Fumblemunky's page

I just have a few questions before I buy this. It's an amazing value per token and I don't believe it's overvalued, but it's a very large investment so I want to make sure I'm going to end up getting my money somewhere.

I use a custom token ring of my own creation for curse of the crimson throne. Is there any way to access the raw art files with a transparent background for use in creating my own tokens, or am I required to use the token ring that comes with this product?

Does this pack include some of the generic human or humanoid enemies that commonly pop up in games such as brigands and bandits and other typical enemy NPCs, or is it purely related to monsters?

If purely related to monsters, is there any idea if there will be a similar product for the NPC stat blocks in the NPC codex or similar types of released book?

Lastly, I have heard that this module is compatible with the d&d 5e system. Does that mean it maps tokens to existing SRD enemies, or is it just the compendium can work with the installed system?

sorry for all the questions it's just that $60 is a large investment and I'm sure I would get my money worth but I need to know what I'm getting into before I spend it.

Arueshalae is a devout Desnan and leading a mythic hero to her cause could go a long way towards her own redemption. Alternately, the Drezen Church (hopefully headed by Sosiel) is multi-faith and though he himself is a Shelynite he is supposed to be played as being knowledgeable of many faiths and skilled at tending to the religious needs of a multitude of people- he could point out that your views are beginning to align with a different goddesses.

I've found one good reason Ileosa should still be a bard in PF Rules:

The Court Bard Archetype.

This adds a whole new dynamic to her final fight wherein the PCs are being constantly addled with debuffs from the huge amount of Court Bards ridiculing, taunting, and harrassing them with words. They might figure out really quickly which Ileosa is the REAL one, but with the stacking debuffs on basically any action they take? It's going to be a hard time to take care of them.

Silence could help them, but Silence only covers so much of the field and tends to shut down spellcasting friendlies just as much as it shuts down spellcasting foes. Combined with how the bard can be a pretty good fighter, they can cast spells while doing a bardic performance, and they can be pretty good fighters?

Fighting a room full of hostile bards makes a lot of sense.

Laori Vaus in my game of Curse of the Crimson Throne combines a Spell-Storing Spiked Chain with "Inflict Serious Wounds" stored in it with the Channeled Smite ability and her innate Destruction Domain abilities. You can get some SICK levels of damage with that, even if it takes a round or so to reload.

She exploded a man's skull with it once. Did more damage than the poor bastard had hit points.

I had a great harrowing moment in Skeletons of Scarwall. I made a statement about 'the two who are one will do battle, and one must be sacrificed', and one of the players latched onto it and assumed it had something to do with Serithiel. Another one assumed it was dealing with someone who had a split personality, and they were all terribly surprised when it turned out to be the mechanic involving the "traitor" (who was less a traitor and more 'opposite side of the coin' in my game) and the "friend"

Like any good Tarot Reading, feel free to work from more than just the strict definition of what the card means. Play up where it is in the alignment spread, what the card looks like, in what order it's played, and all of that. If you put your harrow deck in sleeves to obscure the back (so you don't know which way 'the right side' is), you can even play up whether the card shows up right-side-up or upside-down

Unlike most Tarot Readers, you actually have the gift of foresight. You get to know what's going to come up in the campaign, so you can drop vague hints about it.

Not to mention that your GM might decide to change things on the fly, ESPECIALLY if they know you've been skipping ahead and know exactly what's going to happen at any given time. They might decide to replace Serithiel with a completely different object, as the Crown of Fangs can be destroyed by any object fitting the requirement.

Just go with some sort of connection to Korvosa and have fun with it from there. Good GMs will craft the story itself to fit your characters, so you won't have to worry about too much dissonance. Besides, dissonance can be a GOOD thing if you do it right! You could make an Eagle Knight work as a lone agent trying to promote freedom and democracy and the other Chaotic Good ideals in a land that is utterly lawful neutral/evil. Andoran sends agents into other countries, after all.

Short Version: You're overthinking it. The onus is on the players to make characters who have a tie to the city of Korvosa, but that doesn't really limit you in what kind of character you want and where they ORIGINALLY come from. As long as they consider Korvosa their home and want to fight to protect it, any class or deity will work out fine.

