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1. Inform the Queen
2. Queen orders his death
3. Sermignatto greater scry

If that wold work why wouldn't it be used against the PCs?

Of course there are lots of reasons why it wouldn't be done.

Ileosa just doesn't care that much about being seen as legitimate by that stage. She is nearing the end of her plan to kill most of the population of Korvosa and turn it over to devils. As far as she is concenred any rebellion is irrelevant by that stage, she has the blood samples she needs. Except maybe to minimize the deaths so there is more life for her to take. That is why she does nothing whilst the PCs clear the castle.

Sermignatto pledged the service of his agents, but not himself. He does not take orders from the queen. It would be un-devillish for him to help her without some sort of extra payment. Anyway he know her plan and knows that maintaining the appearance of legitimancy of her rule over Korvosa is unimportant. It is certainly not important enough for him to reveal himself.

Page 7 of my module talks about Blackjack and Neolandis going public awakening the city. It is clear from the module that Cressida plans to reveal Neolandis once the PCs complete the tasks in Handout 1. That is how it happened when I ran it. Of course you may haves chosen to do it differently.

When not appearing in public Neolandis would be in the rebellion HQ under the temple of Pharasma. They don't know about Sermignatto, but do know about Togormor, so that place will be protected from scrying.

In my game Neolandis returned at the start of the last module, as one of the leaders of the revolt against the Queen, giving legitamany to the revolt by his denunciation of Illeosa. He was protected by the PCs, but of course the Queen was absent.

No system of inherited power would work if spouses could succeed, the temptation to murder would be too great for any lord to marry.

Devils may be lawful, but like paladins they don't have to respect local laws that go against what they believe are greater laws. For devils "might makes right" is such a law. The law against not murdering the king is certainly one she broke which they have no problem with ignoring according to the AP. Illeosa becoming the de facto ruler with the might to back it up would be sufficient. That has often worked in the real world too.

pjackson wrote:

I don't think so. It is not normal for spouses to inherit that way (too much temptation).

Well, Golarion has some differences in inheritance traditions of monarchs.

And yeah, Neolandus, or his heir to the role of seneschal, Marcus Endrin wouldn't choose Ileosa, preferring some distant relative of Eodred or a local noble.

I have the original CoCT. In those Marcus Endrin was never the seneshal. Neolandis' fate was unknown but he wasn't missing for very long. Did the hardback change that?

Of course Illeosa was clever. She was legitamately regent during her husband's illness. She was the de facto ruler, but as soon as Neolandis reappears and denounces her she was no longer the legitmate one.

Short answer - she is legitimate monarch (no jokes, she is),

I don't think so. It is not normal for spouses to inherit that way (too much temptation). In Korvorso it seems the seneschal gets to make the choice, and he wouldn't choose Ileosa.

I am playing a cha 7 character (a monk 1/sorcerer 6/EK 1 dwarf) currently. I role play her charisma by having her stay quiet much of the time, not explaining her actions, and not attempting Cha skill checks, except once when I made a bluff check and succeeded. Unknown to me it was very nearly the truth.

She has Wis 20 and ranks in sense motive, so being rude would not fit.

My take was that the successor would be elected by the council lead by the seneschal. With Neolandus missing the election could not be held nor a replacement appointed. The nobles let the Queen continue to use the authority she had excersised whilst the King was ill whilst they jostled for position. The plague gave the Queen the excuse to cement her authority.

I am one.

In 1978 I was in a wargames club when I was asked to help as a group playing a highly modified OD&D game wanted to run a large scale battle.
So my first character was a 15th level wizard.

In case people are wondering about the roots of "min/maxing" it was born from the earliest point buy systems or game that allowed things like flaws and perks.

The term is older than that. It was used when programming computers to play chess and at some stage transferred to players using similar techniques to design characters.

In chess programs it meant looking for the maximum score on your turns and minimizing the opponents score on their turns as the program looks ahead.

Applied to character design it orignally meant maximizing your character's strength whilst minimizing its weaknesses.

