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Demon’s Heresy

The party consists of:

Will Corgan, male half-dwarf (mul) ranger / champion (Stolen Fury)
Sorsha, female half-elf cleric of Iomedae / hierophant (Touched by Divinity)
Randall, male halfling rogue/wizard (universalist) / trickster (Chance Encounter)
Sergio Glassjaw, human wizard (universalist) / archmagi (Riftwarden Orphan)
Satvia Sinbacan, female elf druid (eventually of the Order of the Leaf) / hierophant (Child of the Crusades)
Ranoka, half-dragon (gold) paladin of Sarenrae / guardian (Exposed to Awfulness)
Iggy, male gnome fighter/sorcerer/rogue / champion (Stolen Fury)

The party includes these NPCs:

Patches, male dire lion animal companion of Satvia
Irabeth Tirabade, female half-orc paladin of Iomedae

Later they are joined by:

Arueshalae, female risen succubus master spy 6/trickster 3

…

Rules

Refer to:

Character Creation
Mythic Adventures
Campaign Rules

…

Synopsis

Demon’s Heresy began with session 21. The PCs began the adventure at 9th level/3rd mythic tier.

Joined by the gnome artificer Iggy, the party set about rebuilding Drezen, starting by redeeming the corruption forge. Irabeth accepted the Queen’s appointment as mayor and agreed to stay in the town until the party discovered an area that required extensive exploration, whereupon she would rejoin them.

The group then decided to clear the hexes around the city while Iggy stayed behind to purify Soulshear, Staunton’s Vhane’s vile weapon. After a couple random encounters with a group of fallen and a foul coven, the party felt they had secured the immediate area. Meanwhile, the purified glaive Purity’s Suture turned out to have amazing properties against demons, including the ability to summon a planetar. The party, understanding the value of the new glaive, immediately sold it and used the proceeds to fund Iggy’s creation of whatever items they really wanted.

Although the glaive was sold to a crusader, at this time it is uncertain whether said crusader later fell prey to demons intent on taunting the mythic heroes. If so, the demons will undoubtedly convert Purity’s Suture back into an evil weapon, this time with even more power than the original.

The party’s trade in magical items required a steady flow of reagents and miscellaneous goods from Kenabres, but a dragon-like creature known as the woundwyrm had attacked several caravans, disrupting the flow of traffic. Joined by Iggy, the party set out to deal with this threat, but even with Will Corgan’s incredible tracking skill, they could not locate the woundwym on the road to Kenabres. Instead, they cleared the derakni from Eagle Rock, then found Wintersun Hall, where they barged in, killed all the barbarian guards, and confronted Marhevok Grunhul-Wintersun. Ranoka defeated the barbarian in single combat, while the party helped destroy the frost drake.

Using teleportation, Sergio ferried the party back to Drezen, but one of his trips went wrong. He ended up near a mausoleum bearing the family name of Sinbacan, the same as the party’s druid. After returning to Drezen and resting with the party, Sergio led the party back to the family crypt where they confronted the ghosts haunting Satvia’s past.

There followed a foray into the Marchlands to find the woundwyrm, with the party ready to return to Drezen with teleportation as necessary. The party had several random encounters during their travels, the most memorable being a group of four retrievers, who inflicted enough damage to make Iggy fear for his life.

Realizing the creature would be found west of the road, and led by dreams of the mul ranger, the party explored the area around the molten cascade, encountering the molten scar, where they saved Aruvashniel who had been abducted and was about to be sacrificed. Will Corgon killed the vrock and reclaimed the power that had been stolen from him. They stumbled on Delamere’s Tomb by accident and ended up redeeming Jesker Helton.

When they returned to Drezen, they learned that Anevia had discovered a secret temple not far from the town, in a hex the party had though they had cleared. Joined by Irabeth, the party cleared out the Fallen Fane. Sorsha realized she was the Inheritor’s Daughter, and Irabeth fell on her knees in awe. The news began to spread upon their return to Drezen, but Sorsha flubbed a few attempts to play up her newfound family connections, and the commonfolk were divided on whether this was mere puffery or if she was really semi-divine by birth.

Still accompanied by Irabeth, the party then tracked the woundwyrm down finally, killing Scorizscar. Iggy reclaimed his stolen fury thereby, and all the party enjoyed looting the creature’s lair. They found the letter Trever Vaenic had written to his brother and returned to see Sosiel Vaenic immediately. Sosiel, having assumed the role of vice-mayor while Irabeth was adventuring, proclaimed the following day Trever’s Day in honor of his brother.

Randall had visions of his strange benefactor calling out to him. Unsure what this meant, but desperate to find out, he enlisted the aid of the party. Soon they discovered and attacked Arueshalae’s Redoubt. The party made use of the features such as the hallowed and forbidden areas to make short work of the annis cleric and various scavengers.

Arueshalae proved to be a likeable companion, once the party accepted that she was genuinely interested in redemption, and the paladin confirmed she had no evil intentions in her soul. She offered to aid her skill with the bow and her charm abilities to the party’s arsenal, and they accepted. She formed a bond with Sergio Glassjaw and granted him a boon.

Returning to Drezen, the party kept the succubus out of town (she said she could disguise herself and enter town with the party, but doing so would be dishonest and might rouse the people to rage if they found out they’d been deceived). They discovered another horror: during their adventure to rescue Arueshalae, Aron Kir had been abducted.

They set off immediately to find him, Will Corgan tracking him to the Greengate gorge and the entrance to the Ivory Sanctum. The party defeated the basilisks readily, but, in an interesting turn of events, Sorsha accidentally destroyed one of the humanoid statues. When the party used the basilisk blood to restore the petrified people, the destroyed one turned out to be an innocent young girl, the daughter of a couple who had been chased into this dead-end and then turned to stone.

Sorsha used a resurrection scroll to restore her from the dead. The girl opened her eyes, sat up, and proclaimed Sorsha “the Daughter of Valor and the Child of the Sword Light.” The people, who had been worshippers of Iomedae, immediately joined in with her admiration. In short order, these became the foundation of the Order of the Daughter, a Lawful Good cult based out of the fane near Drezen.

