Fortress of the Stone Giants (GM Reference)


Rise of the Runelords

201 to 250 of 447 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | next > last >>

I know that this references a point made over a year ago on this forum, but the charge action states that you can't have any impediment to your movement in order to complete the action. I would rule that someone couldn't charge through a solid fog. Anyone else seeing that?

Additionally, I would love to see anyone post links to pictures of how they incorporated miniatures into the raid on Sandpoint. I'm visual, and would love to get an impression of what people have done with it.

Scarab Sages

slayer_of_gellcor wrote:

I know that this references a point made over a year ago on this forum, but the charge action states that you can't have any impediment to your movement in order to complete the action. I would rule that someone couldn't charge through a solid fog. Anyone else seeing that?

Charge (pg 198 of Core Rulebook) - You must have a clear path to your opponent, and nothing can hinder your movement (such as difficult terrain or obstacles).

Solid Fog (pg 345 of Core Rulebook) - solid fog is so thick it impedes movement. Creatures moving through solid fog move at half their normal speed.

Hinder and impede are synonyms. Therefore, Solid Fog prevents charge.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Slayer...I'll likely have screen shots of digital maps if you're interested in those. Going to be a while out yet, but I'm looking to build up a file of pics from important fights anyway.


Fraust wrote:
Slayer...I'll likely have screen shots of digital maps if you're interested in those. Going to be a while out yet, but I'm looking to build up a file of pics from important fights anyway.

I'm a ways out myself, we're just starting up Skinsaw Murders. I'm just trying to be proactive in communicating the epicness of this fight, and as I mentioned: I'm very visual in nature. One of the best experiences I had, our DM who was an old GW Outrider built a bombed out city and we had a knock down-drag out with a Gith army, and a slave horde. I'm considering doing something similar, but want to see how others have handled it.


Got a question about Headless Lord in the C4 location of the Ancient Library. He's got undead telepathy which says "The Headless Lord can communicate telepathically with any other undead creature within 100 feet. It can use this telepathic communication to direct mindless undead as a free action."

My player got some skeletons via animate undead. Headless Lord can use his Command Undead only on zombies, so that's clear to me. But as those skeletons are mindless - can he use his Undead Telepathy to somehow control those skeletons?


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Geralt: No. Telepathy is communication only, nothing about it grants control of any kind. And being mindless, the skeletons can't be contacted with telepathy anyway.

Slayer: I posted a link in this forum somewhere, possibly earlier in this very thread, that connects to an open Flikr gallery of my raid on sandpoint set up, complete with cardstock buildings and minis. If I get time, I'll repost the link.

EDIT: Found it. Here you go: Raid on Sandpoint


TwoWolves wrote:
EDIT: Found it. Here you go: Raid on Sandpoint

Ah-Mazing! This is exactly what I want to do. Thank you so much for sharing!


Thanks! Glad you can get some use out of it.


Thanks for clarification, TwoWolves!


I did a "search" of this thread and couldn't find any answers so hopefully no one has answered them already.

1) Are there any fan maps of Lamashtu's Shrine? (Lower level to catacombs of wrath). The reason I ask is my PCs used their downtime to fix up the catacombs of wrath as their lair and will want to do the same when the lower level is opened. The fan maps are easier to edit than me redoing the map on my own.

2) Are there any fan maps of the Catacombs of wrath post sink hole? I know my PCs are going to use Engineering checks + Wall of Stone + Stone Shape to eventually fit the damage and maybe add a new room to their Lair.

2) Looking forward in the future adventures did anyone else's PC try to take the "library of Thassilon"? I'm pretty sure mine will. I know its about 75,000lbs worth of books, but a couple Ant's Haul spells & Carry Companion spells cast on horses allows you to teleport alot of weight.


1) Don't think so.
2) Don't think so.
2 part Deux)If they try, they will be sorely disappointed, as anything preserved in the library will instantly crumble to dust when removed.


I missed that when I read it...

Quote:
These effects apply only as long as those objects remain in this chamber, though-if they're brought out, the delay of time catches up with them immediately.


