Pathfinder Adventure Path #72: The Witch Queen’s Revenge (Reign of Winter 6 of 6) (PFRPG)

I've been reading this issue up and down since I got it yesterday and I can only conclude that I now have to wait until August 14th to pick up Mythic Adventures just to figure out the stat block. Like, where does Baba Yaga's armor bonus come from? Enduring Armor? What's that?

But it does give me hope for what kind of diabolical treats we'll be served in Wrath of the Righteous.

Great issue all round

Enduring Armour is an ability the Archmage can get which by the playtest rules....

Enduring Armor (Su): When preparing your spells you may leave a single arcane spell slot unfilled in order to grant yourself a lasting armor of force. This effect grants you an armor bonus equal to 3 + 1/2 the level of the empty spell slot (minimum 1). The armor persists as long as the spell slot remains empty. This ability is an abjuration effect with a level equal to the level of the spell slot. If it is dispelled or otherwise ended, it can be resumed as a standard action.

Don't know how it may have changed in the final edition.

Enduring Armour is an ability the Archmage can get which by the playtest rules....

Enduring Armor (Su): When preparing your spells you may leave a single arcane spell slot unfilled in order to grant yourself a lasting armor of force. This effect grants you an armor bonus equal to 3 + 1/2 the level of the empty spell slot (minimum 1). The armor persists as long as the spell slot remains empty. This ability is an abjuration effect with a level equal to the level of the spell slot. If it is dispelled or otherwise ended, it can be resumed as a standard action.

Don't know how it may have changed in the final edition.

Well, Baba Yaga has an armor bonus of 13 so unless she sacrificed a 20th level spell slot I don't really see how she got it that high. But yeah, that probably changed in the final version of the rules.

I'll just go back to waiting for the 14th...

Not really any. The thrice-Tenth Kingdom doesn't really have any of her power.

** spoiler omitted **

Thanks Irnk! That changes their entire game plan...of course I have no intentions of telling my players any of this...MWA HA HA!

Thanks Again Irnk!!!

Just noticed that the street date has changed, what does this mean for subscribers like me who are still waiting?

Subscriptions are still getting pumped out of the warehouse at a prodigious rate. I've sent Erik down there to help sub orders go faster and hopefully can send both him and Justin down tomorrow to help. Hopefully all the customer subscription orders will be shipped out by early next week. The street date change won't have any effect on subscribers at this point.

thanks
sara marie

Why is there a change on the PDF release?

I was really looking forward to this PDF all month for it to come out next week.But now I have to wait a whole another week. Could somebody please explain why?

You know I was looking forward to this PDF all month for it to come out next week.But now I have to wait a whole another week. Could somebody please explain why?

Per this post here, we had some delays both internal and external getting product out to distributors (and then out to gaming stores). Our retail release date and the PDF release date have always been tied together, thus the date change.

Well this is what I get for adding the new GM screen to my order, to push it over a 100 bucks to get that -10 on shipping. Waiting on the rest of my order and dieing slowly because of it. :)

Nick O'Connell wrote:

You know I was looking forward to this PDF all month for it to come out next week.But now I have to wait a whole another week. Could somebody please explain why?

Per this post here, we had some delays both internal and external getting product out to distributors (and then out to gaming stores). Our retail release date and the PDF release date have always been tied together, thus the date change.

.

Thank you

And lo! The prophecy of James bears true!

And lo! The prophecy of James bears true!

So much for prophecy not working on Golarion.

Cheapy wrote:

And lo! The prophecy of James bears true!

So much for prophecy not working on Golarion.

Isn't James on Earth? ;-)

God, I hope so, otherwise my morning just got really weird.

God, I hope so, otherwise my morning just got really weird.

Really weird, or really awesome?

Adam Daigle wrote:

God, I hope so, otherwise my morning just got really weird.

Really weird, or really awesome?

I'm going with a bit of Column A and B.

Look great hoping to see more in the future.

Yes finally starting to DL it.

I haven't received my copy yet. I'm still waiting to where I can get to a place with a fast enough connection to download it, but I hope there is a realistic chance by the end or very shortly after the campaign of either defeating Baba Yaga, or if that's not possible, (I've heard before that's she's CR 30 unless they have changed it so killing her is probably not an option) for the party to do something else to very seriously hinder her efforts on Golarion. At the very least freeing the people of Irrisen, overthrowing the Winter Witches, and ending the eternal winter or at least bringing about a crushing strategic blow to Baba Yaga that significantly advances that cause, preferably without having to sacrifice themselves to do it. Even as bad as they are it would also be nice to have what happens to Irrisen's queens stopped. The White Witches need to be stopped, but to make the adventure complete Baba Yaga needs some serious comeuppance sent her way as well.

