So, having read the AP, one of the glaring weak points in the advancement of the plot is forcing the PCs to negotiate with Emraag the dragon turtle. I just can't see how this is going to be any fun, or how it's going to make any sense. Consider: "Sail out there with these bags of loot, try and bribe this powerful dragon turtle that's been causing all kinds of problems, and by the way, there's no guarantee this will work."
Screw that. I think I'd rather have Lavinia straight-up ask the PCs to end Emraag's reign of terror once and for all. The question is, how hard would it be for a party of 7 lvl 11 characters (possibly 12 by the time they get to Emraag) to bring down a CR 16 advanced dragon turtle? Should I give them a small band of hirelings to help out, or something else? Is it just too hard - would I be sending the PCs to their doom?
My party pretty much skipped this encounter. I think it would be tricky to kill Emeragg, but not difficult to survive and drive him off. The creature has no way to get in the air, so if the party remains airborn and hits him with spells and ranged attacks they are pretty safe (other than if they get in range of his breath weapon, but protection from elements can solve that). However, it is easy for him to just dive and swim off, so the fight doesn't ammount to much. Of course if they actually bring a ship out into the water there is good chance he'll trash the ship. My players used Windwalk and just avoided the encounter. However, Farshore had been destroyed in our campaign by the savage tide, so Lavinia's role as patron had been greater diminished and wasn't even part of our campaign for this adventure. The characters went to deal with the Lord's of Dread mostly because of the threat the pearls held and for vengeance. They really had no cause to negotiate with or fight Emeragg.
|
If anything, it shows that Lavinia primarily prefers diplomacy as opposed to force, and if the turtle can somehow be made helpful, it could ultimately help protect the island from unfriendly forces (which goes to show that Lavinia thinks in the long term rather than just immediate). I plan to play it as is, but whatever the players want to do is of course up to them.
Hiya.
Well, our DM was surprised. When we went out, we had no intention of "bargaining" with such a vile, evil creature (IIRC, mostly Good PC's and a Paladin in the group).
We kicked Emraags little turtle butt in about 5 rounds. We were all about 9th/10th level. How? Group effort and a *lot* of luck...the dice were HOT for us that night, I can tell you! I don't believe one PC died in that fight...and only a handful of NPC's (mainly sailors who got steam-breathed).
Honestly? As a player in this AP, and if I'm playing a Good character (my preferred alignment), I do what I think my character would see as being 'good, and the right thing to do'. I don't take *any* metagame thinking into it (that's for character creation... ;) ). Of course, this has resulted in, shall I say, "less than optimal decisions"...and, as the adventure is written, usually results in a TPK or close to it.
IMHO, the Savage Tide really WANTS to be a heroic, swashbuckling, sea/tropics based adventure...but keeps trying to be "edgey", "dark" and "brooding" at the same time. In other words, the goals of the AP are most definitely Lawful and Good; very Paladin'esque...but then the writers shoot themselves in the foot by assuming everyone taking part in the adventure is Neutral.
hmmm, poor Emraag went down like a chump for us, literally ! Noone cared to be blackmailed and held at ransom by the old thing (basically the thought went - "What is to keep him from swimming south and eat up Farshore when the grou/we are away, now that he knows we are here and rather wealthy enough trying to buy him off ?" )
His ultimate weakness is the DEX Score - yeah, one has to know about that, but honestly, by common sense, how much dexterity does one have to expect in a dragon TURTLE ? Drop that to nothing and he becomes effectively motionless, unable to defend himself.
And unlike most real dragons, he does not enjoy the protection of Spell resistance
Players lured him in, then hit him with a barrage of of DEX-reducing spells (and no, the two broken ones from "Frostburn" are banned hereabouts", but there are plenty of other ones left ), reducing him to Dex = 0 in the very first two rounds.... wallowing helplessly... After having been struck by various fun "Ray" spells. They then sailed the ship out of breath eapon range and arc and hacked his head off. Not 'fair' in the traditional sense, but for one he wasn't angling for fair-play either and there was no Paladin around to complain either.
From a GM PoV. Sure, he went down "too easy", but if players come up with a clever plan (and it wasn't failsafe), why arbitrarily wreck it, especially if the opposition has no way of reasonably seeing the sucker punch coming ?
The group had humongous amounts of turtleshell for sale and use in magic items after that, plus a very nice "pirate style turtle-barbecue" His belly armour(-Plate) became the roofing for their mansions terrace =)
But basically - anyting bad for dragons is very bad for Emraag too. Touch attacks etc.... Empowered and maximized orbs, the works. there was even a backup plan to encase him in an ice flow to keep him from diving while ranged attackers took to the air.
he can be killed, most certainly
In fairness to the writers, the option of doing whatever you want with this situation is presented. It leaves it a little open ended for the pcs to try to negotiate if they feel like it or to fight it out if they want to. Furthermore I believe that Emraag is one of the "Infamous 7" and can be a serious trophy one way or another--it's not as though the pcs are discouraged entirely.
