So when going after allies, Sandara Quinn is mentioned. It saysshe can travel with the PCs, but it seems more like she struck off on her own at some point. Is there a place where it calls this out that she's leaving in the earlier books? If so, I missed it.
It depends on what has happened with your group and leaves it open to either option.
If she left the PCs at some point along the way, then she can be sought out as described since she will have embarked on her own career path.
If she stayed with the PCs throughout the AP up until this point, she can't be used as an external ally since she has no other resources to offer.
I'm wondering about the Gannet Island fortress - there's a couple of things in the central fort which don't seem to match up:
The stairs are 1 longer upstairs.
The ground floor is 6x9, the 2nd floor is 4x9, and the curved tower is shifted back 5'. It's pretty easy to presume it's build like that, but I'm curious if that's what was intended.
Normally I wouldn't care, but I'm attempting to build it in 3d for miniatures, and these things are not structurally awesome. :)
Areas D6 and D7 are difficult to reach, according to the map.
D6 needs a squeeze through either 2' gap from D3, or 1' gap from D7. D7 pretty much requires you go up to the second floor, if you're freshing the food supplies there.
The... scarcity of comments for parts 5 and 6 is sort of... odd.
Or does everyone modify these parts beyond recognition ?
Maybe like me they just hav'nt got there yet?
I have read through and jotted a few ideas that I want to change but to be honest its such a long way off before I get round to part 5 and 6 that it's just not worth going in to too much detail yet as things may change (we have been playing for 28 3 hour session and havn't even reach Tidewater Rock yet, my group is just enjoying the game and are in no hurry yet. At a guess as we have a round robin and another Gm will be doing his savage world game next I would say it will be another year or 2 yet before I get to part 5). Its quiet possible that others are the same as the AP only finished being released in August last year....
Maybe like me they just hav'nt got there yet?
I have read through and jotted a few ideas that I want to change but to be honest its such a long way off before I get round to part 5 and 6 that it's just not worth going in to too much detail yet as things may change (we have been playing for 28 3 hour session and havn't even reach Tidewater Rock yet, my group is just enjoying the game and are in no hurry yet. At a guess as we have a round robin and another Gm will be doing his savage world game next I would say it will be another year or 2 yet before I get to part 5). Its quiet possible that others are the same as the AP only finished being released in August last year....
k... well we played 6-8 hour sessions, 2-3 times a month. Explains the higher throughput^^
My Group is (currently) partly into whats going to be an abbreviated Island of Empty Eyes, so that we can get to parts 5 and 6.
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The... scarcity of comments for parts 5 and 6 is sort of... odd. Or does everyone modify these parts beyond recognition ?
We’re halfway through book 5. I too was wondering if many didn’t go off the beaten path. I was tempted myself. I ran a lot of little side treks. I have a whole host of maritime adventure material plus the very well written Guide to the Shackles (which itself spawns tons of ideas). So I wanted to use them in the sandbox vein of “let them sail where they may and the currents bring them adventure”.
But…sometime toward the end of book 3 I realized I wanted to stick closer to the AP’s storyline even if modified here and there, rather than spending the whole campaign with them sailing about terrorizing the shipping lanes. Book 3’s hunt for the traitor carrot-and-stick approach turned me off so much I cannibalized most of the stat blocks and locations with other stories attached. Did they still uncover proof of a traitor? Yes. Did they eventually decide to run the Captain’s Regatta? Yes. They conquered the Island of Empty Eyes, threw the party and loved the chance to sway votes at the Pirate’s Council, which I never saw coming. There’s a lot of really great stories in here, just getting to them is an exercise in modification!
Now, in the thick of book 5 there’s more of sailing around to put together pieces of the story puzzle. And I again cannibalized many stats from this and twisted them into their own tales. This book isn’t running very much at all as the writer intended, I’m sure, but by the end I’m confident the story will still be intact. They’re already gathering a fleet and are getting ready to face Harrigan.
The whole idea of going to get a legendary weapon going into the home stretch is a fairly common staple of the AP’s and it doesn’t usually meet with approval from my players (too video-gamey I suppose). So I stole liberally from Open Design’s To the Edge of the World adventure and merged it with the island of the Black Tower to make it more dynamic. They love it.
To sum up, after the awesome start and set-up of books 1 and 2, and with groups wanting control of their own destiny when presented with the open seas, I bet there are plenty of groups who go their own way. After all…pirates.
The final two books have seen heavy reworking on my part, mainly because my players are conniving and find ways to change the landscape on a daily basis.
