blargney the second's page

Hi there! I'm about to start DMing RotRL for a new group, and I'm super stoked.

All four of the PCs are friends who live in Magnimar - they have a book group together lol. I'd like to start the campaign with an encounter or two in Magnimar before they head to Sandpoint for the actual start of this chapter. Ideally, this prologue would plant some seeds that would really bring things home in chapter two.

Only problem is I can't for the life of me figure out what those encounters should be. no biggie

Any suggestions to help get the ball rolling?
-blarg

Svokui flew off to acquire a scroll of dispel evil and some restoration scrolls. Belshallam refused to leave his hoard, so we flew off to the top of the star tower to get away from the approaching throngs of undead. The skull thing on top of star tower turned out to be a giant holy symbol with a phase door effect on it (currently nonfunctional because of aura stuff).

Serai led us to go back to the courtyard, and threw herself bodily against a door that offended her sensibilities. Jiggy held off the undead with some black tentacles, then morphed Serai into a stone giant to expedite her progress through the intransigent door. Once she'd battered it down, a forbiddance effect prevented us from entering until we mustered our will, then it gave us each a vicious migraine.

Inside, while Carmina healed us up, Erst scouted and found it appeared to be some sort of mostly abandoned temple of Zon-Kuthon. We fought some spectres who found Serai's life force to be most delectable, and discovered that the temple was built to snuggle the star tower in some extremely awkward ways. The final room on the floor contained a mummy lord (scary!) and a secret door into the black star (yay!).

Inside the tower, we found a nightwing who was happy that we had finally come to replace him as the curate. We objected in the mildest possible terms, so he gave one of us an hour to bring in Laori (we sidetracked a little to leave instructions for Svokui on how to find us). When Laori arrived, she and the nightwing geeked out about pain or something for a bit, then they headed off to the shadow plane to start her two-week training montage. We left off in the nightwing's room with an active transporter circle heading... somewhere.

PCs:

Erst Fordyce (human aristocrat 1/rogue 11/shadowdancer 2)
Radomer Jeggare (human aristocrat 3/wizard 5/loremaster 6)
Serai Arkona Leroung (human aristocrat 2/rural ranger 10/fighter 2)
Karmina Ornelos (human aristocrat 3/cleric 11)

Any help sorting this out would be appreciated. It's so messy...

We ended our game on Monday night just after an encounter with a nasty spellcasting clay golem. A couple of PCs had taken hefty damage from its slam attacks, and we were trying to figure out how to resolve healing their wounds. Clay golems in Pathfinder have an ability called Cursed Wounds (Ex): The damage a clay golem deals doesn't heal naturally and resists magical healing. A character attempting to use magical healing on a creature damaged by a clay golem must succeed on a DC 26 caster level check, or the healing has no effect on the injured creature. This is changed from 3.5, where it used to specify 'conjuration (healing)' instead of magical healing.

The first problem that we have is that 'magical healing' is not actually a keyword that designates something specific in rule terms. This interacts ambiguously with better defined areas of the ruleset, which I'll get to in a moment. The second problem is identifying what damage effects this ability applies to, and the third problem is determining when the cursed wound power ends.

Low-hanging fruit: Spells and spell-like abilities have to make the caster level check. That's fairly apparent, I think. We're also not worried about extraordinary healing.

Questions:
1) Does supernatural (Su) healing (such as lay on hands or channel energy) automatically work, auto-fail, or does it have to make a caster level check (using what modifier)?
The DC 26 caster level check sounds suspiciously like SR, which Su abilities bypass (makes me think auto-success). On the other hand, Su abilities don't have a caster level in PF unless the given effect specifies one (LoH and CE do not specify one). This is a change from 3.5, where the CL was defined for Su abilities. If Su abilities don't have a caster level, that sounds like auto-fail territory. I guess a related (possibly underlying) question would be: Does Su healing count as magical healing?

2) If afflicted PCs now take damage from anything else (not clay golems) before the curse goes away, does the preexisting cursed wounds effect apply to the new damage?
It can be interpreted to apply only to the damage the golem dealt itself, but it's vague enough to be interpreted as applying to any other damage the character receives.

3) If a spellcasting golem damages us with a spell, would that damage be a cursed wound? What if they do ability damage?