One of my PC's went rogue and attacked the fortress all by himself. Alerting Mokmurian to them being a danger.
---
Backstory
---
The party had captured a Stonegiant and charm personed him.
They questioned him and learned his tribe leader was Crannoch and his tribe and others followed someone name Mokmurian (who the PC's just call Mok-Mok now).
The wizard scryed Crannoch and let the scrying sensor follow him for a bit. The wizard then cast an extended fly, extended greater invisibility, extended haste on himself and teleported himself 10' away from Crannoch and flew strait up. Giving him a bird's eye view of the keep.
Once he had a good look, he teleported home.
The next day he uses his rod of extend on fly and haste, then casts greater invisiblity and teleports 400' above the camp. The only other spells he memorized were fireballs. Which he then cast at anything that looked 'burnable' or 'living'.
His plan was to do this everyday, until he killed all the giants.
They had never bothered to ask the charmed giant if anyone at the keep was a spellcaster.
---
Most of the bad guys in the AP I remade. So Mokmurian is a little bit tougher.
---
Mokmurian's response was to hand out potions of see invisibility. Especially to his Roc Riders.
Still pissed he scryed "whoever fireballed us today" which allows the PCs a +10 to their will save against the scrying. The party's wizard rolled a 1.
Mok-mok and a couple giants teleported to the PCs and beat the crap out of them and did quite a bit of damage to their house. Mokmurian didn't take any damage during the fight, but the 3 guys he teleported in with died, so he teleported out.
---
Now the PCs are worried, the bad guy knows who they are and can scry/teleport them whenever he wants. But they can do the same to him.
So now the PCs are about a mile south of the stone fortress across the river, camping. They plan, if he attacks them, to just teleport away. So both the wizard and the cleric (travel domain) keep 1 teleport memorized.
---
I am playing Mok-Mok defensively for a couple days expecting the PCs to try the same tactic. So he's prepared to teleport himself and 3 of the strongest creatures at the base to them if they attack. But not currently attacking the PCs. When he gets impatient he'll hunt them down.
---
The party thinks Mok-Mok is in the black tower and sneak into it (stone shape, gloves of shaping). The encounter the monk and get extremely (and annoyingly) lucky and kill him in 2 rounds (hasted archer with deadly aim, hasted Samurai w/challenge and each crit once).
So they closed up the entrance they made into the tower and left to find a new camp site.
I think they have a couple days before someone notices the monk is dead/something is wrong.
---
What should Mokmurian do? Should I have Mok-Mok be more offensive? Maybe just memorized teleport/scrying and chase them? Teleport, hope I win initiative and Dimensional Anchor one of them? The party's will saves are decent (Samurai's is the worst at +8 but he has the resolve ability), so scrying them isn't guaranteed.


Summon/bind another couple of Forge Fiends to scout the turf....


Perhaps scry on the party every day, use greater invisibility on himself, summon monsters, teleport them to the party. He can hide, retreat a bit and watch the battle for one round and then summon more monsters, hopefully without the PCs noticing him, since they have a T Rex or 3 in their faces. Teleport out as soon as they do notice him.

Repeat immediately using scrolls of teleport, or the following day until either the PCs are wounded enough for him to take part in the battle or they do something about it like use Dimensional Anchor or something else.


I'm just curious. Has anyone's group chosen to use the following spell to thwart the Giant Raid on the village of Sandpoint?

Village Veil

I mean, you can even designate certain races as able to see through it, so any humans in the area would see it as a perfectly fine village... but the attacking giants could see a region that is devastated and lifeless.

The only "problem" is that Sandpoint is fairly large and the area is only a 10 foot cube per level... unless you use a Feat to expand the area of effect. Or multiple castings.


Since the giants know that there is a town there(since they have come here to raid Sandpoint after all)they would get a save to disbelieve the illusion, and another save with a +2 bonus when they entered the actual town. And Stone Giants have an okay will save so I think it is pretty safe to think one of them would make their save and alert the others.


My group is approaching the Library and the encounter with the Shining Child. They do not have the password, so I expect they will have to fight. The tactics given to the S.C. in the Anv. AP are fairly sparse. I am trying to flesh them out with a game plan. How does this look?

Attempt to force door
Shining Child Emerges
Blinding Light Aura (DC 25 Fort) http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/conditions#TOC-Blinded
Initiative
Turn 1) Wall of Force between him and group
Turn 2) if one of the group is on its side of wall of force then Scintillating Patern them http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/spells/scintillatingPattern.html#_scinti llating-pattern, if completely split from group then Spell Turning http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/spells/spellTurning.html#_spell-turning
Turn 3) Major Image of annother Shining Child emerging from the door
Turn 4) Drop Wall and Greater Teleport to other end of the hall
Turn 5) Symbol of Insanity on group
Turn 6) Wall of Force to cut off one member of the group from the rest if possible
Turn 7) BURN the PC culled from the pack.
Turn 8/9) Repeat turns 6/7

Thoughts?