However, we are preparing for our final S&S Session soon.
Assuming you want something other than the test written in the book,
...an object of similar size and weight must be placed within the hands as quickly and gently as possible (requiring a DC 20 Dexterity check)...
Good luck!
in an emergency : Appraise check (alternately on Int or Dex) to gauge the weight
Anyone have a group take on the shrouded queen and actually win? I had a tpk there and had to DM fiat the tower falling. Their crew was able to pull the captain from the rubble but the others died.
I just started running this part and the first session was almost a TPK. Clocking in at APL 11 and at half strength (due to absences) they decided that the best way to go after the council meeting was to hit the black tower.
I tried to get them to do anything else, but they wouldn't hear of it, with only a quick knowledge check to find where the island was - no actual information about what could be awaiting them, though I did say that over the past 25 years many people had tried and were never heard from again - they went straight there.
They survived the first trap, bypassed the next 2, the gunslinger/samurai got within 1 point of actual death at one point and I had to cheat a little with the actual queen to make things work...
Now I have to scale up the other encounters to make them more dangerous....
With my group it was a TPK in a couple rounds. I decided to GM fiat one of the players had grabbed the sword during the fight and that caused the tower to collapse. Since we're a very tight knit group I allowed the players to decide which one of them lived and they unanimously allowed their captain to survive.
I've actually kept pretty close to the story. I gave one of the characters a link to the Aiger line, so she wanted to go straight to the black tower as well. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your perspective) my group is a 3-person gestalt party with one NPC so they did pretty well. I can't even remember if the shrouded queen was much of a fight, since she was in such a tight space.
I am coming up on some GM fatigue though and want to finish them up, so I'm looking to more role-playing through Dagon's Gullet (hand-waiving the combat) and finding a way to combine the fleet battle and their attack on Harrigan's base. It can't be that hard to find, and why wouldn't they want to take the fight to him early? Seems like it could feel a bit more "epic" as well. We level based on the suggestions in the book vs xp anyway, so it's not a problem to gloss over to get to the meat and potatoes (I.e. An epic battle vs Cheliax and claiming the Crown for themselves.)
Has anyone GMing this gone ahead and combined the Ch5 fleet battle with the attack on Harrigan's fortress? Ideas on how to do so?
Thinking to myself, it can't be that hard to figure out where Harrigan lives. He's been pretty popular lately with all his Chelish 'prizes' and such. So why would they wait around for his fleet to come to them, why not go scrub him out?
Suggestions? Comments?
I'm really looking to speed things along and having a bit of fun while we do it.
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My players certainly know where Harrigan lives, but so far the political consequences prevent them from launching a preemptive strike. Remember, nobody knows he's a Chelish agent. For all the Council knows, he's just gotten lucky lately. If the PC's suddenly decide to launch a majorninvasion against a Free Captain and member of the Brotherhood, Kerdak Bonefist would have to take action. Most of the neutral pirate lords would side with Kerdak, if nothing else then because such renegade actions are a threath to all... if they go for Harrigan today, what's to prevent them from going for Hardluck Masey tomorrow?
Even their allies, notably Tessa, would likely abandon them. She doesn't know Harrigan is involved with anything, and to her knowledge, his rivalry with the PC's is a sideshow to the real threath.
When Harrigan moves and thus break the Code, he's a legal target. But not before.
The adventure however clearly starts with Tessa noting to the PCs that Harrigan is assembling a fleet against them, because he's sore they beat him in the race as well as the fact that they mutinied against him and stole one of his 'prizes'.
It has nothing to do with them suspecting him as a Chelish agent.
The fact of the matter is, once they go to Dagon's Jaws and retrieve the information Scag's Rotgram has on Harrigan, they already have all the intel they need to launch the offensive. It seems like a foregone conclusion.
There's nothing stating that Free Captains can't fight each other. It's the Shackles which is pretty much dog eat dog. If Harrigan had friends among the Pirate Lords, they could perhaps make reprisals after the fact, but Bonefist's reaction at the beginning of Chapter 6 shows what he would do: absolutely nothing. He doesn't care what two groups with a grudge do to each other, as long as the gold keeps coming into his coffers.
