I was wondering if anyone had experience and/or suggestions to run Escape from Old Korvosa more as a sandbox.
As far as I can tell, the events in this module are:
1- Vencarlo's and the Assassins
2- Laori
3- The Emperor
4- The Arkonas
My initial thought was to remove Amin from the opening events. Leave instead some clues at Vencarlo's. He collects a lot of art: some Vudrani stuff (which would lead them to the Arkonas) and some weird dark stuff (leading them to Salvatore) and perhaps some other items that could lead them to the Emperor.
The risk is that I miss the encounter with Laori.
I guess the events with the Emperor and the Arkonas can be handle a variety of ways making the later the part of the adventure more sandbox-y. So maybe I am over thinking it.
I'm going to use the angle that Thousand Bones wants to ensure the Sklar-Quah quiet the drums of war.
I do like the idea that Thousand Bones mentions that he met with Neolandus to the PCs before he heads to the Cinderlands. Basically starts foreshadowing the events of EfOK.
In my group, the wizard wanted to open an Alchemy shop during his downtime after EoA. Zellara's shop seemed like the natural place to open this. No one reported Zellara dead and they started to pay for the shop's rent and taxes. The wizard then realized that Majenko has some pretty good Diplomacy. So now, customers are mainly served by Zellara's Major Image or Majenko.
In my group I have a Shoanti cleric from the Moon Clan and I had him interact with Thousand Bones on several occasions. The PC cleric now views Thousand Bones as a spiritual guide/mentor. We just started Seven Days and I started reading some of the later modules. I notice Thousand Bones makes an important appearance in History of Ashes. So I am wondering what is Thousand Bones' timeline because I want to make sure I play this correctly with my Shoanti cleric.
My impression is:
1- PCs first meet Thousand Bones about his grandson Gaekhen
2- Thousand Bones meets with Neolandus sometime during Seven Days but when would this happen roughly?
3- Thousand Bones returns to the Cinderlands because Korvosa is no longer safe? Or does he suspect anything about the Queen?
4- The PCs rescue Neolandus, who then tells them they should seek Thousand Bones.
In my game, Thousand Bones would probably send the Shoanti PC a letter or meet with him before he leaves for the Cinderland. I think this would occur during Seven Days. Any thoughts?
Also, would there be any foreshadowing I could transmit through Thousand Bones during Seven Days?
I ended up having the Aspis leave Eleder first by 2 days after some delay tactics. You basically use the elements of the module to script the story around the Aspis.
(1) I made Umagro a Juju Oracle financed by the Aspis. Instead of dogs threatening the citizens it was zombies.
(2) Even if they managed to save their warehouse from a fire, Umagro left all these Juju dolls in front of the warehouse. These have no magical effect but it freaked out the Mwangi (Zenj) members to leave their expedition.
(3) This is where Nkechi comes in play. They need him because he can convince some of the Mwangi (Bonuwat) in the area to join their expedition. Also as a spiritual leader, he gives the whole expedition a little extra boost in speed (as per the module)
(4) By the time they win over Nkechi and get back on track. The Aspis manage to leave 2 days before the PC's expedition.
(5) Now they can gain this time back in a number of ways. See what your players can devise. There is the Salt Mines from the module (1 day). I approximated that Nkechi gives 1 day for every 10 days of travel. Finally I scripted an opportunity where they could provoke a stampede of Wildebeest and damage the Aspis expedition.
This led to some Aspis reprisal later on. The hatred of the Aspis has endured ever since. They are currently weighing the benefit of crushing the Aspis versus exploring some of the Vaults in module 4.
I know this will come up in my next session. Imagine on one side a group of Good-aligned PCs with a Magic Circle vs Evil active. On the other side the Evil-aligned foes with a Magic Circle vs Good active.
Prior to the encounter, one of the Evil-aligned foes has dominated a creature which now stands within the Magic Circle vs Good. Once the 2 circles overlap does the dominated creature get a save to break his enchantment? Could summoned creature freely roam the intersecting areas?
Someone give me a reason why the party should have a caravan which is trailing behind them.
1. I've read up until half way through the 5th book, and so far I do not see how an extra 10 or 20 people and supplies would be of any use, especially since they won't show up at Tazion until days after the adventure party gets there.
2. The party never goes through a section were a mule load of supplies supplemented by hunting and create food and water spells can't get them though the problem.
3. Realistically, if a caravan of 1st and 2nd level NPCs is several days behind them, one of the other search parties is going to catch up to them and use their intestines to string tennis rackets. It seems like a bad idea to put the baggage train between yourself and the bad guys.
4. How do you keep the caravan behind you informed of where you are going without giving the same info to the opposing teams?
It seems to me that the only point of the caravan is it gets the party to wait around in Eleder for a week while the supplies are gathered and to give them a reason to care about the warehouse fire.
Another question, how much assistance is your faction giving the party? Money? Supplies? Magic items?
A general comment about the whole Adventure Path, I don't think I've every seen a champaign where there was less treasure and magic items per level. Add to that, once past Kalabuto, there is no logical place to add a market where you can buy magic items.
To answer some of your questions, here is what I have used factions for:
1. My PC's faction is about 100-120 people. I knew my players wouldn't want a faction. I explained to them that it would serve as a settlement for them once in Saventh-Yhi. A place where they could quickly sell their loot and buy minor magic items. I have been using Faction Points also and they are cashing these a lot. It is a place to meet friendly NPCs and also engineer betrayal. Finally Saventh-Yhi is much more interesting with the rival factions. It creates useful roll play opportunities.
2. You are right but that's not what your faction is useful for
3. Indeed but that is your PC's job, to protect the faction, the front, the back. Or whatever you throw at them.
4. I let my player's figure it out. There are a plethora of magic items or there are mundane means like horses with messengers. My guys used a Bookplate of Recall.
