Jaded Ravens and Tides of Dread. Semi-Spoilers

[Zombie Boots]

Edit: Bump: Semi Reviving thread. Please read post #10. :)

**Chapter 5, Dungeon 143, Tides of Dread. Spoilers as always!**

I’m having trouble finding mention of this in Dungeon 143 or maybe is was a fellow DM that suggested it.

Spoiler:

It has been mentioned that the Jade Raven may be able to venture off and aid the PCs in doing various tasks around the island and gain additional victory point for when the PC are busy with “More important tasks”

So how does one handle the Jade Raven’s adventurers? What defines success and failure? It has been suggested to me to have the PC take over the Ravens for their tasks but I know my PC won’t like that option so much. So is there some formula/chart/success rate I can use to determine how successful the Ravens are?

The PC do have a fair amount of interaction with them (Including Relationships) and would appreciate their help, but taking over NPCs they have no “connection” too just would not sit well with them.

And since I'm asking, for you DMs: How did you handle -Tides of Dreads- over all? I enjoy hearing how other DMs have done it so I know what to watch out for or fun ideas to incorperate.

[carborundum]

You could flick through the various story hours here and on enworld (esp. JollyDoc's). I remember they had a bit of rivalry with the Ravens and couldn't be bothered investigating the thefts. Cue the Ravens nabbing the ethereal filcher and crowing about it.

My group is just setting sail in the Wyvern so it'll be a while for me. If the Ravens are called on to do some work, I plan on letting them succeed or fail depending on what I feel like at the time. If the party are a bit arrogant I'll let the Ravens have a success first and have Meravanchi use it to be snooty about the party, and also generally encourage a bit of rivalry. Ideally there'll be a second task for the Ravens and that can go wrong, leading to a race-against-time as the party having to rescue them. Then the ravens can be all helpful in the big battle.

[Sben]

Zombie Boots wrote:

**Chapter 5, Dungeon 143, Tides of Dread. Spoilers as always!**

I’m having trouble finding mention of this in Dungeon 143 or maybe is was a fellow DM that suggested it.** spoiler omitted **

Spoiler:

My impression was that they would be successful, the overall mission and recovery taking a random number of days (1d4?).

Zombie Boots wrote:

And since I'm asking, for you DMs: How did you handle -Tides of Dreads- over all? I enjoy hearing how other DMs have done it so I know what to watch out for or fun ideas to incorperate.

I'm in the middle of running it, and it's going well so far.

Since they were actively looking for Temauhti-tecuani rather than waiting for him to arrive, they found the phanaton tar-gatherers, told them to hide, and ended up sneaking up on the sleeping T-rex at night and coup-de-gracing him. That was fine with me, since he would have slaughtered my particular group. They also were on a very lucky streak vs. the emerald anaconda; one of the party would surely have died in its coils if they hadn't rolled 19s and 20s when it counted. (The player has realized that the character's luck will eventually run out.)

They left the bat idol on the Sea Wyvern, and haven't recovered that yet; they figured they'd just waltz up to Zotzilaha's shrine and ask him to cool it. He gave them a month to return the idol (or else), and chased them out of the shrine. But with the PCs' lollygagging around the rest of the scenario, taking their time and visiting with phanatons and exploring rakasta temples and such, I don't think they can make it back in time. I still haven't figured out exactly what will happen, but the volcanoes will erupt, and he may give the PCs a bit of a smackdown before he realizes that they've brought the idol back.

[Zombie Boots]

Haha, how amusing Sben!

Thinking back on it I simply let the PC re-find the bat idol when the ship crashed, perhaps I should have done what you did. Ah well.

Looking at the Suppliment for 143, the map of the Island of dread (on page 6) in particular looks very... reveiling. Would any DMs just hand their PCs it? or would you modify it?

Just trying to cut my prep load where I can- Can you blame me? My PCs are currently finishing "Here be Monsters" and short of a TPK will be done that next session so I'm trying to get everything in order before Tides of Dread.

[Sben]

Zombie Boots wrote:

Thinking back on it I simply let the PC re-find the bat idol when the ship crashed, perhaps I should have done what you did. Ah well.

I wasn't quite sure what to do. The players said "Oh, we definitely left that back on the ship; why would we have taken it with us?" I responded something along the lines of "Are you sure?", and they assured me that they left it there. So, along with partying with the phanatons, their situation is entirely of their own choosing.

Zombie Boots wrote:

Looking at the Suppliment for 143, the map of the Island of dread (on page 6) in particular looks very... reveiling. Would any DMs just hand their PCs it? or would you modify it?

I don't have the Photoshop chops to modify it, so I've taken Urol's map of the Isle from 142's supplement (without the route overlay) and have been adding names and sites to it as the players become aware of them. It's a bit of work, but it's looking quite nice now.

[carborundum]

I've given them the map made by Lavinia's mother from the Dragon issue with her notes.

[Sben]

carborundum wrote:

I've given them the map made by Lavinia's mother from the Dragon issue with her notes.

Oh yeah! That's gone in the center of the gaming table each session since they landed on the Isle.

[Carl Cramér]

I like to hand out maps full of information, likethe one Lavina's mother made. Foreshadowing FTW!

