Barring an official answer to the stairs in area A, how about:
** spoiler omitted **
I ended up having the little tunnel above H16 be the connecting point to area A. It's around the same area on the map and doesn't seem to have a purpose otherwise.
Search Posts
Most of Book 1 is predicated on Xulthos dominating Kardswann (presumably as per dominate monster) but dominate monster isn't on his spell list. He does have charm monster but he's manipulating Kardswann in a manner closer to dominate than charm. Would it be too strong to just swap the two? I would have Xulthos have his weekly SLA expended when the PCs encounter him so it wouldn't come up in combat and ideally Xulthos doesn't escape, although if he does it makes him a much larger threat.
While clearing the pugwampi monastery, the players can run across a book that gives the names and descriptions of the Five Templars. At the start of Book 2, a mysterious stranger named Zayifid appears, but any PC taking notes will notice that he shares a name with one of the templars (because he is one). Did you guys play it off as it being a common name? I was thinking of pulling an Alucard and see how long it takes my PCs to figure out Difiyaz's true identity.
My players landed in the gargoyle roost via phantom chariot and descended to H10 invisibly. When they heard Noxil talking about overthrowing Azaersi, they figured Noxil would be the lesser of two evils since she was against the plan to transpose the Vault onto the Material Plane. When they got close enough for Noxil to smell them, they decided to bargain with her: help us kill Azaersi, and we'll leave after that. Noxil agreed and began leading them to the mana battery to attract Zanathura's attention and hopefully kill her. They were stopped by Henra though, who questioned Noxil's presence. The players (still invisible) answered with a fireball and combat began. We're one round deep and will pick up next session. Assuming the PCs win this fight (which they probably will), here's how I foresee things going. The PCs discharge the mana battery and Zanathura comes to investigate with her honor guards. Zanathura teleports away leaving the guards and goes to grab Azaersi, then the final confrontation begins. I'm hoping to not have things end so quickly though, so I was thinking of having Zanathura grab someone else to deal with the PCs. She doesn't seem trusting of Azlowe or Kraelos, so I was thinking of building some custom mercenaries designed to exploit the PCs weaknesses. I ended up giving my players one mythic tier after they killed the immortal ichor and they've been steamrolling my encounters more than usual, so I don't feel too bad about making something specifically to kill them. Also, they were spotted as they flew in, but the ballista batteries that fired at them are on the opposite side of the tower as the gargoyle roost, so I've been running it as the citadel is on alert, but not DEFCON 1. Not sure how this manifests other than people having done their pre-combat buffs though.
Couple map questions: The western wall of H18 looks like it's made of bars. Is it actually or is that just a mistake due to the jail cells in H17? H34 has two stairways leading into/out of it, L and R. L clearly corresponds to the L on H35, but I can't find another R. I'm assuming it's a mistype and it corresponds to K just north of H27, but swapping R for K seems like an odd typo (not anywhere near each other on the keyboard).
The book outlines threats on land, air, and sea for assaulting the Onyx Citadel. I'm pretty sure my PCs are just going to use their phantom chariot and fly in, but I'm curious how a beach landing or land assault goes. The thousands of troops camped on the island "pose little challenge for the PCs", but they're still thousands of troops. If you cross the bridge and fight the warmonger, do they just sit and watch as you walk up to the citadel? Having them all swarm the gates makes sense but seems like a nightmare to run as a tidal wave of mooks pursues the PCs through the citadel. I can't see the higher-ups saying no to reinforcements as an excuse to keep them out of the fight.
How exactly does the system for the war council work? I found the description to be pretty vague. My players and I worked out an understanding of it but I'm curious how closely that matches the intended usage or whatever you guys ended up substituting. Below is a flow chart of how we made it work: Discovery check -> Interest check -> Influence check For example, here is how Weslen Gavirk's influence would go: Knowledge (geography) or Survival DC 20 -> Diplomacy DC 25 or Bluff/Survival DC 30 (+4 if successful on Discovery check) -> Success The perception check on Day 0 gave my players some insight to one discovery check option for each, but I ended up just telling them what all the discovery checks were because otherwise they would just be rolling skills blindly.
What gives Arlantia her fly speed? She doesn't have fly in her listed spells (not that it's on the cleric list anyway) and none of her magic items give her a fly speed. Also, my players dealt with the four moldy hobgoblins pretty easily by tagging the molds with magic missile. The molds have that ability where they can make a reflex save to dodge incoming attacks, but magic missile doesn't have an attack roll associated. It feels a little cheap to dispatch them so easily but I don't see any reason not to go with that ruling, especially since they're only CR 4. The only problem is now I have to figure out what to do with the four surviving hobgoblins. I have a feeling they'll free Taurgreth pretty quickly and he'll escape with his comrades into the forest before the PCs can pursue.
