Change up some of the encounters.
Like... some of the traps I removed. After all, who traps their own hallway that they use every day? The WW has living minions, after all. Living cultists can be hard to come by, why risk them dropping dead while you make them fetch you a scroll? Such a hassle.
Add in some diplomancy. The two ghost 'teachers' ended up being a half-hour long RP encounter before any sort of attacking commenced. Just because their statblock says 'attacks immediately' doesn't mean you have to ignore their personalities.
The liches might be bored, let them talk. Then try to kill PCs. Your PCs might be able to suss out more plot details that way, too, especially if they haven't yet figured everything out yet.
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Heh. I've actually been ramping up the encounters in Renchurch in order to make it more dangerous to my admittedly pretty damn strong PC group. I made Lucimar 17th level and the Grey Friar 15th level. I've also been doing things like rolling on the random encounter table to determine what reinforcements are joining in round 2 of the battle and whatnot.
The Renchurch novices need natural 20s to hit the party's front line (even with outflank helping them), and can't pass the tumble checks to get past the front line into the significantly squishier back line.
However, the Renchurch novices are also really fast, and one or two them breaking off from a group to go get reinforcements can make fights much messier. And so while the party was stuck at the chokepoint killing the novices at the drug lounge, a novice fetched the revenant brigrade, another novice went and alerted the cenobites guarding the phylacteries, and a third novice went to Lucimar's quarters.
Lucimar was actually already out and stalking the PCs (and eventually came out of the ceiling with mind blank, greater invisibility, and shapechanged into a small earth elemental to begin blasting them), the 3rd novice disturbed Lucimar's pet astradaemon and died.
The PCs were not happy when, shortly after killing the revenant bridge, an astradaemon, Lucimar, 40 fast zombies, and four flamestriking juju zombie clerics all showed up around the same time. They banished the astradeamon, forced Lucimar to retreat, and killed the rest (the rejuvenating lich actually died as collateral damage; the PCs never even saw her).
That was a long fight.
Where we'll be picking up tonight, I had just doubled the number of stone golems in the one room. I may be taking revenge for book 5 getting utterly stomped. Heh.
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Quick update: When Lucimar came out of the ceiling for round 2 (while the party was fighting the qlippoth and the re-summoned Astradaemon), the party's cleric killed him with a Destruction spell. There are some drawbacks to running around as an earth elemental.
Lucimar's going to reconstitute at Ghasterhall in 10 days, well after the festivities at Renchurch and Gallowspire are over.
If anyone is worried about save or dies in the battle with the Gray Friar, my players completed that battle in one round with a nicely placed magic jar on the cleric by the party's wizard.
He never knew the party was there and his +18 will save was not enough against the of DC32. His body is now on the way to confront Adivion with the rest of the party. ^^;
Adivion, also being a solo encounter, might be equally susceptible to this tactic, especially with the lower will save he has.
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Man, Leonal, I hate to be the one to break this to you, buuuuuut:
The Gray Friar, as well as every other undead creature within Renchurch's walls, is protected by the magic circle of protection from good effect granted by the Unhallowed and/or Shrine-Blessed templates, as outlined in "Renchurch Features" on page 15. Which means the magic jar should have automatically failed.
Nice tactic, but it is a shame the oversight robbed players of what might have been a more satisfying battle. My suggestion would be to make sure Adivion learns of the Gray Friar's failure, and takes similar steps so that the same doesn't happen to him. Or maybe have the Friar snap out of it on the trip there and give the PCs the battle they missed. Ya' know? =-)
Oops, forgot about that one. They had a huge battle (15 + rounds) upstairs with Lucimar and the Cenobites (who scared the players the most with their multiple flame strikes) in the Rejuvenation Chamber, so I think this was a satisfying end to the second part of the adventure.
But reading the protection from good spell it says:
This spell does not expel a controlling life force (such as a ghost or spellcaster using magic jar), but it does prevent them from controlling the target. This second effect only functions against spells and effects created by good creatures or objects, subject to GM discretion.
Considering the party wizard/alchemist is NE this could probably be bypassed, depending on the GM.
One thing we note though, a "normal"* party would likely need multiple attempts at this dungeon, no? With all the spell casters casting hard hitting spells the need for healing seems huge.
*The 2 PCs in my group are gestalt, and they also have a whole bunch of paladins from Vigil with them. Still, Renchurch has been a challenge where they have expended most of their spells.
My 14th level PCs cleared Renchurch in one run, but they had a number of consumables (the Palatine Eye and the Temple of Pharasma ponied up quite a bit of material support) and three pretty strong NPCs.
