I ran The Thing In the Attic Saturday, and it had a very unexpected ending.
They could tell Habe was hiding something, but weren't sure what it was. Habe had his orderlies bring Grayst downstairs in order to avoid disturbing the other patients. After the meeting, they camped out on the bluff above the hospital, hoping to see activity giving a hint to what was going on. When they saw nothing all night, they returned in the morning.
They insisted on going upstairs to see Grayst again, but Habe insisted that he would be brought down again. The PCs decided this was just too suspicious and surprised me by immediately attacking Habe at the door, using non-lethal damage. Habe ran, screaming, to Zaircarlu's door and began pounding and screaming, "Help! There's crazy people attacking us! And not the ones that live here! Help!"
In the meantime, the orderlies scattered, afraid to face the heavily armed and totally unreasonable intruders.
Then they managed to Charm Habe, despite the penalty for Charming somebody who you're attacking. So he became friendly and escorted some of the party upstairs while some stayed downstairs. And one stayed on the 2nd floor while two went to the third. So the party was split three ways.
Zaicarlu, in the meantime, had his zombies exit through the exterior cellar door and attack the ground floor from outside, going in through the doors. But the party's Warpriest killed all four zombies in a single round with channelling. Zaicarlu decided that he wasn't a match for somebody who took down all his toys so quickly, and used his potion of Gaseous Form to escape before anybody even saw him.
At the time, I assumed Zaicarlu would become a future villain. But then things took a turn for the unexpected.
After killing Pidget and Grayst and putting Habe (who had been knocked unconscious in the fight with Grayst) into a bed, they searched the place and found Zaicarlu's journal entry about trying to find a way to trace ghoul lineage.
They decided that Zaicarlu was obviously a researcher doing important work that could be useful. He's actually one of the good guys, they decided.
And then Habe woke up, pissed.
Knowing he was caught in the obviously illegal act of aiding a necromancer and all the stuff that goes with it, he offered them a deal: "If you don't report me for the oh-so-heinous-and-horrible crime of doing my best to help my patients heal, or at least be comfortable for as long as possible, and then after they die through no fault of my own, donating the bodies they aren't using anymore to a scientist doing (admittedly illegal) important work on trying to find ways preserve life and save even those who seem beyond saving; then I won't report you for attacking my hospital without provocation, terrorizing my employees, and killing some of my patients. I know people won't look kindly on my relationship with a person they won't approve of, but it seems you've got more to lose here."
They said, "That sounds fair. But when Zaicarlu returns, please let him know we'd like to discuss his work with him and maybe help him if we can."
So Habe is back in business and has blackmail material over the party, Zaicarlu gets to continue his work, and the party is working towards allying with a necromancer.
My players had already cleared out most of Thistletop including the villain of the first book (staying vague to avoid spoilers in this intro). All they had left to do in book one was figure out how to open the special doorway downstairs and clear out what was behind it.
They had been complaining about a general lack of offensive magic treasure, when I allowed them to buy a Wand of Magic Missiles. Their VERY first encounter with their new wand was that door....
And Here's What Happened:
They found the coin slots. I described them as being pretty big for coin slots because I wasn't sure how they pictured the coins in the game and didn't want to make them quarter-sized and make it impossible to figure out. So, to make sure they could take any reasonably-imagined coin, they were two inch by half inch rectangles.
They put a couple things other than coins in the slot, and I had those things whisked away to the treasury but they didn't open the door.
"Hey! Maybe it needs a magical sacrifice! I drop my Wand of Magic Missiles in!"
Uh, okay!
I'd already established everything vanishes, so okey dokey! One less wand!
About five seconds later, they figured it out. There was much head banging.
We had our first RotRL PC death tonight. The player joined the group recently and in his first session I just gave him a copy of Valaros the iconic character so that he'd have something to play. The plan was to roll up his "real" character before his second session, but Valeros worked out well for him and he ended up getting pretty attached and leveling up a few times. This was his fifth session playing Valeros, and Valeros was fourth level as the party encountered Nualia.
Nualia's Yeth Hound bayed in the first round, and everybody except the party monk made the save. The monk and Valeros normally work together as both the heavy hitters and the damage sponges. But the monk was panicked and ran away down the hall where she was caught in the blade trap and very nearly diced to death before being dumped into the pit, where she was still panicked and useless for the rest of the battle.
