) Quick Step: Shift one square
Slick Maneuver: A Kuo Toa adjacent to the target shifts to another square adjacent to the enemy
Light Armor, Slime-covered Shield, Spear
Alignment: Evil Language: Deep Speech Perception +4

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Kuo Toa Harpooner level 5 Soldier XP 200
INIT +7
HP 65 BLOODIED: 32 SPD 6 SWIM 6 Darkvision
AC 21 FORT 18 REF 18 WILL 15
(base) Harpoon: + 11 vs. AC d6+4 damage, target grabbed + takes ongoing 5. While grabbing an opponent, harpooner cannot use the harpoon on other targets.
(base ranged) Reeling Harpoon: Ranged 5/10 +11 vs. ACd6+4, Secondary Attack +9 vs. FORT d6+4 damage and pull target 3 squares
(immediate reaction) Sticky shield: *when missed by a melee attack* +8 vs. REF, target's weapon is stuck on kuo toa's shield.
(minor, when bloodied) Quick Step: Shift one square
Slick Maneuver: A Kuo Toa adjacent to the target shifts to another square adjacent to the enemy
Light Armor, Slime-covered Shield, 4 harpoons
Alignment: Evil Language: Deep Speech Perception +4

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Kuo Toa Monitor level 5 Skirmisher XP 200
INIT +7
HP 60 BLOODIED: 30 SPD 6 SWIM 6 Darkvision
AC 19 FORT 17 REF 18 WILL 16
(base) Slam: +10 vs. AC 2d10 +4 damage
(base ranged) Crossbow: Ranged 15/30 +10 vs. AC d8 +5
(at will)Leap Kick: Shift two squares and make a slam attack
(Encounter, melee) Lightning Fist: +8 vs. REF 3d8 +4 lightning damage and the target is stunned (save ends)
(minor, when bloodied) Quick Step: Shift one square
Slick Maneuver: A Kuo Toa adjacent to the target shifts to another square adjacent to the enemy
Light Armor, Crossbow, 20 bolts
Alignment: Evil Language: Deep Speech Perception +4

--

Kuo Toa Whip level 5 Controller XP 200
INIT +7
HP 68 BLOODIED: 34 SPD 6 SWIM 6 Darkvision
AC 19 FORT 17 REF 17 WILL 17
(base) Pincer Staff: Reach 2 +10 vs. AC d6+4 and target is grabbed by the staff. the Kuo Toa can sustain this grab as a minor action and automatically deal d8 damage to the target. Victim can escape using the normal 4e escape rules.
(base ranged) Crossbow: Ranged 15/30 +10 vs. AC d8 +5
(at will) Lightning Strike: Ranged 10 +9 vs. REFd6+4, target blinded until the end of Whip's next turn
(Encounter) Slime Vortex: Area Burst 4 within 20 targets enemies +9 vs. FORT, d6+4 damagetarget takes -2 to hit(save ends) and slides 3 squares and falls prone(!)
Miss: 1/2 damage, target slides 1 square
(minor, when bloodied) Quick Step: Shift one square
Slick Maneuver: A Kuo Toa adjacent to the target shifts to another square adjacent to the enemy
Pincer Staff
Alignment: Evil Language: Deep Speech Perception +4

---

My players immediately wanted to use the sticky shields and harpoons to do the same things the Kuo Toas did. I ruled that they'd have to train and spend feats to use them. But that might be a fun option to consider for your group. I'm still not sure if I made the right call there. I was just afraid things would get out of hand - the shields basically introduce disarming an opponent to 4e.

As for the Mummy, I just used the mummy and flameskull out of the 4e MM. It wasn't very effective.

As far as the wraith in the pit trap room, I didn't bother with it. One wraith is not going to do much, even if a PC does fall in the pit. You could easily use a bunch of wraiths, but I found that we had gotten our money's worth out of this dungeon as it was, and the wraith just felt like it would slow things down.

What I ended up doing with the umber hulk was to make him 4 levels higher then the party, and to position the hulk closer to the building with the baby in it. My party does a lot of movement-hampering attacks, so I decided if I wanted to do the "baby drop" (and I did, it was great) I'd have to guarantee that the hulk could do that.

The hulk's confusion utterly dominated my group. It sent them all scrambling. I was not concerned about a TPK, because I knew the magical threats agency could drop on in any old time to make a save.

The Cryohydra will be tricky. I ended up re-scaling a normal hydra and adding an acid breath from another hydra creature (don't have my books handy). A warning: Sleep will wreak havoc on solo monsters. My party dropped the hydra with sleep and hacked it to bits with a bunch of coup de gras.

I would highly highly recommend taking the time to scale the kuo toas. You'll have to take their powers and figure out the appropriate plusses, as scaling them down from their MM levels doesn't work out right at all. I ended up with kuo toas who had a decent plus to hit, but did low damage. It worked out perfectly. Especially with their sticky shields that snatch weapons away on a miss.