Baba Yaga is a pretty despicable character and having an campaign which basically ends were the party is forced to help the lesser of two evils and maintain a horrible status quo is extremely unsatisfying. Even worse they are virtually geas into it no less the way the adventure is officially. I wouldn't even classify it as that considering Baba Yaga might be the greater of two evils that is just the least destructive one at the moment because of winter invading all of Golarion. As adventures are mostly played as heroes that would seem pretty bitter and non-heroic ending.

You can end the status quo by installing Anastasia as new queen of Irrisen or make Baba Yaga never come back to Golarion or or get one of a multitude of other, lesser boons from her. She won't end the eternal winter for you (although that task is mentioned as a way to continue the campaign and get mythic levels and kill Baba Yaga in the end) and trying to attack her will 100% assuredly kill the party. At the latest 24 hours later when, in the unlikely event that you somehow managed to beat her, she simply respawns like Cthulhu and will ROFLstomp the surprised party.

Hey, I myself started a thread some months back on how unsatisfactory I would find an ending where Baba Yaga just walks away and leaves the party standing there dumbfounded, but I think what the guys at Paizo did with the actual finale is pretty good and reasonable. Expecting a win-win-win scenario in a case like this (working for a mythic evil character to prevent a greater evil) is a tall order and the party at least gets two of three wins out of it immediately, if they play it smart. Win three is a case of doing the necessary legwork to stand a chance against Baba Yaga, which you won't without getting some mythic power.

Why PDF appears July31 and not tomorrow while many people already have this?

Why PDF appears July31 and not tomorrow while many people already have this?

Scroll up or click here

I referennced this picture back HERE. It has now been added to the Paizo Blog. Just linking for convenience...

Picture on Page 70.

Wise Tiki wrote:

Not sure how this is viewed but should it really say that Rasputin is the son of Baba Yaga? That seems like a big spoiler to me.

If you really want to avoid spoilers for adventures, you probably should avoid reading their product descriptions...

To say nothing of the fact that the pertinent part of that information was in the previous part (where you actually fight him), or that it was stated way back in the first.

But no guns and robotz, so not many people talk about them...

Really the best adventure this far! Look at all those different monsters! And most are really awesome as well! Too bad no Charybdis and Alraune, that would have made my heart fail from happiness I think ;-)

Also the Hag Eye Ooze reminds me of Slime Eye, A boss in Zelda Games.

Rasputin Must Die! was better, IMO, but this still is a very good module.

Everybody his/her own taste, but I disagree very much here.

But i'm not on camp gun anywayz

That's why I put the "IMO" in. :D

Classic Greg Vaughan module - a truckload of brutal fights with half the Tome of Horrors Complete with some funky templates stacked on. Very solid finale, great "what next?" article.

This is one of those AP paths where you can definitely play bad guys like Riddick and have fun with it. this adventure path while it can leave bad taste in a good guy's mouth, allows for the options and the conclusions for neutral or evil characters to feel accomplished and satisfied.

You can end the status quo by installing Anastasia as new queen of Irrisen or make Baba Yaga never come back to Golarion or or get one of a multitude of other, lesser boons from her. She won't end the eternal winter for you (although that task is mentioned as a way to continue the campaign and get mythic levels and kill Baba Yaga in the end) and trying to attack her will 100% assuredly kill the party. At the latest 24 hours later when, in the unlikely event that you somehow managed to beat her, she simply respawns like Cthulhu and will ROFLstomp the surprised party.

Hey, I myself started a thread some months back on how unsatisfactory I would find an ending where Baba Yaga just walks away and leaves the party standing there dumbfounded, but I think what the guys at Paizo did with the actual finale is pretty good and reasonable. Expecting a win-win-win scenario in a case like this (working for a mythic evil character to prevent a greater evil) is a tall order and the party at least gets two of three wins out of it immediately, if they play it smart. Win three is a case of doing the necessary legwork to stand a chance against Baba Yaga, which you won't without getting some mythic power.

