Awesome. Glad to hear it. :-)8th is probably about right ...Thank you for the clarification.
By the way, me (and my group, I hope) enjoyed the little excursion into the Hagwood. Particularly, I enjoyed the possibilty (over) acting as Dog's Tongue.
** spoiler omitted **
Thank you.
Let me add my five cents! We just played through the ambush and a little bit of the Hagwood, and my players LOVED Dog's Tongue! We've been having some RP problem since my players were growing tired of super-good NPCs on "their team". Our "nearly-Chaotic Evil" fighter went nuts for Dog's Tongue, so that when DT muttered about "dumbass satyr" the PC derailed the entire trip to beat up Madjaw since he'd been mean to his new friend.
So tanks, Mr. Vaughan, we love this adventure!
Hi!
At first, I didn't notice but when I rolled out the battlemap for the fight in the
Was that by design or by ... ahem ... oversight? ;)
By the way, the "thing" did a lot of damage against a bunch of overconfident PCs. :)
Kind regards
|
Speaking of the treasure vault that Scharlata mentioned above, the text says that the PCs can "effectively “purchase” 1 Fame Point for every 15,000 gp in materials they return to various owners, to a maximum of 75,000 gp." Is this sell value or market value of the items they find?
Also, does anyone else think that all this loot is way over the standard character wealth for their level? The total value of all the treasure comes to 336,275 gp, with a sell value of 185,900 gp. Divided amongst 4 PCs, that's 46,475 gp each, assuming they don't return any of the items for Fame Points. That seems like a lot... not to mention the minor artifact they're also getting.
Maybe I'm crazy, but I can't figure out where Walcourt should be. On page 27, it says it's on the eastern edge of Rego Laina, which is where it looks to be on the map inside the cover - near the east coast of the island. Further description says it was deserted as Crua degraded - Crua is on the mainland. It is the source of the shadowbeasts, which are worse on the mainland, so it makes sense for it to be in Crua. I also can't find any discussion of this elsewhere on the boards. Any ideas?
Speaking of the treasure vault that Scharlata mentioned above, the text says that the PCs can "effectively “purchase” 1 Fame Point for every 15,000 gp in materials they return to various owners, to a maximum of 75,000 gp." Is this sell value or market value of the items they find?
Also, does anyone else think that all this loot is way over the standard character wealth for their level? The total value of all the treasure comes to 336,275 gp, with a sell value of 185,900 gp. Divided amongst 4 PCs, that's 46,475 gp each, assuming they don't return any of the items for Fame Points. That seems like a lot... not to mention the minor artifact they're also getting.
Sounds about right.
Math out how much money the PCs should have at this point in the adventure, then come back. It's really supposed to be the money room. A majority of the treasure for that book is within that room.
|
|
Sounds about right.Math out how much money the PCs should have at this point in the adventure, then come back.
A PC at level 11 should have a wealth value of 82,000 gp, and at 12th level should have a wealth of 108,000 gp. At the end of this adventure, the PCs should be 11th level, but with the loot they currently have (~48,000 gp), the treasure of 46,475 gp, plus potential gold from the minor artifact, would put them almost at the wealth value of a level 12 PC. Which means, from the time they turn level 11 to when they reach level 12, they shouldn't receive any loot, which I find hard to believe. Unless the next chapter has no loot...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
A PC at level 11 should have a wealth value of 82,000 gp, and at 12th level should have a wealth of 108,000 gp. At the end of this adventure, the PCs should be 11th level, but with the loot they currently have (~48,000 gp), the treasure of 46,475 gp, plus potential gold from the minor artifact, would put them almost at the wealth value of a level 12 PC. Which means, from the time they turn level 11 to when they reach level 12, they shouldn't receive any loot, which I find hard to believe. Unless the next chapter has no loot...
Sounds about right.Math out how much money the PCs should have at this point in the adventure, then come back.
One thing you're also assuming is that the PCs will continue to get gear up until the final encounters. This is untrue, unless they're purposefully killing people helpful to them.
