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Actually 3h 42m 18s to be exact, run over eight or nine four-hour weekly sessions.
Obviously, this will have a ton of spoilers and get a bit long. So, to those that bother to read it, I apologize for destroying your mouse wheel.
Now, I realize that somebody may accuse me of being a soft GM to make this possible, but I promise that I am not, and our group wouldn't allow me to be if I wanted to. Attack rolls and damage dice get rolled in front of the GM screen, and players try to hide their hit points so that I can 't be motivated to pull punches--to us a game without the chance of failure makes success meaningless. Anyway, I promised I would post their triumph if they pulled it off, so here it is.
Before the PCs left the Cinderlands, I made a point of telling my group about the horrors of Scarwall as soon as they learned that they had to go there. This was so that they didn't have to walk into a cursed castle with a bajillion undead without at least a fair warning. What it ended up being was a challenge. This was when they got the idea that they would try to make the assault on Scarwall without resting. Knowing that they would certainly hit 13th level during the adventure, I offered them a MMORPG style leveling that would completely cure them and give them all of their abilities as if they had rested when they got there.
They refused.
The compromise was that they would receive all abilities like BAB and save increases that weren't tied to times per day like spells. Also, the hit points they gained for the level would be added to their total and current hit points.
The one other thing I do is change the types of magical arms and armor so that they are something the party can use--unless it would mess up the story as written. Captain Castothrane still has an axe, but the +1 lawful outsider bane greatsword in Belshallam's horde became a dagger so the rogue could get a better off-hand, as an example. I do this for all pre-written stuff I run so that the loot is more exciting.
I gave them Zellara’s song as a handout, but I don’t think that was a competitive advantage. I just figured it would be unfair to expect the players to remember the song once we were 3 or 4 sessions into the castle.
Beyond that, I threw waves and waves of incorporeal undead at them, and I'm the jerk who gives dread wraiths Whirlwind Attack. Anytime they tried to catch their breath for more than two minutes before the third Spirit Anchor was defeated, a random encounter happened. I kept them guessing with strange manifestations of the curse, and I used older edition interpretations of what forbiddance does for the Donjon since the Pathfinder version is weak.
I ran the entire castle in rounds, the better to keep my players guessing. I also put everything on the battle mat so that they assume combat is coming even when it isn’t (GMs can metagame, too!). Kept the players on edge—which is what I wanted from a haunted citadel. This was the second time that I had run Scarwall, so I was comfortable with all of the linked encounter possibilities and managing such a large dungeon. Honestly, the first time I ran this it was daunting, and I learned a lot of lessons that got applied to making the second go-around memorable.
THE CAST
I like to call this party the gunslinger delivery system, although all of the characters make great contributions. This party was built using 20 point buy.
Edouard DeLarouge: His family disgraced by Gaedren Lamm framing his parents, Ed is determined to return honor and prestige to his name. An Orisini Academy graduate and charming dilettante, Ed has a soft spot for beleagured orphans (probably because his parents were wrongly executed for trafficing Shiver) that contradicts his rampant classism. This man's biggest problem with Korvosa in flames was trying to find a cart to take him places since he certainly wasn't going to walk across town.
CLASS: Upper (Ed wanted me to say that). Rogue with the Rake archtype (he wouldn’t take the archtype if he had to do it all over, especially after the Vivified Labyrinth).
HIS BEST TRICK: The Performing Combatant feat coupled with the Hero's Display feat that allows Ed to abuse the intimidate skill on everyone within 30ft. and then get to work with Shatter Defenses.
HIS ACTUAL BEST TRICK: The Leadership feat that gives him a bard to tell tales of his greatness and buff him like woah (conveniently Trinia Sabor since he took the feat right before the party went to Blackbird Ranch). In Scarwall, Trinia (and the good hope spell) was the MVP--especially since there is a lot of stuff Ed can't sneak attack and intimidate doesn't work against undead.
Beckham "Bex" Sorinson: Born to one of Korvosa's nouveau riche families in South Shore, Bex is a professional exterminator, recreational alchemist, and tinker--plying his trade to clean vermin out of his father's merchant ships and the basements of Korvosa’s wealthy. His wife murdered by Gaedran Lamm, he makes regular visits to her grave and has become an alcoholic.