I should probably note that my PCs are on slow experience progression but stay about a level ahead of the intended curve for the adventure path. I throw a lot of enemies at them, and will often apply the simple advanced template (and grant max HP to) enemies who deserve to be a little cooler.
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Tonight my PCs, the Shadows of Redemption finished off the AP. They started at the Presbytery knocking the Worm ridden conjurer to negative hps whet it discorporated and played dead until they engaged the Gray Friar. Using a planar ally scroll to cal a movanic deva, it used its anti-magic field to nullify the huevuca completely. The juju zombies were useless against flying PCs. Even bringing the worm and Lucimar together didn't stop the wipe out.
After resting and gearing up back in Caliphas they wind walked to Gallowspire. Bypassing much of Adorak, they made short work of the haunted estate, bluffed their way past the Tyrants dreams & Marrowgarth (glibness and good disguise roll to impersonate the Gray Friar). The knights of the door got shown the door. Gen. Nightshade was one rounded by the archer ranger with two lucky crits. They sent the Leng Spider packing. They avoided many encounters by being invisible, death warded, or having freedom of movement up. Marrowgarth aided the nightwing but a few Harrow cards tipped that battle. Adivion got greater dispelled, losing true seeing which made the ninja unperceivable. That was his undoing as the dhampir got pay back for dying three times in the campaign. Again Harrow cards saved from HoH turned the tide of the battle as two keys were played giving immediate "readied actions" to disrupt AAs tactics.
--Vrocky Horror
So, the Old Gate can only open if negative energy is applied to it, is there anyway for the PCs to figure this out? I can see my group stuck at the gate for a while.
So, the Old Gate can only open if negative energy is applied to it, is there anyway for the PCs to figure this out? I can see my group stuck at the gate for a while.
I gave my player a generic 'roll', you know the type, make them roll dice so it doesn't look like you're just throwing things out there. Said the door 'hungers, needs, demands... something. Something cold, gnawing, rotting, something dead. It wants something.'
The PCs tried a cold spell then an enervation spell. Didn't take long for the door to open.
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I have a few questions on the Tyrant's Whispers if anyone can help. I'm mostly confused as to whether or not they manifest as a singular haunt, or separate haunts at each location mentioned in the book. Thanks to anyone who can help me and sorry if this is confusing:
1) The radius of the Tyrant's Whispers is 70 feet - The cathedral is 300~ feet long. Does that mean that the radius mentioned in the stat block is actually for each of the haunt "manifestations" and so each one is separate? (ie. a and b are different haunts but both are tyrant's whispers).
2) If 2 means they are separate, does that mean each time the haunt manifests, it has 63 hp as per the stat block? Or is the 63 hp for the haunt in it's entirety across the whole cathedral?
3) The specific whisper blocks for the Cathedral mention that the spell effect will happen "for as long as the haunt persists". How long is that?
a) The "dominate person" effect at E8 mentions it will dominate a new person each round for as long as the haunt persists - how long does it persist? Until the hitpoints are 0? And if it fails dominating a person, will it try them again if they are the last person left? Does the haunt ever just stop?
b) "enemy hammer" effect in the entrance - it mentions it will keep trying to use the target until they either leave the narthex or push past and into the next area. Is the haunt able to do this continually past even the spell duration? Or does it stop at the end of the spell duration?
4) Last but not least, the book mentions that a GM can use the whispers - so if I were to say it manifests to cast a dispel magic on one PC, per one of the options - does that create a whole new haunt at this location? Does that mean a new radius, a new 63 hp, and a new 1 minute reset for it?
1) Yes, the Haunt has a 70 ft radius at every location it can manifest. It's a big-ass haunt.
2) I ran it as each location having 63 HP, and having the 1 minute timer for coming back in that location.
3) A persistent haunt keeps going until it's defeated or it runs out of victims - which can happen if they successfully flee the 70 ft radius. The Whispers can't target people who are outside that 70 ft radius, but Renchurch is pretty close quarters, so that's not an issue. The Whispers have unlimited magic, since what it's really doing is casting Wish every single round to dupe lower level spells.
The Whispers are kind of a super haunt that's actually intelligent; if a PC gets dominated by the Whispers at one location, and still has the dominate spell up when he reach another, I'd allow the Whispers to start giving him orders again.
4) That doesn't sound quite right... IIRC, the greater dispel magic and similar things is what the Whispers start doing if they get a spell off and it turns out the PCs are immune to it -- it'll start trying to break the PC's defenses or try new stuff until it hits something that works.
The Whispers favor effects that are more disturbing and petty than actually effective - as written, the Whispers can just cast disintegrate, finger of death, or prismatic spray every round. However, that's not nearly as amusing as dominating a PC and forcing him to commit cannibalism.