To your last question, The treasure appears to follow the regular advancement. The Mwangi Jungle is very much isolated and so that is the point of your Camp, it is a settlement where they can sell everything. The isolation continues in the same theme as the adventure of the Shiv where they have to mostly fend for themselves except for their Camp.
... He asked me if he could create an Azlanti wizard for his new character, awakened from a temporal stasis with missing memories. I am going to replace Juliver with him ...
I am preparing something similar to guide my players toward the Ilmurea. A new player joined our grouped. He wanted to play a dwarf wizard, so instead of making him come from the Faction, we decided to have him wake up in Saventh-Yhi with many of his memories wiped and insane for weeks before meeting the rest of the PCs. All he knows for now is that he had been adventuring in the Darklands. So this new player is essentially replacing Juliver as his memories will be restored.
Has anyone covered how to explain discovery point and camp stats in character? My players are not fans of metagamey mini games!
For the Camp Scores, I basically gave them a flow chart. Very metagamey.
For Discovery Points and Mysteries, I explained the mechanic bit by bit. It was more fun. They knew that Discovery points existed because of the Camp score flow chart but not how it worked.
I let them explore first. After they had a day of encounters with the Charau-ka in the Military District. I explained that their Expedition wont go in the area until it is "Secured". Also, they would have to spend a whole day if they wanted to learn anything themselves (Knowledge History).
When they conquered the area, that's when I rolled out more info, like District bonus for the Camp Scores and that the faction that gets to 120 points first gets bragging rights.
My groups stayed for a little under 3 weeks. They were very focused on finding a way off the island. Although the adventure is very sandboxy, I ended up steering the group through the various encounter locations which I think shortened their time on the island.
Even just the last two encounter maps in book one are a bit rediculous in size. What did you guys do? Just draw them out as you go? Print out 8x11 sheets to put together? Spring for huge poster prints?
Any input is apreciated. Thanks!
Over the course of the adventure path, I have tried all sorts of approaches. For the last 2 encounters of book 1, I ended up getting some poster size 1" grid paper. I had to tape a couple of poster sheets together for the last encounter. That last encounter area is huge I drew the entire encounter area on the poster sheets. The guys like it and it worked well although it required a fair amount prep.
For some encounters, I printed on 8x11 and taped everything together. That's OK. Some encounters I drew on a friend's grid mat with dry erasers.
For about a year, we were playing with one of the guys out of town. He would use skype and webcams and such. That's when I started to try to figure how to prepare thing on the computer. I stumbled upon roll20.net and it is the only tool I use now. Roll20.net would have been perfect for Book 1. You could easily import those 2 encounters, adjust the grid to match the software and your done. If all your players are in the same room, you would then display the area on a spare computer or on a TV. We use the latter.
The trouble is when you reach book 3... There are no encounter maps and I had to make most of these using the drawing tools of the software. Some trial and error and I found tiles that were good enough. I found some Ziggurats online and I also used the one in book 3, changed them around made them my own. The guys are really enjoying this new tool. There is no going back. I'm still using only the free version, it does everything I need but I may decide to support these guys because the tools are so useful for us.
Thanks for the replies. You can't get away from the similarities between Craft Wondrous and Forge Ring. Also, I agree Craft Wondrous has the edge over Forge Ring because of the options.
I can see that the biggest benefit is that the powers can be stacked on powerful rings. I do think that in order to uphold the value of Forge Ring you have to prevent Craft Wondrous from making a "Helm of Invisibility" that works exactly like the Ring unless you attach limitations like those found in the Dust of Disappearance.
I read somewhere that the GM should respect each magic item crafting feat's niche. For example, you don't want to allow wands with deflection bonus or a ring with with cure light wounds charges. Doing so would diminish the value of the feat Craft Wands and so on.
So what would be the line between Forge Ring and Craft Wondrous. In particular, what makes Forge Ring desirable given that craft wondrous seems to impede its niche? For example, you can Forge a ring of swimming or you could craft gloves of swimming and climbing. Both are +5 competence bonus.
Perhaps deflection bonuses are unique to Rings. There are the classic rings of invisibility or freedom of movement or sustenance. So, on a case by case basis, I could figure out the powers that should be within Forge Ring's niche.
Are there more general guidelines or does anybody have advice to prevent craft wondrous from overlapping to much on Forge Ring?
"In an area of dim light, a character can see somewhat. Creatures within this area have concealment (20% miss chance in combat) from those without darkvision or the ability to see in darkness. A creature within an area of dim light can make a Stealth check to conceal itself. Areas of dim light include outside at night with a moon in the sky, bright starlight, and the area between 20 and 40 feet from a torch."
I see more clearly now (pun intended).
I re-read the vision and light section. The answer is there in how dim light is defined. It says "a character can see somewhat". There is no range limit within this definition, you just don't see as well.
Limits are implicitly defined depending on the light sources or spells or I could impose limits through a perception check as suggested by Komoda. For perception, there are distance modifiers, unfavourable conditions and terrible conditions that can be used.
Edit: Curious how this would even come up since most parties will have access to dancing lights, light, continual flame at a pretty low level. If they don't have that, a +1 weapon can shed light as if it had a light spell on it as well. Either way, hope my post helps.
First off, thanks everyone for these quick replies.
The reason I started thinking about this is that I was preparing for an upcoming encounter. One tactic, I was thinking was to cast Deeper Darkness at the start of the encounter which has 60 feet radius and drops bright light to dim light. The foes all have darkvision so they'll have an advantage over the mostly human PCs.
