Be sure to report back in when you get there! Really love hearing about how everything plays out at the table, Roysier.
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What are the targeting DCs for the hotchkiss and the aasen mortar/ other weapons using indirect fire? I figured I could just use the large and light catapult when I couldn't find it in the mod, but figured I would check here first. I'm starting book 5 tomorrow.
Also, is there no precaution against stealth/covert/invisible attack by the mortar troops and tank?
Senior Developer
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What are the targeting DCs for the hotchkiss and the aasen mortar/ other weapons using indirect fire? I figured I could just use the large and light catapult when I couldn't find it in the mod, but figured I would check here first. I'm starting book 5 tomorrow.
Also, is there no precaution against stealth/covert/invisible attack by the mortar troops and tank?
The Aasen mortar should have a targeting DC of 15. The Hotchkiss 6 pounder is a direct fire weapon, so it uses a normal attack roll, not a targeting roll.
Outside of the prison camp, there is no defense against such tactics as written, other than the troops' Perception skills and the fact that they're waiting in ambush (and there's no reason the PCs should suspect that a bunch of Russian soldiers are lying in wait for them).
Unless they're all flying, no amount of stealth is going to avoid those landmines. ;-)
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Only one went invisible and no one flew... The encounter worked pretty well. One question though, if a PC actively occupies the troop space to melee attack, is there no way to account for Feats like Cleave, Greater Cleave, Cleaving Finish, etc? I had a Barbarian do so and simply house-ruled an additional 50% damage on the fly until I could inquire here...
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Technically because a Troop is one "creature" Feats like Cleave and the like cannot be used on it. It seems counterintuitive but you can always houserule it differently if you want.
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Yeah, that was my take on it as well. My player was slightly miffed that when he reached the mortar troops and jumped into the midst of them that his 7 Feat investment would be useless.. Since it wasn't addressed in the troop write up, I gave him the additional damage to placate him until I could look into it and inquire here.
Rules as written, those feats are absolutely useless. I would definitely give the guy *at least* double damage. How often does he get to use them?
Cleave comes up a LOT. Great Cleave / Whirlwind Attack, not so much. Mobility probably fairly often.
I'd give the person at least the 50% extra damage, treating the strike as an AoE attack.
I'd seriously consider letting the guy attack the troop for every square it's occupying while he's cleaving or whirlwinding. That might kill the troop really fast, but the barbarian responding to the troop by just launching himself into the middle of it is kind of awesome and something I'd encourage.
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I'm going to go the other way here. I wouldn't change a thing. At *most* I might give the player an extra die of damage, perhaps a static bonus (add Str modifier again?), or *maybe* the +50% damage. At most, and only if I felt they really resented the temporary uselessness of earned abilities.
The reasons:
Making the character that much more effective against the admittedly dangerous troops destroys their effectiveness--not only as a combatant, mind you--but in the role they are really meant to play in the module: a deterrent and a steering mechanism once PCs enter the prison.
The trenches aren't meant to be "cleared out" like a dungeon full of kobolds. The presence of the troops, and the ever-roaming searchlights, are meant to be a dangerous, looming threat that the PCs should really be trying to avoid as they seek to complete their goals and take the fight to Rasputin. If they are engaging in one boring firefight after the other (because that wholesale slaughter *will* become boring if your guys are able to hack the troops to pieces) rather than using their abilities to infiltrate the heart of Rasutin's camp and solve the mysteries of his location, then the adventure's horrific aspect and overall storyline become muted.
PCs should also learn fairly quickly that these troops are not acting entirely of their own volition, which raises some ethical questions if your fighter is hacking and cleaving his way through dozens of nosferatu-dominated men. They aren't exactly nice guys, mind you, but they're also not evil, bloodthirsty, demon-possessed murderers--they are soldiers following orders to protect their headquarters, and dominated to insure they follow those orders precisely and turn a blind eye to the supernatural horrors within the inner walls of the prison.To impress this on the group, maybe they should meet Dmitri sooner than later.
Also recall that the electrified barricade works both ways. For the most part, the soldiers stay stationed in the trenches unless otherwise noted in the adventure. Making a hack-and-slash slaughter around the camp's perimeter, new-found cleaving-prowess in hand, doesn't accomplish any of the adventure's goals, and, as noted above, removes the deterrent you as a GM are able to utilize while the troops survive, and that is if the PCs make a wrong move or make too big a show of things, those troops might decide to cross the fence after all. And the PCs shouldn't be inviting that.
