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Question about the Eon Pit: The AP says that the stairs descent 120 feet into the darkness. To me, that means the pit is 120 feet deep.
If that's the case, how far would one have to walk using the stairs? It'll depend on the length and height of the steps for sure.
How have other people handled this? I'm decently sure most people are just going to have the total distance as 120 ft.
I'm not 100% sure if the party is going to remember they can fly...
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So my players ran through this module and with some luck literally beelined to Vsevolod and killed him.
I've been using the milestone levelling system, so this dinged them to lvl 9, and they are now about to find the two keys, as they did not antagonize Jadrenka.
Considering they skipped the entire Mother statue and 90% of the Crone statue, should I push them to explore these if they don't want to do so? Would it be an issue if they just went back the way they came, and just went on to the next book?
Any tips for this situation?
I found it rather disappointing anyways that you can get to the final room with only 5 or so encounters if you happen to take the right path
I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with letting them leave. If you want to extend the adventure, you can have Caigreal take a more direct role and have Jadrenka ask for the PCs help against her.
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Huh, after a bad year when we didn't play much, my party finally reached the Pit of Eons. Clever use of Enlarge Person on the fighter and Monk/sorcerer to allow them reach, too, and of the earlier claimed Wall of Fire scroll meant they were killing the big enemies fairly efficiently. The Summoner was so sure, he sent his flying eidolon down into the pit early, to see what was down there. It passed the madness roll, but failed the aging one, and left immediately, scared. After winning the fight, they debated a bit, then the Summoner cast Aqueous Orb in the bottom (less than 100+10 ft/level), swept it around till it grabbed the dragon scale, and had it climb the stairs.
I thought it was pretty clever!
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I've trying to figure this out for a while, so I hope it's not something obvious I've missed, but...
If Jadrenka violates the term of her Warden-ship, and Caigreal is already dead, what then?
Does the title go to one of the remaining hags?
If they're dead, does the title just sit with Jadrenka until Baba Yaga can come and pick a new one?
Does Jadrenka lose the title and leave Artrosa un-wardened?Also given how often the AP mentions Jadrenka taking potshots at the PCs if she doesn't like him, I can't figure out why she wouldn't use the Ring to combine regeneration, teleportation and scrying to just whittle Vsevolod down over a couple of days.
That sounds like a total GM fiat type answer. Does the Mantle of Warden transfer automatically or does Baba Yaga have to transfer it?
If it's the latter, that's simple. If you decide it's the former, I'd go with what you said: Cagriel > One of the other hags > Stay with Jadrenka.As for not taking Vsevolod out solo, that depends. How long has the Svathurim been there? That guy's got a pretty monstrous CMD, so casting teleport in its threatened range is risky business. And considering it can cross 100ft on a charge, even over the Pit, it might just be too risky to go in 1v2.
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Baba Yaga seems to like forcing anyone she feels like into servitude. They may work for her, fear her, maybe respect her power, but I get the impression that a lot of Grandmother's "Employees" don't like their boss.
I even ran a few of them as partially-sympathetic. "I know what it's like being forced to do her dirty work, and it sucks. I'm sorry, but I'm magically compelled to stop you". Led to players trying to find tricky loopholes to bypass guardians without killing them (or sometimes, to using nonlethal, because they really didn't have anything against the people there fighting).
Others will be actively antagonistic, and probably trying to exploit loopholes of their own. Maybe an: "Oh, yes, I am supposed to help people working for Baba Yaga, but I'm also supposed to kill intruders. Since you're trying to save her, I'm going to choose to interpret your presence here as an intrusion and use that as an excuse to stop you and ruin her day".
Others might actually just look threatening, but will actually help if you're honest with them.
A late answer, but monsters with class levels gain +4, +4, +2, +2, +0, -2 to their stats, distributed as the writer sees fit.
So the Brothers Three have those bonuses factored into their stats.
Also, Atrosia's been attacked by frost giants led by a centaur, so it's not that unreasonable to assume that the inhabitants are on alert, with whatever that may entail.