But Valeros figured he and the rest of the party would be okay. One other character had already closed with Nualia, and Valeros wanted to take up a flanking position. To do that, though, he'd have to pass through a square threatened by both Nualia and her Yeth hound, provoking an attack of opportunity from each. He decided to not do that, planning to take a five foot step on the next round to get there if the combatants were still in the same position.
But then the metagaming discussion suddenly started and the rest of the players were telling him he should take the flanking position because of reasons too detailed to get into here. He resisted, they pointed out that he has an AC of 21 so he won't get hit, and 36 hitpoints so it'll be fine if he does. To say they were underestimating their foes is an understatement.
Just before I put the kibosh on the metagaming, he concedes and moves the extra square.
For her AoA, Nualia rolls a nat 20. Then she confirms the crit. Her normal damage is 1d10+4. I roll two d10s and they both come up 10. That's 28 points of damage from one hit. The Yeth Hound also bites him for 8 points. (He made his save for that, though.) That's 36 points of damage caused entirely by metagaming. (That'll learn 'em!)
He's at exactly zero hitpoints. He's in the position he wanted, but if he attacks, he'll fall unconscious. He doesn't have a healing potion, so he decides to hope that he won't get hit again and will wait for healing from a compatriot.
Then it's Nualia's turn and she channels negative energy for 2d6. I roll boxcars. 12 points to anybody who fails their save, or six to anybody that makes it. Valeros, sadly, didn't make it.
From zero hitpoints, he takes 12 damage. Have I mentioned that his CON is 12? Dead in one round because of bad advice from fellow players. Painful.
Rest in peace, Valeros. Rarely have I ever seen anybody die so PRECISELY. (I actually had to look up the rule to see if death happened right at negative CON or if it was one point later.)
The other three characters, miraculously, dispatched the Yeth Hound and got Nualia below 15HP. So she cast Sanctuary and tried to escape, but one of the PCs made their will save and was able to attack her, bringing her to -1 hp.
I wondered if they would tie her up and heal her.
Nope. They took vengeance for their fallen friend by hacking her unconscious body to death. Little do they know they each got wrath points for that! :)
It hurts my suspension of disbelief that someone is willing to pay for all those small-sized dogslicers and short bows.
I can totally imagine finding buyers - just not at a shop in town. Take a pile of dogslicers out to the home base of a tribe of goblins and you'll be their favorite arms dealer. It's all about finding the right buyer.
Actually, I wonder.... What if the PCs collected all the dogslicers and horseslicers they could, and then brought them along when they visited Thistletop? They could pose as arms dealers and get invited inside!
Not that this sounds like a GOOD idea, but I bet it's an original one...
Imagine all of the goblins trying to carry a horse and putting way too much effort into it. Much funnier than "boo doesn't make sense, skip" :D
I totally agree. I think the horse is great idea specifically BECAUSE it is so illogical. It's easy to forget how crazy the goblins are. That one would concoct this plan and convince enough others to help is just perfectly gobliny.
You. Are. Amazing. My group is just finishing up the first chapter of the first book, and they've already got a couple things written on their character sheets as loot that they haven't appraised yet, like the silver earrings from Glass & Wrath. I was going to have to hunt them down in the book and try to figure out where they came from. But now I don't need to!
I've been reading a lot of (very) old threads today, like, from 2007. So when I got to the end of this one I thought "Oh no! He never finished it!" And then I realized that this is actually an ongoing thing right now. I'm so lucky to be running at the right time!
Thanks for sharing the fruits of your obviously debilitating mental illness with us. It's amazing that this is coming from somebody who isn't even running it. You, sir, are an insane saint among the insane.
From ArcKnight. They're amazing. Their online shop is terrible at showing how great they are, so first I'll point you to their Kickstarter where they have great videos and lots of details: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1534484023/clear-map-grids
Once you've looked at that and begun to realize that nobody could ever possibly live without this thing that nobody's ever heard of, here's the store where you can find them for sale now: http://arcknight.squarespace.com/shop
I was looking at pictures of Tengu, and was struck by how much they look like plague doctors. In fact, I'd be surprised if I found out that they weren't inspired by plague doctors. And that gave me another idea.
