A word of advice to DMs out there, although the veterans probably will give knowing nods. Watch out for tanglefoot bags. For a weapon finesser like Rowyn, they are double jepoardy: -2 to ac and -4 to attacks due to dex hampering. Considering even on a save movement is halved, plus a lowered tumble check, most of her strategies get blown out the window.
Specifically, if you find your PCs have a habit of closing for melee real fast, and especially if they have good init modifiers, you might want to consider expanding the size of her bedroom by an extra five foot square on each side. Which is actually more beleivable considering the amount of stuff in her room as described by the boxed text.
High mobility fighters like Rowyn and Gut Tugger need room to move, and with a full party, plus a possible animal companion, there is almost no room whatsoever in her bedroom. If you feel this is tactically designed to bring her down to a more dooable level for a group of 2-3rd level PCs, then no problems, but let me just say that my party (4 person, 32 point buy, veteran players) stomped them into the dirt. Gut Tugger managed to land 2 bites, but that was it. Between crowding and the tanglefoot bag, it was over before it started.
If I were to run this again, I'd have Rowyn make "passive" listen checks to hear the PCs coming. If she hears anyone coming that doesn't sound like a guild member (and they could have a password) she kicks up bardic music so she doesn't have to later. Even if she only starts it and then offers the PCs a job, the 5 round duration should be enough to challenge PCs.
That said, watch out if both of them do get their game on (bardic music and flanking.) Dealing with 2 enemies who have AC of 19, attack bonuses of 6+, and damage outputs of 3-18 and 4-22 is a bit much for a 2nd or 3rd level group.
Anyhow, just my observations on how the Boss Battle of the first Arc can potentially go. Thanks to all at Dungeon and Paizo for the begginings of another excellent campaign path! My players and I are loving it so far!
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Seems to me this isn't necesarily a bad thing though. I mean it's perfectly reasonable that a character purchases tanglefoot bags and uses them in combat. If it makes it easier on the PC's that's not the DM's fault. It's just the way it goes. You could even give a bit of extra XP for coming up with a cunning plan that saves the whole group or at least gets them out of a bad spot.
Take the Blue Nixie for example. I have 6 PC's in my group. I added a couple of extra thugs so there were a total of 9 thugs and Vark. They made the whole encounter easier than it should have been just due to their taking time to plan and get what they needed. The group split up into two groups of 3. One group, the stealthy group, climbed up the bow of the ship and quietly took out the thugs up there. The not so stealthy group climbed the aft of the ship and confronted and intimidated, rather successfully, the 2 thugs there. The stealthy group stayed out of sight while Vark and the other thugs were warned and came running out to deal with the group at the back of the ship. While they were there the stealthy group sent a hail of arrows and bolts into the thugs from behind and took them down to a man. I think the paladin was the only one that took damage and it was minimal. Of course it did help the group out that for some reason I kept rolling 1's and 2's on my listen checks and attack rolls for the thugs.
All in all If you want to make it harder that's cool. Run it how you want to. I just wouldn't be too upset if the PC's come up with a brilliant plan that saves their hide in the end. That's all.
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No, I totally agree. Although many have cautioned that tanglefoot bags are, by and by, extremely superior for their cost, I have no problem with PCs who do well under their own power.
In the end, bad init, good tactics on the PCs part, and a few unlucky attacks of opp brought Rowyn down, and thats fine by me. The blue nixie nearly TPKd my group, so Im happy that they get some definitive wins here and there.
Just figured this was a situation that some DMs out there might want to know about in advance.
I gave her a passive listen when my group hit her tonight, and she did, indeed, to the preemptive bardic music that was suggested in this thread.
Some of the party were consider her offer when the ninja - who is infatuated with Lavinia - moved to attack her. No party members went down, and 2 were hurt badly.
Rowyn would have gone down as well, but I had tweaked her feats, dumping weapon finesse for delay potion from the new Complete Mage. So, when she got to 10 hp, she activated her already drunk Potion of Gaseous Form to escape.
Her rapier had been disarmed, though, so she lost that.
The first thing I thought when I saw the location for the party's stand-off with Rowyn was "That room needs to be bigger". Not just to give them room to move, but to allow more than one or two PCs to get into the room with them.