Thanks so much for the response! Regarding 4) - it's on page 20 - It says that a wish can duplicate a spell, and "such effects include, but are not limited to the following: A targeted dispel magic spell to dismiss any protection from evil or other barriers blocking the haunt's attempts to affect intruders."
Then in the sidebar it says "In some encounter areas the haunt's specific effects are outlined, but the present mechanic gives you the fredom to create other creepy effects to keep PCs on the edge of their seats." So by the sounds, I could have a Tyrant's whisper haunt manifest in a room without a specific effect listed and have it do the dispel magic (in paragraph 1 above) - but then, is that yet another 63 hp haunt they have to deal with? And does that dispel magic happen every round again per the whole "persists" mechanic?
Thanks again for your help:)
Yeah, if you added the Whispers to a location just to spam greater dispel magic, then there'd be a separate instance of the 63 HP Haunt. And it would keep casting greater dispel until it was beaten or all of its possible targets had fled.
As written, it'll start with the dispelling if, for example, it gets off a dominate person and it turns out everyone has magic circles vs. evil up.
Be sure to give the PCs full XP for every instance of the thing they beat (though no extra exp if they linger so long in an area that it re-manifests).
The first time my PCs beat the Whispers, I gave the PCs a not-terribly-subtle hint that the haunt had only temporarily abated, and would be attacking again shortly if they didn't book it.
Incidentally, the Tyrant's Whispers strongly discourage the PCs from resting for more than a few rounds while in Renchurch.
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I could have a Tyrant's whisper haunt manifest in a room without a specific effect listed and have it do the dispel magic (in paragraph 1 above) - but then, is that yet another 63 hp haunt they have to deal with? And does that dispel magic happen every round again per the whole "persists" mechanic?
That is correct. You've just created a fresh haunt, which can persistently create its effect until reduced to 0 hit points.
There are a few things at play here that I think are muddying the waters for you a little. Remember that technically (not mechanically), the Whispers are a single haunt--the sole manifestation of the Tyrant's will outside of Gallowspire. But the haunt has a reset time of 1 minute, which means even if PCs reduce the haunt to 0 hit points and defeat it, it resets with a DC 10 Caster Level check (in other words, automatically) only a minute later. That's unless you cause permanent destruction using the listed method, but considering that means releasing Tar-Baphon, that just means it ain't gonna happen at this stage of the campaign. And remember that "defeating" and haunt with a reduction to 0 hit points is not the same as destroying it.
But, since current rules don't quite account for a "free roaming vapor" haunt that can change locations or move around, you can either consider each instance of the Whispers as a singular, unique entity confined to the space where it is listed (as you've assumed and Zhangar confirmed, and as the haunt rules stipulate), and treat new encounters you dream up as the same, OR you can just ignore the rule that says haunts are anchors to specific locations, treat it as a single, reoccurring entity--all one big nasty mobile haunt--and even carry over hit points or whatever if it flees--though keep in mind that it comes back at full if reduced to 0 after 1 minute.
It is all a matter of perspective, I suppose, but I favor the latter interpretation. But just have fun with it! =-)
Thanks so much, Zhangar and Brandon! You both answered so quickly and I appreciate all the detail!
Brandon - I love the wandering free roaming vapor version - that's delicious! I might give go with that one instead. Thanks for the input - and obviously, just like lots of people have said, thank you for this brilliant AP (and many others!) We're having a lot of fun so far. :)
Since both of you are being so kind to answer my questions, I have only two more:
1) The Banshee at the Rusted Tower - she has sunlight powerlessness - did you just rule that the Storm was so strong, it isn't sunny? That's what I went with but I just wanted to make sure I didn't miss something!
(Also, as an aside - my player (he's playing solo believe it or not, and I'm not pulling any punches - Broodmaster summoners are busted) - decided to try to convince her he was a worshipper of Urgathoa here to join the Cult. She believed him (good diplomacy) and she opened the gate, and they attacked! Fun times.)
2) The Athach details mention that he tries to "toss" players onto the door's blade trap. What's the mechanic for that, if any? I ended up just using his grapple to then "move" her onto the trap. But Toss sounded so much more fun - I like the idea that he picks the players up and just throws them to the door much better than just shuffling them over there in a grapple - is there a mechanic I missed?
Thanks again!!
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My pleasure, Orphelyne! Your campaign sounds like a blast!
1) The Banshee at the Rusted Tower - she has sunlight powerlessness - did you just rule that the Storm was so strong, it isn't sunny?
Yes--that was my intention. I daresay Virlych doesn't see much sunlight these days. =-?