I currently only have a party of three (swashbuckler, hunter, and sorcerer) so I like having a DMPC to follow them around just in case they need a little extra firepower, some healing, or a knowledge they don't have. I played a munavri shaman for the Long Walk portion of Book 4 and used Karburtin for the Reliquary of Ascension. Kusana feels like the obvious candidate for this but she's also super evil. I don't think my PCs remember much about Navah's backstory but if they figure out the connection they probably won't want anything to do with her, which is why I'm leaning towards bringing back Jang. The PCs killed Ruanni and interrogated Jang after capturing Fort Trevalay but, seeing how sad Ruanni's death made her, offered to find a scroll of raise animal companion for her. They did so and parted on neutral terms. Jang seems to have an interest in stopping the Darkblight and also has some experience with the woods so I think she's a good choice. I was also thinking of working in Ostryllax the green dragon as an ally of Jang's. The book suggests Naphexi and Ostryllax have a somewhat positive relation but I was thinking of playing as more like a non-aggression pact. I think becoming a fungus monster wouldn't appeal to most sane people, even evil ones, so I imagine Ostryllax is left to her own devices as long as she doesn't interfere with the Darkblight. Basic hook for the opening of the book is Karburtin got a signal from the Sardonyx Shard but lost it after it went into the Darkblight and suggests the PCs check out one of the wardstones as a starting point. There they get ambushed by Kusana (and probably kill her) and attract the attention of Jang, who says she also wants to stop the Darkblight and is willing to join forces with the PCs to do so. Together they go visit Ostryllax who has been given a magic mushroom or something by Naphexi that points to the Pestilent Palace if Ostryllax ever changes her mind and wants to join up. The PCs use that to navigate the Darkblight. Was also debating having Ostryllax offer an item from her hoard as a reward for Naphexi's head, although I have no idea what the gp value for that should be.
Area 1D (Ruined Excavation) seems really boring to me. 1500 gp is a pretty paltry amount at this point and no one in my party has ranks in craft/profession skills to even try for the double-or-nothing refinement process. Several of my party members and I played in a Strange Aeons campaign a few years ago and enjoyed commiserating over Paizo's love of hard-to-solve haunts, so I felt inspired to add a haunt here, albeit a bit more obvious. Based off this third party haunt from D20PFSRD. Pit of Despair:
Name: Pit of Despair (CR 12) NE persistent haunt (an open pit, 15 feet square descending into darkness, a ledge visible 5 feet below the lip) Caster Level: 10 Notice: Perception DC 24 (to hear quiet ringing of picks on the stone) HP: 54 Trigger: proximity (peering over the edge of the pit) Reset:one hour Effect:Looking into the pit causes the viewer to contemplate the hours of grueling work it must have taken to dig this mine shaft. They become exhausted (no save, as per waves of exhaustion). One round later, the viewer suffers 4d6 damage as if they had been stabbed in the back. This counts as precision damage. The PCs can find a journal from one of the dwarven miners describing their initial hopefulness at striking it rich in this untapped valley and their growing despair as, night by night, their colleagues are picked off by morlocks. The final entry details this lone survivor's plan to flee into the dwarven ruins for safety, unknowingly taking them straight into the morlock's clutches. I'm going to put a gem of brightness on the ledge inside the pit as the cheese for the trap, partially because it's a big shiny gem and partially because only one of my party members has darkvision and it will probably be useful underground.
Is Origa just boned if the PCs encounter her during the day? She seems to rely pretty heavily on ranged attacks, but the fog prevents her from seeing more than 5 feet away, and even firing blindly she has a 50/50 shot to even hit. The PCs are also hindered by the fog so they're likely to wait until the 2 hours of dusk when the fog lifts (or nighttime), but there's a decent chance they could just blunder into her in the fog. Will probably give her some fogcutting lenses, and I'm sure my archer PC will appreciate not being equally hampered once they kill her.