Considering what Baba Yaga does to the queens having Anastasia as the new one isn't really that great of a thing. Still, having her never come back to Golarion is a somewhat alright ending I suppose, even if that is only accomplished because she freely agrees to do it because she wants to and not because the party made her, and she can curb stomp you if she wants or you look at her wrong. (And yet somehow her children conspired a plot against her that almost worked, but yet the players don't have a chance, even though they are the ones that beat those people and thwarted their plot.)

To play devil's advocate here I could state that while it would be a tall order for Paizo to do, if they couldn't find a way to do it they should have had some other concept to put in it's place. I have some ideas about hot it might be done, but I'm also not a professional RPG writer or game designer and it probably wouldn't come out as well. Finishing it up like suggested in the continue the campaign part is nice, but I also feel that I shouldn't have to do a large amount of the leg work myself to have a very satisfying good party ending when I pay $100 for an adventure. Just like I shouldn't have to redo or at least highly refluff most of one whole book that has drastically different elements outside of not only mainstream RPG fantasy but much more importantly the other books in the AP because they wanted to go into far out crazy territory for just one installment and go to our Earth, even if those elements were done relatively well.

If the whole AP was about weird stuff like going to Earth, it was an AP not designed good party, or it was known the real BBEG wouldn't be defeated from the beginning that would be different, because eliminating that part would be easy as the people that didn't like it could just avoid the entire AP as it wouldn't be their cup of tea. It would also be great for people that do like it as they would have access to that type of adventure. (It's also easier for the people that don't want to open a whole can of worms with issues of using a real Earth in something like this that can’t be brushed off in something that’s totally fiction when it comes to technology integration, how magic works in our world, messing with history, or dealing with how our real life aspects like Earth's religions are supposed to work in the setting like Pathfinder. I don‘t want to touch the latter with an eleven foot pole, and yet if it comes up it the GM will probably have to have some answers about it for the players.)

As it is I find the AP mostly really good, and on the whole I would rate it that. I really like the AP's take on dark fair tale aspects of it. I like the hoping around in the hut and the hut having a different layout at each stop. I liked most of the NPC's you meet, especially in the first four books. I think Irrisen is one of the more interesting areas in the Inner Sea region as it's more unique and less of a altered replacement for a real world area or culture that most of Golarion seems to be. It's just those two issues that kind of irked me, and as human nature sometimes has it it's easier to focus on things one doesn't like than what was good. Although having something mostly good can also make the undesired parts that more irritating. I just don’t want to seem like I’m only complaining though.

I guess a couple key things to keep in mind:

Baba Yaga, why is she: ** spoiler omitted **

TL;DR

My thoughts are:

Hah, I think it's hilarious that Vigliv speaks Proto Indo-European. She sure has been around for a while.

Hah, I think it's hilarious that Vigliv speaks Proto Indo-European. She sure has been around for a while.

Not to mention Cimmerian. ;)

...Stuff

I believe the statting up of Baba Yaga as a high level mythic bad guy was announced pretty early on, so it shouldn't come as any surprise that the PCs couldn't face her and win, and that we would see a similar ending to what the AP shows.

Similarly, the nontraditional features of this AP are it's big selling point (and were also announced pretty early on). It's not like there is a shortage of traditionally designed fantasy APs to choose from, so I like that Paizo caters occasionally to us weirdos.

Mechalibur wrote:

Hah, I think it's hilarious that Vigliv speaks Proto Indo-European. She sure has been around for a while.

Not to mention Cimmerian. ;)

Of course that's probably in reference to the historical Cimmerians and not, you know, those guys. ^.^

Voltron64 wrote:

Mechalibur wrote:

Hah, I think it's hilarious that Vigliv speaks Proto Indo-European. She sure has been around for a while.

Not to mention Cimmerian. ;)

Of course that's probably in reference to the historical Cimmerians and not, you know, those guys. ^.^

This is Paizo we're talking. Would it really surprise you either way?

Evil Midnight Lurker wrote:

Voltron64 wrote:

Mechalibur wrote:

Hah, I think it's hilarious that Vigliv speaks Proto Indo-European. She sure has been around for a while.

Not to mention Cimmerian. ;)

Of course that's probably in reference to the historical Cimmerians and not, you know, those guys. ^.^

This is Paizo we're talking. Would it really surprise you either way?

