Intrepid's page

You guys are awesome... thanks loads!

We are continuing SCAP in its original and ignoring 4e. My group is just finishing the seige of Redgorge (used the first half of nib's, then they ran off to Occipitus, then used the second half of delvesdeep's - d'oh!). I hope they go back to Cauldron and we get through the Cathedral of Wee Jas soon. I looked at all the Cagewrights again this week and realized that even with the contributed foreshadowing mods, cutting back the CAgewrights, and mods of my own, fully half of these people will evoke "who the hell is THAT?" responses when they meet the party and declare their enmity. I'm working on yet more foreshadowing (sigh).

Treppa teh Hutt

Instead of using a dream realm, I'm planning on having these scenes occur on Occipitus itself, where the realm is reenacting each of the stages of Adimarchus' descent in response to his release and to Nidrama's attempts to bring him back to sanity in Skullrot. She will find it impossible to help him then realize it has to do with the link between him and Occipitus. The PC's will need to go there and deal with the mad, evil influence of the realm "feeding back" into Adimarchus.

I'm planning a sacrifice as well, but would prefer it be more personal, not Adimarchus. My PC's did not trigger the "self-sacrifice" feature of the plasm geyser, so I may be able to use that little surprise. One PC (with the smoking eye template) is an air elemental savant, another has an item forged in Celestia. The two connections to the other planes, in conjunction with celestial effort, can wrench Occipitus off its unholy/fire plasm access and make it a pocket plane anchored between the celestial and elemental, but not part of either. The celelstials will use it as a "nice" prison/safehouse for Adimarchus, but Nidrama will stay with him and there is the hope of future redemption if he can regain his sanity completely. The PC with the smoking eye template will need to remain and rule the plane, and the rest of the PC's will go epic to deal with the aftermath on the material plane.

Maybe an escapade gaining good will of the heroes, or finding some leverage? The rogue LL rogues need to find out what would get them either on the good side of the party or what would motivate them just in case the heroes wouldn't particularly WANT to take on a rampaging beholder. Maybe they get something the party needs or get the goods on something one PC would rather keep secret.

Early in my game, Jil gained the good will of the party by capturing the one escaped were-rat from Orak's bathhouse and leaving it sliced and diced in a bag behind a PC's aunt's house as a "gift" to the highest CHA PC. He promptly fell for her, though the rest of the party thought it a very odd and disgusting present. It was gross, but memorable.

I ran DD's DB several months ago, but it lives on in tales and jokes. In fact, it came up just last session, when the party asked our half-orc barbarian if he still had the succubus costume he commissioned for the ball (the rental place didn't WANT him to return it). His reply? "What do you think's under my armor?"

It was a memorable event and still haunts the party to this day. In a good way. Thanks, DD!

Even if you only have two players, they could each run two characters. Alternatively, you could have them gain cohorts/followers as soon as possible, which is, yeah, effectively running multiple characters. I think this would be a tough path with only two, especially in the later chapters (as somebody already said).

Two summoning-type characters might be workable if they each summon as their first combat action.

If you are determined to go with only two player characters, I'd be sure to give them sufficient treasure to let 'em load up on goodies, or maybe even change the treasure to be sure they get items they will need in future chapters to bolster their weaknesses. If they sell 'em, too bad, you've done your part!

"Two-faced" is a figure of speech meaning he is tricky and dishonest. It's an idiom and doesn't have anything to do with his physical appearance. He shows a friendly face to the PC's while he needs them, then he turns against them when it suits him, showing his "other face."

Hope this helps.

Treppa

Check out Mordenkainen's Disjunction (PH, Spells). It can destroy artifacts and the spell description discusses some of the hazards of doing said destruction. Disintigration specifically does not destroy artifacts, at least not for long.

Other artifacts have specific methods of destruction appropriate for their creation and provenance. Perhaps you could come up with something that would allow the entire soul pillar complex to be destroyed via some way cool means, maybe using the spell weaver discs or another artifact of theirs. Like putting a critical mass of uranium together.

Good luck with it.

Just had our second and third character deaths in the assassin attack at the beginning of Chapter 7. One had the Smoking Eye template and is now lying in state in the Skull, leading to much hair-tearing and teeth-gnashing on the part of the remaining party members.

I kept the invisible mage out of the range of the silence spell (there are two entrances and plenty of room in the tavern) so that he could cast his level 4/5 spells instead of being restricted to 3 and below by the lesser rod of silent spell. That and a couple of crits by Zaenna and Tulrak were pretty harsh on the party's spellcasters.

If the party had been in street clothes for this encounter, it could have been a TPK. If I had studied Zaenna's spell list more carefully, I would have given her more cures, and that also could have been a disaster.

