In the Journey to Blood Bay it states the following...
a) Rowing to Kraken's Cove takes 2 days if they row in shifts
b) Rowing will take 5 days if they only row 8 hours a day.
c) Sailing takes only 16 hours and that the fishman could be paid to wait.
d) Walking overland (walking only 8 hours a day) takes 5 days.
It also says that Vanthus struck only a few hours before they arrived, therefore Drevoraz Kabran, didn't leave until sometime after that heading overland to Sasserine. No in a best case scenario the Bullywugs he recruits were on a direct path to Sasserine and they didn't need to pack and were all ready and willing to head off from the village as soon as he contacted them. So he didn't waste a moment negotiating or waiting for Bullywug warriors to return from a hunt.
Assuming the PC's don't take too long exploring Karken's Cove; if the PC's use option a) 2 days or c) 16 hours to get back to Sasserine, how come they arrive later than Drevoraz who is going to take 5 days to get back?
Creative Director
|
Drevoraz doesn't take 5 days to get to Sasserine. He can get there in about 2 days via rowboat after recruiting the bullywugs. Bullywugs have their marsh movement ability and swim speeds, so they can move through marshes relatively quickly, so they won't slow him down.
He leaves a few hours before the PCs arrive at Kraken's cove, so at the very least has, say, 2 hours lead time on them.
Kraken's Cove is pretty rough. The PCs are going to have to spend some time walking overland to reach the cove, and once they get there are unlikely to be able to burn through the entire cave complex without stopping once to rest. Which should give Drevoraz plenty of time to get to Sasserine before them.
If the PCs power through the caves and don't stop to rest and then sail back, Drevoraz may or may not reach the manor before them. If the PCs DO get back before him, it's a relatively simple matter to turn the "Break into Vanderboren Manor and hunt down the frog men" into a "Defend Vanderboren Manor from a frog-man siege," with the bullywugs invading the manor from below.
Again; the key is that most PCs are going to take longer than a few hours exploring Kraken's Cove. If they don't, and if you think it stretches believability for them to still reach Sasserine after Drevoraz does, a siege is just as fun as an rescue mission.
I had the same issue (32 point buy game, sorceror had max ranks in profession sailor, so they breezed through Kraken's Cove and tore back to Sasserine).
So I did the siege, as has been said. Trust me, even with the Jade Raven's help, fighting off all those bullywugs (count up the number from the adventure, don't forget to "revive" the dead ones) was a terrible ordeal that could have been much worse. As it was, only 2 things prevented a tpk for my extremely powerful group of PCs: the sorc had actually succeeded in getting Harliss's full cooperation via the diplomacy boosing perfume from Rowyn's room, and the party druid entangled the entryway into the drainage tunnel (I ruled that while the tunnel itself was bare of growth, it did become a stream in the landscaped property, and dumped into the harbor, which I figure held a fair amount of seaweed and algae growth.)
Describe them hitting the grate, a momentary lull in the motion, then a gurgled command and then the bullywugs part to let the rust monster up to the grate. Unless a PC can get a powerful shot through the cover of the grate (possible, but unlikely) the rust monster opens the gate for I beleive about 20 bullywugs, and their 3 "leader" class leveled bullywugs. Add to that the cleri's summonings, and it can get real crowded and ugly down in that basement.
Have fun! We sure did!
My group just started Kraken's Cove last night, and they are getting in the habit of purchasing a wand of CLW for each adventure as they have no cleric.
They finished off the savage monkeys, and savage pirates on the beach, and made their way into the caves to kill the 3 pirates in the kitchen. But so far they have not stopped to rest, and the only spellcaster in the group (a druid who is becoming extremely valuable to the team) has only used 1 spell (a well placed gust of wind spell on the monkeys).
I suspect they will finish off the remaining pirates in one go next session. So I too may have a siege on my hands. Although my group doesn't have a PC with a lot of ranks in Profession (sailor) so they may need to come back for the Sea Wyvern unless the druid puts more ranks into his Profession skill.
|
My players hired a cleric to cast wind walk on them, allowing them to make it out to Kraken's Cove at 60 mph. They're likely to clear the complex before the spell runs out, so I figure I'll run a bullywug siege rather than a rescue. That's cool, since it'll open the door for some roleplaying of strife between the PCs and Jade Dragons as they try to coordinate their joint defense of the manor.
The question then is what to do with the encounters during the Wormfall Festival. It seems like what makes them fun is that they're obstacles in an urban race against the clock. I'm thinking maybe during the wait for Drevoraz to arrive, the PCs will get a sending from a cleric who's one of their allies in town saying that they are being robbed & asking for help. That'd set up some urgency to race through the streets both coming (to stop the robbery) and going (in case Drevoraz attacks while they're away, although I don't think I'll have that happen: better to save my improbable coincidences for when they're really necessary.)
In my campaign the characters beat Drevoraz and the bullywugs back to Vanderboren Manor, and they Harliss's earring to show Drevoraz. When Drevoraz and the first wave of frogmen attacked the party showed him the earring and said that Harliss told them not to attack the manor. Drevoraz agreed, but Chief Lorpth said "No, you asked us to repay our debt to Harliss by attacking this manor, we came all this way and we want to loot this place. Besides, these humans already killed Chunkuss!" So it became a seige with Drevoraz helping the PC's instead of the bullywugs.
We had much more fun with the siege battle than we would have just running it as written. It was a very complex battle to run, though so if you go that route be warned. As a DM you'll have Drevoraz, Lavinia, and the Jade Ravens to run, in addition to all the bullywugs. But the battle was a blast, and my players really enjoyed it.
|
|
cthuluwaits, thanks for the play report from the siege version! Did you run with the Wormfall Festival encounters? If so, when & how did you adapt them?
