Well, they do have things like DR, are immune to a couple of things, and have resists as well - comparable to the Lemure which is another CR 1 devil.
(And yes: both are pushovers to the average greatsword wielding full BAB PC).
Ruyan.
In Room D4, there is a mention that the slime is above the everburning torch, but that item is not mentioned in that room's description aside from the fact that the slime is above it.
Coincidentally, there are the skeletons of the workers in D6 of which one is clutching an everburning torch.
So are there two everburning torches? Was the slime supposed to be above the dead workers or were the workers supposed to be in D4 and not D6?
The Siccatite doors. Area B22 contains doors sheathed in valuable siccatite. A dwarven PC in my game wants to hire a band of dwarven craftsmen to remove the siccatite so the PC can use/sell it.
So much siccatite is that? And what might be the difficulties in recovering it?
Another question: The PCs are considering making the Crow into their home base. I'm thinking that the city might not allow them to do this. What other interest groups might have a say? And what would that say be?
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Is it just me, or are the Nupperibos almost absurdly easy enemies? 5hp, +1 to attack, and 12AC does not seem like even CR 1 to me. After a couple of encounters my players just ignored them, allowing the clockwork servant to slowly beat them to death while they started searching for treasure.
Easy enemies are fine. The nupperibos have damage reduction, though... that's gonna make them harder to damage to a certain extent. But if they end up going down easy, that's okay too. There's plenty of other perils in the dungeon!
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In Room D4, there is a mention that the slime is above the everburning torch, but that item is not mentioned in that room's description aside from the fact that the slime is above it.
Coincidentally, there are the skeletons of the workers in D6 of which one is clutching an everburning torch.
So are there two everburning torches? Was the slime supposed to be above the dead workers or were the workers supposed to be in D4 and not D6?
The everburning torches are indicated on the map. There was, once upon a time, a short paragraph at the start of each dungeon level that summarized shared features of each room (it was here that the torches were mentioned), but when we cut those entries to make room for the rest of the adventure (because those entries were really repetitive overall), the bit about the torches was lost, alas.
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The Siccatite doors. Area B22 contains doors sheathed in valuable siccatite. A dwarven PC in my game wants to hire a band of dwarven craftsmen to remove the siccatite so the PC can use/sell it.
So much siccatite is that? And what might be the difficulties in recovering it?
Another question: The PCs are considering making the Crow into their home base. I'm thinking that the city might not allow them to do this. What other interest groups might have a say? And what would that say be?
As a general rule, I try to resist giving gp values to everything in an adventure. I'd rather not encourage play styles that has adventurers scavenging every door hinge in the adventure for their iron content of 1 gp each, or every single lock or trap part.
That said, siccatite is indeed valuable and rare. I'd say that removing the siccatite from the doors would probably take several hours of dedicated work at the minimum, and with proper tools becasue siccatite is dangerous to work with. I'd probably set the time it takes to harvest all of the metal at 2d6 hours of work, and each hour, the harvester would have to make a DC 15 Reflex save to avoid taking 1d8 points of fire damage (half on a successful save) from periodic accidental contact with the stuff. In the end, the doors are only plated in siccatite, so what's harvested when all is said and done should be enough for 10 pounds of armor and/or weapons.
Magnimar itself likely wouldn't have a problem with the PCs making the Crow their home base... ESPECIALLY if the PCs were kinda quiet or stealthy about it. After all, other groups in the city, some legal, some not, make similar uses of other Irespan pilings. The pilings are GREAT hideouts though, so if the PCs move in to the Crow, you should periodically have groups of thieves from above or monsters from below try to invade.
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What is the the Shard DC. on the will when Natalya cast major Imange?
All spell-like abilities cast from shards resolve at the base DC for the spell. In the case of major image, that's a 3rd level spell, so its save is DC 14. (10 + 3 for spell level + 1 for the fact that you need an ability score of 13 to cast it.)
The everburning torches are indicated on the map. There was, once upon a time, a short paragraph at the start of each dungeon level that summarized shared features of each room (it was here that the torches were mentioned), but when we cut those entries to make room for the rest of the adventure (because those entries were really repetitive overall), the bit about the torches was lost, alas.