The battle to rescue Aron Kir, shut down the Ivory Sanctum, and confront Xanthir Vang occupied four sessions and the party only rested once, for one hour, to recover hit points. The party had little trouble with templars, blackfire adepts, half-fiend minotaurs, kalavakus demons, locust swarms, or the coloxus, but an encounter with two specially advanced neh-thalggu rocked them back. Beyond the neh-thalggu, the party freed Aron Kir and Sorsha healed the damage done to his brain (he had been partially lobotomized), but the party did not exactly save him.

When the party encountered a gang of templars and blackfire adepts on the west side of the sanctum, these foul creatures summoned a third specially advanced neh-thalggu that dimension doored to the party’s rear guard and wrecked havoc. Aron Kir died to a death effect (mythic circle of death), and Sorsha had to use her last resurrection scroll to revive him. After that, Irabeth agreed to depart with Aron Kir and head toward Drezen, so as to avoid the dangers of the Ivory Sanctum.

Jerribeth, advanced to make her a challenge, proved daunting to the party at first, but Sergio got off a lucky dismissal spell and sent her back to the Abyss. Having read the caveat at the beginning of Midnight Isles (where dismissal can be used by demons against PCs, the GM should prepare ways to return dismissed PC back into the action quickly), I applied the same rule to Jerribeth. The party did enjoy a short breather before she returned, but when she came back, she had rallied several templars to her side, and she was wary enough to teleport away once it became clear the party was simply was simply going to hack her to death. She remains a loose end.

The party retreated and rested for an hour before returning and exploring the northmost passage. The specially advanced thanadaemon was not a big threat in itself, but because Sorsha had neglected(!) to cast death ward on her companions, the energy drain trap proved unsettling. Sergio reclaimed his family heirloom, a blessed book with all spells of levels 4 through 6. When the party turned to the southwest of the temple, closing in on Xanthir Vang, they had a minor struggle with the deraknis because the party was running out of resources.

Even without most of their spells and with only a few points of mythic power left, the party pressed on. They opened the door to Xanthir Vang’s room. The worm that walks used an illusionary projection to mock the party and banter with them while he rallied the last four blackfire adepts, established telepathic communication with them, and prepared
several surprises for the party.

Most important of his mocks was this: “While you’ve been wasting your time here, I have captured your precious Citadel Drezen. Even now, your erstwhile companion Tum-Tum, and his lover, the halfling bard Nurah Dendiwahr, stand within the walls of the Citadel, together with my lieutenant, who will make sure your army of paladins does not interfere. Your Sword of Valor has fallen, fools.”

First he activated a special forbiddance effect to prevent the party from escaping by teleportation or dimension door, but without restricting the ability of Chaotic Evil characters to use extradimensional travel. He then used a mythic conjuration to send his two retrievers into flanking positions north and south of the party. The retrievers occupied the party, particularly on the south, whether the creature bit and grabbed Randall, then proceeded to pin him before he escaped; though in his escape he provoked an attack of opportunity, got bit, and was again grabbed. His freedom only came when Iggy and Will Corgan killed the construct.

Xanthir Vang used greater invisbility and hovered above the party while the blackfire adepts showered glitterdust on the characters, exposing all their invisible characters. Xanthir Vang used disintegration on Sergio but the wizard avoided the worst of the beam. As part of his mythic advancement, Xanthir Vang could cast mythic magic missile once a round as a swift action without expending any mythic power. I assumed this would inflict 35 hp on average or 50 hp if it was maximized with his rod. Each round he focused all his magic missiles on Sergio Glassjaw.

The blackfire adepts attempted to harm the characters, but they had little effect. Arueshalae, having won initiative in this combat, managed to cast charm monster on one of them before hostilities commenced, sowing doubt in the adept’s mind about whether the party was really a party of demons and this was all a big misunderstanding. The other three adepts fell quickly to the party’s concerted attacks once they finished the retrievers.

Sorsha used invisbility purge to expose Xanthir Vang, and Satvia cast mythic baleful polymorph on him to turn him into a naked mole rat. He saved and suffered a partial transformation. In keeping with his wormy powers, the polymorph only affected a single worm out of the tens of thousands that make up the villain. That worm, now somewhat naked mole rat-shaped, ran off into the dungeon as Xanthir mocked the druid, “You have secured my victory, fool! Even if you strike me down, from that single worm I shall return!”

To make him more of a challenge, Xanthir Vang had been altered to summon only good creatures, so he summoned a lillend azata followed by a bralani azata. He threw a cloudkill in the center of the room to slow the party down. Luckily Sorsha had spell resistance the worm did not overcome, so she was completely immune to the poison cloud while everyone else took at least a few points of Constitution damage. Sergio fell, was healed, and fell again until Arueshalae and her charmed blackfire adept dragged him out of the cloud. Xanthir then focused his magic missiles on Randall, who, having been injured by the retriever’s bite and grab, fell to unconsciousness.

When at last the remaining members of the party brought down Xanthir Vang, he split into two equal parts. His equipment teleported away at this point, so he became much easier to hit, but each of his two parts could cast mythic magic missile once a round. The party quickly realized they would be in for trouble if he split into four, eight, et cetera. Desperate for a solution, they searched through their powers and spells remaining.

Sorsha had a stone shape spell. Using her intelligence to discern how she could cause the most damage with this spell, she realized she could destroy one support column and cause the entire Sanctum to collapse. She triggered this cataclysm as the only way to defeat Xanthir Vang, even though it inflicted 18d6 hp of damage on everyone in the sanctum (Ref save DC 21 half). The collapse destroyed the rest of the worms but also killed both Sergio and Randall, as well as the charmed blackfire adept.

Randall was reincarnated as an orc the next day, but the fate of Sergio remains unknown.

As the dust settled, the party understood they had little time to waste in returning to Drezen. Tum-Tum, a ferocious half-ogre with a magic flail and mythic power, could pose quite a threat by himself, but bolstered by a bard and mysterious lieutenant, who knows what he might have wrecked?

Demon’s Heresy ended at the close of session 30. The PCs ended the adventure at 12th level/5th mythic tier.