4) Is it possible to remove the cursed wound effect once it's in place?
It doesn't say anything about going away once the wounds are healed. Remove curse requires the curse to have a save DC, and there isn't one. Break enchantment requires the curse to have a caster level, and there isn't one. I don't know of any other spell that could get rid of the curse.

Thanks for the help resolving this! :)
-blarg

I finally got to start this adventure line in last night's game. We ended on a cliffhanger with the scene of Darth Vader in the Cloud City dining hall (aka the opening of Monstrous Feast, natch). The look on the players' faces was classic.
-blarg

My Tartuk turned invisible and ran away when the PCs gave the statue to the chief. He then showed up at the Stag Lord's Fort for the final battle of chapter 1, then ran away again when things went sour. The next group he'll hook up with is Hargulka. I suspect he won't make it out of that fight alive.

Name: Sir Reginald Theeds of House Orlovsky, Lord Mayor of Thornton's Charge
Race: Half-orc
Classes/levels: Urban Barbarian 5
Adventure: Rivers Run Red
Location: 3 miles east of Tiressia's Grove (Hex A)
Catalyst: Random encounter
The Gory Details: A random encounter with four grizzly bears left me scratching my head why there would be so many bears in one place. Since I have 5 players and they're currently ahead of the XP curve, I usually add a monster to fights to keep things balanced. In this case, I decided to add a swarm of bees defending a ginormous honey stockpile.

Reginald got grappled by a bear and held in place while the swarm stung him to death.

That was last week. This week's obits:
Name: Jak Riven Faust
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Diviner wizard 2/Rogue 2
Adventure: Rivers Run Red
Location: Across the Skunk River from the Narthropple Expedition (Hex C)
Catalyst: Random encounter
The Gory Details: Another random encounter. Due to some wacky shenanigans in book one, the PCs have caused there to be many shambling mounds terrorizing the Narlmarches. Each time they encounter a mound, I up the difficulty slightly to keep them interesting through the levels. This time around, I happened to roll up two encounters simultaneously: a shambler plus 4 shocker lizards. I just ran with it as a symbiotic relationship.

The party totally flubbed their Perception checks, so they were right on top of the monsters when the encounter started. Against all odds, Jak failed his reflex save against the lizards' electric kaboom in the first round, and it completely one-shotted him.

When you enter an unclaimed hex, there's a 5% chance of a random encounter. If you Camp or explore, then there's another 15% of an encounter.

If you've claimed the hex, those numbers drop to 1% and 3%, respectively.
-blarg

I'm currently expanding my kingdom events table, and I want to add a category of leadership events based on each of the roles. Feel free to contribute if you'd like!

Good Events:
Councilor:
General: Border skirmish. While out on training maneuvers, one of your armies encounters a sizable unit of gnoll marauders intent on fighting. If you win, there's a hefty amount of gold and valuables in their supplies. (Gain 1d3+1 BP if victorious.)
Grand Diplomat:
High Priest:
Magister: That research you commissioned has paid off. An apprentice delivers a scroll to you with a spell that comes from a closed sourcebook. (DM's choice, but reasonable requests are cool.)
Marshal:
Royal Assassin:
Ruler:
Ruler's Spouse:
Spymaster:
Treasurer: Whoops! You forgot to carry the one last month. There's an extra build point in the treasury. (Gain 1 BP.)
Warden:

Minor Events:
Councilor:
General:
Grand Diplomat:
High Priest:
Magister:
Marshal:
Royal Assassin:
Ruler:
Ruler's Spouse: The accidental death of a popular palace worker has lowered morale. If you don't plan a function to raise spirits soon, you fear the ruler might be distracted by the morose servants.
Spymaster: While returning from a mission abroad, one of your spies overhears one of the other leaders being adulterous.
Treasurer: Something's hinky. On a hunch, you audit the books and find that someone is skimming off the top. It's not much right now, but the amount seems to grow each month and will be significant soon.
Warden:

Bad Events:
Councilor:
General:
Grand Diplomat:
High Priest: They're at it again. The Gorumites are restless and keep picking fights with the other faiths. Make a Stability check to get them under control. This continuous event will happen each month until you beat the Control DC by 5 or more. On a failure, gain 1 Unrest.
Magister: Boom, ook ook! You asked a mage to conduct an experiment for you, and it went really badly. The explosion has done 2 BP worth of damage to an appropriate building. Even worse, the flying monkeys escaped and have done 1d4 BP of damage to nearby food-bearing businesses.
Marshal:
Royal Assassin: Your Brute Squad has gone rogue. This small army of thugs is claiming a remote hex of the kingdom for themselves. Gain no benefit for the hex and -2 Stability until you reclaim the region.
Ruler:
Ruler's Spouse:
Spymaster:
Treasurer:
Warden:

Welcome to The Price is Right!