It is worth noting that my group is fairly beefy. Barbarian heavily optimized for melee DPS with more HP than a platoon of dwarves, Greatsword Pally who's dice seem to be weighted, Wizard who has almost nothing but dmg spells, and an unoptimized druid. In melee range, they are madness unleashed. At ranged, pretty much only the wizard is effective.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I also have some questions regarding the shining child. My players still have the chime and I was wondering if using it would count as forcing the door to open or if it would make the door magically think the key was being used. The text also says that the door can summon an endless number of them making me think that a party could farm them for xp. Then again I can see a party without a reliable means of unlocking things being worn down by the little glowing children.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Small note: Check on the write-up for Rings of Chiming. They were nerfed significantly since 2nd edition AD&D from what I've heard - something like having a 11 "rank" for disable device that can be used untrained, ten times maximum.

So for instance, using the Chimes to open the portal in the Hut in the third Reign of Winter module has a significant chance of failure.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Upon reading up on the chime of unlocking it is basically a knock spell with a +11 instead of a +10, only opens 1 lock, and dispels all arcane locks lower than 15th level automatically. So I guess the real question is does a knock spell count as forcing the door open?


1 person marked this as a favorite.

The door to the Library is a confusing puzzle - made so by the way it's presented (AE version.)

First let's quote from the AE version, p. 226.

"The bronze doors that lead to area C7 are locked by a persistent arcane lock spell (CL 15th)—even if it is dispelled, the arcane lock remanifests 1d4 rounds after the doors are closed again. The doors can be opened safely with the key that Mokmurian carries (he took the key from the clockwork librarian inside area C7 after using knock to bypass the doors). The doors are magically reinforced and difficult to damage or break down (hardness 20, hp 120, Break DC 45). Worse, a deadly outsider bound here not long after the Therassic wizard-monks finished building the library itself wards the doors—it is summoned to attack anyone who attempts to open the doors without the key. A password (“Viosanxi,” indicated on the final scroll of the Emerald Codex in area A14) uttered during any attempt to force open the door prevents the monster from being summoned.

CREATURE: Any attempt to force open the doors to area C7 without uttering the password causes the door’s surface to become suffused with a dull gray glow..."

To further confuse things, quoting from the Writ of Entry and Access - Handout 4-1 (p.209)
"To be presented to the clockwork librarian of the Therassic Library for the securing of full access to all archives held within. Ware the shining guardians, for they guard the library without bias, and any who would enter are counted thieves and vandals to be slaughtered.
Speak aloud the name of the Master Architect, Viosanxi, afore entry is attempted via the bronze doors, if thou wouldst avoid their blinding wrath."

Now, when I read the Writ, my interpretation is you need the password to avoid the shining child no matter how you open the doors. But if I read the text about the doors, it appears a knock spell is all you need (since that's how Mokmurian got in the first time) and after that all you need is the key. Further, as written (though it makes little sense) the only use for the password is if you try to brute force the doors. Why would you create a password for just that case? Isn't that the specific case where you would want the guardian to appear? Also "missing" - a disable device DC for any mundane lock. which might make sense if there were no mundane lock but in that case was does the key do?

Hey maybe the Arcane Lock spell description will help us... (Core, p.244)
"An arcane lock spell cast upon a door, chest, or portal magically locks it. You can freely pass your own arcane lock without affecting it. If the locked object has a lock, the DC to open that lock increases by 10 while it remains attached to the object. If the object does not have a lock, this spell creates one that can only be opened with a DC 20 disable Device skill check. A door or object secured with this spell can be opened only by breaking in or with a successful dispel magic or knock spell. Add 10 to the normal DC to break open a door or portal affected by this spell. A knock spell does not remove an arcane lock; it only suppresses the effect for 10 minutes."

Hmm, not very helpful. So if the object doesn't have a lock, the spell creates one with a disable dc of 20. Check. But the next sentence says the object can only be opened by breaking in or dispelling the magic. Say what? Then why have a disable dc for the newly created lock? Do you have to both pick the lock and then physically break in? And a disable DC 20 - you mean one that anyone can bypass with a Take 20?

