The purpose of this thread is to clarify questions arising in this adventure.
This thread is a GM Reference thread for Part 4 of the Mummy's Mask Adventure Path. Links for the individual threads for each part are as follows:
Two questions occur, having read the adventure...
1:
2:
|
For #2, she'd need a suicide plot device available. Hakotep doesn't seem to realize that killing his vessel would reunite parts 2 and 3 of him, elsewise he would have had the FP jump off the top of the sphinx months ago.
Justification for Suicide Device:
1) He knows the group has the Mask, they've probably noticed its artifactory powers by now, and if they donned the amulet too, they would reconnect 2 parts of his soul, new vessel, he wins.
2) Secrets can't be extracted from a non-speaking piece of equipment (other than maybe legend lore), and he presumes the body would revert to a confused Serket (sp?) with a speak to the dead. Hoping some other vessel comes along soon enough.
3) Dead FP is needed to move the plot forward.
Actually, if the group manages to capture her alive, kudos to them. Seriously.
This doesn't mean she can't die from other methods - say if there are still other forces in the complex, or a random encounter, or even a cultist back home who uses a poisoned dagger to prevent their beloved pharaoh from being humiliated in this fashion.
(Removed my question as I found it was answered in the write-up.)
Also, doesn't she have the feat that lets her burst into flames and die? If she doesn't (I don't have my copy yet), give it to her, as it only makes sense.
I gotta say I appreciate how well-knit this AP is. Part 4 is very-well set up by the previous couple of installments and leads fairly seamlessly into the next one. Kudos there.
hey, does anybody have a drawn map of the sightless sphinx I can use for play by post? I could draw the entire thing myself, but that would take hours. Plus I don't know how to use other programs well other than google docs, so it won't be as detailed or as awesome as I'd like it to be.
could you scan the picture of it on the second page?
On page 50, in the Hall of Lightning, is the lightning barrier really supposed to only do 14 points of damage (DC 21 for half)? It seems far too low to pose any kind of threat to the players.
It has a cool interaction with the Bronze Sentinel to disable it, but other than that, I can't really see much use for the Bronze Sentinel itself, and considering that 14 points of damage can be walked through by anyone in the level range for this AP book, it's not exactly necessary for the players.
Senior Developer
|
On page 50, in the Hall of Lightning, is the lightning barrier really supposed to only do 14 points of damage (DC 21 for half)? It seems far too low to pose any kind of threat to the players.
It has a cool interaction with the Bronze Sentinel to disable it, but other than that, I can't really see much use for the Bronze Sentinel itself, and considering that 14 points of damage can be walked through by anyone in the level range for this AP book, it's not exactly necessary for the players.
Not sure what happened there, but you are right. The lightning barrier should deal 14d6 points of electricity damage (the Bronze sentinel takes max damage if it goes through). That makes it a much better challenge!
Not sure what happened there, but you are right. The lightning barrier should deal 14d6 points of electricity damage (the Bronze sentinel takes max damage if it goes through). That makes it a much better challenge!On page 50, in the Hall of Lightning, is the lightning barrier really supposed to only do 14 points of damage (DC 21 for half)? It seems far too low to pose any kind of threat to the players.
It has a cool interaction with the Bronze Sentinel to disable it, but other than that, I can't really see much use for the Bronze Sentinel itself, and considering that 14 points of damage can be walked through by anyone in the level range for this AP book, it's not exactly necessary for the players.
Ouch! not the electric fence to pee on i guess:-)
Not sure what happened there, but you are right. The lightning barrier should deal 14d6 points of electricity damage (the Bronze sentinel takes max damage if it goes through). That makes it a much better challenge!On page 50, in the Hall of Lightning, is the lightning barrier really supposed to only do 14 points of damage (DC 21 for half)? It seems far too low to pose any kind of threat to the players.
It has a cool interaction with the Bronze Sentinel to disable it, but other than that, I can't really see much use for the Bronze Sentinel itself, and considering that 14 points of damage can be walked through by anyone in the level range for this AP book, it's not exactly necessary for the players.
Thanks for the response Rob. My players discovered the barrier last session, but decided to ignore it for now, so the damage didn't come up. Very handy!
|
Rob, my group just finished book 3 and are getting ready to start book 4.
How can our gm upgrade the baddies so we can get some treasure,
Our party consists of a 9th level Bloodrager, 9th level Ninja, 9th level fighter sword and board shield fighter, a wayang 9th level wizard and a mystic theurge.
