Bevis - Andrew - Steve - Morgan - Dave: kindly read no further
Has anyone else found this module to be a major pain in the ass?
I mean - whatshisname has one of the keys, and there's no way he'll agree to give it up. My players are going to make peaceful contact with him. Now what?
Some of the NPCs know that one of the keys has been stolen. Anyone got any sort of natural way of introducing it into the conversation? This module has no hooks to move the story forward - no story at all, really. The game designer spent his time mapping out a 3-d citadel ... speaking of which, how many giants are in it? Five? Do you have any idea how fast a party of 17th/18th level adventurers is going to blow through half a dozen giants?
Ahhh...but you're missing the real gem of this adventure. Any time the PCs start asking inconvenient questions you throw a whole bevy of dragons at them. That'll fix 'em. Darn nosy kids.
Dear old M. W., will hopefully do away with your loathesome Player's characters. M.W.'s got the other half of the key the PC's need. Do note that M.W.'s most devastating ability is an Extraordinary Ability, as opposed to a spell-like or supernatural, and will work in an antimagic field:)
The giants in Kongen-Thulnir know that there are two keys to open the vault. Normally these keys are in the hands of the guardians of the Citadel, the Tiamikal Nul-Shada. One of the keys has been stolen recently, and he rumour mill says that it was taken by the Riftlords, who reside in the Palace (area P).
This information can be learned from just about any giant in the city. Of course, the Riftlords don't have the key; which is something the PCs can find out when they enter the Palace.
Only two giants actually know who took the key: Charlgar, the rebel leader who stole the key and Vercinabex Tor, the traitorous frost giant, who aided Charlgar and resides in the citadel.
Since the PCs have no real motivation to go to the Carrion Pit, where Charlgar is hiding and where he hid the key, they are more likely to encounter Vercinabex first. So I'm planning on playing the frost giant less aggressive than the module describes him and have him talk to the PCs, so they can learn from him that Charlgar took the key.
Now the second problem is that no one knows where Charlgar is. His own men, the Rift Crawler rebels, fear he might have been slain somewhere on the battlefield. This means that the best way for the PCs to locate the second key is by divination magic. If this magic is not available to them (possibly because no one knows an appropriate spell or simply because no one has studied such a spell and you wish to play through the scenario without giving the PCs a chance to rest), you'll need another solution.
If the PCs approach the rebels (in area G, anyone can tell them that this is their base), they'll tell them that Charlgar is missing. They fear he was slain in the first wave of the dragons' attack, according to the adventure the attack on the King's Gate Tower (area M). Now this poses a problem, because that area is far away from the rebel base AND the Carrion Pit. It would be simpler to have the rebels tell the PCs that Charlgar was defending the Undercity and probably perished right outside their door somewhere. This leaves the PCs with a much easier job of trying to find his body. The Undercity was spared the brunt of the dragon attack, so there are not a lot of dead bodies outside. There is one dead great blue dragon and a handful of dead giants (and possibly some bugbears). It would be relatively easy to determine that Charlgar is not among the slain (his men can tell the PCs that they can recognize him by his tall muscular built – for a hill giant – and the ugly burn scars on his right arm).
So where is he then? While examining the dead bodies in the Undercity, the PCs find one giant who is still alive at –6 hp (he stabilized). If the PCs heal the giant, he can tell them that Charlgar cowardly fled to the Carrion Pit, leaving him and his companions here to die. So now the PCs know where to look for Charlgar, even without the aid of divination magic.
I hope this helps.
Thanks, people. After my freak-out, I came to terms with the whole deal yesterday. My solution was perhaps not the best, but good enough.
As always, the adventure log is on my website.
Some of the NPCs know that one of the keys has been stolen. Anyone got any sort of natural way of introducing it into the conversation? This module has no hooks to move the story forward - no story at all, really. The game designer spent his time mapping out a 3-d citadel ... speaking of which, how many giants are in it? Five? Do you have any idea how fast a party of 17th/18th level adventurers is going to blow through half a dozen giants?
Greg A. Vaughan did not make the 3d map. That was a decisions made by Paizo. They turned over the 2d maps to a cartographer (I don't have my copy of the adventure nearby so I can't check who got the cartography credits for this adventure) who converted the 2d maps to 3d ones.
IIRC from comments that Greg made shortly after this adventure was released then the first time he new anything about 3d maps for his adventure was when his copy of Dungeon arrived in the mail.