Yeah, there is no way that's from the Assassins. They'd just kill whoever their target is. What we need is four to six Pathfinders to go to Mediogalti Island and ask the Red Mantis Assassins for help in finding who did this. But who should we send? Why are you all looking at m- oh. Right.
Just ran this last night, and ran into what I presume is a small error. The Scouting The Laughing Jungle activity has Society as one of the listes skills, but Survival is not on there at all. I suspect that it got replaced by accident, as I can't really come up with a reason why Survival shouldn't be one of the skills in this activity. Also, more generally, I strongly feel like Lore skills should have slightly easier DCs if you're trained in them to reward someone who took Jungle Lore rather than pick up the more broadly useful Nature or Survival.
Okay. Here we go. Name of PC: Rorgus Thousandsons
Name of PC: Rorgus Thousandsons
Name of PC: Aerus
Which was quickly five again. Once of the party's familiars, a monkey named Five, had climbed down to heal Rorgus, and managed to activate a cure moderate wounds wand, bringing him barely conscious. He grabbed Serithtial for a third time, flew back up, and stabbed the blade into her back to the hilt, killing her with a single blow. It was an epic end to the campaign. Onto Shattered Star!
I'm also very concerned about the short timeframe of this adventure for many of the reasons above. I suppose the simplest solution is to lean in on this - have tournament officials mention that it's a grueling three-day competition, and that teams had best come prepared. I'd let them know that there will be ways to sell things this time around - the tournament has decided to find a legitimate way to handle equipment issues to avoid making it totally illegal, since previous experience has shown that making it against the rules only forces the treasure trade under the table. As proud Abadarans, they decided to make it legal and get a share of the profit!
I did a fairly exhaustive search through Book 1 for all the teams listed, and figured others would like a cohesive list of the canon teams. There are 18 teams listed, plus the PCs, which means there's 13 teams open for GM fiat. Winter's Roar (Lands of the Linnorm Kings outcasts)
There's also two teams that get eaten by the berberoka, but given that there's no timeline of events in this advenure, those teams could be part of the 13 undetailed teams, or two of the above that meet a terrible end.
Having recently completed the updated Scarwall, I'd say it went over better than I hoped, but was still a slog. We hit Book 5 just as lockdown started last year, so we moved the game to Roll20 to continue to play. It took right around a year to get through it, from start to finish. The biggest issue, besides our inexperience with online gaming, was the size of the place. It was difficult at times for my players to figure out how to get around one of the maps. Moving between them made it virtually impossible. There were a lot of fights, and most of them weren't exactly difficult. One thing I will give kudos for are the phantasms. They're not quite as good as the haunts in The Misgivings, but they're still good. However, they had to be adapted for online play - a lot of the advice is "roll something behind your screen," or "take the player aside and tell them something." Rather than trying to figure that out, I just told whoever was affected by the phantasm that they should mark down a "Castle Scarwall notice point." They slowly accrued them as the adventure went on, and occasionally wondered aloud what they did or represented. Of course, they represented nothing beyond player paranoia. Anyway, I learned a lot of lessons from Castle Scarwall, and Castle Korvosa is a much faster experience. In contrast of the near year it took to complete Scarwall, we are almost all the way through Castle Korvosa. Giving the players a map of the place has been a godsend - one of the players has taken to being the map guy, so they have a good idea of where they've been and where they haven't. Next time we play, they'll be fighting their way to the Queen herself.
Can you tell me the rough idea of the shootist archetype and the level it's dedication is at? You're really good with repeating hand crossbows. The dedication starts at L2. Also, stats for repeating hand crossbows appear in this book.
I had an industrious night and worked up Dalvyn's puzzle for English audiences. Check out the spoiler for the translation. Spoiler: Clue 1 is now "NOLEJJKFNYMEKNLHKSFMJOUZYQLUYXVEXZUSPKUNNEEKNGHEEXAMEZJLGALMVXOLJUAZKALLSX ECOFNDUCHEFANUCXE" Clue 2 is "...with timber." Clue 3 is "Then, replace jkqvxz..." Clue 4 is "First, remove flume."