I'm contemplating putting a variant magic item in a treasure hoard, but I'm not sure how much it is worth. I'm soliciting your opinions, please! The item is a ring of wizardry 1 that imposes a -2 penalty on caster level.

Come on down! You're the next contestant on The Price is Right.
-blarg

Incidentally, I'm also really happy that we're not using a spreadsheet for tracking the kingdom right now. My players gained more system mastery than if they'd just plugged the numbers into a computer that took care of it all for them. We may switch over eventually to make it less unwieldy, but for now I'm happy with pen & papering it.

I'm so happy I had the random kingdom events pre-rolled and ready to go. I rolled up two years' worth of events ahead of the game, then started inserting all the other quests, wanted posters, rumours, and small occasions in the holes in the timeline.

IMC moon radishes are aphrodisiacs and fertility enhancers, so Svetlana is going to be showing by the kingdom's fourth month. The Sootscale population explosion begins two months after that. >:)

In tonight's session, we ran through the first two months of kingdom building. It was glorious. :) :)
-blarg

If a powerful magic item crafter installed the Occulus as the pommelstone of Ovinrbane, would the personalities fight each other, leaving the wielder in control?

Here's my plan:

There's a psionic power that's been around since 3.0 called object reading. It does pretty much exactly what he wants.

If I had to hazard a guess, I think the Earthenflail operates as a Shatterspike with the extra benefits listed in its description. The relative pricing of the two items is consistent with this idea.
-blarg

The cavalier is innately focused on mounted combat, true. That's no bad thing in this particular adventure path. In addition, you can always use your general feats to round out your combat capabilities. If you have something really specific in mind, multiclassing, archetyping, or prestige classing can also work.
-blarg

There are plenty of quests to be had in the first chapter, and they can come with substantial rewards, both XP and loot. If the lure of shinies and power are inadequate to swaying them, try placing some personal (in-character) importance on one of the other quests. Perhaps you are eager to find Tuskgutter because the boar has slain one of your relatives.
-blarg

All rays gain the +1 attack bonus from Point Blank Shot. Only rays that deal hit point damage gain the +1 damage bonus from the feat.

Pass without trace?

No PC deaths. Frankly, I'm surprised at that result.

The druid turned traitor extremely mildly. She shot the barbarian once with produce flame, dropped a fog cloud on the whole area, and cheesed it. I think the fog cloud actually helped the PCs far more than it hindered them. It also slowed the whole combat to a rather painful crawl. :-/

With the fog in place, Tartuk was virtually useless. He tried a couple spells to no particular avail and ran off.

Akiros ended up being a big damn hero. He shoved a couple of guys straight into the baby shambler, with especially good effect. He took a sizable beating from various bad guys, and dished it out pretty decently as well.

As a result of the fog, the Stag Lord never even shot his bow, which was rather disappointing. He never sneak attacked a single person. :(

At the end, there was only one PC standing, with everybody else dying. She managed to get everybody up, with a couple of allies only one round away from bleeding to death. It was extremely brutal, and everybody was terrified for their characters' lives.

My players are right outside the Stag Lord's Fort, and book one is about to come to a close. I've built a full 3D fort, painted the big boss as well as one player's mini, and prepped everything I need. There are many many pieces about to come to simultaneous fruition. Now I'm just excited!

Just sixteen hours until we start. I can't go to sleep, I'm excited like a kid on Christmas Eve. :D
-blarg

I thought you folks might be interested in the prop I've made for my next session of Kingmaker - the assault on the Stag Lord's Fort. Since it doesn't seem like it's possible to post images on these forums, I've posted them on ENWorld.

If that site goes down, I've put the images on my own site as well:
Full Fort
Stag Lord close-up

Thanks for the feedback, everybody! Based on your advice, here's what I'm going with:

1) If the diviner is ever directly threatened, he will wake up automatically.
2) If someone else in his group is attacked instead, he will be more likely to wake up the more he cares about them.