Regardless of arcane lock's strange language I suggest modifying the structure as follows:

Any passage through the doors without the password triggers the Shining Child. Mokmurian fought it his first time also. Then the Clockwork Librarian gave him the key and password (it's not a protector, it's a librarian.) The key opens the door (bypasses the arcane lock.) You can also bypass the arcane lock with a knock spell, but without the password, you face the guardian.

To get to fujisempai's original question: the chime of opening does NOT work here. Core, p. 506: "A chime of opening also automatically dispels a hold portal spell or even an arcane lock cast by a wizard of lower than 15th level." The first sentence of the door description explicitly states the arcane lock was cast at 15th level. I do not believe that is a coincidence.

(What? Why didn't I say that in the first place? What do you mean I'm long-winded and pedantic? Do you even know what that word means?)


Quote:
CREATURE: Any attempt to force open the doors to area C7 without uttering the password causes the door's surface to become suffused with a dull gray glow. The glow rapidly brightens to a near-blinding intensity, and then a strange figure floats out of the door's surface.

To me casting Knock is an attempt to force the doors open to me.

As for getting past the trap.
Detect magic would have revealed the door was magical and He could have simply dispelled the magical trap and went in the first time.
Or saw that it was a conjuration spell and prepared Dismissal. Once inside he just took the key from the librarian.

Quote:
The doors can be opened safely with the key that Mokmurian carries (he took the key from the clockwork librarian inside area C7 after using knock to by pass the doors).

A better way would have been for Mokmurian to just dimension door though the door and ignore it completely.


I would agree that knock is forcing the door but I think a trap that doesn't go off is a sign of DM failure.

Just kidding. Mostly. As far as you know.

Mokmurian cannot dimension door past the door or teleport for that matter - from AE p. 227: "Furthermore, extradimensional travel does not function in this chamber—the entire place is warded by a permanent dimensional lock effect (CL 20th)."


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Ok so group probably doesn't get in until they defeat mokmurian. Got it.


I am getting ready to start Fortress of the Stone Giants with my group and I'm trying to put together maps for use with the raid on Sandpoint at the beginning of the adventure. I've seen great maps by Digital Mystic (listed on the Community Created Stuff form), but they don't have grids on them, which I'd like if I'm going to print them out for use at our table. So, I was wondering what other GMs used for these maps. Did you use any of the Gamemastery flip-mats? If so, which ones? I've seen that a lot of people used the Town Square flip mat, but which other ones did you find useful for this encounter? What other maps have you found/used?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

Silver Crusade

Foozil wrote:


I am getting ready to start Fortress of the Stone Giants with my group and I'm trying to put together maps for use with the raid on Sandpoint at the beginning of the adventure. I've seen great maps by Digital Mystic (listed on the Community Created Stuff form), but they don't have grids on them, which I'd like if I'm going to print them out for use at our table. So, I was wondering what other GMs used for these maps. Did you use any of the Gamemastery flip-mats? If so, which ones? I've seen that a lot of people used the Town Square flip mat, but which other ones did you find useful for this encounter? What other maps have you found/used?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

I'm just about up to this same point. We're one session away from finishing Hook Mountain Massacre, so we'll be starting Fortress of the Stone Giants in probably 2-4 weeks, and I'm wondering how everyone handles the town-wide mapping. And I thought the Hook Mountain caverns were big and annoying to map!

It's obviously not possible to have a grid map of the entire town. What do you have? The places where combat are most likely to take place should probably have combat grid maps prepared in advance, but I need to figure out what spots are most likely for that, and how many such maps I should prepare.

And there's also the issue of the party throwing long range attacks at the dragon or giants, even if they're nowhere near them. Our sorceress can fly above town and specializes in fireballs converted to acid damage, and we've got a ranger with a composite bow and enough bonuses to actually consider firing from a couple of range increments away.

But as someone else asked earlier in the thread, and I didn't see an answer, how do you handle PC movement between sections of town? Figuring out the distances and tracking their movement times seems like it could be difficult. We've got two PCs who have methods of flight, one of which can be shared (fly spell can be cast on others), and a cavalier who will probably relish the opportunity to actually ride his warhorse into battle, so we'll probably be looking at 60 ft speeds all around once everyone is either mounted or flying. But they have no teleportation abilities, so no dimension dooring around town from this group.


