klofft's page

How did your party deal with the lack of air in the death zone around the Pinnacle of Avarice?

It's bad enough that my players sold all their "evil" Sihedron medallions, so they only have 3 rings for 6 characters assaulting the place, but the air problem is proving even more daunting.

How did your groups handle it? How strictly did you enforce it?

My party has just defeated the cloud giants guarding the road to Xin-Shalast. They've learned from Svevenka that the top of the mountain is guarded by a magical shield. They want to check it out. So they've been using a combination of Wind Walk and Control Weather to move around with incredible speed and relative safety.

They have not seen the city yet, but their plan is to fly in and over the city, and all the way to the top of the mountain to investigate, bypassing everything below them.

Now, aside from the fact that the occlusion field is a worthwhile hazard in itself, I'm concerned about them "blowing through" the rest of the city.

On the one hand, I don't want to squelch their legitimate use of the resources they have (after all, that's some fairly heavy magic they've used to get this trick), and I've already warned them that the range of Control Weather means the city is already aware that something major is going on (it's Fall in my game, and the temp is now around 40-50 degrees F at the top of the mountain).

But some part of me says this is just too easy. Am I wrong?

I did look over the denizens of the city, and it does seem that the kuchrimas would attack, as would the dragon. The giant army might ineffectually throw rocks, and the ice devil might give pursuit. After all, the party is not invisible or "stealthy" in any way. Is that the way to go then: send enough aerial problems their way to make them turn back or land and hide? Or should I let them succeed in their scouting mission, but have the city on full alert (such as that is)?

Thoughts?

Can someone help me and keep me from having to re-read the first 4 parts again?

At what point (hypothetically) do our heroes learn about the opposition schools in Thassilonian magic?

My players are in Runeforge and they have deduced that they don't need to visit everywhere, but they think they need to clear out the entire Greed area, which will actually profit them very little towards their purpose in Runeforge. I want to encourage them towards Pride and Lust, ideally by reminding the characters of something they may already know.

I don't remember if it's lost in their notes, and I don't remember when (or even if) they ever uncovered that information.

Thanks in advance!
C

Man, this place is rough!

My poor players went to Sloth first, got whacked by the air effects, ran away, and then spent an hour trying to figure out how to get to the "real" Sloth area, taking damage over and over, before one of them suggested they try a different path.

So they chose Wrath...yeesh. Am I reading the story correctly in thinking that Wrath is kind of intended for later in their investigations? That final fight is really dangerous.

[For the record, my party:
Half-Elf Paragon 3/Fighter 6/Outcast Champion 3
Cleric of Pelor 9/Radiant Servant of Pelor 3
Cleric of Pelor 11
Paladin of Altua 11
Factotum 11
Sorcerer 6/Holy Scourge 2 (cohort)

The 11th level cleric and Factotum are an encounter away from 12th level.]

Is there a safe place to rest in Runeforge? Would they be interrupted if they slept in the central hub? Or do they need to clean a niche in Envy or some such to find safety?

Thanks for the insights!
C

I'm running my group through the end of Fortress of the Stone Giants right now.

They have just finished with the Hounds of Tindalos and have no idea that Mokmurian is waiting for them in the next room.

The party healer is largely spent and suffered Wisdom damage earlier. They lost one party member (of 6) to the forgefiend. The artillery sorcerer is down to low-level spells only. The only thing really going for them is that they are all at decent hit point levels.

Not even knowing how close they are to the end, they are talking about trying to find someplace to hole up and recover. They've retreated from the fortress once already and they think (probably correctly) that they can't escape and hope to get back in so easily. Yet, as DM, I know there's really no safe place for them inside now that Mokmurian knows they are here and close. (And they never met Conna.)

Advice on how I should handle this? Mokmurian and a couple wounded Hounds will likely take them apart right now, but honestly, they're a powerful party and if they are allowed to rest for a night, the opposite will probably occur. How can I make this both "fair" and exciting?

Thanks in advance.

How did you handle the spell choices for the Raid on Sandpoint? I'm using the "one year passes" hook to start the adventure, which means my party is in town to celebrate Goblin Day. As such, the spellcasters would realistically NOT have their combat game on in spell selection. Yet, without that, they'll do horribly against the raid.

Any ideas besides handwaving it away and saying, "Prepare for a fight?"