You're overthinking. I've got a Cleric of Torag in my game, and he basically runs the only church to his god in the city. You don't need to worry about popularity, just go ahead and go with Iomedae for the maximum "connection to the story" and just say that you're personally devoted despite the major presence in the city.

Part 2

The week after they dominated Bishop Zev Ravenka so utterly and thoroughly that our Skype call devolved into nothing but laughter, crying, and a funny little limerick about how utterly he was dominated, they headed on to take out the Chain Spirit (the demilich was their fourth and final spirit anchor slain) and end the Curse of Scarwall. The fight is actually rather bland and boring. That over-compensation I mentioned let them basically do what a Ninja and a Rogue flanking a target tend to do even though he was incorporeal, and even when he ripped a spirit chain out of Laori Vaus (who he had been Cha-Draining to try and turn into another anchor), they made short work of him.

Count Andachi appeared and gave his little spiel, and the majority of the curse was lifted. This coincidentally meant that the Bishop's soul was free to go down to Hell where it belonged, but we'll get back to that. On learning that the full curse hadn't been lifted, they headed to the Star Tower (whose entrances are very poorly labelled I might add, I ended up having a secret entrance behind the statue of Zon-Kuthon in the Cathedral room, though what happened next would have happened whether they came in the 'proper' way or not) to try and remove the rest of the curse.

They encountered Ildervork, the Nightwing, who as luck would have it was waiting Six Hundred and Sixty Six years for a new Curate. From the date given as to his arrival to 4709, the year I've been running CotCT in, it was actually 666 years. Fun coincidence.

Laori Vaus and Shadowcount Sial immediately turned on eachother. Both had grown rather useful and close to the party in different ways; Laori was perky and helpful but her damage aura and chain ended up being more hindrance than help in many cases, while Sial stayed on the sidelines and rarely helped, though when he did help he utterly dominated and proved himself arguably the most dangerous person in the room via the Harm spell and other evil cleric spells. The party wasn't willing to just throw one of them under the bus, but neither did any of them want to make the sacrifice and become the Curate.

They were at a loss, and things were quickly about to devolve into blows. At one point they thought to have Asyra be the Curate, but being not-an-idiot she got the heck out of there and plane-shifted back to her home area now that the majority of the curse was over and done with and she could do that. Before Laori and Sial could start throwing chains at each-other, the Cleric got an idea and went back into the Cathedral to gather up the Demilich Dust and hand it to Sial, telling him "I think you know what to do."

Ressurection can revive creatures that have been turned into Undead and destroyed. They'd found large amounts of diamond dust and a rather impressively-sized diamond in the two dragon hoards they found and Kazavon's secret spell-component room. Sial had prepared Ressurection that day because they planned on fighting as many battles as they could and he knew someone might die. I roll with the possibly-old rules that When you bring someone back to life, they get to know the Alignment and Deity of whoever is bringing you back to life, and get the chance to refuse, meaning that the party's Lawful Good Cleric of Torag would have been refused...but the Lawful Evil Cleric of Zon-Kuthon?

I cut to hell for a moment, where the soul of the Bishop gets word that he's being Resurrected. He jumps at the chance to get his revenge, thinking the party was slain and an evil cleric or one of his acolytes was bringing him back from the dead. He gleefully accepts and finds himself naked on the floor of the Star Tower. No holy symbol, no weapons, no armor. He sees the PCs standing outside the tower with Shadowcount Sial finishing the resurrection spell, and before he can so much as ask "What the hell is going on" or start using Wail of the Banshee, Sial shoves him at the Nightwing and runs out the door, slamming it shut behind him.

Ildervork was patient enough to allow them to do whatever they wished as long as someone stayed behind, but now that he's left alone in a room with a perfect candidate to be the Curate? He attacks, leaves him within an inch of his life (the PCs even heard the splatter), and then drags him off to a demiplane of torture in order to be molded (in multiple ways) into the perfect Curate.

This happened in the same in-game day as their original defeat and domination of the Bishop, and the game session directly after it.

They kicked down his door, walked right into his cathedral, cracked him over the head with a warhammer, turned him into an incredibly angry ornamental skull, drew on him, pried out the rubies in his eyes and teeth, spent four minutes hammering him into bonemeal, caused his soul to get absorbed by Scarwall and then sent directly to Hell, brought him BACK from Hell, and damned him to an eternal existence locked away in the Star Tower in a fleshy mortal body after who knows how long being tortured into a perfect Curate of Zon-Kuthon. In the span of one day.