2) The Athach details mention that he tries to "toss" players onto the door's blade trap. What's the mechanic for that, if any? I ended up just using his grapple to then "move" her onto the trap. But Toss sounded so much more fun - I like the idea that he picks the players up and just throws them to the door much better than just shuffling them over there in a grapple - is there a mechanic I missed?
Yeah, you didn't miss anything--looks like a little imaginative flavor creeped in without any mechanics to back it up. Maybe my turnover had a statted-out version with a combat maneuver feat or something? You could try the Reposition combat maneuver, for starters. Man--we really need a Toss or Throw combat maneuver, don't we? Hahaha.
Thanks again, Brandon, as always! I completely agree - I think a Toss or Throw maneuver would be fantastic. I've seen some interesting houserules on it (ie. only 1 size smaller, different lengths of how far you can toss depending on how big your CM roll is past their CMD and then multiplied by how large the creature is)... We need to make it happen!!
And yeah - my campaign has been a blast! Running an AP for a solo character is so fun - it's very immersive and for Carrion Crown and all it's creepiness, it's like my player is battling against the world. All he has is his Eidolons, and I let Kendra come along as a cohort (getting revenge for Professor Lorrimor). He's on the same XP track except started 1 level higher. So he doesn't get much extra. And yet somehow, not a single death! He pulls tricks like this on me though...!
I CANNOT wait until he meets Adivion on the battlefield - I'm intending to use your tips from the thread with the different stages of battle and the "friendly" haunt at the end will be Professor Lorrimor reaching out to help Kendra and the PC get his final revenge...
I'm running Rappan Athuk next and I'm half tempted to have the Whispering Tyrant banish my Players lvl 1 "soul" to Rappan Athuk and get stuck in a time bubble - ala "Ground Hog day" (everytime he dies, he comes back as lvl 1 and has to try again) - until he reaches the deepest level where instead of Orcus it's actually the Whispering Tyrant himself.... But this is me just daydreaming at the moment!
Finished Carrion Crown on Friday - very anticlimactic....pcs magic jarred Adivion from a distance. It succeeded, urgh!
In retrospect - I should have redesigned him to resist that spell better...... the party were too tough at 15th level - despite having 3 Nightwings, loads of Gallowspire undead.... the magic jarring from a distance was the icing on the cake.
At least I can have a rest from the hot seat for a bit.....
PF breaks down after level 13 - and is coming off the rails from level 11 as far as running such dungeon bashes is concerned....
I also don't know why Paizo keep on churning out such underpowered combats..... to keep my lot happier, I have been throwing 3 encounters into one bigger and more interesting one - ala 4e encounter design - and trying to give spellcasters more meat shields, silent casting feats, and other things to nerf the pcs....
Oh well. The madness is over - for a bit!
I cleared out a lot of the encounters at Rencurch because every single room does not need one. Look at which ones you think are fun and keep those (including haunts).
If you play with XP, be sure to add bonus story xp. :)
My players also went to Lastwall. I am afraid of Renchruch just murdering them, but they are using the Paladins to secure witchgates behind them so they can fall back if necessary. How many times did you let your party rest? I've got basically all spellcasters (Tiger druid, conjurer wizard, bard, magus, cohort cleric). I don't know how they're going to survive so many things, a bad roll will kill someone only to have their soul stuck...
Did taking some monsters out solved the "why did the things next door let us recover from murdering their friends" problem?
Did you do anything about Galdana? I'm really more amused than anything.
Hi, sorry for the late reply.
My players had only one rest in Renchurch, and that was before they went down to the basement. As no one made it down alive to warn of their coming, they only had to worry about threats from the outside. With a small army of paladins at their side, they secured the place pretty good before resting.
Galdana was escorted back to Lastwall by a dispatch of paladins. When they later returned to claim their reward he pulled some strings so thay my players got their own lands in Ustalav. One of them is now the new lord of Illmarsh/Innsmouth. :-)
Finished Carrion Crown on Friday - very anticlimactic....pcs magic jarred Adivion from a distance. It succeeded, urgh!
In retrospect - I should have redesigned him to resist that spell better...... the party were too tough at 15th level - despite having 3 Nightwings, loads of Gallowspire undead.... the magic jarring from a distance was the icing on the cake.
At least I can have a rest from the hot seat for a bit.....
PF breaks down after level 13 - and is coming off the rails from level 11 as far as running such dungeon bashes is concerned....
I also don't know why Paizo keep on churning out such underpowered combats..... to keep my lot happier, I have been throwing 3 encounters into one bigger and more interesting one - ala 4e encounter design - and trying to give spellcasters more meat shields, silent casting feats, and other things to nerf the pcs....
Oh well. The madness is over - for a bit!
