NPC Dave's page

One more note for Lertyck, I just realized that he has true seeing, which means he doesn't need the feat Blind-Fight. So

replace Improved Disarm with Power Critical(bite)

If anyone is curious, the cleric in my campaign used two miracles with some XP to power them up and throw two flashflood spells (an 8th level spell from the Sandstorm supplement, each extended for 1 extra round) at Lertyck and the death giants at the beginning of the combat. Needless to say, Lertyck wasn't feeling well after 10d6 damage for three rounds and 18d6 damage for two rounds.

The stat block for the crawling head Lertyck Trumbel duplicates the stat block from the Fiend Folio except for the 3.5 update, so the only error was present in the Fiend Folio.

Lertyck should have a base Initiative of +2, not +6. He has a Dex of 7 (-2) and the feat Improved Initiative (+4) = +2. However, keep in mind that Lertyck has 20 heads stored which means he is definitely going to boost his Strength, Wisdom, Dexterity and Charisma by +6 each by consuming four of his heads. I don't see a need for him to boost his intelligence unless you think he will be making some relevant skill checks in that area.

So that will bring his Dexterity up to 13 (+1) and with Improved Initative (+4) he will have +5 Initiative for the combat.

And his feat choices are from the Fiend Folio and they are just terrible options for a monster fighting 19th level characters. I recommend swapping out as follows:

replace Cleave with Multiattack
replace Combat Expertise with Improved Natural Attack(bite)
replace Great Cleave with Improved Natural Attack(tentacles)
replace Improved Disarm with Blind-Fight
replace Improved Trip with Maximize Spell-like Ability(Inflict serious wounds)
replace Power Attack with Large and in Charge
replace Weapon Focus(bite) with Improved Multiattack

One alternate approach for Lertyck is to give him the Power Critical feat from Complete Warrior to boost his chances for his vorpal bite attack. Power Critical gives him a +4 attack bonus to confirm a critical hit. You also need to keep Weapon Focus(bite) for this to work.

Weapon Focus(bite)
Power Critical(bite) replacing Great Cleave or Improved Trip

You could take Power Critical(bite) a second time to confirm the crit with a +8 attack bonus.

I was browsing the Age of Worms forum and discovered some more ideas for making Dragotha more deadly that can also work for Redfang.

Using the Draconomicon breath weapon feats like Clinging Breath, Heighten Breath, Maximize Breath or Quicken Breath. Heighten Breath, for example, raises the DC for the breath weapon save to DC 52! Evade that rogues! But then Redfang can't use his breath weapon again for another 16+d4 rounds.

Another possibly is the Arcane Strike feat which you can use to increase his attack and damage rolls in combat by utilizing his uncast spells.

NPC Dave wrote:

They don't list his natural armor bonus but it looks like he has a natural armor bonus of +44. So a +44 natural armor bonus, a +3 Dexterity bonus and -8 colossal size AC penalty = 39 AC.

Small correction, I forgot that the stat block has mage armor already cast, so Redfang's natural armor bonus is +40, not +44. So his AC is

+40 (natural armor) +4 (mage armor spell) +3 (Dexterity bonus) -8 (size penalty) = AC 39.

Oops! AC starts at 10, not 0!

AC = 10 + 30 (natural armor bonus) + 4 (mage armor bonus) + 3 (Dexterity bonus) -8 (size penalty) = AC 39.

43 AC with the shield spell.

They don't list his natural armor bonus but it looks like he has a natural armor bonus of +44. So a +44 natural armor bonus, a +3 Dexterity bonus and -8 colossal size AC penalty = 39 AC.

Small correction, I forgot that the stat block has mage armor already cast, so Redfang's natural armor bonus is +40, not +44. So his AC is

So Redfang could cast his shield spell to get his AC up to 43.

One other idea I used that I forgot to mention, and this came from someone else on this forum years ago. Redfang could create a simulacrum of himself with the 7th level spell. It will have 9HD and a few less feats and be about a 9th level sorcerer caster.

Redfang can hide underneath his treasure hoard under a false floor. The simulacrum will be absolutely covered in coins and gems, emphasize that the eyes are even completely covered and the false Redfang is relying on blindsense. This fools true seeing until the simulacrum takes a significant hit and the players will notice the illusion magic with true seeing or arcane sight. Only if the players have true seeing AND x-ray vision up at the same time can they hope to perceive the simulacrum for what it is before they start striking it.

If you do this, Redfang can rise out from his hiding place as a move-equivalent action.

The stat block for Redfang, Gnawer in Darkness is mostly correct, the only error I see is that his Initiative should be +3, not +0. He has a Dex of 16.

They don't list his natural armor bonus but it looks like he has a natural armor bonus of +44. So a +44 natural armor bonus, a +3 Dexterity bonus and -8 colossal size AC penalty = 39 AC.

In terms of the encounter, if your PCs are optimized they could make short work of Redfang with the action economy since he can't cast and full attack despite having two heads. So here is what I did to beef him up against my PCs.