I say leave it as is or make only a minor adjustment, let the PCs know just how dangerous those troops are, and encourage them to seek ways to *not* go on a troop-killing spree, and keep them as a looming threat that could open a floodgate of PC death if they aren't careful in their explorations. Just some thoughts for consideration!
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My player and I agreed, after he had some time to think about it mechanically, to leave the troops as written and do away with the added damage. He realized that the mechanics prevent the game from bogging down and that an additional 50% damage really wasn't going to make a huge difference... It just caught him off guard because as he realized there was a large number of soldiers packed closely together he began envisioning a Cleave fest.. Only to be disappointed when I told him it didn't work that way... So, controversy averted. Thanks for all the input!!
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Additionally, we stopped at the first encounter with Rasputin (before the fire corpse orgy attacks), so I still have all the troops at the camp to shred the party with...
Any suggestions for running the troops entrenched in and around the camp other than what the mod gives? My players are all veteran gamers and frequently thwart the bad guy's prescribed strategies...
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Hmmm. Very good point on the troops, Mr. Hodges.
One possibly mean thing to do - give the pale snipers scopes that grant see invisibility (which they apparently had in the original write-up), and give the snipers some "tracer" rounds that go off in a 1 minute faerie fire if they hit a target.
That'd give the troops in the trenches an additional set of "spotters."
The much scarier option - Rasputin's ability to actually harass the PCs in the vincinity of the prison camp is staggering. He can scry on them at will, and while a scrying sensor is up he can project image to their general location to say hello. And by say hello I mean firestorm.
As written, Rasputin conserves his strength and leaves the defense largely up to his countless minions, but having Rasputin's scrying sensor following the PCs everywhere they go (only a DC 24 perception check to know that it's right there behind you) could be incredibly nerve-wracking.
Now, the sensor is as scry, so it technically takes Rasputin 1 hour to rev it up, and it's only around for 18 minutes once he does. I'd be very tempted to make it a standard action, though - sort of like using a crystal ball.
As an oracle, Rasputin has an enormous number of spells, most of which he won't ever have the chance to cast once the party reaches him.
The only real restriction on the Mad Monk's ability to harass is that it takes him a 6th level slot every time. But his combined spell slots for 6th through 9th comes out to 23 spells - far more than he'd ever be able to cast once he's finally in personal combat with the PCs.
Rasputin's project image popping in and doing terrible things to the PCs at inopportune times - or at the least, Rasputin making clear that he can do that at any time. The tactic isn't unstoppable - the projected image can be dispelled, or can be shut down by somehow breaking line of sight between it and the scrying sensor - but it should make the party be very, very nervous about getting into fights, because they never know when Rasputin's going to become manifest and unleash biblical fury upon them.*
Rasputin is by far the most dangerous being in the prison camp, and is easily one of the strongest foes in the entire AP. If you think your players can survive it, making Rasputin considerably more aggressive is a good way to ramp up the challenge of the camp.
Edit: An ever wackier option - Rasputin can pull in a soldier from the camp, and then use his project psyche revelation to possess them as per magic jar and return to the camp. He can then start hunting the PCs while riding around in a possessed subject.
Thanks for your input, Brandon. I appreciate your perspective, and it makes sense - don't make it easy to kill the troops, because they are dominated slaves that can be used to corral the PCs.
I also imagine that it would chafe if your DM presents you with a situation that, in all normal senses, would be right up your alley. Due to rules arcana, however, your awesome option, meant to be used against a large group of humanoids exactly like this, just doesn't do anything. Don't fireballs and the like get a %50 damage increase against troops? Do you see that any differently?
Considering that fighters and the like are already nerfed compared to spellcasters at high levels, perhaps what should be done is to give the sword-swingers their 50% damage increase for Feat Trees (maybe 25% per Feat in the Cleave tree), but likewise increase the hit points of the "swarm" of Troops by 50%. So while those attacks (both sorcerous and physical) do more damage, the Troops compensate for it.
So, mythic Rasputin.
He'll be some months off from running, wanted to toss this out here.
I'd be looking at making him a Tier 6 hierophant (maybe dual-pathed into Trickster).
I'm looking at giving him two instance of Divine Source as part of his Path abilities.
That would give him three domains and two subdomains.
He'd need to take Evil as one of his domains. I'd give him Healing domain as another.
Sub-domain-wise, I'm looking at Daemon and Resurrection. The former to play up his ties with the Four Horsemen; the latter for obvious reasons.
That leaves a third and final domain, which I'm trying to decide on for flavor reasons.