Reviving an old thread as we're approaching this point....

OK, assassins just hit my party at the Tipped Tankard. Not too much farther down the road, Kravichak pops in to a meeting and tries to kill everyone. This all in addition to the bad guys that repeatedly pop up without notice, unless you're using Delvesdeep's nice BBEG trimming/foreshadowning work.

Did anybody run the encounter with Kravichak as written? Did it seem OK, or really hokey? Is it necessary to run it? Just curious as to how it went for other people. Seems kinda "deux ex" to me.

Thanks!

My party gave this encounter an interesting twist. Having believed Kaurophon's sob story that he just "wanted a place to call home," the party's sorc won initiative and immediately chucked her familiar right into the pillar of fire. I initially thought that wouldn't work, but upon three seconds reflection (and realizing that she'd just lost a bunch of xp) decided that a familiar was indeed an ally and counted for the sacrifice. So as her poor toad Sylvester became cinders, she obtained the template (and lost XP and HP). She then tried tell Kaurophon that he could call Occipitus home and he, naturally, tried to telekinese the halflings into the flames in gratitude.

I am using the improved template posted on RPGenius and like it. It led to some hilarity as the sorc decided to teleport to the Cathedral of Feathers without telling the rest of the party what she was doing, then realized that she didn't have the power to teleport once she was outside the Skull. Heh heh ... I had been waiting for her to do that. Some days, it's like shooting fish in a barrel.

Now they have taken the sorceror Kennock Brage prisoner and are going to interrogate him. Do you think he'll talk? Does this call for beefing up the encounters in the cathedral? I think it does.

I believe the book has the assassins running for the Cathedral of Wee Jas if they are bested and chased. From that, I'd think they have no particular loyalty to the church and Kennock would probably sing like a canary if he thought it would save his life.

Don't forget Vhalantru's minion, Gortio the doppleganger. I've had him impersonate several people to give false reports of their whereabouts. You may be able to have Gortion impersonate the Mayor, just returned from an illness/family visit/religious retreat/abduction and derail the coup that way.

Olodrin,

I asked a couple of my players if they felt they needed downtime before being hijacked to Occipitus. They do not feel like they are disadvantaged at all by missing out on R&R. They do feel rushed and off-balance, which is exactly how I want them to feel, since sinister forces are in fact attempting to distract and confuse them. So it works!

Treppa (again)

Nib,

Thanks so much for this adventure sketch. It's a great idea and I think I'll adapt it for my campaign. Please drop a note here when you post to rpgenius! We are midway through TotSE now and this would be a nice backstory for Orbius/Vhalantru as well as giving Navalant something to do before he is so ignomimiously eaten. Awesome.

Treppa

If you used point buy in your SCAP, how many points did you give the players to spend?

I gave a 32-point buy (damn near cut it back when one player grumbled about it being too low!) and full HP. In retrospect, I think it was too much. I have had to adjust monster HP to 3/4 HD instead of 1/2 in order to give them any sort of challenge.

OTOH, I did want the characters to survive so we could have good continuity, and it certainly worked. So I guess it depends on how you want your game to flow, how you will handle death/resurrection, and how well (or badly) your players will handle their character's death.

I am just about to the point where I will run the Ball, however I had some concerns once I saw how my players have been spending their Skill Points. Do you think this will run smoothly with people who have few to none of the relavant skills?

Sean Mahoney

Even without mad skills, there are excellent RP opportunities at the ball. My group had a couple of players who seem to be on the fringes of most dungeons (rogue and bard) end up shining at the Ball, and gaining some social status. But even the hack and slashers had fun.

Be sure to have your NPC's prepped to deal with your players NOT doing well socially and let them handle the consequences. My guys didn't win a single formal honor (besides the bard beating Annah), but they still had a lot of fun.

* The bard won the trophy and much reknown, as well as a commission. He has since left the party to start a music hall. He and Annah were pretty even skill-wise, but I rolled under 5 for her every time. Oh well.

* The halfling rogue (who played Nabthataron) did only moderately well in the dance, but made himself more recognizable. As a result, his business has prospered and he is moving in higher circles, just as he had hoped.

* The half-orc barbarian, after a "trip" by Cora ripped his succubus costume (don't ask, just don't ask), ended up winning one and only one opposed dance check. He used the opportunity to toss Cora bodily into the air in a spin, catch her, and set her on her feet, all in perfect time. She no longer messes with him.

* The elven sorc won all her dance checks against Zachary Aslaxin, was a perfect lady and didn't try anything nasty, and rolled a 20 on a hidden diplomacy check. Zachary was smitten, which has had some interesting consequences during the Seige of Redgorge.