Our gm is being very tight fisted with treasure as he is afraid of the party just crushing the bad guys and the party having no challenge.
We are at the point IMO where I don't see going forward as the risk reward
is way off I am at least 4 levels below where I should be in gear but still am tearing things up. When raging and buffed I deal 1d12+22 and am getting 3 attacks when hasted. The Ninja is worse as he can get more than 3 attacks around if he spends KI He turns invisible gets sneak damage
as well a being a crit fisher with a 17-20 keen nodachi.
The Ap's just are not designed for optimized characters. How can our gm up things to increase the challenge. The story is great but the challenge level is off.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Our gm is being very tight fisted with treasure as he is afraid of the party just crushing the bad guys and the party having no challenge.
This right here is your problem, i don't know what Rob is gonna do about it
|
|
How can our gm upgrade the baddies so we can get some treasure,
You're posing in a forum meant for GMs... unless you really don't care about spoilers or have been reading the AP behind your GM's back.
..
Anyway, I finally reached this book with my party, we run MM at a more relaxed pace, doesn't help that we do this every other week. Really liking what I've read so far, contrasts well with my S&S and IG campaigns I run. Sometimes I feel like MM gets no love.
|
|
Anyway, I finally reached this book with my party, we run MM at a more relaxed pace, doesn't help that we do this every other week. Really liking what I've read so far, contrasts well with my S&S and IG campaigns I run. Sometimes I feel like MM gets no love.
I feel this way too. I just think it suffered from being wedged between mythic and magitech aps. My group is having tons of fun with it, and beyond a few goofy things in book 2 (economy shenanigans, the metropolis of lvl 8 clerics just across the river) it's been pretty solid through 2.5 books.
|
|
Rob, this is another of my posts on the poor design of the AP. Things good about the AP the story is good with a few tweaks it could be great
simple easy tweak in the library have the players find a partial codex
that details the shory and the Sky Pharaoh but have the codex be incomplete and have the players find different sections as they progress through the AP.
I feel you authors a very lazy in regards to treasure placement our party just had two cr 13 encounters that were jacked up to more of 14 or 15 because of maxing the hit points of the bad guys. the encounter with the Glabrazu was epic until we beat it and got nothing. This is one of the worst designed encounters in my 36 years of gaming, When you kill or drive off a major demon you should get bank lots of coin treasure and lots of magic items. We get more treasure from speed bump encounters with which are no threat to us at our level. They should have less treasure and the big bad more.
Your authors rely far too much on magic marts for the PC's gaining magic items. It is far more rewarding to a Player and a PC to find an item than buy one. In this AP we have not found any wands of note no scrolls
of note of note or spell books we just found our first rod and it is useless to us just another item to sell. We should have found a staff by level 12 but we have not again Pazio takes out an Iconic item out because they think it is too good to give out as treasure. arms and armor have been sub par we found no armor greater than +1 scale mail until 10th level. That's a joke by 10th level we should have found at least +4 equivalent by 10th level the armor type does not matter much chain and plate are nice but other types are ok.
|
|
Lou, i just did the tallies for my group for our approach to assualting Part 3, and there is roughly 350K sale value worth of treasure in the sphinx alone, most of it in +1 and +2 magic weapons and armors (well, 45000 is a +6 str/con belt). Not to mention the swarmbow they'll get for returning the thraie larva. On top of that, there is another good 1-200K worth of treasure (counting the 45K bronze sentinel) across the other 2 parts of the book. There is a variety of weaponry and armors throughout the book, and while much of it is +1 or +2, the assumption is crafting to boost it or shopping in Tephu to augment it.
One thing to remember, is that the majority of the loot-carrying enemies in the book are NPC geared at 2-4 CR's behind APL. I like this approach since solo higher cr monsters are kinda suck, but it does have the found loot spectrum hang lower. The 2-4 CR6-8 enemies you're fighting in every room are carrying around the expected loot a CR6-8 enemy should be carrying around. Not the expected loot a 10th level PC should be wielding. You expect a PC to be wearing a 16000gp armor at 10th level, but what do you expect the mook enemy that 10th level PC is fighting to be wearing? The same thing?
I understand your frustration with magic marts, but Golarion is a high magic world, and the AP authors write adventures within the confines of the high magic world. The glabrezu fight you mentioned is only APL +1 when the party faces it as level 12 (per the Advancement Track). It was a slight disappointment to me as well that he had no treasure in his room, but the 350K total for the dungeon kind of made amends for that.