Trickery - this ties very well with the historical Rasputin - the Rasputin that once was, and who even now succeeded in luring the Queen of Witches into a trap that will kill her given enough time.
Death - this ties in the Four Horsemen, and reflects how his murder and recovery from such changed him for the worse.
War - again ties into the Four Horsemen, as well as the Russian Revolution and WWI in general. [Though perhaps War would be the hypothetical 4th domain, should he victoriously rise up as a demi-god to take revenge on the world that so cruelly rejected him.]
In addition to determined his spell-like powers from Divine SOurce, Rasputin's domains would effect would powers his "worshippers" - his enthralled army - could receive from him.
I'm picturing troops that accompanied by cleric/inquisitor/warpriest sergeants/chaplains (perhaps spontaneously changed from trench fighters to their new classes through miracle) using their newly granted powers to bolster the troops and empower their arms.
As in, warpriests of Rasputin empowering their rifles with Rasputin's divine wrath.
Now I should try to figure out what the Russian would be for "God is dead! All hail Rasputin!"
Now I should try to figure out what the Russian would be for "God is dead! All hail Rasputin!"
Google Translate gives me "Бог умер! Приветствую Распутина!" ("Bog umer! Privetstvuyu Rasputina!"). But if you can find someone who actually speaks it and can correct any auto-generated inaccuracies definitely do so.
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Edit: An ever wackier option - Rasputin can pull in a soldier from the camp, and then use his project psyche revelation to possess them as per magic jar and return to the camp. He can then start hunting the PCs while riding around in a possessed subject.
I really like this idea. It could really add to the creepy factor.
Something that bothers me about the troop mechanic and it applies to the swarm mechanic also. In my party we have a real powerful Gunslinger who can dish out 160 hit points of damage a round. So, his 4 bullets can kill an entire troop in one round. That just doesn't make sense to me. 4 bullets would mean 4 hits and 4 dead people. Obviosuly this could apply to arrows also.
I think I am going to home rule an arrow/bolt/bullet can do a maximum of 15 HP of damage each, representing that they couldn't possibly kill/demorilize/wound each solider in the entire troop in 1 round.
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Actually, it does make a little bit of sense. If a Troop is composed of between 8 and 12 soldiers, you just had one man shoot and kill four soldiers (and possibly more if the bullet went through someone and smacked into another soldier behind him).
The Troop disperses as the men flee this person who is so skilled that four shots mean four kills... in six seconds. While reloading his guns between shots.
Likewise with the arrows: you have an archer firing off five arrows that slam through the heads or torsos of up to five soldiers... in a matter of six seconds. Each shot killing. Time for a retreat! ;)
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Tangent101 answers the point as I would have--the troop's "dispersal" doesn't necessarily mean "destroyed to the man." In that line of thinking, and depending on what you're up for as a GM, you might dictate that the troop "disperses" into 1d4+2 individual Russian soldiers. ;-)
B.
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Tangent101 answers the point as I would have--the troop's "dispersal" doesn't necessarily mean "destroyed to the man." In that line of thinking, and depending on what you're up for as a GM, you might dictate that the troop "disperses" into 1d4+2 individual Russian soldiers. ;-)
B.
This is my thought as well. If you do want to nerf the gunslinger, you can make them immune to ranged attacks, but this is a bit harsh.
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If I missed it, I apologize, but I was looking at the stats for the modern weapons and discovered what I believe to be a typo for the Nagant M1895 Revolver. It lists the range as 80ft, which is the same as the Mosin Nagagnt Rifle. I find it very difficult to swallow that a revolver has the same range as a SNIPER RIFLE! Please tell me this is a typo? :)
Hi Brandon,
I'm not really knowledgeable on Russian folklore but with a few google searches I was able to find Vasilla's Beauty inspiration for room A6, and also Little Otik for room A4. Very cool how you used those folktales and weaved various elements into the rooms. Besides those 2 and the Gingerbread room are there any other rooms inspired by Russian folklore?
If I missed it, I apologize, but I was looking at the stats for the modern weapons and discovered what I believe to be a typo for the Nagant M1895 Revolver. It lists the range as 80ft, which is the same as the Mosin Nagagnt Rifle. I find it very difficult to swallow that a revolver has the same range as a SNIPER RIFLE! Please tell me this is a typo? :)
Aspasia, I believe you are correct. Checking my turnover, I listed the range as 30-feet. Note that all of the weapons stats were given an early development pass so that I could work with the approved stats, so what showed up in my turnover was considered correct after an initial round of editing and approval.