To foreshadow them a bit, a trapper at Oleg's will mention that he suspects there's Plague to the south. He was hunting down there when he saw, way off in the distance, three plague doctors conferring with one another. And there would be no reason for a plague doctor to be wearing his plague doctoring outfit if there wasn't a plague. And there were three of them so it must be pretty bad. So, upon seeing them, he hightailed it north to get away from plague country.
Of course, what he saw were three Tengu. He just didn't get a close enough look to realize he was seeing monsters.
In the absence of the Stag Lord, Davik Nettles' story needs to be reworked.
My thoughts:
When Davik set up his crossing, he brought his wife with him. As time passed she became pregnant. A few days after his daughter was born the priestesses of Gyronna came in the night and stole away the infant, replacing her with a beastly little demon creature.
Suspecting the cult, Davik set off to find his daughter. In his absence, the Murder Hag (as the high priestess shall be known - perfect for the leader of a bunch of crow people who follow Gyronna) paid his wife a visit.
She told lies about Davik and, with a mixture of psychology and magic, turned Davik's wife against him. She was convinced that the loss of their daughter was Davik's fault. When Davik returned from his unsuccessful search his wife lured him out to the bridge and surprised him with a knife. In the struggle, they were both badly wounded and fell into the water to drown.
The loss of his daughter and the betrayal by his wife drove his spirit insane and he has returned in his current form to seek vengeance upon the Murder Hag.
The cries and squeals of the orphaned demon infant drew the attention of fey who whisked him away to the First World and raised him there for their own dark purposes. (dun dun dun!)
My other big change will be replacing the Sootscale Kobalds with Dread Gnomes. Not because of any change needed to the plot, but because once I thought of "The Office of Gnomeland Security" I knew I had to use it.
I had an interesting thought this month and have decided to run with it. My players have just begun. They chased off the bandits at Olegs, randomly encountered a group of Grigs, met Bokken, dealt with radish-defending kobalds, and discovered the giant trapdoor spider.
I'm thinking that here, at the beginning, is a good place to foreshadow that something is going on that's big.
So I started thinking about Nyrissa and her goals. She wants to steal the Stolen lands and bottle them up. It isn't explained terribly well exactly how that works. There are dribs and drabs, and the mechanics of how you tear a giant swath of land out of its dimension aren't terribly important, so it's okay that they aren't perfectly addressed.
But I thought of a way to address it and add good foreshadowing at the same time.
On very rare occasions (like, just once per book!) the PCs will see a metallic sphere doing something up in the air. They may see light being projected out of it onto what seems to be an invisible wall. They may see it sprout an articulated metal arm wielding a shining instrument like a small knife as it seems to cut the air, leaving a line of black scar floating there for a few seconds before sealing. Perhaps they see it doing the same kinds of things on the ground. If it senses them watching, it will cut a hole in the air and float into it, disappearing as the hole heals behind it.
If it turns to them, they will see that one side of it is blackened and dented.
This is an enslaved modron, given to Nyrissa as a gift from an ardent follower of hers some time ago. The one who gave it to her stole it from Regulus (Mechanis, whatever you want to call it these days), and selectively destroyed parts of it, removing its freewill and disabling any communication with other modrons and anchoring it to this dimension. Nyrissa is using its abilities to weaken the connection the Stolen Lands have with this dimension so that it can be more easily uprooted.
Of course, the players never need know any of that. They will simply know that a damaged modron is working in the area on something. They are knowledgeable players and will know that modrons tend to work on repairing rifts in the fabric of space.
I have players that frequently ask about the weather, or how much moonlight is available, or things like that. So, prior to starting my KM campaign, I took the time to generate weather data.
Looking at the world map and where the greenbelt is situated, I chose a similar latitude on Earth with similar distance from mountains and water, and pulled realworld weather for a period of three years.
(Don't ask me exactly where - I did that part months ago. It was in Canada somewhere near the Great Lakes.)
Today I decided to add moon phases along with moonrise and moonset times as well as sunrise and sunset. So I took a similar area and pulled one year of data (2013, actually, because I couldn't remember exactly what years my three year weather span covered), and repeated that three times since those are cyclical anyway.
Then I fudged some of the moon phases to get them to line up a little nicer with the not quite a realworld-year-long calendar.