No, they've said previously that the two APs are not at all written to merge together. The job of transitioning PCs from AV to FotRF is left entirely to the GM. Indeed - my intent is to run Abomination Vaults first, and then have the PCs be selected by the Pathfinder Society to represent them in this year's Tournament. They will have a training montage to retrain their characters for this new AP.
I recently ran a four player group through a quick adventure using both the magus and summoner. Since I figured many people would be doing L1 builds I went a bit higher and had people make L5 characters. The magus player made a human Sustaining Steel magus, and used her spell slots for Longstrider, Mirror Image, Haste, and Shockwave. The summoner made an angel summoner, supplementing his limited magical healing with the Medic archetype. To fill out the table, one player made an L5 rogue, and the other just used the L5 Valeros pregen. I used what I believe to be a pretty robust test of the party - four encounters, one rated Low, two rated Moderate, and one rated Severe. For an excuse plot, I had them tracking down the Son Of Freezemaw, and all of the encounters were wintry. Combat 1 was against two frost trolls (Low 5). Though they're rated at L4 monsters, they punch above their weight class, as I got off a Rend on Valeros. By the end of this first fight, the summoner had already used half of his spells just keeping people up. Valeros did 65 damage over three rounds (DPR 21.6), the eidolon did 110 due to two crits on the final round but missed entirely during round 3 (DPR 27.5), and the magus did 0, as her first round was buffing and she missed with her Striking Spell and ranged attacks in rounds 2 and 3 respectively. I don't have data on the rogue's numbers, but considering the rogue is not being tested this seems less of an issue. I can say that his rogue also had the alchemist dedication and brought alchemist fire to the party, which did off the trolls once they were down. Combat 2 was against two winter wolves (Moderate 5), which proved less of a problem for the party. The wolves were trying to flank the party, but only one succeeded. Valeros did 49 damage during this fight (DPR 16.3), the magus did 26 damage (DPR 8.6), and the eidolon did 55 (DPR 18.3). It should be mentioned that the magus also tripped one of the wolves during round 1 rather than attack, so they were more effective in the combat than their numbers should suggest. By this point, the summoner was down to a single spell. Combat 3 was against two ice golems (Moderate 5). This was somewhere between the prior two encounters in difficulty, but this was the magus' moment to shine. Valeros did 48 damage (DPR 16), the magus did 85 (DPR 21.25), and the eidolon only did 27 (DPR 9). The magus did miss with her first Striking Spell, but critically hit on the next two rounds, creating the damage spike that 1e magi are known for. By this time, the summoner was out of spells, and they still hadn't faced the dragon. Combat 4 was against the Son of Freezemaw - or, as the players would find out, the SONS of Freezemaw! They fought two young white dragons, one straight out of the book, and the other a spellcaster. Tactics were simple - brawly dragon would let them come to him and fight, while casty dragon waited for them to go into the cave from above and invisible, dropping down at the start of round 2. By a stroke of luck, the dice were with the party this fight - I couldn't really cause much damage to them, as they were rolling quite well and I was missing something fierce. I believe I missed Valeros with a full Draconic Frenzy suite twice on two consecutive rounds! Valeros did 125 damage (DPR 25), the magus did 57 (DPR 14.25), and the eidolon did 90 (DPR 22.5). I'll be tagging the magus and summoner players to chime in here with their experiences, but they reported that they enjoyed playing the classes. The Sustaining Steel magus does look weak on paper, but being able to get temp HP does help with the longevity of the class in a fight. Eidolons are strong, but the summoner themself doesn't have many ways to participate built into the class, so you might need to look outside for ways to shore up needs in the party. The side effect of the exceptionally limited spell slots for both meant that the summoner makes for a poor main healer in game, and the magus is likely to choose spells that buff them rather than lose spells due to the way Striking Spell currently works. We do hope to have one more playtest before the window closes, this time at a much higher level, somewhere in the 12-13 range. I'll report back if we sneak that in.
