siege's page

Just getting ready to start Hook Mountain via MapTool tonight. Thanks so much for your work!

Old topic, I know, but not as old as this one:

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2h9u3?Mini-for-Adimarchus

Seven years ago, when we started playing through this (yes, we've been playing that long... long story) I was considering having a mini professionally sculpted for the big guy. I've just got a thing for cool minis, I guess. Anyway, technology has come a long way. Now there's HeroForge.

These are the two minis I created for A:

Demon: https://www.heroforge.com/load_config=460680

Angel: https://www.heroforge.com/load_config=460692

They're not perfect, but I think they'll be really good after I put a little work into them. For example, the waist on both looks like it'll need some time with a file, and both will need their back features custom crafted. The demon-form tendrils should be easy to sculpt out of some green stuff, but I haven't figured out how to do the angel wings yet.

You can always use a Google site search.
Just head to google.com, type in what you want to look for, and append "site:http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/olderProducts/du ngeon/shackledCity" to the end of your query.

Example

I think I've decided where to go from here. After reading though "The Harrowing," I love the plot, but the adventure itself isn't quite what I'm looking for. But, the notion of using the Demon Web Pits intrigued me, so I think I'm going to run my players through an abridged version of "Expedition to the Demon Web Pits," with the story totally rewritten to look more like "The Harrowing."

I'm planning to play up Graz'zt's involvement as the architect of a plot to overthrow Lolth and to substitute Rule-Of-Three with Athux (Graz'zt's other son, the one that was responsible for Adimarchus' downfall). My hope is to use this side-trek to allow the players more insight into what actually happened to Adimarchus, which is something that's almost impossible to learn otherwise.

I am, however, still left with resolving the Calphalon situation (seriously, can anyone pronounce this guy's name?). I'm now leaning more towards granting both the fighter and K the Smoking Eye template, but not returning the fighter right away. In this version, K would immediately inherit the template, scream something like "fooled you!" and attack the remaining players. Lacking both of their meat shields, he probably feels like he could take them, even down as many spells as he currently is. I think that might be a good fight - after all, the party's alive-and-well cleric is carrying a greatsword version of Alakast and could totally ruin his day with it.

I'd thought about giving them both the smoking eye, but I think it's better for the story to only give it to the fighter... at least at this point in time.

I like Delve's suggestion to use K as a recurring villain (with the template, fighting the party for control of Occipitus), and it works well with some of the story modifications I've made. I had a lengthy post at the RPGenius before the forums went away, but the gist is that my whole campaign revolves around Fetor, who's actively aware of Adamarchus's situation, and is subtly manipulating the Cagewrights to free him. Kaurophon is actually an associate of Fetor's, but has double crossed him in attempting to take Occipitus for himself. If things work out, and if Kaurophon survives, he could become another great recurring villain.

I also really like MrVergee's suggestion that the party should have to quest for the soul of their fallen Paladin. One of the remaining party members is his cohort (and sister, the group's bard), so I think it's a task they'll be okay with undertaking. I'm even thinking of having Kaurophon go with them, possibly to look for the opportunity to kill the Smoking-Eye bearing fighter.

I see that "The Harrowing" was written by Monte Cook, so I'm excited to take a look at it.

I thought others might appreciate the situation my group found themselves in at the end of Chapter 6.

Note that this post is loaded with spoilers.

First a lengthy background: I had an easy time introducing Kaurophon to my party, to exactly the right level of trust/distrust, because I worked his intro in a pretty specialized way. They waded through the first two parts of the Test of the Smoking Eye with ease, but things got a little dicey when Vorkaire (the black dragon) showed up. The party ended up running away, and made it to the base of the skull alive, but a little worse for the wear.

After chatting with Saureya (sp), the angel out front and learning there was a rakshasa and a fire giant in front of them, the sorcerer and fighter refused to go ahead until they could stop and rest. Despite my attempting to convey a sense of urgency, they refused to budge. So, of course, they split the party and sent the rogue ahead to scout.