Two of his top spells are Wish and Greater Planar Binding. Have him cast a wish on a previous day so that he knows the PCs are coming, and he can prepare by inviting some 18HD planar creatures to help defend his lair. Buff spells are pre-cast on himself and his planar allies because a wish lets him get the timing right, so he is ready for the scry and strike tactic common in high level 3.5 D&D. When a planar ally falls in battle, Redfang can use a wish to resurrect them and spend a bit of XP to bring them back in better position.

Redfang will also have a wish cast to counter the next miracle or wish to directly affect him so that the two wishes (or wish/miracle) cancel each other.

Lastly, Redfang can use the anvil artifact in his horde defensively to counter any disjunction spell. By fighting close to his anvil, a disjunction spell becomes risky for a PC caster.

I have Redfang's treasure chamber to the left of the map, with the caves narrowing down to one passage before opening up. Redfang uses teleport to get in and out of his cave. In that narrow passage, spread across about 40 feet of the passage are four separate Symbols of Spell Loss.

You can find the 8th level spell Symbol of Spell Loss in the 3.5 D&D Spell Compendium. I picked this trap up from Oerth Journal #23.

Four separate traps, about 10 feet apart from each other in a narrow 10 foot corridor.

Four CR10 traps; spell; spell trigger 60ft proximity (true seeing); reset automatic; spell effect (heightened symbol of spell loss, 20th-level sorcerer, DC 29 (Will save); Search DC 34; Disable Device DC 34.

Each spellcaster must attempt a DC Will save every round they are in range. Failure means the highest level spell prepared (or highest level spell slot) is lost for the day. Creatures with spell-like abilities lose a daily use of their highest-level ability or suppresses an ability usable at will for 1 round. A symbol can erase up to fifty levels of spells each.

Redfang can have an antipathy in effect keyed against the majority alignment or race of PC that he is expecting. So on a teleport strike in, should a PC fail a save they will exit the treasure cavern and encounter the traps.

Redfang's Snatch feat is useless against freedom of movement so my old stand by Large and in Charge will be substituted. Flyby Attack can be swapped out for Blind-Fight or Improved Multiattack (eliminates the final -2 hit penalty).

Skipping ahead for a moment, the Peloran Heretics on page 74 are Crimson's minions who are half-elf vampire monk/shadowdancers.

IMO, it would be worth making them more of a threat by adding a few more class levels to them, but that does depend on the makeup of your party.

One thing I recommend is to build them so that they rely on their unarmed monk strikes rather than the magic weapons they are equipped with on page 251 of the Monster Manual. That way they can take advantage of their vampiric ability to inflict two negative levels once per round. If you do this a few more monk levels will help, but also the following feats can be useful:

Weapon Focus (unarmed strike)
Improved Natural Attack (unarmed strike) <- if you allow monks to benefit from this, if not...
Improved Natural Attack (slam)
Weapon Focus (slam)

Chosen Foe : from Drow of the Underdark, no pre-requisites
Benefit
Once during your turn as a free action, you can designate a single opponent. You gain a +1 insight bonus on attack rolls made against that opponent and a +1 insight bonus to AC against attacks made by that opponent. In exchange, you take a —2 penalty on attack rolls against other creatures and a —2 penalty to AC against attacks made by other creatures. The bonus and penalty last until the start of your next turn.

The Peloran Heretics will use their shadow companions to set up flank attacks and since Crimson can cast Greater Magic Weapon, you can have the heretics benefit from that spell having been pre-cast on some or all of them to give them a +2 enchantment on their unarmed strikes.

It's been a long time since I ran 3.5 (and when I finally get the chance to run this, it will probably be using PF). So my 3.5 feat memory is very rusty.

All of which leads to the following question: where can I find the "Large and In Charge" feat?

It is in the Sword and Fist 3.0 D&D supplement and the Dracomicon 3.5 D&D supplement. But I will include the text here since you can also find it online...

Prerequisite
STR 17+, Reach (Large size or larger),

Benefit
When you make a successful attack of opportunity against an opponent who is moving inside your threatened area, you can force the opponent back to the square he was in before he provoked the attack. After you hit with your attack of opportunity, make an opposed Strength check against your opponent. You gain a +4 bonus for each size category larger than your opponent you are, and an additional +1 bonus for every 5 points of damage you dealt with your attack of opportunity. If you win the opposed check, your opponent is pushed back 5 feet into the square he just left.

And Improved Multiattack builds on Multiattack by taking away the last -2 attack penalty for secondary attacks. Lertyck is better off with five attacks at his regular to hit roll than a +1 to one attack and a -2 to his other four attacks.

The stat block for the crawling head Lertyck Trumbel duplicates the stat block from the Fiend Folio except for the 3.5 update, so the only error was present in the Fiend Folio.

Lertyck should have a base Initiative of +2, not +6. He has a Dex of 7 (-2) and the feat Improved Initiative (+4) = +2. However, keep in mind that Lertyck has 20 heads stored which means he is definitely going to boost his Strength, Wisdom, Dexterity and Charisma by +6 each by consuming four of his heads. I don't see a need for him to boost his intelligence unless you think he will be making some relevant skill checks in that area.