Honestly, they used the journal and strolled right into the secret exit, not even batting an eyelash at the fleet gathering on his doorstep. A fleet I'm still wondering what to do with, since they are preparing to launch their assault on the Island of Empty Eyes (aka Monkey Island in my game). If I'm mean, I have them run the fleet battle with one of the other NPCs as the Admiral since they're hanging about in the Fortress. Unfortunately, that isn't likely now due to timing constraints since I said they were still there readying to depart. It would take several days for them to sail to the Isle from Gannett so best case I could have the fleet sail now and have maybe a day or so head start, so they could rush to catch up and arrive in the nick of time to aid their fleet in the attack....we'll have to see how long they dally.
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So when going after allies, Sandara Quinn is mentioned. It saysshe can travel with the PCs, but it seems more like she struck off on her own at some point. Is there a place where it calls this out that she's leaving in the earlier books? If so, I missed it.It depends on what has happened with your group and leaves it open to either option.
If she left the PCs at some point along the way, then she can be sought out as described since she will have embarked on her own career path.
If she stayed with the PCs throughout the AP up until this point, she can't be used as an external ally since she has no other resources to offer.
Runnetib, there isn't a specific point. She left my player's crew in Book 3/The end of. That way she could help them later. I think this is a GM call and it could be a good one if this helps them later.
Is this title a deliberate Marillion reference?
I'm planing to end up this AP some levels above the written. So, in the previous book I added a lot of side quests so my players are level 12 instead of 11.
I'll do the same here, making them 2 levels above the recomended for the 6th part.
I'm leveling all the encounters to match their higher APL.
I plan to change the events order from the last book. First fight Hurricane King, then battle against the Chelish Armada.
I'm interested to learn how that works out for you and your players, Fallyrion. Just in Vol 2 right now but already have a couple of extra adventures thrown in. All the best!
Gming had my party send out invites for the party in the last book. The sent some to Harrigan pepper and others. Had those two refuse peppers refusal in his hand writing. They scryed her and saw her condition. The party was a few days away, so after it they scryed her and found Harrigan talking to her. So they used find ship with some wood from the wormwood they got earlyer. Got to the island to rescue pepper. Changed the plan and killed 5 different encounters within one turn the foes not getting a single action, then did in Harrigan with him not able to act.
So they basically jumped to the end of the book took out the threat before they even saw it as one. That is all before the pirate counsel meets. Taking the party one day of travel.
I know a far amount of that is on me for allowing it. But I wanted to share, and show how far things can go off with this book.
Gming had my party send out invites for the party in the last book. The sent some to Harrigan pepper and others. Had those two refuse peppers refusal in his hand writing. They scryed her and saw her condition. The party was a few days away, so after it they scryed her and found Harrigan talking to her. So they used find ship with some wood from the wormwood they got earlyer. Got to the island to rescue pepper. Changed the plan and killed 5 different encounters within one turn the foes not getting a single action, then did in Harrigan with him not able to act.
So they basically jumped to the end of the book took out the threat before they even saw it as one. That is all before the pirate counsel meets. Taking the party one day of travel.
I know a far amount of that is on me for allowing it. But I wanted to share, and show how far things can go off with this book.
That is pretty cool. Did you run the encounters as written, stat wise? What pointbuy/wbl do you guys use, and what level were they when they jumped to this?
well Errant Mercenary. they were level 11 and i ran the encounters as written but they jumped past a few of them with short ranged teleports of different types. the party started out as just 3 people so gave them 25 points, a few books latter let them have a npc heal bot. the wealth by level got a little screwy because two of them turned into item crafters, with a familiar that had the valet archetype so could quick craft 4,000 gold in one day. With that and seeing how they are on a ship with a fair amount of down time for travel, well it changes things. Even with me only giving them magic items and loot that was written in the book, even then they missed out on a fair amount.
Even stranger part was the next session when i went to wrap up the book with just having the pirate counsel meet. they voted on things like what was expected. then at the end they presented the information they got from the end of the book. so i took the interaction the hurricane king has for that from book six. as well as a expected personality of the party is new and knows nothing and are pathetic. the party did not like that and the shaman used its teleport hex with split hex to move the cutlass magus and the two weapon fighting kukri using slayer to both side of the hurricane king, so they are flanking. as the surprise round they got out there weapons. rolled for initiative slayer went first then hurricane king. slayer does a few crits and sneak attack doing massive damage, and yes i rolled as appropriate for the hurricane kings gear just got unlucky, the kings turn, move action stand up. provokes attack of opportunity. they slayer and magus hit him and he dies. he only got to stand up. I had two people from book six with him at the meeting, they both only got one action then went down. the slayer picked up the crown and asked if there were any objections, one pirate lord had one. then the shaman did baleful polymorph and asks if there was any more. no one said anything.
so my party now has a newly crowned hurricane king.... at technical the start of book 5... to make matters funnier in book three with the race the slayer made a bet with tessa fairwind and if they win she would marry him for one year. they win the race with a score of 55 where the scale only goes up to 11. I then had tessa walk around the table to the slayer ie the new hurricane king and had her say "so what do you want to do now husband?" my group loved that part, i also thought it worked as she does not want to be the king but wants a fair amount of say in what goes on.
