The City of Seven Spears (GM Reference)


Serpent's Skull

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What are people doing for the passing of time in terms of the seasons. Its been 77 days since my group left Eledar and I'm thinking its hitting winter so there has to be some seasonal change.

So what would Savinth-Yhi and Sagarva be like in the winter?


Thanks for the info guys, I have a much clearer picture now!

As for weather, I would imagine the temperature wouldn't drop too much in the winter, if you want a noticeable change, perhaps you could have it rain more.

Dark Archive

That's exactly what I did. When Fall came (a few weeks out from Tazion I believe) I lowered the Extreme heat days to only affect those in metal armor (they all had wands of Endure Elements by then so it was more of a flavor thing).
Now winter is coming in about a week so I'll do away with the Extreme heat days altogether. Instead (as Keltoi said) I'll increase the chances and strength of the rain falling on the valley.
Of course my party's witch just picked up the Control Weather hex, so it's kind of a moot point now... lol.


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Just letting you all know that I have created a word document that contains 120 discoveries (bits of info) that can be found in the city. It uses the ten headings of historical discoveries as noted on page 10 of the module.

A lot of it is as I have made up from reading the first three modules (I like to read ahead only one module at a time) so the information in the discoveries are from what I understand and a bit of fiction that I have added (particularly around the legend of Savith herself).

If you want a copy email me at m.knights AT bigpond.com

We will e heading into the City of Seven Spears in the next couple of sessions :)


I may be missing something very obvious and if I am I apologise but I am preparing for my game this week by putting together faction campsite sheets. Just a thing so I can record discoveries and the state of the factions, along with NPC notes etc.

Anyway, I have gotten them all written down, omitting the scores for the pathfinders (who my group is affiliated with) and looking at the rules it tells me they get 24 points to spread amongst the faction scores... Looking at every other faction they have 30 points distributed. Is this a deliberate attempt to have the PC's struggle to keep up? Is it due to the fact the PC's are the adventurous type and they are meant to be the 6 point difference? Or is it just a mistake?

Does anyone know the answer on this? I have had a quick read through this thread and not found out anything specific.


I haven't seen anything official, but maybe that's to represent the fact that each of the other factions also has a scout team working for them, but only the team consisting of the PCs gets played out? I mean, all the other factions are working as hard as they possibly can, so it only makes sense that the PCs have to work hard or fall behind.

Just a theory, of course.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber; Starfinder Superscriber
Mark Knights wrote:

I may be missing something very obvious and if I am I apologise but I am preparing for my game this week by putting together faction campsite sheets. Just a thing so I can record discoveries and the state of the factions, along with NPC notes etc.

Anyway, I have gotten them all written down, omitting the scores for the pathfinders (who my group is affiliated with) and looking at the rules it tells me they get 24 points to spread amongst the faction scores... Looking at every other faction they have 30 points distributed. Is this a deliberate attempt to have the PC's struggle to keep up? Is it due to the fact the PC's are the adventurous type and they are meant to be the 6 point difference? Or is it just a mistake?

Does anyone know the answer on this? I have had a quick read through this thread and not found out anything specific.

I had not noticed this before. It looks like rather than calculating the scores for each, they gave them each a 12, 10 and 8. Then they assigned one number to Defense, Exploration and Supply. Kinda like how NPCs are made with a set ability score instead of doing the point buy for each.


I do not like the idea that my players are behind the eight ball. In fact, by having them it should give the edge to their factions SO I will be giving my players 30 points to distribute just like their faction would have if the players were not with them...


Why is Osond white? Isn't the Tribe of the Sacred Serpent descended from Mwangi tribesmen who just happened to stumble upon Saventh-Yhi?

My best guess is that this is just an artist mistake, but given that the art exists (and I've shown it to my players) now I need to come up with an explanation.

Could they be from the ruins of Kho? Was it populated by white people?

Dark Archive

Yes the Tribe of the Sacred Serpent are Garundi, so they should be darker skinned. I just assumed that Osond was at the lighter end of dark skinned... and that the artist made a mistake with his coloring.

