I think my respone would have been similar to Sben, with the primary exception that I would have dominated Avner Merivanchi. Likely the dominated NPC will need to be killed off as part of the combat against the kopru, and this way they won't have nearly as much guilt. :)
I chose Amella for exactly the opposite reason—to add a tactical dimension to the encounter, force them to figure out how to deal with a dominated ally. Good practice for Golismorga, if nothing else.
But YM, of course, MV. Whatever’s most fun for the group!
This happened in my game. I decided that a few NPCs (including ones the PCs knew decently well, but not favorites) had been killed, that Capt. Venkalie was dominatred and standing watch on the ship, and that Lirith was leading the remaining NPCs, most of whom were living in trees a few hundred yards inland. (The higher-level ones maintained a rotating watch from the shore for the returning PCs, and for any trouble from the occupied wreck of the Sea Wyvern.)
This is a slightly different “Timeline” question than, I think, I have seen posted here before. My question is: Has anyone put together something like a timeline for the STAP. I don’t mean when it takes place in Greyhawk history or in relations to other APs. I mean, like, how many days, weeks or months does each chapter take, how long does it take to sail from Sasserine to Farshore, stuff like that? Thanks.
I kept a timeline on the wiki of my now-ended campaign. (We stopped at the end of "City of Broken Idols", as two of our group have babies due before we would have finished "Serpents of Scuttlecove". Turns out to make for a pretty nice ending.)
A few other notes follow.
Spoiler:
The year is different (two or so earlier) than what turns out to be canon, for irrelevant and trivial reasons.
In "The Bullywug Gambit", the party reached Sasserine before Drevoraz and the bullywugs, so we played it out as a siege.
I made a voyage plan for "The Sea Wyvern's Wake" which I think will be helpful.
Final post for me; our campaign ended at the end of "City of Broken Idols" -- a natural stopping point -- due to another player and me both having babies due in a few months.
PC: Crimgin, gnome wizard 3/druid 3/mystic theurge 7
Adventure: "City of Broken Idols"
Location of Glory: Khala's chamber
Summary: well-chosen and -cast spell
The party teleported into Khala's chamber, having been driven out last time in the single or low double digits. They had a well-planned series of actions for the first few rounds of combat. Crimgin deviated from the plan immediately, casting a feeblemind on Khala instead of whatever else he was going to do. The player rolled a natural 20 on the spell penetration check (needing something like a 16 to beat Khala's SR); I rolled a natural 1 on his saving throw, his only possible failed Will save.
Unable to use his spell-like abilities, or conceive of tactics any more complex than "charge and hit", Khala slogged towards the party through two solid fogs, taking steady damage all the way, and getting grappled by a pair of the thaumaturgist's huge earth elementals, before finally falling to a hold monster (due to his dramatically-lowered Will save) and a coup de grace.
This ended the threat of the savage tide, Khala not having created enough shadow pearls to power Demogorgon's final ritual.
So the videos of Lou Zocchi currently making their way around the internet are making me nostalgic for the terrible old dice that came with Blue Box D&D. In particular, I have "fond" memories of a blue d12 whose edges were so worn that it rarely actually came to a stop by itself, and certainly was incapable of producing random numbers.
However, Google is failing me; I'm unable to find pictures of these horrors.
Does anyone have pictures, or know where I could find any?
PC: Xianta Silvergaard, sorceress 10/fighter 1
Adventure: "The Lightless Depths"
Location of Glory: Gallivant Cove
Summary: Never try to bluff a dragon ...
... unless you get lucky. Xianta rolled a natural 20 on her Bluff check to convince Emraag the Glutton that the Crimson Fleet plans to attack him the next time they sail into Gallivant Cove.
This, along with other blandishments and bribes (the latter couched as tribute; the party quickly realized that they were dealing with an ego as much as with a dangerous dragon), helped convince the Glutton to allow ships flying Farshore's flag to pass unmolested. He is now also likely to attack the next crimson-sailed ship he sees.
