We just started doing the last bit of Book 5. I don't know why we're having such a high rate of PC deaths. I didn't keep count in previous APs, but I think we've had more deaths in Carrion Crown than in Serpent's Skull and Rise of the Runelords combined, possibly by a good margin.
All three APs involved the same group of gamers, but a different one of use GMing each time. The one running Carrion Crown does have previous experience behind the screen, but not as much as the guys who ran SS and RotR.
With three players, we decided to have everyone run two PCs and beef up encounters as needed to compensate, rather than try to reduce the difficulty of individual encounters. Possibly the GM ovedid it in some cases. I know for sure he's disregarding some of the "instructions" for what NPCs do in an encounter situation because they seem clearly suboptimal, and the players all approve of NPCs not being stupid, but that can mean things get much harder for us.
This could be the AP that "breaks" Pathfinder for our group. I would hate that, but the group is small enough that losing even one player who decides he/she is tired of constantly being beaten to death while racing hither and yon to save the world would leave us with too few people to continue. We have to play something we all enjoy. For one or two (out of four), it's looking like that's no longer going to be Pathfinder.
I can see their views, up to a point. I have a lot of frustration going on at work and other areas, and I play the game to have fun. Getting the crap beat out of you to such an extreme extent week after week isn't fun. I just don't blame the game system. I might blame the AP to some degree, but I don't know exactly where the GM is running it as written and where he's made changes (or what those changes are.)
If we do continue with Pathfinder, this will almost certainly be our last AP. It'll have to be homebrew adventures -- possibly even a homebrew world, though that's a lot of extra work -- or a switch to D&D 5E.
:(
One typical scale-up mistake that I've often seen is that the DM just increases the opponents' CR either by selecting a different creature or adding levels. This can cause big issues because the PCs might not have the AC, HP, Saves, DCs, to survive those encounters.
You can run nasty encounters (my players are in the middle of one right now), but you have to do it mindfully. For example, I gave an additional harrow card to all of the players at one point because of good role-play and they will get another they complete Carrion Hill.
Also, I've had to pay close attention to the magic items of my PCs in this AP. With all the running around it is hard converting unusable magic items into the wealth that the PCs are expected to have at a given level. I changed the end of one of the books and instead of giving them the info right away, I gave them some downtime in a city to kit up a bit.
Agree on this %100. Carrion Crown is pretty hard at points, but giving already difficult enemies +4 to their AC and everything else that comes with an Advanced template can be.. a little bit over the top. It is especially devastating if a DM is using experience points and is dividing them among a higher number of PCs, resulting in encounters where the math of more PCs doesn't keep up with the CR's of the module, especially when augmented. This becomes especially true when fighting against some of the enemies in the final module; in fact, the very nature of Renchurch's defenses ensures that a greater number of less experienced people will be at greater risk than a smaller group of more powerful people. Once you start playing the high level game, that next level of spell choices that a dedicated, single class caster gets can make all the difference between an encounter being easy or deadly.
I think he's mainly increasing the numbers of existing creatures in the encounters. Without spoiling anything waiting for us inside the abbey, perhaps you can confirm my suspicion that these two recent encounters were "extra beefy":
Bridge outside Caliphas: Rask (headless horseman) + 6 dire ghoul wolves
Carriage house outside abbey: 2 glabrezu demons (initially 1 disguised as a caretaker, but he summoned a second one as soon as he dropped his disguise)
Oh, and he is using XP which we have to divide 6 ways, but he has us on the Fast advancement track, which should compensate. One thing it has made worse is the already low treasure situation in Carrion Crown. He did eventually start adding more treasure to some encounters, and of course any time he increases the number of loot-equipped foes in a combat, the loot increases in step. It's just not very good loot for our group, as it largely duplicates magic items we already have, so we sell almost all of it for half price.
The Demon is as written, he added 3 ghoul wolves it appears
Sounds rough Damon, sorry!
He probably either fudged the dice or got really lucky with the summoning. A Gladbrezu is pretty smart and knows its own chance of being able to get another of its kind is pretty low (20%) versus the 1 in 2 chance of getting 1-2 more allies. My group of four had one mythic tier, and I still didn't feel mean enough to include that second Glabrezu, two beat-sticks with mirror image and true seeing seems kind of mean, especially when you know that your PCs best 6th level spells are going to be Heal, Disintegrate, and other anti-vampire/witch spells.