Fromper wrote:

...It's obviously not possible to have a grid map of the entire town. What do you have? The places where combat are most likely to take place should probably have combat grid maps prepared in advance, but I need to figure out what spots are most likely for that, and how many such maps I should prepare...

...But as someone else asked earlier in the thread, and I didn't see an answer, how do you handle PC movement between sections of town?...

It may just be the mathematician in me, but what's wrong with the poster map and a ruler?

We used colored glass beads for each group (even a group of stone giants and bears would be smaller than a glass bead on that scale). For areas where combat is pretty much inevitable (the north gate, the bridge by the sawmill, and wherever you plan to have Longtooth land) vinyl maps are nice.

But quite literally, I had the beads on the poster map, had them roll Perception to see the giants arriving at the various locations (using modifiers based on ruler measurements), went turn-by-turn, and the *only* vinyl mat we used was for the north gate. Otherwise it was a lot of fun hand-waving and mad Dimension Doors by the sorcerer to get the party all over the place.

It was a lot of fun. Like a board game. But with Pathfinder!


My group's now entering the caves under Jorgenfist, and I have to say that the Deathwebs are a surprisingly effective foe. Indeed, one player ended up at 10 hit points at one point, and I'm quite certain the group was sweating for a bit there!

They started out looking into the cave and seeing the chamber from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - you know the room. The Insect Chamber. Deciding to check the other caves out first rather than wade into insectville, they encountered four Wyverns (as I've a group of five and like to keep things interesting - and amusingly enough, one player is artistic enough she used roll20 to turn one Wyvern into BatWyvern, a second into Mr. Impossible Wyvern, and a third into Darkwing Wyvern... I should take a screenshot!)... and ended up with the Staff of Heaven and Earth.

One Gust of Wind from the staff eliminated most of the vermin, and the group entered... only to see webs. Simply handled. Burning Sphere! Oh dear Lord what in the world is THAT?!?

That's when I showed them a URL to a Deathweb picture. And they saw all those little eyes peeking out of the spider husks. One player described them as a Spider Pinata Filled With Spiders, and that's a very good description. The four Deathwebs then proceeded to have fun.

First up? Awesome Blow knocking the Eldritch Knight into the Arcane Trickster/Swashbuckler NPC, knocking both down. And then? A Deathweb biting the axe-throwing Ranger (she doesn't do a huge amount of damage, but it's a cool character design and I gave her some extra cash to build the magic returning axes for the Rule of Cool factor - besides, it's more interesting having her character built to be fun rather than your typical giant-slaying archer). Oh look, a failed Fortitude Save...

Unfortunately for the Deathwebs, the Sorceress and Cleric were untouched. They also only hit the Swashbuckler once, and she made her save (AC in the 30s and the modified Deathweb only had a +12 to hit). Still, they got the Ranger down to 10 HPs and reduced the EK to below half... and their one blow on the Swashbuckler DID take out a third of her hit points. And of course there was the Nope! factor of horrific undead spider things. It made for a run and amusing encounter. :)

Silver Crusade

NobodysHome wrote:
Fromper wrote:

...It's obviously not possible to have a grid map of the entire town. What do you have? The places where combat are most likely to take place should probably have combat grid maps prepared in advance, but I need to figure out what spots are most likely for that, and how many such maps I should prepare...

...But as someone else asked earlier in the thread, and I didn't see an answer, how do you handle PC movement between sections of town?...

It may just be the mathematician in me, but what's wrong with the poster map and a ruler?

We used colored glass beads for each group (even a group of stone giants and bears would be smaller than a glass bead on that scale). For areas where combat is pretty much inevitable (the north gate, the bridge by the sawmill, and wherever you plan to have Longtooth land) vinyl maps are nice.

But quite literally, I had the beads on the poster map, had them roll Perception to see the giants arriving at the various locations (using modifiers based on ruler measurements), went turn-by-turn, and the *only* vinyl mat we used was for the north gate. Otherwise it was a lot of fun hand-waving and mad Dimension Doors by the sorcerer to get the party all over the place.

It was a lot of fun. Like a board game. But with Pathfinder!

What poster map? Do you mean this, which isn't even available anymore in paper form from Paizo? I see it's available on Amazon for $20, but that's a lot of money for a half assed map that maybe kinda sorta helps with one battle.