At the start of "The Lightless Depths" (immediately before Fogmire), with a new player, a semi-retired player, and a retiring character, we now have:
Harg, half-orc ranger 11, original member of the party; an archer planning to become a totemic demonslayer; semi-retired (player has a baby and a busy job)
Xianta Silvergaard, human sorceress 10/fighter 1, original member of the party; was briefly planning to become an eldritch knight, but is now focussed on archmage
Erik Kingmakersdottir, human fighter 11
Crimgin, gnome wizard 3/druid 3/mystic theurge 5
Ruba, human (Olman) cleric 7/thaumaturgist 4, devotee of Tlazoteotl the Earth Mother
The fallen and retired are
Spoiler:
Tholnak Huginheim, dwarf fighter/rogue, killed by Ripclaw
Egric, human cleric, killed by Drevoraz
Ordo Umongus, gnome monk, retired in favor of a new character
Vaego Stonewall, half-orc paladin, killed by Olangru's mates
Gareth Garethson, human fighter (spiked chain style), retired in favor of a new character
Kek, phanaton rogue/avenger, retired in favor of a new character
I talked to my players about this right after Journey's End. I said something along the lines of "there's a railroady part coming up; we can play through and possibly avoid it, but if that happens, I don't know if I'll have the time to retrofit the scenarios to fit the new situation. Also, this is basically the first and last time this will happen. Can we just fast-forward and say you've crashed on the Isle?". They agreed, and we jumped ahead to the point where
Don't most groups also have access to Teleport by 9th level? That helps with travel in many cases.
I imagine there are decent trails to the Tar pits from the Olman village because it is a useful resource.
They certainly could have teleport, though my group doesn't (the only dedicated spellcaster is a sorceress who hasn't gotten 5th-level spells yet); it would be good for getting back to Farshore (though watch out for being off-target; they're probably not very familiar with the colony yet).
I decided the trail from Tanaroa to the tar pits was "poorly maintained" simply because I thought it wouldn't be a route that's traveled very often; they usually stay behind the Wall.
We're not even out of the Bullywug Gambit yet, but I'm trying to anticipate the question of why Lavinia isn't on the Sea Wyvern with the group. They're probably going to try to have that happen.
So why is it that she's on the "other" ship for Sea Wyvern's Wake?
Several possible reasons:
She owns the Blue Nixie, while the PCs (probably) own the Sea Wyvern.
She doesn't trust the Jade Ravens like she does the PCs. (Not in the sense that she thinks they're thieves and liars, but that she doesn't think they've proved themselves capable of taking the responsibility of a ship.)
Perhaps she wants to maintain a socially-acceptable distance from a blooming relationship with a PC.
We're reaching the end of "Tides of Dread", and I estimated/computed/made up some travel times over the course of the scenario. Thinking that other DMs might find them helpful, here they are!
All times assume a move of 30'.
Farshore - Mora: 1/2 day by outrigger canoe
Mora - Tanaroa: 1 day's leisurely journey, well-maintained trail through grasslands
Tanaroa - tar pits: 2-1/4 days, poorly-maintained trail mostly through jungle
tar pits - Zotzilaha's shrine: 1-1/4 days, no trail through scrub and badlands
tar pits - phanaton village: 2-1/2 days, poorly-maintained trail through jungle
phanaton village - rakasta village: 1 day, no trail through grasslands and jungle
Farshore - Sea Wyvern's wreck: 4 days (stopping at night due to unknown waters)
I don't know if this is "correct", but it worked for us. If the PCs hadn't left Zotzilaha's idol on the Sea Wyvern back at the beginning of "Here There Be Monsters", they would've finished the major quests in five full weeks.
Since we lost the license, we no longer have the ability to make the web supplements and to put them up on the website. So those last three supplements will never see the light of day unless WotC does them, and with 4e coming down the turnpike, I doubt it is every going to be on the top of their list.
On an related thread a month or more ago Lisa said that their would not be any more online supplements. I believe this is not about busy staff as much about ownership of the material.
Which thread?
If you're talking about this one, it looks to me like Lisa Stevens was talking about PDF versions of the complete magazines, not the supplements. I couldn't find any other thread, though I certainly could have missed one (or more).
At what point did your parties move up to level 2? Do you think Parrot Island would be too tough for a rather brash group of lvl 1's composed of a ranger, monk, sorcerer, rogue, and cleric?
My players (a party of four) leveled up after the Vanderboren vault.
