Hi, I'm starting Chapter 5 this weekend. Ch. 4 was a turbulent journey for my gaming group, and while I believe the gothic dungeoncrawl of Scarwall will appeal to my players more than Ashes did, I still have a few concerns. Some of these may arise from reading the module too hastily; if I've missed something, I apologize.
1) Sial and Laori are both great NPCs, and Sial has already started to get his talons into my party's wizard. However, I also have a paladin of Abadar, and he's firmly set against any cooperation with the Brotherhood of Bones. How can I make them an active part of the adventure even if the paladin vetoes a team-up?
2) Is it necessary to defeat the Chained Spirit (and its four thralls) in order to retrieve Serithial? Or does that series of encounters simply serve to lift the curse that pervades Scarwall? How can I make sure my players feel that all those battles are helping them with the main plot?
3) Besides Zev Ravenka, are there any particularly deadly encounters -- potential TPKs that I should know about?
Thanks!
Hi, I'm starting Chapter 5 this weekend. Ch. 4 was a turbulent journey for my gaming group, and while I believe the gothic dungeoncrawl of Scarwall will appeal to my players more than Ashes did, I still have a few concerns. Some of these may arise from reading the module too hastily; if I've missed something, I apologize.
** spoiler omitted **
Thanks!
2.) Yes, you need to defeat the chained spirit and, yes, you need at least one follower of Zun-Kuthon to get into the Star Tower. The only possibility to get into the Star Tower otherwise is a secret entrance in the room with the demi-lich, which has a Perception DC of 40.
Let the two Zun-Kuthonites possess information that they are needed to get to Serithial ( I think the AP itself mentions that in the entry about the two ), which should appeal to the Abbadarians sense of duty to Korvosa. Unless of course he is the foam-at-the-mouth type of Paladin, in which case good luck with getting the sword.
3.) The Umbral Dragon can be brutal if played right. It's breath attack is 16d8 of negative energy, so no Resist Energy to save you from it. If you let it land, the Paladin will hack it to pieces immediately, though. I let it hoover the entire fight and until the party Wizard got a flight spell on the Paladin, it was a pretty tough encounter.
I'll try to touch on your queries together.
I found the big thing for this adventure is first that it is a dungeoncrawl but as a GM I found I needed to emphasize two things, the story of the adventure background by feeding bits of the past and current information (e.g. how the curse works, soul anchors etc.) and to frame things that there is a definite mission with various objectives leading to a goal. It also may very well be on a timer if the party cares about Zellara (or anyone who dies in the castle walls) if they fail in saving her from the curse.
The NPCs such as Sial and Laori, the Night Hag and Zellara are great for feeding bits of info to the party. And of course you have ghosts playing scenes from the past, or bad dreams if they're staying overnight. Essentially you have to spell out kill/disable the anchors to take on the Castellan.
I liked how many of the soul anchors could be dealt with through means other than combat (negotitate with Umbral dragon, finding the circlet to destroy Castothrane). My party learned about the Castellan the hard way (they fell for the Hag's ruse and tried to fight the Chain Spirit before pulling back).
I used the demilich but I did include some of the advice given in a sidebar that made it a little less deadly.
As for the encounters well they can all be rather deadly. Its very likely the party will have had multiple encoutners before getting to a soul anchor.
The Umbral Dragon killed one player. The rest of the party decided to negotiate after that. Nihil with improved invisibility and chain lightnings can easily bring a party to its knees.
Overall, if you want to keep things clicking along you'll likely jettison unnecessary encounters so the party can proceed quickly to the anchors and get down to face Kleestad and company.
Its a fun adventure but one that I did a lot of adaptations to to make it work.
Yeah, I should add that Nihil can be deadly and so can the Danse Macabre. They just weren't for my party, because their will saves were in the stratophere and almost everybody had a See Invisibility effect on him. The Paladin illegally, because the Wizard "read Permanency wrong" and I had trusted in his words, but what can ya do long after the fact? >.<
Thanks for the warnings about the other tough encounters. It sounds like a pretty deadly adventure, which should be a nice change after Ashes (a cake-walk for my party, apart from Cindermaw).
Where does the module explain how defeating the castellan affects the quest for Serithial?
The description of Room 40 (Star Tower Entrance) does say that a Use Magic Device check can be used, instead of getting a Zon-Kuthon cleric to open the door. But that's neither here nor there, for me; I'm reasonably certain that my paladin will put his foot down and say no to the Brotherhood's alliance.
My question was, how might I keep them involved in the adventure even if they're not allied with the PCs?
Thanks for the warnings about the other tough encounters. It sounds like a pretty deadly adventure, which should be a nice change after Ashes (a cake-walk for my party, apart from Cindermaw).
Where does the module explain how defeating the castellan affects the quest for Serithial?
The description of Room 40 (Star Tower Entrance) does say that a Use Magic Device check can be used, instead of getting a Zon-Kuthon cleric to open the door. But that's neither here nor there, for me; I'm reasonably certain that my paladin will put his foot down and say no to the Brotherhood's alliance.
My question was, how might I keep them involved in the adventure even if they're not allied with the PCs?
Tsk, tsk, have Laori charm the Paladin with her wit and poise. :p
The module tells you about on page 25 about defeating spirit anchors.