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I'm prepping for my Thrusday game, where I am sure the players will assault the Brass Trumpet, and I'm curious what you folks found on the following:
1) The DC to spot the cut window pane on the second floor seems ridiculously easy -- did many of your groups spot it, and choose to not go through the front door?
2) How did your players react to the arrow slit hallway? (I'm having visions of Full Frontal Nerdity here)
3) There are a couple of cases where the Last Laugh goons are hiding in shadows -- my group has 3 guys with darkvision, which means they are hanging out in plain sight to them. Did this detract from the encounter? Should I put them behind cover to hide, just to give the encounter a small semblance of a challenge?
Thanks, guys!
on 3.): I would use curtains for the last laugh thugs to hide behind. I would make the hide vs spot checks with a +2-+4 on hide for the thugs because of the cover. This way you could still suprise your PCs who have darkvision. But i guess any cover would do.
Remember that the assault on the brass trumpet is meant to be easy. It's supposed to show the PC's how far they've come since their humble beginnings.
I haven't run this part of the AP yet, but I could probably answer some of your questions:
1) The DC to spot the cut window pane on the second floor seems ridiculously easy -- did many of your groups spot it, and choose to not go through the front door?
I think it's supposed to be easy to spot. The Pc's may be expecting the front entrance to be trapped. But will they suspect the windows on the top floor to be trapped as well?. And if they enter through the one window that hasn't been trapped, I suspect the last laugh will take up flanking positions on either side of the window, sneak attacking everyone comming through the window.
3) There are a couple of cases where the Last Laugh goons are hiding in shadows -- my group has 3 guys with darkvision, which means they are hanging out in plain sight to them. Did this detract from the encounter? Should I put them behind cover to hide, just to give the encounter a small semblance of a challenge?
Hiding is good. Just make sure the players don't go about stabbing every curtain in sight. Or better yet, put up lots of curtains. On the other hand, the last laugh dosn't know the party's strenghts and weaknesses, and isn't going to to alter it's tactics accordingly.
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Well ... it's amazing the Brass Trumpet is still standing.
They *blundered* into it. They cast knock on the inn door 50 feet away, and the gnome wizard rode in on his improved familiar hyena, getting peppered with arrows. Needing a place to take cover from the fire, he opened the next door, to face several heavy crossbows rigged to fire ...
Let's see ... the half-dragon flew up to the roof and clawed his way through the shingles. The warlock dimension doored all over the place, scouting out the area. The cleric of Lathander enlarged himself, and hacked his way up through the second story floor, and to top it all off, after getting tired of being sniped, the gnome dropped a maximized fireball in the foyer.
They ended up finding the Strider dead with a sarcastic note pinned to his jugular with a dagger, commenting on the party's subtlety.
And now, they've decided Vhalantru looks like the next best target ...
3) There are a couple of cases where the Last Laugh goons are hiding in shadows -- my group has 3 guys with darkvision, which means they are hanging out in plain sight to them. Did this detract from the encounter? Should I put them behind cover to hide, just to give the encounter a small semblance of a challenge?
Darkvision does not allow you to automatically spot hiding creatures. It just allows you to see with no light source. In a world with lots of creatures with darkvision, I'm sure that people have learned to hide in ways that counter it as well as normal vision.
My players noticed the cut window pane after they disintegrated three sections of the roof from the air and dropped fireballs, circle of death, and other area effect spells into all the big rooms. The barbarian flew into the torture room and grappled Jil before she could strike Shensen. The cleric flew in, released Shensen, flew out with her, and then cast heal. Only one of the harlequins was able to make a melee attack before dying, and he missed.
It was a slaughter. It helps that Meerthan was able to give them general descriptions of the layout of the house from the telepathic link.
Darkvision does not allow you to automatically spot hiding creatures. It just allows you to see with no light source. In a world with lots of creatures with darkvision, I'm sure that people have learned to hide in ways that counter it as well as normal vision.
Right. There are a couple things about Hide to consider.
In order to use the Hide skill, a creature must have something to hide with: shadows, behind a crate -- something. Even the "Hide in Plain Sight" ability only allows you to Hide while being observed, not Hide without something to hide behind/in.
In total darkness, there are no shadows. This means that there are fewer options for a creature hiding in total darkness -- they have to find something to hide behind.
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No, you need cover or concealment to hide. Total darkness provides complete concealment, allowing a hide check. To think otherwise is just plain silly. Against a creature with darkvision however darkness does not provide concealment, and so there's no hiding from that creature using concealment gained by normal darkness. A darkness spell however would still be effective against a character with darkvision, though it only causes shadowy illumination of course, not total darkness.
No, you need cover or concealment to hide. Total darkness provides complete concealment, allowing a hide check. To think otherwise is just plain silly. Against a creature with darkvision however darkness does not provide concealment, and so there's no hiding from that creature using concealment gained by normal darkness. A darkness spell however would still be effective against a character with darkvision, though it only causes shadowy illumination of course, not total darkness.
I assumed, but did not state, that in total darkness the spotter had darkvision or some other means to see in total darkness. Otherwise, a Hide check is completely unnecessary -- no matter how crappy the Hide check, how can someone Spot something they can't see?
Player chars found the door too obvious, neglecting the shuttered windows and moving to the ROOF... in which they burned a hole using acid orb and the likes. So they appeared on the 2nd floor... then got backstabbed by the twins who they followed downstairs (more backstabbing by several rogues) and ended up BEHIND the crossbow trap.
One player (with the magic coin) moved through the slasher trap ignorantly, followed by another player who got slashed by it (ouch).