Okay, so... the party is supposed to catch up with the rakshasa and giant as they're resting... which they did. But the ultra stealthy rogue just watched and waited. Eventually, I had to have them them move on and trigger the clay golum fight, which the rogue also just sat and watched... so, that triggered the lich fight... which the rogue /also/ watched from the shadows. I had the giant beat the golum, but had the lich kill him and had the rakshasa teleport away. The rogue didn't see exactly what happened, he just knew the giant got killed and the rakshasa was gone.

The party decided to forge ahead at that point figuring that the rakshasa and fire giant had simply failed the last portion of the test, and they they might be able to mop up whatever it was before it had a chance to regroup.

Turns out they ran headlong into the lich without realizing what they were up against, and decided to try and bulldoze through it's room when they saw their "Lantern of Guidance" was pointing to the opposite door. I decided the lich was only trying to protect it's interest in the "Nexus of Evil," (big bad artifact in that particular room) so when it realized the party was simply "moving past" it was going to be willing to let them move past... but of course, the paladin didn't know that and tried to "hold it off." Alas, he fell victim to a "Slay Living" spell and died (marking only the second death in my campaign). In the end, the party made it out of the lich's chamber and into the eye socket, where I decided the lich would not pursue them... at least for now (it having other interests).

The important part is that the party had reached the final part of the test almost completely drained of resources - including Kaurophon. Now, he already knew the object of the final test (at least, in my world he did), but the previous battles had him drained to the point where he knew he simply couldn't take the remaining characters in combat. So, he decided to talk them into it.

After over-analyzing the proctor's instructions for the final test, he has them convinced that self-sacrifice might be the correct solution to the test - but that he wasn't willing to try it himself. So, he proposed a solution: after describing himself as a man of means, he promised to pay for the resurrection of the fallen paladin, as well as that of any one person willing to leap into the burning plasma to test the "self-sacrifice" solution.

So, the fighter decides to take him up on the offer. He took off all of his armor and equipment, wrote a note to the cleric that said "Sell my gear and give the profits plus the ressurection money to the children" (he's become the unofficial guardian of Cauldron's orphanage) and leapt into the fire.

That's the cliffhanger I ended my game on the other night.

Now, here's my conundrum - what happens now?

Kaurophon believes that the fighter's act will grant him (Kaurophon) the Smoking Eye, because he knows that self-sacrifice is not the correct answer, and he's willingly allowing someone to die due to his withholding the truth. It's an evil act, basically murder, because he also has no intention of paying for anyone's resurrection (another lie he's told).

Unfortunately, what no one (Kaurophon included) knows is there's a twist to the test: self sacrifice is not technically the answer, but the Gods themselves are prepared to intervene one-time-only and protect a single good creature who sacrifices himself, so that he would be granted the template and potentially restore part of Occipitus to the light.

So - who gets the Smoking Eye? I'm going to give it to the fighter, who (after a brief, but private, conversation with his God (or an agent thereof) in the afterlife) will magically re-appear alive, unharmed, and with the Smoking Eye. Kaurophon will be dumbfounded, lacking the Smoking Eye, and still unprepared to forcefully throw someone in. At this point, he'll either leap into the flames himself (now assuming that that actually is the correct answer), or the party (most notably the fighter who knows he'd die) will have to stop him from doing so and have him make good on his offer to resurrect the paladin first.

It'll be really interesting to see what happens next, but I think I'm going to have to get a side-quest together for a couple of reasons. First, the party didn't defeat the dragon outside the skull, they didn't fight the rakshasa or fire giant, they didn't fight the golum, and they didn't defeat the lich... so, they're lacking on XP in a big way (they're just shy of 10th level at this point). Second, they going to need to go on some sort of quest to get their paladin back.

It's a very interesting situation, and not one I could have predicted. Comments? Suggestions?

My players also did pretty well against Nab. I chalk that up to a couple of very good caster level checks to penetrate his SR. Basically, the sorcerer crippled him with a pair of back-to-back enervations. He did kill Alek and run off, though.

I played him pretty straight up - he was primarily interested in killing Alek, and had no idea what they were capable of. But when he decides to strike back, he's going to completely wreck the party. I think the PCs understood that they got off lucky, so I was able to leverage that understanding in Kaurophon's speech. I've completely reworked his whole back story, but basically all he had to do was show up and offer get them out of the desert before Nab came back for them.