Elsewhere In Varisia...: Winters in Varisia are cold, much like anywhere else, but the weather there turns rainy rather than snowy. And here in Janderhoff, it has been raining for two days straight, turning the light gray stone of the Sky Citadel dark and puddle-strewn. Its angular construction funnels the rainwater into channels that fill reservoirs and rain barrels alike. The rain is cold and unrelenting, much like the dour folk that built its strong, sturdy walls millennia ago upon the completion of their Quest For Sky. Azisi had felt the storm coming long before its first thundercrack. She felt it in her lower back, the site of an old wound that had once been healed by priestly magics. While the cleric had mended the flesh and staunched the bleeding, she could always feel when the weather would turn and her lower back would stiffen. It was days like these she hated the most, as this is when she was reminded of everything she'd lost. Her old position, her reputation as one of Janderhoff's greatest cavescouts, her two sons... No, she thinks, reaching for a crystal bottle half full of Taldan brandy. One. I have one son. And he is dead. She pours herself a glass of the brandy, draining it swiftly and with practiced ease. Her hands tremble as she sits down the glass. Cold in here, she says to herself. She glanced up at the open doors to the balcony on her room, watching as the winds blew the diaphanous window dressings in its strong breeze. The rain falls upon the outer half of her balcony, preventing most of the rain from getting into her room. The wind that permeates the room is frigid enough that she can see her breath in the air, and she rises to close the doors. She needs another drink, though, and pours herself another snifter full of the brandy. Her hands steady slightly as she closes and latches the doors, and she raises the snifter to her lips again to empty the glass for a second time. "You should slow down," calls a voice from within her room, graveled and even. "Even for a dwarf, you need to pace yourself." Azisi jumps at the admonishment, causing her to lose grasp of the glass, which shatters on the stone floor. "Who is there?", she shouts, searching in vain for the source. It had been some time since she'd had to use her training, but even in her state she could tell this person - male, definitely - was good at keeping themselves hidden. "Guards! There's an intruder in my chamber!" "There won't be anyone coming," he replies with cool reassurance. "That sounds worse than it is. They're just unconscious. They'll have one Hell of a headache when they wake up, but they'll be fine. I just didn't want us to be interrupted." Azisi grimaces at the reply, circling the room slowly, searching for whatever corner the intruder was hiding himself in. "I'm being targeted then. What for?" "Simple," a voice whispers from directly behind her, making the old cavescout jump once again. "I needed to have one last conversation with you." She spins, swinging a wildly off-balance hook at the man behind her, but he dodges - no, bends, almost unnaturally - away from her punch. Losing control of her momentum, she staggers and trips over her chair, tumbling ass over teakettle onto the floor. Looking up, she sees another dwarf, wearing a breastplate made of shadows and a fine longsword peacebonded at his hip. Her eyes widen as she notices the dwarf's tossled mop of black hair and piercing gray eyes, as well as his complete lack of a beard. "Bruendor!", she spits, scarcely believing that he of all people would dare show his face here. "Yes," he says with some resignation as he reached out a hand to help her to her feet. "Let me help you up, mother." "I don't need your help, Sundered!", she cries, slapping his hand away, slowly finding her feet. "You have no right to be here in Janderhoff. Torag still has not forgiven you for your transgression." She rights the chair she tumbled over and takes her seat back at her table. "I know," he says. "If the Sky Magistrates find me here, I am to be apprehended and executed for breaking the terms of my Sundering. Never return until a hundred and one dwarven lives are saved in exchange for failing to save Imrik. My brother. "Mother, I..." he starts, seeing her tense with fury as he calls her by that familiar term. He clears his throat to start again. "Azisi, I believe that he never intended to keep that promise." "Unlikely," she scoffs, folding her arms around her. "Saving those lives would be your crucible. Burn out in the fire or be purified into something stronger and better." "And what if the forgemaster does nothing with the iron in the crucible?" he asks, meeting her gaze with his own unwavering stare. "What if the steel melts and purifies and does everything the forgemaster intended the steel to do, and then is never put into a mold?" Azisi was about to reply when she finally sees into Bruendor's eyes. This was not the same disgraced man who was thrown out of Janderhoff, but someone who had undergone trials - physical, mental, perhaps spiritual - and come out the other side. There is a steel in his words and voice that had not been in the same man who had the Sundering placed upon him and his beard stripped from him. Bruendor senses his opening, and continues. "One hundred and one dwarves, mother. That's all he wanted. A mere pittance of the length and breadth of all the dwarves that draw breath under Sarenrae's light. And I did it. And then some. I saved every gods-damned one of us - not just the dwarves, but all of us. All the lives on the planet saved. And he still didn't give me my damned beard back!" Azisi finally recovers from her shock, and laughs at Bruendor's words. "Like Hell you did," she says mockingly. "Like Hell you could! You're no hero, you couldn't save your own flesh and blood from dying in the Darklands! I don't care whether you killed the Whispering Tyrant or closed the Worldwound or prevented another gods-damned Earthfall-" "I mean, I actually did one of those," he mutters under his breath as she rants. "-you are as dead to me as your brother is!" The silence that follows after her words lingers in the room for some time. When he speaks again, it is in even tones. "I don't care if you believe me, Azisi. In fact, it doesn't matter if you believe me or not. All that matters is that I know I saved the world, and so does He." He withdraws a wooden holy symbol of Torag and places it softly on the table. "And if he knows, and reneges on his end of the deal, then he's a right bastard." She begins to object, but he continues over her. "And you're right. I didn't save Imrik that day. I saved you. And looking at how you've handled yourself over the last few years, I can see that you were right, all those years ago. I should never have saved you. You, who used your influence to get me cast out. You, who drank away your fading years until you had to be stripped of your own rank. You, who live on the mercy of those who remember what you did years ago, knowing your best days are behind you. I'm glad my brother never lived to see what you became." She moves to strike him, but he catches her wrist with practiced ease. She couldn't deny it any longer - she had slown down in her advancing years, and Bruendor had gotten faster. He pushed her back down into her chair with a force that surprised her, and she balled her fists in impotent rage. "You'll never see me again, mother," he says, rising from the table. "I'll never darken the halls of Janderhoff again, if I can help it. And you'll find I've left you a small pittance of my wealth to live off of - if you ration it well, it should get you through the rest of your life, especially if you keep drinking like that." He glances to the bottle of brandy that sits between them, its crystal gleaming in the dim light. "I just wanted you to know that you were absolutely wrong for casting me out. You, the priests that went along with it, - all of you were wrong. But somehow, all that placed me in the right place to do the right thing. And thanks to that, we all get to live. "Except Imrik. He is dead. He has to be. I couldn't find him when I went into Zirnakaynin. Not even any mention of him. Knowing what I know now about them...I have to believe him dead. Any other option is just too terrible to comprehend." For a moment, Azisi sees frailty in her son's eyes, and for a moment, she feels an old, uncomfortable desire to hold him to her breast and let him cry out the pain he has been holding within him. The moment passes, and she sees the familiar steel come back over him. "Keep the symbol," he says, withdrawing another one from his pouch, this one of a smoldering forge. "I have a new one. I always was a terrible worshipper of Torag, but I find Angradd may still have use of an imperfect tool." He leaves her, moving swiftly to the balcony door and diving off the ledge. She rushes to her feet, calling his name at the top of her voice. "Bruendor! I'm sorry! Please!", she screams into the storm, her face pelted with the rain, soaking her to the skin with the downpour. No response comes. She stays there for sometime, thankful that in the rain, no one can tell of the drops are her tears. Bruendor easily makes his way out of Janderhoff, also drenched by the rain. He puts on his new holy symbol, kissing the forge and drying the rain off of it. "We've work to do in Kyonin, don't we?" he says. He wipes the rain from his face, and suddenly freezes. Slowly, with trembling hands, he removes the glove from his right hand and gingerly runs it across his mouth and cheek. Stubble.
Hey there! Thanks for the invite, DM, and my apologies for dragging my feet. I've glanced over everything and there's a lot of cool stuff going on here. I'm leaning towards a psychic, since I haven't done much with that class, but even that is up for revision. I'll probably make some more concrete decisions in the next day or so.
Bruendor nods in agreement with Anklebiter and Calla. "Riddleport for certain. I want to sleep in my own bed tonight. We've earned that."