CLASS: Gunslinger
HIS BEST TRICK: Being a gunslinger. Seriously, touch AC doesn't scale at all and this guy has an uncanny ability to roll 20s when facing big boss baddies. Paizo built in downsides to guns and then gave a way to remove every single one of them. That said, I still don't think the gunslinger is too overpowered... just a little bit overpowered. Also, who can plan around someone landing critical hits on 3 out of 4 guardians with a x4 weapon?
Kevin the Avenger: Under the blazing sun of the Cinderlands, in the blood of stone giants, an avenger is born… Kevin started out as Kemmen, a humble priest of Sarenrae living in Bridgefront and healing the locals who couldn’t afford it. After baking in the hot sun of the Storval Plateau, he received a vision and determined that he had to shed his pacifist ways and become Sarenrae’s sword in Varisia.
To explain: I let him reroll to Paladin during History of Ashes since he wasn’t having the most fun playing a pacifist healer in a group with tons of AC (which we all told him was going to happen at the beginning). He still remains the same character, just with a new “mission from god.”
CLASS: Paladin
HIS BEST TRICK: Smite and the Litany spells. Kevin sacrificed having an awesome Strength for a huge Charisma score so he could wonder-bomb bad guys.
Markus Bodach: A top-of-class graduate of Korvosa's famed Acadamae, Markus doesn't care where his summoned "tools" come from as long as they are right for the situation. This moral ambiguity about dealing with devils and worse can probably be traced back to the Binding Outsiders 325 course in his junior semester... He has an imp familiar (his final exam) that absolutely hates him but can't do anything about it, and he has bound both fiends and celestials alike. His father was a member of the Blackbirds adventuring party and Jasan Adriel took care of him after his father vanished in the dungeons below Kaer Maga. (This character has no tie to Lamm because the player's first character died a nasty death in Palace Arkona).
CLASS: Conjurer
HIS BEST TRICK: True Name arcane discovery taken multiple times. I would probably not allow these in a game again after seeing what they can do. This player does not abuse the feats and they are still pretty ridiculous.
THE SUPPORTING CAST
Of course, these great characters didn’t charge into Scarwall alone. Three others were along for the mayhem.
Trina Sabor: As previously mentioned, Ed has the Leadership feat to bring Trinia along. She feels indebted to them for helping her escape the city alive after Eodred’s death, and is happy to see the world and chronicle the party’s heroics (although mostly Ed).
CLASS: Bard
HER BEST TRICK: The spells good hope and gallant inspiration along with Inspire Courage bolstered by the Discordant Voice and Lingering Performance feats.
LAORI VAUS: Everyone’s favorite sadist! I know a lot of groups have tried to redeem her, and I tried to give this group inspiration to do so, but these guys just let her be herself. She, on the other hand, did her best to fight alongside Kevin and put his faith in crisis. His mixed emotions when Laori saved his life during the battle with Belshallam were priceless.
CLASS: Cleric
HER BEST TRICK: From my perspective, messing with the paladin. From a party perspective, having spells that would do no good against undead swapped out for lesser restoration is probably the winner, or her clutch silence spell against Bishop Zev Ravenka (the casting was suggested by the conjurer—there was no way I was going to hand that to them).
Shadowcount Sial:
CLASS: Cleric / Loremaster
HIS BEST TRICK: Like Laori, Sial swapped out some spells that would not work well in an undead infested castle for some extra curing power. His real best trick was Asyra, which I gave to him with no real rules basis since Thaumaturge isn’t a PFRPG class. I figured it was a gift from Zon-Kuthon and didn’t require class abilities.
Asyra: Having so many NPCs running around already, I opted to keep Asyra a very quiet character. She did her best to protect Sial and stay away from the paladin.
CLASS: Fighter
HER BEST TRICK: Asyra didn’t have that many cool tricks, but it turns out Kyton fighters are pretty awesome. She held her own until her untimely demise at the hands of the Danse Macabre.