Not to disappoint you, but Evil Midnight Lurker is absolutely right.

Not surprised, either way, as I said.

Voltron64 wrote:

Mechalibur wrote:

Hah, I think it's hilarious that Vigliv speaks Proto Indo-European. She sure has been around for a while.

Not to mention Cimmerian. ;)

Of course that's probably in reference to the historical Cimmerians and not, you know, those guys. ^.^

Who are those guys? I'm not sure who else Cimmerian would refer to.

Evil Midnight Lurker wrote:

Voltron64 wrote:

Mechalibur wrote:

Hah, I think it's hilarious that Vigliv speaks Proto Indo-European. She sure has been around for a while.

Not to mention Cimmerian. ;)

Of course that's probably in reference to the historical Cimmerians and not, you know, those guys. ^.^

Who are those guys? I'm not sure who else Cimmerian would refer to.

No one. No one at all.

Mechalibur wrote:

Evil Midnight Lurker wrote:

Voltron64 wrote:

Mechalibur wrote:

Hah, I think it's hilarious that Vigliv speaks Proto Indo-European. She sure has been around for a while.

Not to mention Cimmerian. ;)

Of course that's probably in reference to the historical Cimmerians and not, you know, those guys. ^.^

Who are those guys? I'm not sure who else Cimmerian would refer to.

No one. No one at all.

It makes me think what happen if that fella got magically transported to Golarion?

And if he managed to run into the iconics?

You can end the status quo by installing Anastasia as new queen of Irrisen or make Baba Yaga never come back to Golarion or or get one of a multitude of other, lesser boons from her. She won't end the eternal winter for you (although that task is mentioned as a way to continue the campaign and get mythic levels and kill Baba Yaga in the end) and trying to attack her will 100% assuredly kill the party. At the latest 24 hours later when, in the unlikely event that you somehow managed to beat her, she simply respawns like Cthulhu and will ROFLstomp the surprised party.

Hey, I myself started a thread some months back on how unsatisfactory I would find an ending where Baba Yaga just walks away and leaves the party standing there dumbfounded, but I think what the guys at Paizo did with the actual finale is pretty good and reasonable. Expecting a win-win-win scenario in a case like this (working for a mythic evil character to prevent a greater evil) is a tall order and the party at least gets two of three wins out of it immediately, if they play it smart. Win three is a case of doing the necessary legwork to stand a chance against Baba Yaga, which you won't without getting some mythic power.

Not 'or' but 'and'. You get one boon each.

You could make her put you on the throne of Irrisen and leave Golarion forever.
Plus other stuff.

magnuskn wrote:

You can end the status quo by installing Anastasia as new queen of Irrisen or make Baba Yaga never come back to Golarion or or get one of a multitude of other, lesser boons from her. She won't end the eternal winter for you (although that task is mentioned as a way to continue the campaign and get mythic levels and kill Baba Yaga in the end) and trying to attack her will 100% assuredly kill the party. At the latest 24 hours later when, in the unlikely event that you somehow managed to beat her, she simply respawns like Cthulhu and will ROFLstomp the surprised party.

Hey, I myself started a thread some months back on how unsatisfactory I would find an ending where Baba Yaga just walks away and leaves the party standing there dumbfounded, but I think what the guys at Paizo did with the actual finale is pretty good and reasonable. Expecting a win-win-win scenario in a case like this (working for a mythic evil character to prevent a greater evil) is a tall order and the party at least gets two of three wins out of it immediately, if they play it smart. Win three is a case of doing the necessary legwork to stand a chance against Baba Yaga, which you won't without getting some mythic power.

Not 'or' but 'and'. You get one boon each.

You could make her put you on the throne of Irrisen and leave Golarion forever.
Plus other stuff.

No, Rob said in the GM thread that Baba Yaga grants only one "wish" to the whole party.

That exactly.

Yeah, the adventure made it sound like one boon for the whole party.

I wonder, will she only let a woman become the next ruler of Irrisen?

The only way to get two boons is by agreeing to be her new riders.

Not 'or' but 'and'. You get one boon each.

You could make her put you on the throne of Irrisen and leave Golarion forever.
Plus other stuff.

Nope. As far as the boons from the "Continuing the Campaign" section go, it's one boon per party, not one boon per PC.

Found a hole in Baba's Stats.

She should only be able to cast 10 Mythic spells but she can cast 20. Am I missing something?