Having a cleric will definitely help them under Parrot Island; at the very least, it will help them dictate the terms of any fight (by limiting the number of zombies they need to deal with at any given instant). Other than that, I don't know enough of the differences between a party of four 2nd level characters and five 1st level characters, though my hunch is that the 1st level characters would be at a disadvantage. You might consider letting them level up immediately (gaining hit points, BAB, saves, etc., but not being able to fill new spell slots without rest).
Ending after CoBI, there still would be the loose end of the CrimsonFleet which is in posession of several of the pearls already created and delivered.
Other points aside (and they were good ones), this can be easily hand-waved if the DM is planning to end here; it just takes a simple change to the background such that not enough pearls were delivered. A quick "epilogue" could also be written -- "and the party then tracked down the handful of completed shadow pearls and dropped them in a sphere of annihilation and Everybody Lived Happily Ever After The End".
After ToD would be a good ending point (closing the Vanthus vs Lavinia arc ) and the same would hold true for after CoBI (with the threat of the "Shadow Pearl" production finished) or after SoS .... again closing the Vathus arc and possibly closing the shadow pearls arc, if you have all the remaining pearls in Scuttlecove, so the characters feel there being no loose ends left. that would be around level 16 for the finale, but if you shorten TLD and CoBI some, and lower the end bosses challenges (especially Khala ) you might finsih the camapign with 14th level chars.
With just minor tweaks, you could even make TLD the end of the campaign -- not enough shadow pearls have been completed yet, and the players stop Demogorgon's plot before it gets very far.
We're slow: After 35 sessions, theoretically every two weeks but in reality something less than that, we're almost done with "Tides of Dread". Our sessions average a little less than four hours in length. I suspect we won't finish before my wife and I have a second child, effectively ending my DMing. We have no idea if we'll find a natural stopping point (e.g. the end of "City of Broken Idols") or find a replacement DM (perhaps one of the players whose PC will have died fighting Khala); we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Thinking back on it I simply let the PC re-find the bat idol when the ship crashed, perhaps I should have done what you did. Ah well.
I wasn't quite sure what to do. The players said "Oh, we definitely left that back on the ship; why would we have taken it with us?" I responded something along the lines of "Are you sure?", and they assured me that they left it there. So, along with partying with the phanatons, their situation is entirely of their own choosing.
Zombie Boots wrote:
Looking at the Suppliment for 143, the map of the Island of dread (on page 6) in particular looks very... reveiling. Would any DMs just hand their PCs it? or would you modify it?
I don't have the Photoshop chops to modify it, so I've taken Urol's map of the Isle from 142's supplement (without the route overlay) and have been adding names and sites to it as the players become aware of them. It's a bit of work, but it's looking quite nice now.
My players are going to try to recover the Wyvern in the next session.
Aquatic spells: It's not at all clear, but it seems to me that Skephilipika's freedom of movement should let him move on land as he does at sea (40' if I remember correctly). (Otherwise, why does he bother casting it?)
Is there any reason why he wouldn't stay submerged while casting all of his spells, especially his summoning spells?
Finally, I think I'm going to give Bloodtooth a 20% chance to capsize a rowboat. (He doesn't have a hard shell like a dragon turtle, but he should be able to knock the thing around a bit, and it'll foreshadow the encounter with the Glutton in a few sessions.) Is there any reason not to do this?
**Chapter 5, Dungeon 143, Tides of Dread. Spoilers as always!**
I’m having trouble finding mention of this in Dungeon 143 or maybe is was a fellow DM that suggested it.** spoiler omitted **
Spoiler:
My impression was that they would be successful, the overall mission and recovery taking a random number of days (1d4?).
Zombie Boots wrote:
And since I'm asking, for you DMs: How did you handle -Tides of Dreads- over all? I enjoy hearing how other DMs have done it so I know what to watch out for or fun ideas to incorperate.
I'm in the middle of running it, and it's going well so far.
Since they were actively looking for Temauhti-tecuani rather than waiting for him to arrive, they found the phanaton tar-gatherers, told them to hide, and ended up sneaking up on the sleeping T-rex at night and coup-de-gracing him. That was fine with me, since he would have slaughtered my particular group. They also were on a very lucky streak vs. the emerald anaconda; one of the party would surely have died in its coils if they hadn't rolled 19s and 20s when it counted. (The player has realized that the character's luck will eventually run out.)