Characters should be 11th level when they begin “The Twice-Damned Prince.” By the time they are ready to tackle the encounters... they should be 12th level—they should reach 13th level by the adventure’s end.
10 council captain - 13514/2 = 6757 x 10 = 67,570
28 thieves - 2150/2 = 1075 x 28 = 30100
12 cutpurses - 425/2 = 214 x 12 = 2568
4 hellknight heretics - 4150/2 = 2075 x 4 = 8300
8 blacknapes - 2300/2 = 1150 x 8 = 9200
117738 /4 = 29434
Kept Treasure
rod of thunder and lightning - 33,000gp
+3 defending bastard sword - 32,000
+2 human bane dagger - 18000gp
necklace of adaptation - 9000gp
Misc Sold Treasure
+2 buckler - 4000gp / 2000gp
+1 ring of protection - 2000gp / 1000gp
+1 chain shirt - 1250gp / 625gp
amulet of natural armor +1 - 2000gp / 1000gp
belt of incredible dexterity +2 - 4000gp / 2000gp
cloak of resistance +1 - 1000gp / 500gp
ring of protection +1 - 2000gp / 1000gp
2600
4500
3000gp
18225 /4 = 4556
Total 33,900 to 66,900
After Part 5 until the final encounter
12 hellknight heretics - 4150 x 12 = 49800 / 2 = 24900
belt of incredible dexterity +2 - 2000
bracers of armor +3 - 4500
ring of protection +1 - 2000
4 thieves - 4300
3400gp
37700[b] /4 =...
[b]Total ...9425gp
Total for Book 9425 + 33,900 for 43,325gp, and possibly the PCs would be wielding one of the stronger items for up to 76,625~ or so gp value in this book.
Difference between 12 and 13 WBL is about 32,000.
So the most wealth you could get out of this adventure, assuming the PCs are a) good and b) do not kill primary NPCs for their treasure instead of allying with them is around WBL for a 14th level character. That sounds about right-- Council of Thieves was very rich in treasure to make up for the low character level.
If the PCs kill those powerful NPCs, they don't get their aid, but get to take their powerful treasure instead. Balances out.
Once you get into the final encounter, WBL is pointless. They're not going to stop and smell the roses and loot and compare items when the entire city is on the edge of collapse. Well, if they do, then, they're probably not good-aligned to begin with.
Ice Titan, thanks for that detailed ledger of the loot. I'm a bit more at east now. Originally, I had thought of cutting out some of that loot in the treasury of Walcourt, but I had neglected to look into the loot situation for the next chapter. Thanks!
No problemo. I love math.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's the night before the Walcourt session for me, and I is makin' the handouts!
These are incredibly good! I love how you provide only tiny details about the events to come in the notes. Excellent foreshadowing, wish I had these when I was running Walcourt.
Very nice work, sozin; I'll be using most of those for my game!
•Paperwork from room D11. Nightmaster's office -- plans for the riots, assassinations, and violence the Council has planned.
•Paperwork from room D11. Nightmaster's office -- list of Council agents.
These two keep coming up as photo unavailable when I try and open or download them.
That's really neat, Greg. Thank you for sharing. :)
That's fantastic! Your handout for the contract between the house of Thrune (and thus the mayors) on one hand and Liebdega the Twin on the other has already come into play in my campaign (where one PC is a relative of Aberian), and they aren't sure what to make of it. The fact that the handout for this contract looks so similar will give them chills.
Thanks so much for sharing!
Actually... go with the 1d8 base damage for the hill giant's hurled rocks. The universal monster rock hurling rules at the end of the book are the generic rules. When you go to the actual entry for the hill giant on page 150 of the Bestiary, though, it does 1d8 base damage with rocks. Basically—changes to universal monster rule expectations in a monster's stat block always overrule the "generic" version of those rules. It IS a bit awkward that all the monsters who use "rock hurling" use different dice than what the universal monster rules suggest, and if there IS an error there, it's in the universal monster rules. But it's all good, anyway.