I have no way to make this short, so I will start with the ordered list of interesting battles (guardians in bold and the many random encounters left out) and then follow with a loose explanation of the guardian fights. If, after reading this, anyone still actually wants more info on how the party dealt with certain encounters, how they are built, or how I converted the denizens of Scarwall, I can certainly oblige.
THE PATH TO GLORY: barbican, Lashton on the bridge, front gate, corpse orgy, Mandraivus, cinder ghouls, Castothrane, Belshallam, hell hounds, General Gorstav, Nihil and friends, Danse Macabre, Prelate Aruth, Bishop Zev Ravenka, Mithrodar, gugs, Kleestad.
A SPIRIT FIRST, RED WAR HIS THIRST STILL STANDS AT POST OF OLD
So the first thing the party did when they reached Scarwall was battle the Deadwatcher Orcs at the Barbican. After the fight, the party was concerned about more orcs being alerted, so they decided to immediately assault the castle against Sial’s wishes.
In an act of hubris, the party determined to walk right in through the front gate. Unfortunately, the module makes this easier since Sergeant Lashton rides out to meet them, leaving the gates open for a short period of time. The party easily dispatched of Lashton and his skeletal platoon, and they dashed into the gates as they were closing.
They were all excited about defeating the first guardian (wrongly assuming that Lashton was the one at post of old) when Zellara got sucked into the curse. I let Marcus determine that souls cannot escape Scarwall (he has ridiculous Knowledge skills) and that to die here is to be trapped forever—this was an attempt to scare the party and make them respect the castle.
All of this got interrupted quickly, since the party was trapped in the front gate surrounded by murderholes.
By the time they got through the front gate, the corpse orgy, Mandraivus, several greater shadows, a couple zombies, and the cinder ghouls, the party had chewed through some resources (although wands are cheap, so it wasn’t so bad—a shame they didn’t think to buy a wand of lesser restoration). They then decided that they should figure out how to open the gate just in case they gave up on their mad schemes and decided to rest. Also, Marcus got a little skittish when he realized he couldn’t teleport.
So into the gatehouse they went! After cleaning out the dread minotaurs, they went up to the battlements (probably because the stairs to Castothrane aren’t in the gatehouse itself). There they decided to climb one of the minarets at the front of the castle (specifically the southeastern one) to get a look around. Now the book says there is a 35% chance of encountering a gargoyle brute in a minaret, which in my game meant 100%. The confined fighting up in the minaret was fun, and, more importantly, it was loud enough to attract the attention of more gargoyle brutes. I quickly determined to send in waves of brutes—three in the first (to back up the original brute in the tower), four more in 4 rounds, and four more in 8 rounds (from the first). On top of this, if the fighting went on for 10 rounds I was going to bring in a curious Belshallam (who would have spent two rounds to become invisible and fly to the gatehouse).
This was fun because the gargoyle brutes are no picnic, and they have a lot of hit points (136 in my conversion) so they hang around to get some hits in. Also, with the two frontline fighters (Kevin and Asyra) all the way up the minaret, the brutes charged into the squishy rear guard of the party. Having trouble killing off the first wave, with limited room to maneuver on the battlements, the party began to panic a little when they heard the next wave coming.
To avoid the long reach of the brutes, Bex backed into the Gatehouse Loft so he could fire his musket with impunity. Trinia immediately followed to get out of the melee. They were then surprised by greater shadows. Honestly, nothing really beats asking a player what his flat-footed touch AC is. Things went from bad to worse next round because the second wave of brutes joined the battle and Captain Castothrane went to work. I built Castothrane as an 11th level skeleton warrior fighter with an axe and board build (and 11th level gives him Shield Master) with a 33 AC, which would mean something in a game without guns. The weakened Bex (who commonly goes first with his ridiculous gunslinger initiative) started backing up and firing away at shadows and Ed (also sporting a very high initiative) immediately dashed inside to protect his friends—walking straight up to Castothrane and smugly feinting him (the smugness wore off when he realized the Captain’s flat-footed AC was 30).
