Hi everyone. It seems that due to changes in the GD policy, the old link to the WotR document is dead. Several people have asked me to access the document. Here you have the new link.
Dear Paizo CS, Please cancel all my subscriptions (Pathfinder AP and Starfinder AP) ASAP, due to a raise in shipping and taxes on my country it's impossible for me to maintain them. Thank you.
This seems to contradict the sidebar on page 622. It says that if you get stunned on your turn, you don't change the number of actions you have in that moment. This section, unless I am misreading, talks about Stunned (value): Gaining and Losing Actions
If what you are saying is that the Stunned (duration) takes away all your actions for the duration (normal actions, reactions, free actions) and affects you righ away, then we are in agreement. The second paragraph of the same sidebar also seems to exclude Stunned (value) as a condition that takes away your reactions, since it only changes the number of actions you regain: Some conditions prevent you from taking a certain subset of actions, typically reactions. Other conditions simply say you can’t act. When you can’t act, you’re unable to take any actions at all. Unlike slowed or stunned, these don’t change the number of actions you regain; they just prevent you from using them. That means if you are somehow cured of paralysis on your turn, you can act immediately. IMHO the text in the stunned condition is confusing and could benefit from clarification.
I think in the case of stunned it is different if Stunned has a value or a set duration. If your are stunned 1 its the same from a mechanics standpoint as slowed. When you regaint actions at the start of your turn, you lose some actions/all of them depending on the value of the condition. If you are stunned for 1 round, you have no capacity to act during that time, including your reaction. No normal actions, no reaction, no free actions of any kind. The "you can't act" seems to relate to the set duration variation: "If you can’t act, you can’t use any actions, including reactions and free actions." If that would apply to the value version, the number would be meaningless. Stunned 1 would be the same as stunned 3. Maybe I'm reading it wrong. My 2 cents.
The spell only describes how it works against spells and magic items, and the "target" section is quite clear, so in my games I only allow to use it that way. I think the "effect" word may be a fragment of an earlier draft of the spell before the rules were finalized.
Hi everyone. I have DMed this module for 10 sessions, and my players are (very likely) gonna face Ralldar next session. I suppose we will need that session and maybe another one to finish book 1. This thread has been a huge help in running my game. I made a few changes to the story so it would fit better for my group. - I altered the timeline, so basically when the players arrive to attend the Call of Heroes, the Council is going to give them the job to aprehend the Bloody Blades. That was until the night before the meeting, the red smoke appeared on the citadel, and Warbal appealed the Council the next morning to change the job, and the cultists have just arrived to the dungeon, collapsed the stairst, etc in the night before the day the game starts. The "1 month passes before anyone does something" just didn't work for me. - I introduced Calmont into the backstory of one of my players (halfling druid with the Bellflower network background), he was a friend to one halfling that died trying to help the PC flee Kintargo (the character was a slave to a noble house before the rebellion). After some years passed, the night before the adventure starts, the character delivered the news to Calmont about his friend's demise, and that broke him. That night, he made the decision to explore the citadel and control the access to Alseta's Ring. That basically made him a little more complex than what is established in the book. When the group found him in the citadel, they tried talking to him, trying to make him see that he had caused A LOT of trouble in the town and he should be held responsible for his actions. After a chase that saw him climbing down one of the walls of the citadel, with two players climbing after him, and both falling (one on top of each other, yeah you have read that right), they captured him and brought him to Breachill to face trial. The PC that had a connection to him tried to spoke to Greta Gardania, so he wasn't executed but punished in a different way. - I turned the hellknight skeleton in the crypt into Talnor Stagram, Alak's father. It was fantastic as the group entered the crypts, Alak recognized his father and fell to his knees. It took the intervention of the gnome bard (Hellknight Historian background) to make him join the fight and deliver the final rest to his father. This was the first hard encounter that the group had, until this point most of the fights had been manageable (even the giant bat, wich I thought would be much more dangerous). The gelatinous cube is another encounter that turned to be easy, the players saved against the paralysis and didn't have to deal with the suffocation from being swallowed whole. - The Bloody Blades have been hired by Quentino Posandi to rob the caravans that come from the nearby quarry to deliver goods to Tuskhead Stoneworking. Voz also knows this from her conversations with Dmiri. Since the players captured both the Blades and Voz, but didn't question them regarding this matter, maybe Voz will use this information to be released from prison. To be honest she hasn't commited any crimes aside from reanimating two soldiers from the Goblinblood Wars as her minions. I used two skeletal champions in her encounter, and it was pretty epic. - The PCs let Balka live, and it helped them with treasure and some directions to reach Alseta's Ring after some intimidation by the human ranger ^_^ So after the Voz fight, I have a question for other DMs running this module... Voz has her spellbook and the heroes now have it. They asked to sell it but frankly I haven't found a way to price this particular item... How do you establish a price for enemies' spellbooks? This question will arise again in book 3 with Barushak.
Ok so after all the information posted in this thread, I'll try to answer my initial questions: - Does this sense allow the character to automatically detect creatures inside the radius when he spends an action to Seek? Yes, the character automatically detects creatures inside the 30 ft. radius of the imprecise Scent. They become "hidden" to the character, wich means that it knows the square they are in, but still have to deal with the DC 11 flat check to target them, etc. In case the character has to make a Perception roll against something inside the 30 ft. radius (because their scent is masked somehow), that is when the +2 to Perception checks from the heritage is applied, since it enhances all the gnome's senses. - Wether you have to roll or not, do you still have to select a 30 ft. cone or 15 radius burst (keeping in mind that the Scent only works up to 30 ft.) when using this sense in a Seek action? Or does it function like an "aura" of sorts, detecting in a 30 ft. radius in all directions from the character's square? Depends. If you can locate the creatures using the imprecise scent, that is done automatically within the 30 ft. radius. If they mask their smell but you still can use Scent, then you can roll if they are within 30 ft. of you. If they mask their smell and you have to use another sense, you should follow the standard rules for the Seek action, taking into account the +2 bonus to Perception. - If you don't automatically detect creatures, how do you calculate the difficulty to detect a creature by smell inside the Scent range? I assume that the DC would be easy unless you take specific precautions that mask your smell or the conditions in the area prevent you from using Scent or make it difficult to use. Refer to the general advice in the Core Rulebook for the DM to establish skill DCs. Depends a lot on the situation. For example, if the creature has a smell but is in a smell-heavy environment (for example an otyugh inside a sewer; or if there is a lot of smoke in the air), that probably requires a Perception check to locate them. Thank you everyone for participating in the discussion!
The monster/NPC creation rules is the best feature of the Starfinder system for me. Once you are familiar with it, you can create antagonists fast. Back on topic, I have realized Deldreg is missing the lvl 5 armored storm soldier ability (Enhanced Tank). This means you can add another armor upgrade to its Battle Harness.
I'm starting to run this module and got some questions. - Even after Jason explained the Foundry map on page p.29. I'm still confused. Areas D1 and D2 are supposed to be at the ground level, and D3 above them. But the corridor near the D4 offices has a door north and south, and the map implies that the northern one opens to the outside, but that door doesn't have a stair to reach the ground safely... that basically means that you open it and fall to the ground if you keep walking? that doesn't make any sense. I look at the map and think that the whole structure is supposed to be on the ground at the same level, but for some reason the D1-D2 areas aren't connected to the rest of the building. - How high is the balcony were Xavra is located in area D7 of the Foundry? the adventure doesn't say. How did the kishalee accessed this balcony? there are no stairs or elevators that go from the ground floor. Also, does the floor extend below the balcony, so there are 10 ft. until you reach the wall at the ground level? it's not clear looking at the map. - What creature is depicted on page 38, a the Istamak section of the book? looks like a cross between a worm and a drake. Can you give any details about it? I would like to create a statblock to use in the adventure as a random encounter on Istamak. In case it helps other GMs out there, I looked through the alien archives and Pathfinder bestiaries in search of monsters thematically apropriate for the adventure, to add or replace some random encounters. So far this is what I have: - mucilaginous clouds, 3 of these can work as a surprise encounter on a foggy day on Istamak.
@JohnHawkins, Yeah man, no kidding. Those fights in books 5 and 6 take hours to resolve. For the soul foundry I thought Terendelev was more than enough and I'm happy to say it was the right call. We had enough time to run the combat and do a lot of RP when the party found the Suture and fled from Khorramzadeh. For Threshold, well you know what combats I did. I got rid of all the filler stuff (aeons, the new demons, shemhazian and kalavakuses, raspers and dragons, etc) because they add nothing. In my game all those forces were devoted to attacking the crusader's cities. Deskari knew that only the strongest of his minions could pose a challenge to the heroes of Kenabres. Please tell us how your fights go!
Thanks guys! @Pnakotus: No, the players didn't have Terendelev or Pyralisia by their side. Both NPCs remained in Drezen and Kenabres respectively to protect the cities, as the demons launched an all-out attack while the PCs were exploring Threshold trying to close the worldwound. The players decided this was best, as both creatures lacked mythic power in their standard forms and were no match for the enemies the heroes would have to face (a sound choice, in my opinion). The players had the two solars against Areelu, and Legion (the flaming solar created from the sould freed from the temple of Baphomet inside the ineluctable prison) was gated in the final battle against Deskari.
Hi everyone. Yesterday we finally finished the campaign, and the final battle against Deskari was a blast! I still have to write about Areelu's combat at Threshold's Roots so I'll start there. Basically the party appeared at the center of the chamber, with enemies on all sides (they knew where they were going to appear, so...). Enemy team started with an all-out attack since the players didn't roll well on initiative, so most of the enemies went first. Most of the bad guys were under the effects of mythic haste, mythic heroism and Sister Perversion's bard song. This combat lasted about 3-4 rounds (can't remember exactly). On the second or third round, the paladin summoned Nocticula (basically sacrificed his soul to save his friends, wich she did). Just so you know, the paladin had a love-hate relationship with Nocticula since they met on the midnigh isles, and in my opinion has made the campaign much more interesting :-) Even then, the huge number of enemies put a lot of pressure on the party, and it took them several turns to retaliate. All the PCs died at least once, and several miracles and wishes got used to revive allies and remove damage/effects. Anyway, on to the combat: - Areelu started using evil eye on the sorceress (she failed the save), and then mass-suffocated the party. With the buff from the devastator's aura (+5 to spell DCs), only the inquisitor saved. Since all of the players were flat-footed, they couldn't surge. The paladin also removed the effects by spending one use of mythic power on his turn (he didn't have to breathe for a number of hours, so I ruled it nullified the spell's effects). With her arcane metamastery x4 ability, she mazed the sorceress. After Nocticula was summoned, she was dominated and commanded by her to attack her allies (khorramzadeh and the titan got mass hold monster'd, remember she overcomes mind-affecting immunity and bonuses). She also commanded her devastator to stand down so it didn't defend itself or Areelu. She failed both will saves against Nocticula's domination ability, and that was her doom, but I think it was pretty cool. After all her allies fled/died (only Gimcrack remained), we stopped the combat and I described how Nocticula put a bolt through her head, killing her. - The 2 solars attacked the PCs until the dwarven cleric used his gift from Iomedae (see herald of the ivory labyrinth) to free them, no questions asked. Then they played as support, casting healing spells on the party and keeping Gimcrack focused on them. They were key to the party victory, since they could cast miracle once each to revive all fallen allies. - Gimcrack attacked the inquisitor with full-attacks using titan's bane, until a natural 20 came up on the die and he decapitated Beloc. After that, he started attacking the solars because one of them rolled a crit against him on and opportunity attack (true seeing), and he was VERY pissed. - The devastator heavily damaged the cleric and the inquisitor, and at some point killed them (the crits from the soul beams hurt a lot). After Nocticula appeared, she started attacking it and it retaliated of course. The player controlling Nocticula then thought about ordering Areelu to "deactivate" the devastator, wich she did. It remained deactivated after Areelu died. - The titan only acted once, but its full-attack against the entire party caught the players by surprise and did lots of damage. He died after failing the save against Areelu's mass hold monster and getting coup de grace'd by the inquisitor (god of war style). - Anemora had a grudge against the dwarven cleric (Kurt), and tried to energy drain/implosion/disintegrate him with varying degrees of success. Kurt got a lot of negative levels from energy drain, and it made him fail several saving throws (I think he got 7-10 negative levels). She died after the sorceress got revived and finally casted an extremely lethal mythic meteor swarm. - Sister Perversion acted as backup, dispelling the PCs buffs, making their life harder. After Nocticula appeared, she removed her blessing inflicting several negative levels on her. She panicked and fled the battlefield. - Khorramzadeh was the bad guys' heavy hitter, killing at least three PCs (one of the by decapitation). After he got paralyzed by mass hold monster, he saved on the first round with a natural 20. The paladin used smite evil on him (they got into a duel until he killed the paladin) and paid the price. The rest of the party assumed he got empowered from the description I gave them, so they asked him to remove the smite. He also died to the sorceress' mythic meteor swarm. His death throes killed one or two characters. After the combat, Nocticula allowed the paladin to perform the closing ritual (and fight Deskari if he wanted too, but of course the party didn't know that). I ruled his divine power was slowly fading, so he could be useful in the last battle. the ritual went very well, and I added a dream-like secuence to each character based on their fears and flaws (the worldwound trying to make them fail). The worldwound was closed, and the party appeared in the rasping rifts, along with Deskari, two honor guard balors (I used the stats for Gallundari from Demons Revisited, see the Aponavicius battle description for the additional effect I added to the Death Throes), and four apocalipse locusts. Just so you know, a while ago I added another ability to the demon lord traits, so their resistances and immunities cannot be ignored or overcome when they are on their abyssal realm. I rolled randomly for the starting places of each combatant, and the PCs got separated except for the inquisitor and the sorceress. Arueshalae started next to Deskari, and was the first to die by his scythe after the first four attacks. He then moved to the island at the other side of the bridge, where the paladin was standing next to an apocalypse locust. There he stayed for the remainder of the battle, wich lasted a good five rounds. The highlights were: - The abyssal swarm aura kept the PCs on their toes with the damage and the two fortitude saving throws. Since the poison drains Constitution, it makes saving against the nauseated condition much harder. The paladin and the cleric died from this damage. The characters in general had to use a lot of surges to remove the nauseated condition using unstoppable. Defensively speaking, the damage reduction (40) was invaluable when keeping Deskari alive. Even the paladin using smite evil noticed the difference. Also, the heavy fortification ability canceled three critical hits. - The demonic aura did its job, and killed the sorceress when she casted offensive spells at Deskari (mythic meteor swarm and mythic fireball). The players face was priceless when I told her that the abyss basically had erased her from existence... :-) - Deskari's full-attack killed a character each time. The paladin avoided death after the last two attacks from the scythe missed, but dropped dead after the demon lord attacked with mythic vital strike on an amazing initiative standard action. His death came after the players had attacked him for several turns, using area attacks and the gaze attack from the aegis shield the paladin has (useless against deskari, but not the apocalipse locusts or the abyssal insects). The swarm was taking a lot of damage and for one round I described the swarm as getting weakened (only reduced 20 points for one round). The sorceress took the cue and used mythic meteor swarm with everything she could. I rolled crap on the reflex saves, even after surging, and the damage killed him. Overall it was an amazing ending for this campaign. The players cheered when their enemy finally died. After the fight we wrapped up the campaign, explaining the ending for each of the characters. Well, it took a long time to play this campaign and create this document, but I'm very proud of the results. I think the modifications made to the enemies allowed me to emphasize the "mythicness" of this AP. I will try to make some additional adjustments to the document based on my latest experiences, but I think for the most part my work here is done. I hope this document becomes a useful resource and inspiration for those DMs out there that want to DM the AP and create a suitable difficulty level.
