If anyone's interested, I'm running the entire Giantslayer campaign in an actual play podcast called The Glass Cannon Podcast. We have about 13,000 subscribers at the moment and it's really taking off. I know I always love hearing how each GM deals with the same encounters. Likewise, hopefully you can get something out of the pod too. Check it out!
Haven't been playing this AP yet, but just wanted to say I discovered this podcast about 2 weeks ago and I've been loving it. Managed to listen the first 50 or so episodes so far.
Been worth it if just for the Trip Advisor reviews of the Ramble House in Trunau.
I found a good Dex, Int based Sanctified Slayer Inquisitor (with a level of Inspired Blade Swashbuckler) made for a pretty effective switch hitter. (If very limited in choice of melee weapon of course)
Starting off with the bow at range and then when things got more chaotic moving into flanking positions, especially once I had the Co-ordinated effort spell to give party members benefit of my Teamwork feats.
Either your own band, or succubus backup dancers to provide aid another bonuses. You are an AP, cbeat. Get a bard w a good disguise skill to dance in your place. Drug your competition w some kind of cha drain.
The succubus backing dancers are already in the works. Do quite like idea of getting the ringer in tho
Slightly strange request and long story short, but as a result of a friend's character trying to prank my character during a game we're looking at a potential dance off. (As close to serious PvP as my friend and I are going to get)
Not surprisingly my AP does not have a lot of ranks in Perform:Dance.....so I'm looking for a couple of quick suggestions for scrolls, potions or other magic items that could give him a bit of a boost when the time comes
Mixture of close friends and less well known associates.
Believe it or not, we are all well into our 20's, we all have jobs and pay bills. Not junior-high.
We are playing on roll 20 using webcams, which I think may be part of the problem. Also, our GM is trying lots of fancy stuff in Roll-20 like line-of-sight fog so it becomes really confusing what is going on. I can't see what other characters are doing.
I don't know who started the "Matt Daaaaamon" jibe but it really shut down any attempt to break the ice. As I said, they arrived one by one and each individual address was treated as if I was loudly repeating it to everyone. This is the bloody problem with web-cams YOU CAN'T TELL WHO YOU ARE LOOKING AT! Add on to that how GM wanted us to have all communication in-character so it's really hard to have an ordinary conversation, people wouldn't acknowledge if they could hear you or were paying attention. I couldn't remember even their characters' gender.
I wouldn't say it's bullying, it was just a lame joke at my expense that got out of hand.
Except one guy I can tell hates my guts, I really wish he'd say what it is that annoys him so I can stop it but I think he just wants me to piss off. I was hoping this game could break the ice, I want to get on well with him and I can help him by showing I can be a team player. You know, be the Medic to his Heavy, last time I'd played with him as a fellow fighter he...
This sounds like a pretty thorny situation.....I run three different games online and much as I love Roll20 it can lead to a few problems I didn't encounter when running tabletop games. (Connection issues, players being more distracted...no telling what other apps they might have open at their end).
The GM definitely needs to be more hands on by the sound of things, has he been fudging a few dice rolls in combat? (Because the lack of cohesion sounds like a TPK waiting to happen)
Have you tried talking after the sessions ended to those you mentioned were close friends and asking them why they're all going along with this style, are they actually having fun with this? There's plenty Lone Wolf characters out there in fiction land, and as self reliant, grizzled and badass as they all were I'm pretty sure most of them at some point accepted help from others, even made allies from time to time, had people they could trust when they really needed.
It's to make feats like Cleave still useful, because you can retrain before (or 2 levels after) you get iteratives.
Also, to be less harsh on new players who are just "OMG 3 feats at level 1? What do I take???" and then they have Tower Shield Specialist, Improved Unarmed Strike, and Persuasive.
Hey my fast reacting, charming elf with the big shield was one of my most successful characters I'll have you know!
Off topic a bit, but I misread the thread title initially as "bards and flukes".
My mind goes in strange directions sometimes.
Anyway, I have an easier time seeing a person wielding a rapier while maintaining Inspire Courage when using a flute then I do if they use a lute or mandolin. Personally, I always have my bards use either a lute or a lyre.
Archer bard that plays a nice chord every time he looses an arrow?
It could work. To be honest I am a fan of the inquisitor, but I generally like having more skill points. Plus, no one expects the (burp) Caydenite Inquisition :) .