* The rest of the party got to meet the various nobility, particularly Vhalantru, to whom they took an instant dislike.

Be sure to give them a couple of weeks to take advantage of lessons. My group was chivvied into taking them by the elven sorc and ended up glad they did. "Opposed dance checks" tickled them no end. Go for it. Everyone gets lucky occasionally!

That's odd. I am running the adventure from the original magazine publication, and it clearly states that the PCs should be 6th level when they start the adventure, and 8th level by the time they complete it.

It's indeed strange that the level was omitted from that chapter. The black sidebar at the beginning of Demonskar wants the PC's at L8, but there's nothing whatsoever about starting or ending level in Zenith proper.

I had them start at L6 and level up to L7 prior to Bhal-Hamatugn. It worked fine. It isn't easy, and my only char death was in B-H, but it's doable for careful and experienced PC's.

My party named the guy at the bottom of the pit "Friz'zd." Since he was, ya know...

And they were also happy to find him dead.

I also do not reveal the chapter names. However, I do name each of the sessions on our group's Yahoo calendar. The names are based on what the party already knows is going on, or what they think will happen next - heh heh. I'll generally use the chapter name as a session name late in the game, when it won't reveal anything.

Building on dodo's post, another possibility is that the PC's assist the guard in capturing Maavu, leaving Maavu in the pokey at the mercy of Vhalantru. You may want to plan for that contingency. I had him summarily sentenced to death for starting the deadly riot, then Vhalantru staged a "breakout" of Maavu by an evil beholder and he now has a Maavu statue hidden in his secret trophy hall. But they may also be convinced to spring him, leading to a jailbreak scene. That chapter plays out OK as is without worrying about Maavu in jail, but it's a plot contingency to plan for.

When the PC's meet Kaurophon at the beginning of the Test of the Smoking Eye, he states that he does not know why he was unable to pass the test. When they reach the Cathedral of Feathers, he can demonstrate that he is unable to enter the Antechamber, but he doesn't know why. But when you meet Saureya, the deva says he told Kaurophon why he couldn't get into the Antechamber - he's from the lower planes and is prevented from doing so. This makes Kaurophon look like a liar - which he is, but not about that particular thing. Pick one and stick with it, or your players may make more of it than it's worth.

How is there relationship with Lord V.? ...

Sounds like your game is going along beautifully

Delvesdeep

My crew HATES Vhalantru, and have hated him from the get-go! My LG player thinks it's incredibly wrong for a stinking drunk to be in charge of the treasury. So much for my ability to RP an amiable drunk.

I had a brainstorm this morning - I ran the seige before Occipitus, so have been out of whack with your stats so far because we're level 9. I think Kaurophon (who has already been set up with the party) will hijack them on the way back to Cauldron and claim his due, taking them to the Abyss. That will run them through the test of the smoking eye and should get them on the right level for the rest of your Seige. The Seige can settle down for a while as the Cauldron troops rebuild their destroyed seige engines with what tools they have left.

Then when they get back, the mayor will have disappeared, the Blue Duke will be ready to roll again, etc. If they don't want to return to Redgorge, Jenya can certainly use the Star of Justice to craft the divination and set them on their way, or Shensen can wire the Striders about the demon attack. I'd sure like to get them there before the initial vrock invasion, because it's pretty spectacular.

The game is going beautifully, thanks! I'm not finding the lack of maps for your adventures to be any problem at all. I can ad hoc them at the proper size to fit on my mat, which most of the published dungeons don't.

Thanks for the help.

Hmmm...

My party repelled the initial attack, finding Skellrang dead inside the passwall tunnel afterward, which caused much fun consternation. That alone was a stroke of genius. Haven't seen them that riled in a bit.

One has a (formerly) secret romantic relationship with Zachary Aslaxin, who saw her on the wall and flew down to see what was going on. He then met with the group privately, was convinced something was rotten in Cauldron, and convinced the surviving Stormblades to stop helping the army.

Unfortunately, my party has decided that the entire Redgorge thing is a diversion to get troops out of Cauldron and is now on the road back to Cauldron with the Stormblades, to deliver Todd's body and try to have one of their own become the next guard captain. They also imagine that they are saving Cauldron from some yet-unguessed threat.

They have left the human guard under Skylar Krewis and the half-orc army under the Blue Duke behind. I never got a chance for them to spy on the battle plans, so they have no idea the demon army is coming.

With seven L9 chars on the road to Cauldron, I could have a fun EL 15 encounter, but it would need to make sense in the context of the seige. Also, I need to hook them back to Redgorge. Shensen has remained there to monitor things for the Striders, so she can always send a telepathic message to the Striders to send help, but they may be too late in returning to do any good.