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When exactly are the PCs supposed to rest once entering the hut? Given multiple high level NPCs in Whitethrone with their literal army want them dead and the previous book concluding the adventure explicitly says they should get away, I can't see the PCs doing it during the last book. Problem is this book starts right after the warp and includes combat encounters. Are they supposed to sleep in A1 (and/or library) before doing anything?
I'd say that they're supposed to rest immediately after teleporting, or soon after. They can also do it after killing Elvanna but before breaking the hut free. Zorka can counsel them if they want to test after breaking the hut free but before teleporting, but if they insist, then you can roll with it, I'm sure.
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Try:
"I am a bird without body, yet I still fly above the heads of giants.
I am a lock without key, yet I still open to the stench of miasma.
We can only bring you to despair; only desolation awaits you.
What are we?"
The answer to this riddle is available to anyone who uses the hut to travel to Iobaria (and Artrosa), so it could be a general riddle for the Witchtree, and avoids the issue of Baba Yaga knowing about the death and transferrance of the Black Rider.
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A questions regarding the beginning of the "Maiden Mother Crone"
The riddle for the Challange of Endurance, What does that actually mean ? And how does it relate to solving the problem
Each night it Visits
Sometimes Horror
Sometimes Wonder
Sometimes prophet
When dawn wakes, It fleesI understand as much that It talks about the animate Dream and Dreams in general but what clues to solving this is related to the Animate Dream and her desires. PLEASE EXPLAIN THIS TO ME !!
It's also strange since every other raven riddle has it's explanation but not this one !!
Her desires is Revenge and that the everlasting dream ends, but how this ties together to the strange riddle is totally beyond me, simply I do not understand it at all.
My worries here , without me giving away to much(railroading) How on earth are they supposedly figure this one out..
The encounter in this book is NOT very well explained , there is no examples on questions to this weird "animate dream" yet the encounter is very detailed but then again not.
I also see that there is several GM's that has mentioned this encounter, but not anyone is mentioning the strange ridddle.
How did you other GM's handled this encounter ?
The riddle just a round-about way of saying that it's an animated dream. They don't have to tell the raven that it is an animated dream, they just need to get the information from it, something the raven specifically asks for.
I heavily modified section A, so I can't tell you how this room went for my players. You can try looking at the play-by-post games on this forum. Eg this game, or this game.
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Well, I understand that the answer to the riddle is "Dream"!! What I have problems with is "How the hell is the players going to figure out what to say to this Dream .. First they need...
The riddle isn't important at all. The PCs don't need to provide the answer to Tryva.
The PCs know that they must know the desire of whatever is in the next room. They will likely just ask her to begin with. Once they fail to get any information via Diplomacy, your PCs will have to get creative. Its all in your presentation of Queen Yelizaveta. Perhaps she's annoyed that commoners would dare to ask her questions, perhaps she expresses a desire to talk to her captor instead of the PCs. Anyway, I agree with you that the encounter isn't well explained, and is the basis for me changing the whole section.
Like I said earlier, check out some play-by-posts to see how they handled it.
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I just realized that frost giants don't have darkvision, which is awkward in many places throughout Artrosa. Most rooms outside of the Maiden lack light sources, and the frost giants spread throughout the dungeon find themselves in those rooms without noting anywhere that they brought their own. They are blind in the Crone passages, and I had assumed that the rooms themselves are also under a permanent darkness effect unless specified otherwise. The largest example of this is E8, where two frost giants are guarding the entrance to the Eon Pit. They seem to be ... blind?
This leads me back to the PCs. How have you expected the PCs to traverse the Crone given the darkness effect (in the passages, at least)? Did you also assume that the rooms were under the darkness effect, or were the rooms just naturally dark?
Edit from earlier in the thread:
Passages means just the hallways; the rooms are naturally dark (unless the description specifically mentions a light source). The Eon Pit is naturally dark, like other chambers within the Crone.
Ah...so I guess the frost giants just need torches, although exploring the Crone will be awful for them.
Here's a question. If a Druid shapeshifts into an Elemental, does the Druid suffer the aging effects of the Ebon Pit? After all, Elementals don't have biology or age.
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Here's a question. If a Druid shapeshifts into an Elemental, does the Druid suffer the aging effects of the Ebon Pit? After all, Elementals don't have biology or age.
