I am seriously considering having Vanthus trigger the shadow pearl so that my PCs can witness the savage tide first hand. I would most certainly have Farshore and the whole little island feel it's effects but i dont know if that would ruin later adventures...
That would be cool, but wiping out Farshore might make a mess of the AP (although maybe not, considering how Sasserine was dropped entirely out of the campaign after a lousy 2 adventures... which means that Farshore's life expectancy is only 1 more adventure anyway, if that trend continues!).
I'd suggest having the PCs on board the Sea Wyvern, scouting a few miles out for approaching pirates, or chasing a fleeing Brine Harlot after the battle. That way you can trigger the shadow pearl without destroying the settlement.
I am seriously considering having Vanthus trigger the shadow pearl so that my PCs can witness the savage tide first hand. I would most certainly have Farshore and the whole little island feel it's effects but i dont know if that would ruin later adventures...
If your players feel comfortable with you just arbitrarily laying waste to something they can potentially make a LOT of money off of, then so be it. However, if the PCs work hard at improving it and protecting it, that's money in their pockets. Considering that higher level PCs can simply greater teleport back to the colony or even Sasserine where they may be able to cash in on the colony's growth and success, it shouldn't be an issue whether they move on to other ventures.
Read through the Farshore backdrop carefully for the monetary effects that improvements will have as well as the rewards in the Concluding the Adventure section of Tides of Dread before railroading your players out of money.
It has been a complaint before that the previous APs didn't allow enough down time between adventures. This is one of the installments that does. A lot, in fact. Part of that is to give the players a chance to cash in on what they protected. While they have a few side adventures, make stuff, and develop some role-playing bonds with the NPCs, the Blue Nixie is supposed to be sailing back to Sasserine laden with Isle of Dread goodies to sell back in the big city. It also means that things can be purchased for the PCs and brought back on the return journey (see the Concluding the Adventure section).
Is there a chance that the characters would get caught in the effect if you did this? Bear in mind that one bad save could wipe out a PC unless the rest of the party have access to Greater Restoration or Wish. Possibly not a bad thing.
Presumably Farshore would not be totally wiped out as some people would make their saves (DC 15) leaving the party to save them from those who were not so lucky and rebuild. It would certainly put the colony back a few years.
This is assuming that the pearl is activated in a crowd. I know that Vanthus would certainly try to maximize the effect. In fact you could continue this for several sessions as families or friends trying to protect people infected with the plague by being injured.
The PCs would then have a kill or cure approach to the infected. These sort of hard choices make role playing a lot of fun. Well, at least until the party get a 13th level cleric and even then are they going to spend 500 xp for some 1st level commoner?
How i thought to handle this was the following:
- 2/3rd of the colony and remaining enemies are affected, along with some low WILL named npcs who the players have to fight in their savage form.
- the PCs all save vs the effect and those who change are killed by the others (i let the effected PCs play their savage characters until slain), then revived by raise dead (party cleric (or scrolls) will be able to do that and the savage template sais that it can be done.
- the colony is dropped back in it's progress but that struggle just adds to the joy of keeping the colony developing.
This will surely let the PCs know what the pearl does and value it's powers. What do you think?
I have no ideas how to finish off about 120 savage commoners though :)
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i could say the majority of them spread out into the wilderness (bing unintelligent and hungry) while a few dosen stays and are fought. At 9th level the PCs wouldnt even get XP for CR 1 creatures, which i would make the critters. (or CR 2 if they get to 10th level)
the rest that spreads out into the wilderness could be thrown in with other savage exotica...
i think this will do. any comments?
Creative Director
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I'd recomend against letting Vanthus automaticaly trigger the savage tide, since that's kind of cheating. It also drastically changes the nature of the campaign, so you might find yourself getting into a lot more adaptation work than you realize—the next four or so adventures assume that Farshore (and its NPCs) survive "Tides of Dread," after all.
i would organize things so that the colony survives but with great losses due to the tide. i guess that doesn't change things more then as if the party would have collected low amount of victory points, which are still enough for a win, but with major losses in life... what do you say James? does this still ruin future stories? the colony stands after all, major NPCs are alive and the pirates, yuanti and Vanthus are dead thus the attack repelled.
please advise as i have no ideas about the adventures to come...
btw i changed the flesh golems to serpent flesh golems from serpent kingdoms. i find them more appropriate for a yuanti wizard :)
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Creative Director
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The problem with the savage tide is that it's so overwhelming an attack that there's little way, aside from DM fiat, that Farshore will survive. Almost everyone in the town, pirates and colonists alike, will need to make a DC 15 Will save to resist transformation. Even if only half of the pirates and colonists succumb, they turn into monsters that quickly slaughter the survivors or worse, spread their infection further.
