4-17 - Tower of the Ironwood Watch [SPOILERS]

[Feegle]

Questions:

p. 6 - Caphorite says it 'absorbs light.' Does this include nonmagical sources like torches and lanterns, or is the only effect the one notes in the boxed text, influencing spells with the light descriptor. Additionally, does Caphorite affect existing spells that enter the room, or only new spells being cast?

p. 7 - Does the magic suppression effect cover the entire room, or target individual creatures? Am I correct in thinking that there is no save against that part of the trap's effect?

[John Compton]

Caphorite, referenced on page 14 of Pathfinder Chronicles: Into the Darklands implies that this applies to all types of light, magical and non-magical. As for your second question, the caphorite entry does not specify what happens with existing spells. I would give existing spells a similar one-time check to see if they become diluted.

The magic suppression covers the entire room. The "save" is the caster level check to cast spells while in that area.

[Kintrik]

Question about A3

Spoiler:

For the basidironds. The bestiary says they have tremor sense, but it gives no range.

PRD link

There doesn't seem be a default range listed under tremorsense either.

What is the expected range we should use.

[John Compton]

Knitrik wrote:

Question about A3

Huh! I'll check in with the rules team and let you know. Until I hear from them, I would go with 60 feet, which is the most common value I see in the Bestiary.

[Kintrik]

John Compton wrote:

Knitrik wrote:

Question about A3

Huh! I'll check in with the rules team and let you know. Until I hear from them, I would go with 60 feet, which is the most common value I see in the Bestiary.

Anything?

[Ninjaxenomorph]

I signed up to run this for Chimaeracon. When I was reading through, I was glad it is a fairly normal dungeon crawl... And then

Spoiler:

DROW SUDDENLY DROW NEVER SEEN DROW EVER

[John Compton]

Kintrik wrote:

John Compton wrote:

Knitrik wrote:

Question about A3

Huh! I'll check in with the rules team and let you know. Until I hear from them, I would go with 60 feet, which is the most common value I see in the Bestiary.

Anything?

Yes, I received word from the rules team that the basidirond has tremorsense 60 feet, and the update is on their list for future errata. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

[WalterGM]

Ninjaxenomorph wrote:

I signed up to run this for Chimaeracon. When I was reading through, I was glad it is a fairly normal dungeon crawl... And then

** spoiler omitted **

you might want to check out...:

Drow of the Darklands Pyramid

[Sam Polak]

Ninjaxenomorph wrote:

I signed up to run this for Chimaeracon. When I was reading through, I was glad it is a fairly normal dungeon crawl... And then

** spoiler omitted **

That sounds a lot like my reaction when I read the assignment!

[CanisDirus]

Question about the last map that I don't see in the scenario:

Spoiler:

How deep is the chasm? You know, juuuust in case a PC winds up falling or something?

Speaking of falling... *gets an evil grin thinking about something else he won't even dare posting in a GM-only thread just in case someone sees it prematurely*

Thanks!

[John Compton]

Mike Bramnik wrote:

Question about the last map that I don't see in the scenario:

** spoiler omitted **

Thanks!

Check the first standard paragraph for area C2 on page 15.

EDIT: Found the exact information. Please disregard the short-lived earlier answer in this post.

[CanisDirus]

John Compton wrote:

Check the first standard paragraph for area C2 on page 15.

EDIT: Found the exact information. Please disregard the short-lived earlier answer in this post.

Thanks! Although, now I feel dumb for having missed it! :P

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Ugh. The wizard in my group Feebleminded Inexora, thus rendering the entire encounter a bore. I take it as making up for my Shadow Demon shenanigans, though; having it summon another to test out will saves was fun.

[WalterGM]

Ninjaxenomorph wrote:

Ugh. The wizard in my group Feebleminded Inexora, thus rendering the entire encounter a bore. I take it as making up for my Shadow Demon shenanigans, though; having it summon another to test out will saves was fun.

Hah. I just suggestioned him and used him to magic jar during the final fight. Almost as bad.

"I suggest that you join the winning team and do everything I say. As you can see, gesturing to the freshly slain corpse beside him, we aren't in a playing mood. Do this, and you get to live."

[Ninjaxenomorph]

They succeeded their will saves versus the Magic Jar, sadly. And killed the Mandragora in 1 round.