In defense of your DM, its entirely within his/her bounds to have the demon shoot for the moon; all demons are as different as the layers of the abyss in their tactics, even among the individual sub-species of their kind. This is what makes fighting them unpredictable and memorable. Also, part of the thing that makes fighting so darned scary (and fun)is that very possible threat of escalation. This is especially true for the ones that have a 20-35% chance of summoning another of their kind, making what might already be a difficult fight lethal. IMC, I open roll such summon abilities in front of the players to be completely fair, it is after all a monster combat ability, already built into the monster's CR.
We were actually prepared for the possibility of demons or devils as well as vampires and witches, having run into both demons and devils three times since arriving in Caliphas; in all cases tied to a magical trap.
The session before the abbey we had six demons of some sort pop in as soon as we attacked the coffins in the cave that Radvir & co had fled to outside the city. Not sure what kind of demons, but they had a death gaze attack that turned an NPC priest into a ghoul on the spot.
We'd gone into the cave expecting a combination of vampires and vampire spawn, and having scouted ahead we knew there were 10 coffins, so that was already going to be a big fight. Add six demons...
...anyway, we went to the abbey with one banishment (save DC boosted by +4 by the Cleric waving a good-aligned artifact weapon in the demon's face) and two dismissals and all three spells were negated by successful saving throws. Them's the breaks.
Speaking of breaks, we're not playing this weekend. My wife's Rogue has been killed three times over the past three weeks and she said she isn't up for a fourth consecutive one.
Name: Darius Ral'Algul
Race: Half-Elf
Classes/levels: Inquisitor 6/Alchemist 2
Adventure: Blood of the Moon
Location: Feldgrau Tower
Catalyst: Who do you think?
The Gory Details: The group tromped into the tower, loaded for bear, prepared for anything...except Auren Vrood rolling a Nat 20 for Initiative and dropping a Circle of Death on he, Jones, and Sledge the Brawler before they even had a chance to react. One low roll later, and Darius lies dead.
Name: Jones Shei'Lac
Race: Half-Elf
Classes/levels: Investigator 8
Adventure: Blood of the Moon
Location: Feldgrau Tower
Catalyst: Same as above
The Gory Details: Same as above. Poor bastard would have passed teh save to...if he hadn't been Flatfooted, and thus unable to use Inspiration to boost the save.
The two were immediately resurrected by deific intervention.
I had given them the Harrow card from Desna, but tweaked it a bit. Essentially, it had the power to completely undo the effects of any one spell, curse, transformation, etc. I figured it was a good safety net for if someone was afflicted by Lycanthropy and could not otherwise be saved, and for this encounter in particular. It also served as a potential reward for the Oracle if the party did not need to use it, her main goal since she joined having been to remove her Curse and end its never-ending pain (she's Blackened).
She was understandably upset that the card was used to thwart a "piddling necromancer" instead, and ended up disintegrating Vrood's body and all of his "beautiful" paintings in a Fireball flinging rage when she found out after the fight was over.
Name: Loric Darkflow
Race: Undine
Class: Oracle 13
Adventure: Shadows of Gallowspire
Location: Renchurch Catacombs
Catalyst: Overconfidence and Overextension
Lucimar took the opportunity to ambush the party while they were facing the mooks. He attacked while invisible, exhausting and electrocuting the party. He unleashed a cloudkill before retreating, but the party was protected by a life bubble cast earlier. Akuum, the swordsage, removed his exhaustion.
Hank, the fighter, decided to head down the hallway while the weakened Akuum and Loric finished off the mooks. Hank discovered the embalming golems and Nalthezzar waiting for him. He didn’t realize the state of the rest of the party and engaged the golems, quickly being brought low by bombs. Loric rushed to aid him. Waivir, still paralyzed, could only watch the events unfold.
Loric kept up Hank as long as he could, but soon Hank fell unconscious. Akuum finished off the mooks and flew to aid his companions. Burning the much of their resources (including some Harrow Cards) the party was able to wake up Hank and defeat the golems, but decided to retreat from the invisible alchemist.
Retreat was slow, given Nalthezzar ample opportunity to blast the party with his extracts and bombs. Loric fell unconscious from these attacks. Hank threw Waivir over his shoulder and slowly made his way up the Night Stair. Akuum went back to get Loric, cramming the dying undine inside his bag of holding before continuing the retreat, while dodging touch attacks from Nalthezzar.