Bruendor hears the words the marilith spoke, but the contents did nothing to sway his heart. "She's a problem for a different day," he replies to Anklebiter. "And if all we've done is delay the second apocalypse for the timebeing, well...it was worth it. It means we have time to figure out where the knowledge is, and get rid of it. No one was meant to have this power." He sits down for a long moment, letting out a breath that carries with it a weight he'd been carrying for...too long. "I haven't been this tired since we saved the people we could from Skyfall's aftermath. Fitting, I suppose - now that Second Earthfall won't be happening, isn't it?" He nods at the goblin's suggestion. "Definitely, let's ldt her know that Orv is free of the drow. She might be willing to transport us back to the surface for this, once we've recovered." More was on his mind, to be sure, but he had to process his thoughts before he could articulate them to his friends.
"Well," Bruendor says as the glyph begins to violently deteriorate. "S**t." He wraps his arms around Anklebiter as the goblin reaches out for him. "Fly us out of here!"
Bruendor twists Bloodbane as he lands the killing blow, watching the fear in her eyes as the demons she trafficked with drag her down to whatever torments they have devised. After staring at the blackened spot on the floor for a moment, he finally registers Anklebiter's words. "Oh, no, I'd rather live if that's still on the table! How can I help?"
Bruendor takes advantage of the distraction AB has afforded him, and manages to find a way past the drow's defenses. "Hey!" Calla barks. "That goblin is worth more than all you drow put together. No one insults him but me!" "That's true!", Bruendor shouts back. "That's how we know she cares about us! Now get back here!" He runs to cut off Allevrah, maneuvering behind her - readying a strike for when Lefrik charges in behind her.
Spoiler:
Bruendor gasps again as Kel lays a comforting hand upon his shoulder - his soul was nearly ripped from him moments earlier, and now he was feeling it being replanted within him again. The shakiness in his knees disappears, and he regains what feels like his third wind of this last, desperate fight.
Bruendor sees the roiling flames heading his way, and quickly dives out of the way.
Not one to let up on the advantage, Bruendor becomes a whirlwind of strikes, lashing out not just with his sword, but battering the vulture demon with his shield. As he ramps up his attacks, a wordless scream of vengeance issues from him as he releases the toll of his adventures upon this fiend.
"See, this is why we pay you as handsomely as we do, AB," Bruendor deadpans, drawing his cold iron blade. "Insightful tactical acumen like that." He smiles, looking towards his friends. "Let's end this."
"All of your preparations seem sound to me," Bruendor agrees with a nod of his head. "We already have one ally from beyond, I think diversifying and asking the Guardian of Orv to join us is probably a better choice, though I don't know what sort of abilities she has beyond being a genie and granting wishes." "That brings us to Allevrah herself, also a powerful wizard by all accounts. We have to assume she's aware of us, and knows how we fight. She's probably also taking magical precautions against us. Do you have some way to strip her magics from her? She might try something like that on us as well, though I suspect she'll just try overpowering us with her magics." "I'm loathe to 'swap queens' with her, as it were. Your magic will be far more useful to us than just turning off hers. Besides, if she's able to move freely, then all she needs to do is step out of the range of your field, and now she can cast with abandon. I'd call that a last resort, rather than a trump." "The only other thing I can think of is making ourselves invisible, but she might be ready for that. If that's in our wheelhouse, then I'd vote to try going into that fight with her shrouded - maybe she can see us, but that might not go for whatever demons she has surrounded herself with." "I've got a few magics of my own, though not nearly as impressive. I plan on lending weight to my blade, and I could also sharpen your reaction time, AB. If we can dictate the tempo of this fight, things might end up going our way on the other side of it." "Tactically, Lef has got that demon-killing sword, so it might make the most sense for him to aim towards handling demons. If we have a clear shot on Allevrah, then by all means, take it. I'll probably start with cutting a way to her with Lef, moving to killing drow after that. I imagine Calla will be lending fire support into everything that moves, and Kel has heals and support covered." He nods listening to Anklebiter's summation. "I recall a morose dwarf looking for a way to die in the misbegotten slums of Riddleport, saved by a handful of other misfits, betrayed by a man pretending at redemption, and finding purpose in thwarting the mad scheme of an elf turned to demon worship. I have to believe that we will succeed. There is too much at stake for us to fail. If we do not...then I have the pleasure of dying with some of the best people the world has known."