…

GM Observations

Making easy encounters challenging requires raising the CR of encounters to match the power level of the PCs. This is especially true with mythic rules. Some builds seem unfair but the players have a blast playing them. For example, Iggy uses the proven combination of titan’s bane, a Small character, reduce person, and sneak attack. Satvia uses mythic baleful polymorph to one-shot big bad opponents, as well as combination of powers on fire seeds to inflict hundreds of points of damage on anyone who lacks sufficient resistance to fire. Will Corgan and Ranoke, who have more or less standard builds for an anti-evil-outsider ranger and a paladin, seem overshadowed by comparison.

I benefit from reading the experiences of the others with Mythic Adventures and Wrath of the Righteous. Many people have commented that Mythic Adventures makes the game far too easy for the PCs. Knowing that, I devised many ways to up the CR of encounters. Some techniques work better than others, so its an ongoing experiment. The game sessions are my lab.

At around session 24, I asked my players how hard they want the game to be. From their response, I realized the CR of encounters lags by the same number as the mythic tier of the party – at least throughout this module. I expect it will get worse in the upcoming modules, but my nasty path of the creature abilities will keep the game tough enough to entertain the players without making it impossible.

All this leads me to believe Mythic Adventures could be rehabilitated by teaching GMs how to alter encounters on the fly to make them more fun. I’m convinced that the lofty heights of PC power allowed by these rules disrupt the ability of an encounter designer to pre-determine the correct CR based on APL, since mythic powers vary so widely in applicability and usefulness, often depending on the situation.

Nonetheless, in the hands of a skilled GM with a plan for handling the problems others have documented, the first half of the Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Path has proven to be an outstanding success.

Sword of Valor

The mongrelman barbarian (Scab) only joined us for a couple adventures, as the player had taken a graveyard shift at the local VA Hospital and could no longer play on Friday nights to the wee hours of the morn.

The party consists of:

Will Corgan, male half-dwarf (mul) ranger
Sorsha, female half-elf cleric of Iomedae
Randall, male halfling rogue/wizard (universalist)
Sergio, human wizard (universalist)
Tum Tum, half-ogre fighter (eventually left the party)
Ranoka, half-dragon (gold) paladin of Sarenrae

The party was eventually joined by:

Satvia, female elf druid (eventually of the Order of the Leaf)
Patches, male dire lion animal companion

Also the cleric of Iomedae eventually took as a cohort:

Irabeth, female half-orc paladin of Iomedae

...

Queen Galfrey raised the heroes to the status of "Knights of the Fifth Crusade," handed out the righteous medals, introduced the party to the paladin army the Knights of Kenabres, and introduced them to Aron Kir, Sosiel Vaenic, and Nurah Dendiwhar. To get started with mass combat, the party fought a mock battle against an equal force of paladins, which ended with victory after a single roll. So they fought a second battle with two more armies of equal size, and it took them two turns to win. The mass combat rules seemed to work in the party's favor at this point. We handled the decision-making about tactics and then turn-by-turn strategies by passing the "leader" role around the table clockwise after each decision and subsequent die-roll for resolution (during combat phases). So far, so good.

I felt good about characterizing Aron Kir: I gave him a slight stutter to indicate a kind of nervousness, but he always made piercing observations about how the army should maneuver. I also felt good about Nurah Dendiwhar. While she would sing the army's praises to bolster them in battle, when she addressed the commanders she often spoke sharply and critically, like a trusted advisor who is unafraid of contradicting the principle leader in order to help that person see a different perspective. Unfortunately, I did not have a hook for Sosiel Vaenic, so I let him fall out of focus until things heated up with Aron a bit later.

The party and army marched north to Drezen, through Valas's Gift and on to Vilareth Ford, where they made quick work of the tiefling army and even defeated Umestil before she could escape to warn her ally. The party rescued the Kamilo Dann and her wounded survivors and convinced them to join the army. Eventually the Battle of Vilareth Ford became a metaphor for success against the demons and a sign of hope to those joining the Fifth Crusade.

Next the party arrived in Keeper's Canyon, and here the mass combat rules produced an unmitigated disaster. At first things seemed to go well, as the party got the drop on Exorius and struck the dretches effectively. Then it turned out that Tum-Tum (the half-ogre) was made commander as we went around the table, and the player gleefully ordered the troops to engage in a "reckless" strategy against the dretches, who were already aggressive. Unfortunately, although the dretches were almost destroyed, the dice rolls were 1 for the party and 19 for the tieflings, a massive differential leading to the near obliteration of the Knights of Kenabres. Ranoka (the paladin) rallied the remnants of the troops and the party formed up to protect an ordered retreat. We ended up fighting a tabletop combat between the party, 20 dretches, and Exorius. That was a great way to tie in standard play with mass combat and give the players a way to change defeat into victory. Nonetheless I ruled that the party's army had been reduced to 18 badly-wounded survivors: no longer an army. The victorious tieflings harried the survivors and picked through the dead as the party limped away. Thus the First Battle of Keeper's Canyon became known as a horrible defeat and setback for the Fifth Crusade.

Remembering that they had fought three other groups in Kenabres, the party retreated to the ruined city and recruited enough paladins to reform their army. Even though the players knew the defeat was the result of rolling a 1, the characters in the party resented Tum-Tum for calling a reckless strategy and resolved never to let him decide strategy again. The party returned to Keeper's Canyon and handily defeated the tieflings in the Second Battle of Keeper's Canyon.

At about this time, Ranoka the paladin followed Nurah Dendiwhar around the camp, detecting evil. Naturally she had taken a precaution against such a simple tactic, but she saw what he was doing and pretended to be doing the same -- claiming she had found evil in Aron Kir's tent. She led the paladin to the tent and, when he threw open the flap, he saw Aron Kir shooting up shadowblood. This led to a confrontation, with Nurah urging the party to arrest Aron Kir and Sosiel Vaenic standing up for his buddy while expressing disappointment that he'd started using again. Nurah made the point that the party could never trust Aron Kir again because even if he tried to go clean he could be tempted by a demon quite easily and would do anything for a fix. The party accepted the logic of her advice and put Aron under arrest, although they allowed Sosiel to become his warden. The party was not oblivious to Nurah's biting personality, but they felt she was offering good advice, plus they were accustomed to Horgus Gwerm exhibiting eccentric behavior, so they didn't suspect she had hatched the plot against Aron.

