Nero's page

I find this ability to turn undead combined with the an area of effect heal and area of effect damage to be way too overpowered.

The 3.5 turn ability is strong enough on its own in encounters with undead. The cleric turns the undead and the encounter is pretty much over with the players completely dominating the undead and destroying them.

But with these changes it's even more unbalanced. Not only are the undead turned, they are damaged with an effect that covers an area. On top of that the party is healed? You may as well remove undead encounters entirely as they won't be a challenge to any group with a cleric.

Although it is not a bad idea to give clerics some extra healing abilities since they do run out sometimes, I think an aoe heal is too much. Especially one that goes off their turning ability, so they can do it a number of times a day.

I think the ability to channel their spells already gave the cleric much enhanced utility from 2 edition. I could see giving them the ability to cast a heal based on their level a number of times per day, but this should be separate from turning undead. And I don't think it should heal everyone in an area. That's stronger than any regular healing spell. I don't see other spellcasters getting an arcane blast ability that hits an area for damage, but now all clerics get one? (healing for good clerics, and aoe inflict for evil clerics??).

The flipside is also unbalanced. The party faces an evil cleric and some undead and now they will get hit by an area of effect inflict, which is more powerful than most inflicts have been just because of the area of effect aspect, and their undead opponents also get healed.

This needs to be changed. I won't be using it in my campaigns. I might add an ability to cast a healing spell a number of times per day (perhaps the same number as turning) that is based on cleric level, but it won't be an area of effect ability that also blasts all nearby undead like some kind of bomb.

I just don't like the idea of the PCs returning to Kraken Cove only to find Javell still fighting for her life, etc., etc.

My party just finished this part of the path tonight. They had spent a ton of time (in game) on it. For example, they spent hours making off with the Sea Wyvern to begin with, anchoring it out in the bay and then coming back on the launch to explore. After facing Ripclaw they retreated and spent a night on the Sea Wyvern getting healed up and getting new spells (like resist acid). So of course by the time they get back, Javell isn't still fighting. I had her finish off the savage pirates and make her way out of the caves (on the map in area K14 it clearly shows a tunnel leading off the page.... is that a back exit to the place perhaps ending in a trapdoor covered in jungle brush? I think so! She escapes the place easily. Alternatively she easily swims out) As it says in the adventure, she leaves behind a letter she was writing to the Fleet Commander. She describes what happened and forgets it in the room she makes her stand in. In my mind, I imagine that just as she finishes writing it, the savage pirates find her, she throws the table over, fights them, and forgets the letter in her addled/diseased state as she leaves the place. The party found the letter in that room.

I love the ideas posted here about the disease spreading through the jungle and approach the city if the party doesn't kill enough of the savage pirates etc. The savage flocks of birds is pretty cool too. In my mind this savage disease greatly reminds me of the movie "28 Days Later" and "28 Weeks Later" --- it could easily spread and wipe out cities or nations! An infected specimen could be brought back to the city and escape and soon you have a city full of savage humans! Clerics try to stop the spread but it spreads way too fast for their few cure disease spells per day (even if you had say 60 of such spells availabe in the city per day.. the disease could potentiall outspread it because of all the fighting and chaos and burning buildings, etc. Just check out your favorite zombie movies... like "28 Days Later", "Resident Evil", etc.)

I can easily see a chaotic evil cleric letting a comrade get infected and keep him from succumbing completely with restore spells until they get back to the city at which time he stops helping his erstwhile companion and uses him as a catalyst to spread destruction through the city! Unfortunately my characters aren't quite that evil. Even though they work for Rowyn....

Rowyn would likely it seems go to the ends of the earth to retrieve Gut Tugger before gunning for your PCs again, imo. Frankly, I am surprised - I don't have TINH at my fingertips, so I don't recall if that croc is Medium or Large. (If Large, he shouldn't have even fit down the hallway, although I don't believe they would have a Large foe in the first chapter of the AP on principle.)

Mine did the simple approach - although they did not get to dominate her and Gut Tugger so easily as yours and the OP's. The confining terrain worked to Rowyn's advantage, coupled with GT keeping them jammed up in the doorway. The players simply fragged them instead, although she and ol' chompy-foot did in one character before being hacked into kibble.

The crocodile is medium sized, unless you make it a large one if scaling the adventure (which I did in my game). Like you say, if it was the large variety, it would not have fit down those narrow tunnels. I also added levels to my Rowyn and advanced Gut Tugger, but didn't get to use them in a fight because my players decided to join the her.

