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so i finally ran the capstone Thornkeep adventure for my local gaming group this weekend. And I've got a lot of nits to pick with the adventure. Gotta say, it had the makings of a great game. but some ill conceived notions and ill-defined conditions caused it to fall apart.
1. a "time surge" is never defined. Its mentioned in part of the adventure, finding the wandering rogue when he comes in during a time surge. But its never clearly defined whats going on within the sanctum. Is it a Groundhogs-Day ? perpetually stuck in one day? The flavor text is vague, calling it a day, an hour, a moment, stretched to infinity. So its not clear what happens to a party that "rests" in the sanctum. after 24 hours, does time loop? The Magic Jar spell is said to last forever while V is outside the sanctum, what about other spells cast in the sanctum? do they last forever once cast?
2. My party didn't have a locksmith with them. they broke down the doors to the 2nd room, with the belker and the cariatid columns. The stone doors i deemed 1 ft. thick, but it wasn't clearly defined. they used their Adamantine Greatsword key, and were in within 3 rounds. Destroying the door, and likely the trigger mechanism. They never bothered with the belker, and the three observation slits aren't in the room's description, but are in scroll hallway's description. ( btw. why would the apprentices leave those scrolls around!? )
oh which brings me to part 3.
several "Traps" are described, but not treated as traps.
the hand-stamps are a magical location trigger trap, but no DC is given to identify them.
The danger room with the cariatids is a location and special trigger trap, but no DC is given to notice either a pressure plate, or the source of the resetting trap ( the belker behind the glass ).
3. Stock NPCs are great. Its great to have the NPC Codex, and the Gamemastery Guide used as references. But things need to be called out.
the 11th level LN Undead Creator, in an adventure for 6th-8th level adventurers is a bit of a wild stretch. But is there a reason he approaches the PCs speaking only ancient azlanti while the third apprentice approaches speaking Common? and while his statblock is LN, he's clearly LE. The Advanced Conjurist is likewise clearly NOT true neutral (especially considering his stat block in the GMG includes a Quazit familiar), considering what these three apprentices did to the last group of adventurers that wandered into their sanctum, they should all be Evil. Stock NPCs also don't have well defined spellbooks, which would be on hand for wizard pcs to copy spells from.
4. the painting room can go HORRIBLY wrong if the group doesn't make their perception checks and the wrong monsters are summoned first. My group pulled a Manticore, and the Effrite, and took the frost giant's painting off the wall themselves ( thinking it would stop whatever trap/threat was going on ).
also, they should be clearly called "summons", or just captured creatures. the interaction with the creatures and Protection from Evil (vis a vis hedging out summoned creatures ) is unclear. Its not clear if they just stick around for a few rounds, or if they're trapped permanently here in the sanctum as well.
5. Any good group , who finds the poor surviving rogue wandering the halls, is going to help him escape, escorting him to the gate and letting him out. Or just kill him on site. Two problems with this: letting him out leaves them with no way to create a paradox, as the aforementioned time shifts aren't defined. ( ie. does he come back every day with his group of adventurers? ) its also not clear, V should already be Magic Jarred inside him. If she's not, then helping him out, without being posessed, creates a paradox and break's the time lock in the second encounter. Very short adventure. If they fight him or destroy the ioun stone there on the spot, they also end the adventure very quickly.
6. Brute force pays off. All a PFS group has to do is go destroy the ioun array by attacking it. Their characters age, but age isn't a consequence if PFS apparently. You can start at any age, but suffer no hindrances or benefits from age category. So the negative consequences of brute-forcing through the end of this adventure are not applicable in PFS.
7. once the time lock is broken, the apprentices gain the Ghost template. its unclear however if they're stuck there anymore, would re-manifest in the sanctum, or even need to be attacked or dealt with anymore.
Fixes to the adventure:
* time shifts occur every 24 hours. during a time shift, encounters reset ( the behir lives again. the wandering rogue finds himself inside the crypt, etc. )
* knowledge (planes) DC 30 to identify the demiplane, and properties of it ( indefinite time, etc. )
* DC to notice the hand stamp trap is 26 ( magical arcane mark trap )
* DC to notice the pressure plate in the cariatid room is 26. magical location trigger - the belkir watching/counting.
* second lock on the southern door to the crypt. a key that one of the apprentices will give the PCs if they can be convinced to kill him by the undead creator apprentice.
* the Undead Creator apprentice greets them in azlanti, and then switches to Common to communicate. He is Lawful Evil.