They then use the time after that to do scry and die method on the major plot point of book six. thus ending my run of this adventure path. the party finishing the last two books with one session per book. i did skip some things along the way but all the major plot points were covered. I leveled them up at the speed of plot, meaning when the book says they should be level x for this part i leveled them up for it, mostly this happened with the at the end of book they should be level x.
I also say this as a kind of warning that can mess up the last two books. ie party goes to harrigan's island early killing him thus negating most of book 5, and no need to build a fleet. also party decides to kill hurricane king at meeting making them the new king, and scry and die on the plot point of book six.
That was very interesting, I think the Hurricane King's handling was superb and well within lines, good stuff.
You mention they deal with book 6's with scry and die. Here is where I think you might have made it a bit too easy. The Thrune people have powerful scry stuff themselves (like the fountain), employ very high caster level people (Norgorber priests, demons), so I think this tactic wouldve been thwarted or prepared for. If it was my party, they might have landed in some trap, since they'd have been scryed too at some point or there wouldve been spying agents.
Ah, very cool to read, always fun to know how something can twist and have fun results, thank you!
Well, Huricane King first action should be use his dust of disappearance to become invisible.
Also, I would never allow players a Surprise round. A pirate council is not a tea party, so the Hurricane king would not be surprise this way. Attack during a conversation is not a suprise round.
I'm interested to learn how that works out for you and your players, Fallyrion. Just in Vol 2 right now but already have a couple of extra adventures thrown in. All the best!
Hello Uri, I've just finished my campaign. I posted a small results of my final adventure on the From Hell's Heart forum. Hope it can help you =)
At the council meeting, my party ended up splitting its vote on some of the issues. This was fun for some players but not for others.
One thing I'm still pondering is that the council chose to defund Shackles defence but instead spend the money beefing up Port Peril, specifically Fort Hazard. I haven't decided yet what this is going to mean for the end of the AP (other than more mercenaries).
Does anyone know the scale for the map of Dagon's Jaws?
There's some basic... 'hints'... in the text (quarter-mile here, three-quarter mile there), but it's somewhat unclear.
Anyone know?
Based on the web supplement map I'd give a rough guess that the Big Jaw is about a mile from end to end.
Anyone have a more definitive source?
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In Gannet Island Room D9. It is under an Unhallowed with Silence Kicker that effects non-worshipers of Norgorber.
SO if the party kicks down the door to this room and engages in combat with the followers here would that attract attention of the Leader Cleric in room D10?
Silence stops all noise from leaving the room ,but the Clerics of Norgorber are immune to it so do they make 'noise' as normal?
I've started running this part and I felt like the Black Tower had an interesting story, and added some new stuff that was new to the AP like a mini-dungeon that is heavy on traps. It made me remember of an Indiana Jones movie. The flavor with the Aigers and the Shrouded Queen was a great story.
The main flaw is that it feels somewhat disconnected from the main goals of the party.
At this time my party has gold and allies, as well as a high Infamy score, and with the threat of Harrigan, the need of building a fleet and gather their allies, the only motivation of finding a lost treasure wouldn't be enough for getting them into the Black Tower mission, as they'd see it as losing valuable time in an unnecesary sidequest.
I foresaw this issue before it happened and added my own plot hooks to get them there (they worked so good that it was the first thing they did) but as it is in the book it seems like the hook there is a bit weak even for treasure-seeking pirates.
Also, the artifact was a bit disappointing to my players, as they thought that finding something that is actually the only artifact they have found so far and not being useful as a part of the plot or as a weapon for any of them makes this mission a bit irrelevant.
They laughed at the face of Barracuda, they think he's a jester, and kept the weapon. I'm thinking of adding some homemade stuff to make Aiger's kiss a bit more relvant to the story.
Also, I made that Adelita had casted a Mage's Private Sanctum and a Permanency in both Harrigan's bedroom and in the prisons, because I wanted to avoid my players to Scry, Teleport and Kill to the last part. Until now, they have scryed on Peppery, who had become friend of the Bard Undine in the first book, with no result.