Akuum became moonstruck by the Whispers on the Night Stair (he would have made the save, if he wasn't carrying cursed treasure). Nalthezzar flew past him, leaving him to his mindless rage. Hank caught his breath in the Tea Room, leaning the still paralyzed Waivir up against a wall. Nalthezzar arrived in the Tea room as his invisibility wore off. He was overconfident in his victory. He drank his displacement extract to avoid Hank’s attacks and advanced. Unfortunately for Nalthezzar, Hank’s aim was true and the alchemist was grievously wounded. Sadly, one elemental touch caused Hank to collapse.
The lich moved to finish of Waivir, who he assumed would remain paralyzed. Waivir was able to crack a smile. After two stiff minutes, he was finally able to move. He unleashed his acidic dragon breath upon the surprised lich. Before the battle, the alchemist had protected himself from fire, but not acid. The lich crumpled. Waivir survived with 4 hp.
Waivir was able to heal Hank. Akuum regained his composure long enough to rejoin the party and escape his rage. When Akuum pulled Loric from the bag, he found he had succumbed to his wounds.
Name: Isana Hafwen
Race: Halfling
Classes/Levels: Bard-3
Adventure: Trial of the Beast
Location: Marshes
Catalyst: Blood Caiman
The Gory Details: Knocked unconscious and drowned after wandering away from the party while mourning her sister's death.
All through Feldgrau Kendra (Isana's party replacement and once lover) and Sir Aurok (party paladin, Isana's best friend, harborer of guilt for a 'failed' promise to her) were haunted with images of Isana in the mists, as was the party's new member. And in a confrontation with another former party member (who'd gone completely insane and was later killed) it was mentioned that Isana had visited. Nothing was thought of this, as the town was clearly haunted.
While examining the vivisected animals in Vrood's tower, Kendra discovered a particularly familiar looking painting. When she looked at the corresponding table, she found Isana's undead and twitching corpse autopsied upon it. Her corpse's reconstruction and reanimation, and subsequent desecration, were a 'gift' from 'A' meant to torture the PCs'. More than that however, as she was effected by a contingency spell such that she returned to life when Vrood died. Sir Aurok was able to save her though. Unfortunately, this proved too much for Kendra and she left the party for Caliphas, intending on garnering favor with the Esoteric Order.
Name: Waivir Ashenface
Race: Half-Elf
Class: Sorcerer 6/Dragon Disciple 8
Adventure: Shadows of Gallowspire
Location: Renchurch Catacombs
Catalyst: Auren VroodThe Gory Details:The party was ambushed by the revenants while fighting the stone golems. The healer was feared by the revenants and was unable to heal. This gave the reanimated Auren Vrood time take vengence upon Waivir for killing him back in Feldgrau.
It's the Broken Moon module in my game, and the party elven Wizard (Evoker) level 8 got dead. Bitten by a gargantuan Tarantula whilst in the Ascanor Lodge. I critted, and he boloed the saving throw. Lost so much hp that he went from full or nearly so straight into death.
We just finished Broken Moon, and Auren Vrood the final necromancer boss of the module managed to use Circle of Death to kill off the Fighter 8 Barbarian 1 human and the aasimar Cleric 9 of Pharasma.
The Fighter rolled a 1 on his Fortitude save, and so died with a 16 result when he needed 21. The Cleric similarly blew his saving throw.
So far, only the angelkin Paladin has escaped death even once. The others were Raise Dead'ed at considerable cost.
So, the party Wizard and Paladin were the ones to kill off Auren Vrood, the necromancer of the Whispering Way cult.
We just finished Broken Moon, and Auren Vrood the final necromancer boss of the module managed to use Circle of Death to kill off the Fighter 8 Barbarian 1 human and the aasimar Cleric 9 of Pharasma.
Circle of Death doesn't affect creatures of 9 HD or more, so neither of those characters should have been killed.
