I havent received my final instalment of the AOW path (I live in Australia)-so this may be premature, but I have had a look at the wormfood article about gating in Titan barbarians and the like to help. Does this seem wrong to anyone else? I understand that it may make sense to ask for help from more powerful creatures, especially when battling a threat like Kyuss but I have always felt that the characters are meant to be the central figures in the plot. Plus when people start summoning bunches of monsters it just slows the game down as you have to figure out what two non characters are doing. I have really enjoyed the majority of the adventure path but I hatte to think it will end up with the characters summoning someone else to help out. For that matter I dislike the potential of Planar ally & the like for the same reason. The players are the heroes not some gated in celestial. How do others deal with it both in this adventure path and generally?
the lists in the wormfood article are to make the possible use of summoned help more unique rather than just summoning up another celestial whatever. from what i can see thers nothing in the adventure saying that these creatures need to be summoned to kill the big boss guy.there is a possibilty of my group using them but only the cleric has any type of summing speels and im guessing that he will be using them for something else.
|
I gotta agree with Werecorpse (and not cause I'm Australian as well!). Playng through Shackled City and the guys seem to be letting the NPC Paladin steal the limelight and keep asking the Movanic Deva NPC for help! Heck they almost gave the Smoking Eye Template to the NPC Paladin!
I'm about to start a campaign in the Midnight setting which virtually removes Summoning of Planar Alleys and the such.
Can't wait for that one as I hate players summoning creatures to fight their battles unless they're low powered cannon fodder types.
Reebo
(Down Under and loving it!)
I'm about to start a campaign in the Midnight setting which virtually removes Summoning of Planar Alleys and the such.
The Planar Alley. In which may be found the Celestial Dumpsters of Doom. ;)
I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist that one. Someone summon a planar ally and smite me.
SUMMONING monsters I'm cool with.
Planar Exchange and other spells where HD limits are the measurement I'm NOT cool with. I think the spells can (and have been in my game) be abused, and potentialy game-breaking. The only upside is that called creatures often have to be negotiated with, and that they really die when called as opposed to being summoned.
Called Titan: "Battle Kyuss - a GOD - are you crazy?! I'm outta here! Later worm-food!"
Called Titan: "Battle Kyuss - a GOD - are you crazy?! I'm outta here! Later worm-food!"
Just the point I was planning to make. There had better be some excellent (and quick) bargaining going on in such a situation. Asking for the outrageous is absolutely okay in this situation; if there's an E anywhere in the called creatures alignment, souls are the way to go :)
An example I find fitting was found in the last book of a certain series written by several famous fantasy authors (fans will recognize it, and I avoid too many spoilers this way); an evil priestess calls a demon to battle an overwhelming horde, and when asked her offer she responds "Name your price!", a true sign of her desperation. Think big and costly; kingdoms, artifacts, sacrifices, temples built in their honor, your cohort's still-beating heart, etc.
The one of the last lines in the worm food notes that the baddies can summon the same creatures, and if you PC's are they should... there should be nothing available to the PC's that isn't available to the NPC's....
Now I haven't played the AoE campaign yet, but I am currently running the SCAP. I have a subscription to 'Dungeon' and read this last installment of a, in my opinion, very good campaign. I had a lot of problems with this part too. Summoning creatures (the various summon spells) are next to useless for this part since the toughest thing they can summon cannot do anything to Kyuss. I also feel that using super powerful creatures (and a barbarian titan *is* super powerful) will greatly detract from the players "glory".
So here's how I planned on solving this. When I run AoW after SCAP, I will keep the original PCs (from the SCAP) known to the new players (from the AoW). The PCs will then be able to call on their old PCs for help against Kyuss. This still gives the playing characters the idea that they are still being PCs, not just using super powerful creatures completely unfamiliar to the party.
You think this will work? Are "reinforcements" even necessary to defeat Kyuss?
This is something similar to what I was thinking about. I am currently 6 sessions into a Age of Worms campaign and am about to start a concurrent campaign with another group of friends (all of my players, 2 in AOW and 3 in my new Campaign have gamed together in the past, in fact in my last D&D campaign a few years ago). So the plan is for both campaigns to be run in the same world (Greyhawk) at the same time, just in drastically different locales, naimly the new campaign will mostly be set early on in the Stonehold and the North and later in Istivin. Anyhow I am hoping to have 2-3 big group sessions where both parties are present, mainly for some of the more difficult and deadly encounters. Has anyone tried this before, any advie on multiple campaigns at once?