If you're looking for a reason WHY he's actually pale skinned, you could change them to the remains of an early Chelaxian expedition. Either from Sargava or Kalabuto. Maybe they ran afoul of the Gorilla King's forces and fled into the valley by accident several generations ago. That would also serve to foreshadow the Gorilla King and how dangerous he is.

Shrug. Just a suggestion.


That could work. Thanks.

ETA: I notice that his Pathfinder Paper Mini (which I'm using) has him with darker skin, so since I've used two illustrations I think I can get away with saying one's correct and one's wrong. Thanks to Todd Westcot for catching that and fixing it!


I played out my first vorpal kill last night with a Camulatz...

The game before the gnome alchemist got killed by the giant bat in the mercantile district and then last night via a random encounter they faced the Camulatz. One of the players got critical led by a bite (with a roll of 19) and then the very next attack was on the gnome alchemist with it rolling a natural 20 and then, just to rub it in, a natural 20 to confirm... Talk about bad luck!

That now means we have two people in the party who have died twice, one who has died once and one other who has yet to experience Pharasma's realm :)


How did Akarundo wrest control of the degenerate serpentfolk away from Issilar? They have the same Charisma, and Akarundo isn't telepathic. Degenerate serpentfolk have "a bare, borderline-instinctual understanding that creatures without telepathy are food." (PF37 p. 67)

He can't use charm person on serpentfolk, and his illusion magic isn't any better than Issilar's (given that they can both use major image).

So how did he pull it off? And how is he keeping the degenerate serpentfolk believing that he is a god?


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tbug wrote:

How did Akarundo wrest control of the degenerate serpentfolk away from Issilar? They have the same Charisma, and Akarundo isn't telepathic. Degenerate serpentfolk have "a bare, borderline-instinctual understanding that creatures without telepathy are food." (PF37 p. 67)

He can't use charm person on serpentfolk, and his illusion magic isn't any better than Issilar's (given that they can both use major image).

So how did he pull it off? And how is he keeping the degenerate serpentfolk believing that he is a god?

Good question. Here are my thoughts:

1. Akarundo doesn't have telepathy, but he can, perhaps, fake it using detect thoughts.

2. Opium

3. Simple combat. Akarundo doesn't have the spell variety that Issilar has, but can cast lightning bolt 5 times a day and acid arrow and magic missile 7/day, and he has higher SR and has a damage reduction. He'd clearly dominate in a magician's duel.

So, I think you can spin out a tale of intrigue where Akarundo enters the camp and uses his detect thoughts combined with his +20 bluff to pretend to have telepathy ("I speak out loud so that my words as a god are heard even by the food!") and insinuate himself into the good graces of Issilar, plying him with his opium and then casting him out in one-on-one combat.

His illusion magic is, arguably, slightly better than Issilar's since he has change shape as a special quality, so can assume the form of a pure-blood serpentfolk indefinitely and it's not a disguise so cannot be seen through. Issilar's disguise self can be used at will, but only works as a disguise. (Perhaps Akarundo challenges Issilar to a disguise-off, "I am the true shifter of shapes, look upon my forms and see if you can detect any flaw, and compare it to this pretender, Issilar and his mere disguises.") Issilar can cast major image while Akarundo can only cast minor image, but Akarundo can cast it 7 times a day.

Since Akarundo's bluff is so high, the degenerate serpentfolk, with their +0 sense motive would be hard-pressed to see through a well-crafted lie - they are predisposed to see pure-blood serpentfolk as their true leaders, and one that demonstrated clear mastery over their former leader (does Issilar use his dagger as a slashing weapon? If so, then Akarundo would take no damage from Issilar's dagger attacks and could shrug off his offensive spells) could credibly seem like a god.


Wow, nice analysis. Thanks! My players are having their initial confrontation with Akarundo this evening, so this is very timely.


Mark Knights wrote:

Just letting you all know that I have created a word document that contains 120 discoveries (bits of info) that can be found in the city. It uses the ten headings of historical discoveries as noted on page 10 of the module.