;) So much for being a creature you have to "Handle with Care", huh?

(Spoilers up until the Demilich are fair game, but as I'm linking this to my players, please try not to spoil anything beyond that. Especially the Special Stuff about Serithiel, they're about to find that out next week.)

I've been running a group through Curse of the Crimson Throne for the last year and a half, maybe two years, and they're reaching the end of Skeletons of Scarwall. There was an encounter with Bishop Zev Ravenka, the Demilich, that I think must be shared.

I've been stalking the Paizo messageboards for a few years now hearing about how the demilich has wiped out entire parties in one or two rounds through use of Wail of the Banshee, and I've noticed all of the threads talking about how dangerous he is and how he's been a veritable Player Character Meatgrinder that has chewed up and spit out whole unaware parties. There's even a sidebar in the Skeletons of Scarwall book about how to weaken the demilich so that your party isn't utterly destroyed by him, so I figure this guy is a really tough cookie, right?

I actually overcompensated a little bit in the realm of anti-undead things that they received from my wandering "Varisian" trader Silviu (I'll have to start another thread all about him, that guy is fun), and I even allowed them to spend Harrow Points to end up at 1 HP away from death and stabilized instead of being slain outright, but in the end neither of those things ended up mattering.

Here's the scenario: The player characters (a Dwarven Cleric of Torag, a Half-Elven Swashbuckler, a Shoanti Ninja, a Human Monk, and a Human Shadow-Sorcerer) walk into the cathedral and everyone immediately OOC recognizes that it's a demilich, and IC a few of them make the Knw: Religion checks to know that disturbing the remains is a bad idea. I expected your typical preparations to take place; buffing spells, the Ninja and Swashbuckler flanking to get their sneak attacks off, etc. What I didn't expect was for the Cleric to stride right over to the remains, whip out his warhammer, and crack the skull for 2 damage over the head.

Everyone who isn't the cleric freaks out. They know what he just did, and they think they're toast. Two of the more rules-searchy players know that a Demilich can use Wail of the Banshee, and they're both figuring the party is screwed. Initiative is rolled, the demilich rolls highest and the cleric rolls right after him. Demiliches have to spend one round reforming their various dusty boney-bits into a serious threat, so it gets its one sluggish round off, and that's the only action it ever got to make. On his initiative count the Cleric figured he needed a way to weaken the Demilich and keep it from casting spells at them, so he uses his Protection Domain spell to cast Anti-Magic Field.

This turns the Demilich into a very angry, very shiny, very helpless Skull.

I looked through a Demiliches abilities to see what it could do in an Anti-Magic Field. It can't use spell, so Wail of the Banshee is out. It can't use Su Abilities, so there goes Devour Soul, Bestow Curse, Torpor, and Unholy Grace. Well it could just move out of the anti-magic field, right? Well... it's a Corporeal Undead that doesn't have wings, so that means it's 30 foot Fly speed is magical in nature. It's a Skull, skulls can't fly without magic. So there's that gone. It can't fly, it can't Wail, it can't absorb souls, it can't hurl people across the room, it can't even use its dust as a cloud. The Demilich retains it's Damage Reduction, and due to being in an Anti-Magic Field they can't use spells on it, but the thing has been reduced to a cursing skull that can do nothing but try to bite them if they get their fingers too close.

Initiative ends due to how long an AMF lasts and how utterly the demilich is dominated, and they proceed to draw a moustache and monocle on his skull, pry out his ruby eyes and ruby teeth, and then spend four straight minutes cracking him with a hammer in order to reduce him to a pile of demilich dust whose resurrection ability is...a Su, and he's in Scarwall, where souls are trapped in the building and bad things happen. So he's destroyed and I think that's the end of the matter, they loot his corpse and go about the rest of their merry way.

That isn't where it ends, but I'll make another post for the rest.

You can portray the 'Villain' as a sort of ambiguous thing. If your PCs learn in Shattered Star that so-and-so was acting most unbecoming of herself, when they encounter her in the first AP (in a room with a high level NPC I might add) they'll just see a grief-stricken person with immeasurable weight thrown upon her. When it becomes obvious that the person named as a Villain actually is a Villain, and not just historically blackened or used as a scapegoat, it's too late to stop them in any way but the culmination of the AP and the completion of the story.

