The Vine Horrors can animate vines which "Attack like an assasin vine". Does this animated vine get improved grab? entangle ability?
I was using it with entangle and that seemed a bit overpowered.
I used them with the entangle ability, if the Party Cleric didn't have the Travel Domain they would have been in real trouble.
Also once they kill on Assassin Vine the horrors can just animate another one, my players quickly learned to close with the horrors as soon as they could. Not being able to charge (without a Balance check) as the sargasso is difficult terrain made things tough as well.
It's very easy to play the horrors intelligently and massacre an unprepared party, have the horrors hold back and use the vines to entangle and attack the party.
But the horrors aren't that intelligent (Int 9) so I generally had them lumber forwards to attack the party and then they aren't so dangerous.
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I played them smart, as you say, standing back and let the assassin vines do their dirty work. As soon as the party realized they could keep making new assassin vines at will, they brought the fight to the horrors and survived.
The party has decent ranged attack ability, and the aventi barbarian and mulhorandi monk/cleric grappling specialist (we play in the realms) ranged between horrors and took them down without too much fuss.
They did lose Avner and his servants, but there weren't too many tears shed from that loss.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32
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Resurrect thread!
I'll be running the first wave next week and wanted to gather any fresh thoughts and experiences. The party are 7th level and woke up in the Sargasso. The first question was "The cleric and druid can choose their spells after waking up, right?" and this was followed by them stocking up on Junglerazer from the Spell Compendium! (1d10 damage per level vs plant creatures, 120 foot line!)
Yikes!
The wizard converted spell slots from higher level spells into lower level slots (FR feat somewhere) and summoned about 60 unseen servants (3 x Servant Horde) to clear the hull and push the ship. (drag 6000lb should get it moving a little)
Yikes!
I decided I wanted to run the Sargasso, so to get the depressing atmosphere I let them blast away and clear a bit of a path. Then a half mile wide sargasso ribbon bobbed up to the surface, blocking the sea and locking them in further than ever. Cue disgusted players :)
Now they're out of 3rd and 4th level spells and it's getting dark. Time for a few waves of Vine Horrors.
The ship is high and dry if you look at the picture, so what shall I do with the assassin vines? They have another four or five hours of Unseen Servants to scrape the hull, so having the vines animate inside the hull will be tricky. How did you do this? The vines and horrors will need to climb a good 30 feet of hull to get to the deck - any ideas on how to make this work?
I think I'll need to get the hull covered in vines before any Horrors can attack but I don't want to just ignore the sacrifice they made in summoning so many unseen servants. Maybe have them stave off the growing, engulfing weed until the spells run out (about 10pm) and then just let rip? How long would you say it would take for vines to start coming over the railings?
I'm looking forward to this but I want to do it right!
I think I'll need to get the hull covered in vines before any Horrors can attack but I don't want to just ignore the sacrifice they made in summoning so many unseen servants. Maybe have them stave off the growing, engulfing weed until the spells run out (about 10pm) and then just let rip? How long would you say it would take for vines to start coming over the railings?
I'm looking forward to this but I want to do it right!
When my group landed in the Sargasso, we had no idea what we were doing. After the first wave, we spent Day Two using every available hand to seal the inside of the hull with pitch, trying to create a safe place for the passengers and crew (we were goodie-goodies, what can I say?). None of us had the ability to summon a bajillion Unseen Servants, but I think the thought and feeling from the players was the same.
So toss them a bone, and let that swarm hold off the majority of the vines -- until, as you say, 10pm, at which point the Horrors begin undoing everything the PCs worked on. The players get rewarded for their efforts by significantly decreasing any lives lost, but ought to realize very quickly that the stalemate they've worked out will only last for as long as they have food and water. After a couple of days, the pressure should be from the crew and passengers to get out there and be the heroes they're supposed to be.
I think you've got a great set-up for the "against the odds" theme of the Sargasso, all in all. Have they checked out the Rage yet?
Do not forget to include the eerie whisperings. Perhaps some NPC's are tempted to leave the ship and investigate when the PC's are not looking. The ship might be safe, but sure the rest of the crew and passengers want the PC's to get the NPC's back safe. In that case they have to explore the sargasso and meet the vine horrors.
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I'd have Urol go exploring in a heartbeat, but the barbarian critted him down to about -30 under the influence of the gibbering mouther :)
I just thought about replacing the Mother with a corrupted sea dragon (since there aren't many dragons in the arc) but I'm not sure a dragon the party could handle would be believable - it's too mobile for a start. Still, there are five level 7 tweaked characters (I usually give them xp as if they're 8th) so I can be pretty nasty with the vines and the tweaking of the Mother.
Some sort of dispelling ability would be nice - maybe have the young shoot out Dispelling Touch weed strands from their mouths, stripping one spell every time? I'll bump up the save DC for concentration checks too.
How about having entangled characters dragged under water for drowning attacks?
I gave the PCs a creepy night and a heart attack, when they saw a flash of red out on the sargasso mat. They found a little girl, wearing a red dress. She said she was lost, looking for the sailors on her boat, that they didn't come back. She was grungy, underfed, and shell-shocked. The party felt terrible, gave her food, promsied to keep her safe.
