Question:
My group didn't stop Armag's ritual; they were scared off by the sisters, and threw a bunch of stones across the entrance. Armag is likely to easily get out when the ritual completes.
Did you have a similar situation happen to your group?
Any suggestions on what should happen now that the party essentially has given up on fighting Armag in his Tomb?
Also, how long do you figure his ritual should take? I would suppose anywhere from 2 weeks to a month.
I figure that if he emerges, he'll ride at the head of a horde with the Black Sisters. Interestingly, it seems that it would be easier for the party to kill him in the open rather than in his tomb.
I read this and did a search, but to no avail: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2m527?Armag-what-is-best-in-life#1
Timing is everything ... and permitting Armag with Black Sisters in tow plus a very large horde of Glenebon Highlanders to run amok is a Bad Idea.
Firstly, the Black Sisters will most certainly word of recall with Armag in tow back to their "sanctuary" in the aforementioned Highlands. With a bit of preparation, they'll transport Armag and his eternal honor guard to this place via magic, leaving the Tomb to seal over once its purpose has been fulfilled. All the loot will be taken and the Tomb will seal at Gorum's decree until Armag is once more laid low.
Within a month or few, certainly by early spring of the year after they return with a Certain Sword in hand, your PCs kingdom will be under direct assault by a LOT of foaming-at-the-mouth Highlanders all to glad to stampede their not-ready-for-war kingdom into toejam.
If Armag "teams up" with 'Lord I' in Chapter 5, the PCs are in for a world of hurt. Highlander armies are nasty business...
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Yeah, essentially by running away the PC's "lost" the fourth book. So they should feel the sting in book 5 when Armag, his honor guard and an army of Numerian Barbarians come breathing down the PC's neck from the North while
Armag himself I'd add some more Barbarian levels, or maybe even throw on a couple of Mythic Tiers. The PCs will have a tough time of it, but it's not impossible to raise enough armies to defend both fronts. The players will just need to prioritize who to defeat first.
I wouldn't have Armag ally with Pitax, instead they are both attacking PC territory and savvy PCs might be able to draw Armag into a war with Pitax.
There's plenty of possibilities and I can't wait to see how it turns out. For now though declare Book 4 complete, and let your party have some more kingdom building time before Irovetti sends out his invitation.
In my group, the pc's had 2 deaths (one perma) when they came into the first clearing, and met the "Sisters".
So they decided to go in, complete the same challenge, and maybe be able to tell the barbarian hordes that he isn't worthy (enough).
They have succeeded, and have sent message for their two armies (Hammer and Anvil) to meet them at Fort Drelev.
I have changed some things in the adventure to adjust for this.
Hammer&anvil and the barbarian horde will face off against eachother.
ThisI will play it out in three waves:
1) PREPARATION:
In the same way as Tatzlford they can do certain things to give their army some bonusses (battlefield in their favour, etc).
2) INTO THE MIDST:
I will run a combat encounter, where they are separated and fighting one of the officers (by themselves) of the barbarians. Success/fail will determine whether their army will receive an extra +/ or -2. If they lose, they will be dragged out of the way by their soldiers, saving their asses but taking losses.
3) THE CLASH:
The armies roll off, and their fate is decided.
4) ARMAG & SISTERS
I figure it's revenge time, and they will get their chance to shine and take him down, in the aftermath.
You are the DM. If you want to give them the chance, do it.
If you want them to feel the pain from fighting two armies at once, do that.
You know best what your party will have most fun with, more than we do! :)
It doesn't make much sense in my mind for Armarg...
With Fort Drelev being weaker, I'd have Armarg start there (which is attacking the PC's kingdom I guess.). After that, I'd have Armarg turn his attention to Pitax.
Perhaps Pitax asks the PCs for help. You then have another mass battle trying to save Pitax. Or if the PCs refuse, Pitax becomes a pawn of Armag and attacks the PCs as per Book #5.
If the PCs do help and win, Irovetti sees the PCs as weakened at that point and decides to strike them when they're down, as per Book $#5.
Perhaps you can do as DMFTodd said above and have Armarg attack "Lord I" and when/if the PC's successfully help "Lord I" have them invited to a victory celebration. Cue beginning of book 5.
Shortest way is
"P" has a sizeable standing army I would think. The PC Kingdom may not have much of one, marking them as the easier prey to conquer in a "short, victorious war". Conscripting additional forces from the recently conquered to wheel west and hammer "P" in a pincer coming 'round the Slough from both north and south.
It will be interesting to read as to how this plays out!
Thank you for the suggestions!
I went ahead and gave the group about 6 more kingdom turns. They earn about 26 BP a turn and currently have 52 BP saved going into the Rushlight Tournament.
For the moment, the players badly need to do some side quests, so I'll have them do that. The party is currently CR 10, effective 11.5, so it is a bit too early to send them onto the next book. I expect to send them onto the next book when they are at CR 11, effective 12.5 or very close to that number.
As to why they're CR 10... There are 6 players and even with using a large amount of extra content and side quests with the first 3 books, they fell behind in book 4 due to the brilliant decision to fly across the lake rather than deal with Boggards, and to their other decision to ignore the Barbarians.
I am thinking of raising Armag's CR by 1 and the Sisters' by another 1 to reflect experience gained due to ravaging the northlands, before the players have enough good intel to track them down (unless, of course, the players figure out how to scry on the Sisters before then).