Time for an update. Right now we have finished exploring Threshold save for the last level (the roots, where Areelu awaits). The last few combats have been interesting and challenging, so overall I'm happy with the statblocks. - Anemora an Perversion fought as indicated in the encounter notes on the document. They had two advanced balors (Deskari's honor guard) and two ancient apocalypse locusts as minions. I planned on making more locusts appear as the enemies were defeated by the PCs, but I didn't need to. After killing one balor and one locust, the players made Anemora and Perversion flee using a miracle to retreat to Threshold, so they'll be waiting with Areelu for the last fight. At least two of the players went unconscious (almost killed) in this battle. - Terendelev: A very challenging fight. The paladin died to the dragon's attacks, and the paladin was saved from decapitation by his scale. The nahyndrian and cold aura proved to be very effective. After the fight, they resurrected Terendelev after convincing her spirit that the crusade still needed her. I didn't use the Son of Shax and Shaorhaz because that's another gaming session lost on combat alone, and right now I am a bit tired and want to finish the campaign. So they went inside the foundry and saved the Suture. At this point Khorramzadeh appeared and the group thought that, with the suture there they were at a disadvantage so they fled. They returned later to find that the stormlord was nowhere to be found and the foundry had collapsed after an earthquake. Inside Threshold the party found Diurgez and battled him. The fight was fast and furious. The balor lord did a lot of damage to the party with the insectile explosions and the whip-axe combined attacks. I got rid of all the meaningless combats against demons, raspers and dragons. I also removed Gimcrack from the inevitable's prison, he'll be waiting the group at the roots. At this point all these combats add nothing, and my mythic monsters are more than enough to drain the party of their resources. I included an imprisoned Xanthir Vang on the cells room (inside a tube made of force) and that lead to an interesting RP situation with the sorceress (Vang killed her parents). Much better than doing another combat with another high-level spellcaster. The next battle was against the second devastator after traversing the Worldwound. I think it killed one or two characters. This monsters are terrifying, the two times my party has encountered one of these they have inflicted a lot of damage and forced the party to spend mythic resources to bring them down. - The Echo of Deskari: this battle was nuts. it basically started with the bell ringing (I upped the DC to 40, it did damage to almost the entire party) and ended on the first round. The Echo went first and killed the inquisitor with a critical hit with the scythe, and then the paladin using half of its full-attack, an amazing initiative attack, and a mythic quickened enervation. Then the sorceress casted a mythic empowered maximized channel power meteor swarm and killed the Echo in a huge explosion. Then the Echo exploded and damaged the party more. It was awesome, bloody, and fast. - The Favored of Deskari fight went surprisingly well. It almost killed the paladin and the Inquisitor with all those reactive stings. The immunity to crits made it last longer until the party killed it on the second round. Unfortunately it only used the breath weapon once and no one got cursed (players were afraid after discovering what the cursed waters could do) We left the game as the group is preparing to use the last phase door to access Threshold's roots and fight Areelu & friends. So for the last battle I have the following opponents: - Areelu
And after that we'll see if the party wants to fight Deskari...
Hello everyone. @leo1925: congrats on finishing the campaign!! And many thanks for your appreciation of my job, I'm happy you found the document useful. But please give us some details about the important fights (khorramzadeh, Terendelev, Areelu, Deskari...) every bit of information is important ;-) For those wondering at what part is my group, I'm happy to say we left the last session as the group used the pool inside the Yearning House to reach Anemora's cave. If you have read my document, you know Sister Perversion and a small horde of apocalypse locusts will be with her. A few comments about the last fights using the statblocks: - Zelmisdria and Azrivauxus: They both were very effective. Unfortunately, I rolled crap on the dragon's attacks, but even then I managed to knock two meleers unconscious. the ability to ignore one PC's attacks for one round made some jaws drop. The sorceress burned the dragon with a mythic fireball. Zelmisdria survived a little more, and killed the cleric by turning him into a pincushion. - Apocalypse locusts: Their ability to buff other locusts or demons coupled with the ability to turn back spells and attacks made this one hell of a fight. One of the meleers was killed in this fight and several characters went unconscious. The party used good tactics to resist the onslaught. - Pyralisia: Definitely drop the automatic channel power on her spells. She doesn't need it. Two characters got several "virtual negative levels", and the sorceress died after Pyralisia deflected an atomic bomb (mythic fireball). - Devastator: It alone killed Beloc and Kairon (inquisitor and paladin) using its devastating array of attacks. The soul rays surprised the characters with their seeking property. A killing machine. - Staunton Vhane and Balor (deskari's honor guard, read the encounter description in the updated document): Staunton and his demon buddy attacked the party, and inflicted quite a bit of pain. The balor alone "vorpalized" the paladin as he moved towards Staunton, and almost killed the unconscious dwarven cleric when the balord died and the cleric's body almost got sucked into the rift (the paladin catched the body after being revived). Staunton killed the cleric and Arueshale for being an heretic demon. He also engaged the inquisitor but was finished before he could do another full-attack and decimate the herald of Iomedae. My players were very happy to finally put an end to Staunton's vile existence. - Aponavicius: She moved around her lair, mocking the characters and using the standard and secret doors to get the upper hand against them (I modified the quasit key so the bearer could open/close a door inside the complex with just a thought). She alone killed the cleric twice, the paladin once and the inquisitor once. Not bad for a boss monster.
Yeah, my players are Level 18/Tier 9. Last Sunday we played the battle against Zelmisdria and Azrivauxus. I will try to post a summary of it as soon as possible. We left the game just as the apocalypse locusts came out of the portal. Even with poor rolls on my part I managed to kill one player and knock other two into negatives. So far the statblocks are holding up, but every group is different. For now I don't need to double or triple the HP as other DMs. I consider myself lucky ^_^¡ Be careful if you do such a huge skip and start playing at book 6. Not only the players will have a ton of mechanical information to process (levels plus tiers), but also I think they will lose a lot on the roleplaying side by not having a conection with Drezen and some of the enemies. This thread is full of people experiences with the statblocks, but if you want information about book 6 read Porridge's summaries and also go read Magnuskn's thread about "combat balance in mythic gameplay".
@leo1925, To explain the changes to the first part of the adventure, I think I'll borrow Porrige's summary (found in this thread), wich is awesome: Change the initial "surprise attack on Drezen" to an all-out attack that the party has military intelligence about (so that the party will know in advance who the leaders of these armies are, and appreciate the significance of their fights against them). EX: Have the party receive military intelligence indicating that Deskari's forces are grouping for a final all-out assault on the crusaders, with three of the most powerful demonic armies marching towards Drezen: (1) an army of fiendish treants and other plants march from Undarin, led by fiendish treant Carrock; (2) an army of fiendish vermin and fiendish drakes march from the Winged Wood, led by the succubus Zelmisdria and the mythic green dragon Azrivauxus, and (3) a massive army composed of every kind of demon marches from the Wounded Lands, led by the Marilith general Aponavicius herself. Give the party a few days to help Drezen prepare, and encourage the party to research their opponents in advance (e.g., read the relevant bits of the Worldwound book). Battle Encounter 1: Carrock and group of powerful Ulkreths burst through the first line of Drezen's defenses, and start tearing into the walls surrounding Citadel Drezen. (Party faces Carrock* and 4 bolstered Ulkreths* (with new Ulkreths replacing fallen ones until Carrock is defeated).) Battle Encounter 2 (replacing A. Demons in the Tower): A large group of fiendish drakes, led by Zelmisdria and Azrivauxus, soars over the walls and starts attacking Citadel Drezen itself. (Party faces Zelmisdria* and Azrivauxus*.) Battle Encounter 3 (replacing B. Opening the Portal): A demonic portal from Aponavicius's lair opens under Citadel Drezen, and a group of demonic locusts emerge and start slaughtering those in the citadel. (Party faces 4 Ancient Apocalypse Locusts*.) Aponavicius's Lair: The party enters the portal to Aponavicious's lair to confront the Marilith herself. (Opponents by initial location: C1. Devastator*, C2. Pyralisia*, C3. Grave-Knight Staunton* (guarding the door to the projecting pool) and Aponavicius*.) As far as resources for this creatures go, JohnHawkins and Pedantic Princess did an excellent job (thanks guys!) As you say, the son of shax (mentioned in Demons Revisited) replaces the filleted man and shaorhaz (who is found in Demons Revisited and The Worldwound) replaces Lord Stillborn.
Yesterday we started City of Locusts, and played the combat against Carrock. My group had acquired a lot of allies to defend the city, including: - All the important NPCs that appear in the inside cover, including a redeemed Nurah that came back from Nerosyan to give them some important information (I'm not following the module in this regard).
The combat started after the players asked Arueshalae to locate the most important threats (Carrock, Zelmisdria/Azrivauxus, Aponavicius). They decided to deal with Carrock first to avoid having significant breaches in the walls. They teleported to a building's roof next to Carrock and 4 ulkreths. The sky over the treant was very dark and stormy, and as soon as combat started, huge bolts of lightning and thunder came down crashing on the PCs (see my updated encounter notes in the statblocks document). The rest of the Ulkreth unit started to take notice of the PCs, and moved to assist the 4 initial ones and Carrock. While moving, they attacked the Heroes of Drezen with rocks. Carrock won initiative and started attacking the dwarven cleric, who took a lot of damage. Since Carrock is using a modified mattock of the titans, the building started to crack after such huge blows. The cleric returned the favor with some healing and one blow with his warhammer (family artifact) The party was surprised to see that the flying inquisitor (human, herald of Iomedae) could not approach Carrock due to the antilife shell. Not knowing exactly what he was using, the sorceress tried to disintegrate Carrock but failed. The Paladin flew to the groung, activating his Aegis shield to petrify Carrock and at least one of the ulkreths. He directed the cone of fear to another ulkreth, and it failed the save. On the ulkreths turn, the one inside the Aegis gaze attack failed and turned to stone. Later, it was replaced by a new ulkreth that used its remains as rocks :-) The cleric started healing, and the inquisitor tried to dispel the antilife shell, with no results. Carrock did not avert his gaze, and faced the paladin, making a full-attack, stunning and dropping him. On the next turn, his stamp attack would kill the paladin, healing him of whatever little damage the party did to him, and regaining one use of mythic power. After killing the paladin, he would focus on the inquisitor, dropping him unconscious in the roof. The two remaining ulkreths attacked the sorceress with rocks, while the paladin's lion did some damage to one of the demons. The sorceress casted mythic time stop using arcane metamastery (maximize), and targeted her allies so they could heal/revive, etc. She used 4 out of 5 rounds to cast delayed blast fireball, timing the rounds so they all went off at the same time after the spell. The cleric used a mythic breath of life to revive the paladin, who then repositioned near Carrock and the two new ulkreths. Time stop ends, and Carrock eats quite a lot of damage even with fire resist 30 (Drink Deep). The paladin then proceeds to move under Carrock (Titan's Bane), and hit him with two criticals, killing him. I described Carrock as he kneeled, opening his "chest cavity, and revealing what appeared to be a large purple stone. The paladin told me he wanted to struck it, and so he did. The stone cracked and exploded, creating a huge shockwave that finally shattered the building where most of the group was on, sending them flying (and suffering a bit of damage). The paladin took more damage since he was near Carrock but of course survived. All that was left of the mythic corrupted treant was an emerald stone (Carrock's original "heart", that the PCs can use to restore him). The paladin picked up the stone and raised the Aegis shield, as the huge Ulkreth force approached. Two of the ulkreths instantly turned to stone. The rest of the characters dare not approach for two turns due to the gaze attack of the shield... and waited while a rain of rocks hit them several times. They used this time to contact Arueshalae and ask her where was the next target (the succubus and the dragon). She told them they were near the tower that Soltengrebbe the mythic chimera used as lair. In the end, the gaze effect wore off, and the sorceress teleported the group away to the tower. I have updated the document with the Favored of Deskari and the Carrock encounter notes.