A lot of it is as I have made up from reading the first three modules (I like to read ahead only one module at a time) so the information in the discoveries are from what I understand and a bit of fiction that I have added (particularly around the legend of Savith herself).

If you want a copy email me at m.knights AT bigpond.com

We will e heading into the City of Seven Spears in the next couple of sessions :)

Question: the book says to give 400 xp (to the party) and, upon a successful craft or profession check, 500 gp for each discovery. I assume you're not planning on giving 48,000 xp for your 120 discoveries, right? I am thinking of giving them 40xp for each discovery (8 xp/person/discovery) and letting them bundle 10 discoveries to sell to their faction (for 500 gp).

Dark Archive

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber; Starfinder Superscriber
Loreg wrote:
Question: the book says to give 400 xp (to the party) and, upon a successful craft or profession check, 500 gp for each discovery. I assume you're not planning on giving 48,000 xp for your 120 discoveries, right? I am thinking of giving them 40xp for each discovery (8 xp/person/discovery) and letting them bundle 10 discoveries to sell to their faction (for 500 gp).

Well in book Three, you need to give out a about 70,000 exp per character (280, 000 for a group of four) to level the characters from 7th to 10th. This would only be about 17% of that total. This is a great way to give them the experience without having to go through endless waves of combatants.


Good point Remoh


Are the runes on the seven spears )that represent the seven virtues of rule) the same seven runes used by the Runelords? Or do they look completely different?

Dark Archive

tbug wrote:
Are the runes on the seven spears )that represent the seven virtues of rule) the same seven runes used by the Runelords? Or do they look completely different?

The Azlanti runes of Virtue (on the Spears) are different from the Thassilonian runes of Sin (used by Runelords).

How different do they look visually? Not sure. Certainly someone that has studied either language would know they're different.


Cool, thanks.

Is there a source for that information, or are you just applying common sense?

Dark Archive

tbug wrote:
Is there a source for that information, or are you just applying common sense?

I'm not aware of it being specifically written down anywhere that their runes look different.

I just went by the fact that Azlanti and Thassilonian were two different languages. Makes sense that their written language and runic systems would look quite different as well.


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Thanks, Jenner! That makes sense.

My next question: Is Akkituk (p. 21f) really able to create cursed stone salves, or is there a mistake in her stat block?

A stone salve has a caster level of 13, uses the Craft Wondrous Item feat, and requires stone to flesh and stoneskin.

Akkituk has caster level 7 with Spellcraft +10. She doesn't have the Craft Wondrous Item feat, and she is incapable of casting stone to flesh or stoneskin.

I understand that it's a plot point that she's really bad at making these (and thus hasn't tried to revive Grugonoth), but is this enough? If a PC lacked at least the item crafting feat I don't think I'd allow her to even make the attempt.

My guess is that Akkituk was intended at being bad at making magic items, but not quite as bad as she's actually written as being. I think if we replaced one of her feats (eg Great Fortitude) with Craft Wondrous Item then we could leave everything else as is.

Does that sound right?

Dark Archive

I'm not looking at her stats now (I'll give 'em a look when I get home) but it sounds right to me.
She can get around the other prereqs by taking the +5 to the Craft DC (which might explain why her items come out so bad - her high DC she's sucking up) but if the Item Creation Feat is a prereq (which as you pointed out, it is), she can't get around that one. It's actually the ONLY prereq you can't just take the +5 to DC.
Good catch! (unless we're both missing something)
The swap of Great Fort to Craft Wonderous seems like a nice easy fix to me.


Okay, your conclusions match mine. Even after the feat swap she needs a natural 18 on her Spellcraft roll to successfully create stone salve, and a natural 13 or less creates a cursed item. This models what's been happening fairly closely.

Thanks for the quick response, Jenner! If anyone else sees something that the two of us have missed then please point it out.


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Jenner2057 wrote:
tbug wrote:
Is there a source for that information, or are you just applying common sense?

I'm not aware of it being specifically written down anywhere that their runes look different.

I just went by the fact that Azlanti and Thassilonian were two different languages. Makes sense that their written language and runic systems would look quite different as well.