Name: Loric Darkflow
Race: Undine
Class: Oracle 14
Adventure: Shadows of Gallowspire
Location: Renchurch
Catalyst: Tyrant’s Dreams
Name: Loric Darkflow
Race: Undine
Class: Oracle 15
and
Name: Akuum Nightwind
Race: Slyph
Class: Swordsage 9/Warblade 1/Master of Nine 5
Adventure: Shadows of Gallowspire
Location: Gallowspire
Catalyst: General Sey'lok
Name: Loric Darkflow
Race: Undine
Class: Oracle 15
Adventure: Shadows of Gallowspire
Location: Gallowspire
Catalyst: Keening Suicides Haunt
Is Loric this party's 'Miner's Canary'? Or did someone curse his diceName: Loric Darkflow
Race: Undine
Class: Oracle 15
Adventure: Shadows of Gallowspire
He's just been unlucky combined with having lower defenses than other PCs. Up until this last book, it was Akuum that was prone to dying. SoG hasn't been very nice to Loric. Good thing the party had stocked up on diamonds.
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Name: Sir Theodore Bearington
Race: Skinwalker (Bear)
Classes/levels: Warpriest 2 (Pharasma)
Adventure: Haunting of Harrowstone
Location: Harrowstone West Balcony
Catalyst: Headsman's Scythe
The Gory Details: Scythe animated attacked nearest living creature, critical hitting and rolling max damage, took character from full to death. RIP Sir Bearington.
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Name: Amanorn Preyedan
Race: Elf
Classes/Levels Fighter 1/Wizard 1/Eldritch Knight 5/Arcane Archer 2
Adventure: Wake of the Watcher
Location: Oracle of the Dark Tapestry
Catalyst: Oggg'ggg'ol
The Gory Details: First I preface this by saying I beef up all the monsters slightly, as my players are running a 5 man party and are relatively well optimized for combat. In this case, I gave the fungus an extra Oracle level.
Of course, I was convinced he'd never have to USE it, since the party was getting on quite well with him, coming up with fun, silly, "logical' answers to his nonsense questions.
I told them it wouldn't attack if they politely excused themselves before they had a chance to answer too many questions wrong.
Of course, Amanorn's idea of a "polite excuse" was "A pointy stick to the face, extra spicy" and he hit it with a Burning Hands infused arrow.
It retaliated by Feebleminding him. Amanorn is now looked on in pity by his allies, able to do little more than drool and follow along like a puppy.
They have no intention of fixing him. Nobody really liked Amanorn, including his player (though this was, hilariously, not an intentional self destruct).
The PC Tengu Ranger bought it in the beginning of book 6. Went from full hp to beyond negative (outright death) in one shot.
Got critically hit by the Banshee that was waiting for the group when they teleported into Renchurch via the witchgates. He was doing a murderous amount of damage to the Banshee (the only one to damage it so far because the party's Paladin and Fighter were both melee based), but didn't kill it in one round, letting the undead elf swoop in and confirm a crit on him.
At one point I'd tallied up 14 PC deaths for our group (plus the loss of a cohort and three animal companions), but now I don't remember exactly at what point that was. Last night's PC death may or may not have been the only one since then.
In any case, my 13th L Ratfolk Ranger, the only PC who hadn't already died at least once, was taken out last night after being surrounded by four corpulent ghoul rogues. He made all his saves vs. paralyzation, but being attacked 12 times a round for 1d6+6+3d6 each hit wears a fellow down quickly, especially when the ghouls manage a couple of confirmed crits.
He got raised and had one negative level removed immediately afterward, and as we still had acceptable resources for the day, decided to press on. After dealing with one haunt, we found ourselves up against a vampire and four spectres, and things went rapidly downhill. No one else died but it was a near thing. One of our Clerics was still staggered from the haunt, so could only move or act, not both. Ditto our only Fighter.
The staggered Cleric got hit by all four spectres in the first round and took 8 negative levels. She spent the rest of the encounter maintaining a death ward to protect the group against negative levels; the ward also suppressed her own negative levels but they'd all come crashing back in a few rounds, so she couldn't afford to take a lot of hp damage. Between the staggered condition and the need to maintain the ward, she couldn't move, channel or cast spells.
The vampire sorcerer spammed fireballs at us from the safety of improved invisibilty. We got out by the seat of our pants via a mythic dimension door after taking out the last spectre. We never even saw the vampire, much less damaged him.
Tomorrow morning we'll be prepping multiple copies of spells that give our Cleric her best chances to make saving throws, in hopes of preventing any of those 8 negative levels from becoming permanent.
Ouch!
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Just had our follow-up session last night. It was brutal; makes the above session seem pleasant by comparison.