Polymorph effects don't change type or subtype. The druid is essentially just wearing an elemental costume.
That is, yes, the druid still ages.
Here's a question. If a Druid shapeshifts into an Elemental, does the Druid suffer the aging effects of the Ebon Pit? After all, Elementals don't have biology or age.Polymorph effects don't change type or subtype. The druid is essentially just wearing an elemental costume.
That is, yes, the druid still ages.
So then, does the Druid suffer from the effects of precision damage if a rogue sneak attacks them?
Because this is where it gets iffy.
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Here's a question. If a Druid shapeshifts into an Elemental, does the Druid suffer the aging effects of the Ebon Pit? After all, Elementals don't have biology or age.Polymorph effects don't change type or subtype. The druid is essentially just wearing an elemental costume.
That is, yes, the druid still ages.
So then, does the Druid suffer from the effects of precision damage if a rogue sneak attacks them?
Because this is where it gets iffy.
Yes. Again, the immunity from precision damage is a function of the subtype, which Polymorph effects do not grant. See this stack exchange question. The elemental body spells (like all polymorph effects) only grant what they say they grant. It requires elemental body III (druid level 10) before the spell description changes and states that the caster gains immunity to precision damage.
Contrast with the Oracle revelation Energy Body from the Life Mystery, which does explicitly change subtype.
Okay. It's the first time I've had a druid in my group, so shapeshifting hasn't come into it before. Though given that the group would be pushing level 10 when they hit the Eon Pit, that once again raises the question on if an elemental-shaped Druid would age in the pit.
Given the group is likely to roleplay through encounters if possible, they will hopefully learn enough about the Pit ahead of time not to just rush right in. There's other methods of getting the Key - including summoning an Air Elemental to retrieve it.
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Okay. It's the first time I've had a druid in my group, so shapeshifting hasn't come into it before. Though given that the group would be pushing level 10 when they hit the Eon Pit, that once again raises the question on if an elemental-shaped Druid would age in the pit.
None of the elemental body spells give the ability to prevent the need to eat/drink/sleep, so the caster doesn't get those abilities. Elemental body III and IV explicitly give immunity to precision damage and critical hits. The spells do not change the caster's type or subtype.
Given the group is likely to roleplay through encounters if possible, they will hopefully learn enough about the Pit ahead of time not to just rush right in. There's other methods of getting the Key - including summoning an Air Elemental to retrieve it.
Summons that they can communicate with are probably the easiest thing they can do to retrieve it.
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I've decided to give the Frost Giants in the Crone the fiendish template. Before Vsevolod secluded himself he sacrificed another centaur to turn the rest of them demonic. This gives the giants the darkvision that gives such an advantage and now they no longer need to rely on torches (and the boosted defenses don't hurt either).
Centaurs are getting a raw deal in this dungeon.
My group just defeated Vsevolod and my dwarven cleric is wondering about Frost Thunder hammer. He wants to know if it's an evil weapon. What do you guys think? It does have infernal runes on it, but does that make it evil?
Only if it has the Evil descriptor.
Here's an example along similar lines: if someone has infernal heritage because of a Sorcerer Bloodline or being born a Tiefling, are they inherently evil?
No.
Just because something is touched by the infernal and may even gain some power from the infernal does not mean it is inherently evil, as shown by the Tieflings and on Infernal Bloodlines. :)
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I STILL haven't managed to move my PCs through this dungeon, mostly due to delays cause by massive rewrites, including reorganizing the layout of the dungeons and the features in the rooms, one of which is turning the E8 antechamber into a massive 260 ft. x 280 ft. hall filled with a meandering line of female statues snaking around stalagmites and columns. In this room are the majority of Vsevolod's infiltration party: 4 Frost Giants and a Frost Giant Skald 3 (? 5? I haven't decided yet), all turned fiendish after sacrificing two centaurs. They have set up defensive positions in the room, ready to throw broken statue pieces (with Powerful Throw and Quick Draw replacing Improved Overrun and Improved Sunder) at any who try to enter from one of the three entrances. The dungeon has been reorganized such that a waterfall in the Maiden Stone room hides a passage way here, and a locked door in the Mother Stones room leads here as well. The room is so massive that only one giant can cover each entrance with the other two in reserve and it takes time for everyone to move in to join the fight.