The party obviously had some special stuff going if they managed to magic jar him - magic jar can only possess people within 10ft per caster level and requires line of effect. And he's at the top of a 400 or so ft tower that's surrounded by an undead maelstrom. And there's a quartet of elder fire elementals on the tower to muddy the "life forces." I take it they had ways around that?
Anyways, APs have a baseline they need to follow in order to be approachable - they are designed for 4 15 pt characters, and to be completable by players who are new to Pathfinder. If you have veteran players, and especially if you have extra PCs and the party synergizes well, you'll have to adjust.
Fortunately, it's still a lot faster to update existing materials than it is to do everything from scratch.
I too am interested in how they pulled this off. Wouldn't the influx of 'Whispering Tyrant' energy infect the host body somehow? Also, where did they cast the spell to begin with? The stairs have encounters pretty much the whole way up, and the spell would have to be cast with line-of-effect and within about 250' Did they actually get off a spell that leaves a party member's body helpless in front of hordes of intelligent undead (The Nightwings are)? and not get ripped to pieces? I don't think Paizo is gulity of 'making the final encounters' too easy. It sounds like your PCs used a tactic you weren't prepared for and you were unable to adjust. (like casting a simple Protection spell). Not trying to be snarky, I'm just having a hard time visualizing how this actually happened.
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I'm not going to spoiler this, as this should be a GM thread...
Ran the last battle in Renchurch last night, parts of it played well, and parts were a pretty big fail. I folded the Worm that Walks into this battle, for time reasons at our session, but otherwise ran it to book.
Cinematically it was great, and it challenged the players, but i had two big issues, the first is that most of the Grey Friar's best spells were touch, and he had no mechanism to deliver them with, and he didn't have sufficient dispel magics to get rid of things like death ward, so his negative energy was a flop. He kept his minions running, but had to revert to Melee, but an evil smiting paladin did bad things to him. The second was the Worms spell list, regardless of where you run that encounter, I strong recommend a rework. He is supposed to be a powerful member of the Whispering Way, and even the recent Worm that Walks ecology says that they tend to be necromancers, but and I assume this was for space reasons, he is the standard one out of the bestiary, and a conjuror with necromancy and evocation as banned schools made him next to useless once his few big guns are spent. At that level, full rounds casts for summons are to easily disrupted, so he was left peppering them with lower level debuffs, and save-or-suck spells with easy DCs are fail on a 1 kind of chance.
With the Worm that is my fault for not reading ahead, interestingly the party was equally ineffective against him as the alchemist was out of bombs and the wizard didn't make the session.
Ya know that part where Galdana's presence is supposed to prevent the players from AOEing willy nilly in the Grey Friar fight? Yeah, faulty logic there.
Players: A mass of ju-ju zombies disguised as the count? I fireball 'em!
GM: If you do that you'll surely kill the real count Galdana.
Players: You mean the count Galdana who's the heir of the whispering tyrant, whose very existence makes his resurrection possible? Oh yea, I fireball the S!!$ out of those zombies.
My party was low on resources so they planned to bust in, kill the count, then retreat. They wound up winning the fight anyway but the goal wasn't to rescue Galdana, it was to kill him.
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Ya know that part where Galdana's presence is supposed to prevent the players from AOEing willy nilly in the Grey Friar fight? Yeah, faulty logic there.
Players: A mass of ju-ju zombies disguised as the count? I fireball 'em!
GM: If you do that you'll surely kill the real count Galdana.
Players: You mean the count Galdana who's the heir of the whispering tyrant, whose very existence makes his resurrection possible? Oh yea, I fireball the S%+~ out of those zombies.
My party was low on resources so they planned to bust in, kill the count, then retreat. They wound up winning the fight anyway but the goal wasn't to rescue Galdana, it was to kill him.
Thats why my (and others) rewrite was to have Kendra be the heir, and not some random joe. Then the party cared.
Quick question - most of the other side-slots about things are elements that actually exist (instead of just random rumors) and are noted in game. What about Death's Daughter? Is that just flavor text for the monstrous Daughters of Urgathoa? If so that might be a bit disappointing. If not, is there anything anyone can point me to other than that little bit of quasi-rumor lore?
Anyone know about how long it took to run book 6? Hours would probably be the best measurement, since everyone measures sessions differently.
My players are 1 fight from the end of book 5 but we've only got about ~35 hours of playing left before the group will suffer major scheduling disruption of a ~6 month duration. I was hoping to get Carrion Crown completely finished by then, but I'm not especially confident in that goal.
I also understand that book 6 is much more combat-focused than the other books, and as such the duration can be quite varied due to the number of fights, the strength of the party, and the skill in which they approach things. If push-comes-to-shove, I can also eliminate entire sections of the book.