Furthermore, while I do agree there is a dark edgy horror element to the game it again depends on how the GM wants to present it and the pcs want to perceive it. I'm personally going for a sort of Robert E. Howard atmosphere of combined creepiness and action. So far my pcs are enjoying that, they've a few times said "wow, that was cinematic" about the action. (with hungry zombies, the savage creatures, burning ships so far)
Personally I'm planning for if need be a big slam bang encounter with Emraag--if by some chance they want to negotiate the info is there, but I'm personally planning for some serious dragon turtle action. I ran D&D way back when for like 5 years and never once got to use one.
As to how to help them out--maybe suggest stuff like using charm monster to get dinosaur allies, or have a group of eager hunters from say an Olman village want to join them to share in the glory. Perhaps Kaskus may want to come along as well, since apparently he wants to explore more. Tolin might jump in too as he might want to impress Lavinia.
Hiya.
Sorry for the semi-off topic question, but...what spells/abilities/etc. are you guys using that can reduce a creatures stat to below 1? All the spells I can find/think of all mention a stat can't be reduced below 1. Is everyone using poisons or something?
Paul
Hiya.
Sorry for the semi-off topic question, but...what spells/abilities/etc. are you guys using that can reduce a creatures stat to below 1? All the spells I can find/think of all mention a stat can't be reduced below 1. Is everyone using poisons or something?
Paul
no they aren't (against a Dragon Turtle ? lol ... ) and actually, I really like the aspect that players are smart/resourceful enough to come up with such combinations for themselves, so basically, reading the "how to kill Emraag"-report might be a bit..... cheap ?
"Phantasmal Assailiant" (SC) and "Ray of Entropy" (SC) deal straight penalties to Dexterity, amongst others.
as far as I recall (it was in mid-August) , the fight went as follows
Everyone started out with a "Protection from Fire".. app 100 points of fire protection on everyone, thanks to the spirit shaman and the Olmani ancestors... who presumably want revenge for dozens of canoes and braves !
Surprise round : Players (flying and invisible) open up with Ray of Dizziness (from a wand) and a twin-rayed Enervation (which gave Emraag a flat 5 or 6 negative levels), Emraag is now effectively reduced to either a move or standard action.
"Languor" from the Spirit Shaman costs Emraag about 10 points of Strength, but does not 'slow' him yet.
round 1 : the wizard casts another 'Enervation' for 3 negative levels, while Emraag gets hit by a Ray of Sickening (wand) and a Ray Of Clumsiness (wand), Emraag uses breath weapon and 5' "step" to partially submerge again, planning to dive away. The 'melees' aboard the "Sea Wyvern" throw harpoons (large ones with chains, thanks to Enlarge persons) trailing to the ship. Spirit Shaman uses "Kelp Strands" (we used a tuned down version), which try to encircle Emraag, as for now, they have no effect. Favoured Soul casts "Prayer", penalizing Emraag in the bargain
round 2 : Emraag with a -10 or worse penalty to his will save (and by our rules, to his initaitive ) by now fails the initial save vs. Phantasmal Assailant from the mage, wins the second... = 4 points of Dex-damage. Tries to dive out of the combat zone, but is held up by being chained to the floating ship. Even a huge turtle can't drag that underwater. The crew in the meantime keeps winching him in with the main capstan. The Spirit Shaman's "Kelp Strands" secure one hold, tying down Emraag. "Murderous Mist" from the Spirit Shaman permanently blinds Emraag, who's Reflex save modifier should have been basically 0 by then.
round 3 : The wizard's "Ray of Entropy" deals straight a 4 points of DEX Damage (as well as reducing CON and STR ) ... another Ray of Clumsiness imposes a big enough a penalty (3 or more points...) to reduce DEX from damage (8 points) and added penalty to temporarily under 0. Emraag seizes up - Escape (grappled) and action (blinded + slowed) are difficult anyway. Meanwhile, the group's close combat team starts hacking away.
[B]round 4 :{B] another "Phantasmal Assailant" strikes the much weakend turtle's brain (by now at an effective -11 to will saves ) , Emraag at DEX < 0, the water turns bloody....
Yes, my group has a penchant for debuffs, preferably those without a save. They might have been lucky on the first "Phantasmal Assailant", IIRC the save DC for that was 19, leaving the task for Emraag to save at rolling 15+. A fair 30%
Characters were solidly level 12 at the time, group of five with one active cohort (a modified Urol).
