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1. After the stat-block for Bahor, it states that the party should be rewarded full experience as if they defeated him if they negotiate with him instead. However, this seems MUCH easier than fighting him would be, and I'm wary that this should give out a CR 14. Especially since the party doesn't exactly have to twist Bahor's leg on this, he *wants* them to go down there. Should this EL be lowered at all for this option, or...?
2. How much about the elephant and the secret tunnels should Bahor actually tell the party? Does he tell them the password for the elephant, or just that there is a tunnel there? Does he tell them about the water elemental, or just let it attack them for fun? How about any of the things below in the cavern?
3. Rakshasa change back to their normal form after death, I believe. It's only likely then that the party will find out at least one of them, if not more. It's been mentioned a lot in the book that he has always attempted to kill anyone that held this information, as it's his most guarded secret. If the PCs do emerge from the Labyrinth, would he be their next big enemy?
4. If the PCs happen to find the illusory wall first and head down there, what happens if they kill too many of the elephants? I know it's unlikely, but could they effectively screw themselves and be unable to access the labyrinth then?
5. The map of the Upper/Lower Caverns is a bit confusing. From what it *looks* like, the uppermost ledge is the bottom-left one on the Upper Caverns map in D19. That appears to have two bridges, both of which go down to connect to areas D20 and D21. Then there seems to be another bridge between D20 and D21 themselves. My question is, how do people normally get down to the Temple and Pier?
More as I think of them, I was reading through this last night and pretty confused on a lot.
Creative Director
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1. After the stat-block for Bahor, it states that the party should be rewarded full experience as if they defeated him if they negotiate with him instead. However, this seems MUCH easier than fighting him would be, and I'm wary that this should give out a CR 14. Especially since the party doesn't exactly have to twist Bahor's leg on this, he *wants* them to go down there. Should this EL be lowered at all for this option, or...?
It's easier to talk to Bahor than fight him, but it's not really any less dangerous since if you mess up the talking, you fight him anyway. In addition, the first portion of this adventure is relatively light on the experience points, yet the PCs still need to be about 10th level when they hit the next adventure. A CR 14 encounter XP award should go a long way toward helping them along. Remember that in an adventure path, the story drives the level advancement at least as much (probably more) as does actual XP grinding.
2. How much about the elephant and the secret tunnels should Bahor actually tell the party? Does he tell them the password for the elephant, or just that there is a tunnel there? Does he tell them about the water elemental, or just let it attack them for fun? How about any of the things below in the cavern?
This is left somewhat vague, so a GM can adjust it to his party. If your PCs are the type that like to figure things out for themselves, Bahor can be more evasive. If your PCs are more into the fighting and get annoyed at delaying tactics, he can spell it all out for them. He'd probably not tell them about the elemental and other guardians though; he wants them to help, but he's also evil and gets a kick out of causing mayhem.
3. Rakshasa change back to their normal form after death, I believe. It's only likely then that the party will find out at least one of them, if not more. It's been mentioned a lot in the book that he has always attempted to kill anyone that held this information, as it's his most guarded secret. If the PCs do emerge from the Labyrinth, would he be their next big enemy?
If the PCs escape from the palace and Bahor is still alive, yes; he'll consider them enemies. But only if he realizes they've returned to Korvosa. As long as they're outside town, they'll remain far from his mind. He might try to keep tabs on them now and then, of course. He'd certainly make an interesting side villain for the PCs to deal with after the campaign, but the campaign itself assumes he's either dead or the secret of the Arconas is made public, forcing him to flee. But just because the campaign doesn't include him after the third adventure, that doesn't mean he can't come back to torment the PCs anyway!
4. If the PCs happen to find the illusory wall first and head down there, what happens if they kill too many of the elephants? I know it's unlikely, but could they effectively screw themselves and be unable to access the labyrinth then?
Yes, they could. They can still use magic like dimension door, gaseous form, passwall, and the like to navigate the dungeon, but if they destroy the elephants, the dungeon does indeed break down and they'll need to figure out how to fix things.
5. The map of the Upper/Lower Caverns is a bit confusing. From what it *looks* like, the uppermost ledge is the bottom-left one on the Upper Caverns map in D19. That appears to have two bridges, both of which go down to connect to areas D20 and D21. Then there seems to be another bridge between D20 and D21 themselves. My question is, how do people normally get down to the Temple and Pier?
The uppermost ledge in the Upper Caverns starts at the spiral stairs and then winds downward, clockwise, like the thread of a screw on the inside wall. It reaches the first ledge directly south of the stairs, and one bridge leads off at the 1:00 position to the northeast to area D20. From that ledge, a second bridge leads down to area D22. From that ledge, another bridge leads even further down tot he last one in the southwest of the Lower Caverns, which then is just a short ramp down to area D23. The bridges shown in the upper and lower caverns are the same bridges; on the upper caverns, the third bridge fades into shadow as it goes under the southwest ledge, while on the lower caverns, the first bridge fades away as it leads back up and out of the lower caverns area.
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Thanks again for your help, James. I was confused on the Cavern picture because in the Upper Caverns picture, that top ledge (the one directly south of the stairs) has two bridges leading off of it, and when I *thought* the west-east one was actually below it, I saw that the ledge had those two little dots signifying posts on it, on each bridge. I understand how it works now though. D19's south ledge to D20, to D21, to a ledge just above the pier. It'll work. :)
As for the XP thing, I guess it just struck me so much because throughout the whole section on Balor's attitude, the text stressed how much he really wants them to go down there, and even if they attacked his palace, he'd wait and see how well they did before making his offer again. I am all for story rewards and have given them out plenty, this just seemed extremely generous for what it was given. I can understand the need for the XP though.