The fight for the lost chapel played out well for the party. Nulkineth and Maugla both had double max hit points but lost readily enough. Sorsha (cleric of Iomedae) discovered the troublemaker Arles Jhestander and corrected his negativity. The fight with the vescavors was likewise none to difficult for the party, with the vescavor queen having double max hit points as well. They closed the abyssal rift without incident.

Reaching Drezen at last, the party took the cemetery destroying the ghoul army in ranged combat before defeating the berbalang in the vault, then they wrenched Southbank from the tieflings and cultists, and finally they turned to Paradise Hill. At this point, Tum-Tum left and the druid Satvia took his place (the player had not realized this was a 1st to 20th level campaign and preferred a more complex and well0-rounded PC).

Unfortunately, the schir army at Paradise Hill got another lucky roll against the paladin army, wiping them out. I described how the demons hauled the wounded and helpless survivors into their dugouts beneath the hill, and screams of agony issued forth. The party followed the shirs into the dugouts and defeated scores of them in tabletop combat, eventually leading to a decisive battle against the vrock Pozlixt who had, as usual, double max hit points.

Although the party freed the mercenary army from the schirs, they realized that to complete the siege of Citadel Drezen they needed another paladin army from Kenabres, and they sent Sorsha and Ranoka back to recruit. I warned them that they were leaving Kenabres perilously undefended, but the party felt they had no other choice.

While those two were gone, Nurah Dendiwhar seduced the weak-willed Tum-Tum to here side, convincing him that his erstwhile companions had abandoned him because they couldn't see his inner goodness. After Tum-Tum smashed some of the defensive fortifications of the mercenary army, the party tracked him into the haunted vault and subdued him while Nurah turned invisible and escaped. The party banished Tum-Tum into the Worldwound, where (unknown to them at the time) he joined up with Nurah again and lay in wait.

The cleric and paladin returned with the third army. The party took the Ahari bridge, destroyed the watchtowers surrounding the citadel, and set about entering the citadel. This was when Soltengrebbe struck, again with double max hit points. The climactic battle ended in victory, although Irabeth was struck down and subsequently raised. The final battle for Drezen proved the party victorious, and the exploration of the citadel began shortly thereafter.

The party entered from the sky, choosing the southwest corner. During the fight with Jestak I became less enamored of the double max hit points idea because it seemed to drag on a pointless combat; she could hardly hit the characters, and they were pouring damage into her round after round without much suspense or interest. The hp idea worked for her because she was a barbarian, but I toned it down and just went with max hp for the rest of the adventure, except for the battles with Staunton Vhane and Eustoyriax.

When the party fought Staunton, they also faced Joran Vhane, several babaus, and a pair of half-fiend minotaurs all at once, but the large size of the party meant the battle quickly tilted in their favor. To make it more interesting, I gave Soulshear (Staunton's glaive) the ability to drain a level on a critical hit. That got the party's attention when their cleric took a negative level. Still, they won and found his journal, which became a constant point of reference for the rest of this adventure and well into Demon's Heresy.

Alerted of the shadow demon's presence below, and with Will Corgan's tracking ability detecting that the Sword of Valor lay in the dungeons, the party proceeded to the dungeon of Drezen. Here I used Eustoyriax's at will summon shadow ability to the maximum, filling the entire area with shadows. They only last for 10 rounds once summoned, and Sorsha's nearly constant application of protection from evil prevented their natural attacks from connecting, so they act more like scouts than combatants.

The party found the passage to the corruption forge and headed south, leaving the cells unexplored and the vampire Theruk Nul unmet. They had little trouble with the salamanders or Chorussina and her schirs, but when they came at last to Eustoyriax, they faced a truly climactic battle.

For the mythic shadow demon, to make it truly scary, I applied a mythic "path of the creature" rule: the mythic rank (or mythic tier) of a villain becomes a bonus to its AC, saving throws, attack rolls, damage, save DCs, CMB, CMD, and skill checks. This bolstered its magic jar ability to DC 28.

Eustoyriax got very lucky in winning initiative before Sorsha acted. She had neglected (!) to cast protection from evil communal before entering the creature's lair, so it used magic jar on her -- she was just in range. She failed the save and the demon began using her body to mock her values, especially her relationship with Irabeth. Not only that, the demon caused her to excrete shadowblood, and she even smeared this substance into Irabeth's mouth, causing the paladin to experience evil. Eventually, driven out of the cleric's body, the shadow demon seized the wizard Sergio's body. He would have preferred to druid Satvia but she was out of range. But at last he was driven from the wizard as well, and the demon was defeated.

Sorsha claimed the Sword of Valor used the Mythic Leadership feat to raise Irabeth to mythic power. The half-orc paladin acknowledged that some of what the demon had said in Sorsha's voice had moved her and stirred a truth she had not wanted to acknowledge ... that even though Irabeth is pledged to Anevia, she has curious feelings toward Sorsha, feelings she has tried to ignore, but hearing the demon profess desire for her had made her question herself. Now she felt it was perhaps best not to stay so close to Sorsha, as temptation might lead to downfall, should Irabeth ever give in. Sorsha assured her that this was all a trick of the demon, but Irabeth knows in her heart there is more to it. To Irabeth, Sorsha is practically an avatar or herald of Iomedae, and a kind of uncouth fascination with Sorsha's beauty can lead to perilous outcomes.

When at last the party returned to the army camp with the banner, Irabeth sank into Anevia's embrace. Sorsha told everything that had happened, and Anevia accepted it without jealousy, knowing that demons work to sow division among heroes.

