Just as a potential warning Nobody, depending on your PCs and their tendencies. And I guess that I should spoiler this.
I appreciate the warning, and definitely the spoilering, but my group is pretty good:
- I insist that someone have Knowledge: Dungeoneering and carry some paper and writing stuff.
- With that, I go ahead and put up a monitor with the map on Roll20, figuring the PC is performing "accurate enough" mapping to note large swaths of open space. I like Roll20 because I can just use "Fog of War" to reveal rooms as they open doors. I don't like it because it slows the game down a bit, but for really big maps it's the bees' knees as opposed to full-scale battle mats.
- Jake's natural Perception is obscene. He's a half-elf with Skill Focus: Perception and I know his average roll is in the 30's.
So with all that, I'm pleased that they don't metagame. In the Grey Garrison it wasn't until they found one secret room that they started searching for more, and even then it was in locations that "made sense". They missed ALL of the secret doors in the Drezen dungeons, instead going the path of greatest resistance, getting the full map, and then saying, "Why isn't there anything in this area? Let's look around!"
In short, it's pretty rare that they miss something like that, but I'll keep that in mind for when they get there.
Dot
When your group is buffed and combat ready how much damage do they produce each round collectively?
Are they using fleet charge etc to get full attacks all the time?
i flagged my own posts NobodysHome, tis i the one getting the well deserved smack down, i'm still learning messageboard etiquette, wont happen again i swear!
When your group is buffed and combat ready how much damage do they produce each round collectively?
Are they using fleet charge etc to get full attacks all the time?
The fighter *is* the damage output of the party. While fully buffed and hasted I think I worked it out a couple of pages ago to
+25/+25/+20 (1d6+28, 15-20) with it going up to 2d6+74 on a crit. Since almost none of the foes in Book 2 had armor classes above 25, he tended to hit for 90-100 a round, occasionally spiking up close to 200 (for example, against Gestak).Fleet Charge got banned, so no, he usually runs up to things to hit them and loses one of his attacks so it's "just" two attacks at +25 with a good crit chance. I'm sure I'm about to get called out that it's in the errata, but in the core Mythic book it says nothing about Sudden Attack not stacking with Haste, so if the first two hits don't drop the creature, he'll usually burn a mythic surge to hit it a third time.
The cleric has no strength bonus and no buffs on herself, saving all of them for the fighter. So all she gets is the bard. Even when he throws mythic Heroism on her and she's attacking a demon with Irabeth's sword she's an unimpressive
+15/+15/+10 (1d8+9+2d6, 19-20), and that's an absolute max. She hits well, but usually somewhere in the 20's per round, occasionally breaking 40.
The sorceress' bread-and-butter is mythic Magic Missile at 8d4+4, and she'll occasionally Empower it up to 12d4+6. Again, usually in the 20's, sometimes in the 30's.
The bard doesn't attack.
EDIT: And I'll say that the fighter's damage output isn't that much better than that in the non-mythic campaigns we've played (barbarian in RotRL, 2HF in Carrion Crown); it's just that this party is intelligent enough and has enough spell slots to keep him perma-buffed, while Protection from Evil and mythic Heroism protect his fragile little mind. +6 to your fighter's Will save and immunity from charms and dominates is HUGE. So he has a high AC (I think it peaks at 32), an obscene number of hit points (+5 per tier from Champion, +2 per level from mythic toughness, and +3 per level from Exposed to Awfulness means the fighter has +5 per level and +5 per tier BEFORE any dice are rolled or bonuses are calculated...), and the usual tactic of "Let's hit him where it hurts! In the Will save!" hasn't been working... so far. (Not to mention the inconvenient cleric right next to him who can spontaneously cast any Remove or Cure spell thanks to Inspired Spell.)
EDIT 2: As I said in the other thread, the first two books went very well fight-wise; the only exceptions being the Gray Garrison (too many NPCs) and the second floor of Citadel Drezen (under-CR'ed creatures even for a non-mythic party of 9th-level PCs). I'm not going to start adjusting encounters until I start seeing every one turn into a joke; it's a lot easier to recover from a too-easy fight than it is an accidental TPK.
I'm first going to start adjusting spell lists so my bad guys can target those buffs...
Hmm. I might make Fleet Charge into a Move Action. It makes sense and would allow for an attack at the end of the move, and then one regular attack afterward. It would impact the Barbarian in my Runelords game and I think the Rogue and maybe the future Eldritch Knight in my RoW game.
When your group is buffed and combat ready how much damage do they produce each round collectively?
Are they using fleet charge etc to get full attacks all the time?The fighter *is* the damage output of the party. While fully buffed and hasted I think I worked it out a couple of pages ago to
+25/+25/+20 (1d6+28, 15-20) with it going up to 2d6+74 on a crit. Since almost none of the foes in Book 2 had armor classes above 25, he tended to hit for 90-100 a round, occasionally spiking up close to 200 (for example, against Gestak).Fleet Charge got banned, so no, he usually runs up to things to hit them and loses one of his attacks so it's "just" two attacks at +25 with a good crit chance. I'm sure I'm about to get called out that it's in the errata, but in the core Mythic book it says nothing about Sudden Attack not stacking with Haste, so if the first two hits don't drop the creature, he'll usually burn a mythic surge to hit it a third time.
The cleric has no strength bonus and no buffs on herself, saving all of them for the fighter. So all she gets is the bard. Even when he throws mythic Heroism on her and she's attacking a demon with Irabeth's sword she's an unimpressive
+15/+15/+10 (1d8+9+2d6, 19-20), and that's an absolute max. She hits well, but usually somewhere in the 20's per round, occasionally breaking 40.The sorceress' bread-and-butter is mythic Magic Missile at 8d4+4, and she'll occasionally Empower it up to 12d4+6. Again, usually in the 20's, sometimes in the 30's.
The bard doesn't attack.
Sudden Attack and Haste aren't in conflict. A Magus gets an extra Haste attack when he uses spellstrike, and a Monk still gets an extra Haste attack when he burns a Ki point during flurry.
It's only the extra attacks from Blessing of Fervor, Divine Power, Speed weapon etc. that doesn't stack.
Ya, that damage isn't too bad. You may be able to get by without fully converting all of the encounters. I had a paladin that hit harder than that, a fighter about that amount and a cleric that was close to the fighter's damage.
This campaign also drove home the fact that there should be a maximum number of buffs on a character as has been mentioned many times.
Yeah, being able to get full attacks consistently really multiply the damage output. Have you also banned fleet warrior? Mostly running my own game for fun, but for more balance attaching an MP cost and a duration (tier/2 maybe) might be in order.
I would say that much like Stuart mentioned for his campaign, my players look at all the choices, discard the ones that sound really ludicrously powerful (mythic Vital Strike and Fleet Charge being two of them), and choose from the rest.
I haven't had to say, "No," to a player yet; they're self-selecting their stuff. So Fleet Charge is "banned" because the fighter's player agreed it was too powerful. Neither of us have looked at Fleet Warrior, but if it's something similar I'm sure he'll "ban" it.
(Is that the one that gives you tons of extra movement? Because I know he mentioned that one to me and chose to self-ban it as well...)