The halfling sorcerer got blinded and zapped away to safety. Jil was surprised by a stealthed character but the fool actually slit Skiriol's throat in her place trying to pull away her knife.
Pretty funny session all by all.
ok we played this just this weekend. my players (a fighter/psion, a paladin/cleric and two sorcerers) did the following:
- the sorcerers have cast gaseous form, then invisibility on each player
- they flew in through the observatory, entered the room where the EVILCON was taking place
- they stayed behind cover near the ceiling (rolling hide with a +20 for the invisibility), then i checked spot for all the high spotters (like Mhad) and those who had see invisibility (like the demons and some casters). Nobody got noticed.
- They returned to two rooms and attacked in a simple fashion:
The enlarged cleric/paladin and the fighter/psion kicked in two separate double doors and the two sorcerers threw in a maximized cone of cold (DC 26 with focus and additional abilities) and an empowered fireball. Everyone died in there except for the shield guardian (which took 2 more rounds to finish), Mhad who left while they were hiding around, and Velvin who rolled a higher initiative then them, and ran away to an other room only to teleport away.
it took 2 rounds and 2 more to kill the shield guardian.
Rhiavadi party:
All entered posing as guests sent by Vhalantru (half-orcs were too dumb to notice). One player (tiefling monk) profiled himself as an agent of Shar, attending the EVILCON upstairs. I cut him some slack, guests all rolled terrible Sense Motives so he got on the front seat and listened to the lady's lament. Then all left.
Only action this session was when some half-orc guards found some players snooping around the room of the lady after breaking a window... the orcs were never heard from since. ;-)
Vervil Ashmantle is gonna plant an ambush next session to enslave the players... I wanna play those babaus!
My guys were really inventive. The company waited until that night to mount their rescue mission for Shensen (swapped out the kidnapped Strider). Ignoring stealth and sticking to their usual tactics they made no effort to cover up their intentions scouting out the whole building, flying around it, even opening the door and sending in a sacrificial summoned animal to trigger traps (which it did and then promptly died). Then they decided that they had a good enough description of the room and had a good idea where it was physically, that they teleported directly into the torture chamber taking Jill by surprise. Jill promptly disappeared (hiding in plain sight). Wasting no time the group grabbed Shensen and teleported her back to their guildhall!
Mission time: 10 minutes. The Striders were duly impressed. I ended up rewarding them the XP value of the encounters for their inventiveness (you get bonus XP when you surprise the DM ;). Plus I only have 3 players these days so they need all the help they can get.
And now, they've decided Vhalantru looks like the next best target ...
How'd they decide that? I'm only working off the original magazine version, but one of the biggest disconnects I had in the original SCAP was a complete missing of the moment when the players/PCs are supposed to realize Vhalantru was the villain. Is this cleared up in the hardback version? How did your players figure it out?
And now, they've decided Vhalantru looks like the next best target ...How'd they decide that? I'm only working off the original magazine version, but one of the biggest disconnects I had in the original SCAP was a complete missing of the moment when the players/PCs are supposed to realize Vhalantru was the villain. Is this cleared up in the hardback version? How did your players figure it out?
It is but it’s subtle. Some notes are left in Thifirane’s study which describe the simulacrum suit that V is using. Says she only made one and gave/sold it to someone in town called V. To be frank the PC’s shouldn’t need anymore info to go investigate him. By this point in the adventure they know there is something wrong/corrupt in the government and the government pretty much consists of Vhalntru… sooo… they should only need a minor push like the notes to motivate them to go check him out.
Especially when Rhiavaidi is his “right hand man” and has been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. So to speak. By this point my players have already tried to get more info on V and even did a diviniation on him (the 20 question one). It should also raise the suspicion of most players that he is SOOO squeaky clean as well.
And now, they've decided Vhalantru looks like the next best target ...How'd they decide that? I'm only working off the original magazine version, but one of the biggest disconnects I had in the original SCAP was a complete missing of the moment when the players/PCs are supposed to realize Vhalantru was the villain. Is this cleared up in the hardback version? How did your players figure it out?
In our SCAP game, Jil made an attempt to snatch Terrim from the orphanage sometime around Flood Season. The snatch party ended up as stone statues in a jungle clearing outside Cauldron. The PCs followed the trail this far and were planning to un-stone some statues and question them; unfortunately they asked Rhiavadi for help, and the statues mysteriously disappeared. They did, however, question Terrim when he reappeared at the orphanage, and learned that one of his captors had cried out "Lord Orbius! Why??" before being turned to stone.
At that point the PCs had actually never heard Vhelantru's first name, but they put two and two together a bit later, and cast Commune: "Who was the beholder who took Terrim from the stone bridge?" "Orbius Vhelantru." *Oh!*
Their conclusion that he was definitely a villain came later, after he introduced them to a Davkid Splintershield who turned out to be a doppleganger.
He's actually a lot easier to identify as a foe than the Cagewrights are. My GM had to go to enormous lengths to foreshadow the Cagewrights, and still only managed to do anything for a small subset of them. The PCs know Embril very well, have never met Dyr'ryd but have a strong impression of him (he's their father!), have been fencing at long range with Nowlan Fish for a long time, and have a pretty good sense of Shubbeleth Reggedn, but the others...still just names. Vhelantru, they feel they know.
Inserting an informative stone statue somewhere or other might help your players, if the natural course of the game doesn't lead them to any conclusions about Vhelantru. Or you could just let him play the good guy as long as he can, and see what happens.
Mary