Why would Herge be in Longshadow? The PCs requested him, as he and Longfrond were the only NPCs they thought were competent. They think poorly of the Chernasardo Rangers (a supposedly highly-trained militia) because they got decimated by the Ironfang Legion while the PCs (four dinguses) were able to mop up the hobgoblins easily. I reminded them that two NPCs would probably not tip the scales much, so they ended up calling in Herge, Cirieo, Aubrin, and a platoon of Chernasardo trainees while Longfrond and Cobb Greenleaf hold down the fort. As for the difficulty, I'm looking to bump it up for two reasons. One: I'll have six PCs playing during the siege, plus some NPCs if the party splits up to cover more ground. Two: I find difficult combats to be much more memorable. I just finished playing in a Rise of the Runelords game, and Book 4 had a few moments that really showed that. Rise of the Runelords Book 4:
The town of Sandpoint was under a similar siege from a bunch of giants and a red dragon. Because there were so many giants, we were losing in terms of action economy and were on the ropes for much of the fight, with an NPC companion dying. In contrast, when the dragon landed, we trapped it in a resilient sphere then obliterated it with a cone of cold. The fight with the giants was way more memorable, while when we fought another dragon later almost everyone forgot we had fought a dragon previously. I will definitely have scenes that highlight the PCs efforts coming to fruition (a noticeable lack of catapults or aerial troops, etc.) but I also don't want it to be a total cakewalk. Also, should Earthshaker the unique ankheg be an ankhrav instead? They're a unique ankheg that's beefier than a normal one, but an ankhrav is basically that without being a unique statblock.
My PCs were able to disable all the threats presented in the book - the catapults, the munitions camp, the wyverns, gorgons, and harpies. They've also done a lot of extracurricular work building up the town's Defense Points - using their stipend from the mayor to build a moat around the town and recruit some mercs and retrieving the obsidian greataxe Madleen Kulcher lost - in addition to succeeding at all the checks the AP suggests. Currently, the itinerary for the siege looks something like this:
Considering how many Defense Points they're sitting on and the fact that there will be 6 players (one returning for a cameo, one joining to sub for another who will leave after the siege) I want to make sure the invasion isn't a complete cakewalk. I was planning to add an encounter with the clockwork excavator attempting to drill through the walls either on Turn 5 of Night 1 or somewhere in Night 2, but does anyone have any other suggestions on ways to turn up the heat other than applying advanced templates or increasing the number of enemies? Also, I was thinking of adding in named NPCs to assist the party although with 6 party members that might bloat playtime even more. Basically I would roll 1d4 to see how many allies happen to be nearby when combat starts and roll d20s to see who it is. Here's the table I drew up:
They're arranged roughly in order of CR, since having lower level NPCs to protect is more of a hindrance than a help, while some NPCs can make encounters trivial (Herge the wood giant can cast quench which would do 7d6 of damage to the fire elementals from Elemental Bombardment with no save)
Is Robyn supposed to be a clockwork mage or an alchemical golem? Obviously the statblock listed in the book and in HeroLab is a clockwork mage, but she's working in an alchemical lab which would make more sense for an alchemical golem. Additionally, Robyn does not leave the room, but may continue attacking creatures who interfere with it, provided they remain within sight and range of its bomb attack. A clockwork mage has no bomb attack but an alchemical golem does. I'll probably leave it as a clockwork mage especially considering there are already alchemical golems in the munitions camp, just an oddity I noticed.
My regular groups are all on hiatus so I decided to scrounge players from both groups and run a one-shot or two so I can get my Pathfinder fix in the meantime. I'm totally down to run a module, but there's an idea for a one-shot I've had stewing in the back of my mind for a while that I want to try out. It's still a bit bare-bones though, so I was hoping I could get some help fleshing it out. Basically, I want to do a story based on The Axeman of New Orleans. If you're unfamiliar, he was a serial killer in the 1920s who would sneak into people's houses and butcher them with an ax. Eventually he sent a letter to the newspaper claiming to be a demon from hell. While he loved killing mortals, he had also come to enjoy jazz music, so he offered the people of New Orleans a deal: "anyone who is listening to jazz music when I visit will be spared." All the clubs were filled and no one died that night. I think this would be a really interesting set-up for a murder mystery, especially in Golarion, where demons and devils actually exist. The general shape of the adventure is as follows: players arrive in town seeking a bounty placed on the Axeman by the sheriff. Investigation reveals that most of the Axeman's victims have been in the poorer section of town near the docks, except for a journalist who lives far outside the normal area of the attacks. PCs investigating the journalist's apartment will find evidence he was working on an expose uncovering the true identity of the Axeman but wanted to interview some people first. A paladin returning home from the Worldwound and a demonologist from Ustalav can both offer the PCs specifics about demons, daemons, devils, and qlippoths, which cause the PCs to realize the