So that will bring his Dexterity up to 13 (+1) and with Improved Initative (+4) he will have +5 Initiative for the combat.

And his feat choices are from the Fiend Folio and they are just terrible options for a monster fighting 19th level characters. I recommend swapping out as follows:

replace Cleave with Multiattack
replace Combat Expertise with Improved Natural Attack(bite)
replace Great Cleave with Improved Natural Attack(tentacles)
replace Improved Disarm with Blind-Fight
replace Improved Trip with Maximize Spell-like Ability(Inflict serious wounds)
replace Power Attack with Large and in Charge
replace Weapon Focus(bite) with Improved Multiattack

If I ever run an epic adventure with Iggwilv, I will go over her stat block, but for now, I am going to assume it is correct and the players will not be suicidal.

The death giant stat block is correct, but there are definitely some sub-optimal feats chosen. I recommend considering the following swaps:

replace Point Blank Shot with Brutal Throw (add Str to thrown weapon attack rolls)

replace Precise Shot with Blind-Fight

maybe replace Vestigal Wings with something more useful, I am selecting Large and in Charge

My players and I have finally gotten started with this adventure in earnest, so as I go I will be publishing any errors or fixes I spot in the 3.5 D&D ruleset and stat blocks. It does look like Wolfgang Baur was more careful error checking his stat blocks than the previous authors, so I expect less posts than my threads on the previous adventures.

First up is the Stygian Linnorms (p84-85) and the Arcanoloths (p46-47) stat blocks. Now if you read them each individually, they each look completely correct. But take a look at the HD and hit points for those two entries:

Stygian Linnorm hp 243 (18 HD)
Arcanaloth hp 243 (18 HD)

They are identical! Should they be identical? Most likely not. I think what happened is Wolfgang built the Stygian Linnorm encounter first, finished the stat block, and then copied and pasted that stat block when he started working on the Arcanaloths... and forgot to update the hp/HD entry.

The Stygian Linnorms are presumably the correct one, and the arcanaloths are supposed to be upgraded to be more powerful than their 3.0 Monster Manual II entry, but most likely not 18HD and certainly not the exact same hit points as the linnorms. I don't know what the official fix would be since this Dungeon issue was the only official update arcanaloths got for 3.5 D&D, so you can leave them with 18 HD since it won't hurt to give them the extra hit points. If you do give them 18 HD than their hit points should be a little lower than the linnorms since the linnorms have 12-sided hit dice and Con 24 compared to the arcanaloths having 8-sided hit dice and Con 28.

For 3.0 arcanaloths had 12 HD. Maybe split the difference and give them 15 HD?

Shami-Amourae has 22HD which means she should have eight feats, not seven. As long as we are looking at feats for her, Combat Expertise is useless when relying on spell-like abilities, and against 18th level PCs Flyby Attack is no better. Combat Reflexes is also pretty questionable, although at least she can try and use it as PCs attack the chokesnake.

So some decent additions/substitutions to her feat list:
Quicken Spell-Like Ability(greater dispel magic)
Quicken Spell-Like Ability(unholy blight)
Maximize Spell-Like Ability(unholy blight)
Empower Spell-Like Ability(unholy blight)
Spell Penetration

Best tactic is too start off with blasphemy and just keep casting it while hitting the PCs each round with a Quicken SLA until she runs out of Quickens, and then try to use plane shift or energy drain.

The chokesnake entry

I am getting ready to run this encounter and one thing that seems to be missing is whether the chokesnake benefits from the host's Spell Resistance. I am going to say yes, since spells can target the chokesnake and not its host. The chokesnake already benefits from saves and AC of the host.

Otherwise Molypente won't survive one round against my PCs.

Normally I make the rounds at the game stores for Free RPG Day buying stuff and picking up some Free RPG Day items. But this year I decided to volunteer to run a Free RPG game session in the store.

The store was kind enough to let me take home a selection of three adventures in advance to prep and I planned to run whichever one the players chose. That choice ended up being a Fistful of Flowers for Pathfinder 2E and we ran it through to completion in about 4 hours.

One player started off with two PCs, Bottlespeaker and Rings, and got to Petalbrook where he was joined by a second newly arrived player who ran Popcorn and Fluff Fang.

Spoilers for the Adventure:

Players had a good time and I might try this again next year.

NPC Dave wrote:

Shadowfire the Wispling has a Base Attack Bonus and Saves that are all one point too high if you work through the math of his class levels. They should be (including his stat bonuses):

Fort +4, Ref +17, Will +6
Base Atk +8, Grp +4

Did you forget the Halfling bonus to all saves? Wisplings retain that even if they lose some of the other halfling traits.

I did! Thank you for pointing that out. And you did it just in time, later this week I expect Shadowfire to betray the PCs when they are attacked in Overlook by an NPC party Demogorgon has recruited to ambush them.

