Ok, so the party is nearing Farshore. I DM for a group of (currently) 4. I want the battle for the town to be memorable and dangerous- but as it is written- well- it really isn't that tough. A well equipped and magic heavy party should be able to handle the fight with little trouble.
So, I am thinking of making the following modifications-
The pirates will attack from land- under cover of darkness.
The Vrocks will act as ariel bombers- targeting the watch towers with flaming balls of pitch - then trying to take the children of the outpost hostage.
the golems will attack from 2 different directions , each accompanied by a few pirates.
I will change " animate dead" as a known spell to dimension door on the lead Yaun Ti ( the main goal of the body guards will be to look out for approaching enemies- when they are spotted ( if they are spotted ) they will take viper form and hide- hmmmm maybe i should give the sorcerer natural spell...
regardless- they will keep the ship 100 feet out in the water- not 30.
I suspect the party will use lots of glyphs of warding and holy storm.
before the attack- the ememy will have sent a spy or 2 ( probably olman or people from lavinia's ship) and may try to hinder the fortifications - or trying to comprimise the integrity of " the anti dinosaur wall" they may take action to hinder the olman in other ways too- like disease or dinosaur attacks.
I will also allow for the green dragon to be hired (by both parties)
The enemy in this adventure is very smart and should be played as such. they would not try to dismantle all of the buildings- because they want an outpost there. so the golems will limit their destruction to non essential buildings ( library, temple, small residences, cemetary).
By the time they fight Venthrus- the battle is mostly over- so I will not change this fight much- i think after 4 rounds, a pirate will arrive every 2 rounds to help him.
am I making the battle too tough? how are these tactics? the idea of attacking in waves when you are outnumbered is silly.
So, I see the pirates working their way into the city in a circle-
Remember, if the vrocks get a chance to finish the dance of ruin, everybody within 100 ft. takes 20d6. If the three present each try to gate in 1 friend to bodyguard him while he dances (and maybe 2 succeed), you've got major problems when they set up in the middle of town (no need to kidnap the children; they're all dead). Five vrocks is an EL 13+ encounter; let Vanthus attack with them and it's EL 15-16. Unless your characters are already 12th level, I'd take it easy on them.
As written, the pirates are bloodthirsty and overconfident; your PCs are (or should be) paranoid and overprepared. Switching that around can easily make a dangerous encounter totally unbeatable (in which case, why not just destroy Farshore while they're at the tar pits or talking to the phanaotons or whatever?). Just my 2 cp.
J PAslawski, what kind of characters are your players running that the Crimson Fleet attack doesn't seem tough enough for the 4 of them?
I didn't get a chance to playtest this part in my own group and it isn't quite the same bad guy composition I wrote anyway, so I really can't help out here. Some of your ideas sound pretty cool and I'd love to hear how it went. At the same time these tactics assume that the colonists are more than just a bunch of farmers and craft folk with a few warriors to fend off minor threats. If they have been spied on then it's reasonable that they know of the Jade Ravens, but the party should be out in the field for the most part prior to the invasion.
My suggestion is that you implement a lot of your ideas that don't greatly alter the battle and be prepared to make some changes as the battle is happening such as adding more creatures or a magic item or two into the bad guys' combat gear to compensate if things are going too easy on the PCs, but be very careful you don't unbalance to the point that it may derail your campaign by ending in a TPK or a razed village. If you plan on running the rest of the STAP it's far better to err on the side of the PCs and make it a bit easier than you'd like. Also, if you plan to ditch the Victory Points system of resolving the battle, which this sounds like to me, this also means less XP, so be prepared to add in some new encounters during the course of the adventure to compensate. There are plenty of hooks for you to plunder in the adventure and the accompanying backdrop. If you plan to use the green dragon as an encounter, the stats I had in mind in all but name are on pg. 251 of Draconomican (use Othocintlydavarei), but beware, he is a CR 18 and doesn't like being trifled with ;)
Again, I don't know what type of characters your group is running and how powerful they are in relation to their enemies. Just be very careful about making changes so as not to ruin your campaign.
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Steve's right.
The final battle with the pirates WILL be memorable, since it's the biggest battle in the adventure. It's not supposed to be a killer battle, it's supposed to be a series of individually challenging battles that, when taken in quick succession, can be deadly. Keep in mind that the PCs have to spread their resources out over several battles here, often without enough time even to heal up between encounters. If you make each individual battle capable of ruining the party on their own, taken all together you're pretty much guarenteeing a TPK.
That said, it's not bad to have an enhanced set of tactics like you've created handy, just in case it turns out that your PCs are walking all over the encounters with ease.