This is my next question: Are there either fights that are so much fun or such interest that they are key to the book? Are there ones that are more mundane and not necessary? If you had to drop a quarter or so of them, which would make the most sense? Or is there an entire plot thread I could excise?
My players are on the fast xp track and there are five of them, so they are ahead of the curve in level (just hit 13th before the end of book 5).
You should be able to make it in time.
30ish hours is about what it took my group to finish Book 6, and that was after I ramped the hell out of everything (such as adding a random encounter to every fight in Renchurch, advancing the Gray Friar, Lucimar, and Adivion each by four levels, and giving every single enemy at Gallowspire double maximum HP and extra abilities).
I don't know how fast your group moves, but they should be okay,
So my players started book 6 on Saturday after quite a good time in the final fight at the Abbey (see obituaries for how that went). I fear for my players.
Party make-up (all 13th level):
Swashbuckler
Monk
Inquisitor
Magus
Barbarian
Their healing solution is 10 CLW wands they just bought. They also have a rod of healing and a few potions of lesser restoration. Oh and like 3 vials of holy water. I don't... think they are going to make it very far. Granted, all of them have some combination of holy and/or undead bane weapons, but considering the Barbarian's plan is based on getting hurt and the magus player likes to charge into battle...
My poor players. Think they are doomed? All they need is for the Inquisitor to fall and the Magus to try teleporting the party home.
Oh man. The Tyrant's Whispers are going to get to kick that party's ass.
They'll probably do fine against the more physical threats, but haunts are going to be rough.
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Not sure if this belongs under Rules or here since this is regarding the Ghostly Necromancers in Book 6. I'm trying to figure how the writers came up with +92 bonus hit points in the stat block. At best I have is +44 for Charisma bonus (18 Cha, 11 HD) and the Toughness feat adds another +11, for a total of +55. I see where the Necromancers cast False Life for addition temporary hit points, but that is +20 max. Even then that's only +75. Where does the additional +17 hit points come from? And if False Life isn't added into the +92, then that another +20 hp unaccounted for.
My party is at the final stage. They are facing Adivion. Because of the strength of the party, I threw at them the Nightwing, Marrowgarth, and Adivion all at once. The party is only 14th level, but one character is half-orc fighter with a scythe and all the fun two-weapon fighter feats. And the fight went like this....
Round 1 - party is one level with Nightwing, Adivion laughing at them at top, party dimension door to top, literally surrounding Adivion.
Round 2 - Fighter had initiative over Adivion, critical strike... there goes 80% of Adivion's hit points in one round. Adivion dimension door to level with braziers to regroup and collect some Ghostly Necromancers as reinforcements.
Additional rounds, party destroys the Nightwing and we ended the night when Marrowgarth circling the top....
This reflects one of my fears for my PCs; One of them is a Human Scythe specialized fighter with Improved Critical, and a fair amount of bad guys have already fallen to the 100+ damage critical. Hopefully, Adivion doesn't succumb to this, but I plan on using some Mythic tricks to prevent the fight from going anti-climatically.
CKDragons: I would have him immediately fly into the Mortuary Tempest for a bunch of free healing and retribution for anyone that follows. They can't Dim-Door into middair, so that might give him some time to re-coup while the other two deal with the PCs.
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Thanks, Rakshaka. That's a very good suggestion. With everything going on, I completely forgot that he can fly and his flight wouldn't be affected by the tempest undead storm that going on around Gallowspire.
But back to the reason why I posted...
Not sure if this belongs under Rules or here since this is regarding the Ghostly Necromancers in Book 6. I'm trying to figure how the writers came up with +92 bonus hit points in the stat block. At best I have is +44 for Charisma bonus (18 Cha, 11 HD) and the Toughness feat adds another +11, for a total of +55. I see where the Necromancers cast False Life for addition temporary hit points, but that is +20 max. Even then that's only +75. Where does the additional +17 hit points come from? And if False Life isn't added into the +92, then that another +20 hp unaccounted for.
What am I missing? Thanks!
11 hit dice (8d6 [necromancer], 3d6 [loremaster], +92) = 131
Okay, so let's break this down.
CHA 18 gives a +4 bonus, which, with 11 hit dice, is +44 hit points. That leaves 48 points unaccounted for.
Feats:Combat Casting, Command Undead, Craft Wondrous Item, Forge Ring, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Magical Aptitude, Scribe Scroll, Skill Focus (Knowledge [arcana]), and Toughness
Hm, as you noted, there's really nothing there but toughness. Let's see if we can get a level-focused summary of their feats to figure out what's going on.