They had a scroll with "Ray of Stunning" (SC) on standby, to give them a brief moment should Emraag have made the saves against the (three prepared, IIRC) "Phantasmal Assailants"
Since the 'spirit shaman' is of Olman orgins, they found it inappropriate from a roleplaying PoV to have him use "Numbing Sphere" (FB) etc. Same went for "Flash Freeze" (FB) and "Hibernate" (FB).
"Shivering Touch" (lesser and normal, both from 'Frostburn' ) are banned in our campaigns as rather broken ( especially in conjunction with Spectral Hand... a lucky roll for the damage with this, and Emraag would have been floundering at the end of the surprise round...yeah, right ), but have similar, if even stronger effects.
Oh, and if they had had a (PC-build) bard along.... things would have been over much more quickly !
As always, let it be said, "swords wound, but research kills" (in this case, RL book reading) .
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2011 Top 16
|
Unfortunately a Penalty can't reduce his Dex below 0 and you take damage from the true score, then apply the penalty...
How many times did you use the Ray of Clumsiness??? Only the largest penalty rolled would work, it's the same as Ray of Enfeeblement they don't stack with each other.
I was surprised that my party (normally intensely bloodthirsty) decided to parlay with the dragon turtle. Apparently, their metagaming got the better of them, and when they saw Emraag was a gargantuan creature instead of just huge, they must've hedged their bets. Still, I'd wager it was due to the likelihood of the beast collapsing their only sailing vessel at the time. Their characters were none too fond of trotting through the Isle of Dread the first time, and they wanted none of it again.
Unfortunately a Penalty can't reduce his Dex below 0 and you take damage from the true score, then apply the penalty...
How many times did you use the Ray of Clumsiness??? Only the largest penalty rolled would work, it's the same as Ray of Enfeeblement they don't stack with each other.
we play this differently - the sequence of penalty and damage is decisive (for us) - so if you first impose a penalty, and then cause damage later, you can actually drop below a score of 1.... If the damage occurs AFTER the penalty.
And it was applied only once anyway- since it doesn't stack, only the higher penalty applying. We are very much aware of that, thanks, but it is still a very handy spell to reduce AC, Reflex-saves and Initiative, and it only applied to one round, before the final 4 points of damage got inflicted in round 4|
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2011 Top 16
|
Initiative? That would only matter if you hit him with it in the surprise round...
My Players tried to reason that if you hit a dragon with Ray of Clumsiness then a Dex damager like Shadowspray then you can reduce it to 0, but I looked into it and found that damage is applied to the score and then penalties are assessed by RAW.
Initiative? That would only matter if you hit him with it in the surprise round...
My Players tried to reason that if you hit a dragon with Ray of Clumsiness then a Dex damager like Shadowspray then you can reduce it to 0, but I looked into it and found that damage is applied to the score and then penalties are assessed by RAW.
We actually change initiative if a creature's DEX-Bonus changes, since it influences the order of initiative quite a bit.
No problem with your take on the RAW, but the way we take it is, that the above mentioned spells cannot drop a score below '1' on their own. If something else, especially something not bound by the limitin these specific spells' description, causes the drop... and neither Ray of Entropy, nor Phantasmal Assailant, nor most other Stat-damaging spells have that limitation.
I also read a battle report where the dropped Emraag by a combination of debuffs + a use of bardic Doomspeech (ChoR ) and a "Heartfreeze"
That's an interesting house rule, but it pretty much makes fighting any kind of dragon ridiculously easy. Obviously it's your game but that's not how penalties and ability score damage are supposed to interact.
aehh, right... I mean, where is the problem of striking a dragon with repeated or even a twin-ray Ray of Entropy, Phanstasmal Assailants (one quickened) or something else ? There are far too many other spells doing damage to ability scores...
The thing that protect a dragon (and they does so very well) are the very thing Emraag notably lacks - mobility and spell resistance (SR 22 for a equal CR mature adult Blue Dragon ).With "Ray" spells almost universally of "close" range it can get pretty hard to close with a dragon and hit him with a suitable number of debuffs which have to pierce his SR etc etc. all while the dragon strikes back. If that makes fighting dragon's "ridiculously easy" to your mind.....
At level 13, players get access to spells like "Stun Ray" and "Avasculate", which, if they penetrate spell resistance, will stun a target for certain (even if saves are made) and even cause 50% of current HPs damage in the bargain... Stun a dragon in mid-swoop with 50% damage before it even crashes ? Ouch....
BTW, anything not explicitly ruled out by the RAW, but inside the RAW and its mechanics is actually legal and possible. Not a "houserule" - actually quite the opposite.
You might also want to take note that "Shadow Spray" affects STR, not DEX as you mistakenly quote.
|
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2011 Top 16
|
Ability damage and penalties are different animals by RAW. There is an order of operations when combining the two. Damage affects the score, then the penalty is applied. The only thing that can drop a score to 0 is damage (barring a specific exception cited in the spell). If you drop the score to 3 with damage and you then hit it with a -25 penalty it still only drops to 1.