I am a huge fan of the Inquisitor too, in fact probably my favourite class at the moment, however I've recently played 2 different inquisitors in other games.
Next month we're going to be starting 'The Curse of the Crimson Throne' adventure path.
There's 5 players in our party. The other 4 are all much newer to RPGs and Pathfinder in general than I am, so I'm working on the basis of letting those guys pick their characters and classes first, then building something to cover any areas we might be weak on.
This AP is going to be a bit different for the guys as they had 25 points to build their characters and the homebrew extra skill points for Wicked.
This time round the DM has given us to 20 points to build our characters (slightly more than the standard AP 15 points) but specified no dump stats.
What the party has so far -
1. A bard (female Lashunta I believe) to be a party face, buffer and skill monkey.
2. A Psychic- From Occult Adventures, (either Human, Half-Elf or Elf), don't know too much bout the class
3. A Hunter - (Oread, building round his Teamwork feats and Animal Companion, concentrating on melee combat)
4. A martial of some description as yet undecided....a 'Tank' build was mentioned, but this player changed character a couple times in Wicked, and changed their mind several times about what they would play before Wicked even started.....so may find out he's gone with a Grippli grapple based monk by time we start.
I don't know too much about Crimson Throne, but the DM has mentioned he'll be tweaking the AP slightly ad has suggested having a second character in the party capable of being a 'face' might be useful. Wouldn't need to be mega optimised as the DM doesn't intend tweaking the combat side of things too much.
I've been considering going with a Divine Caster, probably a Cleric of some form, or if the 4th player does change his mind we may still need a martial of some form so possibly a Daring Champion Cavalier. (I'd quite like to give the Cayden Cailean blade and tankard combat style a whirl at some point)
Any ideas or suggestions as to where we need some extra cover gratefully received. I've got a couple weeks to mull things over before I definitely have to finalise anything.
Name: Thendor Undolmen
Race: Elf
Classes/levels:Bard 8
Adventure: Broken Moon
Location: Feldgrau Tower
Catalyst: Yup....you guessed it
The Gory Details:
:
Having quietly and confidently dealt with Adimarus earlier and then embroiled the Demon Wolves and the Whispering Way cultists in a huge scrap outside, the party made a break for the Tower.
A couple of feeble attempts to break down the main door delayed them for a round or two before the swept in doing their best '2 by 2 cover formation', took out a few skeletal archers and bunched up nicely in a doorway for Auren (humming happily to himself whilst floating above and invisible) to drop his Circle of Death right on them.
Luckily I rolled rather low on the number of hit dice that Vrood could effect and after that initial setback the 2 remaining party members (a Nature Fang Druid and a Sacred Huntsmaster Inquisitor), their animal companions and an NPC ally managed to surround Vrood....aided by me failing 3 consecutive checks on his part to cast defensively whilst surrounded.
Currently playing though a Way of the Wicked campaign and we recently got beaten to a horde of dragon loot by a sneaky Brine Dragon. We've managed to scry their whereabouts and located their lovely, stylish Fortress/Cathedral (dedicated to their own worship) and a couple hundred minions.....all of it on the sea bed of course.
Our party currently consist of:
A human rogue/shadowdancer with some great skills, but an unfortunate tendency to roll horribly at key moments (you've never seen a rogue faceplant through so many traps)
A freaky little Goblin Magus who spends most of his time either talking to or licking his sword or this skull in a jar he found.
An Elven Alchemist who recently became a Vampire and horribly fond of his new dominate ability
A human Cleric who has become the new High Priestess of Asmodeus, very Wis/Cha focused and primarily a caster rather than combatant.
An Aasimar Antipaladin. My character and provides most of the muscle and intimidation for the party (and somehow most of the common sense as well)
As it stands we're not best suited to just plunging under the water and making a fist of it relying on a few spells from the Cleric or Magus and trying to bulldoze our way through the enemies and I've never actually had a prolonged session in a game where we had to be underwater (think closest I got was playing part of Baldur's Gate 2). So I'm looking for a few useful suggestions of useful magic items, scrolls, potions or other alchemical products that could help us level the playing field somewhat. potions, scrolls
I'm running a group through Carrion Crown at moment, 3 players new to RPGs in general and 1 player who was semi-experienced with 3.5.