Update on my campaign: My players went first for Harrigan so he was already defeated when we had the fleet battle.
They had good information about his whereabouts and they wanted to go for him first.
They couldn't scry Grok and Peppery, both good friends of the group, so they reasoned that they were being kept there and wanted to save them.
I allowed them to do it instead of encourage them to play the AP in the right order because I don't want them to feel railroaded.
Honestly, it was equally exciting playing it in the wrong order and Adelita made a much more strong final boss than Harrigan. She almost killed the Cleric. They were not dissapointed because they were more motivated to protect their island than to punish Harrigan, so it was even more epic finishing the book with the fleet battle on their coast.
They took Harrigan as their prisoner and tied him to their flagship mast so he could see his own fleet defeated.
The fleet battle itself was quick and devastating. My players did great and they had an overwhelming victory. Most of them are CHA casters so they are able to control huge squadrons but they didn't have as many ships as they could. I enjoyed GMing the fleet battle and my players enjoyed playing it. Much better than the naval combat rules.
Now starting the last book soon!
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They took Harrigan as their prisoner and tied him to their flagship mast so he could see his own fleet defeated.
I hope he had enjoyed the massac... ehm, the battle! We sure did!
Now, all of the former Wormwood crew has been reunited (well, I don't count those we have keelhauled. Details, details...). The reunion party is going to have 10 tiers of MYTHIC!!!
I am totally stealing your idea for Mage's Private Sanctum. I have one player that is obsessed with scrying and chasing after any enemies that try to escape. After being betrayed so many times, and dealing with "unreasonably" uncooperative captives, they have become rather... heartless and vindictive.
Sounds logic. So many people after the PCs at that time.
Who were the «unreasonably» captives? Just for curiosity?
I thought that the Private Sanctum made sense having Adelita around. Harrigan is somewhat paranoid, and being a spy and a traitor he should be xD
I wanted to share my experience here because the later books have a lack of comments on the threads.
The Eel really ticked them off. They couldn't understand that he would be much more afraid of Harrigan than of them. He refused to tell them anything, and they couldn't make the DC to intimidate him. So they ended up torturing the bajeezus out of him, which is by far the darkest and most evil they had gotten. They were also fumed by the narid(or marid? or whatever) that assisted the Eel, as they had made friends with her as far as they knew. Part of that one was at least my fault for not really portraying her well. They also went on the warpath when the wererat wizard was hiding with greater invisibility and outside the radius of their Invis. purge. They skryed him, found him, killed him, and then burnt his ship. It can be kinda rough when three of the five people at the table are experienced GMs. One of them being a five star VC and one a 4 star GM.
Sefina (the nereid, I suppose you're talking of her. The marid was Vailea and was the one at the wishing well) was the one who took care of the Eel in my game. The PCs handed him to the nereid so she could take revenge on him.
She made good use of her special abilities to torture him until she got bored and drowned him with her kiss.
Until then I had portrayed Sefina as a friendly and kinda naive creature, almost looking CG, so they were surprised of seeing her darker side. She's a fae, after all.
The wererat's invisibility was also an issue for my players, they went mad with glitterdust until they reached him, but they had all the ship covered in glitterdust. They claimed The Jester's Grin for them after Feebleminding Fargo Vitterande and taking him to Tessa Fairwind (they thought she might want to interrogate him after removing the Feeblemind). He is very prone to be affected by Feeblemind, being an arcane spellcaster but having such a poor Will save.
I had him sitting about 40' up in the ropes. And, yea, it was Sefina. I think I was able to convince them she only helped the Eel because she was terrified. They chose not to kill her, which mad me glad. They are about to enter the Black Tower, and I am afraid they are going to go ape-crap when someone shows up wanting the sword they fought so hard for.
They ended turning Barracuda into a real fish with Baleful Polymorph.
They didn't want to give him the sword because they thought he was a jester and tried to mock them.
So he told them he'd get a lot of money to pay for the sword and...he joined Harrigan's fleet because they laughed at him and wanted to have the sword by force.
After defeating the fleet Barracuda was found alive at the shore by Sefina and they just turned him into a fish. They didn't want to kill him because the Goddess of the Sea (Dragonlance setting, Sandara follows a different -CE- goddess) had returned him alive and they feared to unplease her by killing him.
And we have also sacrified the sword to our goddess! No more artifact sword! It was a VERY BIG explosion!
That is very cool. You need a thread detailing some of these exploits.