EDIT: We both agreed that mythic Power Attack looked pretty broken, but we decided to roll with it and see what happened. The jury's still out, but I think I'm starting to agree with everyone else: That preliminary doubling of Power Attack damage on crits is just too over-the-top and should be eliminated.
EDIT 2: And I think that's why the "A Failed AP" conversation is so important -- my players are self-selecting away from the "uber-powerful" mythic feats (the bard took Darkvision, for gosh' sake), and still curb-stomped their way through Citadel Drezen with little resistance. Looking at it, I believe it was under-CR'ed creatures. But GMs I respect are saying it only gets worse. We'll see how that plays out for me... haven't had to adjust AP monsters for my group yet, so if I have to do it for this AP it'll be saying something...
It's an ability that simply lets you move your movement and full attack.
Ah, then yes, it won't be showing up. Melee classes are pretty much designed so "Full Attack = Dead Enemy". I like to see them at least do some work (or get some help from their friends) to get in that full attack...
My poor BBEG in RotRL had the bard Bard's Escape (5th level) the barbarian and the paladin right through his Globe of Invulnerability (excludes 4th level and below) and into flanking position. He took over 600 of his (roughly) 400 hit points before he had another action.
Melee characters = Ouchy.
Melee characters with full attacks = Must rewrite enemies to compensate.
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I suggest just one modification to the Fleet Charge: Make it a Move Action. In essence you can move and attack during your move. Then you have a Standard (or Move) action left. You could get two attacks, three with Haste. That's not quite as broken.
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As a note as you've mentioned it twice, haste would not trigger with those actions. I believe that you only get the extra attack when you make a full attack.
As a note as you've mentioned it twice, haste would not trigger with those actions. I believe that you only get the extra attack when you make a full attack.
How can we have mis-played Haste through three full APs?
I was going to correct you, but the text plainly states, "When making a full attack action..."
I even went back to my dog-eared CRB and the text hasn't changed in years.
Weird. I guess we all just accepted the first person's misinterpretation and went from there. We're usually much better about checking rules we're unsure of. It's always been a bang-up way of running 60' up to someone and hitting them twice.
Unfortunately, it's now so embedded at our tables that returning it to "as intended" may be harder than expected... but it would certainly make my bad guys last a bit longer. (Not a huge amount since it's only that initial close-in round, but it's enough...)
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No prob... we constantly find small rules that changed from previous editions that we didn't know about. Just helping people out as you reminded me about the audience :)
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Yeah, but we never played D&D 3.5... or 3.0... or 2...
...so for us it's just an honest out-and-out mistake.
And I love having them pointed out to me...
...though my players might curse at you a wee bit. :-P
Oh...lol, well then.
Luckily for you I'm not a part of the rules enforcement team so you're free to run it as you wish :) And it doesn't matter as much in this campaign unless you nerf or don't allow mythic haste as that will give you the move action to close so you can do a full attack.
Or buying an extra action to move and do a full attack. As printed there are many ways for martials to get all of their attacks.
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06-June-2014 Game, Part I
Providence works in mysterious ways. As I believe happened to quite a few people, my copy of Sword of Valor fell apart the moment I opened it. Poor Paizo suffered a bad print run. Paizo, being Paizo, had me send in photos of the damaged book and I should be getting the new one just as Jake's player is running HIS group through Sword of Valor. Yep, it's as official as it gets until the first game is played: Jake's player is going to be running WotR two modules behind me, while Kariss' player will be playing in both. And we'll just happen to have two copies of Sword of Valor to use as we need them. (Assuming we can keep track of all the pages of the original, which is surprisingly hard. Try carrying around an unbound paperback some time...) Should be fascinating to watch how things differ between the two groups.
This is a two-parter just because the party dealt with all of the remaining safe houses AND the Gray Garrison in a single session, so there's a lot to write. My notes are horrific, but my players will happily provide details I miss, I'm sure.
As we close Book 1, here are my opinions:
PLUSSES:
- The initial, "You're dropped in a pit with limited gear and no way out. Survive! And oh, by the way, here are some injured NPCs to slow you down..." was just plain epic. Someone described the whole initial scene as "metal". I have to say, this AP grabbed my players by the throat and had their attention from moment 1.
- The three NPCs had distinct enough personalities that I really enjoyed running them. They added a huge amount of urgency and vulnerability to the whole underground section.
- I loved several of the "suggested encounters" in post-fall Kenabres, and the mandragora is my new favorite critter ever. It was side-splitting, and it didn't even get to use half its abilities!
- Similarly, I loved the, "Put one encounter between every two locations," encounter table. The balance was perfect for my table after I omitted one or two fights.
- The balance between roleplay and combat was fantastic, and the post-apocalyptic setting really made it seem like this AP was one for the ages.
MINUSES:
- Millorn was just weird. I'm not used to such random pointless encounters in APs. If you're going to run this, give Millorn some kind of background to make him interesting. I was so pressed for time I was running straight from the book and Millorn was a real, "Huh?" moment.
- I *love* the little hints that cultists of Baphomet had been infiltrating Kenabres for years before its fall, but they either weren't enough to make my PCs sit up and take notice, or they popped up in places where the PCs had more important things to worry about. They're not bad. They're put in the right places and have the right amount of information. But they need some finesse to make them work well, and I failed my roll for finesse that day. Just a pointer to look out for if you run this. Maybe have Aravashnial wax poetic on how they're masters of bringing down cities from the inside or something.
- As I mentioned in the fight with Wendaug, have her go down the ladder so she has some SPACE to shoot! She could have been a really nasty foe if the PCs had had to go down the ladder to get her. Might have even saved Hosilla's life. The PCs weren't all that keen on doing down when they were still looking for a way out.
- If you have PCs like mine who are bound and determined to befriend and rescue every NPC in existence, then the Gray Garrison is going to be a joke. Four PCs, four mongrelman rangers, and Irabeth against CR 3 encounters made for a cake walk. Othirubo was a decent fight, but most everyone else fell in a hail of mongrelman arrow fire. Personally, if I were to do it again, I'd just remove the rangers. It's a really nice gesture to have them come along, but all... those... arrows! Ow!
Anyway, this may take me all week, so let's get started:
=====
23-Arodus-4713
The party arose in their various rooms and performed their usual morning rituals. Jake took a bit of time to check in on his sisters and then the party gathered downstairs for breakfast and a discussion of the day's plans. The two other safehouses of Baphomet cultists were both very close to Defender's Heart: The Tower of Estrod still stood (at least partially) to the west, just past the wall between New Kenabres and the Gate District. Whatever creature had damaged the tower had also plowed a large breach right through said wall, granting easy access to the tower. Of more concern was the trip northwest to Topaz Solutions, an alchemy shop about the same distance from Defender's Heart but across two such massive rifts.
The party decided that the Tower of Estrod would be the more accessible of the two.
The trip to the tower was uneventful. They chased off a few dire rats, but otherwise it seemed that all the former residents this close to Defender's Heart had already made their way there, while all the demons and cultists were waiting for reinforcements before daring a brazen assault so close to the fortress.
On reaching the famous library, they found that its once-magnificent tower had indeed been smashed, leaving half of the second floor and the first floor intact. The front door was closed.
To my utter astonishment, Jake knocked. A gruff voice inside asked, "Yeah?"
Jake said, "I've new materials for the archives."