Gave them 20 points to build their characters, told them just to build from the Core rulebook to start with so they weren't totally overwhelmed by choices. Now that they're bit more familiar with the system and their characters I've opened up the other sourcebooks.
Haven't needed to use action points, but I have introduced the Harrow cards now they've reached the midway point of Book 3. Only thing I've done to make their life a little easier was sprinkle a few more magic items in there as loot.
Only been one death so far and that was down to the combination of me rolling a couple of crits for a certain huge spider and the player rolling absolute crap all night unfortunately.
If you're looking at an Inquisitor, the Sacred Huntsmaster archetype nets you the animal companion at level 1 as if you were a Hunter of the same level. You do lose the Inquisitor's Judgements, but you gain the ability to use Animal Focus from lvl 4 and buff yourself and your faithful, furry mount or meatshield. (You also automatically apply your Inquisitor Teamwork feats to your animal companion)
I would personally recommend against this.
Losing judgments is a big deal.
And the Chivalry Inquisition gets you a full progression mount (as a Cavalier) that gets to share their judgment witht heir mount.
Sharing teamwork feats is nice, but for an archer there aren't really many that are useful for your companion to have. And the ones that there are can be picked up with the companions normal feats.
I've personally given my companion the teamwork feat that lets you move without provoking and I think that's the only one I found useful. Most of the other good ones are for melee builds, not archery.
I'll confess I completely forgot the discussion was about an archery build....oops.
The chivalry inquisition would be great for a mounted archer, and I've played a Sanctified Slayer Inquisitor who made for a very useful sniper.
I think the Sacred Huntsmaster is a great way to grab an animal companion for a more melee focused build, the focus buffs and teamwork feats make you and your buddy into a nice tag team....but no I wouldn't suggest them for an archery build.
I'm currently mulling over Zen Archer 1-2, Feral Hunter 1-2, Dragoon 1 (Mounted Archery feat - Level 5), Cavalier (any archetype that does not remove expert trainer) 1-4 (Horse Master feat - Level 9), Spire Defender/Eldritch Archer 1-2, then not sure. (Mounted Archer build)
Ranger and Fighter are about play styles and what you want your character to do. The more specific you want, the more mutliclassing you'll likely have to do. No one class by itself can make a decent mounted archer for example.
I'm going to beg to differ on a couple points.
1) If your going to dip Zen Archer, I personally recommend doing so with something that has wisdom synergy. Ranger or Inquisitor are both great (especially Sanctified Slayer). And then you do a 3 level dip into Zen Archer to use wisdom for AC and to hit with bows. You ignore dex, and focus on wisdom, then strength, then con.
1a) I will admit though that you seem to have something else in mind, I'm just not sure what exactly
2) If your purely going for a mounted archer build you really don't need to invest much to have it be incredibly effective. I'm not sure what your trying to work towards exactly, but Ranger or Inquisitor again both do this incredibly well. For Ranger you need Boon Companion to bring the animal companion up to level. For Inquisitor you need to pick the right Domain or Inquisition that grants an animal companion or mount (and possibly boon companion). For instance Chivalry Inquisition grants you a full progression mount (per cavalier mount), but Animal Domain (and it's subdomains) grant you an animal companion at -3. But that's really all you need. Getting the animal is the hardest part. You don't really need any feats or anything beyond that, unless you want your animal to participate in combat or something (which is silly IMO). The mount is the movement based part of your duo that allows the archer to full attack and decimate everything. You never spend a move action and can always
...
If you're looking at an Inquisitor, the Sacred Huntsmaster archetype nets you the animal companion at level 1 as if you were a Hunter of the same level. You do lose the Inquisitor's Judgements, but you gain the ability to use Animal Focus from lvl 4 and buff yourself and your faithful, furry mount or meatshield. (You also automatically apply your Inquisitor Teamwork feats to your animal companion)
Would Slayer not be a good fit for a Ninja to multiclass into, pick up a full BAB class to help the Paladin? Gain studied target, if you pick up enough levels also adds to sneak attack and potentially rogue/ninja talents.
The party were in the lodge sitting room with some of the other guests on their second night at Ascanor. They'd already made Estovion rather paranoid so the Giant Tarantula was released.
After being hasted Pujol charged to engage the beast into melee...unfortunately fluffed his roll. Then failed his save to avoid the barbed hairs on the spider, failed his save against being nauseated. Then was bitten and lost the max amount of STR after failing a Fort save.