Ah-ha. Thanks.
A suggestion for the future:To save space but retain clarity, maybe you could you use a legend on the map image to describe common features like that? And the bonus for using the legend is even if we are just looking at the interactive map image in the PDF, we'll know what's what on the map without having to refer back to the text.
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I was telling my player about area C7 and they spent quite a lot of time because of those few runes that the old master left, my team tried to detect magic in the room but there's no mention that the statues have any kind of magic, yet they give insight bonus if you touch them, all my players did touch them (the wizard used a ray attack against one, I told him, he should be ashamed to be called pathfinder because they shouldn't break a statue just because there's some runes in a room).
My question is: those statues are magical, yes/no, if yes how much spellcraft or knowledge to know about it.I ruled it as a no for the time being and considered them to be a monument that stacks with other monuments.
question 2: Stink's stench
I don't see a number of round on the stench ability is it 10 rounds?
The statblock read as follow : Aura stench (10ft., DC16)
The bestiary suggest that it's usually a 30 feet radius.
I'm unspoilering the question to make it easier to reference, and because this is a GM reference thread so spoilers are a given!
In a case like these statues, where they have a minor magic effect but we don't spell out what the aura would be, it's best to assume that there IS a magic aura. In the case of these pillars, I'd say they radiate a strong aura appropriate to the type of magic each runelord specialized in. For things like this, it's also fine to allow PCs to use Spellcraft to figure out what the item does, just as if they were identifying a magic item. Since this is powerful magic (although a relatively minor effect), I'd say it was CL 20th, and thus unlikely for a low level PC to be able to identify the magic... but you could lower it in your game if you wished.
Stink's stench is similar to a ghast's—the sickness it causes lasts for 1d6+4 minutes. That said... 10 rounds is fine as well.
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The everburning torches are indicated on the map. There was, once upon a time, a short paragraph at the start of each dungeon level that summarized shared features of each room (it was here that the torches were mentioned), but when we cut those entries to make room for the rest of the adventure (because those entries were really repetitive overall), the bit about the torches was lost, alas.Ah-ha. Thanks.
A suggestion for the future:
To save space but retain clarity, maybe you could you use a legend on the map image to describe common features like that? And the bonus for using the legend is even if we are just looking at the interactive map image in the PDF, we'll know what's what on the map without having to refer back to the text.
Adding legends to maps is tricky, because I wouldn't want to do it only part of the time. If we did something like this, I'd like to do it ALL of the time. And since maps are already the hardest thing to generally get right and to match text, adding that level of trickery (which would involve the art department and perhaps the cartographer, making it even more tricky, especially since maps are often one of the last things to be finalized after all the text is done) to the production schedule would cause a lot of headaches and a lot more opportunities for error.
Part of the reality of producing a monthly product is that you need to be able to choose your battles and make decisions on what is just too much to do. Or, as a friend of mine once said: "Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good."
Adding legends to maps is tricky, because I wouldn't want to do it only part of the time. If we did something like this, I'd like to do it ALL of the time.
. . .
Part of the reality of producing a monthly product is that you need to be able to choose your battles and make decisions on what is just too much to do. Or, as a friend of mine once said: "Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good."
Yeah. I could also see that space would be a consideration, too. Since not all maps take up the same space in the half-pages allocated, it would be impossible to add them for all.
Can anyone tell me why there is a shard of greed at the bottom of a wrath dungeon? did i miss something?
Can anyone tell me why there is a shard of greed at the bottom of a wrath dungeon? did i miss something?The Runelords of Wrath & Greed hated each other to an extreme degree, and were regularly at war. The Shard of Greed was one of the spoils of that war I believe.
Additionally, it is found in a device designed to reunite the shards, so it makes sense that some collection of shards by the Wrath Runelord had already begun.