In your games, how long did you let pass between the re-taking of the Fort and the flood at Turtleback?

The book doesn't give a specific time frame other than "soon after," but the party has just made it out of the Fort with all this loot that they can't really sell in Turtleback Ferry. So they would need time to get back to Sandpoint, or ideally Magnimar, and then return to the Fort, which is a few weeks' time.

Does it seem reasonable that the flood would wait that long?

I know there have been a lot of threads about Lucrecia and especially Xanesha. But my group is still having problems.

When they faced Xanesha, she instantly killed their cohort, and they turned and fled. I had heard that happened for a lot of groups and, as defeating her wasn’t essential to moving the plot along, I figured I’d just use her again later.

Last night, they found Lucrecia by going through the tunnels beneath Rannick. They were fully healed, had Shalelu, Jakardros, Kibb, Vale, and Kaven with them, and had only used a few spells to provide electricity protection, which were still in effect.

They never touched her before sounding the retreat after Vale and Kaven’s deaths.

[As a side note, I had Xanesha make an appearance here WITH Lucrecia. I know that sounds crazy, but doing the math, this EL 12 encounter seemed possible for a party of 10 level 6-8 characters. I realize now that that was wrong. In truth, Xanesha only made a couple attacks of opportunity while she sat there and buffed. So, aside from distracting the party’s actions, she didn’t affect the outcome significantly. But I was wrong on this one for sure. She dimension doored out and won’t appear again before Mokmurian. Anyway, back to my problem.]

If Lucrecia is the “easy” one (as several have attested), how is a party of this level (4 8th level characters, I presume – my party is 5 7th level ones) supposed to defeat her? Her melee ability without buffs and with average rolls is easily enough to deal about 20 points per round, with the potential to easily do a lot more. Her AC without buffs is high enough that only combat specialists have a reasonable chance to consistently hit her. And her combination of SR and Evasion and a +18 Reflex save makes most traditional artillery useless against her. [She resisted a Manyjaws and then evaded a 10 die empowered Fireball.]

My players were pretty crestfallen last night. Sure, none of them died (in fact, most even avoided serious wounds, but the fight was only 3 rounds), but they believe that they’ll have to face her again (likely true) and they can’t see how even leveling up to level 8 will make any appreciable difference in their ability to defeat her. What are we missing?

Any insights greatly appreciated.
C

A while ago, my players were TPK'd by Aldern Foxglove. They made a new party, analyzed problems with their player tactics, and I continued the story with a new party in Magnimar.

Last night, they faced Xanesha. They were pretty healthy HP-wise, still had a few decent spells left on their lists, and are a party of 5 6th level characters with a 4th level cohort.

She trounced them. After the cohort was stabbed to death in a single round, they chose the better part of valor and fled. I saw no particular reason that Xanesha would pursue them, and I thought it would be a pretty RBDM thing to do anyway.

But now I'm stuck. What would Xanesha do at this point?
Foxglove is dead.
All the Skinsaw Cultists in the sawmill are dead.
Justice Ironbriar (father of one of the characters in my game) has been quietly brought to justice.
Xanesha's faceless stalkers are all dead.

Would Xanesha leave Magnimar behind? Start hunting the PCs herself? Sit and wait for adventurers to kill her? :)

I'm eager to finish Skinsaw Murders and move on, but my party needs the reward from the mayor to improve their gear and a viable hook to get them to Fort Rannick.

Any suggestions or ideas for what to do with Xanesha and/or how to move the party forward? Help!

Thanks in advance,
C

So Aldern TPK'd the party last night. I tried to help, I tried to fudge a little, but the grind of die rolls ultimately depleted their luck. The players were bummed, but they're moving on.

I ideally wanted to continue RotRL with a new party of 5th lvl characters (there are 5 of them, so I figured 5th, rather than 6th). I'd like to start in the next section, coming up with a reason for the new party to be investigating the Skinsaw cult in Magnimar. Suggestions welcome there, but I think I can handle that part.

But what do I do about the fact that the Skinsaw Man is still running around Sandpoint? I REALLY don't want to do Foxglove Manor again (I LOVE that section - my favorite in the whole AP - but it really wore the players down).

Thanks in advance!
C

[Cross-posted on ENWorld and RPGnet.]

Hey all.