Which is one of my problems with these APs. I run the APs to save myself time... but I'd rather they include maps of various encounters where they don't include any sort of map at all than a serial story I don't bother reading. Though Runelords AE doesn't exactly have THAT problem. ;)


Fromper wrote:
NobodysHome wrote:
Fromper wrote:

...It's obviously not possible to have a grid map of the entire town. What do you have? The places where combat are most likely to take place should probably have combat grid maps prepared in advance, but I need to figure out what spots are most likely for that, and how many such maps I should prepare...

...But as someone else asked earlier in the thread, and I didn't see an answer, how do you handle PC movement between sections of town?...

It may just be the mathematician in me, but what's wrong with the poster map and a ruler?

We used colored glass beads for each group (even a group of stone giants and bears would be smaller than a glass bead on that scale). For areas where combat is pretty much inevitable (the north gate, the bridge by the sawmill, and wherever you plan to have Longtooth land) vinyl maps are nice.

But quite literally, I had the beads on the poster map, had them roll Perception to see the giants arriving at the various locations (using modifiers based on ruler measurements), went turn-by-turn, and the *only* vinyl mat we used was for the north gate. Otherwise it was a lot of fun hand-waving and mad Dimension Doors by the sorcerer to get the party all over the place.

It was a lot of fun. Like a board game. But with Pathfinder!

What poster map? Do you mean this, which isn't even available anymore in paper form from Paizo? I see it's available on Amazon for $20, but that's a lot of money for a half assed map that maybe kinda sorta helps with one battle.

Wow! Don't blame you for the angry icon! Yep, that's got I think Sandpoint and Varisia, so nowhere near worth $20, but that's what we had. I think I paid what? $7 back when we first started RotRL.

Silver Crusade

Got a weird situation to start this book. My group found the note at Hook Mountain about the attack on Sandpoint at the end of last session, and they've been emailing about how to handle it before next session.

One of the suggestions someone came up with is using magic (Sending) to contact Sandpoint and tell them to evacuate, long before the PCs can get there to repel the invasion. Since they don't currently have any teleportation options, it would be over a week of travel time after the message arrives and before the PCs get there.

So I'm debating how to handle that. Do I have the town actually evacuate, so there's nobody there when they fight the giants? Do I have the townsfolk refuse to evacuate from such a vague warning, since they don't actually know when the giant attack might arrive, and they don't want to completely put their lives on hold waiting to return? Do I have the giants attack while the townsfolk are still there, before the PCs arrive? If the attack does happen after the PCs get back there, that would mean they have plenty of time to send to Magnimar for reenforcements, too.

I'm hoping this ends up not happening, since I'm having them level up now, and the sorceress might take Teleport as a known spell this time. I know they've talked about how that could be a helpful spell to have around in the past, so I know it's on her list of possibilities.

But if they do have to travel back to Sandpoint the hard way, how should I handle it if they warn the town in advance of the coming giant attack?


As I've posted in other threads (or maybe this one a ways up... I'm lazy), real-world analogies indicate that you cannot hope to evacuate an entire town, no matter how "real" the danger. A significant number of stubborn residents are going to "stick it out". Since the time and specifics of the attack are so vague, I'd expect that number to be pretty high in this case -- maybe around 40% of residents don't heed the warning, and you end up with 50-100 NPC casualties from the attack. (After all, the giants aren't there to kill people, so they're just going to march in, kill anyone in the way, and march out again, so it's not going to be a HUGE slaughter.)

In this case, you know your players better than we do. If your players know full well that an attack on Sandpoint is coming, you give them a level-up to prepare, and they still stubbornly refuse to take Teleport, nor aim for the closest city where they might be able to purchase one, I would go ahead and have the giants sack Sandpoint uncontested. I don't like the "video game mentality" that the world will wait for the heroes, so if the heroes consciously choose to be slow, stuff happens. There are several other threads where GMs ran the attack without the "heroes" around, and the players got to run low-level NPCs (Hemlock, Zantus, etc.) against the giants, leading to a hopelessly one-sided battle that cemented the PCs' desire to do away with the giant menace once and for all.

-HOWEVER-, if you know for a fact that your players will hate you for this, then you're kind of stuck slowing down the giants. Maybe they sack some other cities. Maybe they get lost and have to stop and ask for directions. Who knows?

In short, I'd sack the city, and give your players the opportunity to play out the attack as NPCs. It worked well in the other threads I've read, but you know your players best.


