So, our group is about halfway thru performing the Trials, and I think we are all having a great time with it. I do admit some of the players want to physically hurt me by forcing them to read thru scripts and to *gasp* act. More so after trial 2 and especially 3.
Fortunately, we play on Fantasy Grounds online, so I am safe for the moment (except for what I did to my wife in Runelords, but that's another story).
I had a few questions regarding the upcoming parts of the adventure:
1.) Under 'The Rebel's Joy' section, it states that the Children of Westcrown have gathered info regarding the Mayor and his home, and those details are detailed below. There is however, no information regarding what they do or don't know about the manor. Any suggestions on what to give out to the party?
2.) As far as I understand, most of the manor is all open, and the PCs have a lot of free rein. Will the guests be kicked out of the servant areas, or is the staff so overworked - they can be in and out without notice?
3.) In A45, is the DC to unlock the door 30 or is it 35 as specified in the A51 area.
4.) For the runecurse: my understanding is the curse itself is not magical, it is just part of a prior contract that can be incorporated into a magical item. Am I correct in understanding that the runecurse in this module does not radiate magic?
5.) The howlers in B2, is there 1 or 3? The text describes three of them waiting, the stats only list 1 at a CR3.
I am still wrapping my brain around the structures, pits, etc in this Knot. This stuff is crazy! I guess if the characters have -2 to their dex checks when perceiving these rooms, it is no wonder I'm going insane trying to figure it out.
Overall, I'm enjoying this book so far. It is definitely a challenge for the DM to run, as much as for the characters to survive it.
Thanks for help with my questions.
Jonathan
Creative Director
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Good to hear that your group's having a good time, and that you're widening their horizons by making them act! Ha! :)
Here are answers to your questions:
1.) Under 'The Rebel's Joy' section, it states that the Children of Westcrown have gathered info regarding the Mayor and his home, and those details are detailed below. There is however, no information regarding what they do or don't know about the manor. Any suggestions on what to give out to the party?
The methods by which the Children gathered the information about the manor don't really matter in the end. Basically, they learned what they did by living in Westcrown, listening to rumors and gossip, and doing research. If your PCs want to learn the same information, they can do so with a number of Diplomacy checks and Knowledge checks. In any event, the most important thing to let the PCs know about the manor is that there's information about Delvehaven and how to get into it hidden in the manor, likely in a strange extradimensional vault called the Asmodean Knot. If your players like exploring and finding things out on their own, that's probably enough. Otherwise, you might want to also just hint to them that the entrance to the Knot is rumored to be on the upper floor or perhaps in the attic.
2.) As far as I understand, most of the manor is all open, and the PCs have a lot of free rein. Will the guests be kicked out of the servant areas, or is the staff so overworked - they can be in and out without notice?
At the start of the evening, things are more strict. But as the evening wears on and the staff grows more tired and the guests and hosts grow more drunk, things get more lax. By the end of the cornucopia, the PCs should be able to move about the manor uncontested as long as they're not attacking people or being openly destructive.
3.) In A45, is the DC to unlock the door 30 or is it 35 as specified in the A51 area.
DC 30 seems more fair.
4.) For the runecurse: my understanding is the curse itself is not magical, it is just part of a prior contract that can be incorporated into a magical item. Am I correct in understanding that the runecurse in this module does not radiate magic?
The rules are a bit unclear there. While the piece of paper the runecurse is written on is not magic, the curse itself IS magic. As a result, there probably SHOULD be a magical aura on the runecurse, probably faint necromancy. It's not a magic item, though. The methods for determining what it actually is work as detailed in the adventure.
5.) The howlers in B2, is there 1 or 3? The text describes three of them waiting, the stats only list 1 at a CR3.
There are three. Unless you feel that three is too tough for your group, of course!
I am still wrapping my brain around the structures, pits, etc in this Knot. This stuff is crazy! I guess if the characters have -2 to their dex checks when perceiving these rooms, it is no wonder I'm going insane trying to figure it out.
If you're looking for some inspiration on the types of encounters in the Knot, you should absolutely check out the artwork of M. C. Escher, whose art played a VERY heavy role in inspiring this part of the adventure.
James,
Thank you for those answers, they definitely do help! I really appreciate that you take the time to check these forums and help clear things up so quickly.
This has been a lot of fun. Plus, between this and Skinsaw Murders, I have finally gotten past that hurdle of not wanting to kill characters (or torment the players, which both of these books seem really good at).
Thanks again!
Jonathan
Good to hear that your group's having a good time, and that you're widening their horizons by making them act! Ha! :)
Here are answers to your questions:
** spoiler omitted **...
This has been a lot of fun. Plus, between this and Skinsaw Murders, I have finally gotten past that hurdle of not wanting to kill characters (or torment the players, which both of these books seem really good at).
Thanks again!
Jonathan
A little threat of death and torment always keeps players on their toes I fancy:)
Glad you're having fun.
Rich
As far as I can tell, all of the badness related to the mayoral manor stems from one combat: Sian's fight with the kyton. Is this correct? After she slew him, the conduit he provided for Liebdaga's power throughout the manor was disrupted, and things unravelled. Is this correct?