They left the bat idol on the Sea Wyvern, and haven't recovered that yet; they figured they'd just waltz up to Zotzilaha's shrine and ask him to cool it. He gave them a month to return the idol (or else), and chased them out of the shrine. But with the PCs' lollygagging around the rest of the scenario, taking their time and visiting with phanatons and exploring rakasta temples and such, I don't think they can make it back in time. I still haven't figured out exactly what will happen, but the volcanoes will erupt, and he may give the PCs a bit of a smackdown before he realizes that they've brought the idol back.
Wow. Only three years? Somewhere I got the impression that Age of Worms began a decade after Shackled City. Still, three years isn't a big deal; I could always change if it really mattered anyway.
---
So I'm seeing that I should beware Ravenous Zombies and Ragodessas. Possibly keep an eye on Flotsam Ooze, Orlangru, and Khala.
I'm surprised there was no deaths from the Kopru Thrall of Demogorgon (unless I missed that). I figured that control water trick would have screwed over somebody.
Let's see. From memory, I think you got the major ones in "There Is No Honor"; Rowyn and Gut Tugger often turn out to be easier than expected.
In "Bullywug Gambit", watch out for Ripclaw. Later, Drevoraz is also dangerous, as are (to a lesser degree) the various "named" bullywugs.
In "Sea Wyvern's Wake", the hydra and Mother have also been tricky.
In "Here There Be Monsters", the opening T-rex, and Olangru + Lemorian golem.
In "Tides of Dread", the emerald anaconda is surprisingly dangerous, along with Temauhti-Tecuani and of course the final battle.
Building on what Hired Sword said (I think vikingson's post came from another thread somehow):
In addition to fiddling with opponents' stats, be prepared to fiddle a bit with treasure. D&D3e seems to assume a working magic item marketplace, which doesn't exist from "The Sea Wyvern's Wake" through "City of Broken Idols", so PCs will be stuck with whatever they find. Make sure it's not entirely useless (an occasional useless or not-so-exciting item is fine, but don't make it all useless.
Not all opponents need their stats boosted. Some encounters (e.g. the Scarlet Brotherhood blockade early through "SWW") are intended to be a chance for the PCs to show off.
Read the obituaries thread. There are recurring encounters there, indicating that they're particularly dangerous, suggesting that you want to pay close attention to them.
Sben, I did, indeed, intend for the couatl encounter to net the PCs some XP. I would award a bit more if the PCs entreat the creature peacefully and get what they need that way. Award a bit less if they are good characters that resort to violence. Either way, they should get something out of it for sure.
Thanks so much for the clarification. (And I'll post back tomorrow if I find that the award is there but I'd missed it.)
There was no mention of an award; the Shrine of Zotzilaha had an "Ad-hoc experience" section, but the rakasta temple did not.
Turns out that with a few pseudo-random encounters (a treeleg spider, three megaraptors, and a giant squid), my players will hit level 11 after the battle at the end of the scenario. If they don't screw it up.
Repairing the Sea Wyvern: "Repairing a hull section requires a day of work and a successful DC 20 Craft (carpentry) check -- up to three sections may be worked on in a day."
Does this mean that a single carpenter can work (or supervise untrained work) on three sections, or that up to three carpenters can each work on a single section?
PC: Kek, phanaton rogue 5/avenger (good assassin) 4
Adventure: "Tides of Dread"
Location of Glory: Outside the Temple of the Jaguar
Summary: A perfect sequence of actions
Long Description: Harg, the half-orc ranger, noticed the emerald anaconda with a natural 20 on his Spot check. Kek buffed up with cat's grace and jump, then studied the snake for a few moments, then cast true strike while the sorceress cast greater invisibility on him, and finally charged. He totalled 40 for his Jump check (perfect to get him onto the pyramid) and rolled a 3 for his attack roll (but good enough to hit with true strike). Needing to beat a DC 16 Fort save (against Kek's death strike) with a +18 bonus, I of course rolled a natural 1: one dead snake.
Needless to say, things would have gone Very Poorly for the phanaton if I'd rolled anything else.
As a slight counterpoint, couatls are of type "Outsider (Native)", which (unlike other Outsiders) "need to eat and sleep". Doesn't mean they're not immortal, but they're not quite the same as other Outsiders.