Then, I started to wonder, if a PC is at the edge of the area of effect, can he see a foe on the other side (120feet away). Then I thought about a lone human in moonlight could he see 120feet away? Given the answers above, I think so but not very well so I'll stick to the 20% miss chance everywhere.
And yes, I am sure, someone will take out a light source but that will cost them actions.
If a human was in the middle of a large open area with Dim Light cast everywhere, how far would he be able to see?
In normal or bright light, in large open area, I can conceive that he would be able to see for miles. In darkness, the answer is simple: he can't. Is there a rule about how far a human can see in dim light? I'll settle for advice.
Actually, not really a new take. I made a whole new character, but I kept the name. It's the happiest I've ever been with something I made myself, so I'd like to share it all with you guys.
I like the changes you made to Egzimora. You mention the earth elemental crushes a random Vegepygmy. I was wondering if you changed the Vegepygmy tribe in any way? How are they interacting or dealing with this alternate Egzimora?
Thanks Tacticslion for all these great tips. When you wrote about crafting, one thing to remember is that if you craft a wondrous item with all sorts of restrictions (like must be a NG half-elf to use an item) it does not reduce the Cost for crafting, it only reduces the Market price or Sell price.
I think the Aboleth's best offensive spell remains Dominate Monster (DC 23). That's his thing.
His lair of layered illusions is there to give it time to cast them. What is interesting is that the caster can see through all of his Illusory Walls but even if some else manages to succeed a will save (which is a standard action for probing or testing the wall) they still wouldn't see through the illusions. Combined that with a swim of 60', it gives the Aboleth a huge tactical advantage because it can cast through it all and still swim to another location.
The Aboleth would have had years to plan for all sorts of events
Here is a setup:
First let's assume that you have a few minor sea creatures dominated in an encounter area within this illusory lair. Also, you succeeded on a Dominate Monster on one of the PCs.
Then the Aboleth directs his new slave to this encounter area. Once there, the aboleth casts Veil on the sea creatures and the dominated PC. You could change the appearance of the sea creatures into the other remaining PCs and change the appearance of the dominated PC into the aboleth. OR change the sea creatures into copies of the dominated PC and the dominated PC into some fiendish looking creature. OR some other combination. In short you want to add to the confusion and create an encounter between the PCs. Also because it's sounds like a cool encounter.
Once the battle starts you can throw some Hypnotic Pattern into the mix. Or more Dominates.
Also, there is bound to be a PC who is slower underwater then others, Any PC who takes 1 round extra to reach a particular area could get singled out by the Aboleth. One-on-One, the Aboleth should be a worthy opponent. He would have a decent Grapple enough to drag one of the PCs away from the rest.
Like you, I was not entirely sure how to handle the aboleth. I did read another DMs approach which gave me some cool ideas: Tacticslion's Approach .
Spoiler:
Basically, the approach is to layer the encounter behind a series of illusions. First, the spell Illusionary Wall is permanent. The aboleth can cast these well in advance and as the caster can see right through them. The aboleth could shape his lair completely with these walls. To the outsider, his lair would seem like the bottom of the pool. So the aboleth can cast his offensive spells, like Dominate, from behind multiple walls and then with his move action swim behind some other wall in some other location. When the PCs figure out the first wall is an illusion, they cross it only to find a programmed image not noticing that there is a second or third wall.
He also has a reach of 15feet so he can probably attack from behind one wall and move within an illusionnary corridor and easily hide somewhere else entirely with his move action.
He can also hide behind other layers of deception, he can cast "Project Image" to help miss-direct your PCs from figure out where the real threat is.
Finally, like the above link suggests, he can fake an escape all without ever loosing any hp.
This helps him maximize his chance of having him succeed with one of his Dominate.
You can finally mix a few previously Dominated Monsters with Programmed Images within the Illusionary Lair. Remember that Programmed Images are permanent also.
2: When approacthing the city for the first time, how much of the city's native inhabitants is visible/audible for the characters. With so many creatures in the different districts, I find it unlikely that everyone is really quiet. I would guess the charau-ka from the military district can be heard, as well as some of the flying monsters from the mercantile district.
My players are also going to enter Saventh-Yhi in our next session and I wondered about the same thing.
First I thought about how many Azlanti were actually living in Saventh-Yhi back then. Given the size of the place, I thought that there could be around 10,000 to 20,000 people. Today, the total is about 2,000 for all the various tribes. So I think the city would feel somewhat empty. I don't think that the PCs would notice that it is populated with Charau-ka or what not until they meet a patrol.
Although, then I thought about night time. The humans in the Artisan district don't have darkvision (the only tribe that doesn't). They may light up fires at night near the shore for their defences. I thought this could be a way to draw my players to the Radiant Muse. Personnaly, I plan to swap the Serpentfolk tribe with Lizardfolk which also do not have darkvision so the island would be light up at night.
I have a question of my own, about the expedition camps. There is a limit for buying and selling of 2500gp. Did anybody also place a limit on the caster level of magic items (like scrolls) that the PCs can purchase?
A faction camp has a limit of 2500gp but there doesn't seem to be any limit on caster level. Did i miss something?
This could mean that there are a lot of scrolls available. Basically 75% chance of getting any scroll below the camp limit. This implies that each expedition has high level wizards, clerics and druids scribing away.
I'm actually fine suspending logic for this but I was wondering if anyone set a caster level limit.
My group finally finished Racing to Ruin. As a reminder, I decided to use an alternate means to access the Pillars of Light room. A Ritual connected to all of the gods from the Ziggurat. There should be a link in one of the previous posts
This last session started with the PCs exploring the Ziggurat. They rolled well on their religion checks and identified most of the associated gods for each room (they missed the Moon/battle god). They toyed with the idols and one PC got cursed. They then found the gems and some of Issilar's loot and some notes that he left behind. At this point , they figure out that there was a gem associated with each idol and associated with each room. They placed the gems in the idols and a door opened that led them to the Ritual.