Or even older European cultures. Weren't a lot of the Gallic and Germanic much more egalitarian than the Roman conquerors? Or the Christian influence that followed?

Or even fairly modern European cultures.

Welsh Mam - http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/wales/entries/f47cdfaa-06c1-3edf-9750-c6002f6daa 55

My party were highly suspicious of Trinia and her super ninja skills.
They failed to capture her.
When Blackjack rescued her they tried to kill him and her.

In the first session of 7 Days after a bit of downtime then were asked by Grau to help his niece. They did this by paying for a Remove Disease. The insistance on payment seems to have given them a bad impression of the church of Abadar.

They decided to investigate the sunken ship immediately. Though their resources for doing so were limited, they found one of the chests, which they investigated and decided was the origin of the plague. Several of the party contracted it. Though the priest could not cure it he was able to keep them alive long enough to fight it off.

The priest Ishani asked for an escort to see the Field Marshal and there they met Dr Davaulus, and learnt of the Queen's proclamation.

The Field Marshall asked them to investigate the illegal dumping of bodies. They were attacked by some vampire spawn. The beguiler cast Glitterdust making the vampires sparkly and so the players really enjoyed killing them.

In the second session for 7 Days they investigated the selling of a fake cure by Vendra, then dealt with a wererat intent on war on the people of Korvosa.

We lost track of time in our next session, and played for over 12 hours finishing the module. We could not have done so if it had not been so great.

First they returned to the ship where they gathered more evidence on the plague's origin. They killed a shark, but then met the sea hag. The Fighter/Wizard (Quinta) failed saving rolls in a row and died to the hag's evil eye. So they ran away.
The priest could now Cure Disease, so offered all his second and third level spells until the plague was dealt with in return for a Raise Dead.

They were asked to look for a missing musician and found a mansion full of corpses, many of which had been animated by a mad woman. Eventually they found a survivor, but not the musician.

The Field Marshal asked them to investigate the Queen's Physicians and in particular their HQ. Switching to Shadowrun mode they decided to scout the building and find out as much as possible before going in. They decided to speak to the building's previous owner, the head of house Akrona. He was helpful, telling them how to access the secret level.

They used a plank lowered from an adjacent warehouse to get onto the roof and start with the offices on the higher level. They free the healthy Varisians who were being experimented on and captured Dr Davaulus. The buguiler's Whelm spell haelped with this.

Tehn they used the lift to go down to the secret level. They took some damage from a trap, cleared a barracks, they a big fight broke out with a wizard and a cleric on the opposing side. They took quite a lot of damage before a well place Silence spell gave them a bit of time to recover. Quinta engaged the wizard in melee and soon realized he was a vampire in disguise. Luckily one of the buffs she had been given was Protection from Evil so to vampire attempt to dominate her was blocked. The priest used healing spells to damage the vampire who turned into insects and fled. The party followed closing the strong door behind them so that they would only have to fight him. He returned to his natural form and tried to negotiate, but the priest would not listen and with a high damage roll on his last spell above 1st level forced him to discorporate again. They searched for the coffin and sprinkled holy water on it stop the vampire from using it to heal up.

Meanwhile the others decided that their cover was blown and abandoned the lair. The party also decided to leave to recover, but got involved in a fight with some grey maidens on the staircase which after several alchemist's fire caught alight. They party managed to rescue all the trapped patients. They returned the following day with the guard. The high priestess was in the temple and gave a speech about getting her e revenge before using a scroll to teleport out.

I liked the idea someone put up of Vencarlo having a debilitating injury. Missing Blackjack's sword arm was the example ("Blackjack is left-handed!

A missing arm would seem to make him even easier to identify after seeing him in action. But having him faking or exaggerating an injury when the player's first meet him looks good.

I just sent my players this.