Interesting. Umm...if you do long posts like this I suggest you break it up a little more - when staring at a solid block of writing on a computer screen I find it easy to loose my place. I suspect others do as well.

Sorry about that. I copied and pasted the large block and the formatting didn't carry over very well. Plus, I'm not writing a school paper, blech. If I end up posting more of the campaign, I'll put it in the campaign journal board and try to use shorter paragraphs, just for you.

With regard to Ms. Kellani.

** spoiler omitted **

Cheers!

I am running STAP in my own campaign world. Last session, my party finally ran into Rowyn. I had been wondering how it would go and gave them even odds on either fighting her or joining her. Here is how it went:

(Note: My campaign is set in my world in a nation ruled by mages. The main port city is called Tarentia and is loosely similar to Sasserine in layout. The geography around Tarentia is similar to Sasserine as well. However, the government and other features of the city are very different. I did place other locations in my campaign world for STAP -- the Isle of Dread, the pirate isles, and Scuttlecove so far. I changed the name of the pirates (slightly) but use most of the characters from STAP (although some have changed classes. Rowyn is not a bard in my game and Lavinia is also different as only spellcaster families are noble in Tarentia.)

The party continued to explore deeper into the Lotus Dragon complex. They forced open a door and found a chamber containing a rhagodessa. The spider like creature leaped forward and grappled Kelven, grabbing him with a large pedapalp and then bit him with its powerful jaws. Reacting quickly Kulak cleaved it with his axe and Kelvan stabbed at it, dispatching the horrid beast. They discovered it was chained to a wall in an adjoining chamber that it apparently is kept in when the chain is retracted into the wall. Moving on, they entered another adjoining chamber and discovered a room dominated by a large table and chairs. On one wall was a map of the city with a number of colored flags marking various locations. On the other wall was a large slate with notes regarding various plans. In a box drawn on the slate the names of the PC's were written with the note: Vanthus Fix This!! After carefully studying the map and examining the plans written on the slate, they left the room and followed another hall leading to another chamber, and after forcing the door they encountered a bugbear zombie! Kelvan and Kulak moved in and engaged it. Others in the back shot their crossbows ineffectually at it. After a number of tries each, Kael was finally able to turn it. It cowered in the corner and Kelvan, Kulak, and Collin surrounded it and hacked it back into final death. Then they followed another narrow hallway leading from this guard chamber and took the door on the left. It opened, revealing a immaculate marble tiled room with a pool and a brazier for heating rocks. After making a cursory inspection and leaving dirty bloody tracks on the nice white tiles, they left and opened the other door in the hallway. This door also opened easily to reveal a lavishly appointed chamber with purple colored furnishings and a red haired woman lounging in a chair. Next to her stood a dinosaur-like dragon with green scales and a bright yellow crest on its head. As the party opened the door she stood up from her seat and regarded them with an appraising eye.
"So, you are Lavinia's flunkies eh? I would like to offer you a job. You're obviously resourceful people with strong fighting skills, why don't you work for me instead of Lavinia?"
Intrigued by her offer, the group decides to listen to what she had to say. Rowyn introduced herself and continued, offering them more money than Lavinia and an opportunity to make a lot more working with her and the Lotus Dragons as part of the guild. Enticed by her stunning beauty and charm, and even more so by the potential to make loads of gold with which to buy all the things of their heart's desires, Quintus, Kulak, Thadimus, and Collin eagerly agree to join her and the Lotus Dragons. Kelvan was not so moved by promises of wealth, but was interested in the opportunity as well. Kael and Erithus decided to go along with the others. Moving back to her War Room (the room with the map of the city) they continued to discuss their new relationship. Rowyn seemed to think Lavinia was not much of a threat, except for her ability to hire such powerful mercenaries as the PC's. She was eager to begin working the resourceful group, although apparently unhappy about the loss of so many of her rogues. The first thing she wanted them to do was help clean up the place and work on refortifying it. Obviously many of the guardians need to be replaced. They discussed some ideas and the group asked her about Vanthus. She told them he was away on a mission for her, and when they told her how they were looking for him and wanted to find him and that he had tried to kill them on Parrot Island, she seemed to be unaware of exactly what Vanthus had tried to do to the party. The group asked her where she had sent him and she told them he had gone to Kraken Cove. She then showed them around the guild, explaining the purpose of various rooms. She showed them the private smuggler docks they had, and the Ixitxachitls that work for her and help guard the secret cove. She also told them about some other adjoining caverns where she keep some more ragodessas. The party helped clean up the place (there were a number of bodies of men the group had killed fighting their way in. They had also asked her why she didn't just meet with them in the first place, to which she said she didn't know what their intentions were and wanted to see what they were capable of and had little reason to expect they would so overwhelm her defenses at first.) while Rowyn went up above to set up signals to her other rogues that had escaped that it was safe to return. The group decided to go visit Lavinia and told Rowyn they would be back later.
They went to Lavinia's place and told her they had found a lead on Vanthus and that he is headed to Kraken Cove. She encouraged them to continue their efforts and find her brother. They took some time to clean up and rest, train some skills etc. Then they went back to Rowyn's hideout and met the remaining 6 rogues. Some were indifferent to Rowyn's new strongmen, a couple didn't seem happy but went along with their leader. Then the party and Rowyn went back into her War Room and talked some more. They worked out their deal with her that they would give her 50% of their take while working for her, and they also demanded Vanthus in exchange for working for her. She agreed and when asked more about Vanthus told them he had gone to Kraken Cove after a smuggling ship he had found out about that was said to have a very valuable cargo. She told them he had hired some men to go with him and had gone with "that hussy" Brissa. Rowyn did not hide her dislike of the fact that Vanthus had gone with this other woman. The group was very eager to get started bashing in skulls and grabbing loot and asked Rowyn