So, this weekend I start running the Curse of the Crimson Throne. Technically, my question falls under the category of "Things that would be answered if I waited another three months," but I'm not really that patient. Besides, why wait to alpha playtest when the alpha period is almost over?
When I began my preparations to run CotCT I got hooked on the Hellknights almost immediately. I can understand why they don't really feature in Seven Days, after all, even a hardcore enforcer can't fight the plague with a sword. But today I read my Escape from Old Korvosa and find that the Lictor has pulled them out of the city entirely. Do they ever come back?
Chekov once said "if you put a gun on the stage in the first act, it will be fired by the third." If my PCs will never have a real opportunity to get crunched by badasses in platemail, then I shouldn't hype them in the first adventure. I did have a few cool scenes thought up, with three Hellknights facing a mob of fifty and winning, but if they don't show again, this would be a bad play.
So what's the verdict? Just drop the hellknights as much as I can? Or use them?
I haven't followed the Pathfinder Adventure Paths since RotRL ended, but it seems to me that, used in the adventure or not, the hellknights would make for some wonderful opposition to a party and could easily be dropped in as a "get the frack out of here, they're after us!" encounter without much planning or impact other than a sense not to mess with them.
If anything, the sheer implacability of them as displayed in such an encounter would simply serve to heighten player paranoia... always wonderful in such a campaign.
I think the hellknights are being set up as a diplomacy challenge. There will be a time where the PCs will move against the queen. And the hellknights can be a powerful ally (indeed) if the PCs can get them to see that the queen is an enemy of Korvosa and needs to be removed from power. At minimum, they need to be dealt with somehow, or they will move to take down the PC force as traitors.
Creative Director
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The hellknights have a VERY minor role at the start of the Adventure Path, simply because they're a part of Korvosa, but they don't have a big role to play overall. We've already got close to a dozen various organizations butting heads in "Crimson Throne," and with the hellknights being so full of potential, we decided to downplay them here. If you're looking for cool plate-mail wearing bad guys to crunch PCs... the Gray Maidens (who make their first appearance in Pathfinder 8) are a better choice.
The hellknights are, honestly, there mostly to foreshadow something we'll be doing in Adventure Path 4, which will not only be set in Cheliax, but will have some pretty major hellknight elements to it. By foreshadowing them in Rise of the Runelords and in Curse of the Crimson Throne... by the time we get to Adventure Path 4, they'll have a pretty good presence already built up.
Off topic, in my house we call it "Chekov's Phaser". Yeah, we are those kind of nerds. ;)
Off topic, in my house we call it "Chekov's Phaser". Yeah, we are those kind of nerds. ;)
"We are looking for the nuclear wessels."
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Off topic, in my house we call it "Chekov's Phaser". Yeah, we are those kind of nerds. ;)"We are looking for the nuclear wessels."
NUCLEAR WEASELS.... AAAAAHHHHH!!!!
I guess its time to call off Weasel Stomping Day. Such a shame, as I do so look forward to mayonaise on the lawn.
sorry couldn't resist :P
NUCLEAR WEASELS....
They sneak up to you, crawl up your trousers, bite you in the ass, AND NUKE YOU.