On his next turn he attempted to flee, provoking the attack of opportunity...which came up a nat 20 and then a second nat 20 to confirm. With only 20hp remaining he took 64 damage from that one attack.
The rest of the party barely survived to avenge his death. That spider can be pretty brutal.
I've been GMing a party through CC and so far they've reached almost the halfway point of Book 3 with no channelling class. So fat they've done pretty well, but I am a little worried about some encounters coming up that are nearly all undead.
I would imagine that 4 STR could be a real problem for your Bard though...can't remember off the top of my head right now but fairly sure there's a couple of encounters in Books 1 & 2 with creatures that can drain strength (or one that can do Strength poison damage)
I've been creating an NPC villain for a game using PCGen and built a 1th level character 5 Levels of Crossblooded Bloodrager and 10 of Dragon Disciple.
Looking at the character sheet his breath Weapon seems somewhat excessive and was showing up as 3 times per day for 30d6 damage with a DC of 43.....
Assuming I'm working it out correctly I'm thinking his max damage should actually be 15d6....any BR/DD experts confirm?
I'm planning on GM'ing a run through the Carrion Crown adventure path for a group of four PCs. So far, I have read Haunting of Harrowstone, but none of the other books. I told my players that the first adventure is undead-heavy, which the players guide also hints at. In response, they proposed the following party:
1. Paladin (race and archetype not decided yet)
2. Dhampir Kinslayer Inquisitor of Pharasma (Repose)
3. Oracle of Life
4. Seeker/Sage Sorcerer (nobody wants to be a straight rogue)
My opinion is that this group will do fantastically for the first book, but I'm looking for advice as to whether or not they'll be shooting themselves in the foot for the rest of the adventure path.
Thanks!
Also to answer the original question....I think your party should be fine.
I'm currently running a group through CC and they just finished Book 2 with the follwoing party:
So far they've done pretty well, apart from a near disaster at one point in Harrowstone that they scraped through by skin of their teeth. Your group will need decent Knowledge skills, Perception and Diplomacy going on into Book 2, but look to me like they should have that covered between them.
Also there's quite a few Neutral enemies in Book 2, so the Paladin's Smite ability isn't going to turn every fight into a cakewalk.
I don't think the Paladin's immunity to fear is that big a deal really....but if it is causing problems then Carrion Crown is surely an ideal campaign to drop an Antipaladin or two in.
Or maybe just tweak a monster or two to have an Aura of Cowardice similar to the APs, keep the Paladin on his toes.
Not got the Unchained book yet, will get him to have a look at it though when I do. Am I right in thinking that an Unchained rogue can get Dex to damage pretty easily?
Yep - the get weapon finesse for free @1 - and at 3 they get to pick one finesse-able weapon to get dex-to-damage with - more as they level.
Of note - is the character with Sap Master actually using saps? If he burns another feat he can use any bludgeoning weapon - making it so that he only has to enchant one set of weapons. Enchanting 4 different weapons gets WAY too expensive.
Yeah he is using Saps at moment, we're due to level up soon so he'll have a feat to burn.
I'll definitely need to pick up a copy of Unchained sounds like.
or getting into flanking positions courtesy of my Antipaladin.
You guys do know that Sap Adept/Master don't work when flanking - right?
Actually - you generally get a lot less of the 'play something else' now with Unchained Rogue out - it's a solid martial class now. (I'm assuming that he's unchained - if not - it's a pretty easy conversion and is a straight upgrade.)
My suggestion is to just deal with having reduced damage. That's the whole disadvantage to Sap Master, it's an amazing feat for anyone with SA, but it doesn't work all of the time. *shrug*
Actually I didn't even realise that the Sap Master wouldn't work when flanking, my mistake, but to be fair to him when he's been flanking with me he's generally been using short swords anyway.
Not got the Unchained book yet, will get him to have a look at it though when I do. Am I right in thinking that an Unchained rogue can get Dex to damage pretty easily?
friend of mine is playing a Rogue in Way of the Wicked and has the Sap Adept, Sap Master feats. He's been very effective so far with a lot of sneaking up on distracted opponents or getting into flanking positions courtesy of my Antipaladin.
However we're fairly sure that there's plenty enemies coming up where getting off sneak attacks is going to be a lot more difficult for him. I'm looking for a few suggestions for those fights where he's not going to be able to score big non-lethal damage on our targets.