In alphabetical order (except scribe scroll, as we know where that one came from),
1st: combat casting + human (command undead) + wizard (scribe scroll)
3rd: craft wondrous item
5th: forge ring + wizard (improved initiative)
7th: iron will
9th: magical aptitude
10th: wizard (skill focus (knowledge [arcana]))
11th: toughness
Okay, so they don't seem to have miscounted the number of toughness feats. So far your question seems entirely valid.
Noting their SQ, they've got: arcane bond (ring), lore, secrets (dodge trick, secrets of inner strength).
Looking at loremaster, we can see that their secrets grant a +1 to AC and a +2 to will.
I note that they also have the unhallowed template, which, constantly generates an unhallow effect. Unhallow has the ability to have a linked Aid... which can grant up to +18 temporary hit points. Since temporary hit points from other sources stack, if you include your +20 for false life, you're solidly covered for the +92 hit points.
You've got +44 for CHA/HD, +11 for toughness, +20 for false life, and up to +18 (though in this case only +17, which makes sense as it's a d8+10 that they use, so not automatic) for Aid.
44+11+20+17 = +92
Bear in mind, that might not be how they arrived at that number, but that's the one way I can think of for them to have done so.
Alternatively, if they were created in a desecrate spell (not an unhallow), they gain "+2 hit points/hit dice," which would yield +22 hit points. Interestingly, using this and the Aid effect (on average +14 hit points) actually works out more smoothly than presuming the number has false life included... though now that I look again, it notes,
Before Combat The ghosts cast false life and mage armor every
day, and cast shield before combat.
During Combat The ghosts try to possess obvious melee
combatants with their malevolence ability, making as
many attempts as possible in a singular effort to take on
corporeal form.
Morale Bound to this chamber, the ghosts fight until destroyed.
Base Statistics Without their spells, the ghosts’ statistics are
AC 16, touch 16, flat-footed 14; hp 116.
... which doesn't work out right at all on first glance. Eh, I'm tired, and it's late. I might look into this more tomorrow.
Hope that helps, somewhat!
One idea tossed around on the boards is to have a multi-phased fight with Andivion. Human at first, then lich after they kill him. You could also go with Ghost to make him uncritable. Or give him armor of fortification to counter crits? I suspect I will have similar problems from the swashbuckler (not that the party is actually going to make it that far, heh).
Alright:
CHA generates +44
Desecrate (let's presume) generates +22
False Life generates an average of +15
Toughness generates 11 hit points.
44+22+15+11 = 92
Okay, so perfect, there, but...
131 hit points with "spells up", but 116 without them.
131-15 (False Life) = 116.
Boo-yah!
There you go, ckdragons. The extra 22 hit points comes from a Desecrate spell they were presumed to be created within. It's not specified in their stat blocks, but given that presumption, it all works perfectly.
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Thank you, Tacticslion. Love your enthusiasm on your follow up message. I had looked at Desecrate but overlooked the idea that they were created at Gallowspire, since only undead created in the Desecrate area are given the +2 hp per HD.
MurphysParadox... that's what it's turned out to be for my group, even when I tried to throw a lot at them to start. They hit Adivion so hard that he had to retreat. So, they have to deal the dragon, especially if they have any hope of reaching him on the lower level (where he d-door'ed to).
Thanks again everyone!
Glad to help! :D
(I also really enjoy it when I figure out something that's just vexed me.)
Thats why my (and others) rewrite was to have Kendra be the heir, and not some random joe. Then the party cared.Ya know that part where Galdana's presence is supposed to prevent the players from AOEing willy nilly in the Grey Friar fight? Yeah, faulty logic there.
Players: A mass of ju-ju zombies disguised as the count? I fireball 'em!
GM: If you do that you'll surely kill the real count Galdana.
Players: You mean the count Galdana who's the heir of the whispering tyrant, whose very existence makes his resurrection possible? Oh yea, I fireball the S%+~ out of those zombies.
My party was low on resources so they planned to bust in, kill the count, then retreat. They wound up winning the fight anyway but the goal wasn't to rescue Galdana, it was to kill him.
I wrote it so that Galdana was already dead. His essence drained into the elixir to be used by Adivion. I figure they wanted to try something different. I went with Adivion trying to become The Whispering Tyrant and failing because no one can become The Whispering Tyrant.
Well, it turns out I don't need to worry about how my players will do in the church or against the final fight.
The Banshee killed all of them as they examined her tower. They didn't even get teleported there; they were just clearing out the surrounding buildings and, after making quick work of the mummies, moved into the power.