more about her operations. She told them the guild mostly deals in smuggling of exotic animals and also in extortion and protection of nearby clubs. Her current plans were to take over more of the harbor and it's trade and admitted the guild was behind killing the harbormaster. She has a number of the docks under her control (Solar Vark works for her). There are sections of the city harbor she doesn't control, like the ashen veil section of the harbor and also Shadowshore. Other things not currently under Lotus Dragon control are the slave trade and the drug trade. Rowyn cautioned the PC's saying she did not want to mess with the Ashen Veil and its stranglehold on the slave trade. As for drugs, they are smuggled into the city and dispersed by a number of independant operators who have their own pushers and also distribute to varoius clubs around town. With her number of informants and control of various sections of the harbor, Rowyn has a pretty good idea about drug trafficking in the city. She told them that most of the drugs come from a city on an island far out to see called Scuttlecove, but that city is largely under the control of the Dark Brotherhood, a powerful band of pirates. Smugglers move drugs from there to various port cities, including Tarentia. When asked about other theives guilds in town that they might be able to go take out and perhaps enlist the rank and file members into the Lotus Dragons, Rowyn told them that they had taken out the other guilds already and anything left is just small time gangs. A little disappointed they still didn't have an immediate target to go crush, the party began thinking of other plans to smash and grab some loot.
They considered various ideas (they were tempted by the idea to hit a slave ship) and finally decided they wanted to steal a ship and its cargo from some smugglers. They decided the safest bet would be one of the drug smugglers and they went down to the docks and contacted their man Solar Vark. He told them about drug smugglers and slave ships and cautioned them against doing too much to hurt the slave trade as the Ashen Veil would get involved eventually and you don't want to mess with them. As for drug smugglers, some come to his docks and move their goods to various agents in town. He told them he usually makes a cursory inspection, gets a nice bribe and has a nice something to drink while chatting with the captain, then has his dockworkers unload the cargo. He told them he expected a ship to come in the next few days and he would tell them when it did. So the party hung out at the sailor dive near Vark's docks (called the Salty Barnacle) until they got word from Vark. The next day they finally got word from one of Vark's men that a smuggler had come in. So they went out, posing as dockhands and stood on the docks with Vark's other dockhands. Collin watched from shore. They watched the captain do business with his first customer, a wagon with 4 teamsters who pulled up, inspected the goods from a barrel, then handed 2 large chests to some of the sailor. Then the captain (of a ship called the Sea Nymph) barked at the dockhands to get moving, and Quintus, Thadimus, and Kulak moved some cargo from the ship and loaded it onto the wagon. As the wagon moved off into the city, Collin tailed it and marked the location of the warehouse they entered. While he was gone, a second wagon came to the ship and was loaded with other barrels. This from a different warehouse apparently. Thadimus had his rat sneak onto the wagon as it left. Collin returned and after a third wagon from yet another group was loaded, he followed it to it's destination, expertly avoided being detected. He marked a second warehouse. The rat became frightened when the wagon he was on moved too far away from Thadimus so it jumped out and scurried back to his master. It narrowly avoided the jaws of a number of alley cats on the way back. The 4 of them carefully laid their plans to assault the ship in the dead of night over many drinks in the Salty Barnacle. Much enboldened by their estimations of their own prowess and lots of liquor, they cast various buffing spells and put silence on a xbow quarrel. Quintus and Kulak carried a gangplank while Collin had out his loaded crossbow and Thadimus his loaded rat. They waited until the lone sentry on the sterncastle looked away, then charged silently down the docks. Just as the sentry turned back towards them, Collin shot him with his crossbow. They had moved close enough that the sentry was just inside the silence spell and his outcry was unheard. Collin then threw a dagger before the sentry could react. It hit him in the neck and he went down silently choking on his own blood. The only other sentry on the forecastle remained oblvious that anything was wrong. Moored across from the Sea Nymph was the Blue Nixie, but the group had told the men on it to lay low earlier in the day as there was going to be some trouble on the docks that night. Another ship moored further out than the Blue Nixie had only a single sentry that didn't see any of this action. They laid the gangplank and snuck aboard, remaining completely noiseless with their silence spell. Leaving the quarrel amidships near the gangplank, they hid behind the mainmast, then Collin snuck up behind the sentry on the forcastle who had leaned over the side to stare into the water below. He grabbed him and stabbed him, Thadimus shot him in the shoulder at the same instant, and his rat ran up and delivered a shocking grasp. The hapless sentry could do little more than cry out in pain before dropping to the decks twitching and dying of his several greivous wounds. The sentry on the other ship came up on the sterncastle of his ship to see what the cry was, but all he saw was one man standing there, who waved when he saw him. The sentry waved back. The group snuck back amidships while Quintus pretended to be the sentry they just silently killed. They tried to enter the captains cabin, but it appeared to be barred from the inside. So they checked the crew quarters in the forecastle. 6 out of the 12 bunks were occupied with slumbering sailors. Using their silent quarrel, they set about sapping as many as they could. Although 2 of them woke up and tried to fight back, the rest were quickly knocked out. One that Quintus tried to sap woke and tried to grapple him, but was quickly beat down. Another got up and tried to run out, but didn't even make it to the door before being taken down. Some blood was spilt but no one was killed. Hurrying back to the captains cabin since their silence spell wasn't going to last too much longer, they bashed down the door with Kulak's large axe. The captain woke to the vibrations of his door being bashed in, but only had enough time to light his lantern and grab his weapons. He met the murderous dogs at the door and tried to put up a tough fight. He scored a hit with his dagger on Collin and fought with great skill with his longsword and dagger, but his lack of armor caused him to take many blows from the 4 men, and also 2 shocking grasp attacks from Thadimus's rat. Kulak smote him with the flat of his axe blade and knocked him out.