In the end, they entered the Pillars of Light room with one of the PCs getting some insanity which led to some tense role play between the players.
Eventually, they activated the Pillars and were able to locate Saventh-Yhi. In my version, the idols didn't give my PCs any special knowledge of how to operate the Pillars. Instead I created within PowerPoint a sketch of the Pillars to the North which I defined as the one that is used to operate the image (the others are used to form the image). This sketch had only a few controls that they could fiddle with. These controls are similar to what you would find in a microscope or stereoscope, they are:
- a Lever to go from Coarse Detail Map(Mwangi Jungle, Bandu Hills, etc) to Fine Detail Map(the city itself)
- A wheel for zooming (in/out) when in Coarse mode and one when in Fine mode.
- A joystick-like rod that you could use to point a beam at a particular spot on the Coarse map.
So when they activated the Pillars, a map of the Mwangi Expanse appears with 2 red dots (one for Tazion and one for Saventh-Yhi). After some trial and error they figured out the function of each of the controls and eventually placed the pointer to Saventh-Yhi and activated the "Fine Detail" mode. This part worked very well and was a nice change of pace.
Now they are in the process of trying to cover some of their tracks and they will soon rejoin their Expedition. The next session will be them entering the City of Seven Spears.
I'm glad the thread is useful. We did manage another session. My group finished the battle with the Charau-ka. It was now time to check out the Ziggurat.
I admit, I am having trouble picturing some of the layout of the Ziggurat. First the structure is described sunken into the soil with the lower tier only partially uncovered. Area X3 is described as a sunken courtyard; there are stairs that presumably lead down into the courtyard. My problem is that if the first tier is only partially visible then the courtyard would have to completely buried. Especially after 10,000 years.
Anyway, as mentioned a few posts above, I wanted to add more Serpentfolk in Tazion. So, I imagined instead that when Issilar arrived in Tazion, they located the sunken courtyard and with the help of the Charau-ka they dug out and cleaned it.
When the PCs arrived, I described the first tier as being half buried in sediment, so the stone doors around the Ziggurat are blocked. They noticed that someone has hacked away at the vegetation around the main stone steps. On the north side, they notice that the courtyard is completely cleaned with big pile of soil and rocks nearby with shovels and picks. Basically, someone has been doing some archaeological work. Eventually they go inside, get surprised by the degenerate serpentfolk and then Issilar enters the battle. The session ended after they defeated the serpentfolk.
So basically, the next session, they will find the gems that Issilar gathered and maybe some notes. They will investigate the idols and eventually activate the Pillars.
On a whole I didn't change much in Tazion. I added the degenerate serpentfolk. I swapped some of the magic items. Mostly cosmetic stuff. The only big thing is the "ritual" to activate the Pillars.
For the Ghost Riverboat idea, I had thought to create an NPC encounter with a neutral Boggard. When the PCs arrive near the shore of the lake of the Mercantile District, they witness a barge that appears to be driving itself. The barge makes the taxi between (1) the residential district near bridge F1B, (2) near the Ziggurat in Mercantile district and (3) to near J1 in Artisan District.
In Azlanti times this was a way for people in the residential district to quickly go to work in the Artisan or Mercantile districts.
This Boggard would be an opportunity for the PCs to meet with someone who could be a local guide (not necessarily reliable). He could tell the PCs that his tribe is looking for the Boggard Oracle. He could inform the PCs of the various denizens in the district (for a price).
I had also planned to add a large wagon/bus that does the taxi between the residential and the temple area.
In our last session, my group explored most of Tazion and are currently battling the Charau-ka in the temple building. It is almost dusk. The charau-ka minions are dropping like flies. Raogru just made his appearance but we had to stop our game. Next round, the charau-ka will set the big tar pit on fire and Raogru will cast Deeper Darkness. This should even the odds.
I do plan to make a campsite tracking sheet for CoSS. I sketched out some of the likely campscores for the factions. I started on a sheet a month ago but I couldn't decide on all the content. Then I realized that my group wouldn't get to Saventh-Yhi until January... Still, I like to prepare things in advance so I'll probably finalize an initial version of the sheet in the next week or so.
My group is about to enter Tazion. I was inspired by others to make some changes to the Ziggurat. See here: DWTempest's Ziggurat. This link leads to a pdf document that is very detailed.
I like the idea of adding a few more serpentfolk and connecting the aqueducts to the Ziggurat. I also like the changes to the idols. That said, instead of the traps and puzzle described for area X2 "Savith's Test", I imagined something more religious. In this ritual, I try to foreshadow some of the items from the later modules: Ziggurat Ritual.
The ritual honors the 4 gods associated with the Ziggurat: Nurgal, Acavna, Desna and the alien gods of the Dark Tapestry. It would have been trivial for Savith and her companions to complete this ritual and enter X11 and then use the pillars of light. The ritual was designed to prevent enemies (mainly serpentfolk and many non-humans) or low-level people from accessing this powerful mapping tool. It may drain some of PC's resources but it wont be lethal.
Also, I customized the ritual for my PCs. Some players should easily pass the first 2 steps. One player is non-human so may end up being afflicted with an insanity.
(...) rolled an additional random encounter of 2d6 gnolls, but I am thinking of disregarding it.
Anyway, I'm really looking for critical feedback or possible trip-ups of pitfalls to watch out for. Your help is greatly appreciated!