I don't know if this is the right place for this, but it seems to be the most appropriate spot.

I'm writing on behalf of a friend. He is a comic book artist who has done the con circuit as an independent artist. Now he is interested in breaking into the game industry.

Can anyone tell me what "standard" rates might be for someone doing freelance art for a successful-but-still-small gaming company? He doesn't want to charge too high, but he also doesn't want to undersell himself either.

Any hard numbers someone might be able to offer would be greatly appreciated (and ASAP as well!)

Thanks in advance.
C

My group has just finished Burnt Offerings and is getting ready to begin Skinsaw. They were reviewing Nualia's notes (and were totally unmoved by her backstory, FWIW) - which the text says includes Nualia's story as presented on p. 9-10. I edited things out that I knew she didn't know (like the truth about what Malfeshnekor is), but older stuff was harder to discern. So I mentioned her encounter with the Skinsaw cult and called it by name. However, as I'm prepping the next adventure, it seems that the Skinsaw cult's existence is much more of a secret. Did I blow it? The party is already eagerly questioning Sandpoint about the Skinsaw Men (obviously, with no success). Thoughts? Ideas? Thanks.

I am presently running Burnt Offerings from Rise of the Runelords and I have run into a difficulty. In order to prolong the game’s survivability, I gave the party a number of “death saves.” These simply allowed the character to automatically stabilize at -10 HP and survive. In this way, their compatriots could heal them, or at least drag them to safety. The players appreciated them and the system worked fine.

Then they met Nualia and her yeth hound. And another wounded yeth hound that had previously escaped. And Brathazmus, who no longer had any weapons (they had been stolen while he was unconscious), but who did have a huge chip on his shoulder. And the party was only 2nd level.

They actually did pretty well, considering their ridiculously horrendous luck. They managed to kill one hound, seriously wound the other, kill Brathazmus (he was still fairly badly wounded from before), and, though they didn’t know it, got Nualia to under half HP.

But they all went down, four in Nualia’s presence, one fled from the yeth hound howl and ended up in the pit under the glaive-wielding statues. Now what should I do?

The idea behind death saves was that they aren’t dead. It would be lousy of me to say, “Sorry, you all went down and you have no death saves left, so she lets the hound eat all of you. Game over.” But how can I “save” them from a narrative point of view?

I realized that Nualia would have reason to keep prisoners as sacrifices. That’s pretty easy. But what about all their gear? What about healing? For the latter, I’m considering just hand waving it and giving them their HP back. But the former…I want to avoid the silly cliché that she conveniently leaves it 10 feet outside their cells in a pile, but I don’t want them to have to fight too hard or long to get their gear back either, as it would also stink to have them live just to escape prison and die ignominiously without weapons.

If I hand wave healing, the last character could be a savior, as Nualia has no reason to suspect where he is. Even so, though, his great sword was dropped when he was panicked, so he’d still be without a primary weapon.

Please help!
Thanks in advance!
C

I am running a homebrew “kitchen sink” campaign. Only recently, I have tried to start finalizing my particular perspectives on various races from the long list of traditional archetypes – and it was reading about the world of Golarion that really inspired me to start answering these questions. The discussion about elf ears was especially interesting to me, as I always thought of myself as a “shorter ear” guy, but the longer ears have become more appealing to me (my players will likely disagree, but none of their characters are presently elves, so it doesn’t much matter).

I was wondering if I could pick the creative minds of the Paizo boards on my gnome problem. Ya see, I really like the Golarion gnomes (which remind me vaguely of the Midnight gnomes), but in a kitchen sink setting, I also would like to provide room for the “gnome tinker” archetype to go with the “gnome fae” archetype, yet still consider them the same race. Any ideas about how to combine these disparate stereotypes?

Thanks in advance!
C

Any chance of honoring the prices from the end of '07 Green Ronin sale? A couple books that were cancelled from my order at that time are now available once again.

[Sorry if this is posted in the wrong section.]

I just received RotRL #1 today and I plan to begin running it tomorrow. I was wondering about party composition. My players (a party of 5) are making characters. Thus far, they have only a little divine magic (maybe one favored soul) and only a little arcane magic (a bard and maybe a sorcerer). How badly are they going to get mauled without "standard" magic? I understand they need healing magic - but aside from that, how necessary is magic needed for success? Thoughts? Thanks.