Reading the hill giant's rock throwing ability as written...1d8+10 means that getting hit by a rock thrown by a giant is just slightly worse than getting hit by a human with a good longbow. And, given that the human could fire a bow multiple times, the giant as written is at a serious disadvantage against even a moderate warrior.
This means that in an exchange of projectiles with any reasonably adept party, the giants would always come up short. They are essentially throwing glorified darts rather than crushing hunks of stone.
Doesn't it make much more sense to admit that the monster stats as written are in error and follow the rock throwing abilty as described and make the hill giant's damage 2d8+10? Also, wouldn't it make sense to allow the giant to throw more than one boulder per round?
Not that it is that big a deal but, I just noticed that Stiglor is illegal.
Easy fix, rearrange his ability scores a bit. Still, I found it interesting.
- Gauss
I need some explanation of Walcourt's layout.
Where do guild members enter? Surely they don't always run the gauntlet though C9, C10, C11, C12 in order to access their rooms at C17 and on D? Not through the sewers - that would have them walking through Ilnerik's rooms. Nor does the path through the caretaker's house and up to the secret door on the D floor seem to make sense.
The description for C6 states that a slight path to the east goes to a secret door which is the true entrance. But the secret door to the east of C6 just goes to a hallway that runs to the shaft up to D2. And from D2 there is no way to the rest of the complex except through a trapped hallway. Is this the "true entrance"? Still quite an obstacle course, especially with twitchy guard sentries.
Guild members would enter through the caretaker's house (conveniently entering directly into the meeting chamber), or alternatively via the secret door at C6, putting on the tricorn hat (to avoid being garrotted), and climbing up the chute to D2.
I've been running this campaign from book one, and the players caught me off-guard with a continuity error after discovering Goren's body at the pesh shop. The writeup says that the body has been altered specifically so as to remove the possibility of someone casting 'speak with dead' on the corpse and having access to the piles of info he supposedly knows. All fine and good.. until player A says 'that's all right, Make Whole is on my list. We can fix the body up good as new!' and then player B follows up with 'and hey, if that doesn't work, we still have one of the Grave Candles from book 3 left over - we don't need an intact body at all.' Whooooops...
Now I could just cheese it with the candle and say 'oop, target made the will save (even with the -4 penalty), try again in a week', since with the timeline of events as is (they're already chasing after Dog Tongue to plunge into the forest) it may be moot until after the dust settles. However, if they persist, is there anyplace that details what the 'new and important info' is that Goren had? It's obviously not the reveal that
since those beans are spilled by Jarvis as a hook to get them to head over to Goren in the first place.
Any outline of what should be communicated there? I can buy a week via 'successful Will save' if they try, but persisting along those lines will pretty obviously just be me calling 'GM Fiat' to their otherwise solid plan, which I'd like to avoid doing... at least, in a way that they'd recognize, heh.
Maybe he knew about Walcourt? Maybe he knew about Sidonai's pact? Maybe he knew something unique to your campaign?
In story terms, I think it should be something that sends the PCs racing along the story path for confirmation. Have they met Dog's Tongue? If not, Goren's information could be what sends them to Hagwood instead of meeting the redcap.
We started MoF on saturday. When I prepared the ambush, I had some problems:
- p.13 Thieves: "The thieves use poisoned bolts"
There is no poison in the stat block
- p.8 Jarvis claims, he hat no contact with Goren for two days, but the ambushers only arrive the same evening. Goren told them, he is expecting visitors. How did he knew?
And there the PCs can arrive before the arrival of the ambushers. So, Goren is still alive? He can give his informations, and they leave the area before the ambushers come?
I think, Goren was killed two days ago and the ambushers take turn, waiting for his contact (Jarvis). No chance to ambush the ambushers.
- Maglin stood at the door, Kruthe behind him. How did you start the ambush? Maglin should stand next to the door and hide. But Kruthe?
1) Open the door in the surprise round, then roll initiativ.
2) Walking through the door to the first PC in surprise round (I made this in one move action).
3) ???