They are two different languages, but Thassilonian apparently descended from Azlanti.

See this post from James Jacobs.

The nation of Thassilon was founded by exiles from Azlant.

And, this one

Thassilonian as a language is a direct descendant of Azlanti, but with a strong Varisian/Shoanti/Giant influence.

You could probably assume, then, that the languages are distinct, but share similarities - like French and Spanish, or maybe more like French and Latin.

So, what does your story require? Do you want them to be the same? Then the development of "sin magic" by the Thassilons required the runes to be the same, otherwise, the power would leech out of them. Thus, the runes, unlike the language proper, stayed true to its original form. Do you want the runes to look different? Then the natural drift of language has made the runes look different.

I don't think there's anything canon that says the runes are the same or different, so it's GM's choice.


Loreg wrote:
I don't think there's anything canon that says the runes are the same or different, so it's GM's choice.

That's really what I was wondering. Thanks!


Loreg wrote:


Question: the book says to give 400 xp (to the party) and, upon a successful craft or profession check, 500 gp for each discovery. I assume you're not planning on giving 48,000 xp for your 120 discoveries, right? I am thinking of giving them 40xp for each discovery (8 xp/person/discovery) and letting them bundle 10 discoveries to sell to their faction (for 500 gp).

No, absolutely not. I will give them 400 xp and the 500 gp for each discovery that the players discover for themselves but they are not the only source of discoveries being found. I have played out around three weeks (in game time) of this module and the players are averaging about a discovery and a half a week while their faction have amounted a healthy 19 discoveries without them :)

The factions themselves seek discoveries outside of the players help as well. The party set their exploration stat up so the faction averages about 1.75 discoveries a day :) They are powering through.


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They wouldn't have winter. There are two seasons. The wet season and the dry season.

BQ wrote:

What are people doing for the passing of time in terms of the seasons. Its been 77 days since my group left Eledar and I'm thinking its hitting winter so there has to be some seasonal change.

So what would Savinth-Yhi and Sagarva be like in the winter?

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Being a jungle I'd say it's more Wet Season and Dry Season.

Wet season can have days of rain at a time, the lake would flood and buildings would get drenched.

Dry season would have much of the flora dry up and a heightened chance of bushfires.


Just finished this module (kind of, moving on to Vaults of Madness anyhow) and barely scratched the surface of it. There is even one district (Residential) that the players did not enter at all. This module saw 4 deaths in it, causing the players heaps of problems with debt for getting Raise Deads and Restorations cast. I did allow one player (it was their first death to be reincarnated into a Fetchling from the new Advanced Races Guide which helped take the sting from it as he had been harping about how that is the race he would have started with as soon as we got the book.

Their faction is well in the lead with discoveries (Pathfinders, about 5 weeks in and have over 40 discoveries) and using this module to intersperse the Vaults of Madness will be great. The players all clicked over to 10th level in the same game and managed to handle the undead assault quite easily (even with one man down who had decided to scout the Government district the night the attack came). They regrouped to assault Sozothola but got whipped by him. He destroyed the party and turned the feral mutagened Alchemist/Master Chymist with a woeful will save against the two still alive (barely) as Sozothola sought to burn the place down with his wall of fire and escape.

Tonight sees the start of Vaults of Madness and I am having Sozothola return to the first Vault where he will be in the final chamber. He will be trying to piece together how he can activate the portal as the players arrive.

In City of Seven Spears the players conquered the Military and Mercantile District and allied with the Artisan District (only very recently). They have slain the Green God but that was an epic battle that would have been a TPK if I had not had the "Green God" become very upset with the parties folding boat that had the cavalier's horse on it :) They managed to have the four armed half-fiend dire ape bought back to life but he flew away uninterested in a fight with the party after killing the Girallon boss and the Shaman. I am holding him up my sleeve for an assault on the Lillend very soon.

Got to say I loved this module, but am looking forward to a more structured approach in Vaults of Madness. It is incredibly hard to prepare as a GM in such an open sand box like CoSS but it does make for the players having a massive investment in the plot and the city itself.