The temple inside Bhal Hamatugn can be done in many different ways. 4E designers seem to love to throw 2-3 encounters right in a row with no rest, and you could do that in this room. I decided against using the erinyes (re-flavoring it to fit my campaign) and had the statue feeding the whips' lightning bolts, giving them more than normal damage. You might want to create a skill challenge that allows the heroes to de-power the statue.

I would also suggest that you use whatever opportunity to have the heroes get attacked when they're boating across the lake. My players had to leave bhal hamatugn and come back, and they were utterly petrified of the black dragon attacking them while they were on the boat. I ended up having a bunch of kuo toas lurking in the lake, and they tipped the party's boat and we had an underwater combat. Underwater combat in 4e is LETHAL. But... fun!

I messed up the mummy and wraith encounter. What I did was use a mummy and a flameskull. I allowed my thief to sneak down the hall, get off a sneak attack, and then run away, leading the monsters around the corner where the PCs were waiting to open fire. The thief shouldn't have been able to sneak as close as he did, because the mummy had a direct line of sight to him. Mummy Rot did strike though, and man that is no joke.

If you're interested, I can post my kuo toas. They're one of the few conversions I've been totally happy with.

I have found a decent way to deal with the sleep spell. The whole group is aware that the spell is "broken". But I have a deal with them.. any time they use it, they can expect an opponent to use it against them in a future encounter.

So it works out OK. The Oni's sleep-like ability (hallucinatory breath I think it is called) very nearly led to a TPK. Everyone but one PC fell unconscious.

One interesting thing about 4e is just how deadly a cloud of darkness is. I made Dhorlot the black dragon (from Zenith Trajectory) right out of the MM - 4th level solo. The party was 6th level. They had to run from him.

They ended up fighting him in a cramped hallway (long story) and he dropped the cloud of darkness. They could blindly swing at him with a -5 to hit, and that's it. They didn't have line of sight due to the cloud.

The last couple weeks a few people couldn't make it. But when everyone can make it, they plan on going back to Bhal Hamatugn to kill Dhorlot, even though they've already brought back Zenith and finished the actual quest!

I've been running some side adventures for the players who could make it. We did one where they killed a Jester (I made Ziguarz the goblin alchemist from a recent Dragon Magazine article a Jester) and now the party thief is the 5th Jester, with his ally Jil the 4th.

And I ran one where the party wizard discovered he was a long lost descendant of Surabar Spellmason.

Shackled City is a fun campaign. The storyline could have been better - and there is the problem of the heroes never really interacting with the villains (all 2 billion of them), but as a DM you can do a lot with what they give you.

There is an actual chance that my party may go all the way to 30th level in the path. They are leveling according to the 4e book (a bit fast IMO, but whatever). They just hit 7th level, and we're only at the end of the 3rd adventure out of 11 (I'm using magazines, not the hardcover).

In all seriousness, in my campaign, instead of stairs leading out of the room, it will be a ramp leading to a wide, arched doorway. I'll make Dhorlot's room bigger, and have a secret tunnel at the rear that leads out of the complex, and under the lake.

And not so seriously, I think I'll make it a Dragon Bachelor Pad.

I'll optionally add a plush heart-shaped bed with a switch that causes the bed to slowly spin & vibrate. Mirrors on the roof and a magic mouth that occasionally fires up with some Barry White music.

What is Kua-Toan for "Can't get enough of your love, Babe" and "This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you, Baby."

;)

That's pretty hilarious haha. When I read this adventure, I had Dhorlot in my head as a minor encounter. The PCs are higher level than him. But things took an unexpected turn when the PCs hacked up piles of kuo-toans, set off an alert, and then tried to take a 6 hour rest in the armory.

Ultimately, the kuo toans found out where the PCs were, and Dhorlot decided to investigate. He went to the armory and tried to make them a deal - he'd let them go if they gave him their female. Their female is the party paladin.

The PCs tried to fight him, but the 4E cloud of darkness is pure death in a cramped hallway. The PCs had to run.

Next session, they came back to the temple focusing on dealing with Dhorlot. But they ended up finding and killing Zenith instead. I thought to myself "well good, the dragon can just stay there. He was giving them trouble". But the players made it very clear to me that after they handed Zenith over to Gortio that they were going back for Dhorlot!

At the beginning of that session, they had rested back in Gottrod's cave lair (not too far from the Pit of Seven Jaws). I had thrown an encounter at them where they found a small orc camp. The male orcs of the camp attacked and the PCs killed them. Then they saw the females. I tried to portray the orc females as just horrible, evil women. Smacking their spawn, even evidence of them eating one of their own children.

My idea was that they could offer these orc women to Dhorlot for safe passage. But they either didn't realize that was a possibility, or more likely, they were not interested. They want to kill the Dragon-Father.

I may not put in a rotating heart-shaped bed, but I should probably make some kind of "passion area" where Dhorlot takes his fish-maidens.