GM Note: At this point I nearly fell out of my seat. For those of you unfamiliar with Shiro's exploits in Rise of the Runelords, I give you this and this as shining examples of, "What? We had a note telling us what to do?", and, "Who knew they exploded?" Shiro-isms. Watching the same player not only remember that there WAS a passphrase, but even remembering it correctly, was quite the eye-opener. Jake is no Shiro! Anyway...
Two sour-looking men armed with glaives opened the door and eyed the group suspiciously. On seeing Merissa, they openly relaxed a little. "Aye! Now there's a good one! Looks like it was fitted for you and everything! Ain't you the precious little cleric of Iomedae, then?"
Jake and Kariss knew that letting them speak to Merissa at all could spell doom, so they quickly started moving into the room. "Aye, aye. Get in here. Here's your bedrolls. We'll scrounge up some grub. Get down to Faxon and report. He'll want to know what's been going on in the city."
Each party member was handed an utterly filthy bedroll. NoPrey quickly spotted some kind of grub or maggot crawling on his and gobbled it down. What a gift! Bedding you could eat!
The cultists were all too happy to point the group to the stairs down. As Merissa paused to lay down her "new" bedroll one of the cultists snapped, "Oi! Not yet! First you report, then you relax! Them's the rules!"
The party proceeded downstairs to meet this "Faxon" fellow. The basement was a semicircular room with massive double doors that must lead to the other half of the circle. Across the room from them was a red-skinned tiefling, complete with horns and a goatee. Apparently he wasn't satisfied serving the devil, he wanted to play the part as well.
The rest of the encounter was simply the irony of, "This is how all of NobodysHome's encounters go."
Jake rolled a natural 18 on his Bluff. Faxon rolled a natural 3 on his Sense Motive. So as Jake walked up saying, "Message for you, sir," Faxon remained sitting and snapped, "Well, what is it?"
Jake's reply was, "There's a sword in your guts," surprising pretty much everyone in the room except Jake. Apparently Jake just felt Faxon would look better with a sword in his belly. This displeased Faxon. So Faxon of course had to roll a natural 1 on his Initiative, allowing Jake to beat him senseless before he got an action.
Adding insult to insult, as Faxon lay on the floor bleeding to death, the party decided that they wanted to take him back to Defenders' Heart so the paladins could get any info they needed from him. Merissa cast Cure Light Wounds and brought him to exactly 0 hit points. Seeing his opportunity, Faxon started trying to cast Vampiric Touch. Rishi darted forward and bit him on the ankle for 1 pt of damage! Hero weasel!
GM Note: OK. I have to admit it. Even I was giggling about the whole, "Message for you, sir! Ow!" bit, so I forgave Jake the utter annihilation of Faxon.
The beleagured GM finally rolled high enough that his cultists knew something was going on downstairs so they raced down the staircase. That NoPrey had just Greased.
Yeah. Let's just leave it at that. Cultists tumbled and died, Faxon was captured alive.
Just because he was unconscious didn't mean Faxon's indignities were at an end. They searched him, stripped him down, and set him aside while they searched his desk and the upstairs for further clues. The upstairs had nothing of value; the bedrolls were too vermin-ridden to be of any interest to anyone other than NoPrey, and the food was similarly moldy and maggot-ridden. Faxon's desk gave them nothing but proof that Faxon had not been on the job very long; it was disorganized and of little use.
They decided to risk the double doors. Finding them locked, they quickly determined which of the keys that Faxon had been carrying opened the door.
Studying the room for a few moments, they saw many evil spell effects (an Unhallow tied to a Zone of Truth and some kind of brass bull's head that emitted a Bless spell for cultists), but none that would harm them directly. The room was clearly a shrine to Baphomet. Faxon's chest of valuables was obviously out of place, so they removed it from the room, checked it for traps, and used Faxon's key to open it. Among the treasure and magic items the party found sheaves of paper detailing the movements of the cultists of Baphomet prior to the fall of Kenabres, a list of active cult members, and a mysterious note from "Minagho" indicating that:
- Faxon had ascended to his post by ratting on his superiors,
- Areelu Vorlesh, architect of the Worldwound, was meeting with Baphomet's daughter to secure a "Nahyndrian crystal"
- Once that meeting was done, Areelu was going to personally come to Kenabres to "finish the job and turn the wardstones fully to our use".
This was Bad News indeed, and the party decided to bring this information (and Faxon) to Defender's Heart immediately.
In what has become a running joke, Kariss cast Ant Haul on Jake, letting him carry upwards of 1000 pounds easily. Jake carried everything to Defender's Heart. At first there was only a bit of interest that the "adventurers" had returned so early, but once they saw the captive the crusaders became much more interested. By the time they learned that the party had brought back lists of names of traitors the mood at Defender's Heart was downright joyous -- now they at least had some guidelines as to who to watch out for when newcomers came to the fort! Irabeth assured the party that Faxon would be treated "with Justice", which made even Jake smirk a bit (not "with mercy" nor "fairly", but "with justice". Hmmm...), and the party set off for the next safehouse.
They crossed the first chasm with no incidents, but while climbing out of the second they heard a horrible baying echoing throughout the area.
GM Note: OK. How did anyone ELSE run the howler? Stealth +6 but an always-on grating howling? Err... maybe it's just me, but if you're running around howling your brains out you're not exactly going to sneak up on anyone... Anyway...
While they couldn't pinpoint the creature they knew from the howls that it was approaching rapidly through the rubble. They took up a defensive position with Jake and Merissa in the fore. The howler got remarkably close to the party before it pounced. Unfortunately, all of them made their Will saves to resist the maddening howls. The creature couldn't penetrate Jake's armor, but as he beat on it he was rewarded by being pierced by multiple quills. Although the pain eventually sickened him, he battled on, eventually slaying the creature. (And before anyone accuses me of playing "Teacher's Pet", Merissa was swinging as well. She was just an unbuffed cleric using a regular sword, so its AC of 15 was enough to make her miss twice!)
With the howler dispatched, Merissa tended to the quills in Jake's flesh, expertly removing them (yes, someone took max ranks in Heal) and restoring Jake to health.
As they approached Topaz Solutions they could see that while the building was intact, the front door had been broken in and was now hanging off its hinges. Jake easily spotted the lurkers watching them from within the doorway. Without a better course of action, the party approached openly. The lurkers stood up, bows at the ready, "Hold it right there!"
Jake tried again. "I've new materials for the archives."
"What the heck is that supposed to mean? This ain't no library! You're in the wrong place, buddy! Move along!"
Kariss tried a different tactic, suggesting that the denizens weren't safe where they were, and should come with them to Defender's Heart. As they were talking, Jake noticed the sacks of art, jewelry, silverware, tapestries, wine, and apparently anything else they'd been able to get their hands on. Light dawned on the party. This was a group of looters.