I'm planning on having a Chapter 0 where the PCs meet all the NPCs the night before the performance en route to Abberton, and they get to know all of them before things get rolling. It also helps give weight to the murder - now the ringmaster isn't just a dead man, it's the guy that gave them a shot in his circus.
"Bruendor Cavescouter, at your service," the dwarf states with a nod towards the deva. "It's a comfort to have Heaven's servant on our side. I know nothing of the war you speak of, but there are many of the Abyss-spawn here, so you should be able to strike a blow against them in these dark halls."
This brings up something I hadn't really pondered until now - primal casters are more welcome in Rhahadoum than divine casters, meaning druids get a pass that clerics don't. I don't anticipate that being a distinction every Pure Legionnaire to make, but it's a distinction that didn't exist before 2E.
I just ran this adventure on Saturday at Tier 3-4, and the players did in fact put everything that could reasonably fit inside the bag of holding. That's basically everything but the statues and some other items, but notably not the ebony box in question. Since we're talking about the item, let me put the relevant bits here:
So, while the text is clear that an item inside the bag provides no benefits, it is somewhat looser in determining whether it causes drawbacks, such as what the Scale does in this adventure. As Gary mentions, dealing with the effects of this item is the crux of the adventure, and probably should not be so easily avoided by a L4 item. In fact, the mod calls out the Scale as an evil artifact. While we'll get full rules for artifacts in the Gamemastery Guide, I think it's safe to assume that such minor magic as the bag of holding isn't enough to avoid the detrimental effects of such a powerful item.
I've got nothing additional to add to the topic, as several others have discussed how the "they/them" pronoun should conjugate for a non-binary individual. I just wanted to thank you for attempting to be as inclusive as possible for your students. I'm sure they will appreciate it.
Honestly, in my experience, all of the combats in this are a bit too tough for what would be many players' first experience in PF2. Spoiler:
I've played/run this three times, and as it happens, I've seen all three possible combat encounters. Our first run was the centipede swarm. I appreciate that swarms are not immune to weapon damage, as that was one of my least favorite rules in the game, but the fact that the swarms could move and do swarm damage twice was rough. Nobody died, but several characters dropped and the party fighter managed a crit on their final attack, killing the vermin. It's probably far less a dangerous encounter if you have people with splash damage - alchemists, anyone with acid splash, etc. - but if not, it's a bit of a knife edge encounter. Up until the bit about mummy rot listed above, I would have said that my second run with the mummies would have been the easier encounter. Setting aside that I never rolled anything approaching double digits for the mummies in that encounter, I like that there's a boss mummy and a few lesser mummies in the encounter, and while the lackeys aren't much of a threat, the big one certainly is, and can do a hefty amount of damage in a single hit. This one's definitely a lot easier if the party has fire or holy damage - they ran with Kyra and Fumbus, so the mummies really didn't stand a chance. And then there's the statue. Hardness 6 is incredibly difficult to overcome at 1st level, and if you're playing with the pregens, Amiri is the only one who could consistently get past that when she rages. On top of that, the statue is likely not going to miss when it attacks, and it does a lot of damage when it hits. Sure, it gets easier if you break its construct armor, but that involves weathering its storm to get it down to halfway, or managing to roll a 20 to hit for most PCs. We ended up having to retreat from that encounter, since none of us could really hurt it, and our Merisiel was at wounded 3 when we ran. Since this is the first quest to be released under the new guidelines, I'm good with calling this a learning opportunity, but I'd suggest giving the PCs a challenge, but not an overwhelming challenge like these encounters seem to be.
"Aye, sir," Benjamin replies to the captain, already halfway through assembling his teams to investigate HIB Alpha. When the blue lights clear and Away Team Alpha arrive on the surface, he looks around the planet's desolation. "Such destruction," he says as he takes in the remnants of a bygone culture. "This is what we narrowly avoided in the early 21st Century, snuffing ourselves out with nuclear fire before learning our place in the galaxy. Let's see how close these people came to escaping their rock, team. Mr. J'dune, begin your geological survey. Mr. chim Tokkis, start running sensor sweeps on any biological remnants. I doubt we'll find anything multicellular, but life is often doggedly determined to pass on DNA, so we might get lucky. Mr. Terwil, there was a group of buildings a half kilometer away, I suggest you start your xenoarchaeological explorations there. Mr. Rigus, you're with me - we're going to investigate several of the impact craters for meteoric remains and see what we can determine about the makeup - whether they were natural or synthetic, material composition, etc. I would like reports back every half hour, unless you find something remarkable. Let's get to work, everyone. We've a civilization to record."
