Serene's page

My party's experience with the Gorilla King

The AP so far is still going along well. My party likes some railroading, as most as getting off work and don't like much grinding on combat. They much prefer dealing with NPCs by sleazing past through diplomacy or stealth. Random encounters can just bore them to tears.

The 1st book was good - they immediatly said they weren't going to make a camp and just took the whole gang on a march into the jungle en masse. They did spend a week recoverign in the grove before dealing with the last two encounter areas. 2nd book was the drag, as they didn't really want to go trekking through the jungle -- who can they meet in the middle of a jungle? Saventh-Yhi made things interesting again as they soon began dealing with all the factions, then Yog'Goltha, The Hissing Dead, Haigan and the Gorilla King. The party diplomancer used the near-simultaneous disasters to gather the remnents of all the factions and make one big camp and is brokerign a deal to make most of them happy.

Now they're in Ilmurea and I just know the only thing keepign the paladin from jumping Izon is she thinks she needs to stay on the Railroad (I really don't mind if she goes for his throat, and I'm having him get more insulting each conversation).

For my group the Maze is the next step and it's led to a lot of lethargy. Dungeons are boring to them since Eando's rescue I've instituted a new policy, 'Do this to hit the next level'. By hook or by crook, they get the Ultimate -- er, Ancient weapon, they ding.

You could use half of what I did. While it's probably too late to use a suggestion from another thread and make the Urdefhan tainted, Zura-worshiping remnants of the Azlanti, like the Morlocks, you could make the end of the Maze the urdefhan's high temple to Zura/The Horseman/Whatever they'd die for. Vlaglaunt doesn't let anyone into the rear areas who isn't killing in his gods name, dying in his gods name, or would make a nice snack. Since the serpentfolk split the Urdefhan in two he's been running his own show and assumes Izon was overrun and killed, and he likes being in charge, having a direct gate to his god's allies, and having the altar be his.

Now that I think about it, I should stat up a cleric Vlaglaunt's got under his thumb for that encounter.

No reason you can't do both!

The genie presents them with the worst dick stuff, laughs his big butt off at their expressions, then presents the reasonable stuff.

Edit: Now I've got a real keyboard an not tapping a phone --

I do like the idea of a choice, or tying this into a quest. The Genie could hand the guy, say, an arrow, and say "Do not think I cheated you, who came to my aid! No sour look you should give! For the arrow, made to kill spirits [+5 gnollbane arrow of slaying gnoll chieftains], is not the reward asked and given! No, it is but a means to an end, for a -proper- weapon, beyond even my means, I humbly say, is in the hand of the gnoll bandits found..."

While I could just add a few points to the army score, that'd be boring. I'm thinking of the BBSG welding his doors to the Designated Final Dueling Arena shut in case any other serpent folk want credit for his successes. But this is more appropriate to thE Sanctum thread.

As for collecting the stuff, I remember something about the Body Rhief vault having a narrow corridor choked with full-grown spore plants. That'll do for what the party has in mind.

Now my players are just beginning bk 6 and with two of them able to cast Heal they want to collect the midnight spores and bomb the BBEG's lair with bags of it. Yay for creativity, boo for making me scramble to come up with results. At least they mentioned this beforehand so I can decide how much effect it should have.

That encounter went weird. The party face went in alone, waving the rest back to camp...

Go with the serpentfolk theme in a roundabout way?

Have it still be a Rakshasa, but he's shapechanged into a pure serpentfolk to deceive the degenerates. Have him reveal he's terrified of the real pure ones coming back to foreshadow the necro-snake chasing Juliver. Or have a pureblood interrupt the fight with him and retreat back, the degenerates following a true master so the party can feel that forces are stirring again.

Let's try a different example. Canada. While in Canada, the party comes back to the hotel and finds Canadian government agents rifling through their belongings, searching for information about an ancient arctic city. While certainly there's an insurgency movement in Canada - the Quebecois separatists - there's no doubt the government agents are the local authorities.

Naturally, the party rushes in and kills the agents. Would they expect any reprisal or consequences for this? Is this an evil act?

Back on the topic of how Saventh-yhi has turned into a Wandering Damage Theme Park and what to do about it:

Reading the full adventure path, The party's going to need some help or they're facing a massive uphill struggle at the end. Try to get at least a few faction agents -- or native agents in there to play off of. Find some local friendly, like the Tribe of the Sacred Serpent. Then work on antagonists, like buffing up the degenerate serpentfolk with a pureblood if you want to see more scaly guys.

I added in a few independent adventurer groups in Racing to be enemies, and after watching Aguirre, The Wrath of God I had a small group of Aspis break away from Etter's group and try to claim Saventh-Yhi as their own, violently. While the factions DO attack each other, those are raids to steal discovery points, not open war -- that comes in Vaults of Madness, and it's a bad thing for everyone.

These ideas just gave me a new sub plot idea for Serpent's Skull: exploring how worship of these deities has changed since the time of the Azlanti. I expect to really poke the cleric of Desna in my group.

Running an AP can be rough not knowing either where the guard rails are nor what plot points need to be emphasized.

I started my first AP, Serpent's Skull, after reading only the first 2 adventures plus the GM discussions and got lucky with one player, not so much with the other two. The Chelaxian noblewoman / cleric of Desna who looks a bit like an ancient hero (sans muscles) and reads Azlanti is awesome -- the generic mercenary bowman and the druid from 'somewhere north', not so much.

Starting over, I would have looked into tying at least one of them into the later NPCs or hooked to one of the other npc factions. Ah, well, the price of eagerness.