Once Jake and Kariss knew their true natures, the debate became intraparty. Jake felt that with the city in ruins anyway, it was up to each person to take care of themselves, and these people weren't hurting anyone by looting ruined buildings. In fact, they assured the party they had hurt no one other than a single dretch in obtaining their ill-gotten gains, and Jake viewed it as a sign in their favor that they'd killed a demon (and readily promised to kill more if they had to) and hadn't hurt anyone. Kariss was incensed that Jake would even consider letting them go! Wasn't the party's mission to try to SAVE Kenabres and its people? How would Jake feel if he came home to find it had been looted? Jake countered that the looters were almost certainly looting almost exclusively from the dead. This did not mollify Kariss one bit. Merissa remained mysteriously silent on the subject (GMNPCs don't get to enter into PC moral dilemmas, even when they're LG. The universe works in mysterious ways), while NoPrey was distracted by the shineys in the looters' bags, but tended to agree with Jake. Kariss viewed the looters as predators preying on the people of Kenabres who had already suffered enough. Jake was tired of people dying, and did not want to add to the death toll just because the looters were trying to make a profit from those who were already dead. Kariss was utterly baffled that a city guardsman would be so blase about looters, and made some comment to that effect. Jake got mad at her for "outing" him as a guard, and said, "Fine then, their deaths are on your head!" and walked up and attacked one, initiating combat. Kariss, having no intention of killing them, unleashed her new spell, Color Spray. The looters failed their will saves en masse and all but two dropped unconscious, and the remaining two were quickly disabled. Looking over the loot, Jake snarked, "I can't wait to see how you get all this back to their respective, dead owners..." Kariss, infuriated, refused to even look at the contents of the bags and snapped, "We'll take it back to Defender's Heart and the paladins can sort it out."
They tied up the looters in uneasy silence and explored the store. The looters had surprisingly good eyes; in addition to mundane goods worth several hundred gold pieces they had some potions, magic arrows, and holy water. The party confiscated items that would obviously be of use in combat, but set aside the goods for possible return to the owners if Kenabres was ever restored. (Jake refrained from commenting on the remote probability of that event.)
Once the looters were safely tied up and the loot was searched and identified, the party set about looking for anything that might link this store to the cultists of Baphoment. Sure enough, Jake found a secret door leading to stairs down into a hidden basement. The looters who were still conscious expressed astonishment that they had been in the building for several days and had never noticed it. Jake just smiled grimly. It was his job to find such things.
The basement below was pitch black, so Jake used Terendelev's scale to alter himself into a half-orc, while Merissa put Light on her shield. For the most part the basement looked like the basement you would expect of an apothecary shop: A stained earthen floor, gourds hanging from the ceiling, a wooden work bench, and a few odd bottles and vials on shelves. However, there were four outstanding features: In one corner was a "heap" (puddle might be more accurate) of rotting plant matter. Abandoned ingredients, perhaps? Opposite that on the workbench itself was a clockwork marileth. Before her, perched precariously, was a glass vial of some substance. Painted on the wall above the marileth was a goat's face. And under the table was a wooden chest.
GM Note: And here is why I *LOVE* my party. And why mandragoras are my new favorite "pet".
The party was absolutely certain the room was a trap, so they did not step off the stairs, letting Kariss use Detect Magic to scan the room. Sure enough, the vial and the marilith both had magic auras. More surprisingly, so did the painted goat face. She could not identify what the bottle was, and only knew that the magic on the marilith was some kind of activation mechanism, but she was absolutely sure that the magic on the painted goat head was a Magic Mouth spell.
The party had a dilemma. They really wanted to know what the Magic Mouth was going to say to them, but they didn't want to set off the trap. They came up with a rather clever solution (and yes, I just now saw that Mage Hand specifies a non-magical object, but that seems like a really odd restriction). NoPrey Silenced the area around the workbench while Kariss used Mage Hand to retrive the bottle. I made her make a ranged touch attack to retrieve the bottle without jarring it or the marileth and, in spite of its tiny size, she succeeded admirably.
With the trap disarmed, the party waited a few seconds for the Silence to disperse, and then NoPrey eagerly stepped forward to activate the Magic Mouth. A man's voice spoke. "Ahh... I hope you are among Iomedae's slaves... I would hate to think of mere peasants wasting such a personal greeting from Lord Baphomet!"
As the mouth spoke the word, "Baphomet", the clockwork marileth activated, striking its little swords against empty air. The party had a fraction of a moment to be pleased before a hideous plant creature sprung up from the sludge in the corner and shrieked. Merissa and NoPrey promptly started losing their lunches.
Now, I *love* this critter. Confusion poison? Nauseating shrieks? Burrows, climbs, and runs about at high speed? Reach? Absolutely one of the most hilarious creatures I've seen. I made little "angry pygmy" sound effects as it ran about trying to wreak havoc. Unfortunately, both Jake no NoPrey kept making their saves vs. poison (I had it reaching past Jake to hit NoPrey, since NoPrey had been first in the room) and neither ever ended up confused, and Kariss shot it from afar, so it never ended up doing anything truly hilarious. But it was a good fight, lasting long enough that both Merissa and NoPrey recovered from their nausea before it was over, and NoPrey squawked up a storm. Fun times!
With the mandragora finally slain, Keriss loaned Merissa a kerchief and went to help Jake investigate the chest. It was empty except for five holy symbols of Iomedae and a note that read, "We don't need these anymore, but figured if you survived our surprise, it would be just plain rude to leave behind an empty chest for your troubles!"
Kariss, thinking that the paladins would want to have the holy symbols, started collecting them. She felt a sticky substance on it and dropped it. Failing her Fortitude save against the poison, she felt dizzy and disoriented. They used Prestidigitation to clean them off, then used a cloth to pick them up and pack them away for a more careful cleaning later. They also took the clockwork marileth and the bottle of strange liquid. As they packed up, Kariss failed another Fortitude save and found she could barely walk, losing Dexterity quickly. Jake immediately put their disagreement behind them and carried her back to Defender's Heart where she should receive proper treatment from the paladins.
With all three safe houses explored, the party returned to Defender's Heart. Irabeth's mood was serious. She told them she had learned of a cultist stronghold in the city, and would need their aid in assaulting it. But she was still making arrangements for the assault, and would debrief them in the morning.
The party spent their first idle afternoon since the fall of Kenabres doing their own "things". Merissa acted as a cleric, helping the sick and injured with her spells and her Heal skill. Kariss discussed scrolls she would need for the assault with Aravashnial, Quednys, and the librarians. Jake visited his sisters. NoPrey, realizing that they were in the midst of an epic tale, started writing a journal to record their deeds.
In the morning, they would be striking back at the demons...
*** End of Part I ***
Next Planned Session: 06-June-2014, Part II (Already played)
And we'll just happen to have two copies of Sword of Valor to use as we need them. (Assuming we can keep track of all the pages of the original, which is surprisingly hard. Try carrying around an unbound paperback some time...)
Hole punch and 3-ring binder. That's what I'd do anyway. =)
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And we'll just happen to have two copies of Sword of Valor to use as we need them. (Assuming we can keep track of all the pages of the original, which is surprisingly hard. Try carrying around an unbound paperback some time...)Hole punch and 3-ring binder. That's what I'd do anyway. =)
Gee, sometimes you're too blind to see the obvious! With two kids in school we have all kinds of 3-ring "report" binders. I'll see whether 3-hole punching cuts off the left page too much. Otherwise, brilliant idea!
(And honestly, I'm only using the previous books to write up these journal notes, so I'm finding it just as easy to use the PDFs side-by-side with Notepad++ instead of using the physical book. I swear, you throw hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars at Paizo a year and they make your life so easy with free PDF downloads and such... it's as if they like money and want to encourage you to keep spending it...)
i got the pdf too, in case i lose any pages i can just print them off that:)
i'm not really convinced you did that last part right....