Sczarni

I greatly enjoyed DMing the first two modules in this series, but the total lack of maps in Seven Spears is making it nearly impossible for me, especially since we play online. What maps did people use for all the major encounters in the city? Does anyone have maps they can share?

Thanks in advance...


I was just planning on picking up one of those double sided dry erase mats from Paizo. I figured that the reason they didn't include maps was an attempt to up the sales of those.

Grand Lodge

Borrow some of these maps from a fellow GM who kindly posted them in another thread. You'll have to set the grid yourself, but that's no problem.
Maps

I'm also running it online and they just arrived in the city. I'm flipping through anything else I have with maps that I might be able to slip in for certain encounters. From PDFs of map packs to other APs to old dungeon issues.

If you have the PDF of the map folio for this one you can enlarge the map of Saventh Yhi by about 20% set the grid to scale and they will be able to scout the city on the actual city map. The PC icons will still be tiny, but you can make out who is who. That will allow you to have certain outdoor battles right on the city map if you like.


Mark Knights wrote:

Anyway, I have gotten them all written down, omitting the scores for the pathfinders (who my group is affiliated with) and looking at the rules it tells me they get 24 points to spread amongst the faction scores... Looking at every other faction they have 30 points distributed. Is this a deliberate attempt to have the PC's struggle to keep up? Is it due to the fact the PC's are the adventurous type and they are meant to be the 6 point difference? Or is it just a mistake?

Does anyone know the answer on this? I have had a quick read through this thread and not found out anything specific.

I think this is because they used the set values (12-10-8) and because PCs have the added extra of being able to put NPCs working on the scores to raise the values.


Crellan wrote:

I greatly enjoyed DMing the first two modules in this series, but the total lack of maps in Seven Spears is making it nearly impossible for me, especially since we play online. What maps did people use for all the major encounters in the city? Does anyone have maps they can share?

Thanks in advance...

So far on my campaign, most encounters have been on the outside, so I just use the place as it appears on the city map and add a bit of detail. My PCs have cleared the Government District and are halfway through the Military; and there has been only one fight on the inside of a building so far (Akarundo). We play with a battlemat that can be drawn, so the lack of maps hasn't really been an issue for us.

My only problem with this book are the CRs. My group has a Cleric, a Druid, a Ranger, a Fighter and a Summoner. The Eidolon has been nerfed and still is incredibly broken. Added to the high AC and damage of the Fighter (Crane Style) and the damage output of the Ranger (Bow FS), I'm really struggling with making the encounters challenging. So far, they haven't had one since the Demon on book 2. They defeated Akarundo and the Half-fiend Dire Ape extremely easily.

I really have to kill that Summoner -.-


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That's how I did my maps as well. I didn't run this using pathfinder, but I agree that the encounters look pretty easy RAW. One of the issues I have with this adventure is that because it covers such a big area it ends up being just a bunch of simple disconnected encounters. It really requires the DM to a do a lot of work to make them interesting and challenging for the heroes. A lot of the encounters are single monsters, and solo monsters often don't stand a chance against a party of adventurers.

One of the big problems with published Pathfinder adventurers is that the authors usually work within the base parameters of the CR system. The problem is that the CR system doesn't work, especially as the levels get hired. It's my experience that a by the book encounter of a CR equal to the party or even a level above the party is usually VERY easy- unless the party happens to be totally depleted of resources, but even then.

With an adventure like this the PCs can pretty much explore at their own pace and retreat back to camp to rest as they please. That means that they won't very often be way down on resources when they face an encounter. This means that to make encounters challenging they should be a significantly EL than party level, and that has its own problem, which is that the party ends up earning too much xp too fast. It also means that the GM needs to redo the encounters, which kind of defeats the purpose of buying a published adventure.


Quote:

My only problem with this book are the CRs. My group has a Cleric, a Druid, a Ranger, a Fighter and a Summoner. The Eidolon has been nerfed and still is incredibly broken. Added to the high AC and damage of the Fighter (Crane Style) and the damage output of the Ranger (Bow FS), I'm really struggling with making the encounters challenging. So far, they haven't had one since the Demon on book 2. They defeated Akarundo and the Half-fiend Dire Ape extremely easily.