So Shadowfire's saves are correct and only his Base Attack Bonus and Grapple score are one too high.

IMO, considering all of the effort your players put into making sure Vanthus never comes back, I recommend you not bring him back. Since you aren't planning to have Lavinia kidnapped to Scuttlecove, there is even less need of Vanthus later in the campaign. When Dungeon #146 was published and people pointed out Vanthus had been brought back despite the hallow spell on the graveyard, James Jacobs admitted that was an oversight. You can just have Ghorvash in the final adventure comment as he is torturing Vanthus that he tried to bring him back one more time but couldn't... and your players will take pride in that.

You can continue with Dungeon #146 by having the Crimson Fleet strike again at Farshore or Sasserine once again. I ran Strike on the Rabid Dawn from Dungeon #111 before Serpents of Scuttlecove, with the Rabid Dawn being a Crimson Fleet flagship attacking Sasserine using the hurricane and the BBEG being an ally of the Crimson Fleet. Instead of the lighthouse it was the Witchwarden Tower that had been captured. After stopping this latest attack, the PCs head for Scuttlecove to put down the Crimson Fleet one and for all.

From there you can plant some evidence to lure the PCs to Divided Ire, either to rescue some good outsiders or hostages taken by the Crimson Fleet or they might come across evidence there are potential allies to be found in the prison where they can also find some leverage against Demogorgon.

Not sure about the aboleth/kopru situation, the kopru could start raiding the villages and Farshore and the PCs might decide they only way to stop them are to unleash the aboleth.

More Pagoda Madness

Would you happen to know how many of these files for other adventures still exist? I found the index here:

http://dungeonmagazine.pbworks.com/w/page/18401037/Adventure%20Index

But only the first three links work.

Very nice ideas, I am not well-versed on the Greyhawk setting so I can't provide any help there.

But I did add some small and quick adventures to the beginning of the campaign in order for the PCs to become more attached to Sasserine and spend more time there before leaving. I can list which adventures I used from Dungeon if you are curious, but one of the last ones which I recommend adding is War of the Wielded from Dungeon #149.

I considered using Torrents of Dread but decided against it because it reveals the kopru and I decided that would be too soon for ST. I did use an expanded 3.5 conversion of the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan during the third adventure so that there were more encounters from the original adventure, but I don't have a copy of that document anymore.

As far as swimming goes, my PCs invested early in swim gems from the Magic Item Compendium to gain swim speeds and avoid that problem.

I have been running it for the last few years and this forum is still the best place yes. A few people's ST campaigns can be found on the web which contain some information, but I don't recall anyone doing a detailed conversion to 4E or 5E. Lots of Pathfinder 1E conversion material here, though I have stuck with 3.5.

Issues #139 through #147 low res and high res pdf downloads are still available. Here are three examples:

https://paizo.com/dungeonissues/139/DA139_Supplement_LR.pdf

https://paizo.com/dungeonissues/139/DA139_Supplement_HR.pdf

https://paizo.com/dungeonissues/140/DA140_Supplement_HR.pdf

The naming convention is not always consistent as I recall, so you may need to do some google or paizo searching to pin down where to download everything you need.

I believe the last three issues, #148 through #150, never got these released.

Greater Lemorian Golem Trap: CR 17; magic device; special trigger; no reset; summons one greater lemorian golem to any point at the bottom of the Well of Debased Eros; Search DC 38; Disable Device DC 42.

As soon as the golem appears it and the PCs roll initiative normally. Like the Warden of the Well, this golem has the Air Walk supernatural ability.

One addition to this trap... the summoning spell is cast with the Rapid Spell feat, allowing the spell to be cast in a standard action... which will happen in the surprise round thereby preventing anyone from stopping the summon with dispel magic, unless the trap is detected and disabled in advance of course. The spell foresight does not provide advance warning either because the summon spell does not endanger anyone directly, only the monster summoned does that once it appears.

This is the last trap I will be adding to the adventure, and it will be on the circular mosaic within the Great Tower of Overlook Fortress. The trap is set and will be triggered if any incorrect tile is depressed. If the PC with the tooth of Ahazu fills out the tiles to be pressed the trap will be avoided, but any PC using magic or Open Locks to open the door will trigger the trap if it is not disabled first.

It is possible to come up in the adventure that someone will cast disjunction into the tower to knock out the forbiddance effect. Rather than make the circular mosaic an artifact, I would suggest making it a magic item at CL 30... thereby giving it a baseline saving throw of 2 + (one half the Caster Level ) = a +17 Will save.

Next is the gorallons...the corrupted creature template.

One more thing for the gorallons, the corrupted creature template grants immunity to acid. So they have it, but it is not mentioned in the stat block.

The chokesnake entry has one small mistakes in its AC entry. The regular AC and the flat-footed AC is correct, according to the chokesnake monster entry, it benefits from its host higher Dexterity and any deflection bonus the host has. For flat-footed AC, just the deflection bonus.