Affair at Sombrefell Hall, Part 2

human paladin

Joined by a paladin who had tracked the vampire spawn rogues to the estate, the party continued the adventure. The vampire spawn rogues fell quickly. After a short respite, the wights attacked. The two-pronged attack knocked the party off-kilter, as they first moved toward the sound of broken glass and chanting, then backed up and turned toward the salon where two more wights had broken in. The monk almost finished off the wights in the dining room before the poltergeist had been summoned. The adventure doesn't specify how much chanting is required to summon the poltergeist, so I figured it was only one action per round, and the last wight managed to pull it off one round before it was destroyed. The wights inflicted rather painful enervating conditions on the monk and paladin, made more powerful by the fact the party had no clerics (having ignored my instruction to make at least two cleric PCs for this adventure!).

I depicted the poltergeist as a young girl who had drowned in the lake behind the estate years ago and now sought vengeance on the living. Water dripping off her, she giggled and tossed broken furniture at the party. Although the party had talked about dropping the chandelier on intruders, they had taken no steps to do so, so the poltergeist positioned herself in such a way that the paladin had to move directly beneath the chandelier to attack her, whereupon she used her telekinesis to drop it on him. Nonetheless, the party made quick work of her.

Next came the zombie shamblers. As they descended from the balcony on both sides, it was interesting to watch the party split up to seal them off. Now that the halfling sorcerer had an idea this was a long haul night, he was saving his remaining spells and using cantrips for the first time; the player had to take a moment to realize that cantrips automatically scale to the highest spell level a caster can use. No sooner had the party engaged the shamblers than the greater shadows descended. These guys gave the party a bit more trouble, tossing darkness around and teleporting between regions of darkness, plus the party was confused about whether to beat the zombies first or focus on the shadows. Eventually though they finished off the shadows and the zombies both, and no one had fallen.

We were at the end of our allotted time, so we will need a third session to finish off this adventure. We might be able to jump into Mirrored Moon next time if all the PCs are ready, but most likely that will take us until Thanksgiving to complete.

I like how easy it is to pick up monsters and fling them at the party, but I am uncomfortable with not knowing how balanced the encounters are as we get into higher levels. In Pathfinder, I can tell pretty quickly if an encounter is going to get hairy or if it will be a cakewalk for the PCs. Here, it is all nebulous. Having read some of the other reports, it's clear that monster encounters that I deem about even or even easy can be much more deadly if the party has the wrong composition, makes some bad choices, or if the GM tunes the attacks against the vulnerabilities of the PCs. Since I don't have a feel for the Playtest balance (it is a test of balance, I know) I err on the side of using every little cool ability I can for the monsters, to try them and figure out what works. This makes the creatures less formidable, but I have observed players tend to have a good time when they are stomping over the opposition, much more so than when they are KO'd or TPK'd.

Nonetheless, I look forward to the Heroes of Undarin scenario, since there I intend to use some of the deadlier tactical techniques at my disposal to finish off the party as quickly as possible.

The encounter as written doesn't portray Iomedae's divine Charisma and Wisdom. Many approaches will work. Here's one idea:

Instead of running the encounter as written, you can have her blast the characters right off as their first test.

Iomedae will warn the characters that she will blast them, just to discern whether they have the power to resist the demons. She can say something like, "If you can't take the Three Righteous Blasts of the Trumpets of Heaven, you have no business fighting the Lord of the Ivory Labyrinth in his home plane, and you are not the heroes I am looking for."

If the PCs tremble in fear and say, "No! No! Dear goddess, spare us!" this proves they are not up to the adventure.

More likely they will agree (perhaps with some suspicion) to take the blasts, which makes the goddess smile at their bravery. After each blast, let the characters decide whether to heal or to go on to the next one without healing. Anyone who dies will be resurrected by the goddess at the end of the three blasts. Anyone who takes all three blasts without healing and survives earns a special blessing from Iomedae, perhaps one of the treasures she would otherwise give, perhaps something else.

Then proceed with asking the three questions. There is no punishment for a "wrong" answer. You can make Iomedae sympathetic by having her help the characters think through their answers.

For those who mock the goddess, she may remove their mouths or transform them into swords and shields for the duration of the encounter.

Affair at Sombrefell Hall, Part 1

Party:

human acolyte of Nethys monk
elf acrobat bard
halfling merchant sorcerer

Having followed the guidelines as closely as shown above, three players confidently presented themselves for the fifth playtest session. They received the letter from the Eye, met, and headed off to Sombrefell Hall. Having discovered the anagram of the Sincomakti School, dreams of Lovecraftian horrors danced through their heads.

The party met Lucvi Yasterna, then Professor Verid Oscilar, and were shown to their room. As suggested elsewhere in this forum, the adventure was adjusted so that Lucvi mentioned her fears about the Professor, encouraging the party to snoop about. The empty bedrooms occupied them for quite a while as they were determined to find secret passages where none existed. They found the balconies and the monk began leaping from one to another to show off his mastery of Athletics. Then they found the padlocked staircase leading up and the sorcerer used a couple high-level slots of acid arrow to burn away the lock.

To this point it is worth noting that common objects like this should have stats easily available to the GM. It was easy enough to figure out the hardness and use the dent/broken rules on the fly, but the lack of explicit, easily found information made this more nebulous than it might have been.

They found the zombie and letter opener in the attic, but missed the idea of presenting this to Lucvi or confronting the Professor. Instead, they threw the broken lock into the lake hoping to stir up the inevitable tentacled monster which, like their imaginary secret doors, did not exist. They explored downstairs, running into the salon.

Here we had a bit of roleplaying fun as the Professor loudly exclaimed, "My equations! These interruptions are making them sift through my grasp!" Lucvi scolded the party but then took them aside and listened to their report. Encouraging them to bring the zombie remains to her so she could see for herself what they had discovered, she left them to finish exploring while she returned to the salon to calm the Professor.

The party explored the rest of the rooms, discovering the pantry which for some reason is not adjacent to the kitchen -- another source of paranoia for this group of Cthulhu-fearing players. They found the cellar door and, using a versatile tool provided by the bard, the monk pried the trapdoor off. The noise again interrupted the activity in the salon, but this time when Lucvi came running, she saw the writing in the basement and discerned its connection to the Dominion of the Black.