Meanwhile, outside the rest of the party was in combat with six gargoyles—four of which had just joined the battle. They could also clearly hear the calls of still more brutes across the rooftops of the castle. They began to maneuver themselves towards the gatehouse loft in an attempt to get away from the aerial assault, killing a couple brutes along the way.
Back inside, Bex, barely able to lift his gun, ended up making short work of the greater shadows and then moved to help Ed in his duel with Castothrane. By this time, more of the party was backing into the loft, and Castothrane was ultimately defeated. It was then that the party realized they had destroyed the first guardian as they felt the dread of Scarwall react to the Captain’s destruction. The group barricaded the door to keep the brutes out, and took thirty seconds to recover before venturing downstairs.
IN KENNEL’S GRIME, THIRD BIDES HIS TIME THEN VENTS HIS KILLING BREATH
After defeating Captain Castothrane, the party descended to the second floor and was arguing over what to do next. The group had seen into the courtyard from area 6 and assumed the kennels mentioned in Zellara’s song must be near there. Others thought they should fight the guardians in order and try to find the “tower cold.” They decided on checking out a room or two since they were there and were immediately set upon by seven wraiths and a dread wraith (I like making players roll the dice for how many monsters show up). There was some panic since the wraiths effectively used their ability to move through walls to get at the whole party, but they ultimately prevailed. Also, Kevin can’t fail a save without rolling a one because divine grace is awesome.
It was after this fight that the party determined to stop messing around and head straight for the courtyard before wandering incorporeal undead wore them down to nothing. They couldn’t realize at the time how smart they were for not exploring every corner of the second floor too early and bumping into Mithrodar before the curse was broken.
A few creepy manifestations of the curse later and the party was in the courtyard—where they were immediately set upon by the seven remaining gargoyle brutes. The fighting was furious, and just as the battle started to tip in the party’s favor two rounds in, the umbral dragon struck. Now, I must admit that this was my worst run guardian fight. There was not nearly enough darkness spells slung about while Belshallam was in his kennels, and I should have gone airborne faster, but I thought the best chance to neutralize the gunslinger was to engage him in melee with a big dragon. That said, I had bumped Belshallam up an age category to make him more challenging. The timing was great and the whole party was bunched up nicely for a nasty breath attack that dealt a truckload of damage (even the mighty paladin failed a save). On top of this, both Ed and Trinia failed their saves against dragon fear (despite the paladin’s aura and harrow points), and I had not triggered the fear until the second round, after the party had maneuvered around the dragon and could be scattered in more directions. Bex blasted the dragon with a very nasty critical hit (approx 150 damage) at the top of the next round, so I decided my best chance to kill the gunslinger was to lay in a full attack—and Bex almost took enough damage to drop. Kevin got all wonder-bombed up and ready to destroy the dragon, but got dropped to negatives by a critical hit off an attack of opportunity. Thankfully for Kevin, Laori was there to save his life (and his soul, considering the curse of Scarwall). Marcus was unable to break the dragon’s spell resistance, and things looked grim. With Bex still standing, however, he was able to lay in several bullets and put the dragon down.
This was just the beginning of the party’s woes, however, as Ed had run straight into the kennels and Trinia started fleeing towards the castle gate. With the rest of the party in seriously bad condition, they couldn’t take two move actions to pursue because they needed to heal. As it turns out, the kennels (without Belshallam) are probably the safest place in the entire castle. With the umbral dragon feeding on undead, one imagines they don’t spend a lot of time in that area. The group was split on who to go after, and ultimately Kevin, Sial, and Asyra went after Ed (command and reentering Kevin’s aura were helpful in this), and Bex and Laori went after Trinia. Trinia’s flight was slowed down by tripping shots from Bex and the Death Chamber, where I had originally ruled that all of the corpses made for difficult terrain (except for the corpse orgy, of course). It was here that four greater shadows attacked. Bex and Laori fought them—already weakened by the battle with Belshallam. They dragged Trinia back with them during a fighting retreat and eventually the rest of the party caught up with them to finish the fight. At this point, Sial was insisting that the party leave the castle and rest (he was out of restoration spells), but the beleaguered party had too much pride to consider it. They began marching towards the War Tower in hopes that the second guardian would be there.