I had a cabin on the rage be sealed with pitch. When the PCs broke it down, they found a room untouched by the vine horrors. In the far corner of the room was a hunkered figure. When they got close, they saw a small skeleton in the tattered remanants of a red dress.
Every player at my table's eyes opened wide and they all looked at each other, then pantomimed looking down at the girl in their midst. She whispered, "They said I'd be safe, they said they'd come back. They never came back." Then I hit play on my computer and played a sound file of a high pitched scream with an echo filter, at crazy loud volume. The girl dissapeared afterwards.
The results were awesome. After the screaming died down, the rage began. My party was of fairly good bent, and some were just the sort who didn't like seeing children hurt, regardless of ethos. By the time they got to the core of the Sargasso, they were ready to blow the whole thing to bits. When it actually was breaking up, and they were clining to debris waiting for their ship, they saw a red butterfly wing its way across the water to them. It landed on each of them for a moment, then up into the sky and out of sight.
Every once in a while, I mention a red butterfly, and they go on high alert. Its awesome.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32
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Oh good lords and ladies, that's awesome, BB! I haven't done a spooky moment like that in ages! I think the last really memorable one was an old FR campaign where the party had their first Raise Dead. They'd got the scroll and propped the fallen paladin of Torm up on a pile of logs, which they had to set fire to while reading the scroll. The whole clearing fell silent and the flames lapped up round their fallen comrade. Then they heard the sounds of fighting, fading in and out, and the wind began to pick up. Suddenly gusts of wind rushed from the four major compass points, putting out the fire and lifting the corpse a foot into the air. Everything went dark, the body came back down, and the whole group just stared at me, speechless. And I went,
"HHHUUUURRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" at the top of my voice as he drew his first, painful breath! You could have heard a pin drop!
Permission to emulate red dress girl? I don't suppose you still have an mp3 of that scream? :)
100% AWESOMENESS & PURE GENIUS
YOINK!!!!
It's this kind of thing that makes the difference between a good adventure and one you'll never forget!
(your soundfile wouldn't by any chance be available somewhere?)
Hagor
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Well, that was unexpected.
We played tonight and it didn't go as well as it did for the Bard. I knew that at some stage after the encounter I'd be asked to explain what the girl was so I figured she'd be some kind of undead. Not an illusion but maybe a ghost or some other kind of haunting type of undead. Anyway, she was technically undead.
Night fell, the mist rolled in, and it all got very spooky. The pary sent out floating light globes to encircle the ship and spotted the little red figure trudging aimlessly through the mist and slimy seaweed.
"Detecting Evil" called the wizard, "It's not evil, guys!"
"Hello the small, red cloaked gnome/ halfling/ whatever! State your business in this godforsaken hole!" said the fighter, his bow trained on the shambling figure.
"Please help!" said the little girl.
"Detecting undead!" said the wizard softly, "Uh-oh, it's undead. Not evil though." (louder) "What help do you need?"
"They haven't come back. They said they'd come back"
"BEGONE FOUL UNDEAD SPAWN OF HELL!" cried the (good) cleric.
And he turned her.
Yeah, im lucky I have players who don't sweat the mechanical angle, or rather are willing to play up the thematics. Half the time I say undead, they don't think to themselves "Immune to crits, positive energy hurts them, negative energy heals them", they just think "oh crap, the living dead". At my table, your experiences would have most likely gone like this:
Detect Evil "I don't sense any maliciousness, aside from what already pervades this horrible place."
Detect Undead "I fear she might be a restless spirit or a revenant of some kind. Certainly she is no longer one of the living."
Turn Undead (If it even came to that, my PCs tend to not like using resources when there is no current threat) "May you forget the suffering that must have led you to this aweful fate. Find rest at last, in Pelor's name, amen."
My players make me cry sometimes. In the good way.
Sorry you didn't have as much luck.
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No worries. Every roll he made for the rest of the night was very low indeed. Divine Retribution...
Speaking of which, I haven't decided if the girl was neutral or good. I can't even remember if a good cleric can turn good undead, or just rebuke them. I'm thinking his god might be a little displeased.
What do you guys think? Teach him a lesson or undead is undead and that place was spooky enough to expect some sort of trap or trick.
Just wait until they find the girl's body and see whether they realize their mistake. Then decide whether the gods have to teach him a lesson.
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She'll definitely have time to come back. We played for 3 and a half hours and never finished the first attack with 5 horrors. Those assassin vines are nasty! I killed 3 crewmen, Skald is unconscious, Amella is unconscious, Avner is unconscious, the families are in a Rope Trick, the cleric is in single figures, the party hates the entangle effect, 6 assassin vines were killed and came back and now, finally, they've spotted the vine horrors :)
At this rate, playing every 2 weeks, it'll be christmas if I want to have a few waves assualting them!
Ghosts of enough strength can effectively NEVER be truly defeated. You could (if your players ask to see the mechanics) simply decide that the extreme trauma of the girl gave her a bonus to her ghostly revivification rolls.
I beleive turning, while alignment based in origin, isnt alignment based in application. You must be good or neutral nice to turn, but you could turn the ghost of a paladin just fine.
If the gods saw fit to punish him, I could see them removing a use of turning the next couple days. Thats a light but noticable punishment (specially if he uses divine metamagic feats).