[Feegle]

Question about higher tier for encounter A3:

Spoiler:

Fiendish gives basidronds a 1/day smite good ability. Presuming that I've done all the math right, they should have a Cha of 5, and therefore a modifier of -3. To use smite good, does the basidrond take a -3 penalty on attack for a +7 damage on hits? For that matter, would a creature with no Int score even bother, tactically, to smite good?

Heck, while I'm here, let's check this over, since I'm new to Fiendish Templates.

I think the fiendish template gives the basidronds resist fire 10 (no cold since they're already immune), SR 11, DR 5/good, and the smite good ability. Is that right?

Also, a question about B3:

Spoiler:

Does the advanced template affect the save DC of the mandragora's poison?

[Caderyn]

A3:

Its the difference between modifier and bonus within the rules, Smites always specify Bonus not Modifier, if an ability says you add your Cha Modifier then you would add it regardless of if its positive or negative, however if it specifies bonus it means you only add your modifier if its positive otherwise its just 0, so its a +0 for +7 damage

Once per day, an antipaladin can call out to the dark powers to crush the forces of good. As a swift action, the antipaladin chooses one target within sight to smite. If this target is good, the antipaladin adds his Charisma bonus (if any) on his attack rolls and adds his antipaladin level on all damage rolls made against the target of his smite. If the target of smite good is an outsider with the good subtype, a good-aligned dragon, or a good creature with levels of cleric or paladin, the bonus to damage on the first successful attack increases to 2 points of damage per level the antipaladin possesses. Regardless of the target, smite good attacks automatically bypass any DR the creature might possess.

[Sammy T]

2 tables ran last night, one high and one low. Both tables ran long (4.5 hours) even with both GMs cutting the 4th encounter in the mushroom cave.

I ran the 5-6. Party:
L6 Bard (support/intimidater)
L6 Cleric (heal domain)
L6 Kensai Magus
L6 Hellknight (TWF)
L5 Ranger (ranged)
L5 Sorcerer 1/Rogue 4

1st encounter: Not too much trouble, even with the Magus hallucinating the entire fight ("Quicksand...aaaaaaaahhhhhhh!")

Teleport Trap: the cleric was standing in the teleport zone and got zapped away. Luckily, he had a ring of feather fall and avoided falling damage.

2nd encounter: The drow fight dragged on--while the mooks went down relatively quickly, it took them a while to drop down the drow leader (rolls to beat SR were bad). If the leader wasn't focused on the high AC magus (who was elven) and missing most of his shots, he would have quickly started dropping other PCs. The Aegis of Recovery was a nice surprise.

3rd encounter: Another draggy battle. Mushroom and incubus got a surprise round and then the PCs played open door/close the door to keep the mushroom in the chamber while dogpiling the Incubus in the main room...but only the ranger had cold iron arrows to overcome the DR. I played the Incubus stupidly and suboptimally otherwise it would have got ugly. In retrospect, should I have gone tougher on a party without backup weapons? Perhaps.

4th skipped for time. We were 3ish hours in...

5th encounter--the Hellknight had the boon item Gem of Demon Seeking (lights up when a demon is nearby), so the ambush was nullified as it pinged the hiding Babau. The Upland raider went down fast. Again, DR vexed the party and they couldn't take the Babau down. Meanwhile, Inexora threw out an unholy blight and dispelled one of the light sources (she couldn't see the Ioun Torch, so she dispelled Dancing Lights that were illuminating her area).

Lacking any good ranged options, she moved up and channeled twice, scaring the crap out of the party then throwing a third channel to make the demon rage. A PC got a good shot on Inexora another managed to blind her, so she cast deeper darkness then channeled one last time in the supernatural dark. The party cleric used daylight, so the light levels returned to normal ambient darkness and the only two darkvision enabled PCs finished off the demon and her...right as the party was on its last legs.

The reasons the fights dragged on were: the party beatsticks didn't have DR-defeating backup weapons, they missed 75%+ of SR checks and the rogue was not played...optimally...

[Ninjaxenomorph]

... Dammit! I think I forgot Inexora's SR! I knew it was too easy! Damn, that will teach me for relying on my combat app...

[Sammy T]

I've started writing a huge "DR!" or "SR!" and circling it next to creature's stat block to blatantly remind me lol.