Any ideas would be appreciated! I can always write off Redgorge as lost to the demon army because they did not get enough VP, but I hate to do that.

I apologize for the confusion; I pulled the rpgenius version and could not tell it was nib's, thought it was Delvesdeep's. I have both copies clearly denoted now and will keep commentary to Delves' original work, though mine is modified for before Occipitus.

My players love Delvesdeep's mods. They are by far the most popular of the AP and they seem to bring the world to life in a way that much of the hardcopy AP did not. Will keep you posted on feedback for Redgorge.

Thanks so much, DD.

Treppa

Two things I need assistance with here are -

1. I have no maps draw up for this mini-adventure
2. I am not happy with the method the giants use to get the blocks into the city. I did not wish to use the 'old tunnel under the town' clique. Any one have any ideas?

I scoured the Hall of Carvings description pretty carefully to write an exposition and found that the Foreman opens the passage by "singing" some of the paving stones into insubstantiality - so insubstantial are they that they float to the ceiling. I placed a hanging rope/plank footbridge across the river to the south for the party to use to get to the east side of the river. I'm having the Foreman meet them at the bridge and use his mysterious earth power spells to sing them into insubstantiality and float them across the footbridge. Nobody would expect large stones to be coming into town via a flimsy hanging footbridge! Or use another similar route with that same hook.

I guess it would be a lot more exciting if he had a chance to miss a check midway across the bridge and have the rock suddenly become substantial.... nah.

Hi, Delvesdeep,

Your big adversaries in the writeup (Stormblades, etc.) are level 13 and on up (Tunnel Terror at CR15). My party is currently at level 9, so these baddies are really tough for them. I think we are both running this in the same spot, after rescuing Tercival from the Demonskar and prior to the Occipitus adventure. Is your party level 13 at this time, or do you deliberately have the Stormblades ahead of the party?

Thanks,
Treppa

DD -

Nib made it clear that his was based on yours, never fear! I'm using mostly yours with a couple of nib's tossed in, but will keep posts here to what is in your version.

I'm using your victory points divided by 100. I'm even simpler than you! :-) I have a definite timeline; VP's will work better.

I went midway between the two timeframes and gave them two days to prep before the Cauldron army's Ultimatum and another two days before the demon army arrives. Demon army activities will run from there. I figure 7 days total.

My party has zero craft(seige weapon) or knowledge9engineering) skill, so preparing the defenses will have to be changed - that's why I added nib's arms stealing. I also added an event for scouting. If they scout the entire area, they have a shot at spotting the demon army early. I will give them a VP for each day in advance they find it because it will give the Chisel a chance to "prepare the basalt bastions" for the army, and also more time to find Sundabar's cache and recruit the Cauldron army as an aid.

Saturday, I plan to give them results of scouting information and run Cauldron army's arrival and Ultimatum, town defences (not much we can do there), and hopefully counterattack to steal the battle plans and destroy seige engines. If it's a long session, I'll do Captain's betrayal as well, then advance the demonic army and do the infernal heralds. Will let you know how it goes.

Treppa

Sounds great Intrepid!

I'm going to use the Purple Worm as an alternative challenge to the Tunnel Terror ..
I also like the idea of stealing the enemy armies weapons but won't most of them be held by the troops already?

Delvesdeep

The Tunnel Terror at CR15 was just too tough for my level 9 party. The Purple Worm worked really well and its sheer size and ferocity scared the bejeezus outta 'em.

I'm going to try using nib's writeup(on rpgenius, natch!) of the enemy camp raid for stealing weapons. My gang REALLY seems to like the idea of raiding the camp via stealth or invisibility, so we'll give it a shot. Nib has contingencies for PC capture in this event. The tools should be even more fun, seeing as how they are in a locked, guarded hut in the center of a lit compound!

Of course, this is the same group that came up with Operation Secretariat: hanging in special harnesses from a flying, invisible, bull-strengthed paladin's mount to rescue prisoners from a walled city, so I have faith they will figure out something!

I ran the beginning of the seige last night.

We started with them teleporting into the Redgorge defense planning meeting (Event one). I had the party discuss defense options so that I can plan for what they intend to do. When they volunteered spare arms for the local militia, the bailiff signed in frustration and indicated that, thogh appreciated, it was not nearly enough to arm the refugees he has drafted into an ad hoc defense force. The party discussed how they couldn't make weapons (no Craft (Weapons) skills), then Mikimax grinned and said, "It seems to me we have a convenient delivery of weapons heading straight for our doorstep!" They LOVED that and immediately started planning to hijack the weapon wagons. They opted to scout first, so I'll have the druid do flyovers and report on the camp configuration so they can run the planned seige weapon destruction and arms acquisition events. They also thought of stealing all the engineer's tools to prevent any more seige engine creation - I like that and can't wait to see what they can pull off.