A SECOND FOE, INFERNAL SOUL WAITS HIGH IN TOWER COLD
After fighting the umbral dragon, recollecting the party, and looting Belshallam’s hoard, the group was ready to ascend some towers. They decided to go into the War Tower first, since it was closest, even knowing that it wasn’t the tallest tower and therefore not likely the correct one. I welcomed them to the battlements with some skeletons, which was just a warm-up (and a way to scratch a few more rounds off of various buff spells) for the nessian warhounds. The hounds only lasted three rounds, but they all got their breath weapons in. Outside of the rogue and the gunslinger with a ring of evasion, Reflex saves are not a strength of this group.
Once atop the tower, they were pleasantly surprised to find General Gorstav, and decided that they must have picked the correct tower. The pleasantness wore off when he attacked Ed for forty damage on a regular swing (with Power Attack, of course). This is where Kevin stepped in and crushed Gorstav with smite evil. The deflection bonus to AC made him almost impossible to hit, and the damage on round two with litany of righteousness was overkill. The curse was not weakened, however, so the party began to plot their next move.
They had been in Scarwall for one hour.
The party determined to go to the tallest tower, but were not sure how to get there. They reentered the main castle and went upstairs. There was a short discussion about exploring the second floor along the way, with Sial chiming in that they should instead go rest, but the party decided that the guardians had to go first—plenty of time to explore when the curse is broken. The party inadvertently avoided bumping into Mithrodar early again!
On the third floor, they did a little exploring, battled some shadows and some wraiths, and soon came upon area 30. Nobody in the party had the ability to see invisible foes, so the imps stayed hidden and telepathically communicated to Nihil that the intruders were close. The party then decided that they would use their flight/acrobatics/rope of climbing to cross the gap and go straight to the tower—skipping the guardroom (which they didn’t yet know was a guardroom). The imps, of course, let Nihil what was happening, and she began preparing for battle. The party burst into the tower, had enough time to recognize Kazavon’s throne room, and were blasted with horrid wilting. The ensuing combat involved Nihil, a summoned kyton, two bone devils, the two barbed devils from area 24 coming in from behind, and the imps outside flying around and suggesting that characters drop their weapons off the balcony (almost got one, but a harrow point reroll saved the day). The initial damage was nasty, but Marcus got to shine with glitterdust revealing Nihil’s location and blinding Ed—who had being leaping and springing up the tower to confront the devils. Then his summoned hound archons kept the barbed devils busy on the bridge.
As impressive as my ashmede devil was, she was immediately subject to a critical hit from Bex as soon as she was made visible with enough damage to put her down with a single bullet. My players don’t know this yet, but I cheated and immediately upped her hit points so that I could get a few more rounds of combat in with her (my conversion only had 146hp). It didn’t really matter, however, because Bex made his save against Nihil’s forcecage and then landed another critical hit the very next round. Bex is ridiculous.
Without any more smites, Kevin was feeling less than useful battling devils. In addition, Ed was blinded by Marcus’ glitterdust spell and having a tough go of it. The fighting was a bit of a slog, since there wasn’t a lot of room on the bridge. Bex had taken a lot of damage from the horrid wilting and spent a round or two guzzling potions. With Nihil slain, the fighting started swinging more in the party’s favor, and they ultimately defeated all of the devils on the third floor in one combat. The curse was heavily weakened now, but the heroes were running out of resources. They had earned enough experience to achieve level 13, but, as previously mentioned, they didn’t get all of the benefits without resting. Cue up Kevin whining about not getting that 5th smite per day. All I can say is that we had an agreement, and the conjurer wasn’t complaining that he didn’t get to cast any of his new 7th level spells.
AND ON A STONE ‘MID ASH AND BONE, THE FINAL DREAMS OF DEATH
The party headed back to the courtyard, convinced that the last guardian must be in the yet unexplored west wing of the castle, and that Serithtial was in the Donjon. Also, they didn’t want to tangle with forbiddance just yet. So into the west wing they went, not knowing that there was no need to explore this part of Scarwall. Now, with three spirit anchors defeated, I know I’m not supposed to spring incorporeal undead on the group as random encounters… I am, however, a mean GM and decided that I could still throw one at them as long as they didn’t move through walls.