"That's basically been my strategy for awhile now," Bruendor says after the angel's healing magics repair his snapped ribs and crushed lungs. "Lef and I run in to get our asses handed to us while Calla rains arrows of death. It seems to be working. Though I wouldn't mind a battle where more of my blood is in me than out."
Ain't no force multiplier like an Anklebiter force multiplier!
Bruendor rolled to a defensive position as the tentacle's grip on him slackened, watching as the beast toppled, crashing into the stone and sending shockwaves through the rock. He sighed in relief, and began coughing profusely. Wet, hacking retorts came from his lungs, and he stared grimly as the spittle he issued was crimson. Indeed, his chin was dripping with his blood, and he could feel the bruising already forming around his chest and waist where the neothelid's tentacle had nearly crushed him into a paste.
Having just skimmed through the adventure, I am in love with NPC Alak Stagram and want to make sure he plays a prominent role. As such, I think I'll tamper with the beginning so that Alak is the one looking to hire adventurers to help find his ancestors' ring. Calmont, having eavesdropped information about Alseta's Ring without knowing what it is, thinks they're one and the same but was rebuffed by Alak and the council as not being a qualified adventuring party, giving him a grudge against everyone involved that leads to him setting the fire. Your concern is absolutely valid, though I would temper this only by mentioning that this is book 1 of 6, and we don't know what role (if any) he serves in the remainder of the story. Regardless of whether Arak is meant to be a recurring character by the rest of the AP, it is possible that he could examine those beliefs of his and decide that Asmodeus isn't all that great a guy and the Hellknights really aren't for him, should the players show interest in reforming him and the GM respond in kind based upon their actions.
Since you want to streamline the adventure, I'd recommend making it easy to scout the area and realize an assault upon the Black Fortress is a really bad idea, and that the caves by the river could be another way in. I'd recommend replacing the wyvern cave with Longtooth's, and cutting his normal location entirely. If the party has already killed him, then they get the hoard for free, and if not, then they get to encounter him. Deathwebs are fine as is. Once inside, cut Enga - as fun as it is to surprise players with a surprisingly vicious kobold, her encounter isn't necessary. In fact, I'd recommend that most of the encounters on the upper level aren't necessary - move Conna to that area, and have her exposit Mokmurian's backstory. I would adjust the story to that Conna's cabal of loyal giants is much larger than as written, so that there's next to no interference on the way down to the Thassilonian level. The encounters I'd recommend keeping are the two red dragons and the two lamia, just to set up the lamia connection to Xin-Shalast. After that, the necessary encounters for me would be Mokmurian, the hounds of Tindalos, and probably the Headless Lord. Make the vault impassable without the key that Mokmurian has, and get rid of the summoned shining child. So, encounters left would be: 1. Longtooth (?)
What's your party make up? You might be able to seed some treasure to facilitate faster travel into the hoards, based on their abilities.
I think I'm ready to go! :)
Varisia has a history of being the playground of Abyssal entities, so he could definitely be of demonic heritage and be relatively local - native to the region, at least, even if not the Magnimar protectorate. My recommendation is that he's actually from Korvosa initially - they have a shrine in that city, though it's not a large one. If you don't want to go a supernatural route and receive a vision from the Dawnflower, then maybe Baros simply heard about the reconstruction and reconsecration of the cathedral after the fires during the Late Unpleasantness, and petitioned his superior within the church hierarchy to go on pilgrimage to the new temple. It would allow him to show up in time for the ceremony, and the distance from his church means he's effectively a lone operator in the town. I'm pretty certain that if you work with your GM, they'll be pleased to find a reason your tiefling paladin could be in Sandpoint. :) |
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