I really have to kill that Summoner -.-

Our party (I'm the DM) is fighter/rogue (melee machine), fire elementalist wizard, oracle/life mystery, summoner, and ranger (archer) and we also found this adventure's CR to be rather lackluster.

I had them focus on gathering Discovery Points and exploring the city (they aligned with the Pathfinders), and our best battles were an ad lib encounter with Egzimora; battling the froghemoth; and the fighter taking out the boggard champ in one round.
They survived the camulatz (which has become my new favorite baddie), the undead horde, and had very good rolls against the chimeras, the giant bat (which I fumbled), and the demon-ape-thing. I used that encounter twice, having it reappear at another critical point, I think it was well-received.

Our party is very well-rounded. They do have their struggles, but overall they are very complimentary and will continue to beat the CRs of the AP- which is fine by me.

The AP gets a lot tougher after City of Seven Spears.

I also must kill the summoner ;)

Grand Lodge

As far as camp points 24 is only the base number you have to spend. The PCs will then add 4 to that for their affiliation specialty and another 2-4 for the terrain they chose for their camp. Then they will apply any named NPCs to the scores.

The rival camps have base 24 + 4 specialty + 2 terrain = 30. The PCs are not at a disadvantage here. They likely have more points to spend than the NPC camps unless they have alienated or gotten every NPC along the way killed.


P.H. Dungeon wrote:
It's my experience that a by the book encounter of a CR equal to the party or even a level above the party is usually VERY easy- unless the party happens to be totally depleted of resources, but even then.

Well that’s kind of the point of the CR system isn't it? The party should be able to handle 5 CR equivalent encounters per day. So the CR equivalent encounters should get progressively harder. The first one of the day is supposed to be easy; the next four get progressively harder. If the party rests after 1 or 2 CR equivalent encounters it will certainly be a cake walk for them.


But if the adventure allows for PCs to easily rest between encounters, then IMO the designer should compensate by making the encounters more difficult.


P.H. Dungeon wrote:

But if the adventure allows for PCs to easily rest between encounters, then IMO the designer should compensate by making the encounters more difficult.

That's one way to look at it. Personally, I think getting rest should be made more difficult, not the encounters. When I get to this part, I’ll definitely keep your critiques in mind.


It's hard to make that part more difficult in a lot of cases because the PCs are pretty much free to explore as they choose and their isn't any real time sensitive objective in the adventure, unless of course you add one as a GM.

In lots of cases you can bring in reinforcements, which can help. If they end up in a fight with some monster have a bunch of the local humanoids from the area come to join in on the action as they wrap up the battle. If you just follow the module and have them go to each area and run the various encounters you probably won't end up challenging the party that much.


Keep in mind that if the PC's mount a hit and run campaign on a specific faction there is nothing to stop that faction from:

A) setting up an ambush for next time

B) tracking the PCs to their camp and attacking while they are resting & still low on spells.

If he PC's are especially successful in attacking some factions may form alliances with other Saventh Yhi factions or other explorers. The Aspis Consortium would certainly offer to help do in the PC's if they've allied with the Pathfinder guild.

Also, there are some nasty, large ambush predators about. The PCs might just wander into one on their way back.

Dark Archive

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Also don't forget the elements themselves are an enemy here.
Want to explore into the afternoon/evening or early morning? Chances are the valley is shrouded in a thick mist from the nearly daily rain. This is going to hurt their ranged characters (who can't see far) and greatly increase the likelihood they'll wander into an ambush. Even charging becomes a pain if you can't see what's lurking ahead of you in the thick, jungle mist.
Make sure to enforce max encounter distances. Very few places are going to allow them to rain death at the enemy from a distance through the thick trees. Base encounter distance to even get a PER check in dense woods is 2d6x10 feet, if I remember correctly.
Remember the increased PER penalties when in the jungle. There's a much better chance of (again) stumbling into an ambush if they can't hear the enemy waiting for them over the noises of all the jungle birds and screeching monkeys.
Finally remember to apply the modifiers for the frequent rain. It makes PER checks even more difficult (additional -4 I think) and affects ranged firing like severe winds: additional -4 to hit.