Arcane Magic - The Acadamae will train and sell scrolls to graduates. Non-graduates would do better not to ask. To become a student you most spend three years as an apprentive first. More than a quarter of apprentices die. It is believed that most end up as test subjects for the College of Necromany.
Theumanexus College will supply training to other arcanists, but is less well resourced.

Rogue skills - The Cerulean Society is the only guild allowed in Korvosa. It pays a vice tax to operate and openly runs a protection racketwith its collectors wearing a blue uniform. It regulates the other gangs in the city and less openly maintains a near monopoly on smuggling. Even the great houses and the temple of Abadar pay protection, though it tends to be a nominal sum for such powerful organisations. The Acadamae's payment is believed to be not turning the guildmaster into a toad.
Anyway the society will provide training for members and registered freelancers.

I have been emphasing the need to have a reason to protect the city.
The riots should be a reason to stick together temporarily as travelling the streets alone should look dangerous. Staying together whilst you sell the loot should be another - taking the broach back to the queen together to share in the reward and then they will be asked to work togther. I can see it working, though the speeches will need to be adjusted for the characters.

I have seem a campaign where each character had a link to at least one other character end when the party split into two groups with different motivations.

So I want to try to give them the common motivation of being paid to protect the city together, with protecting the city being something they would do anyway. The guard and the marine would have a duty to do it, the LE wizard would be a worshipper of Asmodeus so I have suggested she might have contracted to assist the guard. The LG one I would expect to do it due to her alignment. The player has said that if she goes that way she would probably become a gish with levels in EK or similar clases and a thing about swords, which could work well later on :). The LE one might become a cleric of Asmodeus and then a Mystic Theurge which could also be fun later on. (This player is the best optimizer of the players so I would be quite happy to see him take potentila weak options and work to keep up with the other players, rather than just overshadow them.)

If EoA were standalone I would agree it is backward, but as it is Lamm is just an excuse to bring the players together not the main story. So getting him out of the way quickly seems the right way to go.

Currently I am thinking about how I can stop my players from immediately concluding that Vencarlo is Blackjack. I think I will try to get them to think that he used to be Blackjack but has likely been succeeded by someone else. I will let them know that Gengaro does the training now and that Grau was formerly one of his start pupils, to try to set them up as red herrings.

I am about to start running COCT.
I have been reading the forum for hints as I found them very useful for RotRL.
We will be using 3.5 rules with some minor changes,

One player has not indicated what type of character he wants
to play, thoe others have said
LN member of the Guard
Would be Sable Company member - Scout/Ranger
Wizard - either LG or LE (both versions look good).

One player analyzes the spread of diseases (in animals) for a living so I am going to have to be careful with 7DttG

I have been sending out emails with bits of background information, and dropping hints. For example to the would be Sable Comapny member:

For example. if the city were attacked by pirates the Sable Company would fly over and drop tanglefoot bags with rock chippings in them on to the ships. Then the guard would use trebuchets enchanted with a version of Locate Object to fire the rocks the chippings were taken from at the ships. The rocks home in on the chippings if close enough.

Her idea for a grudge with Gaedren Lann was that he had killed her best friend when he was investigating Lamm. That did not seem strong enough to me so I suggested:

You best friend disappeared when following up on a lead to Lamm a few months after getting married.. The Guard put a lot of effort into investigating the loss of one of their own. A few days later a parcel was delivered to his wife - containing your friend's head. She had a miscarriage. A priest use speak with dead to question the head and learnt where Lamm was, but when the Guard raided the place he had left. When asked where the rest of his body was the head replied "Eaten".

I read a suggestion of using Taxfest as a time when the Bank hands out money as an way to explain how the disease spreads so fast amongst the lower classes and went with a modified version.

Taxfest is the Church of Abadars most important annual festival when they celebrate the collection of the years taxes, Then the church hosts an enormous feast at which people make speaches suggesting how the money should be spent. There is also a handout of money 1gp to everyone who employs others and 1sp to everyone in honest employment. Since the city is too large of everyone to be accomadated at the Bank secondary feats are hosted by various nobles where priests perform the handouts.