In the case of last week's wolf blitz, they only attacked the party's horses. This player haaaaaaates horses (like a goblin!), and more importantly so does his PC, so it fits that his character didn't care enough to wake up. The player is totally satisfied with this ruling.
-blarg

If you look through monster entries, you'll see that the size modifier to CMB is a penalty on small creatures and a bonus on large ones.

Here's how you calculate your CMB. It's straight from the rulebook:

CMB = Base attack bonus + Strength modifier + special size modifier

One of my players is playing a diviner. The party was ambushed while resting at night by some wolves who succeeded on their Stealth checks. The diviner was asleep when the attack began. The player insisted that his Forewarned special ability would wake him up so he could take an action during the surprise round.

Here's the relevant text:
Forewarned (Su) You can always act in the surprise round even if you fail to make a Perception roll to notice a foe, but you are still considered flat-footed until you take an action.

It's clear that if he's awake, he gets to act in the surprise round. That's nice and easy (and really powerful!). However, I don't think that it wakes him up from sleep during an ambush. Here's my reasoning: if he was stunned or dazed when a surprise round started, he wouldn't be able to act because those status conditions preclude him taking any actions. While asleep, he has the unconscious condition, which prevents taking actions.

So my spot ruling was that forewarning gives him a turn in the surprise round, but unconsciousness prevents him from taking any actions until he succeeds at a perception check to hear the fight.

Did I rule that reasonably, or should forewarning cure unconsciousness?
-blarg

Name: Thornton Orlovsky
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Paladin 2
Adventure: Stolen Lands
Location: In a copse near Oleg's.
Catalyst: Overconfidence or player death wish, not too sure.

The Gory Details: After the party took out the Thorn River camp, they had captured a number of bandits, including Kressle herself. They hauled them all the way back to Oleg's. A couple of days after they arrived, one of the weekly supply caravans came in to the trading post. Rickard, the caravan leader, offered to take the bandits up to Restov for the justice system to take care of them. The entire party flubbed their Sense Motive checks at this point. They went back out into the wilderness to continue their charter.

The next time they returned to the trading post, they heard rumours of creepy moans and wails coming from a cluster of trees a few miles up the road towards Restov. The PCs followed their investigating feet. The copse became more unnaturally dark the closer they got to the source of the moaning.

Just as they spotted a shallow grave, the ghost of Kressle came flowing up out of the ground. Three of the adventurers ran away immediately, while only the bard and Thornton, the paladin, remained. Recognizing the PCs, Kressle demanded that they avenge her death, all while her horrific gaze drained the life from them. The stalwart pair didn't even reply and tried to attack her, to no avail. She insisted that they avenge her death by bringing the head of Rickard.

That's when her gaze outright killed the paladin.

The bard hastily agreed to fetch Rickard's head, and booked it. (Some extra fun came later, in which they had Jhod Kavken cast a ritual to destroy the ghost. The ritual succeeded, but severed the cleric's connection to Erastil's divine power!)

I'd like to take classic fairy tales, but have them end in connections to the mythos creatures mentioned in Candlemere.

The only thing I can come up with is Little Red Riding Hood that ends with a gug in grandma's house. I could use some more and better ideas, if you've got any!
-blarg

They kept failing the perception checks to notice the shambler as they approached. They didn't spot it until their third check, at which point they were really close to it.

My first level PCs got super unlucky with the random encounter rolls. While exploring a single hex, they got two random encounters: a shambling mound and a tatzlwyrm. The druid with the Plant domain managed to convince the mound to leave them alone by offering to leave all of their horses behind for it, then coming back with more food.

While camping later that same night, the same druid was ambushed by the tatzlwyrm. It would have made off with her, but the barbarian luckily took the creature down before it escaped.

Drejk, you're right. My bad. Somehow in all our PF games, every single one of us missed the fact that the touch attack got dropped from grapple.

Revised version:
Step 1 - Start grapple attempt. Provokes an AoO from your target.
Step 2 - Make grapple check, with penalty equal to damage from AoO.
Step 3 - Both you and your target acquire the grappled condition.

The following extra options become available to a grappler during their turn. They require a standard action and a grapple check to execute.

1) Force your target to move with you, up to half your speed.
2) Escape (can also use escape artist check). This automatically succeeds as a free action instead if both grapplers are willing to end the grapple.