The group does not currently fear the barbarians army much since they destroyed not only the army at the beginning of book 4, but also a second, larger army I sent to attack the party's northern city. The party also employs 200 CR 4 mercenaries currently, who've been patrolling their border cities. Now, what they don't know is that whereas they were fighting roughly CR equivalent armies before, now with a united barbarian horde, they'll be fighting a much larger force.
I will need to figure out some stats for the Barbarian army.
I am liking the suggestion of sacking one of Irovetti's cities. In my world, he has a city in the north and it's placed very conveniently near the barbarian empire. I suspect that Armag doesn't want to be pushed around any more by "pitiful self-disrespecting lowlanders", so he'll sack that city first, then move toward Fort Drelev, which ironically is what Irovetti's army of mercenaries and barbarians did the FIRST time when they occupied Fort Drelev to 'support' Baron Hannis until he paid them off, then went north, sacked Drelev's northern city, and moved south to fight the players.
Rickmeister- don't worry too much about putting 3; for the 6 player conversion thread, they suggest using 3. :) If you created 4 PCs at a higher stat array, you'd also be justified.
Thank you again.
The Glenebon Highlanders won't be so foolish as to assault a walled city. They'd more likely pillage and worse in the PC kingdom's ill-defended countryside in order to draw their forced onto a field of battle. Preferably one of their choosing.
Nothing says unrest like squatting behind walls while farmlands go up in flames and the populace is carted off in chains.
Ah, that's a better idea- destroying their farms will absolutely incense the Kingdom Ruler.
Yeah got a more extensive war going on in RRR (using a mod on DMs monster kingdon- they have both orc allies, and there's a Ninja clan kingdom b/c of PC background) but these are the tactics of my orcs. Why attack your walls when I can force you to fight in open field?
Thank you again for the advice.
The party has defeated Armag... the fight was probably a bit easier since they never went into the caverns.
Instead;
1. Barbarian King rises... then betrays Irovetti and sacks one of his cities; at the festival, Irovetti learns of this and asks the players for help... but he doesn't cancel his old plans. He just orders one unit to focus on defeating the barbarians. That unit gets drawn out and ends up behind barbarian enemy lines.
The other two units (Avinash and Koth's units) hang back near Fort Drelev and watch its high end mercenary defenders be hit by Barbarians, then Wyvrens and Trolls. As a result of the player's action, a CR 8 barbarian army splits in a civil conflict and half, under a wise sage, join the party after Armag's death (see below Part 2). The other half attack, and the barbarians outside are driven off by the party's barbarians. Then Wyvrens and trolls descend... Wyvrens kill the barbarians, but the high end mercenaries defending Fort Drelev drive off the other enemies.
Avinash and Koth at that point decide that the city is ripe for the taking- and they severely underperform. A mercenary group hired by Irovetti, which was supposed to join in their attack, hangs back, then decides to hire itself out to the party rather than to attack.
Over in Olegton, a CR 1 army digs in... and rolls 19, 20, 20, 19 on defense rolls... causing a CR 5 Black Sister led elite unit to flee, and causing a CR 3 barbarian army to flee. We all had figured Olegton would have fallen.
Barbarians hit hard in the Elk Temple City, home to the cleric Jhod Kavken and wipe out the defenses. Then they wipe out an army of wolves sent to reinforce- and wipe out a Vassal of the players. Then Irovetti's one army which was NOT told to attack the players defeats the barbarians, freeing the city.
Troll Lancers and Trolls nearly take the party's southern city, but the party raises a Colossal army... in retrospect I don't think they should have been able to raise that (kingdom size is below 150); and march it over and engage in a slug-fest. Then they need to split the army because the Catspaw Marauders are marching on the Capital. They split and frighten the Marauders. Finally- they defeat the Trolls.
Party lost no cities, but lost a few armies- player running the armies had a great time; assistant enjoyed himself; another player was annoyed at the rules- wanted to solo-fight the enemies and didn't like the subsystem at all.
War is over after about 10 days of battle-sim. Each day armies attacked twice or could move according to their speed (1-3) on the playing field hex-map.
2. As for the Fight
Five of the party (Wizard, Witch, Ranger, Oracle (Flame), Druid) challenged Armag, the Derghodaemon, and a Black Sister to a battle after winning the right to challenge by carrying the head of Minogos-Ushad to them (M-U went down in only TWO turns!!!). Party won initiative and knocked out the Black Sister in one turn (good call), then they focused on the Derghodaemon while the Druid and Ranger locked down Armag.
Only the wizard was hit by the derghodaemon's anti-spellcaster methods because the Witch and Oracle were flying out of range. The Derghodaemon then destroyed the Wizard's pet undead Cyclops (on which the wizard had been mounted, on a howdah).
It was a tough fight, but I was shocked that Armag (even with sword and effective CR+1) underperformed. The party was about Level 10 at the time. Of course, if the Black Sister had not died on turn 1- the buffs and auras would have destroyed the players.
Players had a great time; and I enjoyed the fight.
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We will be doing expanded war with the Fey and the Brevic Civil war coming up in the next few months.
Thank you again for your assistance.
As an aside... the Wizard ended up with Ovnirbaane after messing with it while trying to identify it...
Apparently, giving the sword to a Wizard is the easiest way to limit its potential to cause chaos.
He can't hit anything with the sword when it dominates him.
The sword despises him.