And keep in mind that battles where the PCs come out unquestioned victors can just as easilly be as memorable as battles where the PCs only barely managed to survive and even then only by spending piles of action points or hero points.
Farshore's harbor makes coming around to flank hard; the cliffs of Temute don't make for good landing points, not without hiking through the woods. If the PCs have recruited Phanatons, hiking through the woods is sort of a death sentance for those pirates.
Consider that your PCs aren't going to be resting between these encounters, and several of them may happen at once. My group ended up fighting two groups of pirates (12 in all) and all 4 flesh golems at once, and just as they finished up the pirates, the vrocks came out. They were effectively wading through a EL 16 if not worse. Heck, the one round per level buffs actually wore off halfway through! By the time Vanthus actually showed, the druid and cleric were effectively out of spells, and the sorceror had about 15 total levels of spells left. That makes a fight against Vanthus a lot harder, since their already worn down and low on resources.
Fly the tactics as you think are good, and as the pirates would do to resond to the PCs actions. The demons are kind of a trump card, and remember, the Crimson Fleet wants to take over Farshore, not destroy it. The dance of ruin might be an acceptabe tactic against PCs, but it causes a lot of damage to valuables in the area as well (it seems right that it would affect objects as well).
Unless the PCs hunker in a random part of the city, you can expect for most of the encounters sort of all slam into them at once, especially if they try to pull a Helm's Deep at the docks.
man, I spent about 15 minutes writing this big thing...then it didn't post.
to sum it up- yeah, these guys are slavers- they want to take people alive. the dance of ruin and a bunch of fire balls are not going to help them - i may make the fireballs subdual.
no seasoned warrior is going to be over confident- not even a chaotic evil pirate. they are attacking a town- defended by people tough enough to to travel to an unknown, dangerous island- by boat ( we all know how safe that trip was) and then to survive for 2 years? no, these pirate should be cautious and ruthless. they know there are adventurers- so they know there will be spells.
my party will use tons of empowered glyphs of warding, a few scrolls of dismissal ( after the evil monkeys-they won't leave home without them.)and a few teleports should get them back to sasserine- to buy 50 arrows of spell-storing- loaded with "demon dirge" from the spell compendium and vampiric touch
holy storm on wands, the high priest of the olman is known as the "zombie Master"- so i see a pair of skeletal megaraptors protecting the flanks of his people. a few, well placed Hallow spells (the dock, the center of town, ect) will give a major boost to the defenders- though it may bankrupt them.
of course- these are all speculation on my part.
Personally- i hope they have to retreat. guerrilla raids on a slavers outpost would be fun!
My players are smart- my wife is a tactical genius. all of them fought in the battle of Brindol ( red hand of doom) along side me- so,they know how I fight. and I know how they fight. I suspect they will pair up and lead groups of soldiers to trouble spots. the duskblade and his thief henchman, the ranger and the priest, and the mystic theurge will for a small group of casters- to fight any major threats and large groups.
keep in mind steve- the party is not the only group of defenders. there may be as many as 400 total people defending the city. and many of them are seasoned adventurers.
they have no clerics either.
Well, sir, no one knows your group the way you do. Good luck and I hope everyone has a blast with it! Do share the highlights with us.
True, but of those up to 400 people, less than a quarter of them are really "capable combatants". And there are 4 lvl 1 clerics, and 1 level 6 cleric. Ruling otherwise is a houserule deviating from the norms of both the adventure path and community building as outlined in the DMG. Do so if thats what's right for your game.
Granted, they made the journey, granted they've lived there for 2 years. They made the journey on a boat; their boat wasn't eaten, sunk, or destroyed, so they made the journey. They didn't necessarily deal with any of the things the PCs dealt with on the way down. And Temute was picked for its overall saftey relative to the Isle of Dread's mainland.
Most of the resisdents are experts, followed by commoners and warriors. The notable NPCs with class levels are detailed in the Farshore Article in Dungeon 143, there aren't many, but there are some. There are some experienced people there who can certainly throw down, but most are probably average joes who were down on their luck enough that the offer of a new life on a distant island seemed like it was worth the risk.
The phanatons do send their warriors to help, but they are just that, warriors. Phantaton warriors might be between 1rst and 4th level, but certainly no higher, and not many 3rd and 4th. The olmans send warriors, except for Tanoroa, but they might have sent Zombies. A zombie is strong, but still limited. Whether a zombie master would animate megaraptor skeletons is up to your interpretation of their spiritual beleifs (I think they don't animate non-olman remains, because the animation is a religious ritual).