So that is an extra +1 AC Dex bonus for the chokesnake since Shami-Amourae has a slightly higher Dex, and a +14 AC deflection bonus from Shami-Amourae. The chokesnake's regular AC is 24 so +15 = AC 39.

The baseline touch AC for the chokesnake is 18, which is correct, but both the Dex AC boost and the deflection bonus are added as well, so the chokesnake attached to Shami-Amourae has a touch AC of 33, not the 31 listed.

The Lemorian Bloodscouts stat block is mostly correct, change all crimson recruiter references to lemorian bloodscout, those references weren't updated when the stat block was copied over from the crimson recruiter entry in Serpents of Scuttlecove.

But the Fort and Ref saves are each one point too low. A 12HD bar-lgura has +8 to all saves as a baseline before ability score modifiers. Three levels of bloodhound give +3 Fort and +3 Ref, while four levels of fighter give +4 Fort and +1 Ref.

So Fort save should be (+8 +3 +4) + 5 (Con modifier) = +20.
And Ref save should be (+8 +3 +1) + 7 (Dex modifier) = +19.

As a recommendation, I would ditch their Stealthy feat which is useless and instead give them Ranged Weapon Mastery(piercing) so they can get an additional +2 to attack and damage rolls with their longbows.

Reconfiguring skill points to boost their skill ranks in Ride can also help keep their retreivers alive using their Mounted Combat feat.

One more thing to add to the Keepers of Ahazu. Their unholy blight touch, which is a supernatural ability from Ahazu like the Ahazu's Abduction is, has a DC save of 10 + 1/2 effective binder level + Cha modifier.

So the unholy blight touch and the Ahazu's Abduction ability both have a DC of 10 + 2 + 3 = 15. Hmmm, might not be a bad idea for them to memorize eagle's splendor or one of them memorize mass eagle's splendor.

The Keepers of Ahazu are mostly correct, the only thing I see wrong is that the Fort and Will saves are each one point too high. An arcanist varrangoin has the baseline saves of a magical beast which at 8HD is Fort +6, Ref +6, Will +2. Add in the three levels of binder which is Fort +3, Ref +1, and Will +3. Then two levels of anima mage which is Will +3.

So before ability score modifiers we have Fort +9, Ref +7, and Will +8. Now add in the +6 Dex modifier for Ref saves and the +3 Wis modifier for Will saves and we see these liches should have:

Fort +9, Ref +13, Will +11

These keepers have higher ability scores than a standard arcanist varrangoin out of the Fiend Folio would have upon becoming a lich, but that can be chalked up to this being a very high level adventure.

This is the last trap I will be adding to the adventure, and it will be on the circular mosaic within the Great Tower of Overlook Fortress. The trap is set and will be triggered if any incorrect tile is depressed. If the PC with the tooth of Ahazu fills out the tiles to be pressed the trap will be avoided, but any PC using magic or Open Locks to open the door will trigger the trap if it is not disabled first.

Mosaic Tile Cone of Cold->Delayed Blast Fireball->Multiple Power Word Kill Trap: CR 18; magic device; special trigger; automatic reset; spell effects (first in sequence Cone of Cold, 15d6 cold, reflex DC 20 for 1/2, 15th level wizard), (second in sequence Delayed Blast Fireball 15d6 fire, reflex DC 20 for 1/2, 15th level wizard), (third in sequence Power Word Kill, 17th-level wizard); multiple targets (up to 4 creatures in the tower); Search DC 36; Disable Device DC 36.

My thanks to the EN World contributors who gave me the idea for this trap and the approximate CR as well.
https://www.enworld.org/threads/high-cr-traps.80680/

The varrangoin berserker stat block is mostly correct, the only error I see is the rend damage. The Fiend Folio grants the rager varrangoin rend damage of 2d4 + 1.5 x Strength bonus = 2d4+6 damage as the fiend folio version has 18 Strength.

So the listed rend damage of 2d4+7 for the varrangoin berserker is incorrect. With a Strength of 24, the rend damage will be 2d4+10 damage, and when they rage with a Strength of 30 the rend damage will be 2d4+15 hp of damage.

Shadowfire the Wispling has a Base Attack Bonus and Saves that are all one point too high if you work through the math of his class levels. They should be (including his stat bonuses):
Fort +4, Ref +17, Will +6
Base Atk +8, Grp +4

And his second level of shadowdancer doesn't get him anything useful, he already has the class abilities for the second level of shadowdancer, and he is better off getting another level of rogue for another d6 of sneak attack damage or a level of fighter to pick up a bonus feat. A suitable feat for him would be the Craven feat from Champions of Ruin which would grant a bonus to his sneak attack damage equal to his character level.

The second trap is technically not on the well, it is on Shami-Amourae herself. The Stygian Deluge is called a trap but because it is treated as a required encounter it isn't treated mechanically like a trap in the rules.