DM Notes: That's where that session ended. The next one should be interesting. As you can see, the party deviously discovered a way to play both sides and work for both patronesses. They may eventually have to choose between them but for now it seems they can work for both as they can continue to go after Vanthus and do jobs for Rowyn that Lavinia doesn't even know about. Rowyn doesn't mind handing Vanthus over to the PC's because they work for her now and they are potentially worth more to her than Vanthus. Besides, she found out about this Brissa woman and she's a bit pissed at Vanthus right now.

As for the players, we have the following:

Collin: Male Elf Rogue 4
Erithus: Male Elf Ranger 3
Kael: Male Human Cleric 2 (about to take a lvl of Paladin)
Kelvin: Male Human Knight 3
Kulak: Male 1/2 Orc Barbarian 2/Cleric 1
Quintus: Male Human Cleric 3
Thadimus: Male Human Sorcerer 4

They managed to level up to 4 by the end of this adventure, but I had some extra encounters mixed in it, and of course the attack on the smuggler ship.

Most of the party was eager to join Rowyn for various reasons. Quintus's family is a rich noble family that deals in slaves. He hates the slave trade and was kicked out of the family. So he wants to get back at them and thinks Rowyn can help him do that better than Lavinia can. He also wants to live that kind of lifestyle again and one can make more money this way right? Collin is a rogue so he loves this. Erithus is often heard to loudly pronounce: "I'm getting paid for this right? A lot right?" Kelvin will need to decide if he's going to swear loyalty to Rowyn or not, his Knight's code mostly has to do with how he engages enemies, it doesn't mean he can't work for an evil lord (or lady). Kulak is a former slave and thinks Rowyn can help him take down the city that enslaved him. Thadimus is a greedy sorcerer and has no problems with it. Kael though, is likely going to leave the party. (he was not at last session but has told me he is rolling a new character). He will likely become an NPC working for Lavinia only. It's possible he may later become an enemy of the party.

Next session should be interesting as they finish up with the smuggler ship (certain people in Scuttlecove will not be happy about this) and then go after Vanthus in Kraken Cove. So although there was some derailment of the adventure path, they are actually staying on it quite well as they still want to find Vanthus.