A general comment: each encounter is spaced with several days in between. This means that the PCs can throw every resource they have at the encounter. So an encounter like the Ankheg can be pretty mundane if it is the only encounter of the day. So as suggested by other posts, I started combining encounters together. For example, I rolled a random encounter of lions which I combined with the Ankheg. Basically, the PCs were tracking the lions and come across the Ankhegs, eventually the lions join in.
OR I combined a flashflood with some Girallons. So your random gnolls could attack them later one evening after they encounter Anghawe's Tomb for example.
I like the idea of your PCs choosing the route. In my case most factions are choosing the suggested route. This does give the opportunity to create a lot of factional strife. My suggestion would be to add more faction interaction somehow.
As for specific encounters. I spent some time, trying to setup the spirit dancer encounter. Few encounters are diplomatic which means that after a while PCs become suspicious of anything. So I put some effort into making sure they wouldn't attack right away.
Eventually, I cut a few encounters to speed up the game along.
After about a 3 month pause we managed to gather to continue Racing to Ruin. I decided to accelerate the last portion of the trip. By now, they consolidated their lead in the Race and the adventure itself has been going on for quite some time. A boredom factor was setting in. So for the last leg I only had 2 encounters:
(1) The succubus encounter. This went fairly well. I changed the hut and made it into a small 2-story Inn along the river. This made for a strange sight. Nkechi pointed out that the ladies were spirit dancers as they approached. The monk in my group was interested in the offer to connect with his animal spirit. That said, all the players were suspicious of this odd group of women. For a time the Succubus' dominate and suggestion were working well but eventually Protection from Evil and a lot of damage from the barbarian turned the tide.
(2) I created an encounter with a group of Bekyar slavers as they neared the foothills north of the Bandu. This consisted of a cleric of Zura, a Summoner and some low level warriors. I optimized this group to create a challenge for my PCs.
The next stop is Tazion. I've been working on modifications for the Ziggurat similar to what was created by Dwtempest. In short, I like the idea of adding a bit more Serpentfolk and more traps. My next post will be on these changes.
Ah.. the party has just talked to the witch, so I can't retcon that or the fact that Athyra is with them. I think I'll just take my chances. Maybe the third chemosit will be drawn to the village by the terrifying roar, entering the fray some rounds later.
A third chemosit arriving later is a fine adjustment for your group.
trellian wrote:
I'm still having a little difficulty understanding how far behind the main expedition is, how they got to leave a message with the xpedition that the mines were safe and so on.
I told my group that they had to figure out ways to communicate with the expedition. They can go back themselves, plan for messengers, leave signs or some magical means.
No worries trellian. All of the posts are relevant.
My group consists of 4 PCs + Nkechi. Athyra is with the main expedition. I briefly described my own chemosit encounter in one of the earlier posts in this thread.
In short, I tried to engineer a way for them to split the party and make the encounter a bigger challenge. It was night time and they thought that the village was the Aspis expedition camped for the night. The sneaky PCs approached the village first. When the PCs were close enough, I had one of the chemosit feasting on the witch, this gave the chemosit spell resistance. The other chemosit lets out a terrifying roar which affected everyone in 300foot radius and save or be shaken.
Also, you can consider moving one of the random encounters earlier that day so that it drains some of their resources
Sounds to me like you need to shift to a more railroad adventure. One example I found somewhere in an another post is you start with the landing site for Ieana and the captain (area F). Ieana is trying to reach the southwest tip of the island and she may not be trying to hide her trail. Your PCs can follow this trail. Now you can make this trail pass by the Viper nettles, some dimorphodons, the ghost pirate, the treasure pit, etc. So along the way, your PCs will get to complete some of the NPC quests.
If they have trouble finding Ieana's landing site, you can make one of the dreams more explicit. Perhaps, in the next dream, one of the PCs finds herself looking through the captain's eyes on the night of the shipwreck. They figure out that Ieana is more than she seems and that she controls the captain. That they swam somewhere along the northern coast in a small cove.
Eventually, you can also force a meeting with the Dryad, move her tree closer to wherever your PCs make camp one night. This leads to the fungus island and maybe more direction for them.
Perhaps you keep the spirit of the remaining modules intact but condense them.
spoiler:
- Instead of having 7 Vaults, you can have only 1 Vault. This Vault would still have the paranoia and would contain some key to enter Savith's Tomb.
- Instead of the serpentfolk gathering in Ilmurea, they are trying to break into Savith's tomb.
You can put whatever you want inside the Savith's tomb. It could be that the head of Ydersius is there. You can use one of the maps from the later modules for the tomb.
OR
Forget Ydersius. The PCs can explore the First Vault, they find the portal and go to Ilmurea. You change the underground city to be a place where the serpentfolk are gathering a massive army. The PCs are over-matched but can activate the seven spears targeting Ilmurea. The effect of the spears wouldn't be to bore holes anymore but to simply destroy the serpentfolk.
In both cases you can use the Mysteries to setup the finale
In my game, I described a situation where there was a large angry mob surrounding the Whaling Company building. Zenj natives tended to support Umagro's actions while colonist tended to oppose him and many people were in between.
So the crowd was divided and tension was high. I had the Sargava guard trying to figure out what to do. Their leadership had not arrived on the scene, so the low level guards were not going to do anything. The Ivory cross in my game are allied with the Aspis (Rival Faction) and were not interfering.
In order to minimize the chance of someone being able to follow them, they plan on levitating to the trees and then brachiating for as long as possible, only dropping to the ground when they reach water. With a two week head start, and a shattered map, it would seem deus ex machina for any of the factions to be able to follow them.
Sorry, I didn't read the last few paragraphs.
Perhaps another faction could use divination to figure out the trail from Tazion to Saventh-Yhi. The Mantis could have stolen a hair sample from one of the PCs? Then follow them using scrying... This works until they fall under the nondetection that surrounds Saventh-Yhi.