So if you prefer that it be treated as a trap, then here it is as a CR 20 trap, which an 18th level rogue with Skill Focus, a high Dex and maxed out skill ranks could theoretically find and disable on a couple of very lucky rolls... although it is then up to the DM how Charon gets involved. Since it doesn't match any spell, it will be a magic device on Shami-Amourae herself, some piece of small jewelry. The device is triggered when the chokesnake is slain.

Stygian Deluge: CR 20; magic device; special trigger; no reset; see module text for effects; onset delay (3 rounds); Search DC 50; Disable Device DC 50.

If you do give the Warden of the Well much more effective feats, you should give it +1 CR so it is a CR 18 creature.

Now for the first trap at the Well of Debased Eros. This trap is based on the Wormcall Trap on page 76 of Dungeon Magazine #134. The CR of the trap is the CR of the creature that is summoned if the trap is sprung.

This trap is only activated and set if the Warden of the Well is destroyed or is somehow removed from the bottom of the well. Demogorgon made the well itself a magic device trap, but dormant. One it is set, it is triggered should anyone start any spell or conversation with Shami-Amourae, including casting the freedom spell, unless the trap is deactivated first. The trap summons a Greater Lemorian Golem as described in Dungeon Magazine #147 (and also see my notes for Dungeon #147 here in this forum).

Greater Lemorian Golem Trap: CR 17; magic device; special trigger; no reset; summons one greater lemorian golem to any point at the bottom of the Well of Debased Eros; Search DC 38; Disable Device DC 42.

As soon as the golem appears it and the PCs roll initiative normally. Like the Warden of the Well, this golem has the Air Walk supernatural ability.

Feel free to substitute any other appropriate CR 17 creature. My PCs avoided the golem in Divided Ire by never exploring the prison section where it roamed. This gives me another chance for them to encounter it.

For the variant retriever known as the Warden of the Well, the saves and Base Attack Bonus are all one point too low. A 30HD construct has all baseline saves at +10, and a BAB of +23. So the Warden should have the following numbers:
Fort +10, Ref +15, Will +11
Base Atk +23, Grp +54

The bite attack is missing and since we adjusted the BAB the Melee entry is as follows for the 10 point Power Attack in the original entry:
Melee: 4 claws +28 (4d6+29/19-20) and bite +23 (2d6+19)
and for ranged (as with other retrievers, it can fire one eye ray even when in melee)
Ranged eye ray +24 touch (when not using Power Attack)

Speaking of the eye rays, the standard retriever has a DC 18 save for its eye rays and this is Dexterity based. The Warden has +4 Dex so it will be a DC 20 save for its eye rays.

Since a Gargantuan construct gets an extra 20hp bonus compared to a Huge Construct, and since the standard retriever has 10d10+80 hit points, I believe the Warden would get (counting the 30hp boost from Improved Toughness feat): 30d10+130 hp

Lastly, a bunch of the feats for the Warden are just terrible. Great Cleave and Whirlwind Attack are useless, and it doesn't have the room needed to make Spring Attack effective inside the well and the foilage of the trees, even if we assume the bottom 15 feet of the well is relatively clear of branches. Here is a suggested new list of feats:

Ability Focus(eye rays), Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Great Fortitude, Improved Critical(claw), Improved Natural Attack(claw), Improved Toughness, Large and in Charge, Mage Slayer, Power Attack, Riposte

Large and in Charge is found in Dracomicon, Mage Slayer is found in Complete Arcane and Riposte is found in the Dragon Compendium. Improved Initiative is another good possibility.

Next is the gorallons. Reconstructing the stat block, the gorallon should have a Dexterity of 13, not 17. -2 Dex for increasing in size from Large to Huge, and -2 Dex for the corrupted creature template. However, Dex 17 isn't game-breaking. You could also ignore the -2 Wis that the corrupted creature template applies and get the gorallon back up to Wisdom 12 if you want to help its Will save.

Speaking of the Will save, the listed Will save is 1 too low even with the Wisdom dropping to 10. The baseline saves for a 21 HD magical beast are Fort +12, Ref +12, Will +7. So add in the bonus from the feat Iron Will and the gorallons should have a Will save of +9.

Lastly the gorallon initiative check doesn't take into account its Improved Initative feat, so Initiative should be +7.

The saves for the advanced chasmes have added in the unholy aura +4 resistance, which again would also benefit the abyssal ghouls, but even taking that into account, the saves are all one too high. The baseline saves for a 13HD outsider are all +8, so taking into account the ability scores these demons have Fort +12, Ref +11, and Will +10 before unholy aura is cast.

The Melee entry is also incorrect, failing to take into account the Improved Natural Attack(claws) feat and the bite and gore attacks were dropped off for some reason. So the entry should read as follows:

2 claws +17 (1d8+5 plus wounding) bite +15 (1d8+2 plus wounding) and gore +15 (1d8+2 plus wounding)

In the previous adventure Into the Maw, the PCs may find in location 20 Chamber of Delights (p71) Shami-Amourae's ring, which is worth 10,000 gp and has her name inscribed in the inside band. It states that access to this ring can make contacting her in Wells of Darkness somewhat easier.