:)
i'm sorry, i can't help myself, i might have a problem:)
honestly sounds great, i'm having fun reading it:)
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I, for one, was VERY sorry that the poor mandragora did not drive anyone insane. But the GM screen was down, they were making their Fort saves in the open, and no one rolled under a 15.
Sometimes the dice just don't understand that "lower is more humorous".
Unfortunately, my dice seem to understand that just fine...
EDIT: As a total side note, I am probably going to explode from anticipation before we finally get to the "Touched by Divinity" section of the AP. As readers of the books can tell, I'm doing something a bit different with it, making it less "holy" and more "trip to the beach-y".
I'm hoping everyone finds my final explanation for this bizarre deviation satisfactory, but I've got to say, having Jake's player keep saying, "Nah, don't spoiler it. I'm sure we'll get there before I run the PCs in any significant way," and then having the party wander off in the wrong direction (which I'm sure they will) is going to make me explode from anticipation...
EDIT: As a total side note, I am probably going to explode from anticipation before we finally get to the "Touched by Divinity" section of the AP. As readers of the books can tell, I'm doing something a bit different with it, making it less "holy" and more "trip to the beach-y".
I'm hoping everyone finds my final explanation for this bizarre deviation satisfactory, but I've got to say, having Jake's player keep saying, "Nah, don't spoiler it. I'm sure we'll get there before I run the PCs in any significant way," and then having the party wander off in the wrong direction (which I'm sure they will) is going to make me explode from anticipation...
Man don't I sympathize. Every time the party's about to come up on something important or plot-revealing or just plain cool in my Kingmaker game, I get twitchy and anxious and giddy about it. At least I have a member of my group who isn't actually a player who I regularly drop spoilers to, she gives me feedback without risking spoiling it for the actual PC players, and gives me an outlet for the feeling of "man I gotta talk to SOMEBODY about this thing before I go kablooey".
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Man don't I sympathize. Every time the party's about to come up on something important or plot-revealing or just plain cool in my Kingmaker game, I get twitchy and anxious and giddy about it. At least I have a member of my group who isn't actually a player who I regularly drop spoilers to, she gives me feedback without risking spoiling it for the actual PC players, and gives me an outlet for the feeling of "man I gotta talk to SOMEBODY about this thing before I go kablooey".EDIT: As a total side note, I am probably going to explode from anticipation before we finally get to the "Touched by Divinity" section of the AP. As readers of the books can tell, I'm doing something a bit different with it, making it less "holy" and more "trip to the beach-y".
I'm hoping everyone finds my final explanation for this bizarre deviation satisfactory, but I've got to say, having Jake's player keep saying, "Nah, don't spoiler it. I'm sure we'll get there before I run the PCs in any significant way," and then having the party wander off in the wrong direction (which I'm sure they will) is going to make me explode from anticipation...
Thank you!
Everyone in my social circle is either:
(1) In my game,
(2) Not invested in gaming enough to care, or
(3) Perhaps a bit envious that I game a lot more than them.
Probably explains why I post on Paizo so much! :-P
But yeah, after seeing how far "off the mainline" the Touched by Divinity "special hex" is, I realize it's going to be quite a while that I have to sit on my particular perversion of this event.
Ah, well. Gives me a chance to keep writing up the stuff that's already happened...
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06-June-2014 Game, Part II
This session can best be described as, "Give me enough NPCs and I will rule the world!"
Or at least the Gray Garrison.
I suppose wiser GMs might have found a way to stop the onslaught of four NPC mongrelman rangers (armed with cold iron arrows no less) and an NPC paladin, but I sure didn't.
I also didn't care for the "Devotion Points" system because a lot of the things the PCs had to do seemed really far-fetched. As you know, I am extremely proud of my group of players. But when I saw things like, "Perform proper funeral rites over the fallen paladins," I was thinking, "Seriously?"
And then Kariss' player, *totally* in-character, was worried about Merissa and how she'd react if they just left her comrades-in-arms lying there without saying anything, so she thought Merissa would be happier if she was allowed to perform some funeral rites or something. Ding! Devotion Point! It was all about having this naive child-like god-dreaming cleric that spurred them to do everything "right". And Merissa didn't say a word (unless asked to perform funeral rites, of course).
So on the one hand, my players got 10 of the 11 available Devotion Points, so the "10+ tier" isn't unachievable. On the other hand, I'm still stunned they managed to do it. I blame Kariss and Merissa entirely. And one of them is my darned GMNPC!
Anyway, let's get on with the slaughter:
=====
24-Arodus-4713
Jake arose, stretched a bit, and opened the door to his and NoPrey's room, only to find a page waiting there patiently. Glancing down the hall, there was a page at Kariss' door as well. He turned to the page, indicating he was ready to receive whatever message it was.
"M'Lady Irabeth requests your presence in the briefing room at your earliest convenience. Can I give her some idea as to how long it will take you and your companion to be ready?"
Jake glanced back at the snoring, squeaking bundle of feathers and blankets that was NoPrey at rest. "Give us half an hour."
"Very well, sir. Thank you, sir!"
The page ran off.
Exactly half an hour later, the page was waiting to escort them down. To Jake's minor surprise, he led them to the breakfast hall instead of the briefing room. At Jake's raised eyebrow, the page responded, "M'Lady Kariss insisted she and her weasel needed at least an hour to prepare..."
Jake and NoPrey tucked in to breakfast. Jake's sharp eyes spotted Merissa, already in full armor and ready to go, waiting outside the briefing room. Well, what she lacked in common sense she more than made up for in enthusiasm and punctuality, and she was a danged good cleric, if a danged strange woman.
Once Kariss was up and breakfasted, the pages escorted the party into the briefing room. There sat Irabeth, Quednys Orlun, Aravashnial, Anevia, and five mongrelmen. Everyone save Quednys and Aravashnial stood up and smiled at them at their arrival; Aravashnial might have had trouble hearing who it was. Quednys probably had his own issues. Kariss was ecstatic to see the mongrelmen. "You made it! Your king was true to his word! I am happy to see you!"
One of the mongrelmen laughed. He was most likely the leader, as his furs and rags were decorated with beads and bits of string. "He is our chieftan, not our king. And of course he was true to his word. Both the surface world and the underworld must fight together to stop this demonic onslaught."
After introductions were made, Irabeth cleared her throat. Her spies had learned that while Baphomet's followers had been scattered and disorganized, Deskari's followers were all gathered together and holding an old garrison in Old Kenabres named the Gray Garrison. They were waiting for none other than Areelu Vorlesh, witch queen architect of the Worldwound. And her plan was simple: To use the remaining pieces of the Kenabres wardstone and a substance called 'Nahyndrian crystal' to reverse the field generated by all the wardstones, effectively wiping out the entire crusader army in one fell swoop. Someone had to penetrate the defenses of the Gray Garrison, locate the remaining pieces of the wardstone, and destroy them.
No one was under any illusion as to who that "someone" would be.
Jake was the first to volunteer, but not by much. "When do we leave? And how do we destroy the wardstone?"