Time for a new update. Yerterday we finished Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth, and here you have a description of the last fights: The vault: The main modifications I made to the encounter were (aside from using improved statblocks for the ivory minotaurs and the baphomet golem) having Inger-Maggor and his two ivory minotaur bodyguards lie in wait inside Baphomet's tower and appear through a gate inside the vault to attack the characters; and Baphomet striking a deal with Erum-Hel the lord of Morghs to let him try to kill the iomedaean inquisitor and his pals to increase his mythic power. (Erum-Hel is described in Undead Unleashed). To understand this better, I need to explain what is Baphomet's plan in my game. I consider the premise behind the module (rescuing a herald) a bit weak considering Iomedae is asking the characters to put themselves in grave danger by invading Baphomet's realm. So I changed that part into this: Just as he did with Asmodeus (stealing his labyrinth and learning how to draw power from the infernal brand), Baphomet wants to use the Herald and his connection to Iomedae to absorb part of her divine power and ascend. To do this, he needs to fully corrupt the Herald. Iomedae fears this is what Baphomet wants, and passes this information to the PCs when they encounter her. This puts the PCs in the difficult position of having to move fast to get to the Herald and kill/redeem him. Since the players killed Shamira in Alusinyrra and allied (momentarily) with Nocticula, Baphomet fears they may be powerful enough to put an end to his plans in the worldwound. He has increased his minions in power and numbers, and looked for beneficial alliances. One of these is with Erum-Hel. Baphomet convinced the undead lord that helping him drain Iomedae will allow him to increase his mythic power. And since Erum hates Iomedae with a passion, I supposed he should be interested in facing one of the mythic followers. Erum-Hel is a well built character, with abilities that complement each other. The fact that he can hide in plain sight in shadows and turn invisible makes him a good assassin. Of course I changed some path abilities and feats, and increased his DCs as usual by including his undead hit dice into the formula (as explained in my firt post) but as I said his statblock is quite good. Unfortunately his paralysis was useless because the characters have a 24 hours freedom of movement thanks to enduring blessing, but event without that he proved to be quite the challenge. So basically when the party entered the vaul Erum was already there, buffed with some scrolls courtesy of Baphomet. Can't remember the specifics, but one of them was mind blank. The party took damage from the maximized forbiddance and everyone lost a buff to a dispel magic (same effects as in the Svendack encounter). The vault was surprisingly hard for my players. Instead of trying to use the golden orb they went for one of the treasures and triggered the golem, maze trap and other enemies that were waiting for them to make a mistake and take advantage of it. And so it started a huge melee that included: - characters trapped inside the maze (taking damage from the maximized mythic maze), pulled in there by Inger-Maggor or the trap. - Inger Maggor sharing his smite good with the ivory minotaurs. The bodyguards targeted the sorceress and the dwarf cleric of Torag, for a lot of damage. - The golem died fast, but not before opening the red door and letting the Vilsteth out (I applied the advanced template to it). Both monsters were nearly useless. The golem was dead after a full-attack from the inquisitor, and the Vilteth tried to hit him, failing most of its attacks. - Erum-Hel used his abilities to move using stealth, full-attacking (fleet warrior), and then moving again to hide using stealth. His high stealth modifier, coupled with his Hide in Plain Sight, invisibility and mind blank made locating him very difficult, almost impossible. I need to point out that the light from the golden glow below the items and the orb didn't have more than a 5-foot radius. All the characters see in the dark so they didn't have any light sources. During the fight they imagined they were being targeted by an invisible attacker, but the need to deal with the other enemies and the means they used to locate him ensured that Erum-Hel was safe. After all his allies died, he stealthed away and fled... I have to think about making him return for another combat. He alone killed the inquisitor of Iomedae three times during the battle, one of those times by beheading (vorpal effect of his rokha sword). The paladin and the cleric died once during the fight from Inger-Maggor's and the minotaur's attacks. All of them where revived during the same fight. After finishing the vault, the players discussed how to deal with the herald and if they wanted to fight Baphomet. This has been a discussion they have had since we started the module. The vault fight had drained them of quite a few resources, and they rested for 1 hour (recuperation) inside Alderpash' cell. Then they buffed themselves again and teleported to the Herald's prison. After exchanging a few words, the fight started. For this encounter I changed the tar's attack, damage and CMB/CMD bonuses so it could do something in combat: +35 attack (concealment doesn't affect the roll), reach 15 ft., damage 3d6+20, on hit the tar tries to grapple or pull the character 10 ft. towards the tar if he/she is protected against grapples (as was the case for my group). CMB +35, CMD 45. This fight was less intense than the previous one but more interesting because the goal wasn't to annihilate the opposition. That, and the fact that the group couldn't be within 15 feet of the tar without being attacked and the herald couldn't be targeted with ranged effects without getting them reflected back at the attacker. Speaking of the Repulsion Field, I changed this ability to reflect anything magical or physical that he could strike, not only those things with an "attack roll". For example, with this modification, the ability should include fireball (he hits the small sphere) and magic missile (he hits each missile). In this fight he reflected some arrows back at Arueshalae, and one maximized polar ray at the sorceress (it missed because of concealment, she was greater invisible and mind blanked so true seeing didn't work). I also added the "mythic spell-like abilities" to the Herald, because he needs it to heal himself or attack without wasting a precious action. The herald got paralyzed by a hold monster spell and went into the tar. The next round, he got free and resurfaced, trying to kill the sorceress. The paladin died twice in this fight, even after taking the Servant of Balance mythic ability to ignore critical hits' addittional damage. The Herald's gaze attack was very effective, and created quite a lot of tension when Malaika the astral deva (who held the Herald's heart) was pulled inside the maze. The paladin's mount died from Int drain inside the maze. The group managed to kill the herald and revived him with mythic breath of life before a round passed and its soul was pulled by the abyss (they of course didn't knew this). Then they knocked him out with nonlethal damage and redeemed him. Restored, the Hand of the Inheritor offered them a plane shift to the material plane before Baphomet arrived... The entire labyrinth started to shake as Baphomet approached... and the party decided to flee as they thought the crusade really needed them and the work was done, so fighting Baphomet was a risk not worth taking. It's a pity I won't be able to use Baphomet's stats, but I think they made the right call. I have not yet uploaded the document with the changes to the Herald, I expect to do it soon.
Hi everyone, I'm still Dming this, but after Christmas we haven't played a single session yet. We will continue on March. I have implemented the following changes (as detailed on my previous post):
- All maze effects (those that duplicate the effects of the spell) inside the prison are converted into mythic mazes and maximized. If the spell or effect is already maximized, it deals maximum double damage (the herald, I think, is the only one with a maximized mythic maze). The party thinks that they should try to complete the prison as fast as possible before Baphomet can come up with a plan and react. To help them do this, I plan on restoring some of their mythic power as they complete quests and trials inside the prison, so they can go on without resting. I think this is better than the passive attitude that Baphomet has in the module as printed, that allows for multiple rests without consecuences even if the party is killing all of Baphomet's minions with ease. After my last update, the party has done the following: - Fight the ooze and the demodands at the entrance. A surprisingly challenging fight, I used my advanced demodands (check the document) and they worked great. The party didn't event tried to fight the ooze (it paralyzed one of the PCs, but the rest of the party acted quickly and saved him). They killed the demodands and closed the doors to avoid the tentacles :-) - They interacted with the prisoners, and gained the astral deva as an ally. Again they had to fight the tarry and slimy demodands that were guarding the area. They did quite a lot of damage with their abilities and the narrow corridors hampered the PCs movements a lot. - After encountering Alderpash, they tried to lure the warden using Igramalash. They came up with a plan using walls of force to force a fight between the two monsters. Igramalash killed Arueshalae after being released, and then he died when Ylleshka appeared and made a full-attack against him, scoring several crits. The player's jaws dropped after seeing her damage potential. The warden came accompanied by several demodands. This combat was hard, the aasimar sorcerer died after taking Ylleshka's full attack, and after injuring her a lot, the cleric revived Igramalash (I think he used mythic breath of life)in the hopes of having a raging monster trying to kill her. Since it seemed fair that Igramalash would focus his first attacks on his killer, I went with it. He rolled a confirmed crit on his bite attack, and killed the Warden by ripping her heads! It was awesome. I think both the paladin and the inquisitor fell unconscious during the fight. The PCs are happy because their plan worked, and still think that without Igramalash the fight against the warden could have gotten ugly very fast. This is where we are now. I think their next step will be trying to locate the drow priestess or the vault. Again I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to post their fights and give feedback on the statblocks document. I will try to post updates as soon as I can.
It's about time for a new update. Since a lot has passed since I last posted, I'll keep it as brief as possible. - The combat against Gelderfang was fast. Four players were allowed in the arena (no Arueshalae), combat started and our four-armed friend brought one of the front-liners (either the paladin or the inquisitor) almost into the negatives. Then the paladin used smite and proceeded to crit poor Gelderfang twice in a row. The rest of the party ended him fast. Well, it's not what I expected but he scared the players with the damage he did. Just so you know, I had other encounters prepared from the Moonscar module, but the players got the option to pay a friendly glabrezu merchant they met to bypass them and go directly against the champion. - After meeting with nocticula, they fought the flayed angel and the abyssal harvester. I increased the harvester's reach to 60' ft., so it could reach the characters more easily. The angel rolled good damage, and lasted for 2 rounds. After the angel died, the tentacles retreated inside the qlippoth runestone. - They bypassed the barge, using wind walk to reach the entrance to the mine fast. Since hepzamirah knew about the players killing Shamira, she increased her security detail and the complex was on alert. The metal gates had a balor instead of those useless cultists and hezrous. The demon spotted them from afar and teleported to warn Hepzamirah. I couldn't use the fulsome queen because the players entered the cave, and the inquisitor went down flying, scouting ahead of the group. He descended invisible to the second level and hid inside the small passage to the right of the map. He heard a balor talking to the other demons, but couldn't understand what he was saying. Back at the top of the cavern, the balor appeared along with another balor buddy. Combat started, and one of the balors had to teleport to safety to remove the stone from his body (mythic flesh to stone) and then went back. On the second round I rolled and Melazmera returned to the cave, and the players got serious. The paladin went toe to toe with the dragon, doing some damage. The dragon did a lot of damage in return. Then the sorceress casted a mythic (not sure if augmented) empowered channel power maximized fireball, vaporizing poor Melazmera. It was awesome. Then, the paladin asked Nocticula for help. Yeah, the paladin. I asked thrice if it was a formal request. He said yes, not expecting what was going to happen (I facepalmed). Basically what happened is Nocticula appeared in the form of a cloud of bats and proceeded to kill everything in the mines in the most gory way. She finally appeared in the caver, holding a near-dead Hepzamirah. She threw Baphomet's daughter at the paladin's feet and then shot her in the head with the crossbow. Player's jaws dropped. She disappears... And then Baphomet appears. He gives his speech, blablabla, and then Nocti proceeds to kill him with style. After that she teleports bringing the paladin with her... While the paladin was having the night of his life, the rest of the party searched the caves and divined about what was going to happen to his friend. I'm not going to detail everything that happened because that could take ages, but I can tell you that the paladin was tricked by nocticula into believing that he had lost his connection to Sarenrae and got the lady in shadows' mark. In the end, he was restored and got rid of the mark. This was resolved at the beginning of Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth. We had a lot of fun as a group with the situation, and quite a lot of awesome roleplaying moments :-) So then we started Herald, with the encounter with Iomedae, wich went surprisingly well. I changed a bit the encounter and the players really enjoyed it, and were eager to answer the questions. They got all the gifts, and after they were sent back to Drezen, the Inquisitor used the special atonement of his goddess to help the paladin clean his soul. I have changed the setup in a lot of the encounters in this module. As written, it seems that Baphomet isn't that interested in stopping the PCs. Not in my game. He will use all his resources to crush them, and if they fight him at the end I'll use every trick at his disposal (including using his awesome scroll mastery) to obliterate them. So for the first encounter I used Odeenka, one baphomet golem and two balors. The players were defeated, and had to plane shift using the stole of the inheritor. To sum it up, Arueshalae got turned to stone by Odeenka, the paladin was killed by Odeenka after she used smite good, and the cleric/inquisitor fell to the golem's mighty blows. The balor's death throes did a lot of damage in this combat due to the player's failing the saving throws. After licking their wounds, they plane shifted back to the ivory labyrinth, and had another combat. This one included one balor, one baphomet golem and two labyrinth minotaurs. The balor teleported away to warn Odeenka, and got back to the combat with her and a second balor. This time the group had better luck and used a better strategy, although the cleric turned into a nice statue. Odeenka fled after getting fireballed almost to the death, one balor died, the other fled after suffering grievous wounds and the minotaurs just died... they were useless. After trying the original statblock, I have created a modified version that I intend to use inside the ineluctable prison: the ivory minotaur. I have added it to the document, be sure to check it out. While visiting Blackburgh, the players made verbovezzor angry after a few unfortunate words but teleported away before the combat could start. I intend to use him, so Baphomet will probably allow Verbovezzor inside the prison to reinforce his forces, and the mythic vescavor swarm will be able to feast on those juicy memories! I still have to think how to best introduce him again. The party talked to Orengofta, declined his offer politely and went for the father of worms blood. The players devised a strategy to get the blood as fast as possible and get the hell out of the shadow-hole and into the bridge to the ineluctable prison.
