Hi, I have read CB a few times and I dont really like the idea of the PC's releasing the Uglurista early. The reasons are:
- I would like them to have a chance of getting the belt, if they release it early chances are the games will be cancelled this year (right?)
- One of my players is a worshipper of Kord and one of his "rituals" in an item is to win this tournament
-It is just soooooo cool for this to happen in the middle of the fight!
So, what should I do? Railroad it? Have them not be able to release it no matter what they do? How likely is it that they will anyways? Dont they need like 1 of 5 spells to do it?
How did it work out in your campaigns?
My group just discovered the underground temple, killed Bozal and were driven out by the demon. They know about the Ulgurstasta, they know about the scroll, but they have no idea what it's going to take to release it.
This all happened on day two of the tournament. They had to teleport out of the temple, back to their room in the Coenoby. The cool thing is that they snatched Bozal's body, stuffed it in a bag of holding and then snuck back through the tunnels to feed the body to the Ochre Jellies (which they avoided rather than fight).
I was going to have Bozal release the thing during the fight, but he went down way too fast -- critted by the party combat monster after the warlock successfully dispelled the antilife shell. So now I need to decide what Raknian will do to try to secure the temple complex so the ritual can be completed.
Take a look at the list of things that will break the temporal stasis field that protects the scroll -- there are only a few things on the list that the PCs have access to, really, and they're not things most PCs will think of. Odds are, even if they discover the temple and kill Bozal, like my players, they are not going to be able to stop the ritual.
I agree that releasing the ulgurstasta during the final match makes for a great scene, but it might also be too much for the PCs. Think about it. Fighting Auric's warband is going to take a lot of their resources -- and defeating the Ulgurstasta is probably going to also require a full, fresh party. Anyone trying to melee with the beast will be cut up by the tendris, nevermind the things actual attacks. The best way for the party to have a chance to survive and win is going to be for everyone -- or nearly everyone -- to have Freedom of Movement active on them so they cannot be swallowed whole -- but that will require forwarning and preparation time, which the PCs won't have if they've prepared to fight the flesh golems and Auric and Khellek.
I'm the first one in line to railroad or make sacrifices in the game to make the cool things like that final scene come to pass -- and it may yet happen in my game -- but I think that if your players manage to figure out what's going on and find a way to fight that very nasty creature on their own terms, in a way that gives them a better chance to survive, I'd recommend that you let them take it.
In your case, I think that you can always have them finish the tournament -- after all, the adventure does say that the referee wizard is only interested in the games, and will take over and make sure they go on if something happens to Raknian. So even if they defeat they release and defeat the ulgurstasta, they should be able to finish the tournament. You might want to feef up auric's warband a little, to make it a somewhat more interesting fight, but that's all it would take.
-j
I have thought about this for a while myself. Another option is what happens if you party releases the monster and retreats to a distant room. The creature is suppose to break free. I am not a big fan of this since it a.) means that the party now has to scramble to get upstairs giving it more times to create undead (harder fight) and b.) you lose the cool scene of this thing erupting during mid-combat. Personally, I plan on this working out however the players make it happen, but my preference is for the monster to erupt mid-fight near the other group, destroy the golems in one to two rounds (lets everone know it means business), and then the party and the fighter and wizard from the other group gang up on the monster. If all goes well, the other group will surrender to the party once my group defeats the monster. However, I strongly suspect that this will not go as planned or hoped.
The group I DM for got so into the gladiatorial part of the adventure that they didn't really get around to exploring until the night before their final battle (they cruised through the earlier rounds with prodigious use of buff spells and potions, particularly haste, although Pitch Blade gave them some nervous moments). They took the tiefling apart pretty easily with a barrage of arrows and other ranged attacks (one of the characters, a Ranger/Rogue had invested all his feats into turning himself into a first class bow bunny), but decided not to investigate the ulgurstasta and the scroll until they looked into the rest of the rooms. Then they encountered the extremely nasty demon which beat the snot out of them and forced them to retreat. They might have returned, but they decided to heal up for the final battle of the games, instead.
The next day, in the final battle, the groups hadn't gotten much beyond posturing and starting to close when the big beastie emerged between them and both sides realized they had bigger problems than the games to worry about. A ferocious combat ensued, and the beastie was just on the verge of swallowing both Auric and the group's best frontline fighter when Auric's wizard body finally brought it down with a lightning bolt. The wizard actually was the MVP of that fight, the only caster who consistently (and luckily) beat the monster's SR to do damage. Helped again that all the party's members were hasted, blurred, prayed over and had bull's strength on them. Still a very close proposition.
After the fight both groups were exhausted, and Auric and two of the party were unconscious, so the wizard proposed a truce. Since the crowd had stampeded and fled, all bets had been cancelled because of the interference, and Raknian was fleeing with the prize money, seemed like the prudent thing to do. They talked about staging a rematch to "settle things once and for all", but never got around to it before discovering the sage's body and realizing they had to get back to Diamond Lake.
This stuff is scattered all over this chat board,
but I will try to pull it all together.
Different skills give different results.
Knowledge religion will reveal the turning effect.
Knowledge arcana or spellcraft will reveal the rod of cancellation.
The group I DMed found out about the rod, bought one via the merchant, then released the thing at night.
They were the nearest warm bodies so it went after them.
The Half Dragon Ninja has had a lot of close calls and this was one of them.
Letting it emerge automatically as per prophecy means it will be stronger.
According to the illistration it will be bigger.
Elsewhere I have given suggestions that if the games are cancelled an inevitable based on The Marshal will reveal
itself and force the games to be completed.
Here's the link to the post.
MAKING THE CHAMPION'S BELT INEVITABLE
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/dungeon/ageOfWorms/archives/makingTheC hampionSBeltInevitable