At that point, she and the party confronted the Professor and his story came bubbling out. He wanted to spare his two undergraduates the horror, so he begged the party not to say anything in front of them. He urged the group to retire to their room and wait for his research to pay off, proposing that by dawn he could discover the agent that was taking control of his body during his bouts of disassociation.

The party did try to get some rest, assuming that they would have a chance to recover spells before any further adventuring. This was a nice twist in the adventure in that it leads parties to expend resources early on, before the combat events start, and rewards prudent and reserved play.

As soon as night fell, the pounding on the door announced the arrival of the first wave of attackers. The Professor, angry at this third interruption, was about to open the door himself but the monk shot forward to open it. The ghasts swarmed in, winning initiative. In this case, I used all five ghasts even though there were only three PCs, just as when there was a larger party I rarely adjusted the opposition.

The first combat lasted four rounds. The ghasts only managed to paralyze the sorcerer for one round and give him disease, and no one succumbed to their stench. After recovering, the halfling sorcerer used individual healing spells on the monk once and a group heal once. He also used a heightened burning hands very effectively, as two of three ghasts caught in the spell critically failed their saving throws and burned to nothing. The monk was very effective as a front line fighter, but the bard was little more than a distraction in this fight, as he used an elven curve blade and barely managed to scratch a single ghast for 4 hit points.

After this battle, the shocked Professor told the two undergraduates the whole story, and they ran off screaming to their rooms and locked the doors behind them. The Professor went to the basement, imploring the party to close him in, but because the trapdoor had been pried off, it could no longer be locked. The party piled boxes on top of it as a barricade. They also barricaded the front doors with Lucvi's help, and began working on her plan to lash furniture to the doors as well to create a dangerous zone in the entrance hall.

The next wave arrived, and the monk again took the front while Lucvi retreated to the salon to watch through the open door. This time the bard was in a better position to use his arrows to take down the four ghasts, as the volley trait combined with the distance in the hall to good effect. He scored a critical, but once again, even with double dice, he did minuscule damage to the ghast compared to the monk or sorcerer. He began inspiring the others as well, which was a help.

The party finished the ghasts in three rounds. Because we were at the end of our allotted time and we expect a paladin next session (and possibly a fifth PC as well if we're lucky), I decided that the vampire spawn rogues had sneaked around back and entered through the balconies. They will attack first thing when we resume for Part 2 of this exciting adventure.

In Pale Mountain's Shadow, Part 2

The party picked right up with the manticore fight. The manticore flew over the cliff side, winning initiative. I noticed it has a lower Stealth than Perception, so the instruction in the adventure that it would use Stealth seems to indicate it isn't the smartest combatant. It used spike volley every time it could, trying to keep in 40 ft. range as it flew over the party. The half-orc fighter and dwarf barbarian switched to bows and started pelting it, giving a couple critical hits. The human two-shield fighter got his first chance to use a shield block and it worked out ok for him; the player was just a little nonplussed to realize the shield only stopped 5 hp of damage. The bard realized many of his spells couldn't reach the flying creature as long as it stayed 40 ft. up or so. The rogue had no ranged weapons other than a thrown dagger, so she scampered up the trail and tried futilely to climb the cliff. Once the manticore ran out of spikes, it flew a little lower to use Intimidate on the druid, but the roll failed. Then it closed to melee range with vengeance in its heart for the half-orc druid. That bit of insanity brought the fighters and barbarian rushing it with shields and swords. It ended with a shield smash in the face that crushed its skull.

After this, the party camped, heading out on the morning of Rova 15. It took them only a couple hours to reach the Tomb.

Next came Zakfahr and his gnolls. I threw in an extra gnoll to see if it made a difference. The gnolls began by calling out, "Food! It's food!" and shooting arrows. Zakfah ordered them to focus on the two-shield fighter, as he was clearly the leader (he had a manticore spike sticking out of his shield). The party fighter-types closed ranks beside the rogue, with the druid and bard supporting from the back. The narrow crevice near the door to Tular Seft's tomb channeled the party well, forcing the barbarian and two=shield fighter to use the shove maneuver to open up space. The gnolls switched to axes and Zakfah pulled out his scimitar, but the low hp total of the gnolls meant they fell pretty quickly. Soon it was just Zakfah versus the party. He used his scimitar's forceful and sweep traits but to no avail. At last the rogue stabbed him in the face and he fell.

In looting his body, the party observed that his scimitar was not magical but inflicted two dice of damage. They were also surprised to learn he carried a longspear, which also kind of surprised me since it wasn't listed as a possible attack in his stat block. Others have observed this hiccup in the adventure and commented on it. My observation is it would be valuable for the GM to have an explanation for why the gnoll does so much damage with his scimitar. If anyone reading this knows, please clue me in. Otherwise it is chalked up to "gnoll sergeants hit hard" (gnolls are Large creatures in AD&D 2nd Edition and earlier; perhaps they interbred with flinds and have been getting more and more Medium-sized ever since 3rd Edition, but if so now their leaders should thank Playtest for restoring their former glory).

Turning to the door, the bard detected magic and the rogue found the electric latch trap. She disabled it and the party entered the tomb. They headed left, bypassed the earth and water room, and made their way to the main doors and the circular lock room. With the bard and druid working together with the rogue, they spent no more than two hours figuring out the combination to unlock the concentric rings.

When the doors opened, they entered the chamber with Mabar and the mummies. The party observed the countdown on the wall and began to contemplate whether Lady Vord had mistaken the nature of the countdown clock; perhaps it was not a gem, but this room. I gave them some hints and re-read her instruction so they wouldn't spend too long on this red herring, but it was a nice touch from the module designer. At this point I should note no one spoke Osiriani, so the exact numbers on the wall were indecipherable, although the party could tell they were counting down.

Being disguised among the other bodies, the mummies waited for the party to enter before surging forward. Here I decided to keep the same number of mummies, as the pace of the game with six players felt like it had a good rhythm, but with more creatures, it would have slowed down more than this group prefers. The mummies have the lowest attack rolls of any opponents, and they continually whiffed even though their positioning let them take three attacks almost every turn. They hit the dwarf barbarian a couple times, but hie resisted the rotting curse.