With the blood in the chalice, The PCs regrouped and removed whatever they had from their encounter with the Father. Then teleported to the entrance to the ineluctable prison. I gave the group a Perception check to notice a faint glow in the pools near the groaning gates just before the vavakias appeared. Arueshalae rolled great, and initiative was rolled. At each player's turn, I rolled 1d4 to see how many bone spikes attacked him/her (I didn't remember about being 4 attacks always, use whatever method you think works best for your party). Remember that I changed the encounter setup, so the spikes attack whatever enemies are in the bridge and near the doors, even if they are not flying. It worked great, putting a lot of pressure on the party to deal with the enemies and also advance (the spikes ceased to attack only after the group entered the prison). I also rolled two-three crits, with a x3 multiplier it hurted a lot.
The pcs then melted the lock using the blood, wich triggered the wail of the banshee trap. I changed that because it seemed to me that the blood is just another way of damaging the door, so... I upped the DC to 33, and the PCs passed the saves (I think they all had to surge). That's all for now. I'm very happy with the changes I have made so far, and the players have the impression that without mythic power they would have a much tougher time surviving the ivory labyrinth... I'm still thinking about what I want to change in the prison. The paladin kept Baphomet's horn after being killed by Nocticula, so I plan on rewarding him by allowing it to be used as a key to the cells (they react to the evil aura in the horn). I also want to make the prison much more harder, to represent a maximum security prison. Right now these are my ideas: - Mixing demodands (3 types), vavakias (groaning gates guardians statblock), ivory minotaurs and baphomet golems in the encounters
@Caius, I'll try to update the Favored of Deskari, but Areelu is first on my list and right now my time is limited. You can try giving him more barbarian levels or tiers, and an ability to "jump" through dimensions (a supernatural ability as a swift action to teleport or dimension door) to increase his mobility.
Hi Globetrotter, From the information you have provided to us, it seems your party needs a healer. In my game my players get hit a lot, and the healing support from the cleric, paladin and inquisitor helps a lot. Even the sorceress can use some healing through UMD checks. My advice is simple: tell your players they should think about some defensive options or maybe choosing a class that can heal. Also stop modifying the bad guys. Use them as written and see what happens. Don't worry about the future. If you need to adjust the next modules do it, but for now it seems it doesn't help your players. I wouldn't drop the hero points if they have no healer. I haven't used them, but I heard they help characters survive tough encounters. Consider yourself lucky if you don't need to modify all the encounters for your group :-) Obviously you care about your players and the game, so I'm confident you will find a solution.
@Lochar, Well I don't know if Xanthir will survive in my game (we are in the Ivory Sanctum right now), so I haven't really thought about making him tougher. The first thing of course would be to give him more levels and tiers, but you already know that :-) Then you can add some sort of aura/embrace attack that allows him to do a lot of damage to a character and has additional effects (worm infestation, ability drain, etc). The worms should keep gnawing at the PC even if he goes beyond Vang's reach. That should give a nasty surprise to the melee characters that think he's an easy target. Giving him back the old epic WtW "+20 insight bonus to AC" modifier would go a long way to make his AC competitive. You can also give him additional hit points to represent the tougher worms that form his body. This can include something to avoid taking extra damage when hit by area damaging effects. Give him immunity to mind-affecting effects. If you want an interesting mount, I suggest using a wormdrake (Dungeon magazine #134), it is a wormlike dragon creature that has interesting attacks and can even cast gate as a sp-like ability 1/day. It can also summon worms and other nasty things. It is CR 20, if you need a tougher version just add some hit dice/advanced template until you get what you need. You can find the stats already converted to Pathfinder in my Spoiler: (page 129)
Age of Worms conversion document Campaign Update: Yesterday I had another session with my group, and finally we started the Ivory Sanctum. There is little to comment, since we only played the combat against the brazen bull and started another against 4 scions of Baphomet. It was getting late so we stopped mid-combat. The brazen bull lasted for a good 3 rounds, and did some damage by pouncing on the inquisitor and the paladin's mount. It was close to use swallow whole in the last round, but died before that. I also tried to petrify Arueshalae at the start of combat but failed. It forced the paladin and the inquisitor to spend 3 uses of mythic power each, so I consider the combat a success as a warm-up for what is to come. Today I discovered that the bull's attack bonuses were off by 8 points, so of course that made the battle easier :-( I've updated and uploaded the document with the correct bonuses. Then the group explored the wall and found the portcullis. Two scions teleported near them and used mythic vital strike to do two solid hits. The other two scions casted unholy blights that caused little damage, but combined with the previous blows, forced the paladin and the cleric to use channels. Then the sorceress and Arueshalae (using the staff) casted dimension door to appear a few squares behind the minotaurs and bypass the portcullis... that's where we left the game.
@Porridge, Here you have the answers to your questions: 1- Plaguebearer is a blight druid ability. You can check the archetype in the advanced player's guide (page is listed in Carrock's statblock, near his class, levels, etc). Spores appear in the "Aura" section of the statblock. 2- No, Life Bubble doesn't help against it. It is not a poison effect, it's more like the vrock's spores attack but without the "similar to a disease" text. Carrock is a mythic opponent and should be able to overcome player's defenses as much as they do against other enemies. 3- The effect is supposed to apply to further successful hits by the same Ulkreth on each round (attacks of opportunity also count for this ability). I have clarified the text in the document. If I have time, I'll do the full Ulkreth statblock. About your comments: - IMHO, Stunning Critical cannot be used against a plant creature because they are immune to the primary effect (stunning). Staggering Critical should work fine. This is how I would rule it, so please let's not get into a RAW/RAI argument. I agree that Carrock doesn't have an answer to the staggered condition beyond having two turns, but that's ok. I'm sure your players were happy when they crippled and then killed him. :-) - Mind Blank + Invisibility is a great combination, but remember that an invisible creature can be detected and pinpointed even if they are using Stealth. Invisibility gives a nice +20 bonus if you move, but I'm pretty sure those paladins walking in full plate are fairly easy to spot when you have a +44 Perception modifier. And let's not forget that the players cannot see each other so certain tactical decisions are harder to pull off under this "invisibility cloak" (unless telepathy is involved). Again, thank you for the detailed description! It will surely help me and other DMs when we get to City of Locusts. Fights at this level are very hard to DM (lots of things to remember), so I think you did a great job. @Cat-thulhu, Here you have what I sent magnuskn. It is hard to remember everything that the players said, so a lot of details are missing: Spoiler: During combat she thelepatically asked them about what enemy to target every round, to maximize her help. After the combat in the ruined fortress ended, Aru approached the characters. The first one to talk was the paladin, asking if she was the one that sent him the dream (I made her appear as a shadow, so I didn't have to reveal her picture at that moment), she answered yes. She explained that after the characters contacted her using sending, she tried to get some info on them using her commune with power ability (it could be a trap, and she's cautious). Then the cleric of Torag asked about how she became a "good" succubus, and I thought this was a moment as good as any other to explain her backstory. And so I did. The players liked it, specially the part about "even demons can dream". It also helps that the cleric's player used Shalelu Andosana from Rise of the Runelords as his character (he joined the campaign on the second module), and likes Desna as a deity. The inquisitor of course tried to detect evil on her, just to be sure. Surprisingly, he didn't use detect good... The cleric rolled sense motive, since he is the character that tries to think most of the time with the brain instead of the heart. The others were very excited to meet such an interesting character. After that, Aru explained them that she wanted to help them in the war, using the intel she had obtained. She also told them that she understood how difficult could be to trust a succubus, and of course would understood if they didn't want her help to assault the ivory sanctum. She was a bit conflicted because even if she knew that the majority of the crusaders won't accept her, she didn't want to use her change shape to avoid the inevitable confrontation. She basically wants to be accepted as she is, even if that is the hardest way. She flat-out told them that in case a conflict erupted, she would try to flee, harming no one if possible. At this point, three of the players wanted to take her to Drezen, and the cleric explained that doing that could undermine their position in Drezen and maybe cause a riot in the city, as the people could think that the heroes of Drezen are under the control of a powerful succubus. A long discussion took place at the table, where everyone explained the best way to do it. Surprisingly (again), the inquisitor wanted to help her, even after he has been quite vocal about distrusting Nurah (they captured her, and have been working quite hard on her redemption. It was getting late, so we had to end the game session, but in the end they almost got into an agreement to go to the ivory sanctum, and (hopefully) after emerging victorious, use that evidence to present her as a hero and an indispensable ally to the crusade against the templars. As you can see I emphasized her shyness, goodness, and the intention to help the crusade. She also told them that the urges to do evil are still there (said something about powerful demonic auras affecting her), and even suggested using some spells on her. The cleric got the message to use mark of justice, atonement, etc to help her on the redemption path. They had very good ideas when helping Nurah redeem herself, even after a rough start (they needed a few pointers as to how to approach the redemption thing from Sosiel), so I'm sure they will successfully help Aru.
@likrin, To access the document, just go to my first post an click on the "link" link that you'll find at the end. That will get you to the file on GoogleDocs, and from there you can download it to your hard drive. I don't think you need a google account to download it. In case it doesn't work, just PM me your email address, and I'll send it to you. New update: today we played the Arueshalae's redoubt rescue mission. I mostly played it by the book, with two exceptions. First, I changed the derakni demon with another Hezrou. Second, I applied the advanced template to Jaruunicka and added rake to her special attacks (2 claws +23, 1d6+11), so that she could trigger the rend when grappling. This is an ability annis hags had back in 3.5 Ok so in this fight there were no mythic enemies, and I supposed that would make it easier. To my surprise, the monsters faired pretty well (even those low-CR grimslakes) and one character even died. The encounter started as the players buffed themselves in Drezen and then teleported to the ruined fortress. I supposed that, due to the description that Arueshalae gives, characters had enough knowledge to try to teleport there ("viewed once" category). They teleported next to the tower where Arueshalae hides. Touching the ground aroused the grimslakes that were under the ground, and combat started. The big worms emerged and bite the PCs, mostly failing, but once or twice they got to do some damage (but they always failed the marrow drain). They got used as flanking buddies by the hezrous, and two of them did quite a lot of damage to the paladin after he was knocked prone by the rift drake's tail. Then the two drake riders came flying, one doing an attack along with his mount; the other commading the drake to spit his acid, failing to slow the characters (but doing respectable damage). For most of the fight, they charged around the battlefield, doing very good damage with the drake's pounce and the rider's lances. They suffered heavy damage from the sorceress' empowered fire snake spells. Once the drakes died, the riders where taken care of fast. Since the enemies have telepathy, the two hezrous joined the fight early on, casting blasphemy and attacking/grabbing characters. One of them died fast after engaging the inquisitor wielding Trever Vaenic's sword. The bebilith arrived on the second/third round and attacked the sorceress, that had moved away from the grimslakes and hezrous, hitting her with a nasty rotting bite! That same round, the cleric recognized the danger it posed and casted a dismissal. The bebilith fails the save and goes back to the abyss. The will-o'-wisps appeared when the inquisitor was very low on hit points after battling the hezrou and getting hit by a charging drake rider. Their shocking touches knocked him unconscious, and a third w-o-w executed a coup de grace, killing him. He was revived by the cleric, using a mythic breath of life. After the hezrous and more than half of the grimslakes died, Jaruunicka appeared, and air walked next to the sorceress. Next round she full-attacked her, grabbing and rending. Next round, she maintained the grapple inflicting damage, and then raked with the claws, triggering a rend. The sorceress was unconscious and still grappled... I think it was at this point when Arueshalae appeared, and started firing arrows on the hag, doing some damage. Then she helped killing the drakes so the meleers could kill the riders more easily. Combat went for a few more rounds, where the inquisitor tried to kill the remaining will-o'-wips, the paladin was finishing the grimslakes, the cleric helped the paladin and healed the sorceress, and she tried to cast a spell to escape but failed due to the concentration check. In the two final rounds, the paladin finally got to smite Jaruunicka and killed her after a full-attack, before she could finish the sorceress. The remaining two w-o-w fled after becoming invisible. And then we had an incredible RP scene with Arueshalae. Overall I'm very satisfied with the combat, even if they were normal enemies they put good pressure on the party (they almost exhausted their mythic power uses per day). The players were also happy to be able to survive such a large number of enemies (20 in total), and expect the Ivory Sanctum to be hard as hell so they welcome the addition of Arueshalae to the group for this mission.