The result is a very handy chart. Now you can tell them that yes, there will be a full moon tonight but it won't rise until 10pm, and since sunset is at 7pm, it'll be very very dark at 9pm. (I didn't pull that example from the actual data, but you get the idea.)
It has average, low, and high temperatures as well as average and peak wind speeds. It also has amount of precipitation. Temperatures below freezing are highlighted in blue to warn that precipitation may take the form of snow.
And all of this is way to useful to keep to myself, so I've moved it into a Google Doc that you can see here: Kingmaker Weather
One house-rule I have is this: If somebody wants to know what the moonphase will be tonight (or some other night), or if they want to predict weather, they need to make an appropriate skill check. The base DC depends on how in-tune you feel the populace of your world is with the weather and lunar cycles, so just use what you think fits. I then add +2 to the DC for each day/night in the future they want to predict. I also give a -2 to the DC for each day (to a maximum of -10) that they have been keeping notes on the phenomenon that they are predicting. They don't know if they fail - they just get an incorrect answer.
Greatest speech roll ever done, eliminating anti-kobold racism.... It immediately made me think of these:
"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal to those funky-looking little lizard dudes, even if they do smell funny, and that we shouldn't hunt them for sport and use their skulls as hood ornaments on our battle chariots.'"
... Later in the same amazing speech ...
"And especially touching is that so many Golarians have answered the call for community service, the thousand points of light, by rolling up their sleeves and pitching in for the kobolds by exterminating the mites - each volunteer, a beacon of light for someone who has really just gotten way to used to smashing in the skulls of the ugly little reptilian critters."
... Later still ...
"Ask not what your kobolds can do for you, but how your kobold neighbor likes his mite meat cooked. Nothing's worse than burnt mite meat."
I rolled several million characters up tonight thanks to Excel, and learned something useful along the way that I know others may be looking for. :)
I have players who really like to roll for ability scores instead of point-buying. I have no problem with that per se, as long as I see them do it. (I actually prefer rolling dice myself - point buy creates min/maxed arrays. As long as the DM witnesses the rolls, I think it's a good thing to introduce more randomness.)
The problem is that Paizo's AP's are all balanced for a 15-point buy, and there was no obvious way to statistically mirror that with dice rolls. Google failed me.
So I thought for a bit.
Rolling 4d6 and dropping the lowest six times is known to be pretty close to a 20-point buy.
Rolling 3d6 six times is known to give very low power characters which will be well-below the 15-point buy on average.
So then I thought, what if I blend it by having them roll 4d6 dropping the lowest 5 times, and rolling 3d6 once? What number of points would that be equal to on average? (Spoiler alert: About 18.6. And we'll get it closer to 15 in a moment.)
So I made a spreadsheet that rolled 100,000 stat blocks at a time using 4d6 drop the lowest six times, discarded any block with any stat of less than 7 (since Pathfinder's point-buy doesn't allow it, I couldn't compare those characters directly -- and I'm a nice enough guy I'd let them re-roll a six or worse anyway), calculated the points it would take to buy each character, and then spit out an average point cost for the 100,000 stat blocks.
This revealed that the average for 4d6 drop the lowest six times is 20.7 points. That's mostly just a confirmation of what was already known.
Then I zeroed one of the four dice on one ability score on all 100,000 blocks. This made it the same as rolling 4d6 dropping the lowest 5 times, and rolling 3d6 once. The average for that turned out to be 18.6 points. Still a little higher than my target 15.
Then I zeroed a die on another ability score and recorded the average. And again. And again.
Then I went the other way: One of the methods described in the core book is rolling 2d6+6 six times for truly heroic characters. So I did that and found the average to be a whopping 41.9 point value!
Then I replaced one 2d6+6 stat at a time with 4d6 drop the lowest.
So, several million stat blocks later, I give you the equivalencies for blended rolling methods. Anytime you see 4d6, that is shorthand for 4d6 drop the lowest. Also remember that it discards any stat block containing one or more ability scores of 6 or less.