But no follow up to this tidbit appears in Wells of Darkness, most likely no one informed author Schwalb about the ring.

Contacting Shami-Amourae isn't an issue in the adventure provided you can reach her well, and there is no DC to free her, you just cast the spell. Somewhere in the forums here it was suggested a spellcaster casting their own freedom spell might be able to free her if they make an extremely high DC check, so if you allow this the ring might give a small circumstance bonus to that check.

But an alternative is that the PCs can offer the ring to Red Shroud as part of their payment to her. Should they do so, I would suggest they get an additional +10 Circumstance bonus to their Diplomacy check with Red Shroud if they offer the ring to her as part of their payment, which still applies even if they get hit with the -20 penalty to their Diplomacy check that is mentioned on page 61.

The ancient abyssal ghouls need two of their saves fixed which are a bit too low. The baseline saves for a 24 HD undead are Fort +8, Ref +8, Will +14. With the ghoul's ability scores and Lightning Reflexes feat that means the real numbers should be Fort +8, Ref +13, Will +16. That would be before any of the chasmes cast unholy aura, which the ghouls would presumably benefit from.

Next are the custodians, the advanced elite bodaks.

The stat block dropped the damage for their slam. Since they are advanced to large size, and they have Improved Natural Attack (slam), the damage dice are advanced from 1d8 to 3d6. So taking into account the Str bonus the entry should be slam +20 (3d6+7).

The saves are each 1 point too low, a 27 HD undead should have baseline saves of Fort +9, Ref +9, Will +15. With the ability modifiers, the custodian saves are Fort +9, Ref +13, Will +17.

Lastly, the death gaze is listed as DC 29. The baseline bodak has that as DC 15. The Ability Focus(death gaze) and Irresistible Gaze feats boost it by +4. The Charisma increase accounts for another +3 bonus. That leaves another +7 bonus unaccounted for, which we can only chalk up to making its death gaze more of a threat of high level PCs along with the 18 additional HD.

The Abyssal Ant Swarm looks correct although neither this 3.5 entry nor the original Fiend Folio entry ever gave it a range increment for the acid spit attack.

Taking into account it has the Point Blank Shot feat and it is CR 16 it should seem that the range increment needs to be at least thirty feet. That is consistent with the range for the ankheg.

As a counterpoint, 2E gave an individual abyssal ant 10 foot range for acid spit attacks.

CD 16 is still pretty high for this swarm, you might consider allowing it to spit acid in two different directions each round if it is not engaged with any melee target, and let it spit acid at one target while engaged in melee.

I also notice that the swarm is listed as medium sized in the Fiend Folio, but no size is listed in Dungeon Magazine, and its space is listed as 10 feet. If it is a large swarm, that will impact its range touch attack by -1.

As I did with the four prior adventures, I will be adding some corrections and possibly a trap or two to Wells of Darkness.

First up is the guecubu Sidith-Yeus. The sleep touch supernatural ability was accidentally left out. So here is the missing text.

Sleep Touch (Su): A creature touched by a guecubu in its natural form must make a successful DC 25 Will save or immediately fall into a deep sleep for 1 hour. A sleeping creature is helpless. Slapping or wounding the sleeping creature awakens it, but normal noise does not. Waking a creature is a standard action. This is a mind-affecting sleep effect. The save DC is Charisma-based and includes the +2 bonus granted by the guecubu's Ability Focus feat.

I made the Will Save DC 25 instead of DC 27 like the other abilities, because the guecubu baseline before any ability focus feats is Haunting DC 15, Possession DC 17 and Sleep Touch DC 13. If we assume this baseline, then accounting for his eight point increase in Charisma and the addition of Ability Focus(possession), the Will Saves for him would be Haunting DC 19, Possession DC 23, and Sleep Touch 19.

However, Haunting is listed as a DC 27 Will save, and Possession is listed as a DC 27 Will save. I assume that the Haunting listing is incorrect and that the extra +4 increase to Possession is the correct extra bonus to make the guecubu competitive against 18th level characters. That would make Haunting and Sleep Touch a DC 23 Will save and Possession remains a DC 27 Will save. If that isn't high enough you can leave Haunting and Possession as listed and the Sleep touch is a DC 25 Will save.

As far as tactics, if Sidith-yeus only waits five minutes to attack, I don't see him successfully possessing anyone because he has to put a PC to sleep before he can hope to possess, and the rest of the party will likely have someone seeing invisibility. You could either wait for him to attack when the PCs are camping and resting, or have a second guecubu distract the party with telekinesis attacks while Sidith-yeus tries to ambush a PC.

Lastly, while the DC Will save for telekinesis is not listed, it should be:
10 (baseline) + 5 (spell level) + 7 (Charisma bonus) + 2 (Ability focus feat) = DC 24 Will save.

Ideally you complete that discussion with Iggwilv with about an hour left of your session and let the players debate and discuss what to do and call it a night after they agree on where to go first.