I hate surprise rounds when ambushing my SCs. I NEED two actions for an ambush.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
We started MoF on Wednesday. I had Aberten contact the party. (They let him go when they beat him in the Infernal Syndrome.) I wanted to have the party contact by someone they know and not introduce someone new.
I had a great run of the ambush. The rogue snuck ahead. His stealth was so good that no one saw him. When he got to Goren's door, he knocked. Yeah! Kruthe knows he's there. Rogue opens the door, Kruthe charges out and crits him. No kill, but I have the party scared now. The quick fighter charges to help, then the thieves on the rooftops drop 2 fireballs on the party bunched up at the entrance to the alley. The party is in no real danger of dying, Oracle channels most of the damage away, but they are scared anyway.
Kruthe retreats into the bedroom and the fighter follows only to be surprised when the Maglin tries to assassinate him. He fails the death attack, but two sneak attacks get his attention. The player get their comeupance on them when the rogue Tiefling moves in gaseous form behind the assassin and drop darkness on them all. Rogue has darkvision and their fighter has blindfighting. Now they have the advantage over Maglin and Kruthe.
I had fun playing Dog's Tongue, too. I tried to make him sound like Sylvester the Cat. We play in German so that was an added challenge. Good fun!
You can read the full details in my blog
Why was the Pestilence Bloodline (Mother of Flies p. 29) never repeated elsewhere in any Paizo publication?
|
YOU HAVE AN EXCEL BASED STATBLOCK GENERATOR?! All the time I've been doing these Legacy of Fire statblock updates I could have been using a formula instead of my over-worked brain?!
GIVE THIS TECHNOLOGY TO MEEEEEE.
Please.
JAMES JACOBS:
We don't give out all our toys. Some of them we keep to ourselves. This includes the excel-based stat block generator, our style guide, and lots of other in-house tools we've developed or maintain to help us do our jobs.
I will be your boy toy if you promise not to give me away...
Not sure if I will get an answer to this, but I have a bit of time before my party gets here so I'll give it a shot. I was looking up info on Alebrecht so that I could include him as a contact that the party could meet early on in the campaign via the dusk market if they chose to. In the reading I see that Alebrecht offers to pay the party the money he was going to give to Goren to get out of town. As far as I can tell the AP never states exactly how much money that is. Alebrecht has 88 platinum pieces listed in his stat block, but that is the only reference I can find in regards to money and this particular NPC. Maybe I've missed something, but I was wondering if anyone else ran into this particular problem and if so, how did you resolve it. Thanks in advance.
|
|
Hi there, while translating to Spanish (I'm the official translator for Devir, Paizo's licensee), I found a couple of (what I think are) mistakes.
- After the Battle of the Maggot Tree, "News that Vassindio Drovenge is dead elicits a hearty cackle from her wrinkled throat". Yeah, and how do the PCs know that BEFORE they found Vassindio's body in Walcourt?
- In Walcourt's room D18 (trapped intersection) we have four doors, two false and two real, carved with dragon heads, all of which launch a lightning bolt. But the trap stat block gives TWO lightning bolts as spell effect. Wouldn't that be that only the false doors launch the lightning bolts?
Anyone know why the Mother of Flies is only a cr 14 with 14 levels of sorcerer and the green hag racial template? I feel like I’m missing something.
|
I have two things/errata for the adventure:
1) The CR of the Wasp Arrow Trap is a bit high for my taste (CR 9). It should be more like CR 3.
2) In area D17 the readaloud text places an armor on the armor stand, while the treasure description puts it into the footlocker (i will place it into the footlocker and change the readaloud text accordingly).
plus several mistakes in mismatches between CR and XP for a statblock or cr's for an area not matching the sum of the XP's from all the statblocks.
My guess: I think the module had to go to the printer as the crew was preparing for Gen Con mid/end of July to release the Pathfinder RPG (Issue date of December 2009). Those were hectic times indeed.
Isn't it a utter nonsense that the most powerful vampire in the AP doesn't have a second coffin, just in case? Sorry, just an outburst.