Remember, if a savage tide goes off, the PCs suffer a –2000 point VP penalty. In most cases, this results in a slaughter.
If a colony consisting of 200 pathetic low-level commoners can survive a Savage Tide, why bother going to the Abyss to face Demogorgon at all, when his "brilliant" plan involves putting these pearls into cities that are vastly more capable of isolating and controlling the affected victims? If Farshore can survive the Tide, then Demogorgon is a chump.
In Age of Worms, the transforming crowd was a mob of wights, and they were surrounded by a city full of the highest-level characters in Greyhawk. Savage commoners and savage pirates are weaker than wights, but the only high-level characters in sight are the PC party itself.
Assuming there are 200 NPCs plus the various named characters, 150 of them will fail their will saves, because they have no bonus at all. Is your PC party really awesome enough to stop 150 savage commoners before they can kill 50 regular commoners, starting with the regular commoners mixed randomly in amongst the savage commoners? Is your PC party really even awesome enough to save all the named NPCs, which will be outnumbered 10 to 1 by savage commoners even assuming the rest of the savage commoners are busy outnumbering the regular commoners 2 to 1? Remember, even if they kill a savage commoner with each attack, the savage commoners still get to ping Lavinia and the Jade Ravens down to nothing with their death throes.
Furthermore, if the Savage Tide hits Farshore, half the victory points the party has gotten will make victory even more unattainable, because there will be savage phanatons, savage olmans, and savage commoners with masterwork claws all over the city. Slaughter is entirely apt, although the description in the magazine really doesn't fit because the pirates would have suffered a slaughter, too.
Gaborg, if you really have your heart set on triggering a shadow pearl so the PCs can witness its horrible affects, consider perhaps using some DM planning to ensure that one of the characters has the ability to or an item that allows him/her to teleport. Once the shadow pearl is triggered, if your players don't figure it out first, you can "suggest" that if the pearl was gotten far away quick enough, nobody should be harmed if perhaps it's dumped somehwere relatively vacant of sentient life. At that level, your player's character shouldn't be able to get too far, so you might suggest that the PC teleport to one of the islands nearby not inhabited by any of the Olman people. Any of the small islands clustered around the southwest of the Isle of Dread would work. If you want to get kinda devious, you could have the PC teleport to the island marked with the Scarlet Brotherhood Encampment. Your players should have no reason to suspect there are Brotherhood agents there.
When they come back later to examine the results you can have a few savaged out Scarlet Brotherhood monk/clerics and savage animal encounters waiting for them.
Anyway, just a suggestion if you really WANT to trigger it.
I had this idea of having Lavinia suggest to have the commoners in the colony relocated to the farms as they see the Crimson Fleet ships approaching. This way there would be no major losses in population as they would be more then 1 mile away when the tide strikes.
This way the attack on the colony would be something like in the film 7 Samurais. Empty village with only the capable fighters waiting for the enemy to arrive.
Though i liked the idea of having the Pcs defend themselves against a mass of savage commoners in zombie movie style... but you are right, the pearl as descibed would ruin all commoners if triggered among them.
I will still have 2 jade ravens, some Farshore NPCs and the pirates succumb to the change. Cant resist pulling the string of having the PCs fight their own comrades as savage creatures :)
Isn't the area effect quite small? 20 foot radius if memory serves. Of course there's absolutely no reason not to make it much bigger if you want and it makes the thing more dramatic. I'd go for 100 feet or even some arbitrary limit like the town walls...a bit like the effect of the mists on the Mournland. Perhaps some strange mystical connection between the Savage Tide and the Day of Mourning could be made if this were the case.
As for having Lavinia suggest evacuating the colony, I would leave it up to the PCs to suggest it. If they don't and many of them are transformed then it falls on their heads. Not that Lavinia wouldn't feel guilty.
the pearl works so that the initial cracking releases a cloud of 20ft radius acidic smoke for 1 min, then it blasts a 1 mile radius area with the savage tide.
the pearl works so that the initial cracking releases a cloud of 20ft radius acidic smoke for 1 min, then it blasts a 1 mile radius area with the savage tide.
Now that makes sense. I'm glad someone pointed this out before I actually ran the game. Thanks.