And a seasond fighter is just the type to be overconfident, when your a member of the single most feared pirate fleet in the known world. Fear is the Crimson Fleets primary weapon, and it's a powerful one. People rely on their weapons, especially when they routinely don't fail them. So when that weapon does fail them, they are caught by surprise. The Crimson Fleet owns the seas; they bring terror and destruction, and everyone fears their arrival. They're bringing five ships, a full fleet, to take a small trading outpost thats been denied supplies for the last 2 years. They are overconfident.
Farshore needs the PCs help quite literally because it isn't full of veteran adventurers and die-hard combat specialists, its just a colony of people trying to make their living and hopefully their fortunes in a remote and dangerous, but also profitable, location.
Sorry if this comes off as rantish, I've got to get to work, and don't have the time to consider my words as carefully as I like. No offense is intended, just ideas to prompt thought. Good gaming!
And a seasond fighter is just the type to be overconfident, when your a member of the single most feared pirate fleet in the known world. Fear is the Crimson Fleets primary weapon, and it's a powerful one. People rely on their weapons, especially when they routinely don't fail them. So when that weapon does fail them, they are caught by surprise. The Crimson Fleet owns the seas; they bring terror and...
Over confidence is what seperates good soldiers from dead soldiers. you tallied up the clerics- but you forgot about a favored soul, a druid, and the 2 from the party- which means there are plenty of priests. I don't see why the zombie master wouldn't utilize dead dinosaurs- most religious rites are based upon neccessity, and where they live- large protective beasts are very useful.
The image of vikings and pirates running around killing everyone they see is pretty much fiction- or it waited til after the battle was won. Norse berserkers were rare exceptions- and they were part of a standing army that filled a specialized niche but they were few and far between( if they existed at all- which is debated).You are correct- the people of farshore are not warriors, but they can be trained to fight in a shield wall, with long spears and axes.- throw a bless on them to keep them brave- and the pirates won't even get close ( in theory). The pirates have 4 hit dice, an arrow does d8- they are not heavily armoured. yeah, they are not over-confident. This March the movie "the 300" comes out- it is based on a legend from the punic wars, that shows what a few men can do against a large horde of over confident men. One thing the army might not have is trust. i can see the pirates fight each other over a woman, or some gold.
I've had to increase the difaculty of the one ALOT! FOr a start, ten ships instead of five, and a CR20 NPC on vanthus's side. My PC's have fortified farshore to the point of turning it into a fortress, and any ship entering the harbor will be screwed in a matter of rounds. THey had stuff that they had bought that allowed them to return to port and stock up on cannons and black powder, arming three ships to the teeth and with some very cleaver magical enhancements to the ship has given it a water jet propulsion system. On top of that, They already have a way to neutralize the Vroc's. They set out after scrying the fleet to do hit and run attacks. (Damn the history channel for introducing them to chain shot!) In one session, they destroyed four ships in open combat and one undead Kraken that I added just to throw in a monkey wrench (THey turned the Hellfish into a floating bomb with black powder and tar. Blew the thing to rotten calamari). The actual battle even now will most likely be a route, so, I'm having one of the NPC's that they've been traveling with turn traitor and he'll start damaging their defenses from with in, when the attack starts.
i feel for you-
A well equipped and magic heavy party should be able to handle the fight with little trouble.
I'm curious as to how the party get well equipped and magic heavy when they left Sasserine at 6th level, and haven't stopped anywhere with a decent GP limit since.
Okay they will probably (assuming single class spellcaster) have access to Teleport at the start of the adventure and it's two hops to Sasserine, but then there is a chance of their characters teleport being off target, in which chase there is a VERY good chance that they will end up dropped in the middle of the ocean without a boat.
Well, I don't want to give anything away but a few magic items will appear prior to the epic battle including one area where each party member may walk away with a good item. In fact, there are those who complain that this one area was too generous but...
I must just be cruel to my party. They didn't have cannons, nor ship-bombs, nor water propulsion systems, nor spells that enable them to foresee vrocks that haven't been summoned yet. They had a REALLY hard time with the battle, especially since they had to split into two groups in order to address the myriad threats... and their tactics were quite good (detect ship spells active beforehand; invisible flanking ship with ram; a number of bonfires so the wizard could fire stride about the battlefield; etc. Of course, the Olmans and phanatons gave them mostly symbolic aid, and they're not high-level enough nor well-equipped enough for me to have to add CL 20 NPCs and undead krakens to all the encounters just to beef them up... in short, they were only 10th level at the time of the battle.