[CRobledo]

Jeff Mahood wrote:

Question about higher tier for encounter A3:

** spoiler omitted **

Smite only adds your charisma BONUS to attack rolls. If you have a non-positive charisma mod, you just add 0 and still add HD to damage. However, towards AC you add your Charisma modifier, so it's AC versus the target of a smite WOULD be -3.

[Sam Polak]

Thanks for the detailed report Sammy T! The player who blinded Inexora deserves a pat on the back for turning the tables like that.

Jeff, I don't know if it's officially correct, but when I advance a monster that has built-in poison, I raise the DC. The universal monster rules say a poison DC is usually modified by hit dice and constitution, so I think raising it by 2 in an advanced creature is the right thing to do.

Ninjaxenomorph, I've been in the same situation more times than I'd like to admit. Minutes or hours after I declare an NPC dead, I suddenly remember why they shouldn't be. I try not to worry about it, because there's always more NPCs where they came from.

CRobeldo, that's an interesting point about the AC penalty. In the Fiendish template, the bestiary only specifies the attack/damage modification. However, if we assume the fiendish template smite good does everything that an antipaladin's smite good does, the specific wording from the APG is "In addition, while smite good is in effect, the antipaladin gains a deflection bonus equal to his Charisma modifier (if any) to his AC against attacks made by the target of the smite."

Personally, I wouldn't give a fiendish creature an AC penalty or bonus.

Shax's realm, Charnelhome, is surrounded by carnivorous plants, and my reasoning is that his followers would have access to some of these plant species. It makes sense to me that a demonic plant would go into a frenzy and attack good creatures recklessly; their main problem is having such low Intelligence that they don't choose their own smite targets very well.

[Feegle]

GMing this game two weeks ago was my 60th game, and therefore my 3rd star. To celebrate this, I built some 3D terrain. Normally, I'd put this link in the discussion, but there are mega-spoilers in the images, so I kept it here instead.

Images

[Sam Polak]

Jeff Mahood wrote:

GMing this game two weeks ago was my 60th game, and therefore my 3rd star. To celebrate this, I built some 3D terrain. Normally, I'd put this link in the discussion, but there are mega-spoilers in the images, so I kept it here instead.

Images

Jeff, you blew my mind. Thanks for sharing, and congrats on the GM star!

[Feegle]

Thank YOU for creating a map that lent itself so nicely to 3D terrain building. :)

[DrSwordopolis]

Sam Polak wrote:

CRobeldo, that's an interesting point about the AC penalty. In the Fiendish template, the bestiary only specifies the attack/damage modification. However, if we assume the fiendish template smite good does everything that an antipaladin's smite good does, the specific wording from the APG is "In addition, while smite good is in effect, the antipaladin gains a deflection bonus equal to his Charisma modifier (if any) to his AC against attacks made by the target of the smite."

Fiendish Template, Bestiary wrote:

Smite good 1/day as a swift action (adds Cha bonus to attack rolls and damage bonus equal to HD against good foes; smite persists until target is dead or the fiendish creature rests).

Sam, you're right. Smite Good from the Fiendish template does not affect your AC (nor does it allow you to bypass any DR), it only does what's listed above.

[Rusty Ironpants]

Anyone notice there is an error in the chronicle sheet?

At tier 5-6 the wand of resist energy with 10 charges is listed as costing 900 gp. The math only works out if it is CL 6. A CL 1 wand of resist energy with 10 charges should only cost 150 gp.

Any chance to get a correction?

[Sesharan]

Rusty Ironpants wrote:

Anyone notice there is an error in the chronicle sheet?

At tier 5-6 the wand of resist energy with 10 charges is listed as costing 900 gp. The math only works out if it is CL 6. A CL 1 wand of resist energy with 10 charges should only cost 150 gp.

Any chance to get a correction?

Huh. That's odd. Maybe it was intended to have a higher caster level, but I can't imagine why they would make it CL 6 when the amount of resistance increases at CL 7.

[Sam Polak]

Were you doing the math as if buying the wand from a ranger?

The Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play says "All potions, scrolls, wands, and other consumables are made by clerics, druids, or wizards..." unless the spell isn't on the cleric, druid or wizard spell list. (p 25, under "Potions, Scrolls, and Wands")

If the wand of resist energy was crafted by a cleric, the cost should be 4,500 gp (2nd level spell * CL 3rd * 750), 1/5 of which is 900 gp.

[Rusty Ironpants]

Sam Polak wrote:

Were you doing the math as if buying the wand from a ranger?

The Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play says "All potions, scrolls, wands, and other consumables are made by clerics, druids, or wizards..." unless the spell isn't on the cleric, druid or wizard spell list. (p 25, under "Potions, Scrolls, and Wands")

If the wand of resist energy was crafted by a cleric, the cost should be 4,500 gp (2nd level spell * CL 3rd * 750), 1/5 of which is 900 gp.

D'oh. I was not intentionally calculating the wand for a Ranger, but for some reason I was thinking resist energy was a first level spell.

Thanks for the correction Sam. Awesome scenario BTW. I just ran it for a group on Saturday. Potentially super-deadly if the party cannot deal effectively with darkness though. Luckily the group had 3 characters with dark vision.

[nosig]

Rusty Ironpants wrote:

Sam Polak wrote:

Were you doing the math as if buying the wand from a ranger?

The Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play says "All potions, scrolls, wands, and other consumables are made by clerics, druids, or wizards..." unless the spell isn't on the cleric, druid or wizard spell list. (p 25, under "Potions, Scrolls, and Wands")

If the wand of resist energy was crafted by a cleric, the cost should be 4,500 gp (2nd level spell * CL 3rd * 750), 1/5 of which is 900 gp.

D'oh. I was not intentionally calculating the wand for a Ranger, but for some reason I was thinking resist energy was a first level spell.

Thanks for the correction Sam. Awesome scenario BTW. I just ran it for a group on Saturday. Potentially super-deadly if the party cannot deal effectively with darkness though. Luckily the group had 3 characters with dark vision.

I fear I did not enjoy this one much, but most likely that was due to the judge. We had a well balance party, of very well prepared PCs - but the judge got kind of creative in his ruleings... so even with 3 PCs with darkvision (Dwarf Cleric, Half-orc ftr? and Tiefling Arcane Trickster) and daylight spells we got very badly chewed up.

mini rant:

Does the last encounter actually contain a heightened deeper darkness that the Bad Guys throw at medium range in the surprise round? With something else to overcome daylight spells? We walked into the last encounter and had this dropped into the center of our party - and then we were attacked by monsters that could see in it (one of which seemed to be a quazit from the way it attacked, but quazits can't normally see in DD). I'm glad I was a 9th level PC playing down to 5-6... Ultimitly I dropped several of our PCs into a create pit and then featherfalled us to the bottom, just to get us out of the supernaturally dark area - and away from the monsters that could see thru it.

[Sam Polak]

Sorry to hear you didn't have fun nosig. I'd rather not speculate about how your GM ran it, but I've always considered the lighting rules to be a tricky area and I like to reread them before I run an encounter like that one.

Inexora, as a drow noble, gains deeper darkness as a spell-like ability. As you pointed out, used by itself, deeper darkness would leave her and her demons as blind as the PCs. She would be more likely to use deeper darkness on herself if she wound up inside the area of a PC's daylight effect, returning the intersection of the spell effects to normal darkness and retaining use of her darkvision.

It may seem like she still has a big advantage in that situation, but even a 50% miss chance isn't going to keep her alive for long within 60 feet of a typical party of Pathfinders.

[William Sinclair]

So a question of interpretation came up in this scenario.

Spoiler:

In room B2, under treasure, there is listed some antifungal stuff. It says that once applied, they remove the affects of the fungus spores from previous encounters. One player thought that this met that it removed the CON damage already inflicted after the spores had run their course. The GM ruled that it would end the effects of the spore, but that any CON damage inflicted would remain.

Thoughts?

[John Compton]

William Sinclair wrote:

So a question of interpretation came up in this scenario.

** spoiler omitted **
Thoughts?

It removes the ongoing disease effect, but it does not remove any ability damage. In this way a PC can prevent further damage from either plant creature.

[Finlanderboy]

So the last boss I really wanted to put her in an aqeous orb and off the edge. She Levitated to avoid that, dispelled that and the DM ruled her falling on top of it was a yeilding surface but did not count for her possibly falling in again.

her exploits to avoid me caused the rest of the team to own her so she could not get a spell off.