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Yeah; while some of the shards have remained where they were left by their previous runelord owners, others have shifted locations in the 10,000 or so years since Earthfall, either because they were looted and transported and lost again, or because they were stolen before Earthfall by other runelords and hidden away.
thank you
If you have the interactive maps from the AP subcription, you can turn the room labels off you know. There are buttons at the top of each page that manage labels, grid, player view or GM view. Or am I misunderstanding that you don't have this fie but want it to be available for purchase?
Personally I haven't had a problem resizing the maps for my virtual tabletop use, and I think that, all things considered, the quality holds up pretty well.
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As a twist to tie into the later AP's, I turned Khrysm into a hybrid Derro - Half-Kyton Priestess of Zon-Kuthon. I played her up as a combo of a Cenobite and a Sensate from Sigil. The party really enjoyed the encounter.
I ended up replacing the Derro with Drow since I had just run No Response from Deepmar with the same group.
When the PCs take the Shard of Pride back to Sheila, she gives them a scarlet and blue sphere ioun stone (p24). The text goes on to say, "this ioun stone's associated skill is Knowledge History).
I'm confused by this.
The Core Rule Book lists a scarlet and blue sphere as giving a +2 enhancement bonus to INT.
Am I missing an additional rule somewhere?
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Correct; the addition to the headbands that grant Int bonuses also grant an associated skill rank boost to account for the increase in bonus skill points SHOULD apply to ALL Int bonuses of this nature from items. It just never made it over to the ioun stone text.
Thanks for the clarification. I remember that from "the book that shall not be named" (*cough*SoS*cough*) - but I wansn't sure if it applied here.
Do you guys think i should be throwing Wandering Monsters at my (beginner) PC. It is often free XP right?
The tricky thing about this is being able to throw them at the party and it making sense. With the first book set all in Magnimar, it seemed out of place for my group. I rolled on the random encounter table and got a Vargouille (sp?) and had to come up with a reason of WHY would there be a flying head monster attacking them in the middle of the night in the very middle of a very well populated city...
So random encounters are fine to me to make sure they are in the correct XP track, otherwise I skip. And when I do them, I'd say pick and choose from the table instead of rolling randomly.
After a hiatus I'm back to playing this AP again. My party has entered the crow but have not explored beyond the initial level. I'm curious how other groups of players experienced the humongous (!) amount of repetitive encounters in the dungeon? (F.e.; there are 7 potential fights with the Tower Girls in this AP before the group meets the boss of the girls, with a minimal variety of interact-able environments between. The same can be said about the spiders later in the dungeon.)
Also, I'm wondering if anyone already had an alternative idea about opening the Siccatite door in room B22. The puzzle to open it is unsuitable for my group (and imho very stale).
I was thinking of using physics with that stupid siccatite door. I only have 2 PCs, not enough for them to be soaking all the fire damage one point per touch is gonna net.
A gallon of water on the door to suppress its fire aura for one round, say. Just long enough for one rune-switch. Still uncomfortably hot but not gonna burn anyone's fingers to the bone. Involves some planning or maybe some create water spells.
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My players just literally got done with that door and thought that it was a cool one. They way they countered the 1 point per touch damage is to use infernal healing. Which heals a point of damage a round. I thought that was clever. Or they can rotate characters in touching the numbers and spread the damage around.
There is a number of ways that the players will over come this puzzle if you just let them instead of assuming that they won't be able to do it. I gave them a set of tiles with the letters on them and told them about the damage and such and they did it with no damage and no problem. It was not an easy thing for them to do but they did it. They actually enjoyed it too.
As a GM it was fun to watch if I do say so myself. :)
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I absolutely understand the concern about word puzzles, and most of the time when an author puts a word puzzle into an adventure, I excise it from the adventure for various reasons—not the least of which is that word puzzles are really hard to translate.
Which is why I made sure there were variant rules for groups who didn't want to figure out the puzzles here using the English language and alphabet.
You as the GM know your tastes and your players' tastes better than I do; if you know you and your players will be taken out of the game experience by using English language word puzzles... you should ABSOLUTELY not present the puzzle in that format to the players. Use some other method to present the challenge to the party—my recommendation (as detailed in the adventure itself) is to use a combination of Linguistics or Intelligence checks to solve the problem.