@Lochar, It seems your sorcerer had a rough time :-) details, details!! @Porridge, To be honest I was kinda hoping that they wouldn't save her, so they had a powerful motivation. I think in the end makes for a better story, although I will think about how to improve the herald's role in HofIL. And now another battle description where I tested another one of my statblocks. In this case, it's Vorimeraak the mythic vrock. So after dealing with the cultists at the Fallen Fane, the party investigated a specific area inside the lava canyon, lead by the inquisitor, who was feeling a strange pull to that area. Since I didn't used the barbarians as the adventure suggests, I basically combined Exposed to Awfulness with Stolen Fury (the player picked specifically Exposed to Awfulness). This means that the character needed to deal with the ritual to complete his mythic trial. The backstory here is that the Molten Scar allows the demons to use the abyssal energies in two ways. The first one is as per the adventure description (turning people into demons). The second one allows them to irradiate enemy settlements as long as the lava rivers reach them underground. This doesn't cause a visible effect, but when the demons attack and people is splattered with demon blood, different things can happen: they mutate, acquiring demon traits, they turn chaotic evil, etc... this is what happened to the character. After his town was irradiated, a group of demons attacked and a babau nearly slaughtered him. After his inquisitor mentor saved him, he realized that something inside him had changed... The ritual is conducted only on certain nights, and that's when the character feels the pull. Vorimeraak, as a mythic demon, can start the ritual, but then needs a huge amount of energy to keep it going. To generate that energy, she has a flock of 25-30 standard vrocks, that chant and dance maddeningly as the ritual progresses to create lightning waves with their dance of ruin. The demons enter into some short of trance where the energy in their bodies goes out of control, making them spontaneously use some of their spell-like abilities. This creates the ilusion that there are more than a hundred vrocks (mirror image) when in fact the flock is smaller. The abyssal crystals on the left side allow vorimeraak to harness the abyssal energy. It can be projected as a powerful lightning bolt to the westernmost island (the one with the blackened rock) or to make the energy flow through the lava far away. To avoid the "we fireball/shoot arrows at them to death", I covered the entire area with a cloud of energy and steam (a secondary effect of the ritual), crossed here and there by lightning. The group entered the cloud while flying, and appeared at the Molten Scar just 30 feet over the lava. The fist thing they see is Vorimeraak, with her six wings (as per the mythic adventures description of a mythic vrock), and then the thousands of vrocks in caves on the walls surrounding the scar. Vorimeraak is standing at the tip of the rocky arm to the South, where a scroll made of human skin contains the incantations necessary to pull off the ritual (if you are mythic). Three vrocks join the fight from the caves, positioning themselves near the walls. Before starting combat, the players took some damage from a dance of ruin that exploded just at that moment (I rolled randomly). From this moment, every three rounds a new dance of ruin will burst, dealin, damage appropiately. I was suprised to see that none of my players casted resist energy (lightning) before entering the cloud, as they clearly saw lightning strikes inside it. Initiative is rolled and Vorimeraak goes first. The inquisitor and the sorceress are the nearest targets, so I rolled randomly to pick one of them. She uses fleet warrior to move next to the sorceress and full-attacks her, dropping her into negatives. That of course makes her fall (the fly spell requires a modicum of concentration) into the lava, and taking more damage, she dies. The paladin and the inquisitor attack Vorimeraak, but the mirror images mostly protect her (I forgot to ask them to roll saves for the dazzled effect of mythic mirror image when they removed one). The paladin's lion flies down to the lava and picks up the body of the sorceress before it melted (I ruled they had one round to pull her out of the lava if they wanted to try to revive her). The lion eats like 3 attacks of opportunity (one from Vorimeraak) but survives and carries the body to the big island on the east side. The standard vrocks go, two of them charge at the paladin and inquisitor, doing little damage (the players have a stoneskin wand). The third goes and releases a stunning screech, affecting both the cleric and the lion. Cleric loses his turn due to the stunning. On the next round, the cleric finally moves (eating attacks of opportunity), and channels/casts breath of life on the sorceress, bringing her back from death (he had to roll very high on the healing dice, and he managed to do it!). The party cheers in excitement. The paladin and the inquisitor keep working on Vorimeraak, while she uses her spores and nearly knocks the inquisitor unconscious (he would have fallen into the lava and died). The paladin realized after a full attack that hovering isn't one of his strengths, and fell to the ground, again eating like 3 attacks of opportunity. He was prone and badly injured. I tried to use vorimeraak's block attacks ability, but I never got to roll over a 4-5 on the die, so all the attacks hit her. The fight ended on the third round. Just before a new dance of ruin triggered, the paladin, prone and injured, casted a holy smite (he used either his trait touched by divinity or the mythic ability Divine Source), overcoming Vorimeraaks SR, and killing her in a gorgeous nuclear bomb of goodness (I miserably failed her saving throw, even after surging). After healing, the party then proceeded to investigate the scroll and try to undo the ritual on the inquisitor. They passed the skill checks I called for, positioned him in the blackened island, and the crystals released a huge lightning bolt that struck him. Instead of resisting it (I called for a fortitude save but he chose to fail it, wisely I must say), he took the damage (and survived), just what he needed to do. The abyssal energy was gone and the player got his mythic tier!
I almost forgot to give you a recounting of my last big encounter, the fallen fane. The encounter setup was as established in the document, with two waves of enemies that the players had to face in quick succession. Prior to the fight, the mother of one of the PCs (the tiefling paladin of Sarenrae) was kidnapped by Vang's retrievers while traveling to Drezen in the company of other crusaders, and brought to the fane. There, Zanedra executed a ritual that linked her to the mother, so the damage she took was tranferred to her. If the NPC died, her soul would go directly to Baphomet. The effect was dispellable (CL 14th), and required a dispel on both characters to end the effect. I calculated that the NPC could withstand up to 60 damage before dying. So the party travels to the place the giggling quasit told the survivors of the attack. They find the cave entrance, and the paladin (who has the touched by divinity campaign trait) bursts into flames and gets the bonuses listed in the AP. At this point it's worth mentioning that I added an extra benefit: while the combat lasts, the divine energy inside the character bursts every 5 rounds (max. twice), healing every character for 100 hit points and giving back 1d4 mythic uses. This was intended to be some short of "failsafe", a mythic boon from Sarenrae to help them clean the fane. Then they start buffing, and casts like 2-3 spells on each one. They enter the cave, and when they reach the stairs flanked by the statues, see Zanedra near the Baphomet statue with a dagger on the neck of the NPC (she was unconscious and resting on the statues' outstretched arms) During this, Exorius has been at the top of the entrance, hidden and looking for the characters. As soon as he saw them, he teleported inside the fane's right room (one of those with beds), succesfully summoned his brimoraks, and then teleported outside again. Svennarobeth waits in the tunnel below the statue, invisible. The glabrezu is on the room to the right. Both wait for Zanedra to summon them. The combat starts, and the first one is the inquisitor, that moves up to Zanedra (high speed + fleet charge) and hits her for good damage. You can imagine the horror on the player's faces when the wound appears on the NPC's body... After that, the first enemies appeared: antipaladins and brimoraks. The little demons threw an awful lot of fireballs for moderate damage, and the antipaladins went to defend Zanedra and flank the paladin (who had moved almost near the statue) The cleric and sorceress stayed in front of the stairs, dropping a mythic holy smite and other blasting spells. Then the surprise came in the form of Exorius mounted on his drake. He flew through the corridor and hit the cleric for a good amount of damage. On the next rounds, the brimoraks where obliterated by area spells (they did their job), and the antipaladins used their smite good to harass very effectively both the paladin and the dwarven cleric. They got solid hits before dying. They moved towards the stairs, as the paladin had to use relentless healing to bring back the cleric after a charge from Exorius (see below). They were able to do their job thanks to Exorius aura, the profane bonuses from the Baphomet statue, and smite good. Exorius found a target on the dwarven cleric, and charged him along with the drake, knocking him unconscious an killing him. He damaged the sorceress too, but she moved to the center of the room to avoid him and get a better position to use her spells. That is when Zanedra ordered the glabrezu to join the fray. He moved to the central room and used power word stun on the sorceress, but I rolled like crap so she was stunned for only 2 rounds. Zanedra and the inquisitor got into a strange fight. The PC tried to dispel magic on the paladin's mother, thinking that was the solution to undo the curse that linked her to the evil summoner. He got one dispel, but discovered that wasn't enough when he attacked Zanedra again (after dispatching the two antipaladins that where with her) and almost killed the NPC. Zanedra tried to weaken the inquisitor with her spells, but he made every save (her save DCs are too low, but I expected it). Our friend the glabrezu saw a juicy prey on the stunned sorcerer, and full-attacked her (rend included), almost killing her. Exorius started attacking the paladin after he came to heal the cleric, and knocked him unconscious (and almost dead) twice I think. Exorius is connected to the paladin's backstory, so that's why he was interested on him. The paladin's mount (lion) started attacking the rift drake, it was fun seeing both beasts battle it out. When the cleric killed the drake, Exorius found himself on the ground, but kept the pressure on the paladin, who spent almost the entire fight having to use his swift actions to heal. I think he finally got to smite Exorius on the round he fell. Since the sorceress was in a pinch, the inquisitor left the NPC in the top left corner near the statue and moved down to the glabrezu and attacked it, trying to help his comrade. At one point, the sorceress casted a dismissal spell on the glabrezu and it failed the save. This was important because it allowed the group to dedicate more characters to Exorius, who proved to be more difficult than they expected. Before the inquisitor could go to battle him alongside the paladin and cleric, Zanedra called for Svennarobeth, who charged forward, dealing good damage on the inquisitor with pounce. Sven was buffed to the gills with Zanedra's spells (mage armor, shield, barkskin, etc), and got an amazing AC. He fought the inquisitor for 3 rounds I think before getting killed. In the last 2 rounds, only Zanedra and Exorius remained. At this point the players had very little mythic power uses left, even after receiving one "fire blast" and recovering some of them. Finally, with three melee characters hitting him, Exorius fell, dead dead. As for Zanedra, enraged as she was at the loss of her eidolon, went to the NPC and attacked, killing her and sending her soul to her horned lord in the Abyss. The player's jaws dropped. They realized that they had left the NPC unprotected and unconscious near the priestess (with good reason, because they had to move elsewhere to survive). Zanedra then teleported to the Ivory Sanctum, where the players will probably find her corpse. After this, the statue of Baphomet started to move, and the PCs had two rounds to prepare. On one of this rounds, they received the second mythic boon. They healed and moved to the statue, so when it animated it was basically surrounded. They were scared when they realized it had two turns, with damaging attacks. One crit nearly killed the inquisitor, but in the end the fact that the golem spent nearly half the fight blinded due to a glitterdust spell negated a good number of attacks because of the total concealment roll. The combat finished, and a good amount of roleplaying was done as Sunlord Thalachos appeared before the characters and the paladin's fired went throught the floor, walls and ceiling, cleansing the shrine and turning it back to its original form. Unfortunately, nothing could be done for the NPC. After quite a memorable talk with Sarenrae's herald, the paladin picked the remains of his mother, realizing that he will have to go to the Ivory labyrinth to get her soul back, and put her in the new sarenrite altar. Then the party went out of the cave and sealed the entrance off... After the game, the players commented on how this encounter felt quite mythic, and the pressure was high throughout the combat. I have left all the roleplaying details (too much to write), but those were awesome too.