I have always hated grappling in 3.X, and I'm about to start a Kingmaker campaign. I wish to make grappling as complex as bull rush or overrun. I'd love to have some feedback on my first draft:

Step 1 - Make a touch attack to grab. Provokes an AoO from your target.
Step 2 - Make a grapple check to secure the grappling, with a penalty equal to any AoO damage.
Step 3 - Both you and your target acquire the grappled condition.

The following extra options become available to a grappler during their turn. They require a standard action and a grapple check to execute.

1) Force your target to move with you, up to half your speed.
2) Escape (can also use escape artist check). This automatically succeeds as a free action instead if both grapplers are willing to end the grapple.

Come to think of it, I should follow through properly on this element. Next step: find/create monster stats for raths, borogoves, toves, Jubjub birds, and bandersnatches. Then add them to the random encounter tables.

I think I'll include this classic poem early in the runs as an in game bardic oeuvre: http://www.jabberwocky.com/carroll/jabber/jabberwocky.html

At the moment I'm thinking of having it recited either as a campfire horror story or at the party in Restov where they'll negotiate with venture capitalists for their starting BPs.

Here's a screen cap of the first draft of the DB structure if that kind of thing pleases you.

My primary objective at this point is to get this thing functional as quickly and easily as possible. I've already created the relational database structure in OpenOffice. In the interests of saving time and effort, I was planning to build the interface using forms in OpenOffice as well. I'll have to learn to code in OO, but that shouldn't be a huge deal.

For the main interface, I'm thinking a Kingdom Turn Wizard will do the job. There would obviously need to be a few other forms for data entry, but the first and biggest goal is making kingdom turns as simple and painless as possible.

I'm glad to know there's interest in this idea! I'll endeavour to make it as broadly useful as possible for others to use. :)
-blarg

The limitations of spreadsheets are seriously starting to annoy me. So now I'm working on a database application for kingdom building.

Before I get too far in, does anybody know of any similar efforts? I hate duplicating work that's already been done.
-blarg

I've read horror stories here about the kingdom building rules being broken wide open once the PCs start selling magic items from shops during the income phase. Most folks suggest eliminating the option of selling store items for Build Points, but I'd kind of like to leave it in, albeit weakened. Here's my proposed fix - it incorporates a few ideas I've seen kicking around the internet.

1) Change the taxation edict:
No taxes give +0 Economy, +1 Loyalty
Light taxes give +1 Economy, -1 Loyalty
Normal taxes give +2 Economy, -2 Loyalty, and 3% sales tax.
Heavy taxes give +1 Economy, -4 Loyalty, +1 Unrest/month, and 6% sales tax.
Overwhelming taxes give -1 Stability, -1 Economy, -6 Loyalty, +2 Unrest/month, and 10% sales tax.

2) Change the income phase:
Step 1 - Sell Valuable Items: If your Taxation Level edict is high enough, you can attempt to sell magic items currently held by your cities through your city’s markets to bolster your kingdom’s Treasury. You can make one Economy check (DC is 10 + the gp value of the item divided by 1,000) per city district during each Income phase. A failed check indicates the item doesn't sell. Success indicates that the item sells and you can collect the magic item sales tax on it. Multiply the item's market value by the sales tax percentage indicated by your Taxation Level edict. Increase your kingdom’s treasury by 1 BP for every full 4,000 gp in value of the total collected taxes. If you are going to make deposits of your own wealth in Step 2, you may carry the gp value generated in this step forward before calculating BP generated.

Step 1 - Deposits: You can add funds to a kingdom’s treasury by donating coins, gems, jewelry, weapons, armor, magic items, and other valuables you find while adventuring. For every full 4,000 gp in value of the deposit, increase your kingdom’s BP by 1. Items that individually cost 4,000 gp or less can be deposited without a check.

Items that individually cost more than 4,000 gp must make a successful Economy check to be deposited. You can attempt to make one such check per item over 4,000 gp per turn. The DC of this check is 10 + the gp value of the item divided by 1,000. For example, selling a pair of goggles of night – which have a market price of 12,000 gp – would require a DC 22 Economy check [10 + (12,000/1,000) = 22]. Successfully selling the goggles of night would increase your kingdom’s BP by 3.

So, you haven't ran this yet right? Tell us how the cost adjustment goes. It looks good though. Thanks for sharing and your time.