The following morning we layered on buffs including communal darkvision, 80 minutes worth of protection from fire, a telepathic bond, etc. and dimension doored back to the point from where we'd left. As before, that room had two closed doors and an open hallway leading into it. The right-hand door is where our Cleric had gotten into trouble last time, but we'd killed the spectres. We didn't want to assume the vampire sorcerer would still be in the same area, so we had the Cleric scry though the other door. Skipping spoilers, there were a few enemies behind that door, all paying attention to a certain device in the center of the room.
Through the telepathic bond we silently agreed we'd take three PCs into that room to handle that group while the rest remained in the outer room on guard for the vampire.
But the vampire wasn't the first problem we had to deal with out there. Five ghosts came through the walls and started trying to possess us! All the PCs resisted possession, but they took over a cohort (12th L sorceress) and an animal companion (Large lion); then three shadows appeared; then the vampire showed up and started lobbing fireballs again.
This wasn't a series of attacks -- this was a single melee in the room we'd arrived in, with multiple overlapping waves of enemies. In pretty short order we ended up with:
Cleric of Pharasma: killed by a shadow, rose as a shadow, destroyed by her fellow Cleric
Wizard: killed by a shadow with a single touch (he only had 8 STR to begin with; shadow backed up a crit); rose as a shadow, destroyed by a combination of positive energy and damage from the Fighter's weapon
Sorceress cohort: Possessed by ghost, dealt punishing amounts of damage to her own party before being killed by the lion (animal companion) and Fighter
Lion animal companion: Possessed by ghost, dealt punishing amounts of damage to his own party before being freed from possession when his ghost was slain with positive energy. Dropped below 0hp by the possessed Sorceress after they exchanged attacks.
Rogue: survived but was taken well below 0hp and had lost a lot of STR
Fighter: Survived but began with 25 STR, ended with 5 STR
Cleric of Ragathiel: survived; obliged to destroy her fellow Cleric
Ranger: survived with the loss of 5 STR and 2 temporary negative levels
And again the vampire wasn't destroyed, but the GM assured us we'd hurt her so badly she wouldn't risk a third encounter.
GM admitted he hadn't played this encounter as written, because by leaving the vampire "alive" last time we'd given her time to organize and prepare for our return.
The aasimar 14th level Cleric of Pharasma bit it not once, but TWICE this game session. 'Twas in Renchurch it was, room F4, killed by a Weird spell. He failed both saves by all of ONE point, and died technically. I decided not to kill him because his player wasn't there at the time.
The second death of the Cleric happened in room F7 of the catacombs beneath Renchurch. Hit him and the party with 3 Flame Strikes from 4 enemy clerics, and then with 3 Unholy Blight spells which did him in. The players had to pick up the poor Cleric of Pharasma, Sir Burps A Lot, and run for it.
Hopefully this won't happen again, as the PC's blew their accumulated gold on the party Wizard's magic item crafting abilities.
@ Damon Griffin - magic circle v. evil and death ward are life savers at Renchurch. (And Gallowspire.)
But damn, that's rough.
@ Zhangar - Yeah, we could be better about using magic circle against evil. We have an unusually large party (6 PCs plus one cohort and one Large lion animal follower), so it's tough keeping everyone within 10' of the clerics...more often than not a few of us are outside the 30' range of their channeled positive energy as well. Vampire sorcerers spamming fireballs at us tends to encourage us to spread out.
Death ward is an awesome protective spell, but at 1 min/level it expires fairly quickly, and only protects one creature at a time; again, large party. One of our clerics has the Repose domain, though, and has been making good use of her Ward Against Death granted power. It's essentially the death ward spell, but covers a 30' radius instead of protecting a single creature. But she can only use that for 14 rounds (not necessarily consecutive) per day.
The trick with magic circle isn't to put it on the clerics; the trick is to put it on your people with the worst will saves. Usually split between a frontliner and a backliner if you can spare multiples.
Death ward is trickier, since it has a shorter duration. I think my PCs pooled money and bought a wand of it, Or otherwise they simply picked "key" people to get death ward - people expected to be high priority or who were good at making themselves high priority.
(Though I still killed a person with greater shadows at Gallowspire. I think the cleric burned whatever she had to in order to do death ward everyone after that.)
Either way we tend to spread out in combat, though we probably would have better coverage putting magic circles on non-Clerics. I'll keep that in mind. The Fighter tends to be on his own; the Ranger tends to team with his animal companion and the Thief since they all share Teamwork feats; the [cohort] Sorcerer and the Wizard might be anywhere, depending on the space.