Irabeth smiled. Quednys detailed their plans. Their newly-equipped fighters (no one asked where the new equipment had come from, and no one volunteered that information), bolstered by mongrelman rangers, would run raids throughout the city. This would distract the leaders of the stronghold, as they could not afford to lose Kenabres to the crusaders at this point. Hopefully, it would reduce the defenses significantly, and prevent reinforcements from arriving in a timely manner. The assault force would attack the Gray Garrison in whatever manner the party deemed most appropriate. On reaching the wardstone, a party member would use "this" (at this point Quednys produced a long white rod topped by what looked like a huge emerald) to disable the wardstone. Failing that, "Just smash it." The rod proved to be a Rod of Cancellation, which might be up to the task of destroying the wardstone.
After a short question-and-answer, the party stood. To their surprise, so did Irabeth and four of the five mongrelmen. Irabeth smiled. "Oh, Anevia can take care of things here. And I have to give this a try!", at which point she hefted Radiance and it glowed slightly.
Before they left, Aravashnial called Kariss over. "I know you asked the brothers to make some scrolls for you, and those are all ready. In addition, we managed to locate one of the old Riftwarden caches undisturbed, so here are some items that may serve you well. Be safe!"
Aravashnial revealed a virtual treasure trove of scrolls and potions, some cold iron weapons, a chime of opening, and two wands: One of Magic Missile and one of Daylight.
Kariss thanked Aravashnial profusely and said her goodbyes to Yularr. Jake gave his sisters some gold to get them by and they made him promise to stay safe. Anevia hugged Irabeth and made the party promise to keep her safe. Merissa learned that her brother had already left with a raiding group, so she and NoPrey said no particular goodbyes as the strike force set off for the Gray Garrison.
With the mongrelmen scouting ahead and a sizeable force, the group had little trouble approaching the Gray Garrison undisturbed. Even as they approached it they heard the yells and sounds of combat that indicated that their "distraction teams" were doing their jobs. They moved forward as stealthily as possible, though with both Irabeth and Jake in the party that amounted to, "Not setting off Snapdragon Fireworks spells to mark their location."
As they neared the garrison, the mongrelmen reported two figures standing guard: They were like men, but much fatter and sturdier and holding scythes. NoPrey crept forward and had little difficulty recognizing what once had been Lord Hulrun, leader of Kenabres, but he did not recognize the other man.
GM Note: Bless our bard and his terrible Knowledge rolls! Of course, my Perception rolls for the guards inside the garrison for the four rounds of combat outside were 2, 4, 4, 2, so I can't exactly claim the high ground here. Stupid unattentive guards.
The tactics were simple and direct: The entire team would move forward until the obese men had time to see them and react. Assuming that the men performed hostile actions, everyone with a bow would perforate them. It seemed like a good plan and worked flawlessly until the moment both men tried to summon help, and one of them succeeded in summoning three dretches, who blocked the battlefield with a sickening fog and charged forward into it.
Kariss was unimpressed. Her newly-learned Gust of Wind cut through the Stinking Cloud like... well, like a scythe through butter. The suddenly-exposed dretch were greeted with a hail of cold iron arrow fire from the mongrelmen and dropped quickly.
GM Note: Yes, the party bought 50 cold iron arrows for each mongrelman. Not total. Each. Ow! I saw no reason to stop them -- they were in the last bastion of hope in a town that had been fighting the Worldwound for generations. The notion that they wouldn't have cold iron arrows in abundance seemed rather ludicrous.
Jake closed with the obese men and started making short work of them, especially when Merissa and Irabeth caught up to assist him. The most-sorely-wounded one exploded in a storm of flesh and gore and they found themselves facing a giant vile worm that had been inhabiting Lord Hulrun's corpse. The other creature cast Mass Cause Light Wounds, healing itself and its companion while mildly damaging Jake, Irabeth, and Merissa. Merissa identified the creatures as "vermlek" as she channeled energy to heal the group, while Jake and Irabeth cut them down without hesitation.
GM Note: For the sake of other GMs running this AP, I'll note devotion points in a running total, rather than in the order they did things. Once everything was cleared out of the garrison, they chose to return Lord Hulrun's body to Defender's Heart for a proper burial, earning them 1 Devotion Point. I have to agree with other GMs who ask, "What party on Golarion is going to send Kandro Nyserian's body for proper burial?" I think that's a devotion point you're just not supposed to get. So we have: 1 Devotion Point so far, coming along after the fighting was over.
Knowing that they had raised quite a commotion on the very steps of the garrison, the party hurried to regroup and get in before reinforcements could arrive. Jake listened at the door and heard people speaking in Abyssal inside, apparently gambling with body parts.
GM Note: Did I mention how abysmally my bad guys were rolling on their Perceptions?
Kariss successfully used the Chime of Opening to get through the front door and the party poured in from one side as the tiefling guards poured in from another.
GM Note: Make sure you understand how a Chime of Opening works. It's actually a pretty crappy magic item. I thought it had 10 charges and could open anything. On looking it up, learning that it's basically a Disable Device roll with a skill level of 11, and noticing that all the doors are DC 30 or higher, I realized it was a prop meant to irritate adventurers. I'm happy I didn't know how bad it was when I let them open the first couple of doors with it.
The battle was short and brutal. 6 tieflings against 5 fourth-level adventurers (well, OK, Irabeth was 5th level) and 4 mongrelmen rangers is not the stuff of legends. One tried to escape, but didn't get very far at all before Jake cut him down. Both Merissa and Irabeth allowed that the tieflings were members of the core cult of Deskari determined to destroy the world, and should therefore be executed rather than captured. No one argued, so Irabath and Merissa executed the two remaining unconscious tieflings.
The party started their exploration of the interior of the Gray Garrison in earnest. To the west was a meeting hall where the tieflings had been playing their brutal game. Cards and body parts littered the table, and more body parts were in buckets on the floor. Jake gathered them up, figuring they should get a proper burial as well. (The body parts. Not the cards.)
To the east was a desecrated shrine of Iomedae. Runes adorned the walls, but no one in the party could make heads nor tails of the writings. Finally, NoPrey rolled a massive Linguistics check (30+) to recognize the writing as Celestial, but he still couldn't read it. Finally, Kariss understood. "Kneel, tengu!" she cried out as she pushed NoPrey down to kneel on the bench set up for just that purpose for parishioners. As soon as he was kneeling, NoPrey could read the words. "Let us inherit thine arms, Iomedae."
He spoke the words aloud in Celestial, but nothing happened.
Since no one was bothering them at the moment, they took some time to remove the filth from the walls and otherwise clean the temple.
GM Note: Yeah, I told them that the runes were written in Celestial, but I figured a Linguistics check of 30+ ought to be plenty to at least recognize that there's something written there, if not to decipher it. And Kariss was already on a, "Let's get everything cleaned up for Merissa's sake," kick, so I didn't find it unusual at all that they stopped adventuring for a few minutes to do some simple housekeeping. The "Kneel, Tengu!" bit was out of left field and rather impressive intuition on her part. That adds up to 2 Devotion Points so far.
The party continued to the east, letting Jake listen at the door. Again he heard something in Abyssal; something that sounded like nothing so much as a... puppet show?!?!?!