I always thought Teleport was just one of those spells you learned as soon as you could, like Fireball, Raise Dead, Fly and Cacophonous Call

Silver Crusade

NobodysHome wrote:
If your players know full well that an attack on Sandpoint is coming, you give them a level-up to prepare, and they still stubbornly refuse to take Teleport, nor aim for the closest city where they might be able to purchase one,

I thought about them maybe buying a teleport somewhere, but where? They're currently at Hook Mountain. Probably the closest place to buy a teleport is Magnimar, which is a week's travel by river boat and only one additional day by horseback to Sandpoint, anyway.

I'm hoping the sorceress just takes teleport as a known spell, as that would solve the whole problem. Though I just looked up the spell and did the math, and it'll take her 3 trips to carry the entire party, plus 2 return trips for herself. She can only take 3 medium sized passengers at a time, and the party consists of 4 other PCs, a medium companion animal, and a large mount that counts as 2 mediums for teleportation (plus 4 more generic horses that would probably just get left behind). Just for convenience, I might be a nice GM and let the badger ride the warhorse mount as cargo while teleporting instead of counting as another medium creature, which would let her transport them all in 2 trips instead of 3.

If they don't try to warn Sandpoint magically (they don't currently have the means, but Sending was another spell they were considering for the level up), then I'll probably give them 8-9 days to get there before the attack, which should get them there right in time if they hurry. That seems to be pretty much what the adventure assumes, anyway.

Silver Crusade

captain yesterday wrote:
I always thought Teleport was just one of those spells you learned as soon as you could, like Fireball, Raise Dead, Fly and Cacophonous Call

For a wizard, it's worth getting in the spell book right away. But for a sorcerer that only gets one known 5th level spell at level 10? Is that really a spell you plan to cast a few times per day, every day of adventuring?


Plus there's the off-target chance with the 5th level Teleport spell ...


Hmm, this is not something I expect to say very often but I think NobodysHome is sending you down the wrong path.

Having the Giants attack before your pc's get there has several problems:

1. That should leave Sandpoint totally destroyed. There's no way (as written - both the giants and the NPC's) that the people of Sandpoint (including those with class levels) can stop or be more than a speed bump to the giants. And the AP is very clear - as scripted, the town will burn to the ground from dragonfire if someone doesn't stop him and the giants and give the townsfolk cover to put out the fires.

2. I would be very uncomfortable placing such a burden on my players unless it had been very well established the world moves on regardless of what they do. So unless you've had previous circumstances where player absence or inaction had consequences (oh, why you were off in Magnimar, your would-be girlfriend Shayliss hooked up with someone else; while you were chasing red herrings, the ghouls took out three more farm families; while you were getting magical items made, and not going to the Foxglove townhouse, the Skinsaw cult killed three more people, etc.) it doesn't seem fair to spring it on them now. What's that? You can't travel 400 miles in 1 day? Oh, too bad, your favorite (home?) town just got creamed. Sucks to be you.

3. The GM has some accountability here too. Not to say anything has been done wrong but if you're at the end of Hook and there is only 1 arcane caster in the party (sorceror) and no divine caster capable of even a 4th level spell (which Sending is for a cleric), that's an unusual party composition for which adjustments absolutely need to be made by the GM. And no, expecting a Sorceror to take the relatively-useless-on-a-daily-basis teleport is not a reasonable adjustment (as Fromper pointed out.) Especially as their first and only 5th level spell.

4. There's no explicit timetable in the AP to fulfill here. There's no evidence the note from Mokmurian didn't arrive 2 hours before the players got there or the Teraktinus isn't still 2 weeks away from Sandpoint when the players find it. All Mokmurian's note says is "soon."

In my interpretation, the intention is for the attack to take place a day or two after the pc's return to Sandpoint whether that's 2 hours or two weeks after they find the note. Also, no matter how much they try, no aid from Magnimar should be available regardless of elapsed time. <Insert corrupt, self-absorbed bureaucracy here>

As long as the pc's are making a reasonable effort to get back as quickly as they can according to their own wherewithal, I would argue it should proceed as laid out in the AP. Now, if they wander off on some "damn, fool crusade" all bets are off.


LOL. Now you're just being nice!

I'm wrong more often than not, and I'll happily admit it.

But I *am* going to argue against you and Fromper on Teleport. We have yet to run an AP where the arcane caster didn't take it as his/her very first 5th-level spell because it *is* so critical to APs.