killer is not actually any of those, but just a normal person. The PCs can also piece together that most of killings take place along a route from the docks to a road out of town that leads to the plantation of a wealthy businessman. The businessman will deny all allegations, but eventually he can be uncovered as the mastermind behind the attacks. He is smuggling items in at night, and the initial killing was merely an overzealous thug protecting their privacy. The businessman eventually came up with the idea to pretend to be some extraplanar entity with an interest in jazz who would spare victims if they spent all night at the jazz club. This helps him two-fold: he owns the jazz club and gets some extra income, but also insures no one is home to spot his smugglers moving through town. So, here are the major things I need help with. 1. Where in the world does this take place? My initial instinct for where fantasy New Orleans is located on Golarion was Nirmathas. It's close to both the Worldwound and Ustalav, giving the experts a decent reason to be there. It also has access to water, making a dock-side town possible. I found this thread that suggests possible locations for a New Orleans facsimile to be anywhere from Cheliax to the River Kingdoms. I'm concerned about this mostly in regards to the next question. 2. What are they smuggling? I feel like a lot of smuggling in real life was/is illicit substances, like alcohol during Prohibition. It feels a bit excessive to commit numerous murders just to cover up the movement of drugs, especially in a small town where a wealthy businessman like the antagonist could easily just pay off the sheriff. My other thought was slaves, since they would be difficult to move easily, but given how Southern the inspiration for this already is it feels a bit cliche. If this takes place in Nirmathas, I could see the businessman smuggling in weapons for Molthune, but that requires it to be set in Nirmathas, which may not necessarily be the best fit. 3. Who's the final boss? A businessman is probably not going to have class levels or want to get his hands dirty, so I feel like he wouldn't make an interesting final fight. I would like if he somehow summoned a demon/devil to tie back in thematically but I'm also open to suggestions. Any and all ideas would be greatly appreciated!
Ended up sending Fahrak off with Novvi. Fahrak seems pretty canny so he would know going back to the Legion after his commanding officer was killed would probably implicate him. Running for Molthune is probably his best bet, but he knows going overland would probably get him caught by the Legion. When Novvi mentioned traveling underground he and the PCs both decided that was his best option - the PCs so the hobgoblin they liked could get out alive, and Fahrak so he could get to Molthune and sell out the location of the PCs. Obviously Novvi isn't guiding him for free so he'll be packmuling for her for a little bit but eventually he'll make it south. Having looked ahead a bit it seems like Molthune makes an appearance later and maybe their favorite goblinoid might show up with them.
My players are in the midst of Fort Ristin and are taking a slightly different route than the book suggests. They cleared out the leprechaun tower and
You certainly could do something like that, but ask yourself: should you? Your players came up with a pretty humane solution instead of being murder hobos. The lesson you're teaching them with this is that doing so is bad and they should just execute every enemy they capture.... That's a fair point. I'm absolutely okay with PCs not murdering everyone they meet and I'm actually very happy things turned out this way. I was thinking Aubrin and the refugees might not be as welcoming towards a member of the group that just destroyed their town. So the options for the PCs are to keep Fahrak hidden somehow or sneak him out and let him go (potentially allowing him to reveal their location to the Ironfang Legion). If the exposure to the Vault Builder transformed him into some crystal creature or something, it would be a lot easier for the PCs to pass him off as some kind of elemental who just happens to look like a hobgoblin and keep him around. Whether he'll be happy about this transformation is another story.
This is my first time running a campaign, having played several previously, and it's going pretty good so far. But my players just made an interesting decision I want to capitalize on. After clearing out the trog caves, they slept outside (and leveled up) and were awoken by Fahrak calling for the troglodytes. They handily defeated him and knocked him unconscious so they could interrogate him. The book says he is more willing to negotiate than the average hobgoblin but I guess I played him a little too likable, because the PCs decided not to kill him after pumping him for info. Obviously they couldn't just let him go, so they decided to keep him locked up in the xiomorn tomb. They left him a week of food (although I doubt they'll be gone a whole week) and used the feather token from Ighiz to tell Aubrin to bring the refugees to the caves while they clear out Camp Red Jaw. They've also bribed Clilassh with some gems to "guard" Fahrak but he doesn't really care. I figure being stuck in the tomb of a CR 20/Mythic 8 creature for several days to a week might have some long-lasting effects so I'm thinking about applying a template to Fahrak for a surprise when the PCs get back. Just a quick glance over the PFSRD gave me this, but it is third party. I'd be okay using it but was just curious if anyone could think of a more fitting, Paizo-sourced template or a different option. Chthonic or Elemental-Infused (Earth) seem appropriate but not very exciting. |