Terror on the Barbarian (then repeated pokes when he came back to get his greatsword), Wail took out the Monk (surprised me; but he rolled quite poorly), Terror lead to the Swashbuckler's death, and the Inquisitor tried to shoot her at point-blank before she could poke him to death. He lost.
The players decided not to continue with an entirely new party, so we called the adventure and the Tyrant was successful in destroying the living world. I just don't think my players are capable of this amount of planning and preparing and general heavy duty tactics needed for this book (not a slight against the book, which is pretty awesome having read through it, but not something my particular players enjoy).
No... but my asploded with the awesomeness in that post. :D
(Please share when you can, if you get there.)
My own PCs will likely have a mass of solid allies based on play-style so far to do exactly this thing, so I'm certain intrigued with the idea. Their allies (and foes) will likely be somewhat different, of course, but it still sounds really cool.
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This is actual a similar question to the one I just posted in the Ashes at Dawn forum.
One of my players spent his entire gold allotment from the last adventure to purchase a +5 Adamantine Falchion. When they encountered the Witchgates his first statement was, "I destroy the Witchgate so we can teleport back!"
I immediately wondered if it was even possible. In the end I suggested that the witchgate was only marking the spot where the Whispering Tyrant (a 20th level Necromancer Lich with 8 mythic tiers, I assumed) had casted Teleportation Trap. They wanted to dispel them but when I told them that they gave up. I felt bad about cutting them off.
Would you guys, my fellow DMs allow them to destroy the witchgates with weapons or dispel magic?
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Yes and no.
The thing is, a witchgate is basically just a large-range teleportation trap - the difference is, however, it would require 875,827,815th level caster to cover the miles necessary...
... which, needless to say, is something that not even a 20th level necromancer 10 mythic rank mythic lich like Tar-Baphon (according to his stat entry in Mythic Realms) could do, no matter how much he spent on that item.
(2k <constant> * 875,827,815 <caster level> * 7 <spell level> * 8,758,278,150,000 <material component> = I don't even care anymore, he can't afford it.) per gate.
Compared to, instead, one a number of permanent effects equal to 875,827,815 x 8,758,278,150,000 gold seems impossible... but it's not. All Tar really needs is bound simulacra of efreet... and suddenly it makes sense. Everything he did, in fact, is suddenly fully explained. Now, granted, he'd have to have 797,658 simulacra in order to get the effect within the course of a year... but that's not that hard, really. Simply get a "factory" going with one simulacra of an efreet, and then have it make simulacra for just under 730 years. He had time. Set this up to happen twice, and place your simulacra into a pocket dimension hidden within the negative energy plane. In the meanwhile, he could have been doing his own thing, just letting his simulacra army make itself (in fact, if the simluacrum that created the other simulacra ordered the other simulacra to obey Tar, and Tar made the general command "I wish for you to make more simulicra of <the original creature> until I say otherwise", then those simulacra would make simulicra, and Tar could, by saying a phrase once per day, reduce that time-frame by a 1/3 each day he did so. ~727 years -> ~242 years on day 2 -> ~80 years on day 3 -> ~27 years on day 4 -> ~9 years on day 5 -> ~3 years on day 6 -> ~1 year on day 7... at which point he does it, you know, four more times (or so), and then later uses all of those to create his witchgates in, like, a few days.
What happened to the simulacra? Well, knowing the problems with using excessive wishcraft (see Legacy of Fire for details), Tar basically left it in the pocket dimension in the negative energy plane. The anarchy caused within that realm by their wishcraft eventually caused them to breakdown and become some sort of deadly magical wasteland (sounds kind of familiar, eh?) that probably was used in the attempted trap for Aroden, later, who quickly destroyed the upstart (and his wish factory)... but really that was something that Tar ultimately wanted anyway, as he knew that it wouldn't and couldn't last.
So he squirreled the power away for unleashing later, after he came back as a mythic lich.
So... lots of fore-planning on his part, the power was destroyed (on purpose), and the world is left with the problems created by it!
... oh, and there's a negative energy variant of the mana wastes out there somewhere filled with horrible horrible ice-and-illusion-mutated semi-sentient spell-effects.
... at least, if you want it to be. None of that stuff's canon, but, were I Tar, that's more or less how I'd handle it.
EDIT: Oh, right, your question. Sorry: rabbit trails + my brain = constant. Anyway, the point is, under the paradigm that I describe above, that means that they have a mere 875,827,815 number of times they need to dispel the area before they get all the witchgates taken care of! Heck, it's not that hard with the caster level 10 that the simulacra could created! :D
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That is the most amazing post I have ever seen.
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I think I just left it at the witchgates being minor artifacts, so you could hypothetically blow them up with disjunction and that's about it.
I guess they could have some amazingly inconvenient destruction condition...