Thanks for the feedback! :)

That's correct. We haven't even started playing yet. Right now I'm looking ahead and trying to smooth out any major wrinkles before they become problems. Here's hoping that the wrinkles caused by the new solutions are smaller!
-blarg

I'm reworking the rules for building kingdoms and armies in Kingmaker right now. My players seem pretty stoked about using mass combat, so I want to make sure I'm providing a fairly robust system. I've been reading as much as I can in these messageboards to learn from your compiled wisdom and experience. As a result, I've picked up Warpath and I'm planning on using it as the engine for our battles.

One of the things I want to change is the ability to field armies of almost arbitrary size and (more importantly) level. I did some research into the demographics of historical and modern populations and armies. I also took the demographics info from the 3.5 DMG into account, as well as Kingmaker's kingdom info. The end result is a chart that tells you how many soldiers you can hire based on the number of hexes you have claimed. This is further broken down by class and level.

Here's the chart of maximum recruitable soldiers.

Next step, recruitment! I came up with a set of fairly simply formulas to determine how much it costs to recruit and equip an army.

Cost to recruit an army or maintain it for 1 week (active) or 1 month (inactive):
i) Cost in BP (round up) = number of soldiers * CR of a soldier^2 / 50
ii) Mercenaries count as 1 CR higher when determining cost, but give you limited access to powerful races like lizardfolk or trolls.

Cost to equip an army:
i) Cost in BP (round up) = number soldiers * cost of 1 soldier's items / 2000
ii) Price mounts as part of equipment
iii) Equipment maintenance = 10% of initial purchase cost

I've still got a few pieces to put together, but this is the core of it.
-blarg

I'm looking at tweaking some of the kingdom building rules to achieve a few effects.

1) Selling magic items. It feels weird to me that the rulers can sell a shop owner's magic items at full value to raise BPs. I've been reading other DMs' advice that the math can get out of hand pretty quickly, so there's some rebalancing I'd like to do.

2) Taxation. The default implementation of taxation edicts leaves me feeling a bit underwhelmed. It also seems like that the heaviest tax brackets should cause some unrest.

Proposal: In addition to the Economy/Loyalty effects of the various taxation levels, they also impose a sales tax on magic item sales. At the higher levels, it can be a monthly source of unrest. Here's a possible tax table to accomplish this.

Taxation levels:
None. +0 Economy, +1 Loyalty, 0% of income from sale of magic items.
Light. +1 Economy, -1 Loyalty, 10% of magic items.
Normal. +2 Economy, -2 Loyalty, 20% of magic items.
Heavy. +3 Economy, -4 Loyalty, 30% of magic items, +1 Unrest per month.
Overwhelming. +4 Economy, -8 Loyalty, 40% of magic items, +2 Unrest per month.

I'm interested in hearing your thoughts about this idea!
-blarg

I'm going to start DMing a Kingmaker campaign very soon. One thing I'd like to do is have the 6th book foreshadowed much earlier with proto-bloom kingdom events. Has somebody already done something like that?

Also, it seems like there ought to be a small possibility for two events to happen in a single month. Roll Twice is a longstanding tradition. :)
-blarg

Name: Hassan
Race: Half-orc
Gender: Male
Class: Barbarian 1/Ranger 2
Faction: Qadira
Alignment: Neutralish

Hassan CHOP!

For what it's worth, I have some recommendations for the Paizo crew:

1) Don't pit 1st or 2nd level PCs against wizards with 3rd level evocations. That ain't right.

2) Increase your word count to give more space for statblocks so you can tier adventures properly. A 3rd or 4th level wizard would have been better suited to the low tier.

3) Cut waaaay down on the background info, especially if you can't increase the word count. That page and a half could have been summarized in a couple of shortish paragraphs and still remained useful.

The opportunity cost of purple prose is balanced encounters.
-blarg

As tbug mentioned above: action points!
-blarg

I think the speed is fine. If you want to slow it down for yourself, you could always run more than one character. *shrug*
-blarg

I'm preparing the Crimson Fleet invasion at the end of Tides of Dread, and trying to come up with descriptions of how the town's defenses affect the invaders.

So far I've got phanatons doing strafing runs with alchemist's fire, fortifications for archers on the roofs of the warehouses, and some other fun stuff based on what the PCs achieved or failed to achieve in the run-up.

But I can't for the life of me figure out how the Sea Wyvern could be 200 VP worth of useful all by her lonesome against five enemy ships. I suppose she could try to take out another ship with a kamikaze run, but is there anything else/better you can think of?
-blarg