I don't think a wand of death ward is in the cards for us. We do have a wand crafter and the cash needed for a 21,000gp retail item but I don't know -- -- if circumstances in the module will allow us to take a three-week break to craft it.
We've only just started the first level below Renchurch. We're more or less expecting two underground levels, and aren't sure what to expect by the time we've finished them. Our thinking is () that we're ultimately going to Gallowspire -- the name of Book Six practically guarantees it -- but Count Galdana is either still at Renchurch or he isn't; if he is and we rescue him, that would seem to foil the Whispering Way's plans and we don't know why we'd still need to go to the 'spire. If he isn't, we're going to be pretty pissed about wasting a lot of time fighting and dying over and over for an unattainable (at this location) goal.
Maybe there's still some reason to go to Gallowspire after rescuing the Count, and maybe whatever that reason is will allow us the necessary crafting time after seeing him safely back to Amaans...Adventure Paths in general tend to be a weird mix of rushing from point to point at breakneck speed, and having the bad guys frozen in time ahead of you so that you always arrive in the nick of time.
The Settlements rules/tables are open to interpretation regarding the purchase of magic items valued above 16,000gp: in a metropolis, there's a 75% chance of being able to purchase a 16,000gp item, but no listed chance of purchasing anything more expensive. It's reasonable to supposed the chances taper off above that value rather than immediately drop to zero, but I don't know if our GM will agree, or what chances he'd set for a 21Kgp wand (or higher, if we got one with more than a 7-minute duration.)
If we need a metropolis, I'm not certain where the nearest one is, but there are none in Ustalav. Our Wizard's teleport range is 1400 miles, but every time he's tried to teleport anywhere within Virlych he's been rerouted, so we'd have to put some distance between us and Renchurch before even trying that again.
EDIT: The first time this happened, we were at the border between the counties of Caliphas and Virlych. The party being too large to teleport all at once, we'd decided we'd teleport in stages to Ravengro and use wands of mount to make a shorter overland journey from there. So he took half our group to Ravegro successfully, but when trying to teleport back he got pulled into a grove of killer trees. Thanks to having status in place, the clerics knew more or less where he ended up and that he was in trouble, but had no idea why and no way to get to him. He wasn't able to teleport away from that spot, either; or he was, but didn't go where he wanted to. We haven't sussed out all the rules behind this, so we're just avoiding teleport for a while.
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Name: Darius Ral'Algul
Race (at time of death): Half-Elf
Classes/levels: Inquisitor 8/Alchemist 2
Adventure: Wake of the Watcher
Location: Mi-Go Operating Room
Catalyst: Spawn of Shub-Niggurath
The Gory Details: The group fought vaiantly, but full attacks from that thing hurt. Darius tanked the hits like a champ for the rest of the party, but dropped the round before it was finished off.
He was later reincarnated into an Orc.
Honorable mention: RIP Zin'Retatarianna Mor's sanity (or what tiny shred was left of it), as the horrid form of Shub-Niggurath glimpsed as the portal closed chattered her mind. She is now, in addition to her naturally pyromanic state and hot temper, afflicted with Mania and a creepy obsession with Darius himself.
Her player has done an admirable job of balancing the sweet and psychotic in equal measure, as a true Yandere should.
Unexpected turn of good fortune (so, perhaps I'm in the wrong thread) -- in this week's unusually short session we continued on the same game day as last week and only got through two more rooms in the catacombs: an alchemist's lab and an adjacent room mostly filled with water (if you've been through the area, you'll know what was in there; if not I don't want to spoil it.)
The second room gave us more trouble than the first, especially when its primary resident gated in another of its own kind. We took a lot of hits and our Wizard was killed (drowned in acidic mud.) So with that and the resources used earlier in the day (last week) we decided to recover the Wizard's body, leave, rest overnight and return. But the Sorceress couldn't take the whole group using dimension door and only had two spell slots of that level remaining; she could leave and come back, but then not leave again. Using carry companion on the Large animal companion and given that the Wizard was just luggage at the moment, we still had one person we couldn't cover.