And you're right it wasn't shadowspray... it was ice knife.
Ability damage and penalties are different animals by RAW. There is an order of operations when combining the two. Damage affects the score, then the penalty is applied. The only thing that can drop a score to 0 is damage (barring a specific exception cited in the spell). If you drop the score to 3 with damage and you then hit it with a -25 penalty it still only drops to 1.
that was never in doubt. But the other way round, it is _not_ impossible by the RAW or SRD. Nevermind that it could not drop beyond 0 anway. But please point me to the precise quote where it states that a penalty cannot drop a temporary score below 1. Except in a specific effects description.
WAIT a second - lets take this to PM or another thread, this one is hijacked enough as is
Creative Director
|
IMHO, the Savage Tide really WANTS to be a heroic, swashbuckling, sea/tropics based adventure...but keeps trying to be "edgey", "dark" and "brooding" at the same time. In other words, the goals of the AP are most definitely Lawful and Good; very Paladin'esque...but then the writers shoot themselves in the foot by assuming everyone taking part in the adventure is Neutral.
Just for the record... I don't personally consider paladins as swashbucklers. The best alignment for a "swashbuckler" type character is chaotic good, I think. Which is why there's a lot of "this goes better for chaotic characters than it does lawful characters" elements in Savage Tide. There's not really any foot shooting involved.
AND: My group forgot to contact Emraag when they started "Lightless Depths" and again when they were leaving Galavant Cove. He noticed when they were leaving and attacked, killed half their crew, was about to capsize the Sea Wyvern and kill some PCs... when a super lucky character managed to get two critical hits on the poor thing in a row. The next character got a third one. We use the Critical Hit deck in my game, and poor Emraag got stabbed in the heart, slashed in the lung, and stunned all in a row. The battle went from "this is gonna be a TPK" to "Wow. That was easy!" in the span of 6 seconds in game time. D&D rocks! :-)
|
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2011 Top 16
|
Some spells or abilities impose an effective ability score reduction, which is different from ability score loss. Any such reduction disappears at the end of the spell’s or ability’s duration, and the ability score immediately returns to its former value.
So ability score reduction (via penalties) are different than ability score loss. It modifies the ACTUAL score, but doesn't change it. Damage however does affect the Score itself. Therefore, you apply the penalty to the actual score (which hasn't really changed). If you reduce the score via damage the penalty (from spells such as Ray of Enfeeblement or Clumbsiness) is assessed to the new score but still can't take it below 1.
apologies for the threadjack...
Some spells or abilities impose an effective ability score reduction, which is different from ability score loss. Any such reduction disappears at the end of the spell’s or ability’s duration, and the ability score immediately returns to its former value.So ability score reduction (via penalties) are different than ability score loss. It modifies the ACTUAL score, but doesn't change it. Damage however does affect the Score itself. Therefore, you apply the penalty to the actual score (which hasn't really changed). If you reduce the score via damage the penalty (from spells such as Ray of Enfeeblement or Clumbsiness) is assessed to the new score but still can't take it below 1.
apologies for the threadjack...
no sorry, this is just overly sophistic bending of the rules to defend a certain POV. There is nothing in that statement that actually declares a mandatory order in which penalties or damages are applied - unlike, for example, the statement that temporary HP are deducted from first in case of damage.
Besides this a) never being a thread of "how to kill Emraag in a failsafe way" which might have reason to refer to even the more obscure take on the RAW and SRD, but rather a battle report on one way Emraag was taken down
and
b) as I stated above already, in the course of said battle, the difference of our PoVs would have been a single standard or move action by Emraag (at massive penalties ), since the ability damage exceeded his Dexterity score on round 4 anyway, after suffering a second "Phantasmal Assailant", which does actual instantaneous damage to WIS and DEX.
@primemover003
If you ever pass through Schleswig (Northern Germany), feel free oto reanimate this amd I will happily debate it with you over a cask of beer ad nauseam (my treat) , which, I guess would certainly be an enjoyable thing to do.
Das ist eine fantastische Idee! Ich werden dss sehr viel mogen!
lol, mangled by the translation engine... *sobs for the german 'umlauts' which were lost in action*
but the message got through
Well, I'm thinking it would be a lot of fun to have the PCs specifically set out to kill Emraag, and then have a side-quest that involves looting his lair. I was thinking of something Moby Dick-inspired, where Lavinia recruits a darfallen Leviathan Hunter who's killed one of Emraag's children...he helps the party, supplies them with war canoes, and the party sets out in small groups in the middle of the night to bring the dragon turtle down.