Also, looking at the GM section of the CRB, a CR13 encounter should yield 11600gp worth of treasure, which is covered almost completly (less 800g) by the fight in area J2: Bone Forest with the 3 Wardens and 3 Zealots (which yields roughly 17877g sell value of loot against the 7000g target of a CR11 encounter). All 21 girtablilus (including orchamus and rubila) only account for about 9850g, but then there is also 71,730g with another possible 7500g in loose treasure just laying around the sphinx not being wielded by any baddies.
----
Anyway, my PC's are finishing up in the Parched Dunes, preparing to assault the sphinx, and they have only found one of the two power sources for the Sentinel. The crafter and aid anothers are equipped enough to hit the DC39 crafting check to make a bronze sentinel, but what would you guys suggest for a time and cost to reverse engineer the missing power supply?
I was thinking of the power sources being about one fifth of the cost of the sentinel each (9000gp creation cost), but still at the full cl19 spellcraft DC, but only taking a few days to craft as to not draw out the crafting of a small iron bar into half a month.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Arch magi, if you think Golarion is a high magic world you have never played in a high magic world. Other than a rod of the viper there have no other wands rods or staffs of note no spell books very few if any scrolls. If you call this hugh magic then you must be dropping some good acid and are tripping.
We should bro finding wands of cure serious at el 12 on the bad guys wands that have utility scrolls buff wands a staff might even be nice. Bracers of armor +4 or greater rings might be nice too. The cultists area joke they do not even consume our resources and they have max hp all of our encounters have max hp. The authors are more concerned with the story than having the pc's earn nice things that are meaningful. There is no balance between story and loot and the quality of the loot. Less mooks at higher levels with better gear. The only mooks that were not a push over we're in the finial boos. Room and that is only because I went full blood rager on them and exposed myself to them and if I had an ac that approached what it should be at my level they would not have hit me as many times as they did.
Why would a deanon lord have no treasue on him or near by IMO that was one of the worst written encounters in 35years of gaming. Defeating a demon lord twice should mean you break the bank and no treasure was rewarded he was at least cr+4. Much more fun and challangingthan the boos fight. He should have known what she had inside of her and she should have been his slave.
|
|
And a CR +2 encounter amounts to "moderate challenge, some resources are going to be depleted", per Pathfinder math. And it's not a demon lord, just a run the mill mid-level fiend. I understand that 35yrs ago defeating a glabrezu was stuff of legends, but the game did change a bit here and there since then.
Any advice for someone with a party determined to head off to Sothis and see what's underneath that spire? They got the "clue" info that someone had already gone down there and has gone missing, but it seems they figure its too important not to check out.
Looking into Azgaad's Spire a little closer, I've come to realize that its in a restricted area in Sothis, in the massive temple complex to Nethys.
So...should I rail road them a bit to head back to the parched dunes (they're just leaving Tephu), let them head to Sothis and persist in trying to get under the spire only to find there's nothing there, or create a new hook/plot line from whole cloth?
What would other folks do/have done?
|
|
I would perhaps have a journal in the FP's possession, just something that the girl couldn't let go of no matter how much of her mind had been squelched. Its last entry tells of her plans to enter the catacombs beneath Azgaad's Spire the following morning, etc.
EDIT: Just saw that you're just leaving Tephu. Just tell the players (not the PC's) outright that that is where the Forgotten Pharaoh has been and they won't find anything there. It should be sufficient.
Yea, I don't want to be too direct, but I also don't want to waste their time.
|
|
My players are just getting into the parched dunes in shifting sands, and I am planning out strategies. I noticed that the whole second section of this book, is based on a setting that the players may not even encounter. Is there are reason the PC would go there beside going right the the sightless sphinx. It is a bit in the way, but my players are going to be looking for something, and I can see them finding the sphinx before the ruins just by deciding to go a certain way.
|
|
So last week, the group went in, met with Rubila and brokered a better contract with the Girtablilus, then went upstairs and captured the FP (arrows and admonishing rays ftw). They barricaded themselves in the Silversmiths and Ninureset was 'kind' enough to redecorate with the four remaining FP cultists instead of attacking the party. They emerged to an entrails decorated hallway as a clown sat atop a pile of cultist bodies. He thanked them for evicting his squatters and telepo'd away, with maftet ambushes through the cult's territory.