2d6+6 six times = 41.9 point value
2d6+6 five times, 4d6 once = 38.4 point value
2d6+6 four times, 4d6 twice = 34.9 point value
2d6+6 three times, 4d6 3 times = 31.3 point value
2d6+6 two times, 4d6 4 times = 27.8 point value
2d6+6 one time, 4d6 5 times = 24.2 point value
4d6 6 times = 20.7 point value
4d6 5 times, 3d6 once = 18.6 point value
4d6 4 times, 3d6 twice = 16.2 point value
4d6 3 times, 3d6 3 times = 14.6 point value
4d6 twice, 3d6 4 times = 12.4 point value
4d6 once, 3d6 5 times = 10.4 point value
3d6 six times = 8.4 point value
So, if you want to run an AP with a 15-point buy but your players are addicted to rolling their scores, you can be just slightly strict and have them roll 4d6 drop the lowest three times and 3d6 three times and, on average, it will be the same as spending 14.6 point. Or you can be slightly more generous and let them roll 4d6 drop the lowest four times and 3d6 twice and it will be statistically the same as spending 16.2 points.
I tried fine tuning towards 15 points in a number of ways, but they got so kludgy that it wasn't worth it.
I think the sleekest and most natural-sounding way to go if you want 15 point equivalency is to tell your players to roll half their scores with 3d6 and half with 4d6 drop the lowest.
Hopefully somebody will find the above equivalency list useful.
It's important to figure out how your thieve's guild actually works. How does it make money? Basically, you need a business model. Once you understand your guild and how it works, the recruitment methods may become more obvious.
Personally, I think the easiest concept is the protection racket. You need enforcers to go around and collect insurance payments from all the merchants in town. (Or in a district, for a smaller guild.) When somebody can't pay, they're taken off the protected list.
Guild members are always free to rob the unprotected. When a member robs somebody who is protected, they get their thumbs removed.
Non-members are not allowed to operate anywhere in the city. If a non-member robs somebody who isn't paid up on their protection, they get approached by an enforcer who informs them, "Your monthly dues are late." "What monthly dues?" "The monthly dues you were supposed to pay before operating in our town." "I didn't know about any dues." "That's unfortunate. Now you know. And your monthly dues are late. Better pay next month's now too, just to make sure you don't get late again. You don't want to get late again."
Non-members who refuse to pay their dues in arrears get the same treatment as non-members who were unfortunate enough to rob a protected business: They get hauled into jail to show what good law-abiding citizens these upstanding enforcers are. And then they get their hand cut off by the sheriff. Or whatever.
Knowing that, you now know that you need to recruit not thieves, but thugs with flexible moral compasses. Thieves operate in a town all the time. You need to recruit the thugs so that they can go catch the thieves and then coerce them into paying their dues. Paying their dues allows them to operate on non-protected merchants. They therefore will not take kindly to poachers, and will help your enforcers find them and even the playing field.
You pay your enforcers. You never pay a thief a penny. So it looks like you aren't running a thieve's guild at all. You're running a police force. And if it is discovered you're taking payment from all the thieves you can try to make it look like they are just paying fines. All that money goes into the kingdom treasury, right? Of course it does. You're the spy master. It's your job to collect fines from shady people. That nice new carriage is just something you bought with personal savings. Had nothing to do with the fines. Nothing, I say!
I'm still reading through the entire AP before launching part 1. Currently, I've just started reading part 5. One of the common complaints I've seen is that there is too little foreshadowing of the events in part 6 in earlier parts, so I'm planning to add as much of it as I possibly can without giving the game away.
I love the idea of major NPCs having Nyrissa hair rings. Consider that stolen.
One thing I plan to do is this: When the PCs main town begins to thrive, a doorway to a goblin market will appear in the market square. I know my players, and they will jump on this like fleas on a camel. The doorway itself will prove quite indestructible. The goblins within will do something that helps the PCs in some small way. Shortly thereafter, the door will suddenly be destroyed in the night, and smoking goblin bodies will be found around town. Nyrissa didn't appreciate the goblins helping the PCs.
I also plan to really play up fae encounters. I'll certainly use some of the material from Legendary Games' "Faerie Passions".
I want to really characterize some hexes as very other-worldly. Glimpses in forest ponds show the First World for just a moment before settling back to reflections of the trees above. Arguments between fae can be overheard on the wind. NPCs disappear for a week and age a few years with no memory of having gone missing at all. Other NPCs disappear for months and come back younger than when they left.
My players love anything Fae, and this AP is a great opportunity to give it to 'em.