That's fine, though. Vsevolod is well on his way to corrupting the magic of the Eon Pit to make his mini-Worldwound permanent. Already, demons have started flowing out of the portal. First, only dretches were able to make it through, but as the PCs have dallied, fiendish ice mephits, andrazkus and babaus have come through to help bolster the defensive position. Even a nabasu was birthed in the room to act as a lieutenant to direct the demon contingent.
The PCs' initial clash with Vsevolod's invaders is a quick ramp of more and more foes, but are able to flee since the invaders are content to keep their defensive position.
This is an impossible fight for the PCs to take on alone, so they have to rally the Artrosa defenders, each has been compromised by Caigreal's coven in some way. The majority of Artrosa's defenders are not hostile: Jadrenka has, over the 200 years, fostered a woman's pilgrimage to the Stones and the PCs are assumed to just be the latest group. With Caigreal's meddling, the defenders don't even recognize that Artrosa is under attack, much to Jadrenka's frustration. The only rooms of Artrosa defenders completely hostile to the PCs are C6 (gorgon), E1 (the shadows), E7 (undead ravens), and the two tests (C7 and C9), as Jadrenka has managed to activate those defenses. The denizens in E2 (mihstu), E3 (Ungrist), E4 (bastards) are all hostile initially due to some combination of influence from Caigreal's coven, and their proximity to the encroaching demons, but can be talked down (and all will try to flee when they find out they're outmatched).
Rooms with frost giants/andrazkus are, of course, still fights, but they've all been rearranged so that they branch out from the direct route that Vsevolod took to get to the Eon Pit. I could not, for the life of me, figure out how the Giant in D3 ended up there: He had to go through C4 (tendrilocus and possibly Poryphanes), C7 (wind blades trap) and D2 (Marislova, the doors are locked)! In fact, how does Caigreal bring Vsevolod and his 4 (at the time) frost giants from D5 to E9? Either they have to pass Ranisukalapadi and Nostafa, or they have all endure the immediately resetting Croning Ritual traps...for this reason, I made it so that the traps have a 1 round reset so that Vsevolod could force a centaur to endure everything for them.
The only remaining thing for me to decide is how I want to stat Vsevolod himself, and who I want to have accompany him. Do I want to keep him as a cleric and just change out his spells so that they're not so alignment focused, or do I want to turn him into a warpriest?
I am also seriously considering replacing the svathurim with two vrocks, who are on theme and work perfectly in the room. They can be spending their time smashing stalagmites and stalactites so they can get convenient boulders to use with telekinesis. I do lose the ability to show the beautiful artwork on page 53 of Valeros and Imrijka fighting the svathurim, though...
Serum,
How did it go? did all of your ideas, worked as intended? any advices? I intend to copy some of your ideas, especially the mini world wound. I will probably keep the Svathurim, though
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We're moving slowly, so they're pretty much where I had them before. They stopped to sleep just outside the E8 antechamber and were worn up by a demon raiding party. The idea here is to make sure they know that there are demon reinforcements coming from inside Artrosa, and that they will get stronger as long as they dally.
I still haven't figured out any of the details for the fiendish frost giant skald...
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Posted most of this in another thread, but it probably belongs here, too. For what it’s worth, my players hated Artrosa. It is an unrelenting series of nasty combat encounters, the entire misogynistic theme made my female players uncomfortable, and is just generally brutal with very little opportunity for humor to lighten the mood at all. Finally, about 2/3 of the way through, we decided to fast-forward to the end. I just narrated the rest of Artrosa for them - including the epic final battle, in which my 17yo son’s ranger died (at his request - he wasn’t enjoying playing the character, and said he’d like to play the rest of the campaign with a character he didn’t build when he was 11) - got them leveled up to 10, and now we’re starting book 4.
One exception: my daughter's gnome sorcerer found the migrus locker at the beginning and loves the migrus ("Jonesy"). She carried Jonesy with her all through Artrosa, even though the other members of the party thought the construct cat with the gnome's face was creepy as heck. After I narrated the battle, when I asked for suggestions as to how the party might get the dragon scale key out of the Eon Pit, she had Jonesy do it, proving to everyone that the creepy cat-thing was a valuable member of the party.