GM Note: OK. I was really proud of this one. I was doing the abrikandilu demons' voices doing their little puppet show, and Jake's player immediately said, "It sounds like they're doing a... puppet show!" Either I was too obvious, or I was really good. I like to assume the latter. I'm egotistical that way. :-P
The group opened the door and poured in, hammering the demons with everything they had. The abrikandilus were tough and wily, and did quite a bit of damage to Merissa, but they finally fell. (Helped a great deal by one of them pulling off a double fumble and dazing itself.) In the room, the party found the remains of several paladins the demons had been using as puppets, as well as a magical adamantine morningstar. As Jake lay claim to the morningstar, Kariss yet again astonished her GM. "Merissa? Would you like to say a few words over these poor men?"
GM Note: 3 devotion points, and a GM really beginning to sweat that his original guess that they might get two or three total might be a wee bit to pessimistic.
The party next went back through Iomedae's shrine and to the north. The waiting room they were in had two doors out, one west and one north, and both locked. Once again, Kariss used the Chime of Opening to open the north door (OK, with none of the interior doors even listing as lockable, I felt much better about letting her use the chime on these ones. But who builds a garrison and doesn't put locks on the doors?!?!?).
As they opened the door, the Deskari cultists waiting there in let loose with a barrage of Command spells. Unfortunately, with the foremost party members all protected by Protection from Evil, the cultists burned their precious surprise round doing exactly diddly, and close combat ensued.
This fight went surprisingly well for my bad guys. They kept stepping back to use their reach weapons, forcing Jake, Irabeth, and Merissa to step forward, as NoPrey, Kariss, and the mongrelmen brought up the rear. NoPrey Greased a good portion of the combat area, slowing their escape, but this tied up all the melee combatants in a great big pile of grease and polearms. This allowed Othiribu the tiefling alchemist to open a door behind the party and start hurling bombs.
Unfortunately for him, the mongrelmen had no trouble whatsoever hitting him with their bows, and Irabeth added injury to injury by running up and critting him. He dropped a smoke bomb to try to get away, but Jake, Merissa, and Irabeth filled his chamber and eventually found him and finished him, though he had swallowed the potion of Invisibility and a couple of cure potions, so he did last a while.
Exploring his room, they found that the old priest's chamber of the garrison had been converted to some kind of alchemical lab. Several holy symbols of Iomedae soaked in strange fluids. The entire table seemed to be an alchemical lab, but none of the party members were willing to tinker with it or try to pack it up, figuring someone with more knowledge than they had should do it. In the corner was a plan wooden sword case. They opened the case and Irabeth gasped. "That... that's my father's sword! The one I sold... for Anevia!"
Irabeth quickly explained that it was a +1 evil outsider bane longsword, and she had sold it for funds for Anevia's "operation". The party did not pry. Kariss examined the sword carefully and determined that it seemed to retain its original properties. A note alongside it addressed to "Lord Staunton" indicated that the sword belonged to an "old friend" of his, and Staunton's brother should be able to do something with the sword. Irabeth explained that Staunton Vhane was a fallen paladin of Iomedae, and she had driven him from Kenabres with this very sword. Merissa offered Irabeth the sword, but instead she hefted Radiance. "No, I think you've given me something far greater. I would be honored if you would wield it for me, Merissa."
Merissa blushed a bit and took the sword, testing its weight, and added her old sword to the loot bag.
Going back to explore the room in which they had fought the cultists, the party found a full-blown temple to Iomedae, similarly desecrated with blood, filth, and bodies. In spite of my warnings that it would take at least half an hour, the party let their buffs expire and cleaned the temple.
GM Note: Yep, my party got another 1 for Othiribu and 2 for the temple, so that's 6 before even going upstairs.
Searching the temple, the party noticed the glowing outline of a door. Jake looked for a mechanism to open it but couldn't find one, and it was finally NoPrey's time to shine. In Celestial he called out, "Let us inherit thine arms, Iomedae."
The door swung open silently, revealing a small cache of armaments obviously intended for demon-slaying. A number of cold iron weapons, bows, bolts, and arrows provided ample equipment to re-arm the mongrelmen.
The "prizes" were 5 holy arrows and an arrow of evil outsider slaying. Jake took the slaying arrow; the mongrelmen got the holy arrows.
GM Note: The upstairs is a bit of a problem. You can have the 6 tieflings and 4 cultists waiting at the top of the stairs as I did, but they're really not a match for the firepower of the PCs at this point. Every other creature (the peryton, the schir, the flies, and the zombies) are all listed as locked away, so each fight is extremely easy. But as a GM you worry that if *all* of them come at the PCs at once, you'll have a TPK on your hands. With the narrow halls, Irabeth, and the mongrelmen, I'd recommend "going for it". The fights on the upper floor just weren't challenging enough to slow my group down, so in hindsight I'd have a tiefling running down the hall, opening all the doors and screaming for help.
The party's next move was to use the chime to open the locked door to the stairwell going up. 3 dretches ambushed them, filled the air with Stinking Clouds, and prayed for the best. 3 dretches suffered as no one in the front lines got sick (I think NoPrey did, but he's rather accustomed to regurgitating, or so I hear), so Jake, Merissa, and Irabeth carved into them as Kariss tested her various cantrips to find out whether she could hurt demons without burning higher-level spells. And the miss chance from the cloud? Never affected a single PC. Poor dretches!
Refreshing their Protection from Evil on Jake, the party headed up the stairs... right into the aforementioned ambush comprised of 6 tieflings and 4 cultists. I thought it was a pretty good ambush... right until Kariss Color Sprayed over half of them into la-la land and NoPrey Greased most of the rest onto the floor. The flopping, stupefied ambush met Jake and Irabeth head-on. Jake and Irabeth did not slow down.
Unfortunately, most of the rest of the upstairs went along those lines. They opened the door to a library, only to be attacked by an enraged schir demon. Who proceeded to hopelessly flail and miss Jake several times as Jake cut him to ribbons. They searched the bookshelves and recovered some valuable books. A second door led to a conference chamber inhabited by a peryton. It tried to keep its distance and the mongrelmen shot it to pieces. The third room they went into had an infestation of demonic giant flies who cast Darkness. Against Jake in his half-orc form and the mongrelmen it did them little good. They could hear the zombies through the closed door to the scrying room and Merissa and Irabeth channeled through the wall. Problem solved.
With every creature on the second floor exterminated with ease, and Merissa still at nearly half her spells and Kariss even better off, they explored the rest of the floor. A large room with a huge hexagonal table proved to be a war room, formerly used by the crusaders but now used by the (now-deceased) cultists. Documents on Mendevian troop movements that would be very damaging to the crusades were stacked about the room. Jake gathered them all up.
GM Note: And we're at 7 Devotion Points.
The tieflings' barracks revealed nothing valuable, but the room with the zombies of crusaders had a wide basin filled with entrails. The party chose to spend the time to clean the basin.
GM Note: And that's 8..
With their buffs gone, the party climbed the stairs to the third level and were immediately set upon by an enormous, demonic minotaur. Much to a certain GM's frustration, the minotaur couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, first hopelessly missing Jake and then doing very little to Irabeth (quickly healed by Merissa). On the other hand, Jake, Irabeth, and Kariss wreaked havoc on the minotaur and he fell after only two rounds. Jeslyn, half-elf cleric of Deskari, didn't even have time to fully buff herself before the heroes entered the fray.