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Geo Fix wrote:

Keep in mind that if the PC's mount a hit and run campaign on a specific faction there is nothing to stop that faction from:

A) setting up an ambush for next time

B) tracking the PCs to their camp and attacking while they are resting & still low on spells.

If he PC's are especially successful in attacking some factions may form alliances with other Saventh Yhi factions or other explorers. The Aspis Consortium would certainly offer to help do in the PC's if they've allied with the Pathfinder guild.

Also, there are some nasty, large ambush predators about. The PCs might just wander into one on their way back.

The last few posts have all had really great advice on dealing with the CR problems and the 15 minute workday but I wanted to add to this post, in particular the bit about disrupting rest.

Attacking the party while the rest may sometimes come across as cheesy if done too frequently but the odd time here or there (especially if it's deserved) works great. I find that a lot of parties that engage in 15 minute workday strategies and that go "nova" on a couple of encounters before resting rarely put a lot of effort into defensive tactics to protect their camp beyond taking sleep shifts. Rare is the nova mage that bothers to memorize (or even have access to in the case of spontaneous casters) spells such as alarm or secure shelter for example. Make them pay for such foolish mistakes in a campaign based around setting up camps for exploration. But don't make them pay too hard, no need to be spiteful, and make sure it's also a teachable moment.

Now if the party is already doing a good job of protecting their camp (be it from gamer experience or learning from the tone set in Book One) then when they fend off the camp attack make sure they feel proud of their accomplishment. After all, their foresight paid off. Do not just make the ambush tougher and tougher until they're completely spent and ragged.

That's all I want to add for now but there may be more later. I feel like I'm forgetting something. . .


I agree. I like to let PCs use Survival rolls to add to the security of their camp or improvised shelter. Depending on how well they do with Survival to set up a camp I give them:
- bonuses to Perception checks while on guard (Survival check -10)
- give the camp itself a Stealth value (Survival roll -10) to oppose the Perception of any wandering monsters that might spot it
- add Survival roll in feet of dim lighting to the normal radius of any lighting they setup and require.

Don’t forget this tidbit as well that often gets my resting players:
“When he prepares spells for the coming day, all the spells he has cast within the last 8 hours count against his daily limit.”

So those early morning attacks can really have impact on spell avaialability.


Yep. Gotta watch those spell slots/uses.

For the martial classes, having a rough night may mean sleeping in armor or pulling an all-nighter. For some parties, fatigue and exhaustion aren't even speed-bumps. However, certain party compositions could find these conditions much more problematic.


The group I'm running has been doing very well with hit and run raids. They did the Boggards in so effectively that the frog men have all left Saventh Yhi. (Somebody kills your God, it's a sign: EXIT)

However, with the Trogs they pulled another smack-down raid and then decided to rest in the ad hoc fort that they had cleared out. The end result was not nearly so good with all of the PC's captured. They've since escaped albiet naked, gearless and shaved.

Moral: There is a big advantage in being on the offence and choosing when and where a combat will take place. Except for some of the big scary critters the denizens need to be played as active defenders or they will be walked over.


So, GMs: while running this module, were you constantly updating the players on how the Victory Points race was going (i.e.: which Faction was on the lead), or did you keep that information to yourselves?

I ask this because my players don't really care about the Discoveries, they are just invading one district at the time. First they gained control over the Government District and yesterday they finished the Military District (at the same time slowing down the "Aspis Consortium"). I am keeping track of their camp's Exploration checks and Victory Points, but I'm not sure if I should encourage them to start discovering more and fighting a bit less (by showing them a Victory Points Chart at the end of each session) or if I should just let them keep at it.

Also, I think the whole Dragon Rumor on the Mercantile District turning out to be a Bat is utter and total crap. Paizo's APs, while I love them, are always really low on dragons, which I think sucks (even more if you consider the original name of the game); and this would be a real let down for my players. I'm SO putting a Dragon running that District.

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