Other than that, Latrecis is spot-on, as usual -- play according to your party's expectations.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Fromper:

I'm getting close to running the Attack on Sandpoint, and I plan on using Jimmy "Big Daddy" Ho-Chunk's maps on this thread to map the raid. Overall troop movement happens on this map, while actual tactical fighting will happen on a battlemat.


I'm with Latrecis, especially point 4.

There's no indication to me that the players have to be able to teleport to Sandpoint to get there in time. Walking from Hook Mountain should be fine. I think that's what the AP *expects*.

EDIT: I don't think teleport is critical to APs at all; in fact I think much of the time the APs go out of their way to make it hard to use teleport as a convenience.


The module itself states: the attack happens after the players get back to Sandpoint - probably the morning after they get home, or a day after. Give the players enough time to touch base, to reconnect to people. Then spring the attack.

I mean, think of it this way: the players just took out the Kreeg Ogres... whose boss was told "pack up your boys and prepare to protect this raiding party." The ogres are busy making weapons and preparing for this action but ARE NOT YET READY TO MARCH. This really suggests then that the PCs should be able to get back home so long as they don't go off on a separate quest that takes several weeks before going to Sandpoint.

Silver Crusade

I'm still not sure if they'll have a Sending and/or Teleport available, so anything's possible on how this could go. The party oracle doesn't have Sending as a known spell, but he could pick it up on this level up, just like the sorceress could grab Teleport.

We've actually got a relatively "normal" party composition - one arcane, one divine, an archer, and two front liners. It's just that the arcane and divine casters are both spontaneous (sorcerer and oracle), so they don't have as much flexibility in what spells to prepare as wizards and clerics.

I'm thinking if they do go the route of Sending to Sandpoint to warn them a week or more in advance, I'll have only a small percentage actually leave. Nobody's seen a giant or dragon anywhere near Sandpoint since long before Magnimar and Sandpoint were founded, so they're likely to be skeptical of the warning, even coming from the town's local heroes. Maybe they'll send to Magnimar for help (which will get caught up in corrupt politics and not arrive in time), and send out some scouts to provide advance warning if giants are seen in the area, but at least half the townsfolk will still be there for the attack.

The Exchange

I flirted with the idea of having the giants attack Turtleback Ferry. In RotRL Sandpoint seems to be the navel of the world - everything that happens, happens there. I guess that isn't an option given the letter your PCs have seen.

In the end we ended up playing a whole new section that isn't in the books where the PCs travelled to Magnimar and beyond, having a few minor adventures on the way, until they wound up in Sandpoint. However, they didn't know about the imminent attack so it was a fairly relaxed affair. In fact, as I recall, they freed Fort Rannick and then headed off, only to come back to Hook Mountain after the attack on Sandpoint.

I would suggest you make it clear they probably have time to get to Sandpoint before the giants do. After all, the giants have got to get there too from Jorgenfist. It can be an interesting situation where you can get them to determine the route they want to take to fulfil whatever objectives they want to address before getting there - getting there as fast as they can, getting reinforcements, organising defences, and so on. This would be a good point to have useful NPCs provide advice to shape their journey and narrow down the options (so you can prepare for the eventualities).

Then you can throw some other stuff their way on the journey which might hold them up, increasing the tension. The journey from Turtleback Ferry was a lot of fun in our game because it was entirely down to me as DM, and involved me researching the various places they would wind up along the way from the Varisia gazeteer. Rather than see it as a problem, see it as an opportunity to add something of your own to the campaign. And teleporting is just soooo lazy.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Since there still seems to be some doubt, let me be clear: I recant my previous statement and would go with Latrecis, Tangent, Ian, et al., unless you think a "no PCs present" attack on Sandpoint would further the story better for your group.

As I mentioned, some groups have done it and greatly enjoyed it. But also, those excellent posters have reminded me that the book explicitly says that the heroes have time to get back to Sandpoint.

So yeah, play it by ear and do what would be "most fun" for your group. But if they wander off to Korvosa or some such to feed the pseudodragons...


1 person marked this as a favorite.

... or become Golarion Bat man... err, I mean Blackjack :-)

Dark Archive

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

He's more Zorro than Batman, really. But you're not far off.


Batman, Zorro, same dude different culture and decade :-)

I'm a big fan of both:-)


I'm just glad I finally acquired Curse of the Crimson Throne, it truly is as good as they say :-)

201 to 250 of 447 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder Adventure Path / Rise of the Runelords / Fortress of the Stone Giants (GM Reference) All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.