ANYWAY, I say that to get to the craziness that my party did last night. So through excessive divination casting prior to the sphinx, they knew that one of the greatest threats in the sphinx was a bunch of bodaks, so they cast death ward on everybody and proceeded to haul ass through the dungeon. Heading down to K14, they smashed through the wall, found the trapdoor, ignored the puzzle, smashed downstairs, fought the sphinx and the shadow demon simultaneously, ran back upstairs, killed the completely useless spectres (death ward), got a bit of intel from the pally ghost, hauled ass to the other side of the dungeon, firestormed the bodaks (fire oracle), then fought the guecubu and the horrible vs death ward heqet at the same time. On a timer, they even managed to answer the riddles and have a couple minutes left on their death ward.
Death ward is the king of this dungeon. Heqet wasted a slay living, a harm, and a destruction before the party got into melee with her. Even if they hadn't ran the entire south wing, and just cast the death wards when they found the docile bodaks, they were able to mostly steamroll a pretty healthy two rooms of encounters. If not for the death ward, fighting five bodaks at once would certainly have been certain death for at least one player, not to mention Heqet would have killed the fighter nearly three times if not for death ward (failed slay living save w/o DW, made destruction's save, but the 10d6 almost dropped him, and harm would had him at 1hp). It was a great time.
|
|
Now I'm completely at a loss for what to do next. The aforementioned captured, bound, gagged, nude, and now cursed with -4 on d20's, -6 wis, -6 cha and -6 con Forgotten Pharoah is on her way to a fate worse (for me) than death. So, after some Divination casts on the way back to Ipeq and then Tephu to ruin economies with half a million gp worth of loot, the party is afraid that if they kill the FP, that the lost Ib will go find the Ba and the whole FP cult problem isn't solved at all.
Anyway, I'm looking for any good ideas for means to get her dead to make book 5 happen. Right now, it looks like a total resource splurge on the part of the Blue Feather to kill the abomination known as the FP, damn the consequences. Since the party is going to have to goto Tephu to try to commission a casting or a scroll of Trap the Soul or Imprisonment, Ol' Haty-a Deku and company can come out of the woodworks with a bit better cadre of assassins who don't care about the party at all.
Anybody have any better / more creative ideas?
|
|
We finished up with the book-keeping after the SS, interviewing Chisisek's corpse and whatnot. So time finally came to do something with the FP. The group returned to Wati and conferred with Sebti. The best thing that the two level 13 priestesses could come up with is that what they were looking at is unprecedented, and that anything could happen if they did a number of things. Sebti decided to call in some help, planar allying in an Ahmuuth.
The Ahmuuth examined the FP and the Mask. When asked if they could plane shift to the boneyard and kill the FP there to prevent the ib's escape, the Ahmuuth said no, and that Pharasma could only judge a complete soul. She also let the group know the destruction method for the Mask, which meant putting it back on Hakotep's restored corpse. With new information, the group set off to go call the pyramid out of the sky, skipping right to Slave Trenches pt 2.
Not the worst resolution, but with the oracle divining every day for an ambush, it really put the Blue Feather assassins plot out of commission without fancy nondetection wrangling.
Not the worst resolution, but with the oracle divining every day for an ambush, it really put the Blue Feather assassins plot out of commission without fancy nondetection wrangling.
Im not sure i would allow that kind of use of divination, because random encounters are a 20% chance every day of travel, so at most they would get a "maybe you will get attacked tomorrow" or "you might be attacked, yes, be careful" kind of answer.
Assassins could still ambush the party, and they SHOULD ambush the party when they are dealing with some other threat (the random encounter).
Well, my random encounters arent that random either, i prepare all of them before hand. I roll on the tables and build a list of encounters and the situations where they will happen.
During book two, i wrote about 12 random encounters before they began exploring the necropolis, and they took so long going from place to place and back to search for clues, that i had to roll 4 more before the end of the book.
Maybe they are just in the level where those encounters are boring to play every session, but if you ignore that mechanic completely, how will you play an ambush with assassins if they KNOW that you ignore random encounters?
IMO, prepare a few encounters, and throw in the assassins after the third round of combat, afterall, they need 3 rounds to Death Strike the pharaoh (which happen to be at -6 con and has no gear).
|
My group has returned to The Parched Dunes after a break to play the first installment of Giant Slayer. They are a party of six, and only at level 9. I am running every encounter outlined in the parched dunes plus several "random" encounters like the Troubled Waters and Threshing Floor encounters from the Perilous Wastes at the back of the book (thank-you to the authors for great materials in addition to the adventure.)One of the random creatures the party fought were two advanced bullettes that had been crossed with the Shasalqu from the Half-Dead City bestiary (a lizard that transforms heat into cold)and I took the Living Sandstorm from the Bestiary for the Slave Trenches (party had to flee that encounter).