The dread wraith came with a full group of eight wraiths (the d8s were good to me in this castle). The party defeated them, but were heavily worn down. Trinia had failed a save and almost no constitution score. Several characters in the party had significant ability damage and the Brotherhood of Bones was out of restoration spells. Things looked dire as the party stood outside the doors to the Rosette Observatory. The party was torn. A few more big combats and the group could start losing members . Marcus was hell bent on continuing. Sial and Kevin were determined to rest. Ed didn’t know how effective he could be without Trinia’s support, but there was no way she could go on with that much Constitution drain. There was talk of getting Trinia out and continuing without her, perhaps putting her up in the Bone House—which Sial approved of because it gave him an out as well. Marcus argued that leaving a cursed castle was a bad idea, because the curse might strengthen again if they don’t completely remove it quickly enough.
Marcus’ protests were overruled. The group had decided that they had to give up on their goals of clearing Scarwall without rest. Besides, they had lasted two hours in an evil-infested castle, and that was pretty impressive. At this time, Marcus pulled out the ace in the hole that he had been saving for emergencies and invoked the true name of an akhana. Appealing to the aeon’s charge over the duality of life and death, and arguing that Scarwall was a complete imbalance of life (or unlife), along with the leverage of knowing the akhana’s true name, Marcus convinced the aeon that it was important to help release the souls trapped in Scarwall’s curse.
With the akhana’s ability to cure serious wounds at will and cast restoration three times a day, the party was back to (almost) full strength and ready to continue their fight.
They entered the Observatory, expecting a fight, and instead were greeted with spectral dancers. Ed (a fine dancer himself) started dancing along for fun—not realizing that he was saving himself from being an early target of the Danse Macabre. The party managed to make their saves against the dance of death, and the flyby scythe attacks began! The party eventually defeated the Danse Macabre (although they did not permanently destroy it) at the cost of Asyra. Sial was, understandably, very upset that the party had not decided to rest and allowed his pet to be destroyed. They scoured the room, still thinking that the last guardian should be here, and found some interesting treasures and a dead end.
The party had yet to explore the Donjon and the second floor of the main castle. While heading back to the courtyard, there was some discussion over which place to explore. Sial was complaining even more than usual, and Kevin was itching to enter the evil looking place—though he felt a little powerless without any smites left (he still had one use of divine bond).
They decided to enter the Donjon, and they discovered that the door had been sealed incredibly well. After some discussion about how to get around the stone shaped seal and the lead, Kevin just chopped the doors to pieces.
They discovered that the forbiddance effect could be suppressed when Laori walked in first. Laori was overjoyed to explain the trappings of Kazavon’s own temple (she had been sort of a Scarwall tour guide throughout this adventure—especially in torture chambers). Sial thought she was telling non-Kuthonites a bit too much. The group headed into the left-hand door from the Donjon foyer, and quickly encountered Prelate Aruth. This fight was a little anti-climactic, with a lot of passed Will saves and a mummy lord getting its head blown off.
The party then descended the stairs and came upon the Bishop. My gaming grou has a lot of roleplaying veterans, with my brother and I beginning with the red box, two more beginning in 2nd edition AD&D, and that last beginning in 3.0. As soon as I read the description to them, everybody knew it was a demilich. Nevertheless, they made their Knowledge (religion) rolls to see if their characters knew as well. With Marcus having a very high intelligence and a ton of skill points in Knowledge skills, he knew everything he needed to.
The party knew they could plan out the fight before disturbing the ashes. They also knew that the demilich would lay on death effects every round. Up to this point, nobody had needed their infused soul power that Zellara granted them at the beginning of the adventure, but they knew that was a one time deal—except for Bex who had a scarab of protection. Then Bex had a brilliant plan. They just needed to cast silence on Kevin, who would hang toe-to-toe with the demilich and stop it from wailing. Surely Trinia had a silence spell! Alas, Trinia did not know how to cast silence. The party was back to square one. Except that Laori happened to have it on her list (can’t imagine Richard Pett was planning this when he wrote her up in Escape from Old Korvosa)! The plan worked great and the party was able to neutralize Zev Ravenka long enough for Bex to destroy him, although Ed’s infused soul got spent to save him from Devour Soul.