You can especially accomplish this by having the Grey Maidens, who make a huge appearance in the second book, treat the supposed-villain in an incredibly positive light and call the "Adventurers" murdered and usurpers who created a story to seize power.

My own group is DOMINATED by the Lawful Alignment, with everyone being either Good or Neutral, so more than a few encounters have been talked through.

I played up Happs Bydon as a rough kind of person who, though being generally bad, is just in it for a comfortable life and a pocket full of coin. The kind of guy who's smart enough to be useful, but dumb enough to only be a good lieutenant. One of the PCs (A Magus) captured him and his bandits during the big fight (one died from a coup de grace spear through the heart, but it was no big loss), and they held a trial. A few Sense Motive checks let them figure out he'd make a useful tool if they can keep a fairly short leash on him and goad or threaten him into helping, and he basically gave them everything they needed to launch an attack on the Thorn River Camp.

Kressle I played up as more of a heartless bandit, given how the module implies she's the worst of the bunch and threatened to chop off Oleg's fingers for fun. The PCs captured her too, and put her through a trial, but she was defiant to the end and ended up dangling off a rope from her own guard tower. Her bandits managed to flee during the fight and scatter, while Happs' have been put to good use as Indentured Servants for Oleg's Trading Post to work off the debt they wracked up from all the theft and vandalism.

The most interesting part is how Happs Bydon became a recurring character, and ended up even being more important than Jhod Kavken (who was mostly ignored due to having three divine caster on the team). He helped out with the kobolds and mites, he was around for the Tuskgutter battle, and though he always demanded a cut of the loot, the PCs kept him just threatened and bribed enough that he began to see being a "Hero" as being a cheaper, easier, and better way to make coin than being a "Bandit."

They've been Kingdom Building for an in-game year now, and Happs Bydon has become their Spymaster. Though he's a little quick to suggest discreet murder, beatings, and knowingly allowed a group of thieves to attack travelers since they left their citizens alone (with the thought process of "Aint my problem unless they rob our guys"), he's shifted from Neutral Evil to True Neutral and is living a fairly sweet life in the city of Alstindelle. Especially when the PCs are away and not keeping an eye on him. :3

Name: Yuen Aldori
Race: Human
Class: Magus 4
Adventure: The Stolen Lands
Encounter: Stag Lord
Catalyst: Triple natural 20s
The Gory Details: Due to support from my players, all of my games have a "super critical" option that results in instant death. If three natural 20s are rolled in a row on the same attack (first being the attack, second being the confirm, third being a special confirm if the last two were nat 20s), the recipient of the attack is slain instantly.

In-game, the battle with the Stag Lord was going rather tense despite how stealthily their initial approach was. Having used potions of invisibility purchased from Bokken, the Barbarian and Oracle of Battle managed to stealth kill one guard, but a failed attacked raised the alarm. Downstairs the Fighter, Magus, and Necromancer Cleric had their hands full with the various lieutenants, owlbear, and the Stag Lord himself.

The Magus was confronting the stag lord in his room, and was getting him closer and closer to pinning him back against the wall, when he unveiled the magic of his helmet for the 2nd time that day and caught her with a flatfoot sneak attack with favored enemy damage. He rolled the to-hit and came up 20. He rolled the confirm, and it was 20 also. He rolled the third die, and it also came up 20. In all the years I've DMed, I've never actually had the triple 20 rule activate, and it activated on a full-health PC.

Needless to say, I could not fudge that. If the boss of the module couldn't use the triple 20 rule on a flatfoot sneak attack at point blank range with favored enemy bonuses, no one would be able to use it. I laid the dice as they rolled, and Yuen Aldori got an arrow through the throat and bled out. The Fighter (and future Baron) avenged her though, and since the Stag Lord's Father had never gotten involved in the fight and they approached him diplomatically, I ruled that he had prepared Reincarnation as a forced plan from his son in case he died, and used it on Yuen.

She came back as a Human, but she changed from being Taldor to being Keleshite, which has caused some interesting things as she tries to convince people she's really a Sword Lord and not just a liar.