Barring that, Disable Device checks and Use Magic Device checks are good substitutions.
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Am I correct that Khrysm's sneak attack does not apply when she uses her bombs? The description for the "Throw Splash Weapon" special attack on the SRD specifically states that splash weapons cannot deal precision damage. However, Khrysm's tactics mention that she "makes another sneak attack with a bomb the next round."
Ruling?
She doesn't gain sneak attack damage with bombs; that's an error in her tactics.
Question:
In the room D2 (treachery at every step), is there a torch? the map seems to indicate that there is but in the room there is flamable gas that goes boom when a fire source is brought in the room. So what? typo?
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Question:
In the room D2 (treachery at every step), is there a torch? the map seems to indicate that there is but in the room there is flamable gas that goes boom when a fire source is brought in the room. So what? typo?
There are everburning torches in all the rooms that the map shows... but as everburning torches do not give off heat, they do not trigger explosions.
There are everburning torches in all the rooms that the map shows... but as everburning torches do not give off heat, they do not trigger explosions.Question:
In the room D2 (treachery at every step), is there a torch? the map seems to indicate that there is but in the room there is flamable gas that goes boom when a fire source is brought in the room. So what? typo?
Ok that's a little sinister.
Thanks.
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After a hiatus I'm back to playing this AP again. My party has entered the crow but have not explored beyond the initial level. I'm curious how other groups of players experienced the humongous (!) amount of repetitive encounters in the dungeon? (F.e.; there are 7 potential fights with the Tower Girls in this AP before the group meets the boss of the girls, with a minimal variety of interact-able environments between. The same can be said about the spiders later in the dungeon.)
Also, I'm wondering if anyone already had an alternative idea about opening the Siccatite door in room B22. The puzzle to open it is unsuitable for my group (and imho very stale).
You shouldn't run the encounters with the tower girls as isolated encounters - the Tower Girls are a group of intelligent humans capable of tactics. Upon sighting the PCs they should group togather and make a counter attack. At the very least they should be coming to help their comrades once the fighting starts. That means that instead of 7 fights against repetitive enemies you get one big, dynamic fight against a small group of girls intent on scaring the PCs away by any means they deem are needed. That should make the first floor of the dungeon into more of a raid than a crawl.
After a hiatus I'm back to playing this AP again. My party has entered the crow but have not explored beyond the initial level. I'm curious how other groups of players experienced the humongous (!) amount of repetitive encounters in the dungeon? (F.e.; there are 7 potential fights with the Tower Girls in this AP before the group meets the boss of the girls, with a minimal variety of interact-able environments between. The same can be said about the spiders later in the dungeon.)You shouldn't run the encounters with the tower girls as isolated encounters - the Tower Girls are a group of intelligent humans capable of tactics. Upon sighting the PCs they should group togather and make a counter attack. At the very least they should be coming to help their comrades once the fighting starts. That means that instead of 7 fights against repetitive enemies you get one big, dynamic fight against a small group of girls intent on scaring the PCs away by any means they deem are needed. That should make the first floor of the dungeon into more of a raid than a crawl.
Yeah. I had two floors worth of Tower Girls collect together in a room and ambush the PCs. It turned into a running stab-battle through much of the third floor. Almost had my first PC death of the campaign.
Then while they decided it was a good idea to camp in the Crow I had the boss come looking for them.
Took care of the whole group of them in one white-knuckled session.
If one were leveling their group by GM fiat. Where would the appropriate places to do it be in the first modules? I had my group at level two before they went after Natalya's hideout. But I can't decide when to have them hit 3 and 4.
Each AP provides the info you are requesting. Its on the first couple pages. Very helpful - I use this method with my group as well.
So, my players are totally interested in following the Magister down into Nar-Voth. Is there are a particular area below Magnimar that I can reference for the Into the Darklands book to help plan? Are there any other particular groups down there? Also, was the magister a leader of the local cluster of derro? Just some general advice on how to proceed would be appreciated.