That being said, I can only tell you what my design intent and what some developers initially agreed with. It *may* be that the range was extended after further development and scrutiny. Not likely, given the comparison and normal ranges for revolvers, but do know that I can't give you an official answer beyond author's intent. It'll be up to Paizo to make an official correction, so maybe Rob or Daigle will chime in with a clarification.
Roysier--on my way to bed--give you a rundown on Russian folklore inspirations tomorrow. I've been waiting for someone to spot those influences!
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I found this photo which looks like it is a perfect photo for the photo found in area E3. I'm going to give it to my players.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nicholas_II_and_children_with_Cossacks_of _the_Guard,_cropped.jpg
I have couple of questions, first one about troops and their fusillade ability. Does single target take damage from multiple lines from one troop if target is large or well, larger, creature or those lines happen to cross on the square of medium target is standing on?
And second... umm... second... I know i had second question, but I can't remember what it was for the life of me. Some one must have cast some kind of minor curse of amnesia on me.
I have couple of questions, first one about troops and their fusillade ability. Does single target take damage from multiple lines from one troop if target is large or well, larger, creature or those lines happen to cross on the square of medium target is standing on?
"Focused fire" scenarios like that were indeed part of the design intent, and there's nothing in the rules to prevent it. That could conceivably make things very messy in the hands of a devious GM who decides to maybe bring too much troop order to the chaos of trench combat, but then again, PCs of the level for which RMD was written should have some protective solutions.
Brings new meaning to "being caught in the crossfire," doesn't it?
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Thanks for the quick reply :)
I´m planning on keeping the fire more chaotic instead of focusing on single target, except if one of them decides to charge hundreds of feet ahead of rest of the party... or if someone turns into something large (like druid turning in to a dinosaur), I mean if I were a soldier and saw 3 normal guys with swords running towards me and 1 t-rex, I'd be focusing on the dino (that is unless I weren't trying to win new world record in sprinting)
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Howdy fellow DMs!
So assuming your players weren't spoiled in any way (whether by the adventure path's name, etc.), how long did it take for your guys' players to realize they were on Earth? Did they figure out by any hints you dropped, or did they learn the information from their first encounter with Rasputin or an interrogated Russian soldier, or perhaps the Coffin Man?
My ideal plan is to keep the players in the dark for as long as possible, and in the event that they interrogate a Russian soldier to figure out what world they are on, the soldier replies with "dirt" or "ground". Even with a tounges spell, this is how it will translate. When the session is close to ending, I then say:
"You realize something. There's another word for "dirt". Earth. The soldier did not say you were on the world called Dirt. You're on a world called Earth."
Course, anything can change. They might never interrogate a soldier. But g+&+@#n that would be an epic cliffhanger for next session.
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I like the way you think, Neongelion. I've taken extreme measures to try to keep my players from being spoiled on this point. One probably already is, but I hope to really surprise them with everything here. Obviously, like many of you here, the campaign is an elaborate excuse to run this adventure.
I already spoilered it. I needed to so to draw one of the players back into the campaign (I've had the feeling he plays solely because his wife plays, and keeps himself occupied by assembling Warhammer 40K miniatures - sadly, seeing his wife plays a "Fluttershy" quiet type of Ranger, that leaves all the roleplay to a part-time player and a Skype player (and me, the GM). Fortunately, having his wife play Nadya as well (by claiming I couldn't do the accent justice - which is true) has also reinvigorated his interest in the game. ^^
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So, we have finished book 5 and are onto book 6. Overall I would say it went pretty well, the players said they enjoyed the uniqueness of the AP but thought the troops were overpowered with the Fusillade attacks. They also did not like the ambush section they thought it was particularly brutal.
One of our sessions was a bit tedious when the party decided to destroy the troops on the outside of the prison. This lead to several combats in a row against similar type creatures with no role playing or exploring mixed in. So literally one Sunday we did combats for 7 hours.
In one part the party strated blowing up the troops with Fireballs 900 feet away. The troops had nothing to fire back at that range. The party ran out of fireballs and went back and rested for the night. So the troops weren't going to sit in their foxholes waiting to die by fireball, so they were all moved inside the cover of buildings and hid there. The party then went into the complex and all the troops start rushing out using gremade volleys etc. It lead to a very challenging encounter, where the pary got mortered, grenade volleyed and tank shelled all in one round while in one of the towers. They had to D.Door away to get relief from the bursts and heal up.