The curse, however, was not broken. The heroes were confused. They had defeated all of the guardians in the song, but the curse was not completely destroyed. They considered the Star Tower, but could not find a way in (they never searched Aruth’s room for secret doors, not that I would have let them in anyway). After checking every room in the Donjon, they determined that the final source of the curse had to be on the second floor of the main keep.
They made their way to the great hall and made pretty short work of Mithrodar, who is not very challenging without any of his chains. With the curse finally broken, the party started to like their chances of getting through Scarwall in one trip. The only noteworthy occurrence was Kevin using his last divine bond activation for the day.
With the curse broken Zellara returned to her harrow deck and informed the heroes of the doorway into the Star Tower. The group headed there immediately, sensing that the end of their quest was near.
The interaction that lead to Sial becoming curate of the tower and Laori heading off to visit Zon-Kuthon was an entertaining aside from the massive running combat that was the previous several sessions. It was a fun debate, but ultimately Sial chose curate over death. The party, while beginning to get along with Laori, never made any attempts to turn her from her faith, so she immediately took the opportunity to see her god.
The group decided to leave Trinia in the tower, since she was out of bardic performance rounds (even with the three-for-one deal that is Lingering Performance). She was also out of good hope casts for the day. So after over three hours relentless fighting, the four heroes plunged into the darkness alone... with an overpowered akhana.
The fight with the gugs was a lot of fun, and they did more damage to the party than I anticipated. The time had come for the group to reclaim Serithtial and end their quest. They landed on the island, and Kleestad rose up to fight them immediately. The opening breath weapon was nasty as hell, and even Ed failed the DC 30 Reflex save. Kevin and Ed were nearly dead, and Marcus was badly injured and had very few spells left that could seriously hurt a monster of Kleestad’s power. As usual, Bex stood his ground and delivered when everything looked doomed. With a hail of bullets he brought Kleestad down, just one round before I would have had another breath weapon attack.
And so Serithtial was recovered by the forces of good 3 hours, 42 minutes, and 18 seconds from when the heroes engaged Sergeant Laston on the bridge.
Promise kept. Congrats guys.
Wow!
HUZZAH!!!
I'll have to bookmark this until my party gets closer to Scarwall. For now, it's a bit overwhelming to read, but I'm looking forward to being able to understand all this! Thanks a lot!
My party had a blast in Scarwall as well. I have seen several Scarwall bashing posts on the boards over the years, but don't belive them this is a lot of fun for DM and players alike!!
I actually like that idea Dudemeister. My party has really liked the urban setting, and forcing them to leave for two chapters seems more of a detriment to that theme. They want to play Kingmaker after, so I may do that also.
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I mostly scrapped Hisotry of Ashes for some urban romps in Kaer Maga, so the party was only away from cities for one book. Scarwall is awesome, and I don't have a more worthy guardian for Serithtial.
Plus it is an absolute blast to run. I say screw running around the Cinderlands in the lousiest chain quest ever and party in Kaer Maga.
I mostly scrapped Hisotry of Ashes ... so the party was only away from cities for one book. Scarwall is awesome, and I don't have a more worthy guardian for Serithtial.
Plus it is an absolute blast to run. I say screw running around the Cinderlands in the lousiest chain quest ever and party in Kaer Maga.
This is what I'll be doing as well. Granted I'm running CotCT in my homebrew setting as a sequel to my group's currently-running Kingmaker game and setting it in their capital city.
My main hitch now is finding something to replace History of Ashes.
I'm a bit afraid of including Kaer Maga at all. It looks like such a diverse city in itself that I don't know what my players would want to do in it regarding the state of Korvosa. I'm a pathfinder beginner, so I'm just learning about Golarion itself; Kaer Maga seems too important to make up as I go along.