[Kyrie Ebonblade]

We did this one for RapierCon.. it was a mess

Spoiler:

Our Barbarian/Fighter decided to check a room while the rest of us were occupied checking the first group of drow bodies and got magic jarred while we weren't aware of it.

Had to pretty much call it at that point after one charcter got hit HARD by the new nasty bad guy with a +1 Furious Acid Greatsword and the cleric wound up having to kill him to keep him from killing the rest of the party.

Wound up with an all around bad taste in our mouths. Kind of bummed too as that means we failed and I didn't even get my faction mission. :(

[Matthew Pittard]

Thomas: I know it left a bad experience in your mouth but wow...

Thats an awesome in game action to take on a party member. What exactly happens to Barbarian/Fighter? I assume when the body dies the new soul leaves it.. so when a raise dead is used .... the new body owner is brought back?

[Kyrie Ebonblade]

Matthew Pittard wrote:

Thomas: I know it left a bad experience in your mouth but wow...

Thats an awesome in game action to take on a party member. What exactly happens to Barbarian/Fighter? I assume when the body dies the new soul leaves it.. so when a raise dead is used .... the new body owner is brought back?

Well the thing was.. let's see:

-I had exactly ONE spell left about first at the end of the fight (we'll come to that spell in a moment). I had thrown out two Holy Smites, one of which was how I noticed we had a problem with the barb/fighter..he took outsider damage and went blind when he shouldn't have, and two spears of purity.
-The other cleric had ONE channel and only two spells left when we were done.
-The Magus was hurt to halfway dead, the Samuri only survived to get away due to retreat and me repeatedly blinding the fighter/barb with my spells and the ranger was negative hp but stable with his AC running away with his body.

Spoiler:

The incubi didn't last past the second smite because of the magus and samurai doing heavy hits, the plant critter was trying (and failing) to mangle me due to the AWESOME AC buffs the other cleric threw out.. I learned a lot that night)

With the last (scroll based) Spear, the Barb/fighter dropped AT his neg con. I was 'no problem I got him'. Then the shadow demon came out.

I FINALLY could id the problem. Problem was I had exactly TWO offensive spells (scrolls) and four channels left. I'd shot the full barrage on the barbarian. The only reason I got away was I was able to trap it in it's room with a copper piece with Daylight (my last high level spell) on it. I ran and had to admit there was no way we could recover the body with it down there and anything else we DIDN'T know about and given that it was mid-to-late afternoon outside we coudln't exactly linger. So we had to call it as a failure and retreat to recover the ranger before his axebeak got too far away.

So the barbarian has to pay a bunch of PP for body recovery and rez.

[Matthew Pittard]

Sorry to hear about all the deaths.

I think this is the scenario where the 3 of us who survived, one was perm blind, I was cursed and one person was relatively fine.

THe Shadow Demon battle was the hardest because of the in battle reinforcements.

I remember our Fighter has AC out the Wazoo. 37-38? It helped him a lot.

[outshyn]

Hey gang, I could use some help with the Suggestion spell that the incubus has (area B3). My problem is that I can only seem to think up very reasonable but utterly mean suggestions. Such as:

• "Your friends will soon kill me. All I ask is that you rush immediately to tell my family that lives just a few minutes north of this tower!"
  
• "My friend, run through the door to the south right now and continue onward. An escape tunnel will lead you to safety!"
  

These are "mean" because they're completely non-violent and involve doing a "kindness," and thus difficult to object to. They also say nothing bad about the PC's allies (in fact, assume the allies will win), so there is little to object to, again. And yet if acted upon, it takes the character out of not only the current fight, but probably everything until the module ends (option #1) or opens the PC to solo fights against the next 2 sets of monsters (option #2).

Players hate sitting around doing nothing, and double-hate being sent to die in what they perceive as GM unfairness.

So! There must be better suggestions that can be "reasonable" but still extremely effective. Can you provide me with an idea or two? In my ideal world, the suggestions would keep the PC out of the current fight but allow him/her to join back up immediately after the fight ends.

[andreww]

How about, "your friend has been possessed by a shadow demon, restrain him before he tries to kill you!" directed towards the party melee to send them against the casters.