I don't think anyone can afford to sit back and watch in the final meaningful battle of the campaign. A party will be able to summon at most one or two of these awesome allies, and as someone pointed out earlier, none of them is the equal of Kyuss--at best they might be close in power to the PCs themselves. And the selection of possible allies can be limited by the DM because the PCs have to have the being's true name to summon it in this fashion (IIRC). It's basically like adding an extra party member. The summoned creature may not even be very effective in harming Dragotha or Kyuss, but does help to soak up some of the huge amounts of damage this pair can dish out, improving party survival chances, for a very, very steep price. And the summoned creature may not be very brave or willing to risk its own life in this quixotic attempt to bring down a deity.
Even celestials will drive a major hard bargain with the PCs. The conditions may be a little less terrifying than those imposed by evil beings, but should be no less onerous--oaths to follow the path of good strictly forever more (no more trips to the brothel to gather info), return services (i.e. epic quests for the follow-on campaign), oaths that make the PCs become celestial retainers of the summoned help's boss (taking them off the prime-material plane and effectively removing them from any follow-on adventures), turning over many of the choicest artifacts and magic items in Dragotha's horde to the celestial "for use in the war against evil," etc. Granted that most DMs won't have a follow-on campaign, so the players won't have to actually live with the consequences of their bargains, they should at least roleplay the decision-making process in character. (Does the insatiable wizard really want to give up title to his share of the most fabulous dragon hoard in history? Does the valiant warrior-priest feel that he has fulfilled his purpose on this earth and is willing to go wherever one of his deity's underlings takes him? Will these bargains affect the rest of the party, and how do they react when they find out the player has signed them up?) The DM must do some serious roleplaying too--such a powerful being certainly has its own agenda, and will not agree to any bargain that does not, in some way, meaningfully further that agenda.
I would recommend DMs who plan to let their players use Planar Ally spells limit the available beings. The PCs must research their true names--such research is not a matter of a mere knowledge check ("Oh, I just thought of the name of an Inevitable I read about somewhere), but a lucky discovery (recorded in the flying book in Zyrxog's museum, or knowledge gained by drinking the fountain on the island) or a serious sidequest (i.e. instead of going to retrieve the Sphere of Annihilation, they've got to go to an infamous dungeon to find the outsider's name they are looking for). By limiting the possibilities to three or four beings, the DM can take a bit of time to flesh out the motives of those beings, what they might want from the summoner in exchange for their services, and the limits beyond which they absolutely will not go for the party. You can still provide some variety (give them a choice of summoning a being fairly close to their own alignment or a couple of others that they might be a bit more leary of. But even if the alignment is pretty close, there is no guarantee things will go smoothly. The chaotic titan might be an imposing combatant very close in alignment to the party's Cleric of Kord, but might unleash lots of unwanted destruction while fulfilling the letter of the bargain, for example. The great archon might be a complete pain when he insists on the party waiting for Kyuss to fully emerge from the spire so that it will be "a fair fight." The inevitable might recognize a close associate of the party, like Tenser or Eligos, is in violation of his cherished principle and feel obliged to hunt this person down as soon as the battle with Kyuss is over. And of course, we would expect a summoned balor to devour a few innocent Alhasterites as he accompanies the party to the spire of Kyuss, just as an appetizer for the party cleric's soul.
If you really want to discourage the party from using these spells, just set the price so high that you can be fairly sure they'll refuse to pay, and remind them that the being is not under their control and is only bound to the letter of the bargain. That way, you're not nerfing anyone's abilities, and give the players at least the illusion of choice.
So, I don't think at all that it's a matter of "summon help and sit back and watch" at all. The availability of these spells adds new tactical possibilities for the PCs, but demands some serious roleplaying, and thus, IMO, enriches the game. It's up to the DM to make sure these very smart, purpose-driven NPCs drive a hard bargain, rather than being duped into enslavement and cannon-fodderdom. If the DM doesn't step up and do this, such spells can (and will) be abused.