So, my question is: Do the PCs really need to defeat Nabthatoron during the final fight of Chapter Five?

Mine didn't. We just played the end of Chapter 5 this past weekend and Nab pretty much bailed after he ripped Alek in half. Had the fight gone to completion, it would have ended very, very badly for the PCs.

Granted, my party was only 8th level when they fought him, so they were a little underpowered, but there was pretty much nothing they could do to Nab except annoy him (even with Alakast having been converted to a Greatsword in my campaign).

Personally, I'm planning to use him as a recurring villain, possibly in the siege of Redgorge, or even in a much later chapter. The nice thing about Nab as opposed to some of the other villains is that he's an obvious bad guy from the start. Unlike many of the other villains, there's no plot twist that uncovers his true identity... he's just a big bad monster that the party can focus on instead of some shadowy cult or politically shielded government entity. Not that intrigue is bad, but Nab is a little bit of a break from the complexity of the plot line.

I believe the inns listed in the HC are:

* The Cusp of Sunrise (more of a private club than an inn)
* The Coy Nixie
* The Slippery Eel
* The Tipped Tankard
* The Drunken Morkoth
* Minutia's Board

I've got them listed in order from swankiest to sleaziest (at least, how they are in my campaign). Most of them don't play much of a role in the plot on their own, but during the Flood Festival my group played out the drinking competition and I had great fun detailing some of the bars. They can be useful for foreshadowing if nothing else... for example, the Drunken Morkoth can be used to flesh out the myth of the Lake Monster.

If your group is a "completist" type, then yes I would say that the adventures would start to push the envelope. Remember that XP is meant to be a way of adjudicating that the party is ready to level.

Aside from about 1/2 of Jzadirune, my players have run through every encounter in the book up to their current place (we're 1/2 way into chapter 4). I've got 5 players, I'm using the HC, and I agree that they're earning a little too much XP, a little too quickly. I'm at the point now where I've had to remove all random encounters, as well as the occasional "fixed" one (for example, I 86ed Garrakk in Ch4), just to make sure they don't level too quickly.

Personally, I'd rather just play without a formal XP system and have them level at specific points. Unfortunately, I gave my players the option of voting on this, and they all wanted to use XP, so now I have to tailor the AP's encounters so that they only earn what they need to earn so that they level when they "should."

The alternative is to play it straight from the book and let them level whenever. Were I planning the encounters from scratch, that's exactly what I'd do, but I'm not. The AP comes with pre-defined encounters that are meant for characters of a certain level (that's the reason I picked a module in the first place - if I had time to write an original campaign, I would have). Basically, I'm just removing some "unnecessary" ones.

Had I known this would be a problem, I'd have simply reduced all XP awards by 20% right off the bat.

Just my $0.02

I think the intent of Wyrmblooded is to tie the PC to Dhorlot (the dragon in Chapter 4). That's why the trait specifically mentions having an ancestor who was a black dragon.

There's also a half-black dragon that shows up in a later chapter (don't recall which), who is supposed to be another of Dhorlot's offspring that confronts the party about their run in with "the Dragon Father."

In my game, I have a player who took Wyrmblooded and is now putting ranks into dragon disciple, with the ultimate goal of becoming a half-dragon himself. This has worked out very very with the Dhorlot tie-in, especially since the character is rather self-loathing and believes he's turning into a monster (the physical transformation into a half dragon has been ongoing since first level with the useful powers only now manifesting).

We're actually in Chapter 4 now, and I expect the group to run across the big D in the next couple of games. The exciting thing, for me as DM, is that I really don't know what will happen. Either the Wyrmblooded character will go berserk and try to kill off the dragon (who is, in fact, his grandfather), or he won't be able to bring himself to fight. In either case, Dhorlot will try to weasel his way out of the situation by talking or running (he won't be able to best the party in combat).