* there's no reason the +2 breastplate and belt of giant strength would go unused. he's created undead to serve him. the elf should still be in his +2 breastplate, the half orc should have his belt of giant strength. and they should at least have masterwork weapons ( scimitar and spear as they're described as a cleric of sarenrae and wielding a nasty spear ). since they're cairn wights and can channel their drain through their weapons.
* the Advanced Conjurist is NE. It would also make more sense to give him an item bond, rather than the improved familiar quazit his stat block is described with, since its only mentioned in the Gamemastery Guide stat block, and ignored in the adventure.
* not only are the Conjurist's specialization spells not chosen, you have extra spells to choose because he's "Advanced". Giving him very high DC's, but very little selection.
How Nur Athemon ended up with an Advanced Conjurist 7, and a Necromancer 11 as his apprentices, i don't know. you'd think there wouldn't be as much of a level gap in foes.
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6. Brute force pays off. All a PFS group has to do is go destroy the ioun array by attacking it. Their characters age, but age isn't a consequence if PFS apparently. You can start at any age, but suffer no hindrances or benefits from age category. So the negative consequences of brute-forcing through the end of this adventure are not applicable in PFS.
Except the obvious one, of course:
A character that ages past venerable, for whatever reason, dies of old age and is removed from the campaign.
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Hey Seraphim,
Just out of curiosity, were you bummed that the party never got to face off against Nhur Athemon himself?
face off against long dead wizard? nah. well maybe there'll be a continuation where you fight a lich name Nhur Athemon. that'll be fun.
a character that ages past venerable, for whatever reason, dies of old age and is removed from the campaign.
ahh good to know. Two of them aged into Middle Age. but with no real penalty, it wasn't worth much besides me writing 'aged 14 years' under conditions gained in their chronicle sheet.
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The key to Togarin being neutral is that he has magic jar and nothing to lose. Go nuts if the party doesn't submit to his demands.
first, how does him being Neutral aid him in his Magic Jar'age? protection from evil or similar spells are specifically noted as blocking Magic Jar.
second, their "master plan" was to have V magic jar an intruder, and go get more dupes. But Togarin isn't in favor of the plan, so why would he even prepare Magic Jar?
third, even if it was beneficial for him to be Neutral so that he can't be the subject of Smite or other alignment based spells. His actions and scheming leave it pretty clear that he really is Evil, despite what he'd like to be. You don't callously murder and raise Wights to serve you, and keep a vivisection laboratory if you're a "nice guy with a few problems"
another thing that bothered me with the "ioun stone needed to exit": what do you do in the case of cracked ioun stones ( much more readily available. everyone in my party had at least one ). Since it wasn't clear, and I wanted them to stick around to fight at least Daegros or Togarin, I ruled that they needed a whole/intact Ioun Stone (not an ioun torch, or cracked ioun stone).
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SO, a bit of thread necro here, but I wanted to ask...
There is a little wonkiness on the Daegros, the advanced conjurer.
As has been pointed out by a few people, the conjurist does not have enough spells. He is missing:
1 first level
2 second level
2 third level
1 fourth level
These are not all caused by the increased intelligence (which adds 1 spell per day of 2nd through 4th).
Would it be kosher when adding the template to add the missing spells? Not sure what I'd take at this time (but should be something that supports the Conjurer's typical style... such as more summons, black tentacles, etc. Basically, just more of whatever he already has.).
Note: I am not considering removing the quasit... that beast should be there, though, since it is a class feature of Daegros. Not worried about that.
Just waiting on your opinions. Don't wanna break the "run as written", but I have never seen a stat block that says take a GMG character, and add a template. Very odd.
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what was the run time experience on this one. we took around 12 hours wondering if that is normal
I would say the runtime is "how much time you got?"
Sanctum of a Lost Age has the best opportunities for roleplay of the Thornkeep levels. 10-12 hours seems to be a good time to allot for it. Some can do it faster and some will take even longer. I *have* run it in a 5-hour convention slot (well 5 1/2, cutting into the break between sessions) but there were a lot of extenuating circumstances:
- Two 5-star GMs as players helped speed things along.
- They lucked out on the two encounters that can take the longest when their actions stopped them from getting out of hand (not foreknowledge, just happy coincidence):
- If an NPC was willing to talk, they didn't automatically fight it.
- Most tragically I had to limit the role-playing opportunities with Rozimus and his companions. I didn't do much with the oddities introduced by the special magical conditions of the dungeon. That's where you can make up time if you need to.
I was prepared to have to end the slot and give them partial credit but they squeaked in. I really do recommend setting aside at least 10 hours if you want to get the full experience for this level.