We will be starting CoSS next week, and my group has adamantly refused to join any of the factions.
Well, first if your players are having fun then you may want to adapt the scenario. At this point I would abandon forcing a faction on them.
In book 3, under the camp rules section, it says that the campsite is necessary to "shelter large numbers of relatively low-level
people". This is not a concern anymore for your PCs and by extension Defense Rolls are not as important. Instead your PCs will have to figure how to protect their belongings and treasure in some other way.
There can still be a lot of interaction with the factions. They may still want to buy minor stuff (<2500gp) from any of the factions. Perhaps some factions sell their stuff at a premium. They can still order more expensive items from any faction too. They wont be able to get any gold from an huge ancient Azlanti urn by themselves.
You have to figure out how to deal with Discovery Points. A faction can really accelerate the amount of Points they earn. So maybe you can simply concentrate on the Mysteries only. Whoever gathers the most Mysteries can claim to have discovered Saventh-Yhi. Mysteries could be sold to a faction.
I would cheat a bit a have other factions arrive perhaps no more than a week after the PCs. Perhaps the Mantis sneak in and reach the Temple district without the PCs knowing about anything. Have the Aspis ally with the Charau-ka and throw their weight around.
Don't necessarily force a faction on the PCs but you can still force interaction.
One of the players had an excellent point though, which I could barely counter point.
Namely, why couldn't they just use the information they had themselves to go into Saventh-Yhi and take all the treasures.
The main counter points is that the expedition is useful for 2 things: (1) The logistics of selling items. Who is interested in buying a huge ancient Azlanti urn when you are in the Mwangi Expanse? The expedition will buy everything the PCs find and cart it off to Kalabuto or Eleder. (2) Providing access to minor magic (< 2500gp) and getting the PCs the more expensive items they want.
Prestige Points is another benefit of having a faction.
trellian wrote:
Since Sargava wants money and the Pathfinders want archeological and historic findings, they reasoned that there was no good reason they couldn't both be part of the expedition. I couldn't either, so I let it happen.
There are quite a few groups that have allied with 2 factions. You may want to consider creating some conflict between the 2 factions along the way.
trellian wrote:
Since I couldn't really fit in the pirates that well, I am so far left with no rival faction. I plan to have Aspis offer an obscene amount of money up front next session to simply "buy" the findings. I suspect they will be tempted, but in the end decline. Then we have the rival faction.
I think for when you get to Saventh-Yhi, you'll want an antogonist faction (or 2). Another option you may want to consider is have the Aspis quiet about their intentions and manage to leave before the PC faction. Maybe the Pirates are right behind. Then the race is on!
Thanks BQ for your experience and thoughts on Saventh-Yhi. My group is nearing the end of book 2.
I was intrigued by your suggestion of using Hexploration in Book 3. I don't want to derail your thread but I decided to see how it would look like. I started pasting some hex on a image Saventh-Yhi. I didn't blanket the whole map with hexes just the districts. In order to get 6-8 hex/district you need them to be 500feet across. This is quite a bit smaller than a wilderness Hex (12 miles I think?).
What would it take to clear a 500foot Hex?... maybe 2hours? I don't know. As you suggested in your last reply, this is something that would have been cool to have for Racing. Have multiple routes planned + a lot of faction conflict = an actual race.
Adding a Mwangi faction is a great idea. I've seen a couple of posts on the subject. It would have been a good fit for my group given that 2 of them are Mwangi. Although I would suggest you make the faction not too accommodating. Perhaps some of the Mwangi NPCs are a bit too zealous or whatever. Perhaps your PCs are "too colonial", they are not true Zenj. Make them wonder what they got into. I read somewhere that the Aspis are not too friendly with Nantambu so they could also be a rival Faction.
Adding Nantambu is problematic because of the geography. You can of course move Nantambu to wherever you want (like along the Korir river in the Screaming Jungle). You can move both Tazion and Saventh-Yhi. Those are all the easiest solutions. Moving Nantambu too close to Saventh-Yhi could give your PCs a big advantage for re-supplies so maybe not such a good idea.
Perhaps, Nantambu is a destination for higher levels (for when the PCs get teleport and such spells). Or if they gain enough Prestige Points, Their Faction could Teleport them to the city.
For my group, I didn't actually place the headquarters of each factions. They chose the Pathfinders and I placed the Lodge in Portside, I felt that Aspis and Mantis would be more secretive about their preparations (and the location of their operations).
Instead, I focused on how they met each factions. I had my PCs meet each faction in various settings.
- First, the Mantis forced a meeting with them, Sasha invited them into a horse drawn caravan with Chivane.
- Then they met with the Aspis at a luxury Inn in New Halliad. To me the Aspis are trying to make an impression in Eleder.
- The meeting with the Pirates was more chaotic. While walking in the Harbour, a brawl broke out. The Pirate captain and Aerys try to recruit the PCs during a fist fight with other Pirates near some random tavern.
- They had dinner with the Pathfinders at their Lodge with Gelik being extra annoying.
- Finally, early one morning a group of Sargava guards appears at Sargava Club where they are staying and escorts them to the General. I placed the General headquarters near Praetor's Block.
I haven't updated my group's Race to Ruin in a little while. We play very infrequently. In general my PCs feedback about Racing to Ruin has been positive. All the way to Kalabuto, I emphasized the Race aspect of the adventure with a lot of Faction related encounters and that has worked well. After Kalabuto they ended up pulling away from the Aspis faction. Currently they are in the Jungle and encountering a lot of ... well jungle stuff. I am designing a lot of difficult terrain and they are enjoying those challenges.