Our Pharasmin cleric said she'd walk out and meet us back at camp; she cast a spell that gave her several buffs and the Sorceress made her invisible for 12 minutes, then the rest of us left. A short distance away she ran into a certain furry spellcasting antagonist we'd faced as a group briefly twice before. It was touch and go, especially as he appeared to be completely undamaged now, but she took him out solo! Their battle ran four or five rounds, during which both tried some things that didn't work. Ultimately it took two destruction spells, since he saved vs. the first one.
Our wizard was killed (again) in the very next session. This has become so de rigeur I didn't even mention it at the time.
Yesterday's session, though...after killing a certain furry lich for the second time, and this time destroying his phylactery, we still had tolerable resources left, but one or two things could be fairly problematic, so we called it a day and went back to our camp early. Two PCs on guard while the rest of us hung out in rope tricks nearby.
A mixed group of spectres and greater shadows surprised the Cleric and Fighter on watch. The Cleric didn't even have a chance to scream as she was hit by two of the shadows, one confirming a crit. She instantly dropped from STR 19 to STR 0 and rose one round later as a shadow. The Fighter did have time to call out, rousing the rest of the group to join the fray. By the time it was done the Fighter and a Sorceress cohort had also been killed and had risen as shadows, so the survivors were being attacked by the shades of their friends.
And this was a random encounter!
We'd had a total of 14 character deaths by the end of Book Five. We've had 9 more deaths just since arriving at Renchurch.
@ Toz - 12d6 in book one?
I'm trying to figure out what could do that - the Splatterman's the obvious candidate, but IIRC 12d6 is actually too low for him critting.
Heh.
@ Damon - that mixed group sounds like a couple random encounters mashed together, actually. I mean, spectres and greater shadows are totally on the chart, but not both at the same time...
@ Damon - that mixed group sounds like a couple random encounters mashed together, actually. I mean, spectres and greater shadows are totally on the chart, but not both at the same time...
I asked the GM about that. He said normally we'd encounter one or the other, but since they were so far below our level we got a mixed group. It's true they weren't worth a lot of XP, but considering the outcome, this is a good example of how CR isn't everything.
Come the morning (in game) we exited the rope tricks and were immediately confronted by a decked-out high level Monk who said he was there to "test" us. This isn't from the AP; it's a continuation of an encounter the GM set up for us in Caliphas (two abberant bloodline sorcerer vampires kept propositioning two of the PCs.) Not sure of all his specifics. His AC was something above 44, touch AC above 36 and he had a shield spell in place, boots of speed, other stuff. Our entire group (6 PCs plus a cohort and an animal companion) managed to get him down to about 50% hit points while getting our own asses kicked. By then we'd convinced him that his vampire masters would be better off leaving us alone and letting us prevent the rise of Tar-Baphon if they wanted to have a food supply going forward. He agreed, gave us some magic scrolls and left. We got 51,200xp just for him; the shadows & spectres were only worth 20,800xp as a group.
Let's call this one Schrödinger's TPK.
We're moving through the Renchurch catacombs and get hit with the double whammy of the Whispers plus 8 greater shadows. The shadows have surprise and an initiative result higher than most of the party; and two party members (our Rogue and one of two Clerics) fail the Will save vs. the Whispers and get locked into hitting themselves every round as if confused.
The other Cleric got hit by multiple shadows during the surprise round and before she could act on Round 1, and died. (This is the second time that character has been killed by shadows before she could act.) Her Sorceress cohort suffered the same fate.
Over the next few rounds we not only lost our Wizard, our favored-enemy-undead Ranger, and his animal companion, but all five of them rose as shadows as well. We're down to one PC who can act normally, the Fighter. He's doing a bang-up job but his weapon isn't ghost touch, so every hit is half damage. He finally goes down, having taken out -- without very much help -- 12 of the 13 shadows we'd been assaulted by up to that point. He'll rise himself in a couple of rounds, at which point he and the one remaining original shadow can slay the helplessly confused Rogue and Cleric.
Game over, Tap-Baphon will rise, the world is doomed...until the GM realizes he screwed up big time. The shadows had reached out of the walls to attack us in the surprise round, but he'd forgotten to give us the cover (50% miss chance) their blind attacks should have afforded us.
So next week we may hit the reset button and play out that encounter again from the surprise round...or we may decide that having suffered 32 deaths over the course if this AP (18 of them within Renchurch) is too much, we let it lie and possibly never play a Pathfinder game again.
Cheat in their favor and give them ghost touch.
Cheat in their favor and give them ghost touch.