Any useful suggestions gratefully accepted....but please no posts about 'Play a Bard/Ninja/Inquisitor/Investigator instead' he's really enjoying this character so far, especially from an rp point of view and doesn't want to mess about switching classes.
Umm, why doesn't he just play a Swashbuckler? In fact he could play the Inspired Blade swashbuckler to be a swashbuckler that's even better with a sword then normal. Then there's the Kensai/Bladebound Magus whose deal is being good with a sword. There's also a Monk Archetype and I think a Fighter Archetype centered around weapon mastery (But they're both pretty lame.) and then there's Samurai who can get all the best feats for his sword like a fighter can (a swashbuckler can't get stuff like Greater Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization) So I soul Suggest any of those really. Without more info this is the best help I've got sowwy
Don't Swashbuckler levels count as Fighter levels for the benefit of selecting feats though? So surely they could pick up the Greater Weapon feats if they wanted to?
It might be a word count issue - they had to fit a lot in there, what with the Trial, the Chymic Works, and Castle No Handrails. ^_^
Ahah....so that's what Caromarc means eh?
Really the Whispering Way are just misunderstood...they were just trying to highlight the Count's flagrant disregard for proper Health and Safety protocol.
If you think that they will decide on something more like a stake-out, prepare to give them something that they can't resist going in after. Something like some henchmen carrying a body-size canvas. The thing inside could be struggling if they need obvious signs. Or if already dead, they could find a set of blood drops coming from it.
I like that idea. The body struggling in the bag could be Gustav! Vorkstag might need to interrogate him so that he can pass as him the next day in the trial.
Actually I rather like that. Definite possibility. Thanks gents.
I think I'm just slightly surprised by their reluctance as I'm used to RPG parties pretty much saying "We're big damn HEROES...and we do what we want!" then kicking in doors willy nilly and interrogating anyone they like without regard for local law enforcement.
And I've certainly done that as a player myself I should add. If I'd been in this party I'd have probably stormed the Chymic works at the first tangible link to the case. (Probably been killed by the golem hound too considering my usual luck with dice rolls....)
Ran first session of this at the weekend for my group who had previously been playing 'Second Darkness' and they've come up with a more varied mayeup this time (the Second Darkness group had sort of evolved into 5 melee beatsticks and one Witch).
Lady Melgora - a human Oracle of the Heavens mystery, haunted by the ghosts of the crew of a shipwreck she was involved in a few weeks before the start of the game.
Ashe - an Oread Inquisitor of Pharasma out trying too seek her destiny
Gwollyn - a young human fighter (Phalanx Soldier/Lore Worden archetypes) who had planned to become a town guard somewhere before finding himself on the Wormwood (suffering the most culture shock so far)
Gnomer and Gnomina (just don't ask) - a gnome brother and sister double act of street performers. Bard & Sorceror.....Gnomer the Bard was the first of the party to receive a punishment, on Day 1 as well, by absolutely stuffing his work on the rigging. Did manage to impress by singing during his 3 lashes though.
Myre - Tiefling Rogue and in it (whatever 'IT' turns out to be) purely for the money.
May have hit a slight stumbling block with my players.....their characters are an incredibly law abiding bunch! (who would have thought!)
They've successfuly dispersed the lynch mob without causing any death or major mayhem. They spotted the ringleader that Caleb had described to them, and they'd been waiting for something like this since finding that poacher's face in Morast. They also intercepted a note Vorkstag was sending via runner back to the Chymic works informing Grine he was going to try another plan (on indication of what he was planning though)
So now they have plenty links and leads pointing at Vorkstag and Grine....but they are balking at getting in to the Chymic works. They're worrying that any evidence they discover could blow their defence of the Beast by being inadmissable.....bless their little lawful cotton socks.
Any other GMs have a similar issue? How did you resolve it?
At the moment I'm considering having Caleb or Kendra give them a little nudge toward asking Judge Daramid to provide them with a warrant for a search of the premises. I'm a little surprised they haven't thought of that themselves, they've been pretty good at putting things together so far and figuring things out without much hand holding.
How long do you have to plan/until next session? I'm a bit busy tonight, but I'll be back to help as my schedule allows. It sounds like there's a lot of room to work here, plot-wise...
Well having run the second day of the trial with all the Herstag evidence I think Vorkstag will definitely be getting quite worried now.