They had significant reluctance, as Cauldronites, to lifting a hand against Cauldron, at least openly. I had prepared for this with an exposition of the Hall of Carvings and the Chisel's purpose in defending against demons (it's long, but I could post if anyone is interested). The Foreman offered the acquisition of the stone needed foro golem construction as a task they could perform to help Redgorge without directly acting against Cauldron. Since they had just fought a demon (Nab's general, the hezrou), they were keenly interested in preserving the Chisel!

They sent the druid off to Cauldron to shop and make contacts there and to scout on her way back, then the main group went off to my Event Five, Stone Smugglers. I used nib's purple worm instead of DD's tunnel terror and filled one room with puny CR1/CR3 shriekers and violet fungi. At level 9, these CR1/CR3 guys totally freaked 'em out. They metagamed and thought for sure I had something up my sleeve. Nah - just color. Fortunatley, they got through the purple worm. I had it set up that the stone giant chief and his two warriors were inside, and they immediately (no promptimg) thought to cut it open. They did all the right things and have acquired the blocks and 10 giant warriors for Redgorge - huzzah!

It was a big hit. Everyone seemed to have fun. The worm is scary, but has a low AC, no SR, no DR, etc, so everyone got a chance to deal damage. I only have a hand-drawn map of the giant mines and I suck at maps, but I could scan and post it. It is a small dungeon because of the giant's RP up front and because we only have about three hours for sessions right now, so I kept it short.

Their consternation over CR1 shriekers was really amusing....

Trep

As always, thanks to Chef's Slaad, Delvesdeep, and others for their boffo work on these mods. It really adds a lot to this adventure path.

Treppa.

Geez, how could I omit nib? Sorry, dude!

One thing you may have missed is that Nab carried a "shield" ring. Its a ring but he has to wield it like a shiled. This ups his AC but prevents him from useing one of his weaker claws.

Thanks for responding. I added in the +2 from shield ring, but still only came up with 31, not 32. I have noticed that the posting of the Battle of Redgorge only has him at 31, also. Didn't realize the shield ring took out one claw attack though, thanks.

Is Nab's AC correct?

We just finished this encounter, and it was a fiasco at AC32. I cannot see how they get AC 32 for Nab; the best I can come up with is AC 31. It may not sound like much of a difference, but my party had at least four hits at AC31 that didn't hit as written, and the encounter was nothing but frustrating for everyone involved, including myself running the thing. Dedekind, did you use Nab as written, or did you come up with a different AC?

Also, why would Nab leave the party alive? If he does, they can take Alek's body back with them and (potentially) have Alek raised. The whole thing about "Nab's not interested in the party" seems totally out of character for a big, bad demon lord. He'd wipe them out because he doesn't want anybody claiming Alek had withdrawn his challenge.

Did anybody else's party try to have Alek raised? What did you do - rule that he wouldn't return because of his shame/anger?

Hey, also, what's the deal with him not being dismissable? Where is the mechanism of the "exile" that doesn't allow him to leave this plane?

This incident has turned the game pretty ugly for my group. We were level 9 and not geared for evil outsiders. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I also have a half-orc player I'm trying to tie more closely to Cauldron (he was raised in the Lantern St. Orphanarium, so his background is mine to play with, mwah-ha). One thing I noticed last night is that the head cleric of the Temple of Lordly Might is a half-orc. That temple is downplayed in the adventure, but you may be able to make a connection there, and (per the book) it is as prominent as the temple of St. Cuthbert. I haven't had time yet to work on the tie in; this is just an observation. Good luck.

Remember too, grappled parties have options besides attempting to break a grapple. If somebody who was almost dead managed to successfully grapple me, I'd draw a knife and attack, or simply punch. Modified attacks are allowed in grapple. Kazmo might have been able to finish off the rogue.

I felt the same thing that you did on the initial read-through, but decided to go ahead with the encounter anyway, as written. It has some weak plot points, sure, but it gives the party a clue that something big is going on.

It was well worth it to see the look on my party's faces. It may have had something to do with the fact that I don't have a beholder mini, so made one out of a Jack-in-the-Box antenna ball, wire, and beads. Eh, you do what you have to.

I made it VERY short, didn't waste time on conversation, and Thirifane rolled high init on the first combat round and got 'em out of there before any conflict ensued. No fudging required, thank Cuthbert.