I'm not sure what the harm would be in knowing how the Isle came to be how it is, but I'm also not sure what the benefit would be. I think I'm inclined to just hope the players don't ask, and treat Tonatiuh as a "young" couatl if they do.
The encounter with Tonatiuh (the couatl in the rakasta temple) indicates that couatls remained on the Isle after the first savage tide for a variety of reasons. Does this mean to suggest that Tonatiuh was alive and present for the event, or is he merely a descendant of those who were?
Sben, I did, indeed, intend for the couatl encounter to net the PCs some XP. I would award a bit more if the PCs entreat the creature peacefully and get what they need that way. Award a bit less if they are good characters that resort to violence. Either way, they should get something out of it for sure.
Thanks so much for the clarification. (And I'll post back tomorrow if I find that the award is there but I'd missed it.)
Are the PCs intended to receive an XP award for successfully interacting with the couatl in the rakasta temple? It doesn't explicitly state so
Really? Hm... I coulda sworn it stated this. ... It'd be a shame if PC's that went around attacking couatls got to level up quicker.
I could be wrong, but in reviewing for tonight's session, I thought I looked over that encounter pretty carefully.
If there's not meant to be an XP award, it would be in contrast to the encounter with Lithira in "Here There Be Monsters", which was similar in terms of threat to good-aligned groups, but which did award XP.
Are the PCs intended to receive an XP award for successfully interacting with the couatl in the rakasta temple? It doesn't explicitly state so, so I'm assuming the answer is "no", but would like to know if that was the intent, or if other DMs have done that.
My players are old enough to know about Iggwilv, but not devious enough to read the adventures. I wanted to foreshadow her to inspire fear and dread, but at the same time keep them from thinking I was a lazy sack. I appreciate all the tips, thanks guys!
What I've done is represent some -- but not all -- of the players' successful Knowledge (the planes) checks regarding demons as having come from a fragment of the Demonomicon that the character came across at some point. No idea if it'll work, but at least I've name-checked her on our group's wiki. (Some of the players are old enough to recognize her name, some aren't.)
You could do it as a series of set pieces or vignettes, just skipping to the major encounters and or end battles, which ever you think your group will get the biggest kick out of. For the in-between stuff, you can just tell them the events, or read them the various synopses, or something.
Yeah, I think this is more along the lines of the intent of the original question.
Here's what I'd do, off the top of my head. I think it's mostly the climax encounters or set-pieces of each scenario.
* HTBM: Urol's abduction, and the inner sanctum of the shrine
* ToD: the Battle of Farshore
* TLD: all of Golismorga
* CoBI: hm, maybe the entry to the complex and the lowest level
* SoS: the Crimson Fleet's base
* ItM: this one is harder to dissect; maybe a battle with Vanthus over the cauldron, and one other boss of your choice
It's been long enough since I've read the rest that I can't make good recommendations there.
One approach would be to simply cut it short -- end the campaign after "Tides of Dread", (not quite as natural) "The Lightness Depths", or "City of Broken Idols". You don't get to the BBEG of the as-published campaign, but you still reach a good conclusion, having accomplished something.
Spoiler:
It requires that you trivially revise things, declaring that the conclusion of LD stops shadow pearl creation before enough have been made, or similarly for CoBI. Ending at ToD doesn't really deal with the overarching plot, but still brings the Vanderboren arc of the story to a satisfying ending.
Turns out that they waited until he fell asleep, cast hide from animals, and gave him a quick coup de grace. It's difficult to make a DC 50+ Fort save, even for T-T.
In my game, that tactic would also net you about, mmmmm I dunno.... 0 xp. :p
Personally, I'm awarding them full XP. I like to encourage creative thinking in my game, not discourage it (by penalizing XP). And if they'd played it as a straight-up fight, this encounter would have killed at least one, possibly two of them, which isn't exactly the point. But YMMV, as ever.
We're partway into "Tides of Dread", and the phanaton PC's player mentions that his village had to move because of demons raiding from the central plateau.
Another player's reaction, referring to the climax of "Here There Be Monsters": "I thought we'd handled the demons?"
Ha. Ha ha ha. (Insert uproarious DM laughter here.)
BUT: It sounds like your players are already starting to approach the problem creatively and smartly with their poison dimetrodons!