The Bard nailed every diplomacy check by miles and the party also pretty much discredited the prosecution witnesses by hammering home the fact that the last child who died happened well after the Beast was driven off, there was no way he could have gotten to the final victim without leaving a trail and neither of his supposed 'victims' showed any signs of violence (which they would have done if killed by someone as brutish as the beast).
My plan for next session is to have Vorkstag join the mob and act as one of the ring leaders, trying to incite them to violence. Probably he'll be noticed by Caleb of the Crooked Kin, who knows of the person Vorkstag is impersonating and might warn the players that their behaviour seemed a bit off.
If the mob fail to gain access to the courthouse and drag the Beast out to be burned then Vorkstag might get desprate....he'll send word to his associate Grine, then make his way to Gustav's house planning to replace the barrister.
The players know they need to gain access to the Chymic Works...but they are worried that just breaking in might compromise any evidence they find....so far their efforts to bluff or talk their way in have been rebuffed by a very suspicious Grine. (Played him up as incredibly rude and aggressive toward the PCs when they tried to talk to him).
Caleb's warning about a dour, dull merchant type suddenly acting as an impassioned, firebrand rabble-rouser combined with their on suspicions regarding the skinned face they found in Morast should put them on the lookout....so there's a chance they might decide to follow this 'ring leader' when the mob disperses....or follow the courier with the note he sends.
I'll be running a session tonight, which will mostly be the players going over and discussing the evidence they found at Karb Isle...and frantically pestering Kendra Lorrimor at the University of Lepidstadt(they left her with a Wand of Restoration...and are currently suffering some effects of fatigue, having barely stopped over the last couple days).
Then there's the second day of the trial....my plan is that Vorkstag won't try and interfere too directly yet until he sees for himself the progress the players have made. Vorkstag will be in the public gallery for this day's evidence.
Probably his first throw of the dice will be to use one of his other identities to whip the crowd up for the potential lynch mob that evening....if the players successfully disperse the crowd then he might feel desperate enough to try and replace Gustav for the final day of the trial.
Of course that same night the players may well be breaking in to Vorkstag's own premises....
I think he could... just make sure you don't over-do it and leave them with nothing to go on. If that happened, though, a little overconfidence might lead to a mistake on his part. ^_^
How intuitive/deductive are your players? How good are they at piecing together a story when variables are missing? How good are they at convincing the court without some of their evidence?
Three of them are very new to Pathfinder (and rpgs in general) with one more experienced player. They've turned out to be very intuitive/deductive so far in this book. Got the significance of the clues from Morast very quickly.
They've found pretty much every scrap of physical evidence there is so far, and on the first day of the trial proceedings the party's Bard aced every diplomacy check he had whilst presenting evidence. That, combined with the fact that they'd managed to talk Lazne (the village elder from Morast) into having a few doubts about what he saw the night they drove the 'Beast' into the swamp, means they're already well on course to winning their case.
While they were somewhat annoyed about losing the surgeon's tools to a pickpocket they're also quite happy it happened.....add's a bit more spice to things and now they're sure someone in town has a vested interest in framing the Beast.
My thinking behind Vorkstag getting directly involved was that he has heard some of the rumours regarding the Party and their deeds in Ravengro and is worried that they, being more competent investigators than poor Gustav, may uncover his involvement.
And he may almost definitely be a little overconfident....
So first off I'd best say that my players and any other players currently playing the Trial of the Beast should really stay out of this thread.
Go on.....scoot.
So my players have now investigated the scenes of the Beast's alleged crimes at Morast, Hergstag and Karb Isle. Due in no small part to the Druid's crazy perception bonus, they have found pretty much every piece of physical evidence there is to be found. They've also been pretty good at putting 2 and 2 together and working out the significance of the evidence.
My players have gotten pretty invested in the fate of the Beast and the trial's outcome, so I'm looking to make this part of the adventure even more exciting for them and work up some more paranoia. They're also quite attached to Gustav...despite his limitations as a Barrister.
To make things a little more challenging for them I decided to have the villains responsible for the crimes at Morast and Karb Isle interefere and try to either throw the party off the scent or sabotage their chances of proving the Beast (or Hank Merrick as one of them now refers to him) innocent.
The players spent the morning of the first day of the trial trying to figure out who the surgeon's tools found in Morast belonged to. As it closer to time for the trial to actually start two of them kept chasing down leads, while the Bard and Ranger headed back to the Courthouse with the evidence they'd gathered so far.