[Curaigh]

So much back story is hard to pass on to the players, so I let them read the articles and indeed showed them the map. (my pcs will probably not put two and two together even though there is a masher, charging T-rex, spiders, terror birds, gargoyles, etc. right in front of them :)

To the OP's question, most of my gamers would appreciate the change to playing the Ravens for two reasons (death is less of a fear, and the challenges will be better balanced) They will not want change for loss of treasure and XP (greedy little buggers), but I think the Victory Point system is enough to award them for what the Ravens do.

[Zombie Boots]

Semi-Revive ¬¬

So I’m about to run the Crimson fleet attack in the Crimson Sunset at the end of Tides of Dread (Horah!). Now I’m not sure I what to do with the Jade Ravens during this fight: I’ll have enough to keep track of. But it’s important to know what’s happening to the Ravens because if one bites the dust that’s some victory points out the widow.

How did other DMs handle the Ravens during the Pirate attack? Did you actually take control? Did you have your players control two characters? Or did you have some sort of rolling system worked out?

[Skeld]

Zombie Boots wrote:

How did other DMs handle the Ravens during the Pirate attack? Did you actually take control? Did you have your players control two characters? Or did you have some sort of rolling system worked out?

I did nothing with the Jade Ravens, because the PC's are the heroes and it's their actions throughout the module (not just at the end) that determine the outcome.

They had already won enough VP to secure victory; unleashing the Tide was about all that could derail them. The fight with the module's BBEG at the end was really what I built up to (using the other encounters outlined in the invasion).

My assumption was that whereever the PC's were, the Jade Ravens were off somewhere else in Farshore fighting pirates or whatever.

Hope that helps.

-Skeld

[lin_fusan]

"ToD" is a tricky adventure. There are a lot of snags and my group has ran into all of them. I'd like to spell them out so future DMs can be aware of the problems.

1) The adventure assumes that the players will take leadership roles.
- If the DM has done things right, the players will look to Lavinia as a role model but won't be overly dependent on her for decisions. There is a delicate balance here not to make her the decision maker for the PCs, but the decision maker for Farshore, otherwise she looks wimpy and indecisive. - Make sure that she asks the PCs for advice and acts as a central information point. She can tell them the status of Farshore and can function as a fifth-party member when making Farshore-related decisions. In other words, she throws in her input, but agrees with the party leader or agrees with the majority PC vote.

2) The adventure assumes the players will want to defend Farshore.
- Even if they play Good-aligned characters, there is a danger of meta-gaming. My group, at first, thought the pirates were push-overs, based on the attack by Skipknot Pete. They then concluded that Farshore didn't really need any extra help; give them a few masterwork weapons and they'll be fine. "Bye, we're going to explore the Isle of Dread! See you in a few months!"
- When they learned of the attack from both Lefty and Speak with Dead with the pirate bodies, they meta-gamed the opposite; ie. if the attack is going to be one or more CR 9 encounters, Farshore's going to be sacked. So, my PCs were planning on evacuating all of Farshore and dumping them on one of the Olman islands. When Lavinia and the townsfolk declared that they won't run from invaders (based on Sasserine's history), my PCs thought they were all insane or foolish, thus lessening their affinity for the town.

3) The adventure assumes that they will want to fortify Farshore.
- For a brief moment after they learned that the citizens of Farshore wouldn't back from a fight, my PCs felt that THEY were the only hope for the outpost, and thought that it would be a waste of time fortifying. Why bother recruiting a bunch of low-level Olmans or bolstering their militia if the PCs carry so much firepower they could take out a ship at a time?
- It's only because they found that they had two months of nothing to do, did they realize that they might as well recruit and fortify.

MORE LATER...

[lin_fusan]

4) My last warning is that there is a good chance that the characters will have access to Scry and Teleport type spells, and with Lavinia there, there is a possibility that the group will think to Scry on Vanthus, Teleport, and assassinate him before the pirate attack. It's a leap of logic for them to think that Vanthus will be involved in this attack, since they will not have heard from him since Bullywug Gambit, but players have a tendency to make assumptions based on false or no data, so beware.

Jade Ravens:
Now, for the semi-revived question about the Jade Ravens, I plan on having the players tell me if they want to Ravens to do anything specific, otherwise, they will be leading the townsfolk against the more mundane pirate attacks. Since they will be "down in the trenches," they won't be able to notice or participate against the specific encounters.

If I end up being ambitious, I also am thinking about having a blown up Farshore map, and little tags to represent "mobs" of townsfolk and pirates, and having minis to denote where the Ravens and PCs are at any given time.

Lastly, I don't plan on killing off the Ravens because their involvement at this time is all story-based. The PCs will have earned VPs and they will be the "generals" in the fight, taking out the big bads and all.

However, the Ravens will also be good as a last ditch deus ex machina in case my party splits up (which they will), and get individually pwned (which they will), so the Ravens can show up and pour a healing potion down their throats, and thus make them seem important and essential to the party.

It's either going to be a great headache or the best session ever. (Or both.)

[Sben]

lin_fusan, my players had many similar reactions to yours. DMs, if you haven't run this scenario yet, pay attention to these posts.