Dealing with Mabar's suspended form proved challenging, as the party surmised he was probably the dark creature that would be released at the time indicated by the countdown clock. After some experimentation with attacking him (which I presumed would not work due to a temporal stasis cocoon), they decided to pull him down. Here I ruled he was held in place by magic that made him as difficult to move as a stone, so the party would need to climb up to him. The half-orc fighter did, and found the mask on his face could be pulled off despite the force field protecting him. Doing so, he fell, along with the half-orc fighter.

Since no one spoke Auran, the ensuing pantomime and language sharing routine substituted for a more conversational roleplay. Probably the party should have been pushed harder to take Auran and Osiriani, as they had no magical means to do either. The PCs observed that Mabar was confused and upset by his condition. Eventually he conveyed that he had some kind of grudge against Tular Seft. Mabar indicated the secret door to the tomb itself.

The party entered the tomb, saw their objective in the hands of the body of Tular Seft, discovered the scrolls and staff hidden by the books, and everyone turned away from the black mirror. Everyone, that is, except Mr. Two-Shield Fighter. He boldly stared into the mirror and felt his brain touched by a tentacle as he heard the clopping of hooves and saw the shanks of a shaggy-legged goat creature stepping through the Black Tapestry. He was confused, but only for one round, and managed an "Act Normally" result on his d4. Still, the player is a fan of Cthulhu-based mangas and animes, so he appreciated the experience.

Taking the gem, books, and magic, the party retreated. They were a full day ahead of the Night Heralds -- just barely -- and by sharing out bulk they were able to avoid the final, dangerous encounter. They made their may back down the mountain and, after several days travel, found their camels and rode back to Lady Vord. Again I let exploration mode play as felt natural, with riding treated as a single roll to mount the animal, with no real consequence for failure (camel spit on a critical failure, though).

Everyone enjoyed the game. The two-shield build actually looked pretty good, if the character had a magical shield and could keep the shields in good order. Skills feel like they don't work right some of the time. For the concentric ring puzzle, they worked great. The shoving and intimidate uses were interesting. But for climbing, the rogue had more trouble than I think was intended. This may be more on the lack of standards for DCs, as it's hard to justify "this cliff is a low level 4 challenge" (which I said) as opposed to "this cliff is a low level 1 challenge." I felt like gaining more system mastery through actual play has helped me understand the feels and ins and outs of Playtest. A couple players won't make it back due to scheduling, even though they liked the Playtest. I look forward to running Sombrefell Hall in a couple weeks.

In Pale Mountain's Shadow, Part 1

Party:

Human warrior fighter
Human (half-orc) scout fighter
Dwarf warrior barbarian
Human (half-elf) street rat rogue
Human (half-orc) nomad druid
Human (half-elf) entertainer bard

For items, everyone took some kind of magic or improved armor. Most took a magic weapon or wand. The human warrior fighter decided to go all-in for shields, wielding two of them at the same time. He also overloaded himself with bulk by wearing armor and carrying equipment to the max possible. I told the player this was an interesting test of a lot of rules.

The party received their mission and set out on Rova 9. I determined that the Night Heralds would arrive on or about Rova 16.

We made some initial rolls for mounting the camels, but I played this for comedy only, as it was a trivial scene. The initial part of the journey went fast, as I basically asked the players what they wanted to do while traveling and they mostly responded "keep a wary eye out for danger." The bard wanted to use his cantrip to give everyone an extra move, but I pointed out this would only have limited applicability, as it would fatigue him every ten minutes. He decided to just keep watch.

Figuring camels moved pretty quickly, they reached the base of the mountain in two days and on the morning of Rova 11 encountered the hyenas and hyaenodon.I drew the map quickly, but, as the encounter began, based on Perception rolls I realized that the party had spotted at least a couple of their enemies before moving into the terrain features. As it turned out, the terrain posed little trouble for the party, though I did have the hyena and hyaenodon take cover behind the trees as best they could. The fight ensued and the party quickly vanquished their enemies. The party members basically dismounted to fight, as only the druid had sufficient skill and interest to handle the animals.

The use of Perception and Stealth for initiative seems pretty intuitive to me. I play it the way that makes sense, that higher Perception rolls for PCs indicate those party members saw their enemies approaching while higher Stealth rolls for enemies mean those foes sneaked up on the party. My players all understand the new system simply combines the element of surprise with initiative, and they seem to like the streamlining.

Next, still on Rova 12, the party approached the gnoll encampment and decided to swim the river. This was cool as the river really posed some challenges for those who had cold dice and was easily bypassed by those who made a couple lucky rolls. The druid was nearly washed downstream and, as I told him, almost to the waterfall (which I put in for color). Everyone kept urging him to turn into a fish, while he kept saying, "I can't!"

The gnolls gave some decent damage to the party, but the three action economy also kept them occupied as they had to draw weapons, move, and so forth. They got at least one good use of sweep with a scimitar to hit two different characters, and I started to understand the tactics of using weapons traits.

The scorpion came out and I had one gnoll call it Betsy, as in, "Get 'em Betsy!" I should have had him use an action for that, but I forgot. Worse, the scorpion hit the dwarf warrior barbarian, he failed his save, and I blanked on the poison rules. I should have inflicted the poison effect then and there, but I gave him a round and a second save, which he critically succeeded. So I let him escape the poison effect unscathed.

In the end, the party killed the scorpion and the gnolls without much trouble. The two-shield fighter was very happy with his build to this point, as he avoided taking any damage or dents. Part of this was because he spent so long swimming in the river, getting out his shields, and so forth, and part was because the opposition was not adjusted for party size. Despite what I've read on the message boards, as I read Doomsday Dawn it was pretty clear that only one of the adventures is meant to be adjusted for party size. Besides, I think for a new edition it's really a good thing for players to feel powerful when they have a large party.

The party left the camels on the other side of the river and began the difficult climb and found the perfect path up, but it was slow going. The two-shield fighter had to bury some of his equipment and plan to come back for it later, just to get a 15 foot move. In the afternoon of Rova 14, they found the quill-riddled body but didn't figure out what it portends. They had just reached the encounter area on the evening of Rova 14 when we stopped.