Don't want to cheat. I'd been seriously considering bless equipment as my Cleric's feat next level, and we are/were pretty close to leveling up, but that's no help now.
AFAIK the only spell that can grant temporary access to a feat you don't have (but for which you qualify) is paragon surge, which is for half-elves only.
There is a single ghost touch weapon in the party, a longsword. The Fighter's +3 flaming flail will do more hurt at half damage than the longsword will at full; it's too large for the Ratfolk TWF Ranger to use; one Cleric is carrying Raven's Head and isn't inclined to put it down in favor of a longsword; the other Cleric could wield the longsword if she weren't better off channeling or spellcasting instead.
I don't believe either Cleric had ghostbane dirge or mass ghostbane dirge prepared today, but I need to double check that. Both did have anti-incorporeal shell, but neither had a chance to cast a single spell. We have a couple of Mythic tiers and one of the Clerics can use mythic power to cast any spell on her spell list, so as long as she's not killed in the first round or tied up with confusion on the do-over, we'll be a good deal better off.
So, you have a high-level cleric in the party. Why is anyone going around without Death Ward up?
(Our party pooled our (very little) money and bought a wand of it by the time we'd reached Book 5).
Death Ward: The subject is immune to energy drain and any negative energy effects, including channeled negative energy.
Shadow: Strength Damage (Su) A shadow's touch deals 1d6 points of Strength damage to a living creature. This is a negative energy effect. A creature dies if this Strength damage equals or exceeds its actual Strength score.
Yeah, all my PCs walk around right now with Death Ward and Freedom of Movement, rendering a lot of the undead ineffective. Most of the time when the Whispers go off, its to duplicate a Greater Dispel magic so I can at least make the fights interesting. Such is the nature of high level play..
I think a problem is that DW is minute/level, so you have to rush through and risk traps/ambushes so it doesn't run out
I'm baffled at how many times you've repeatedly run into eight greater shadows.
While there's an encounter on the random encounter table for 1d8 of them, I don't recall there being any actual scripted encounters with the things.
(And in light of how badly the dungeons been going with for you, I'm also baffled that if the GM keeps rolling 8 greater shadows as a random encounter, why he isn't just re-rolling for something else.)
DW IS a minute/level, but due the Tyrant's Whisper's Renchurch has a built-in "Move Move MOVE!" mechanic.
I'd expect a party to be doing Renchurch from start to finish in about 10 or 11 minutes of in-game time, because stopping to take a breather is not an option.
Barring disasters like losing half the party to massive packs of greater shadows, of course.
Contributor
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While there's an encounter on the random encounter table for 1d8 of them, I don't recall there being any actual scripted encounters with the things.
Check room F12. ^_^
DW IS a minute/level, but due the Tyrant's Whisper's Renchurch has a built-in "Move Move MOVE!" mechanic.
I don't think it's meant to trigger once every minute...
The haunt is given a quick reset time so that the
phenomenon can be used when needed, but you should
do so sparingly, just enough that the mere invocation
of a chorus of whispers immediately sets your PCs on
guard, whether a haunting effect is forthcoming or not.
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So, you have a high-level cleric in the party. Why is anyone going around without Death Ward up?
We're well aware of death ward, but as I explained to Zhanghar upthread, we don't have a wand of death ward and no good way to get one at this point.
With 6 PCs plus a cohort and an animal companion, we've got a larger number of creatures that need to be buffed/protected, and every 14-minute death ward cast is one less dismissal, holy smite, communal protection from energy or restoration available that day.
We are rushing through what we can, but it's frustrating and in some ways counterproductive to do so. We haven't got food for an extended stay at Renchurch, so we have to save some 3rd level spell slots for create food and water. Our daily routine has become: dimension door to a previously explored room with a buttload of buffs in place, most recently including haste; move quickly to the next unexplored room, suffer attacks from whatever's there, kill it, and move on to the next room. We often don't get more than two rooms done in a "day" before we have to leave due to lack of resources or lack of surviving PCs.
@Zhangar: I don't think we've run into more than a couple of 8-packs of greater shadows. The last time a bunch of us got killed it was a mixed group of greater shadows and spectres, five altogether.
I'd say you're overreacting, but your wife's reaction is nearly identical to how I was feeling about Pathfinder after our Carrion Crown fiasco... up until NobodysWife cast Mad Monkeys on the BBEG and they actually managed to steal his cape!
Hilarity ensued...