To get around the historical inaccuracy in the book about Anastasia being heir to the throne I instead gave Rasputin the motivation to raise her was to use as a tool to possibly gain power if the Whites won the civil war.
There was a funny session the party found the 2 “Romanovs’ and left them for safety reasons in the hut. Then they ran into the animated dreams, and one of the players comments was “if Alexi is here then who the hell is in our hut”.
I thought the hut configuration in this book was far better than the previous 2. Those others I found a bit boring.
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One of our sessions was a bit tedious when the party decided to destroy the troops on the outside of the prison. This lead to several combats in a row against similar type creatures with no role playing or exploring mixed in. So literally one Sunday we did combats for 7 hours.
This same sort of thing occurred in my last session. The PCs teleported into a tower, waylaid the occupants, teleported to the next, rinse and repeat (eventually they did have to resort to Fly potions and the like to get to the last few towers). After the second tower I moved some troops and tanks in to fire on them. The troops are certainly brutal with their fusillade, and the tanks pack a punch but my players systematically wiped them out eventually (I prevented the tanks from using the Hotchkiss on the PCs when they entered the Anchor towers though). The troop's vulnerability to area of effect spells was exploited for sure.
We left off with the Polovnik and his Cassocks entering the scene. I will release the Trench Mists/zombies right after a Flamethrower troop or two blast the PCs for a few rounds. The party has decimated a total of 4-5 troops at this point iirc (along with 3 animated tanks), but the players don't want to spend another entire session fighting the troops in the trenches "just because", so they are pushing for the monastery now that it has been called back to earth.
Any advice on running the final section inside the monastery?
Have Rasputin reanimate all those dead soldiers with a miracle.
So that the party has a tide of hundreds of fast zombies (or maybe Warsworn?) with guns or whatever pouring into the monastery from behind while the party pushes to Rasputin.
With any additional soldiers the party kills also immediately reanimating.
Perhaps a knowledge check reveals that the zombie apocalypse can be stopped if the creator of the effect - the Mad Monk himself - can be slain.
Trying to navigate the monastery while endless reinforcements attack could be really bad.
That might be meaner than you actually want to do to your players, but hey.
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Our party effectively shut down the camp by using control weather to center a heavy blizzard on the camp. The fog effect that the heavy snow provided kept us from random encounters outside the buildings. Mass flying and dimension door got us into the camp, and half the party could see clearly through the snow. We missed the effects the wind should have been having on us, but I think freedom of movement would be able to handle that.
It might have been because we are in a real world time crunch to finish the series, but only the cossaks with their lifesense could see us outside. The sniper helmets in the central tower only work if you can see your target when you activate them.
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My group currently has 6 players and we just began this chapter. So far I haven't had to adjust the encounters overly much.
My normal practice is to put advanced templates on creatures or just max their HD but the vanilla encounters here have been rather rough on them. The two bogey men in the hut nearly took out three PCs.
The rest of the hut they managed to role play their way through. Then the encounters in the burned out village was very nearly a TPK thanks to the Troops' mortar shells and fusillades. If it keeps up like this I'm starting to wonder how many Russian refugees will be added to the party prior to the end of the book.
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I know for most of the series our GM maxed the HP of most enemies. I'm not sure what he was doing by book 5 but I don't think it was that much any more.
We ran into an odd occurance with the mines. 3 creatures set them off and then the mortars came down, which hurt a lot. Then we noticed that all 3 mines had been tripped by flying creatures and dropped the damage. After the first mortars we dropped sleet storms on the troops and flew everyone to the woods. But we've put considerable resources into having lots of flying powers in the party.
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The druid in my party transformed himself in a huge air elemental right before the trenches (and after the mortar troops shoot then (they set off a mine) he decided to use his whirlwind ability to suck up the troops... and we stopped to play in that moment. are the troops affected by this ability?
Well now, that *is* a tricky one.
Whirlwinds can only affect creatures one or more size category smaller than itself, and while the troop takes up the space of a gargantuan creature, its composite nature means it only has a true size category of medium.
So the troop is definitely affected. And with the size of a Huge air elemental (50 ft) there's more than enough room to fit all the composite creatures if that were called into question. So give the troop its save as normal against the damage and the suspension effect (it makes its saves on a 8+, so it's in good shape) and run with it. And don't forget that even if immobilized due to the suspension, the troops still get actions and attacks (ouch!) that they're likely to focus on their tormentor. And that grenade volley is a move action, sooooo... =-)
Great visual!
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Yes. Yes, I must say that is an absolutely awesome visual. :)