If Dhorlot escapes, he'll haunt the party (and the one character in particular) for the rest of the game. If not, I'll find a way to use his memory or legacy to haunt them. Basically, my player wanted to play a tormented character, and having a black dragon grand dad makes it easy for me to come up with good material to make that work.

In my grand scheme of tying everything to the big A in the end, and given the chance to do so, I may make Dhorlot a wee bit crazy. Perhaps his whole cross-breeding shtick is a result of the madness he suffers due to A's fractured mind (I use "sudden onset madness" a lot in my campaign - though the players haven't picked up on it yet). That makes the Wyrmblooded character's whole existence something akin to a mistake.

All in all, it depends on your players. I've found the whole black-dragon/Wyrmblooded thing to be a great tool to tie one of my characters very deeply into the game and the campaign's overall plot line. That's just how it worked out for me, but if you have the chance, you can certainly make it work out well for your game too.

In my game, I decided not to raise the gold limit for the town because it just seems contrived to do so.

For Skie's, at the beginning of each chapter I randomly remove items from her inventory and add roll to add new stuff (the assumption being that other adventuring groups are affecting her stock).

Because this sort of ties my players' hands in terms of what they can run out and buy, they've started making requests to "commission custom items" from other casters in town. I let them do that with the consideration that the most powerful caster available to do such work is 7th level. That's enough for them to get their hands some minor and lesser items, but not much more.

If they *really* want custom stuff, I'm forcing them to make special arrangements with an importer so they can "order" items from Sasserine. It'll cost 150% of the DMG price to do so, but they can have whatever they can afford, and more importantly, it forces them to role-play out the situation. If they can RP their way into a better deal, I let it happen.

Originally Jil was going to be the apprentice like your document said, but once one of my PCs started to use her as a romantic interest I decided she would not be aware the whole plot her guild was involved in until LoO, otherwise the party would pretty much have to kill her outright. They may still kill her, but at least in her last moments she can honestly say that she was never a Cagewright.

I decided do something very similar... for the same reason.

Jil has become the romantic interest of one of my players (the rogue) in whom she first thought she had found an interesting new recruit for the guild. As time wore on, Jil started to become frustrated with the LL because "the Jester" was changing their agenda to fall in line with that of the Cagewrights. Simply, it's not as much fun as it used to be... but the PC with whom she's now infatuated is every bit the prankster she is, so it gives her reason to spend time with him, while also shielding he and the guild from one another. In the mean while, she's still loyal to the LL.

In this way, Jil is now a major campaign element, and the Last Laugh is somewhat more important than they used to be.

EATERoftheDEAD wrote:

However, it's too big to upload to an email server. If you have any other suggestions I'd be happy to hear them.

Maybe a geocities.com website? I think it can take 5M uploads. Easy to create (yahoo ID login - as they bought them some time back). Just find the File Manager to do uploads. Case sensitive files btw.

You could also try xdrive. 5GB of space, no limit on upload size.

I'd also like to add my thanks to the Paizo team.

Seriously, bravo! Thanks for listening to us, your consumers, instead of just ramming changes down our collective throats. Thanks for taking the lead on keeping 3.5 (3.6?) alive. Thanks for keeping it OGL.

So I switched to initiative cards

You might be interested in my SRD stat cards. Thanks to The RPGenius, I've got most of the Shackled City monsters in there as well. The tool is far from perfect (a bunch of the cards don't generate well), but I use these cards to run my own encounters and I find they work well.

Tallus wrote:

You may want to look at Tournaments Fairs and Taverns, (I think its called that), anyhow it has some events you could run, and the rules for them all, including archery, wrestling, drinking and various other events. Off hand I cannnot remember who published it, and my copy is MIA, maybe I will take a look around for it and give you some more ideas

Print edition is from Mystic Eye Games, PDF is from EN World Publishing

FYI, the PDF version is a mere $2 from RPGNow. It's just about perfect for putting together "in the spirit" competitions and games for the festival.

So far, my group has been leveling a bit more often than that, probably because there are only five of them (they did most of chapter 1 with four), and the game is meant for six.