Offically the church would not describe this as a handout - rather as a reverse tax on the church.

I gave them a description of each of the major noble houses, emphazing Glorio Arkonas good works to try to bias them towards trusting him.

I plan to run each character through a normal day to help bind them to the city before starting the AP proper.

Any other suggestions would be welcome.

I know full well that paladins as they are now must be lawful. I've never disputed that. Where we disagree is that I believe that paladins of NG and CG alignments, with appropriate tweaking of the code and fluff (very little, actually), would still have the true essence of the paladin because I believe that essence is the paladins goodness, as reflected in his powers.

Your belief is wrong.

Someone made a suggestion of a CG having a code against dealing with slavers. Taking an example from an historical novel, how would such a character handle being given some money with the request to use it to buy and free some slaves should he visit a place where there is a slave market? Stick to the code and avoid doing good?

She is one of the best encounters from the whole path. Very hard to kill but unable to do much damage. Frustrating for the the players, but giving a good feeling once defeated.

David Fryer wrote:

They mostly struggle with sorcerer bloodlines, rage powers, and rogue talents. They would rather have a class with all the decisions made for them than do some thinking on their own.

As a PFRPG GM, I wouldn't have any problem at all in allowing my players to play a 3.5 barbarian, sorcerer or rogue. I'd be flabbergasted, but I wouldn't have any problem with it. :-)

For me it seems entirely reasonable to do that with a sorcerer.

I am not denying the fact that balancing classes in a solo situation may be useful, but since this is a group game, balancing classes as part of a group is a more useful measure and will result in a less unbalanced game as a whole. I've seen far too many examples of a broken game when balancing the classes singly in a vacuum goes too far.

D&D has many advantages over MMOs. The monsters can be more intelligent. The situations and fights can be more variable. Class and group make up can be more variable.

I have never seen anyone try to play in a MMO "tank" role in D&D. It is just too silly an idea. Combat is just too dangerous for anyone to aim deliberately to take hits.
I have seen attempts to play like a MMO healer, which did not work well at all, as healing is just not good enough for that.

I play EQ2, and have an enchanter (illusionist). In groups an illusionist can turn a fight that could not be won into an easy win, though they are rarely given the option as most people prefer easier quicker fights. Solo they can kill mobs and clear zones that no other class can, though very slowly. For raids even the standard mobs get immunities to enchanter abilities (also known as Crowd Control - CC) after being affected and many are completely immune, since allowing mobs to be permantly stunned. dazed, or mezzed would make the fights too easy.

Battle field control is D&Ds equivalent and in 3.5 the "God" wizards could do what the EQ2 enchanter dream off - rendering the monsters helpless so that they can be easily be disposed off by pets/party members.

There are no defined roles in D&D (excepting 4e) and that is a good thing. Players can play the characters they want, usually some form f hero or anti-hero. Most players want to feel that they can do that without help. Certainly they can't depend on there being someone around to help them.

3.0 and 3.5 were balanced on the idea of a standard group, and that did not work well. They seems to have been an aim of giving clerics lots of cool toys to make the class more popular than in 2e, probably thinking that they would be limited by the need to heal. But healing is a poor tactic, killing the mobs fast before they cause damage is better, and clerics turned out to be very good at that. The wizard/sorcerer appears to have been based on the 2e idea of wizard as artillery, but the change to saving throws and increase in monster hit points meant that they actually had a much stronger tactic of SODs in 3.0, which was toned back somewhat in 3.5, but still damage causing spells were weak.
Fighters and rogues were balanced against the healbot cleric and blaster mage, and lacking the options that the wide selection of spells gave clerics and mages they got left behind.

But 3.0 anf 3.5 are not broken, because all that is needed is for the DM to balance the game for his players and his characters. Since players can vary a lot it is necessary for the DM to do such balancing, evne if the classes were perfectly well balanced. So a balanced ruleset isn't that important, but knowing how a class can be unbalanced is very useful information for a DM.