I was just wondering. My players will battle Madtooth the next day and they ordered a scroll of Disintegrate from Ekaym. So I have two options:
I stick with the 1200GM limit which is mentioned in the magazine and tell them they have to wait for two days (which will be too late), or give them the scroll and let them free the Apostel preposterous.
Now, if they free the Apostel too early, it will make its way to an empty arena...empty means no audience, but still lots of guards workers and servants. So if the Apostel eats a Champion, what will happen. It seems to me, that the ritual can occur anytime after the apostel has grown to full size. Of course the effects won't be too devastating, as there will only be some dozens of Wights and not thousands of them. What do you think?
And what would you do? Keep the Disintegration out of their hands for another day and have the big final with a lot at stake (and maybe have my players think I was unfair on them?) or make a mini final in the nightly arena (I could still have Auric appear as Ugly breaking through the arena floor would draw anyone in the arena to the fight).
Hmmm. That's a tough one. Here are a couple of thoughts.
Have Ekaym find a scroll of disintegrate, but it's a pretty high caster level check so they are not guaranteed a successful casting of it.
If the Apostle gets released, maybe have him surge up into the arena immediately and then make a break for the exit of the arena. There could be some fun masonry collapsing problems for those left behind, and then the mad dash to get to the surface of the arena. Remember that there's no one to man the lift platform, so they need to find the right stairs while dodging guards. The Apostle only has to swallow someone with ranks in fighter, so that could be Auric or maybe some of the private bodyguards on Raknian's staff?
Anyway, have the Apostle bolt to the surrounding neighborhoods and begin wreaking havoc. This gives you a little bit of a chase scene and gives the players lots of impetus to bring it down as quickly as possible. It also gives you plenty of wight fodder (though not 18,000) just in case the PCs fail.
The caster level check is not high at all, my mage is level 9 or 10, meaning he has to roll a 2 or 3 or higher on a d20 (level he needs to cast: 11 + 1 minus caster level). And the warforged has an obscenely high UMD for scrolls, so no problem for him either (would be DC31 UMD for that scroll). But maybe they will target the Apostolic Scroll with it, which will be useless and waste the scroll. Additionally I set them on a "wrong" lane by telling them, that the cleric could do something. She might succeed on both, the turn and the caster check, but the dispel magic check is impossible/only on a 20. But this will still leave the scroll. Let's see sometimes players really take the wrong route at the last moment.
I had the problem of my characters releasing the apostle waaay too early, i mean like the night after the first fight. imagine this scene, the pc's trudge through the sewers out of the arena and end up in the shrine to kyuss. they notice the glowing scrolls, and the pelorian cleric touches them. succeds on the knowledge check, spellcraft check and the turning check.
then they hightail it out of there and the next morning the fight is aout to begin and the ulgarstasa breaks though the arena floor, nearly eating the parties fighter and then another notable fighter. thing was I had the second fight packed waaaay past capacity, due to the controversy in the first fight with this party (use of Vile magic, from a mis-understood wand.)
that would have made it worse right?
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The tournament battles themselves are only one part of the festivities associated with the Champion's Games:
In my campaign, Raknian had events running in the arena at others times of the day and into the night: public games, food carts, bards, merchants selling overpriced goods out of wagons, early evening pyrotechnics displays--medieval fantasy carnival-type stuff. The gates to the arena floor would open to these public activities shortly after the last arena match of the day (just enough time to clean up the blood, stray arrows, bodies, etc.), and run until things wind down around one or two AM.
After that, vendors would be packing up their wares and arena service crews would begin cleaning up the mess and setting up new obstacles/platforms/etc for the next day's arena events. I had the arena change a bit each day, presenting the PCs with new and unexpected terrain challenges: one day there was a platform in the middle for higher ground, another day there were bales of straw set up to provide cover in different corners, and so on. So unless the PCs encountered the urgulstasta at an obscenely early hour, there can still be plenty of people in the arena.
That never mattered in my campaign because the PCs never delved deep enough to find the dungeon levels beneath the arena, but it could make a big difference in other games. :)
The tournament battles themselves are only one part of the festivities associated with the Champion's Games:
Great idea, I should have asked you earlier, but I think adding this to the adventure now seems odd. So I will stay with the adventure as is and hope that it turns out good. And in the end, if the PCs defeat the Apostel in the arena, they still do not know what was at stakes. So I think I will let the story happen as it does. Thanks for your ideas.
Just like Chris to come up with a great idea. ;-)
I'm not sure why you couldn't run with his idea though. Surely, your party won't become suspicious if suddenly a bunch of vendors have been allowed to set up shop in the arena (they're not privvy to all of Raknian's secrets). Just put it down to bad timing. ;-)
But seriously, if the party is good enough to jump the gun like this all the more power to them. They have obviously thought through it nicely and beaten you to the punch in a far and square manner.
You could also extend the radius of the ritual's effect so it encompasses the buildings surrounding the arena. That would at least allow you to incorporate some of the mass wight effect you want.