Turns out that they waited until he fell asleep, cast hide from animals, and gave him a quick coup de grace. It's difficult to make a DC 50+ Fort save, even for T-T.
Anyone have stats for the infamous seven monsters on the isle...specifically the scorpion?
That little "forum search" box up at the top of the list of threads? Put "infamous" up there. There are less than ten threads, at least two of which have statblocks in them.
The actual negotiations with Orcus won't likely take more than a couple of hours of game time, so that character could easily sit out for that time, while the other players deal with Orcus- the player could even take over running a couple of the badies in the arena fight against the other players.
Or if you've got a group that's able to handle it, give the Radiant Servant player some notes to work from and have him play Orcus during the negotiations. No need for the player to sit out when his character does.
This player doesn't seem to want to play this D&D game.
I don't really agree that the player does not want to play D&D necessarily. Thinking up innovative solutions to problems is part of D&D its really just a matter of where one draws the line and that can vary heavily from game to game. ...
I totally agree; I was kind of trying to get that across when I said "doesn't seem to want to play this game" (emphasis added after the fact), but didn't do a good job of that.
From where I'm sitting, nobody is really talking much about the root problem.
This player doesn't seem to want to play this D&D game.
He may want to play another RPG, or he might want to play D&D but with a different scenario/campaign, or he may want to play Portal or something. But he seems to be doing whatever he can, consciously or not, to throw a wrench into Soccer Zone's game.
This is a very difficult problem for Soccer Zone, to be honest. It's easy for me to sit here and say "you shouldn't game with him", but the guy isn't my friend, isn't someone I deal with on an ongoing basis. I'm blessed with a group that I get along with, and that shares my overall goals for gaming. (It's also part of the reason I don't game all that much: I'm very picky about who I game with. Personally, I'd rather not game than have a game that's not lots of fun; there are plenty of other things I could be doing instead.)
I honestly don't know what the real solution is. It might be to sit down with the guy and have a conversation along the lines of "Look what you're doing. Is this intentional? Can you stop?". Soccer Zone will need to figure out (in advance!) what to do if he essentially says "I won't stop; I'll stop MacGuyvering, but I'll just figure out some other way to be disruptive". Maybe he is honestly unaware that he's causing problems, in which case talking to him will smooth the path for future gaming. I don't know that; Soccer Zone, you're the only one (on this board) who might.
In a Savage Tide game I'm running, a half-orc paladin from the northern wastes had a buffalo (using bison stats) mount. It's surprisingly similar to a heavy warhorse.
That said... never underestimate the capabilities of a group of PCs. Temauhti's only one foe; he'll need to split his attacks against all of your PCs AND the pesky phanatons. Furthermore, he's really got no real defense against foes who can maintain a ranged superiority (either by being out in the water, flying, or just being faster than him). A character who stands toe-to-toe with him and doesn't have freedom of movement up is probably hosed, sure, but that's not really the smartest way to fight a tyranosaurus.
Thanks much. I'm not sure why I couldn't figure that out for myself. Is there a standard way animals get their 10s and 11s distributed, or is it just kind of "however it works"? (By the way, those stats you gave work out to 2 11s and 4 10s, if I'm doing my math right.)
Re underestimating my PCs: Due to various decisions they've made, they don't have freedom of movement, any flying, or any way to outrun him. (The only "major" spellcaster is a sorceress 8/fighter 1; this is the first thing they've chosen to do after arriving at Farshore.) I'm sort of expecting them to try to wrangle some poison from a treeleg spider or something, coat a bunch of daggers, strap them to a [strike]goat[/strike] dimetrodon, and stake it out for him to eat. We'll see if it works; his saves are pretty beefy.
How do Temauhti-tecuani's ability scores add up? Based on guidelines for applying the elite array to a standard stat block, I'm guessing he should have ability more like 32, 14, 25 or 26, 2, 17, 8 -- very similar to his printed 32, 16, 26, 2, 16, 8, but it's annoying me.
(I'm fearful for my party's chances against Temauhti-tecuani, so am considering dropping his stats back to somewhere between his current ones and those of a standard tyrannosaurus, so am trying to "reverse-engineer" him. (I'm still of two minds as to whether or not I want to do this.) Right now, lowering his hit dice to 21 and removing his Improved Toughness feat should do nicely.)