Yesterday we did the Family Crypt fight, using Skullgrym's statblock. I changed the setup so Sesker's Gully is an abandoned town after a huge demon attack. One of the demons (skullgrym) found the way to bind the spirits of those he consumed (be it the flesh, bones or even ashes). The thing is, after consuming the remains of the mos prominent family in town, he found himself bound to the tomb (wich in my homegame is a huge dwarven crypt under Torag's protection). Although he couldn't leave, his new minions did the outside work for him (we are talking about fallens). Long time after, Skullgrym managed to control other creatures, like the deadly drocha swarms. Undead couldn't touch him, but he couldn't control more than 4 of them at a time. He longed for a more powerful soul to consume, and that of course is the mythic soul of the PC with the Child of the Crusade trait. The town was deserted, and the entrance to the family crypt was located on the riverbed wall near to Sesker's Gully. A set of stairs excavated into the rock lead down to a cave where the mausoleum entrance lies (it is basically the same as in the adventure map, but much bigger). It is here where the PCs first encounter Alrys, and talk to him. He is used by Skullgrym to lure them into the tombs. After Alrys dissapears, I described a long set of stairs that descended into the dark, and after each landing there was a room with several stone sarcophagi. At the bottom of the stairs was the final room, where the more important members of the family where buried. One of these was Alrys. The room was big, and rectangular in size, with six stone sarcophagi on the floor near the walls. On each of the walls was a big dwarven statue, 30 feet in height. Skullgrym's lair was behind the head of the statue at the end wall, a small alcove repurposed as some sort of study and nest. Prior to the fight, Skullgrym succesfully summoned 4 babus and located them hidden between the wall and the stone sarcophagi. Their main purpose was to serve as flanking buddies and to dispel buffs. Skullgrym also casted silence on his axe, and then waited hidden in his alcobe to use telekinesis on the hidden mechanism that lowered the stone door so the entrance was blocked. His objective was to kill the PC with the CotC trait, so he could absorb his soul and gain mythic power. He could do this by himself, or using Alrys. The mechanical benefits of this was Skullgrym being healed by a small amount (I think 50 hitpoints or so), and gain the surge and whatever mythic power uses the character had at that moment. So the PCs went down the final spiral stairs and the paladin, who was first, entered the room. He didn't saw Skullgrym, and he casted telekinesis to close the stone door. Then Skullgrym proceeded to fire enervation rays at the paladin, giving him quite a lot of negative levels, then summoned Alrys and one drocha swarm to the fight. Meanwhile, the rest of the party tried to destroy the door with an adamantine weapon, but after seeing it auto-repair damage (it was magically reinforced), the sorcerer carried them to the other side using dimension door. They had seen the room before the door closed, so they decided to appear in the middle of the room. From here, the battle turned into utter chaos. The babaus flanked with Skullgrym and the fallen when they could, and dispelled quite a lot of the PC's buffs (mostly heroism and freedom of movement). Alrys always tried to full-attack his relative whenever possible. I improved the fallen statblock so for example their attacks were against touch AC (othewise they will have failed nearly always, they have a low attack bonus), and automatically confirmed crits against the PC with the trait. He wielded an axe and got a bonus to damage rolls, so it hurted. I also changed the agent of despair to a penalty on Will saves, so it helped Skullgrym land his vampiric link on a PC. If Alrys is defeated in this fight, he can return on the next turn, raising again from his sarcophagus. When he dies for the first time, Skullgrym summons another fallen (if this one dies, it stays dead). The PCs managed to kill him once. He tried to flank as much as possible with his fallen buddy or the babaus. There were only two drocha swarms in the fight. One appeared at the beginning, and when it died Skullgrym summoned another. They basically chased the paladin and the sorceress around, doing good damage and draining blood (Constitution damage). It's a good thing that the sorceress likes area spells, as they contributed to defeating the swarms faster. I didn't tried to use the death attack, as the save is very easy. Skullgrym spent most of the fight in the air, throwing enervations, and doing flyby attacks. The negative levels affected the PCs most of the fight, but the cleric managed to death ward the paladin (he had like 6 negative levels), and the babaus never managed to dispel it. On the other hand, the sorceress ended the fight with 5 negative levels, that lowered significantly the power of her spells. After seeing Alrys die for the first time, he tried to enervate the CotC PC (who was suffering a lot of pressure from the fallen's attacks) but my dice hated me and I rolled a 1. I also tried to use the Death-stealing gaze actively to kill him, but he got lucky and succeeded at it. I never used the vampiric link because I was either using the swift for a quickened sp-like ability, or to recast a constant sp-like that the dwarven cleric had mythic dispelled the turn before (unholy aura was very important). In the end, he landed and fought hand to hand with the paladin and the inquisitor, who was being harassed by the drocha swarm. His passive constant death-stealing gaze inflicted quite a lot of negative levels on the sorceress (a pity she never was inside the silence radius) and the paladin's mount. The turn before he died, Alrys did a critical on the dwarven cleric, killing him. That allowed Skullgrym to eat his soul, heal, and... gain no mythic power uses because the cleric was already dry :-) (he was later resurrected using the scroll in the secret stash) The next turn, the inquisitor and the paladin put an end to Skullgrym with their full attacks. The players had won but they were badly hurt and one of them was dead. So we had another great fight, the players fought intelligently by dispelling Skullgrym's buffs and focusing on the swarms (they are evil!). The inquisitor also was a pain in the butt with his bow, hitting skullgrym several times. All in all, I'm happy with the result.
Hi Patto, thanks a lot for your contribution. Nice work! I've taken a look at it and I may use it for the encounter at the Fallen Fane. For what is worth, I think you should definitely continue working on this "minions folder" if you can. Don't forget to show us that Thanadaemon, I'm interested in what you did, because frankly the monster as written is quite underwhelming. And now for some updates about using the statblocks... My group is playing through their first quests in Demon's Heresy, and so far it has been fun. I changed the Delamere's Tomb quest so it was Eustoyriax who possessed the priest, and along with Kiranda ambushed the party at the tomb. The PCs managed to save the priest before he suicided, and then fought the two mythic demons at the same time. This time I tried to use Eustoyriax in melee (pouncing around) to see how well he could fare. It was very good, and he knocked two characters unconscious with his pounce + grab. As for Kiranda, she fared very well against the character that attacked her the most (the inquisitor). Due to the improved critical, she scored a lot of crits and knocked him unconscious once and nearly twice. She easily avoided the area spells from the sorceress. The next fight was against the Lord of Swarms at the Eagle Rock. He was accompanied by 3 vescavor queens and after one round by two vescavor swarms. The lord was able to put some pressure on the party through the use of mythic enervation and the ranged swarm attack. That poison was nasty, and got close to killing the sorceress. As expected, the party used deathward to ignore the negative level penalties while it lasted. He also used the drone attack but all the characters made the save, although there was one close call. After receiving a crit from the paladin, he full attacked him and after all the damage from the aura he unconscious and nearly dead. Before he could coup de grace him, the sorceress casted one spell and removed his last hit points. The vescavor queens did good damage with power attack although at this level they also missed a lot. The first round they used the spit acid attack, and that is what caused some vescavor swarms to emerge from holes in the ground near the ruins and start attacking the characters that were covered in acid (and pheromones). the group got to kill two of them, and two new ones replaced them. Once, the paladin's mount (lion) failed the save against the gibber aura and full-attacked the sorceress... who was near him to be better protected XD The vescavor swarms attacked the characters and did a little damage, but sometimes they got to cover more than one character so it was ok. Another fun fight. Yesterday we did the Scorizscar fight, and it was as the book suggests: a very challenging one, and worth of a mythic trial. Of course, I did more changes to the monster than those I talked about some posts ago (you can see the finished statblock in the document), along with two environmental effects that helped set the tone that the group was going inside the lair of a very powerful mutated dragon. The details about the effects can also be found in the document, but to summarize them: - The entire cave was full of rifts due to the presence of the woundwyrm for a very long time. The woundwyrm was a former silver dragon that mutated due to the fell planar energies of the abyss. The players found the skin and scales of a huge silver dragon on the top right of the cave. - There was a rift covering the entrance to the cave. If a player walked through it, he appeared at a random position inside the lair, and could have some of his buffs dispelled. If the player teleported inside the cave, no dispelling and no random position occurred but the player took damage based on the level of the caster level of the teleportation. - The dragon started the fight inside an extradimensional space (where she keeps the treasure), and could see what happened inside the cave. That gave it the surprise round, appearing inside the cave as a free action and then attacking as a standard. - Each round the reality warped inside the cave, and the characters could suffer different effects depending on a roll. For example, both the inquisitor and the paladin suffered Strength damage, and the lion got the staggered condition and then turned into a lizard. The fight was intense, with a total of three deaths (2 paladin, 1 inquisitor), and another close call with the sorceress who attracted the woundwyrm's attention by using damaging spells. The combination of power attack + 6 attacks + grab (and no grappled condition) was powerful, but the cleric managed to bring back the dead with mythic breath of life and mythic cures/channel energy. Even then, the monster failed quite a few attacks due to power attack penalties. The players hit a lot but the acid shower that got each time made them think twice about attacking if they were badly hurt. That's all for now.
Last week I ran two sessions, and used two statblocks from the document (kiranda and Eustoyriax). We finished Sword of Valor yesterday. Kiranda was waiting for the players in the dungeon along with Chorussina, Barrid (he fled two times in previous fights) and a group of demons (4 brimoraks, 3 schirs, 4 babaus, 1 shadow demon summoned by Eustoyriax and 1 kalavakus) The fight was long, and the group was forced to expend a lot of their resources. They thought that killing the "bosses" would make the rest of the demons flee (they where right), so they focused their efforts on them and also in destroying the big crystal as they recognized it as being the focus of the ritual. Of course the demons didn't make it easy, and when Kiranda joined the fight, she was able to knock the already injured inquisitor into unconsciousness (he was 3 hit points away from death) with a full attack and two confirmed criticals. Players where definitely scared. In the end Barrid and Chorussina died, so Kiranda teleported after that. She had already fulfilled her mission to get as much information as she could about the group. The Eustoyriax fight went well, and was interesting even if there was only one enemy. These are the changes I implemented: - The purple crystals radiate energy that is harmful to non-demons. At the end of each round, PCs had to make a DC 15 Fortitude save or take 2 points of Constitution damage. The DC increases by +1 each round, and a character adjacent to a crystal receives a penalty to this save based on how big the crystal is (-2 small, -5 big). The crystals can be destroyed by physical attacks but resist energy attacks (resist 30 all elements except sonic). I don't remember exactly how many hit points I gave them, I think 15 for a small crystal and 30 to the big ones. Hardness was irrelevant because the player that wanted to destroy the cristals had an adamantine weapon. If a crystal is destroyed, the DC resets to 15 again. The effect ends when all crystals are destroyed. - The sword of valor could be picked up after being activated (imparting a -4 to the shadow demon's AC and saves), and if used to touch a possessed character, it could grant a new save against the magic jar's DC. The wielder has to make a touch attack with a -4 penalty against the possessed character's AC, since Eustoyriax will try to avoid contact with the artifact. There was a third modification that I didn't implemented in the end because the players were low on resources. It was basically a magical effect that allowed the deeper darkness to reappear 1d4 rounds after dispelled/negated by a light spell. Destroying all the crystals ends the effect. The fight was fun, both for me and the players. Eustoyriax started the fight possessing the paladin's mount (a lion) and charging his former allies. When the aasimar sorceress casted prot. from evil and succeded (the lion tried to resist the spell with a Will save but failed), the shadow demon possessed her and proceeded to mythic fireball almost the entire group, causing a lot of damage (the player rolled very high). Between each possession, Eustoyriax tried to stay away from the rest of the team. In one of these rounds he pounced on the dwarven cleric while he was trying to destroy the crystals, killing him. The paladin used relentless healing to bring the dwarf back. Finally he possessed the paladin (he was dealing a lot of damage to the demon due to smite) and proceeded to full-attack other PCs. Things started looking grim due to depleted resources, so the cleric decided to cast dismissal, forcing Eustoyriax back to the Abyss (SR was overcome, and the Will save failed due to the penalty from the sword of valor, even after surging). They wanted to kill the demon, and fear the day he will come back to torment them again :-)
@Seannoss, I agree with you that high level fey are difficult to use because even if they have a lot of hit dice, half BaB means they usually have trouble hitting. I like Nezirrius, so I'll try to use her. However, your comment has made me realize that I forgot to add something to deal with that low to hit bonus. Pulling an old trick from Paizo, I have given her a new ability that gives a profane bonus equal to her hit dice to his natural and manufactured weapon attacks. This was used in the Age of Worms AP to allow those poor 3.5 half-BaB undead to actually hit something. I'll try to use Nezirrius as an opportunistic killer, hitting the PCs when they should be most vulnerable. I may even use her along with Minagho to set up a nasty encounter. If you don't want to use her as-is, I suggest taking a shadow demon and improving it in some way. Since this assassin should be (IMO) mythic, you can use Eustoyriax's statblock as the base and work from there. The supplement "Demons Revisited" has a nice shadow demon cleric of Nocticula 15 (CR 19) that can be used as a replacement. As we are talking about The Midnight Isles, I think it's worth mentioning that I plan on expanding the combats in the Battlebliss, so the PCs have to defeat several of Nocticula's champions before facing Gelderfang. The Pathfinder module Spoiler: has several high-level non-mythic enemies that can be useful for this purpose. One of them is even related to Queen Galfrey. The Moonscar
I have uploaded the document to Google Drive, here is the link for those still interested:
When I get to Areelu, I will probably give her some additional abilities (such as the one I commented before regarding her hexes), including something to protect her against spells, maybe to even reflect them back at the caster. That said, the "core" of her statblock will remain the same. Again, be sure to rebuild her memorized spells, available hexes and tactics to create the challenge you need for your group. Also consider altering the minions she has as written. She has the Craft Construct feat, so put a specific Devastator that can protect her and enhance her spells. The corruption aura will bolster the vrolikais, making them more useful. The players will appear in a specific spot on the floor, so think about how you want to position the monsters. Add interesting and powerful environmental effects to Threshold that hinder PCs and help the demonic defenders. Of course this doesn't give the monsters more hit points, if you need them consider applying Porridge's houserule (double hit points for the important monsters). Maybe I'll need to use it too, who knows?. Anyway, It will probably take me nearly a year to reach this battle so I'll worry when I get there. In the meantime, I will update the document with the changes I deem necessary for my group.