I had the villains track those two and take an opportunity to use some sleight of hand as the PCs pushed their way through the busy crowd outside the Courthouse. The surgeon's tools have now been lost. The villains are also taking steps make sure the one person who could actually link them to the tools won't be around to be called as a witness.
At this point my players are fairly convinced that someone connected to the Trial (one of the Court officials probably) is passing information to the real culprits. I'm thinking of playing with this suspicion a little.
I'm considering having Vorkstag the skin stealer use his abilities to replace either a possible witness, or a more risky move and try and replace Gustav Kaple to bodge the cross-examinations. Would the Holy Sister of Justice detect the presence of the skin stealer with her constant use of 'Detect Magic'? Would be rather anti-climactic to have him tripped up by a simple cantrip.
Anyone else who ran the game think Vorkstag could pull something like that off? Or have him interfere in similar fashion?
Apologies if this question was already answered elsewhere.
I'm currently at work and haven't had the time to search through the threads to double check.
I'm about to start the first day of the Beast's trial for my group tonight and was reading over the trial setup last night. TotB states "Only one PC can make the check for a
specific piece of evidence, and only one check can be made
for each piece of evidence presented"
I presume that it can be the same PC who makes the single check for each piece of evidence? My party want to leave their Bard at the courthouse to impress the judges with his diplomacy and oratory while they hustle off to finish tracking down clues.
There's a rogue type character in one of the Malazan novels who wanders round in very thick armour loudly talking about how 'stealthy and unseen' he is after having battered guards unconscious or boasting of his deft skill at picking locks after kicking doors off their hinges......that sort of style might fit with your Adamantine battleaxe idea
"I am a 5th-level wizard. I cast Fly and Wind Wall, then start raining fireballs on your party. What do you do?"
Hmm...
Aren't those all 3rd level spells? A 5th level Wizard is hardly going to be 'raining' fireballs down on them (unless he was a wand of Fireball of course) he's still going to be a damn nuisance mind you.
The adventure path doesn't stop at 5th-level foes. More BAB/rage/weapon training/horse isn't going to help much as the caster levels ratchet ever-upwards.
Don't worry I was aware the AP doesn't stop at 5th level wizards. Just pointing out a 5th level wizard probably isn't going to 'rain' fireballs down on anyone. Course he could rain plenty other stuff down on a party of melee warriors and they wouldn't be able to do much about it.
Well, to each his own.
In the APs I've run, wizards are pretty much, "A free day! Time to craft a scroll" guys. At 187.5 gold pieces a pop, I'd expect at least half a dozen prepared scrolls, plus one in mind. If 7 fireballs at 5th level isn't a "rain" to a bunch of 5th-level fighters, then their saves and hit points are way better than expected...
I did mention in the earlier post that yeah it'd be a 'rain' if he had a wand or something (or a whole weeks worth of scrolls).
"I am a 5th-level wizard. I cast Fly and Wind Wall, then start raining fireballs on your party. What do you do?"
Hmm...
Aren't those all 3rd level spells? A 5th level Wizard is hardly going to be 'raining' fireballs down on them (unless he was a wand of Fireball of course) he's still going to be a damn nuisance mind you.
The adventure path doesn't stop at 5th-level foes. More BAB/rage/weapon training/horse isn't going to help much as the caster levels ratchet ever-upwards.
Don't worry I was aware the AP doesn't stop at 5th level wizards. Just pointing out a 5th level wizard probably isn't going to 'rain' fireballs down on anyone. Course he could rain plenty other stuff down on a party of melee warriors and they wouldn't be able to do much about it.
"I am a 5th-level wizard. I cast Fly and Wind Wall, then start raining fireballs on your party. What do you do?"
Hmm...
Aren't those all 3rd level spells? A 5th level Wizard is hardly going to be 'raining' fireballs down on them (unless he was a wand of Fireball of course) he's still going to be a damn nuisance mind you.
A Dwarven Stonelord Paladin
Elven Ranger (taking Archery as his combat style at 2nd level)
An Aasimar sensei monk
A dwarven caster (he was originally thinking Wizard but now can't decide between Arcane or Divine class)
Plus my Swashbuckler who will initially be filling the face and rogue duties. I'm going to keep my options open as regards multiclassing depending how things develop.