Okay they will probably (assuming single class spellcaster) have access to Teleport at the start of the adventure and it's two hops to Sasserine, but then there is a chance of their characters teleport being off target, in which chase there is a VERY good chance that they will end up dropped in the middle of the ocean without a boat.
The PC wizard made it safely, but the other players knew they were on a timetable, so they braved the tar pits without her. That big tyrannosaur is really scary when you have no artillery for backup...
A well equipped and magic heavy party should be able to handle the fight with little trouble.
I'm curious as to how the party get well equipped and magic heavy when they left Sasserine at 6th level, and haven't stopped anywhere with a decent GP limit since.
Okay they will probably (assuming single class spellcaster) have access to Teleport at the start of the adventure and it's two hops to Sasserine, but then there is a chance of their characters teleport being off target, in which chase there is a VERY good chance that they will end up dropped in the middle of the ocean without a boat.
they will make many of the items themselves.
a quick trip to sasserine is not tough . all of the PCS worship osprem so a quick splash into the ocean isn't much of an issue.- but since they will cast fly before they cast teleport- that splash isn't very likely to happen.by magic heavy I mean that all of the pcs are spell casters of some sort-
duskblade
ranger
priest
mystic theurge
I think a tactic that would work quite nicely is to switch things around a bit. Bomb the vrocks into the middle of the town first. That should effectively tie up your PC's until the pirates can make their landing. Instead of having the vrocks immediately go into the dance of ruin, have them run around, teleporting and causing devastation for several rounds and then go into the dance.
That should take your PC's out of the fight for enough time for the pirates to land.
But, the point should be well taken - once the pirates land, the party will be in a nice gauntlet where they will not have time to rest at all. After the vrocks, they could very well have 5 more straight fights. Six fights in a row is devastating. Particularly if the group is relying heavily on spells. There is a very good chance they'll run out long before the end of the battles. And, if you are particularly nasty, let a few minutes pass between a couple of the fights and all those per round buffs go away.
I think a tactic that would work quite nicely is to switch things around a bit. Bomb the vrocks into the middle of the town first. That should effectively tie up your PC's until the pirates can make their landing. Instead of having the vrocks immediately go into the dance of ruin, have them run around, teleporting and causing devastation for several rounds and then go into the dance.
That should take your PC's out of the fight for enough time for the pirates to land.
But, the point should be well taken - once the pirates land, the party will be in a nice gauntlet where they will not have time to rest at all. After the vrocks, they could very well have 5 more straight fights. Six fights in a row is devastating. Particularly if the group is relying heavily on spells. There is a very good chance they'll run out long before the end of the battles. And, if you are particularly nasty, let a few minutes pass between a couple of the fights and all those per round buffs go away.
Well, it's on now! the party just made it to farshore, and was begun formulating defensive plans...their first stop? sasserine. also on the plans- sink massive logs and use lower water to stop the ships...and use glyphs of warding- do i know my party or what??? they actually plan on preventing the invasion from ever getting off their boats. ok DMs- here is what i need, any ideas to use that are #1 good, and #2 compltely unexpected. the villains have a spy, and high intelligence and access to lots of magic goodies.- the pcs have resources that are limited , but they have more spells, and an easily defended position- one of my biggest fears right now is the pcs using "hallow on more that just the cemetary-... like maybe 2 other spots as well- and tying protection from evil to it. this will allow the village defenders a place to rally- and provide a place to fight venthrus and the vrocks when they arrive. I have a few ideas in mind that i came up with last night- but, i don't know if any of them lurk here-
1 thing that 1 of the players knows, but doesn't realize- the flag ship is a sight to behold- it is covered in the skin of a great wyrm red dragon, and enchanted. it is a massive thing that was stolen from a navy yard years ago by a bronze dragon pirate captain, then it took a party of adventurers to scuttlecove- the pcs set up shop running a unified thieves guild out of the porphory house they became a major source for slaves in the region. after a few years there was a split- the 2 leaders- Deacon the 3rd and Spyder began an open war- Spyders web of thieves and assassins were beset by Deacons slavers and pirates. My wife is currently playing Spyders daughter. the slavers have developed into the crimson fleet- though deacon was long been dead (unless the leader of the crimson fleet is a halfling). I plan to give my wife a little info that can be used to prepare- the fleet works with demons, they have this badass ship, ect.
hmmmm. what if the fleet were to attack an olman village instead of farshore? or, what if they did it as a precursor to the attack? maybe to force the other villages to side with them? I ran the Zotzilaha adventure early- so, they party has close ties in the nearest village- they would run to it's aid for sure.
anyway- i do not plan on using the point system much, and i would love any and all ideas- thanks for the vrock bit jason!