Any other suggestions on running this? My group just found Amin and left him some Goodberries to survive until they could take him back to the mainland (an Illusionist with Invisibility Sphere and a rowboat makes a nifty way to get back and forth). We left off there with the assumption that next session they would go look for Salvator and then head off to confront the Emperor (which should be fun, the Fighter in the group had a backstory that included working as a whore at Exemplary Execrables for her start). I'm going to need to do a lot of preparation for the labyrinth, the rotating chambers are awesome.
James still has a headache from my original maps:)
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Creative Director
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James still has a headache from my original maps:)
HA! it's true!
Rich's original vision of the Vivified Colossus was, I fear, impossible to map. It was COOL! it was just crazy. It was basically a giant cage with moving parts and all sorts of madness. The version that appeared in print attempted to capture the essence of the dungeon (a moving dungeon powered by undead elephants) but in a way that was easier to map out and understand. And even then, it's a little crazy.
But yeah... that original version was AWESOME and HORRIFYING at the same time! :) And I fear that if I tried to ask Lazz to map it he might have come out here and stabbed me...
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James still has a headache from my original maps:)HA! it's true!
Rich's original vision of the Vivified Colossus was, I fear, impossible to map. It was COOL! it was just crazy. It was basically a giant cage with moving parts and all sorts of madness. The version that appeared in print attempted to capture the essence of the dungeon (a moving dungeon powered by undead elephants) but in a way that was easier to map out and understand. And even then, it's a little crazy.
But yeah... that original version was AWESOME and HORRIFYING at the same time! :) And I fear that if I tried to ask Lazz to map it he might have come out here and stabbed me...
I take it we won't be seeing any clockwork megadungeons in the foreseeable future?
Still, this would be a cool thing for the community to step up to the plate and take a crack at.
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I remember well the twelve or so hour process of creating those maps to scale. Started by photocopying the map **looks over shoulder for copyright police**, using a compass to draw the circles from the centers of the four sections, cutting them out, pasting the rest of the map to a manilla envelope, and using metal fasteners to mount the circles. I used that to do the configurations I referenced when doing four different maps. Still not sure how I'm going to manage the switcheroos of those maps at our gaming table....
Reminds me that I haven't completed my DM project of writing down detailed strategies for the two main Labyrinth denizens based on their knowledge of its workings and locations of PCs in all of the possible configurations. After the odyssey of doing the maps, I think I filed that one deep in the mental "to-do" pile.
All that said--I fully expect that dungeon to be the most memorable of the entire campaign, probably of any campaign for some of the players.
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Here's another question. Are the PCs expected to tackle everything in the Arkona Palace/Dungeon, or just mostly stuff in the Dungeon?
I was playing around and adding up the CRs of everything in the "Arkona Chapter" and came up with the following numbers:
CR (xNumber) = Total XP using Pathfinder RPG Fast
1 = 400
5 (x3) = 4,800
6 (x5) = 12,000
7 (x13) = 41,600
8 (x7) = 33,600
9 (x2) = 12,800
10(x4) = 38,400
12 = 19,200
14 = 38,400
Total = 201,200
At first, this number shook me. I'm only just now getting into the BIG differences of xp from 3.5. Used to be 1,000 from 1st to 2nd, 2,000 more from 2nd to 3rd, 3,000 more from 3rd to 4th, etc. Now though, while it certainly starts that way, it quickly gets higher. I don't notice it at first, and then an amount like this hits me and I do a double take.
I calmed myself down pretty fast when I realized what the PCs needed. They're all sitting around 45,000 right now, waiting for 9th level at 50,000. And with 10th level at 71,000, it means that if they tackled EVERYTHING in the Arkona chapter, they'd be at around 85,000 and still a good 20K from being 11th level.
But there's 5 of them. In the previous adventures they were about where I expected. A half - a full level behind the approximations. This made sense to me. Now though, they could be almost halfway through 10th level by the time they finished. 10th level being a goal that a party of 4 PCs expected to reach. If there was only 4 of them by this point, I could easily seeing them get a decent ways into 11th by the end.
Of course, the numbers above assume they're fighting everything. All the rakshasa, Vimanda, the Sphinx, getting hit by (or somehow disarming) all the traps, etc. They don't need to fight Bahor, they get the godly CR 14 just by dealing with him and going to rescue Vencarlo (which I still think may be a tad too much, but I digress). So while I expect them to go through everything in the dungeon, I doubt they are going to fight the 4 rakshasa up above (although they're only 4 of the 8's...).
I dunno, and am probably rambling at this point, it is pretty late. It just shocked me how high the numbers got when I calculated them out (and for the record, I've been running this campaign by the book, I give out rewards as they're presented and tend not to add any of my own xp judgments. Paizo does a great job at covering all the RP reward bases for me). Has anyone else gone past this and seen a similar trend? Is it a symptom of the Pathfinder RPG's XP track (I had thought the Fast track was still a tad slower than D&D 3.5's default, but I could be wrong) or is this a adventure just unusually rich in XP?
On a second minor question, those symbols. How are they expected to be disarmed, since they go off when looked at? Are they pretty much expected to be set off as the PCs go? not that I mind, but I don't want to deny them fair opportunities.