@Aleron, Yeah, I don't have reworked stats for Scorizscar. I wanted to keep that enemy as non-mythic to see how well my players do against high-CR standard enemies. Also I have reworked all the other encounters, so I don't mind keeping the woundwyrm mostly as-is. I say mostly because of course I plan on making some small changes to adapt the monster to my needs. Here you have my ideas in case you want to use them: - Give the woundwyrm a damage adjustment for its natural attacks, as if it were a true dragon. That means bite and tail both get a +15 damage modifier. - Get rid of the Snatch feat. Give it the grab universal monster ability when it hits with a claw, bite, or tail attack. Add the tenacious grapple ability (the monster doesn't get the grappled condition while grappling) to its SQ, and constrict (2d6+15) to its special attacks. - Change the blindsight radius to 120 ft. - Get rid of the Blind-Fight feat (it gives no benefit to the monster since it has blindsight), and give it the Multiattack feat. You can swap the Snatch feat for a different one. You can give it a save boost feat or maybe Ability Focus (breath weapon). Whatever you think will be more useful. - If your players can reliably hit AC 30, the advanced template is very easy to implement and gives a nice boost to offense/defense. @Gwenton Nice! Where are you planning on staging this new dragon encounter?
@Porridge, About the Baphomet fight: - Gated demons: remember that, as called creatures, they can summon other demons (assuming they can get a round to summon help) and teleport. I know that balors are overrated at this level and die very fast, but they are fun when they explode!. Better to have twice as many :-) - I tried not to make the Demonic Aura too overpowered, but in your case, it might work better if you double the number of hitpoints it has before deactivating (20 x demon lord's CR). It could let Deskari live for an additional round or two. @grandpoobah, I did the new statblocks with a mythic party in mind, taking advantage of what the mythic rules have to offer. I would say it depends on how good your players are with the Pathfinder system. I have only tested Staunton and Soltengrebbe, and I can say that I wouldn't use them on a non-mythic party.
Hey Porridge, Unfortunately right now I'm very busy so it's hard for me to get some time to work on the document. Lately I've been working on the Echo of Deskari, but it's not finished. I'll try to get something done on the weekend. If that helps, I can tell you what I wanted to create/change to improve the module: - The assault on Drezen should involve more of the Worldwound's heavy hitters. I plan on including Carrock and Zelmisdria (plus her green dragon) as mythic opponents before the characters face Aponavicius. - Aponavicius' lair will include Staunton as a graveknight and a mythic Pyralisia. Maybe I'll include some sort of mythic construct to replace the iron golems. - Terendelev will be mythic, as she was transformed into a ravener using the energies from a cluster of nahyndrian crystals. - I'm getting rid of the Fileted man and Lord Stillborn. I don't like them, simple as that. Instead I'll use a Son of Shax (advanced mythic babau that can create weapons with its acidic blood) and Shaorhaz, the Glutton of the Green (a vrolikai inquisitor with mythic power). - If you want to be reeeeeally evil you can give Khorramzadeh a devastator or two. The bonuses to his Strength and Charisma scores from the aura of corruption will help him in challenging your party. - Make Diurgez mythic, but different from Khorramzadeh. - Improve the Echo of Deskari, the Favored of Deskari, and Gimcrak. Hope this helps. BTW, thanks for the details of the Baphomet fight. It seems it was interesting and fun.
Yesterday I played the Staunton fight with my group. The PCs had already cleaned the right side of the citadel, so only the right side and the entrance remained. Of course, after their first incursion, the enemies were ready for them and Staunton planned a "pincer attack". Also Kiranda is in the PCs camp, disguised. At night she teleported into the citadel and updated Staunton on the PCs' powers, abilities and strategies. Then she returned to get more information before finally teleporting to Chorussina's side. This is the list of combatants involved in the fight: - Barrid Isen (he survived the bridge encounter)
These guys were at F4. - 3 babaus
These were at F18 and F20. At first, the PCs didn't fight the enemies at F4, and instead holed up in F17 after taking 5 fireballs (brimoraks plus Barrid) from . After two turns, enemies started emerging from F18. First, the minotaurs, and later the babaus and Joran. Staunton waited until the last moment to join the fight. Nurah stood most of the fight inside F18 while invisible, bolstering their allies attacks using bardic music. In retrospect, I think my players made a bad mistake by hiding in F17 instead of going after Barrid and his brimoraks (I love this guys after I upgraded them). Barrid's fireballs were a constant threat throughout the fight. When Staunton joined the fight, the players were mostly healed. He first went after the dwarf cleric of Torag, killing him after 4 succesful hits (fleet warrior + full attack, sudden strike and another standard action from amazing initiative). The cleric was later revived by the paladin using relentless healing. He took a lot of damage from the sorceress' fireballs and the inquisitor' attacks. After another four attacks, the inquisitor was also dead. Things started to look grim for the heroes... Then the paladin full-attacked Staunton, inflicting quite a bit of damage. At this point, he was at 0 hit points. Nurah came out of the room and healed him, enough so he could also kill the paladin with a critical hit. Staunton had little hp, the dwarf cleric was alive but prone, and the sorceress casted another fireball, killing him for good. Barrid and the two remaining brimoraks fled using teleport/dimension door. Nurah was captured. The players cheered after a gruesome fight :-) The dead will be revived with some raise dead scrolls they bought and found during their adventures (I added some to the treasure inside the lost chapel). The combination of amazing initiative, sudden strike, fleet warrior and precision gives Staunton an edge against the PCs. The precast prot. from good gave him a standard AC and good saves (except for Reflex, wich is supposed to be his weak spot). Nurah had also cast displacement on him, and her bardic music made him a lot stronger. Again if you want to go easy on your players, don't use mythic power attack from the beginning. His standard hits are scary enough.
I think the intent in the adventure is for the players to activate the Sword of Valor to give Eustoyriax a -4 to AC and saves, being able to summon a CR 16 creature seems too much to me. A planetar should have little trouble crushing Eustoyriax. But if the players had fun running a powerful angel, then I think that's ok :-) I once had a Solar ranger 5 in my game (AoW AP), the players ran him and they had a blast! In case it helps other DMs, here you have my ideas about tactics when using Eustoyriax. Of course, these are simple guidelines, because you and I know that no plan survives contact with the enemy: - If the players activate the SoV, that makes the fight much more manageable. Since our shadowy friend here is incorporeal, that should help making the combat longer and draining the PCs resources. - If you think he knows that the dungeons have been invaded, he should have some summoned shadows with him. He can also summon another shadow demon. - He should start combat invisible (shadow blend), and then start trying to possess or charge someone. At DC 25, with the ability to make PCs reroll with a -2 and dispel Prot. from Evil, I think he has a pretty good chance of succeeding. If you want to be REALLY EVIL you can let him use mythic power uses from the players. - If that fails, well then you can start pouncing people with 5 attacks at 1d6+11/1d8+11 after activating Arcane Strike, and then grapple. Since he is not considered grappled, you can still full attack and rake. That's some significant damage, even more if they are not protected against cold. If their CMD is too high, try to charge as much as possible. Again, incorporeal should mitigate the damage. BTW, I just noticed that I didn't include the +4 bonus to grapple checks (+20 CMB total) from the grab ability. I have corrected the number, an uploaded the revised document. I think at this point it might be worth explaining my houserule regarding grappling monsters with abilities such as tenacious grapple, or when taking the -20 penalty to CMB: - First, you make the cmb check to grapple as usual.
So far this houserule has made grappling creatures viable in my games. Hope this helps!
Hi everyone, Right now I'm dming WotR, and I have created a document where I put all the modified/new statblocks I want to use with my gaming group. My players have a lot of experience with the Pathfinder system, so I need to create more difficult encounters. This document is a work in progress, I update it whenever I can. Before you check it out, I would like to explain a few things about this document: - When applying the elite array (when adding a class to a monster), I don't apply the -2 modifier, and change it into a +0. The rest of the modifiers stay the same. - SR values have been adjusted acording to the creatures' CR when adding class levels or racial hit dice. This is one of my house rules, because I consider SR one of the major defensive abilities for those monsters who have it. If it doesn't go up as the monster advances, then you are basically lowering its base CR. - When applying class levels to a monster, I add the class hit dice to calculate the monster's Ex/Su abilities save DCs. This allows breath weapons, poisons, gaze attacks, etc to still be threatening. I don't do this with class abilities (such as channel energy). - I don't use XP in my games anymore, so the CR is based solely on how difficult I need an encounter to be, based on the specific circumstances and party level. - The text highlighted in red shows most of the mythic stuff, so it's easier to use in combat. That's all. Hope you find it useful for your game.
Hmmm, that's a good idea. I reworked Staunton, giving him 2 additional champion tiers (CR 11), so all the enemies in the adventure get the same amount of mythic power. It makes sense to me since all those tiers came from the same source. His champion's strike is still sudden attack. For path abilites, I gave him ever ready (very good when you have a reach weapon), impossible speed, fleet warrior and precision (can make his two attacks at full BaB). Using mythic power attack, he gets good damage and can ignore the penalty to attack rolls if he wishes to. The initiative modifier went from a +2 to +12 (amazing initiative, Mythic improved initiative), giving him more chances to act before the players. If he spends one use of mythic power, he gets a 32 for initiative. I also changed his fiendish boon to weapon, since his mount doesn't even show up in the adventure. With a +2 modifier, you can add the keen or unholy properties to Soulshear; or improve the enhancement bonus. If you want to re-introduce the mount, just use the awesome warmonger wasp (the worldwound sourcebook). If you apply the advanced or agile mythic template, it can substitute the two half-fiend minotaur guards (same CR). It can be a gift from Xanthir Vang, foreshadowing his presence in the next adventure.
Eustoyriax is mythic. He should have abilites that allow him to overcome resistances/immunities, just as the PCs do. And the options proposed (SR, dispel) are not automatic, so he can fail on the possesion. This is not "cheesy" but an adjustment GMs have to do to ensure a boss fight like this one is challenging for his/her group. If Eustoyriax cannot possess any PCs, he will have to use physical attacks that do little damage. Shadow demons are tough because they are incorporeal and have DR, but a party at this point will have one or two weapons that can overcome the DR, and the paladin will do the rest using smite evil. Also if the players are smart, they will activate the sword of valor, weakening Eustoyriax considerably. One dismissal (smart players will use this spell in a demon-heavy campaign) and he is gone. Sure, he can come back sometime in the future, but as far as the adventure is concerned, the battle is won. Honestly, if GMs want to use Eustoyriax to his full potential, just summon shadows again and again until you have the desired number. Since it is at-will and has a good chance of working, he will always have a decent number of shadowy minions. Unless the entire party is death-warded, they will take some strength damage. Even if shadows have a low to-hit bonus, it is a touch attack so the low Dex meleers will probably be in trouble. Edit: to answer Seannoss question, mythic creatures have a number of abilites equal to 1 + mythic rank. That's why Eustoryriax has 5
I think Vang could use some minions. One or two advanced (hit dice, template, more ranks...) apocalypse locusts from Bestiary 4 could be appropriate. Their cursed brand ability will mess divine PCs pretty badly if they fail their saves. Don't forget that the PCs will have Arueshalae with them for this fight. That is another mythic PC. The ivory sanctum in general could use some improvements. It also lacks (IMHO) a "cool!" factor that other bosses hideouts in Paizo adventures have. I'm surprised no one in the crusade has managed to locate it after all these years, given that it's not even protected against divinations (unless I missed something). As for the encounters, I have a few ideas: - Replace the basilisk with something more threatening. A variant mythic gorgon can be a good solution to keep the area description intact (he can petrify creatures with its breath). If you prefer a minion of Deskari, a myrmecoleon (B4) can do the job. - The guardian minotaurs will be mythic (2 or 3 ranks). - Templars and blackfire adepts will probably be speedbumps at this level for my group, so i'll get rid of them. They will be elsewhere in the worldwound. This will allow me to have less combats but more challenging, so the group can reach Vang in one assault with depleted resources. - Jerribeth will get more mythic ranks. Since a glabrezu is CR 13, 6 ranks seems right, for a total CR of 16. - Xanthir Vang will be reworked, using the excellent suggestions made by others. I hope in the next adventures the designers try to include more mythic enemies. I understand that not every fight should be against equal-power opponents, but we are halfway through the AP and only 6 mythic enemies have appeared. For me it seems too low for an AP that should show both sides of the mythic ruleset (players/DM).
If you are looking for statblocks, you can check out the conversion document I did when running it: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2px77?Age-of-Worms-AP-Pathfinder-conversion-doc ument Send me a PM and I'll email it to you.
In the mythic adventures book you have a table that shows how many trials you need to complete in order to get the next tier. In this book, PCs start with one mythic tier. Defeating Soltengrebbe counts as a trial, and gives the PC their second tier. To get a third tier, you have to complete two trials: defeating Staunton and defeating Eustoyriax/recovering the sword of valor. They end the module with 3 tiers in total.