I also tend to hand out XP at the end of every game session. We play marathon sessions, so the group tends to go pretty far every time we get together, but I do have very specific rules about what can and cannot be done when leveling "part way though a chapter" (ie, with no time to stop and learn new skills).

Anyway, I track an XP total that is the same for every member of the party. When XP gets spent (crafting) or lost (level drain), the affected players track a separate number that represents how much they're down from my number. It's more or the less traditional system, except that there are no specific rewards for any individual player - only penalties.

My players currently have earned enough XP to hit 5th level at the end of chapter 2, but I haven't given them their latest reward yet because Drakthar took a heavy toll on them: our cleric is down one level and the rogue is down two. They're not in sight of restoration spells, so if they fail those fort saves, it's lost XP.

I too decided, while reading GoE, to add it to my SCAP game. (And yes, I picked it up because of what I read here!)

Lisa's suggestion of where to put it, is in my opinion, spot on. The specific details of what I'm planning are over at theRPGenius, but it's enough to say that using this module will provide a great opportunity to foreshadow some of what's going on in the campaign, as well as to use some of the main SCAP villains (in particular "The Big V") one more time.

Bravo Paizo!

Well, we started C2 last night and just barely got up to the entrance to Drakthar's Way. One of the issues I had was that there were all slightly appalled by Skellerang's offer to pay so little for the goblin ears (5gp a pop, plus I added a 100gp bonus for proof that the threat was eliminated). They balked at it... as players. Until they realized how little money their characters had.

Most of my players have taken up "day jobs" in the city to earn a little extra coin. One's a scribe, one works pumping the bellows for the smithy, etc... When they finally realized that, even split five ways, the goblin reward was worth a lot more than a few sp per day doing mundane labor, they quit complaining.

But I hate the fact that I'm motiving 3rd level characters with what basically amounts to chump change. Even the DMG suggests that by 3rd level the "average" character should be worth ~2700gp. None of my PCs are worth even close to half that amount.

Maybe that is one of the things that makes SCAP so tough... and the fact that its in everyone's financial best interests to keep working together is a good thing... it helps them find the all important "reason to work together," which they're still somewhat lacking.

My group is about to start chapter 2 tomorrow, and we all can't wait. Chapter 1 took us 6 full-day sessions over the course of 4 1/2 months (lots of scheduling problems). None the less, we're all enthused to be playing again, and I've gotten to do a lot of character exposition and background development during the "off game" time (I can't begin to explain how perfectly some of my players have hooked their own backgrounds into the game).

My concern, though, is that despite how long they spent wandering around in Jzadirune, they missed about 1/3 of it. That includes all of the Dark Creepers and a lot of the treasure. Though, they did find the clear ioun stone, and I got one with The Vanishing for using it. They also missed Kaz's treasure room.

So, between paying for the cure spells for the one Vanishing infected player (they had to pay Ike to do it), and buying back the few magic items they did find and sell to Skie (never know what else was infected), they didn't end up with much coinage... really just the reward money.

From some of the seasoned SCAP veterans, do you think I should bolster the treasure hoards in Drakthar's Way a little, or is treasure something I shouldn't have to worry about so early in this particular game? I'm just worried that they're going to be expected to have better gear before they can afford it.

you can do that? could you give me some more info (or perhaps a site?)

Sure thing.

This place does "full service" mini design... they'll sculpt it, form mother molds, and do small (or probably even large) run castings. Kinda pricy, tho.
http://www.jeffvalentstudios.com/customservices.htm

Here's another place that just focuses on the sculpting:
http://www.aeonminiatures.com/

There are also a number of other talented folks on the net that could probably be persuaded to do custom sculpting... it's not as popular a hobby as painting minis is, but there are a few forums and tutorials out there.

There's also this place... they sell casting and mold-making supplies, which could allow you to duplicate a mini you already had (or had made for you). I actually bought a bunch of their stuff and cast my own chess sets a number of years ago.
http://www.miniaturemolds.com/

I'll probably be seen as crazy for this, but I've given serious thought to having a custom Adimarchus mini professionally sculpted for my game. I've found a few sculptors that will do it, but the cost is somewhat prohibitive unless there's a market for a group buy (doubt it).