That said, I would like to have more Korvosan-based adventures than Cinderlands. I'm nowhere near HoA yet, but when I get there, I might take the story elements of HoA but reduce the actual adventuring within it to a minimum, and add a few more levels of in-Korvosa adventures.
I'm a bit afraid of including Kaer Maga at all. It looks like such a diverse city in itself that I don't know what my players would want to do in it regarding the state of Korvosa. I'm a pathfinder beginner, so I'm just learning about Golarion itself; Kaer Maga seems too important to make up as I go along.
That said, I would like to have more Korvosan-based adventures than Cinderlands. I'm nowhere near HoA yet, but when I get there, I might take the story elements of HoA but reduce the actual adventuring within it to a minimum, and add a few more levels of in-Korvosa adventures.
Hi Mik
You might find some ideas on extra Korvosan-based adventures in this thread:
Skipping Scarwall.
All I will saay on the matter is that if you decide to skip a book, make it History of Ashes. I understand that book 4 is bad, and MrVergee has had players who were sick of being away from Korvosa after suffering it. The best solution is to skip book 4. Seriously, a Legend Lore spell could probably circumvent the entire adventure anyway. Maybe you don't want Kaer Maga? Do some Korvosa stuff--outlaw the party and have them sneaking around helping to start the rebellion or something. Then they realize that the only way to achieve victory is to go get Serithtial.
Also, you can take away the Sunken Queen in the mushfens and basically place it inside of the Grand Mastaba if you think the group wouldn't want to travel.
But seriously, Scarwall is awesome if you put in the prep work. Do yourself and your PCs a favor and let them suffer in a very cool dungeon.
MrVergee has had players who were sick of being away from Korvosa after suffering it.
Well, MrVergee has only just started the campaign and is now into the fourth session of a prelude adventure, when the PCs are still kids in Lamm's lambs.
That being said, I have carefully read most of the threads in this forum, where people have applauded every adventure in the great AP to at least some extent, but some people like some of the installments less.
The two adventures that have been commented on the most, are four and five. Those comments are great feedback, but in the end it is the DM who decides. I have prepared the complete AP and made significant changes. Not because I don't like what the authors wrote, believe me, I think it is an absolutely wonderful AP. It is just my style of DM'ing to take the material and make it my own. That usually means adding a lot of stuff, but also changing or leaving out things because they don't fit my group's style and preference.
So, I totally changed A history of Ashes. I got rid of the railroad quests and replaced that with a trip to Urgir, the orc city. The PCs have to go there to save an important Shoanti spy. The adventure was inspired by Eando Kline's fiction and based upon an old Dungeon adventure, called "In the Shadows of Spinecastle". (One of my PCs has Shoanti blood, so including the Storval barbarians will be important to my campaign.)
On top of that, I got rid of Scarwall altogether. I do agree it is a fantastic Dungeon (castle) crawl, probably one of the best I've ever seen, but my guys and I are no fans of big dungeon crawls. So I cut it, deciding that Castle Korvosa would be crawl enough already. I also liked the idea of spending more time in Korvosa and including the revolution. I'm also not a big fan of having one McGuffin that only one PC can use. In my campaign the PCs will look for the remains of the Shoanti shaman who took home the artifact. He will give all of them a power boost, not just one player character.
So to conclude my story: I'm not claiming that any part of this AP is bad. I do understand that some DMs or groups don't like certain kind of adventures or prefer other styles. So customizing your own campaign is something that I support. That is why I like these boards. Everyone can give his suggestions and we allow ourselves to be inspired by it.
I'm really happy that you loved "Skeletons of Scarwall" so much. I doubt my players would, though, so I'm dropping it. Please, continue to give us your great ideas. I loved your take on Glorio Arkona, for example. I won't be using it myself, because I'm setting Glorio up differently, but I'm sure some DMs will find it very useful.
When I read the title, I thought you meant 4 hours of out-of-game time, not in-game time. lol.
Still, that's impressive, clearing Scarwall with no rest.
My bad, MrVergee, I read that post you linked to and confused who was where when I read it. Or possibly I'm from the future.