Does this mean that if the mayor acted quickly in chapter two to have the kyton replaced then everything could have been returned to the way it once was? We know little about the church of Asmodeus in Westcrown, other than the fact that Savaska, a level 9 cleric, is "a high-ranking member of the church of Asmodeus". It's conceivable that he has a superior who would be capable of casting planar binding (requiring a level 11 cleric) or that he himself could use a scroll. This could summon a kyton temporarily, and this would patch up the problem until House Thrune could be notified, right?
I'm not suggesting that this would make for a good story, or that a GM should do this, or anything like that. I'm just trying to wrap my brain around what's going on.
As far as I can tell, all of the badness related to the mayoral manor stems from one combat: Sian's fight with the kyton. Is this correct? After she slew him, the conduit he provided for Liebdaga's power throughout the manor was disrupted, and things unravelled. Is this correct?
Does this mean that if the mayor acted quickly in chapter two to have the kyton replaced then everything could have been returned to the way it once was? We know little about the church of Asmodeus in Westcrown, other than the fact that Savaska, a level 9 cleric, is "a high-ranking member of the church of Asmodeus". It's conceivable that he has a superior who would be capable of casting planar binding (requiring a level 11 cleric) or that he himself could use a scroll. This could summon a kyton temporarily, and this would patch up the problem until House Thrune could be notified, right?
I'm not suggesting that this would make for a good story, or that a GM should do this, or anything like that. I'm just trying to wrap my brain around what's going on.
I think this is correct.
I could have sworn I saw that answered somewhere ...
First off, I don't seem to think that the mayor understands that much about the workings of his manor. He may be aware that so-and-so is down there, but not much else; somewhere in the path I think it even mentions that he briefly explored the Knot but encountered something distasteful and never pushed further. So I imagine the mayor being 'in the dark' about the malfunctions and their cause.
Even the players have to succeed some really incredible checks to understand what's going on down there.
But let's say that the players learn about it, and tell Aberian and the rest.
It really depends on how the GM wants to run it. If the GM is okay with it -- sure! Fine! Not only is Aberian cooperative, but so is the church, and they get right on it, and everything is fixed.
The most positive complication in this case is that the Council isn't happy. Their plan has been complicated not once, but several times over. They still have their goal clearly in mind, and they have no reason to stop achieving it now that it's half-completed. I would expect them to complicate and pervert the restoration efforts.
However, it's also possible to say that the process of binding a Kyton and making them into a suitable conduit (this isn't something they're equipped with right out of the box, after all) takes too long. So-and-so is producing energy just as fast as it ever was, and all that energy pooling up isn't going to wait for you to put on a band-aid.
That's getting beyond the point that Aberian may not even be fully cooperative. If somebody says "hey, I penetrated your secret corridors", his first reaction could very well be to try having them arrested; and his second reaction could be to hush up the incident and try to fix it himself, given that Westcrown enjoys a lot of freedom from Chelish government and he seems like the guy who wouldn't want to publicly embarrass himself by letting this turn into a fiasco. And naturally, his trying to patch things together on his own are exactly the sort of thing that could lead into The Infernal Syndrome.
I feel that's a pretty balanced approach. I'm not crazy about throwing out a chapter of the adventure path because somebody made a 20 on a Knowledge check, but the plot shouldn't be fully immune to the actions of the group. Yet adventurers don't always get to 'solve' their problems -- sometimes they only get to change them into a different form.
This is also pretty good.
Aberian does not know what's going on down there or anything about any of the workings of it... but Thrune (and certain people do, such as the the general knowing about the Pit Fiend when most of the nobility simply don't).
The fact is, if Aberian would talk about it, it's quite possible that he could get it fixed... it's also likely that he'll be quite afraid of Thrune's reaction too.
Thrune's reaction is unpredictable. They'd likely be all for hushing it up, making those elements (whatever they are determined to be) that caused the problems "disappear" and, and using this to have more leverage over Aberian... and all of it may or may not be through proxies.
The module has two things to say about what may happen if the PCs mention this to Aberian, and what Aberian may do if he finds out:
Fixing the problem is something that requires large amounts of resources and money, and if Mayor Aberian has his way (if he’s even informed about the problem), he tries to patch over things without alerting the House of Thrune.
Good-hearted PCs may be driven to inform the mayor of their experiences in the Knot, in particular the fact that there seems to have been an amount of damage done to parts of it that might explain the strange fluctuations in his manor’s functions of late. Unfortunately for the PCs, such a report is a poor choice, as it reveals to the mayor that the PCs have been snooping around in places he’d rather they stay out of. The resulting legal problems could hound the PCs for months, and if Aberian can prove that the PCs stole anything that belongs to him (including anything looted from the Knot), the PCs may even face prison time. Exactly what these ramifications consist of are up to you as the GM, but at the very least, the bad publicity and the spread of misinformation about the PCs by the mayor and his agents costs the PCs 3 Fame Points.
Combined, I think these make it a safe bet to conclude that even if the PCs inform Aberian, the Mayor won't be able to correct the problem in time.