Thanks, this is useful information.

It seems like the adventure leaves out a mechanism for involving Lucvi Yasterna up front. Since she is suspicious of Dr. Oscilar, the adventure could have her prompt the PCs to investigate. As she leads the party to their quarters upstairs, she could make a simple remark about the Dominion of the Black to see if the PCs express interest, not too much of a stretch as they all serve the Palatine Eye. If the PCs then discern her fears and get her to talk, she could give a little speech urging them to poke around for anything that might explain why Dr. Oscilar is behaving strangely. Of course she is too busy helping the professor to do it herself, and besides she has the most to lose if she gets caught snooping, whereas the PCs can probably get away with some mild rudeness. This is a pretty stock reaction for a character in a mystery story and links up with the adventure's intended outcome of using Lucvi Yasterna to confront the professor after the PCs turn up evidence.

Added party member:

• half-elf ranger

The goblin alchemist didn't make it for session 2.

The party proceeded into the skeleton chamber. The battle might have been uneventful, but the halfling druid who had been providing the light source via dancing lights forgot to spend an action concentrating, thus plunging the area into darkness. The horrid skeletons had better success than the party, cutting down the new ranger. The druid made up for his mistake by using positive energy to destroy the undead. The ranger was subsequently healed and everyone was ready to go.

The goblin rogue spotted and disarmed the hourglass of sands in the hand of the statue of Pharasma. He kept the hourglass for future use, later learning exactly what its effects would be. This is not contemplated in the adventure text. It gives the party an item of treasure of unspecified potency, though likely somewhat weak (level 2 at best).

Moving to the chamber of Drakus the Taker, the human fighter knocked on the door, announcing the party's presence. The "hobgoblin" hid behind the altar while the party forced the door open. Two party members spotted Drakus before he could react and moved to stop him from bottlenecking the party in the corridor. His first round pattern involved moving, transforming to his true form, and making one attack, so he wasn't too devastating the first round of combat. The party fought him for two rounds, achieving victory.

The party cleaned the room and investigated the nearby shrine. They did not discern the magic of the item found there. They used the prayer to help the souls of the ashen ossuary fulfill their pilgrimage to the afterlife. This scene could have been written out for the GM. As it was, I made it poignant and dramatic, emphasizing how the souls had been thwarted from achieving final rest by the desecration of their burial site.

Finally, they explored and looted Drakus's treasure. Here again some text would have been useful to describe the Star of Desna. I described it at first as a blue gemstone in the shape of a butterfly, but the party didn't put this together with Desna, and I hadn't said "star," so they began to worry they had missed something. Then, as they looked more closely at their loot, I mentioned the sparkling white "stars" on the butterfly's wings, and that satisfied them.

Overall I think the adventure ran fairly smoothly using what are a rough set of rules. The group of players and myself are willing to give the rules a chance, but we don't know yet whether they "solve" more problems than they create. Mostly I think the challenge for Second Edition is that we don't have problems using Pathfinder. I like some of the ideas like the new action mechanics, archetypes built into character classes, items by class levels, and fast character creation. It remains to be seen how these play out.

Also I should point out that my take on playtesting is to test whether the rules and adventure make it possible for me to run a fun game. I am not really much concerned about running things according to the letter of the law, as my games will always treat rules and published material as pleasant and mostly helpful suggestions for adventuring, not injunctions from the Almighty as to how things must be done.

The Lost Star, Part 1

Party:

• Elf wizard
  
• Goblin alchemist
  
• Goblin rogue
  
• Halfling druid
  
• Human fighter
  

The two goblins PCs escaped from Drakus the Taker along with Talga, so they had a full rundown of the area. The goblin rogue claimed Talga as his sister "in a House Lannister way," for what that's worth.

The initial encounter with the ooze ran smoothly after we resolved a simple question about whether its wave of filth imposed a multiple attack penalty on its subsequent attacks.

The rogue sneaked up on the goblins building the statue of Drakus out of filth. The initiative system seemed fairly intuitive. The party easily killed the mind-fogged goblins, with the rogue taking one captive briefly before the fighter killed the prisoner.

The party avoided the centipedes altogether. The alchemist, deducing the mind fog fungus as the source of the dumbing-down of his fellow goblins, threw fire at it, even knowing it would explode. Luckily, he won initiative and ran out of the room before the explosion of spores filled the chamber.

In the room of the defiled fountain, the druid recognized the visage of Pharasma and the fighter found the idol in the pool. She immediately pulled the idol out, causing it to crack open and unleash the quasits. An interesting fight ensued, as the combination of fear, invisibility, and abyssal healing make these formidable foes. We tested the sensing and concealment rules and found them more detailed but not substantially different in terms of odds than earlier editions. Invisibility remains a powerful tactic if used cleverly. In the end, one of the quasits could have escaped, but I ruled they were summoned for a single purpose -- to cause pain and suffering to the PCs in the moment -- and had no fear of dying on this plane. So it attacked the rogue, the only one who could reliably find it, and the party finished it.

The locked door in that room showed a major step back from previous game rules. The "three successful DC 20 rolls" idea is rendered irrelevant by the odds of breaking lockpicks before succeeding. Rather, the mechanic needed here is probably "recognize you can't pick this lock." This was easy to handle in 3.5/Pathfinder thanks to rules for taking 20 and no penalty for failure on picking locks.

The party went through the other door, opening it slowly to avoid alerting the goblins in the nearby chamber. They were going to sneak by the entrance to that cavern, but the players had a prolonged discussion about tactics as their characters moved down the corridor, so I had the goblins roll Perception, and they heard the party. Calling out taunts to the goblin PCs, they lured the party into the room.

The wizard had a good day with grim tendrils, killing a warrior and wounding the commando, but it placed her in front of the party. Unfortunately, she got critical hit by an arrow, started dying 2, got hit by the rockfall to dying 3, and then got collateral from a burning hands aimed at the fighter for dying 4. Saved by a Hero Point, the character returned to 1 hp (unconscious) and lost the dying condition. The party made quick work of the goblins, thanks largely to a critical failure of the commando when he tried to trip the human fighter.