I’m sure other people enjoyed this book, but if I had it to do over again, I’d cut Artrosa down significantly and insert a short adventure from another source in the middle (possibly something from Tales of the Old Margreve, reskinned to set it in the Hoofwood).
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SO....
I went with Serum's idea of mini-worldwound. When they got to the antechamber, Giants had placed a barricade there and stood guard. Well, after a very hard fight and near TPK, they managed to crack open the door of the eon pit room without being noticed. They saw that a large group of dretches was grouping around two andrazkus fighting in a kind of fight-club arena, and they saw a Vrock emerge from the pit.
Thinking they were outmatched and without ressources. they decided to backup to find a place to rest. and they did. In the birthing stone room. In the morning, they decided to try a route the hadn't explored yet, and so, they got to the Bebilith room.
As soon they realised what was there, and a couple natural 20s on checks, they convinced the Bebilith to join in their hunt for a delicious and tender Nalfeshnee.
Meanwhile, Vsevolod realised his giant guard had been defeated and planned a strike-back.
I ruled that dhe croning riatual was completely deactivated after the party passed it, and so we had the most EPIC Ludicrous Charge of PC lead by a Bebilith through the corridors of Artrosa, against waves of lowCR demons until thy reached the eon pit room. Realizing there was no Nalfeshnee. the end fight was a 3 faction mexican standoff between an injured Bebilith, team centaurs (Vsevolod and svathurim) and the PC. It was the best showdown I ever had in a game and I don't see how i can top that in the future modules.
Part of my group played through a session in the dungeons. They have reached the temple of mestama
One PC was not able to make it to that session but may be back for the next one.
Does anyone have any ideas of how I approach this?
Because it is not like the dungeon is linear where I can assume he can easily find his way to them. One different turning and his character would theoretically be in a completely different area.I could have Jadrenka appear and give directions. But I'm not sure that really makes sense.
I don't bother trying to justify this in world. It is ultimately a game, and game mechanics will seep through. I just have regular players who skip a session in the "NPC Cloud" They are there but do not affect that session. Gameplay > Verisimilitude.
YMMV.
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My group loved Artrosa but part of that is some of them love dungeon crawls. One player had to leave and another died (miss you!), so we're trimmed down a bit. I borrowed several ideas that were provided in here and the final battle was an effort to prevent a new Worldwound from opening with increasing swarms of demons coming out... and when the shackles were all broken the demons turned on the transformed priest and dragged him into the Abyss for his failure. Still, having every other turn have three or more demons, increasingly powerful... it freaked my group delightfully. :)
Another thing I did was beef up the Frost Giants a tad. That did make them a lot more dangerous - Vital Strike and Improved Vital Strike with a Giant's attack is horrifying. (I've done the same to the Barbarians in the next book, and actually knocked out the high-AC Monk for the first time in a loooong time.)
I borrowed several ideas that were provided in here and the final battle was an effort to prevent a new Worldwound from opening with increasing swarms of demons coming out... and when the shackles were all broken the demons turned on the transformed priest and dragged him into the Abyss for his failure. Still, having every other turn have three or more demons, increasingly powerful... it freaked my group delightfully. :)
I like this idea! My players arrive in Artosa this week. However, they are not big on dungeon crawls. Any advice to shorten this adventure without destroying or skipping it?
Finsihed this off on Saturday, game ended as PCs teleported to Frozen Star.
I ended up using a deck of oversized cards for the dungeon. This worked well to abstract it without completly removing the dungeon crawl feel. I have done this before for large dungeons. For posterity sake I did it like so:
Diamond (1-10): Maiden dungeon. Room numbers mapped 1 to 1 with cards (so draw card 2 its room 2). Though the entrance was fixed. Cards are shuffled with 1 joker. When a joker is drawn it means a random teleporter is encountered to one of the other dungeons (roll 1d4 to determine which one). I also rolled a 1d6 for each card drawn and on a 1 Jadrenka would appear.
Repeat for Mother and Crone using a different suite each.