Anyway, here goes:
- I changed some of the Kalabuto encounters. First they get to the gate and a city guard tells them that their horses have to be quarantined (some Diplomacy ensues). This is the Sargava Faction trying to interfere. Next they find that the Shrunken Head tavern is burned down. Turns out that Kibi messed up and wrongfully identified some other poor adventurers. They catch her lurking around and she leads the PCs to the rival group's lair in some creepy part of Kalabuto.
I added flavour to rival group. It is now composed of an Alchemist (he favours stink bombs) and 3x fighter/rogues with different abilities. It made for a very good combat.
- They figured out that they could use the Korir River down to the Lake to gain a day. They paid big money for their expedition also.
- In the Screaming Jungle they encountered the Shadow demon first. Since we don't play often they forgot about the Monkey Head. This was a very difficult encounter. Here they find the bodies of Mantis operatives that would have been involved in an earlier poison attempt at their expedition.
- Next came a series of random encounter including a Dire Tiger, a few Charau-ka and a bloodhaze swarm. The most memorable encounter was a combination of a flashflood and a Girallon. I am sure I read the flashflood idea somewhere else. I designed a portion of jungle that was particularly sensitive to a flood. A large area got overrun. First I had them make survival checks. Anybody who made got advance warning and could climb up a nearby tree (climb check). Anybody who climbed high enough was safe. The PCs who failed the survival or climb checks got the bullrush effect and subsequent swim checks. This was just a setup because after the wave and debris hit them, then came a Girallon who presumably failed to recognize the flashflood upstream and he fell in the middle of everyone. The PCs were spread out and had to regroup, one of them was swept away too far to do anything.
- I didn't change the Necromancer encounter much. It worked well.
They are now on day 36. There is not much left of the Screaming Jungle.
I rolled a random encounter of 4 lions that I combined with the Ankhegs encounter of the module. First the PCs see the lions on the other side of the snaking mounds. The lions are not moving and simply wait using the mounds as cover. The lions are aware that this area is ruled by the Ankhegs.
The PCs decide to attack the lions and start crossing the mounds. That's when the Ankhegs are alerted and decide to attack the PCs. Eventually the lions enter the encounter hoping for an easy meal.
-----
Next is another random encounter: a stegosaurus which is pretty powerful for a 5th level party to deal with. I used this encounter to further some of the faction friction. An Aspis archer antagonizes the dinosaur and leads him, while on horseback, to the PC's camp. The mounted archer rides away and the stegosaurus crashes into the camp. The plan was for the archer to start shooting a couple of poison arrows into the party but he died within one round of reaching the camp.
Unfortunately, this now means I have to modify the hippo encounter from later on.
-----
Now they are getting close to Kalabuto. I already used zombies in Eleder so I had to scrap the Tree encounter. I decided to combine the Mzali Ranger and Cockfight encounter into one. Also, instead of the Mzali I decided to substitute as Mantis operatives. The PCs antagonized the Mantis back in Eleder so this is their revenge. The PCs are lured to a gambling table, something doesn't seem right, the gamblers around the table are all armed... Suddenly, arrows (human bane) start hitting the PCs' spellcasters. The gamblers position themselves for some sneak attacks.
----
Some of the recent encounters are connected to the other factions trying to strike back and delay the PCs.
Thanks Trellian for your comments. In general, the feeling I get in the forums is that the adventure path requires a good amount of work on the DM part. In particular, once you reach Saventh-Yhi. For Racing to Ruin module, one piece of advice I picked up from the forums was to try to enhance the feeling that this is a race. So far this has worked well. The adventure becomes about finding ways to get ahead or slow down other factions.
With this in mind here are a few thoughts that follow up on your comments:
- I modified the Freemen revolt. The antagonist is now a JuJu Oracle that demoralized their expedition Zenj members. They needed someone like Nkechi to turns things around.
- In my campaign, the PCs learn that Nkechi's presence gives the natives in the expedition extra morale and gives everyone a little speed boost.
- The Salt mines have to be passable in order to give a potential shortcut.
- I added the Wildebeest as an option to slow down the Aspis faction
- Why not travel on the river with barges? It would be against the current which looking at some of the rules I concluded it would be slower than the road to Kalabuto. That said there is a small stretch of river between Kalabuto and the Lake that the PCs could use to gain one more day.
- I also plan to transform some of the module encounters into more faction friction.
I shared a spreadsheet to track movement and random encounters in the race in a previous post. Here it is again:
-> Racing to Ruin Tracking Summary
I find it quite useful although in practice I have been modifying it on the fly. I have moved the random encounters around to combine them with module encounters or with some faction encounters. This particular link above is not my current game it is simply an example.
Also I added recently 2 rows that track XP throughout the Race. Since I pre-roll all the encounters, the XP progression can be laid out for the entire race. So I know exactly when they could potentially hit 6th level, 7th, etc. I ended up removing a few random encounters in order to slow down their progression.
I read a suggestion somewhere to combine some of the random encounters with the module encounters. Many of the upcoming encounters follow this pattern. First the Encounter with the Aspis:
The day after the village encounter, they catch up to the rival (Aspis) expedition camp. They first see vultures circling something at a nearby hill. Atop the hill they see the remains of some Zenj, there was an altercation in this spot. They suspect that the Aspis are gathering slaves.
From this vantage point, they also see at 1000+ feet away the rival expedition. This is a particularly hot day so the Aspis are sheltering near some jungle patch. Finally, grazing near the hill are some wildebeest.
First there is the small battle with the vultures (similar to the module). Eventually one of the PCs figures out that they can direct a stampede of wildebeest into the Aspis which they manage to do successfully.