You could prepare a second smaller Demogorgon ambush team that is easy to run if your players move in an unexpected direction and you want time to prepare one of the bigger set pieces.

Chapter 11...impressive, how often do you and your players meet? Once a week?

Grazzt and Lolth and the events going on there roughly around the same timeframe as Savage Tide is in the 3.5 adventure Expedition to the Demonweb Pits.

WotC has been putting together their 5E big adventure books that are comparable to APs if not quite as large a range in levels.

And I have heard of Odyssey of the Dragonlords, from Modiphius, as a pseudo-Greek campaign AP that extends into epic. Mixed reviews about that one.

Another discussion of high level CR traps, a nifty combo trap and how to properly eye ball its more difficult CR...

https://www.enworld.org/threads/high-cr-traps.80680/

I found some additional traps in Oerth Journal...including the first epic trap!

Oerth Journal #22
p51: Virulent Cloud Trap: CR 20 (magic device)

Oerth Journal #23 *
p44: Multi-ray trap: CR 13 (magical)
p47: Heightened Symbol of Spell Loss**: CR 10 (magical)
p49: Maximized Energy Drain: CR 15 (magic device)

Oerth Journal #24
p38: Ruin Door Trap (maximized greater ruin): CR 22 (magical)

* For whatever reason, issue #23 did not assign CR values to the traps, so I assigned them a CR value based on Search/Disable DC and/or equivalent spell level.

** Symbol of Spell Loss is an 8th level spell found in the Spell Compendium.

The use of an epic spell to create an epic trap provides some general guidelines for creating more epic traps...although there are no notes for how they calculated the CR for the epic trap.

On page 69, location 15 describes the bridge as being 1000 feet above the lava. That is a nice round number, but that introduces a big problem if you want Lazuvakus to be a threat to the PCs should he get released while they are outside near the volcano.

As a poor flyer, Lazruvakas can only ascend upward at a 45 degree angle while moving half speed. Since he doesn't have the run feat, a full round of movement at half speed is 180 feet divided by two = 90 feet.

But he is not traveling straight up, he has to ascend at a 45 degree angle. So 90 feet is the c value in pythagorean's theorem and a or b would be how high he ascends each round. a = b and a (squared) + b (squared) = c (squared).

So 2 * a (squared) = c (squared).
2 * a (squared) = 90 (squared)
a (squared) = 45 * 90
a ~ = 63.6 feet ascending per round. We will round that up to 65 feet.

1000 feet / 65 feet per round = 15 combat rounds just to get up to the bridge.

So instead I will have the lava be 300-400 feet below the bridge, still enough to maximize falling damage and give the PCs some time to react, but not leaving the PCs ten rounds to lob spells at the beast.

Kululblax, as far as I can tell, is listed with the incorrect numbers for his natural attacks. I don't see any rules for any additional penalties if you combine two weapon fighting with secondary natural attacks.

So while Kululblax has a -4 penalty wielding two battleaxes, with his Multiattack feat his pincer attacks and bite attack should only be at -2.

Thus the 2 pincer attacks and bite attack should be +25, not +21.

+17 (BAB) + 12 (Str bonus) -2 (Size penalty) -2 (Multiattack feat) = +25

Likewise, when raging and using 2 points of power attack it should still be +25.

Saureya has an AC of 40, not 42, and a touch AC of 16, not 18. His +5 mithral shirt caps his max Dex AC bonus at +6 so he can't benefit from his full +8 Dex bonus.

Furthermore, his flat-footed AC is 34, not 33. As an astral deva he gets a +15 natural armor bonus and a +5 mithral shirt gives him a +9 armor bonus.

His deceptive attack ability applies against any target he has beguiled with his beguiling stare in addition to anyone he successfully feints.

Unless the Ravens are significantly more powerful than 9th level, they will only be able to support the PCs. You could have them track down minor leads to save the PCs some time or have them get captured and added to any of the hideouts the PCs will have to raid.

Correction, Lynnara's deflection bonus is capped by her thrall of Malcanthet level, so she has a +8 deflection bonus.

Some other fixes to her stat block...

The DC save for her 5th level spell mislead should be 28, not 30.

Mislead DC = 10 + 5 (spell level) + 13 (Charisma bonus) = 28

It is an illusion spell not an enchantment spell so she doesn't get the +2 bonus for her feats or her thrall of Malcanthet class ability.

Her SLA dominate monster which is also a prestige class ability had a DC save of 32, not 31.

Dominate Monster = 10 + 9 (spell level) + 13 (Charisma bonus) = 32.

I used this thread to beef up Vanthus for the final confrontation with the PCs against the backdrop of the volcano on Penance Island.

I had him beefed up to a 20th level character before the templates.

The 17th level cleric, however, cast disrupting weapon on the two melee characters while using the bead of karma that originally belonged to Noltus Innersol and is found in the last room of the City of Broken Idols adventure.

Vanthus rolled a 1 on initiative...and rolled a 1 on his second saving throw...

Oh well, some of the other lords of Divided Ire will have better luck. :)