The tally of bullywugs hired by Drevoraz is:
24 bullywug hunters
Huntress Lorb-Lorb Tub, bbn 2/rgr 3
Chief Lorpth, ftr 5
Chunkus, rust monster
Bua Gorg, clr 6
(In the rescue version, 7 of the hunters would have been killed by the Jade Ravens, and 1 of them would have been killed by Lavinia).
Available to help the PCs defend the mansion might be the Jade Ravens (four 3rd level NPCs), Lavinia (a 3rd level NPC), and Leshton, Ealia, and Kurz, her three riding dogs.
In my campaign I think I'm going to have all those NPCs on the scene, both because I want to seize the opportunity to play out some rivalry/cooperation with the Jade Ravens and also because I don't want to come up with some reason for Lavinia not to summon all the help she can.
That being the case, I figure I'll have Drevoraz arrange a two-pronged assault. The bullywugs are limited to coming in by the grate in the basement because they're too monstrous to show themselves on the street. So I'll have Drevoraz open with a feint, using some rogues in Sasserine that he's in contact with because (like his Captain Harliss Javell) they act as middlemen between the Crimson Fleet and the civilized world.
First, two of these rogues will pound on the gate, impersonating members of the Watch and demanding to be let in so they can capture some murderers they've tracked to the mansion. (My PCs sure meet this description. Don't yours?) I figure this'll provide some roleplaying at the start of the battle, satisfying the players who like that and helping get everyone in character.
While the false watchmen are providing a distraction, the rest of the rogues will go in over the wall. They'll probably be detected by the dogs if no one else, which is fine; their job will be to come in, raise a ruckus, make a few sneak attacks, and flee. Hopefully some of the defenders will give chase, splitting their forces when the bullywugs come in from below, and hopefully allowing the frog-men to gain enough ground that I'll be able to keep some of the original flavor of retaking the mansion room-to-room.
I've already given the PCs a map of the mansion, and I'll have them use that to plan their defense. If they don't think of it, I'll have Liamae point out the basement as a possible point of entry. Tolin will heap scorn on the idea, and in a huff Liamae will say "Fine, I'll guard it myself." With any luck, this will let me set her up for a silverware dance with Chunkus. Does it make sense that this would be the first objective of Chief Lorpth? Not necessarily, but it's too good to pass up. And one of the perks of being chief is that you can indulge your whims, right?
I haven't decided where to put Drevoraz. I like the idea that he can be turned against the bullywugs if the PCs have the marilith earrings; that rewards them for their diplomatic success with Harliss, and sets up another roleplaying moment to break up the battle scenes. Maybe that means he should be part of the streetside assault - perhaps a 1-2-3 where the fake guards get the gate open, the over-the-wall rogues provide a distraction, the fake guards jimmy the lock on the gate before they're ushered out so that Drevoraz can come in and try to rendezvous with the bullywugs and make sure that Harliss's revenge is carried out?
I did the Wormfall encounters as written, except that in my campaign I took out the references to Age of Worms. One of my players is running the AoW campaign with the same group I’m running Savage Tide, so rather than make it Wormfall I made it Wyrmfall and had it be a festival to celebrate defending the city against a recent draconic attack. The stiltwalkers each represented a chromatic dragon.
I like your plan. Hiring the rogues is a cool idea. I would definitely include all the NPC's (Jade Ravens, dogs, et. al) because with that many attackers the PC's will need all the help you can get.
This was how I ran the assault:
First, Chief Lorpth led a prelimnary strike force to scout out the opposition. This consisted of Lorpth, Chunkuss, and 4 bullywugs coming in through the grate in the basement. The good thing about this was that Drevoraz wasn't even there for the PC's to talk to, yet. Upon meeting heavy resistance from PC's they retreated.
30 minutes later they launched a full assault consisting of three groups:
Group 1:
Drevoraz, Chief Lorpth, and 6 hunters (minus the number killed in the first assault, which turned out to be Chunkuss and 1 hunter) came back in through the grate in the basement.
Group 2:
Bua Gorg led 6 hunters over the manor walls and across the grounds to climb up a tree and go in through the balcony (V21 on the map, I believe.)
Group 3:
Lorb-lorb Tub led 6 hunters the same way Bua Gorg went, but they climbed up the roof and across to the courtyard, where they climbed down to the ground.
Your point about the bullywugs standing out too much is a good one, but I figured that with all of Sasserine being drunk out of their gourds and it being night-time anyway, they could get in without being noticed. They stayed in the canal nearest the manor until time to attack, and then went in quietly.
When the group came into the courtyard the party wizard cast web and slowed them up considerably, holding them there in the courtyard until the other two groups were pretty much finished. Even so, it was a very tough battle for the PC's.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32
|
I was worried about this, especially since my group had a few good sailors and took the Wyvern. At the last moment, however, they decided to take a few hours to properly loot the beach, and then proceeded to fill up the hold with all the weapons from the caves...
Bye-bye problem.
the problem is, going by boat (which also is the most direct route) they can sail/row up the inlet straight to Kraken's cove, which in most cases is faster than sloshing through the swamp and jungle anyway.
Then again, hitting the characters with some adverse wind (say straight on from the west) will cause considerable delay for them on their journey back, easing the time-frame.
I actually had more of a problem with the fact that my group intended to do a careful stakeout on Kraken's cove /they expected a numerous crew of smugglers and freebooters there ), observing the place for a day or two from the nearby jungle before striking out against it... which might just have caused them to be caught in the initial blast from the Shadow Pearl...