In the meantime, their own expedition had gone through the Mines and was by now only 1 day behind the Aspis. The stampede is enough of a delay for their expedition to take the lead.
Some of the changes to the actual race are not my own, I picked them up from other threads on this forum. I don't necessarily remember the sources anymore.
- The PCs decided to keep Nkechi with them in the Trailblazing group. Nkechi really only wears a loin-cloth and travels light and has many quirks.
- One of the first encounters I picked up is from somewhere in the forums. To help further the bond between the PCs and Nkechi, I added a huge storm that approaches the PCs camp one evening. Nkechi strips down and start screaming that this is a sign from Gozreh. The electrical storm hits the PCS and whoever joined Nkechi is hit with bolts of lightning that gives them +4 enhancement to a random ability for 24 hours and 3d6 of damage.
- The storm was conveniently 1 day before the Fzumi Mines.
- Athyra eventually joins the expedition
- Also from the forums: I added a dead dinosaur infested by Botfly Swarm.
- I removed the Cockfight, I have an idea to re-tool it and place it near Kalabuto.
- As they near the Aspis expedition, I made the PCs walk nearby the "Village under Siege" near sundown. As they approach, they are unsure if this is the camp of their rival expedition and only the stealthiest PCs are sneak closer (effectively splitting the party). The Chemosit's "terrifying roar" affects everyone in 300 foot area and sets the stage for the battle to come. They arrive in the village as one of the Chemosit is eating the brain of the village witch.
- The day after they accepted the Pathfinder offer, I created an encounter at the Sargava Club. While they are eating downstairs 4 kids come inside and pick a fight with the PCs. This is a diversion, in the mean time 2 small-time thieves break into their rooms. What the thieves don't know is that Pezock is resting in one of the rooms. The PCs realize what is going on and rush upstairs. They find Pezock slashing one of the thieves and the other is escaping which leads to a chase scene. Some clues point to the Aspis or is it the Mantis...
- They hear from a source that Sasha may be in trouble. I created a small encounter where the PCs had to rescue Sasha from a warehouse. Because of this I had to change the Umagro hostage encounter. I surmised that they wouldn't have been motivated to rescue Gelik anyway. Sasha now joins their expedition.
- I added an encounter with a priestess of Pharasma who lives in Outerwall. She gives one of my PCs a vision. He is thrown back in time before Earthfall into Saventh-Yhi. He sees the city become progressively paranoid and gets to speak with other priests of Pharasma. Basically, I'm trying to add some flavor and a connection to the next modules.
- I didn't think that the freemen revolt would motivate my PCs so I changed Umagro from a male barbarian to a female Juju Oracle (renamed Umagra). The freemen are now mostly zombies. The hostages on top of the Whaling company are simply Sargava guards.
- At their warehouse, there is a fire but also some fake Juju dolls that are effective in scaring off any Zenj that joined their expedition. They suspect the Aspis. They now needed Nkechi to attract some new people for the expedition.
- I didn't change Nkechi's tests or the dream much.
- Once the PCs won Nkechi's trust, he help attract mostly Bonuwat people to join the expedition, the Zenj had left and joined other factions.
- This however delayed their expedition and now the Aspis had a 2-day head start. I did this to enhance the race aspect of the module.
There has been a lot of complaints about Racing to Ruin. I've tried to adapt this module to my players and change some things I thought could be improved. The purpose of this thread is to share my changes to the module.
First Eleder:
- I purposefully kept all of the NPCs alive to try to enhance the interaction with each of the factions.
- Pezock also got a ride off the Shiv and stayed with the PCs. They believed it was safest to keep a eye on him.
- None of my players had much Linguistics. I created a few Linguistics experts, one was connected to the Aspis, one to the Pathfinders and one connected to Irori. One of my PCs is an Irori Monk.
- As described in the module, the whole city was quickly full of rumours about the group that survived the Shiv and Saventh-Yhi.
- While away from their Inn (Sargava Club), Gelik, Ishirou and Sasha left them various messages. These are setups for the faction meetings.
- One of my PCs has a connection with the Pathfinders so figured that they would eventually choose them. In any case, I wanted each offer to be memorable.
- The next day, Sasha (looking distraught) invites them into a caravan. Inside they find Chivane, she knows about the PCs upcoming meeting with Dargan Etters and wants to be the first to make them an offer. During the conversation Sasha manages to make the PCs know that she is being coerced. During the discussion Pezock also has a fallen out with the Mantis when he learns that the Mantis knew that the ship that he was on had shipwrecked on the Shiv so long ago.
- The caravan drops them off in front of the Inn where they are suppose to meet Dargan Etters. A luxurious Inn in New Halliad. Dargan is very charming and all about luxury and wealth. I added a couple things during the meeting to antagonize 2 of the PCs.
- As they walk back from their lunch meeting, the PCs think they recognize Aerys and a redhead (could be Sasha) fighting off some pirates outside of a rowdy tavern. They join in the fight. Kassata (the redhead) tells them they are being spied upon by the Mantis and the Aspis. She has her own sources within the "luxurious Inn". Kassata gives them a more lucrative third offer. All of this happens in between punches during the fist fight (a nicely chaotic scene).
- Finally they go to a dinner meeting with the Pathfinders. It was a foregone conclusion that they were going to join the Pathfinders. I emphasized that Gelik immediately went to the Pathfinders with all of the information that he had on Saventh-Yhi when he landed in Eleder. They didn't care for Gelik before so that didn't help.
- The next morning, Sargava guardsmen bang on their door. They have orders to escort them for an interview with the General. I emphasized the military aspect of the General as much as possible. He tells them that after he "debriefed" Jask, he learned of Saventh-Yhi and offers them their fifth offer.