Looking forward to the Sightless Sphinx as it looks like it will be a real dungeon crawl of epic proportions. The size and randomness seems to be a big part of the tension of Part 3. How has everyone managed the mapping in this portion of the adventure? Have you made a player the party mapper old school style? Have you drawn out the entire map? Have you used tiles?
The Shaitan Monk (Picasi) on page 24...
Her stats say "DR 10/Adamantine (120 points)"
What does the 120 mean?
I have been looking in (obviously) all the wrong places to figure this out, because I have not found a reference for this yet.
In absence of written guidance, I am thinking maybe... after 120 points have been DR'ed, the DR 10 is gone?
|
Contributor
|
The Shaitan Monk (Picasi) on page 24...
Her stats say "DR 10/Adamantine (120 points)"
What does the 120 mean?
I have been looking in (obviously) all the wrong places to figure this out, because I have not found a reference for this yet.
In absence of written guidance, I am thinking maybe... after 120 points have been DR'ed, the DR 10 is gone?
I haven't checked the text yet, but... I'm guessing it's stoneskin. ^_^
Has anyone run the encounter with the Banshee (room k11)?
A DC23 fort save or 140 points of damage to everyone seems like a tpk waiting to happen. The tactics are pretty explicit that the banshee wont hold back and will follow them around until either the party dies or the banshee dies.
I'd love to hear how other parties handled this encounter.
At their level and optimization, a DC23 Fort save was a cakewalk for the PC's in our group (Paladin, Cleric, Bard & Sorcerer.)
The Forgotten Pharaoh however, killed the Sorcerer (Poison) and sent the Bard to the Shadow Plane with one cast of the Prismatic Ray.
Now THAT is what I call action economy...
|
|
FP's prismatic spray sent one of her goons to *don't remember* plane, hit another goon with a roll twice (flesh to stone and energy damage) and poisoned our oft reincarnated investigator. Too bad he was immune to poison. I know the fighter failed his save too, but I don't remember what effect it had (probably just energy damage). The other two PCs made their saves on whatever it was for them.
Just don't let your players beat the FP into submission, then cut out her tongue, cut off her hands, put a necklace of adaptation and an ioun of no eating on her, then toss her into a porthole. Kinda made me have to wing part of part 5 (we skipped the whole invasion of Wati). They did turn her into a nice FP statue when we got to the petrifaction platform in book 5.
I don't think I would have to be concerned about that with this x3 LG and x1 LN party. The player with the paladin is especially good as the Dudley-do-right with sincerity.
My party almost broke the AP. When they got the Forgotten Pharoah low on hit points they stared hitting her for non-lethal. If they would have captured her instead of killing her the AP would break. In the module as written the Ib would not have left the body and book 5 & 6 would not happen.
As it was I had her last remaining cultist attack her thinking that he would be under orders not to let the Forgotten Pharaoh be taken alive and he was able to take out the unconscious Forgotten Pharaoh thus sending the IB to reunite with the BA
My party almost broke the AP. When they got the Forgotten Pharoah low on hit points they stared hitting her for non-lethal. If they would have captured her instead of killing her the AP would break. In the module as written the Ib would not have left the body and book 5 & 6 would not happen.
As it was I had her last remaining cultist attack her thinking that he would be under orders not to let the Forgotten Pharaoh be taken alive and he was able to take out the unconscious Forgotten Pharaoh thus sending the IB to reunite with the BA
That's exactly what my PCs did, which unexpectedly ended the campaign. But I liked it since it was a beautiful way to show that the story changes from the PCs' actions. That makes them feel important. Overriding their actions to get book 5 to trigger irrespectively would have felt like a cheat to me.
|
|
Seriously, everything you need to find the khepsutanem you can get from chisisek. Then go there, turn it on and bring down hakoteps treasure box. Ending the threat for good is all a good party needs and greed is all an otherwise party needs. All you have to cut out is the artificial timer of the little pyramids and you have an at your leisure dungeon romp for a book and a half.
My pcs took the fps petrified body to the burial chamber of hakotep and fleshed her back. Then, in the course of 1 round, cdg fp, put mask on hakotep, cdg hakotep. Win.