+1000 to what Archmage Mescalin and magnuskn have said in general. My ideas about the lost chapel encounters: - The gargoyles are probably fine (a bit weak). One can be added, or the advanced template can be used to make them tougher. Either way you are not adding too much extra XP. They will be flanking partners for the other monsters. - Get rid of the ghouls in D3 and advance each of the ghouls' CR by 2. Turn them into ghasts and give them one additional cleric level. that ups their CR by 2, for a CR 6 each (EL 8, but more realistic than before). Consider stacking all their HD (racial + class) when calculating the stench, paralysis and disease DCs, so they get more difficult to resist. This is a houserule of mine that has worked pretty well for monsters with special attacks and class levels. - Again get rid of the ghouls in D6. That allows you to bump Nulkineth's CR by 1 with the advanced template, wich should let him last a little longer. Change his Lightning Reflexes feat (at his bonus, he's going to fail these type of saves anyway) for Multiattack. The gargoyles (who sound the alarm when intruders are in sight) and the ghouls can start the attack, and then Nulkineth joins the fight. When he dies, the nabassu arrives. Some standard ghouls can be added during this battle if needed, arriving from outside the chapel. They won't likely add much to the fight, but if they are lucky attacking the characters in the rear things can get tense.
I will start the AP in a month, and so far these are the changes I will do: - 20 point buy, but the caracters cannot have an ability score below 10, if racial modifiers put it below 10 you have to raise it again. - Only good alignments. - Only one campaign trait from the WotR Player's Guide. - Mythic Path is not tied to the campaign trait picked. Changes to the Worldwound Incursion: - The final battle is very underwhelming, with all those buffs. I will change half the babaus to another demon (vrock, same CR as 3 babaus) or make the players deal with more than one wave of demons. Either way, players receive the xp listed in the module. Changes to the Sword of Valor: - The three mythic opponents in the module will be modified as appropriate. For example, Soltengrebbe will get a myhtic ability replacing Coordinated Bites that help him deal with Will saves (similar to the mythic ettin Two Brains ability). See also the Sword of Valor (GM Reference) thread where I explain some errata affecting these opponents. - I will think about adding more mythic enemies. Only three is a bit low for my tastes. - The encounters are not that challenging, most of them are at APL+1, and my experienced players will probably deal with them with no problems. Some of them will get tougher, others will be eliminated. - Some of the NPCs tactics will be changed. I don't think a lone incubus CR6 should go and attack a camp full of paladins and 4 mythic heroes...
After reading the volume from cover to cover, I have to say this adventure is awesome, with cool characters and a good mix of exploration, combat and mass combat. However, the combats seem easy for an experienced group of players (as mine are) and only three enemies are mythic. While reading I found some possible errors, maybe the designers can confirm these. - Pg. 9 Who are you sending with us? The names Aron Kir and Sosiel Vaenic seem to be incorrectly placed on the text, according to the description. Staunton Vhane - He seems to be missing two ability score raises (Lvl 4 and 8) or the 2nd Tier +2, according to my calculations Base stats with 25 point buy (racial modifiers already applied): Str 16 Dex 10 Con 18 Int 10 Wis 12 Cha 12 Now we add the magic modifiers and one +2 to an ability score: Str 20 (+4 bull's strength) Dex 10 Con 24 (+2 ability score, +4 belt) Int 10 Wis 12 Cha 14 (+2 headband) I will probably put those points into Charisma. - As The Rot Grub already commented, he should have mythic power 7/day (3+tier x2), as he has tiers not ranks. This is not errata, but for an easier reading of the mythic statblocks, It would probably be a good idea to list the first path ability as follows: "champion's strike (sudden attack)" Soltengrebbe - The text says he has spell resistance, but it doesn't appear in the statblock. While the monster is cool, I think it needs a bit more defense. I will get rid of Coordinated Bites (his weakest mythic ability) and give him something similar to the mythic ettin Two Brains ability. Kiranda - Her AC is wrong. She is listed as wearing leather armor, but only has a +1 armor bonus (should be +2). Even with this armor, her AC doesn't get to 29, only to 27. Canny defense should be categorized as a dodge bonus in the AC breakdown. - She is also missing her two claw attacks, in case she is disarmed. - Her initiative modifier should be +7, not +9 (+5 Dex, +2 improved reactions) Joran - He has a spell storing weapon, but the statblock doesn't say what spell it holds. - Area G13 is affected by a deeper shadow spell. I assume it was cast by Eustoyriax, and the CL is 10th. Is this correct? Eustoyriax - His SR is 21+. What does the "+" mean?. I assume it is a typo. - He is missing 1 ability score increase from reaching 8 Hit Dice: Shadow demon base stats Str - Dex 18 Con 17 Int 14 Wis 14 Cha 19 With advanced template (+4 to each score) Str - Dex 22 Con 21 Int 18 Wis 18 Cha 23 With the two +2 increases from mythic rank 4 (Con and Cha) Str - Dex 22 Con 23 Int 18 Wis 18 Cha 25 I will raise his Charisma score.
Well I asked this in the "Ask James Jacobs" thread: I think it is workable. There is a spell called Carry Companion in Knights of the Inner Sea that turns your mount into a small figurine, just give your player a few potions or a wand of this spell and you should be fine.
Hi all, Here you have the conversion document I made to run the Age of Worms AP with the Pathfinder system. It is a 193 page document with lots of statblocks. Let me explain a few things about this conversion in general: - I always tried to maintain the famous difficulty of this AP. - When converting I tried to stay as simple as possible, although there are exceptions. I limited myself to Core rulebook feats, spells and such to keep it simple while we learned all the diferences between 3.5 and Pathfinder. When choosing feats, I tried to select those that gave passive bonuses or boosted saves/hp, the vital strike chain, the critical X chain, etc. There are feats that are useless (in my opinion) and get changed almost every time such as Cleave and Great Cleave. - When a monster had a 3.5 specific prestige class, I changed it to a core class. The only exceptions are Moreto the true ghoul (he is a magus, fits perfectly and his original writeup was a mess) and Venk the derro (I changed her to a full warlock, converting the class). All the anti-dragon prestige classes in Kings of the Rift got changed into similar base classes. - When applying the elite array (because you added a class to a monster), I don't apply the -2 modifier and change it into a +0. The rest of the modifiers stay the same. Why? because it is much easier to add than to substract for penalizing an ability score. That and my players have better ability scores (we use the heroic method). - SR values have been adjusted acording to the creatures' CR when adding class levels or racial hit dice. This is one of my house rules, because I consider SR one of the major defensive abilities for those monsters who have it. If it doesn't go up as the monster advances, then you are basically lowering its base CR. - Some statblocks don't have the skills bonuses calculated, but the skills themselves are listed so it should be easy to figure them out. - Dragons deserve a special mention, because there are a lot of them. If you compare the 3.5 stats to the Pathfinder ones, you can see they lost a lot of hit dice (and all that goes with it: BaB, hp, saves...). What I did is use the basic age abilities and size category from Pathfinder but keep the 3.5 hit dice and Dexterity scores. In some cases I added a point or two on the natural armor bonus so the AC stayed at least the same as the original. - Following what I said just before for dragons, some of the monsters lost power when the designers converted them to Pathfinder. I tried to keep the difficulty up by comparing the 3.5 and Pathfinder stats, and keeping the best of both. Example: the froghemoth from the Champion's Belt and the marilith demon from Kings of the Rift . Monsters that first appeared on this AP got converted and in some cases I added some new abilities. An example of this would be the acidwraith and the Overgod in Prince of Redhand. Both of them got some new toys to keep the challenge high. - Some encounters got changed because there were too many monsters, I found a better monster or simply made more sense to me. Example: In A Gathering of Winds, I replaced the blood amniotes with an entropic reaper (fits in the Queen of Chaos backstory) with the ability to fly over the river of blood, bound to the tomb by the Wind Dukes of Aaqa. In the same module, I changed the false clockwork mechanism at the other side of the Xorn bridge into a real machine that could drain the river of blood, thus helping the characters. The trick is the machine was guarded by a black jinni bound to the tomb. The players need to negotiate with the monster or destroy it. At the start of the module, I changed the mechanics of the abyssal ghoul so it created a more dynamic encounter, and reduced the number of belkers by two in the howling corridor because they were too big to fit. The Library of Last Resort also saw a lot of changes when converted. I tried to give it a more First World feel, and changed some of the monsters for those of the Tane group. Harrowdroth got turned into a frumious bandersnatch. The ancient night twist now is a Sard. Darl Quethos replaced the dead minotaur with a Thrasfyr, creating a telepathic bond. The rock king turned into the JubJub King... - The document does not contain all the statblocks. For starters, the first module I converted was Encounter at Blackwall Keep, and what I did then is replace the monsters with the Pathfinder versions. For important NPCs like Shukak the lizard king, I applied the advanced template. Later modules saw some conversion but again in most cases I could go on and replace the monster using the Pathfinder Bestiaries. The nearly full conversion starts at A Gathering of Winds and continues up to the end.
If you have any questions about the conversions, I'll be happy to answer them.
Pg. 82 - Caizarlu zerren According to James Jacobs, he is a thassilonian specialist. Add thassilonian specialization necromancy under the spells section Pg. 158 - Lucrecia Her speed line is wrong. It should be 40 ft., climb 40 ft., swim 40 ft. Pg. 225 - headless lord - He should have only one off-hand attack, due to the Two-Weapon Fighting feat. - His caster level for spell-like abilities should be 12th (total hit dice according to the undead lord template) - The zombie slam attack and quick strikes special attack are missing from the melee attack line. Add the following: 2 slams +20 (1d8+16). - The Headless Lord seems to be incorrectly built from a rules standpoint. According to the adventure text, in life he was an ogre Fighter. When you apply the zombie template to a creature, it loses all hit dice from class levels, so he shouldn't have those. Paizo should have added the unique or variant keyword so he could retain memories of his past fighting skill before becoming a zombie. By the book, you end up with CR 6-7 monster (after getting rid of the class dice) depending on how you interpret the CR and Hit Dice entries on the undead lord template (it's confusing). - His Will save should be +11 (+2 fighter, +6 undead hit dice, +1 desecrate, +2 wisdom). Pg. 226 - hill giant zombies They should have a +8 armor bonus to AC from masterwork half plate: AC 18, touch 7, flat-footed 18 (-2 Dex, +8 armor, +3 natural, -1 size) Pg. 229, 230 - Mokmurian - He doesn't have the Quick Draw feat, so he can only make one ranged attack with rocks. - His Constitution should be 26 and Charisma should be 10 according to my calculations, after applying all the modifiers. For those who want to double check, I think it breaks down like this: Elite array for adding class levels
The transmuter enhancement (+3) went to Constitution.
So you end with:
- Damage bonus for the club attack should be higher, since he can use the weapon two handed. It doesn't affect his spellcasting because it is a free action to remove your hand and free again to re-grab the weapon with both hands. See CRB faq. Correct damage value is 1d8+12 - The shield spell should not have been added to the stats, since it is used during combat and not before. Correct AC: 28, touch 13, flat-footed 24 (+4 armor, +3 Dex, +1 dodge, +11 natural, -1 size) Pg. 238 - The text calls xaliasa a thaumaturge, now he is a cleric. This is a holdover from the 3.5 edition, where he used the thaumaturge class from the book of fiends. Pg. 239 tells the DM to look the catacombs of Wrath map on page 219. It should say page 35. Pg. 351, 356, 365 - Warden of runes The modified saves due to wearing a sihedron ring are missing. They should be Fort +18 Ref +9 Will +23
Into the Wormcrawl fissure is a great adventure but it has two problems. - Some of the monsters are either too low level or simply not challenging enough for a 19-20th level module. Thessalhydras and earthcancer centipedes are very cool but not up to the challenge. In my game I updated their stats to Pathfinder and added some additional abilities here and there to enhance them. I changed the Kyuss chimeras so they had the abilities of legendary chimeras (I think it is appropriate, given how old they are). Also changed the favored spawn of Kyuss template a bit. The avolakia clerics are CR 15 but only have a caster level of 10, wich is troublesome even to dispel basic buffs like death ward. I beefed up the base avolakia a bit by adding some hit dice and natural armor, so the CR matches the monster creation tables at the end of the Bestiary. - The save DCs through the adventure are too low. A DC 20 at level 20? are you kidding? So even a low-level fighter can open a wormdoor inside Kyuss' home...? Not cool.
The wormdrake, on the other hand, is awesome. I made it gate two balors and later two frost worms. In that fight, every character died at some point (and was later revived in some way), even the druid's animal companion was turned into a favored spawn of kyuss courtesy of the wormdrake's breath weapon. The sorcerer died twice, once from a balor implosion and later from a failed reflex save when the same balor died and exploded. Of the five characters, two lost their heads to the vorpal swords (one of them was on the first attack roll in the combat). We are just before the Dragotha battle. I have 5 players (monk, druid, sorcerer, barbarian, cleric) and one NPC (syranus, solar ranger 5 from the "gating the heavy hitters article"). I made two Dragotha statblocks, one using the 3.5 dracolich template and another with the ravener template (using the thassilonian magic variant). The base red dragon is a Great Red Wyrm so you can reach a CR 27 in Pathfinder. I will use the first one, as it is easier (the ravener is better for a group of powergamers and min-maxers as balakarde's buffs are less useful). It looks great and I think will be a challenge to the PCs, as he can cast wish 4 times to heal back to full or time stop to buff himself. They are a little bit scared so they gated an advanced marut inevitable called gantrenacht and the elysian titan barbarian called Barabog (another one pulled from the article in Dragon Magazine). They also recruited Zulshyn to help them. Dragotha will be accompanied by Venk a Zyrith. Next Saturday we will play the combat. Finally, I can use my Colossal red dragon... |