Jake wasn't protected, but made two Will saves in a row to survive both Hold Person and Cause Fear, and Jeslyn just wasn't hearty enough to withstand attacks from Jake, Irabeth, and Merissa, as well as Magic Missiles from Kariss.
GM Note: I am frankly amazed at how fast these two fell. On paper they look like hard fights. But they couldn't hit, couldn't land a spell, and just got pounded into oblivion waaaaaaay too fast!
Once Jeslyn was down, the party quickly explored the chambers. Irabeth identified the first room as the Hall of First Fatalities, a shrine to those who fell in the first crusade. The two helms that were supposed to represent the first fallen were mangled, possibly beyond repair. I was not the least bit surprised when the party turned to Merissa and said, "We need those repaired! You need to prepare Make Whole for tomorrow!"
GM Note: Intent with no way to stop them means they were up to 9 Devotion Points. And defeating Jeslyn put them at 10.
Jeslyn's room contained a cage containing the wardstone fragment. The group had the mongrelmen wait outside and guard the stairs as Jake touched the wardstone with the Rod of Cancellation.
GM Note: Talk about a serious anticlimax! A 50/50 chance of the rod working makes for a rather silly "finale". "Dink." "It doesn't work." "Dang it!!"
Jake dropped the rod, quipping, "Well, this thing's useless," pulled out his adamantine morningstar, and started whacking away at the stone. Fortunately, Jake was doing enough damage at that point that he eventually crumbled the thing.
GM Note: Let's just say that many, many mistakes were made. I told the players that the Rod of Cancellation was "one use" rather than "one successful use", so none of us thought of using it a second time. I hadn't noticed that the wardstone's hardness was 25 so adamantine wouldn't hurt it. All in all, epic GM fail. But it worked out. The wardstone exploded on cue.
As the wardstone fell apart, it exploded violently, obliterating Jeslyn's body but leaving the party miraculously unscathed. The party was infused with golden energy, healing them and restoring all of their spells and abilities. As they stood there, stunned by the energy they were absorbing, they saw all of the events through the existence of the wardstones: Their creation in 4639 AR with the help of the Hand of the Inheritor, their witnessing of Hulrun's atrocities in 4665 AR, the Storm King Khorramzadeh striking the stone in 4692 AR, and a battle between Irabeth and a dwarf before the wardstone in 4712 AR. The group all knew that the dwarf was the aforementioned Staunton Vhane. Finally, they saw an eyeless demon place a cage around the wardstone fragment before teleporting away.
Their vision turned to the future they had averted, with Areelu Vorlesh herself using a deep purple crystal to corrupt the fragment, transforming all the crusaders along the border into half-fiend slaves of the demons. This was what they had prevented!
At that moment, a projection of Areelu appeared before the group, threatening them with extinction and attempting to Suffocate the party. Unfortunately (for her), only Irabeth was affected and fell. Before the party could go to her aid, half a dozen babau demons appeared among the party and attacked. More demons were trying to pour through, but the glow protecting the PCs sealed the rift, leaving them to fight for their lives against the babaus.
GM Note: OK. This was a really really fun fight. The players loved figuring out their temporary new "powers" that allowed them to beat on the babaus, and the babaus did significant damage, but ended up Webbed, Greased, and otherwise humiliated as the party turned their entire arsenal loose on them.
GM Note 2: A note of particular pride/sadism: Two of my three players insist that they remember Irabeth being unconscious when the wardstone exploded, explaining her failure to ascend. I recall her being dropped by the Mass Suffocate spell. She got hit a couple of times by the minotaur, but Merissa healed her, so I have no notes of her being unconscious, nor do I see why she would have been. Interesting that the three of us remember the single-most-critical event of the AP (the party's ascension) so differently!
Eventually, with the aid of their newfound powers, the party vanquished the demons.
The party ascended to Level 6, Mythic Tier 1.
*** End of Session ***
Next Planned Session: 12-June-2014 (Already played)
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just so we're clear on one thing, i'm not the only person that desperately wants to play Star Wars music both during the planning of and actual raid of the grey garrison, i especially want to use that ladies voice from the death star briefing as Irabeths:)
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just so we're clear on one thing, i'm not the only person that desperately wants to play Star Wars music both during the planning of and actual raid of the grey garrison, i especially want to use that ladies voice from the death star briefing as Irabeths:)
You are now officially invited to my house for insanely-tasty food, much alcohol, and the chance to play Merissa for a session.
Just let me know next time you're in the S.F. Bay Area!
(And yeah, maybe I should check with my players before making such offers, but naaaah... why bother?)
EDIT: And what the heck is up with you and Orthos and your avatars, anyway? Can't either of you be happy with just one avatar? You're breaking my fragile little mind!
its Non-Evil Sobek i had no choice once they put it up there:)
edit: your mind can't be too fragile if you're living in the Bay Area:)
I had my doubts about devotion points too and thought about ignoring them. But then my PCs cleaned the first shrine as they had gotten into that habit from other encounters. I told them that they felt good about doing that and then they had 8 points by the end.
And ya, others and I have complained about all the NPCs tromping through the garrison. I had cut it down to two mongrelmen but there's a fair chance that Irrabeth could take most of those encounters herself. Not to mention, odds are, that the garrison itself blocks tiefling's darkness SLA as it makes more sense to be lit by divine continual flame.
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I had my doubts about devotion points too and thought about ignoring them. But then my PCs cleaned the first shrine as they had gotten into that habit from other encounters. I told them that they felt good about doing that and then they had 8 points by the end.
And ya, others and I have complained about all the NPCs tromping through the garrison. I had cut it down to two mongrelmen but there's a fair chance that Irrabeth could take most of those encounters herself. Not to mention, odds are, that the garrison itself blocks tiefling's darkness SLA as it makes more sense to be lit by divine continual flame.
Interestingly enough, Irabeth wasn't nearly the "Problem Child" I've read about her being in other campaigns. Jake took on that role, using Terendelev's Alter Self scale to brutal advantage, constantly changing into creatures with darkvision.
And once you have a fighter, a paladin, and four rangers with Darkvision, the ability of enemies to cast Darkness becomes rather pointless...
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EDIT: And what the heck is up with you and Orthos and your avatars, anyway? Can't either of you be happy with just one avatar? You're breaking my fragile little mind!
Hey I had that avatar for over a year, it's not like I change them every week.
Good use of the scale :)
I couldn't see a way that all the tieflings could ever use darkness, so it never came up.
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EDIT: And what the heck is up with you and Orthos and your avatars, anyway? Can't either of you be happy with just one avatar? You're breaking my fragile little mind!
Orthos corrupted my Avatar :(
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Orthos corrupted my Avatar :(EDIT: And what the heck is up with you and Orthos and your avatars, anyway? Can't either of you be happy with just one avatar? You're breaking my fragile little mind!
GLORY TO THE MANY.
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By the way, I don't envy your needing to type all of those bold/italics codes for the forum Nobody :P
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By the way, I don't envy your needing to type all of those bold/italics codes for the forum Nobody :P
I will give credit where credit is due and blame Notepad++ entirely. (Not sure I'm allowed to linky, so I'll just say it's a great little plain text editor that works beautifully for coding if you don't want some gargantuan development environment.)
After writing an entire Runequest character generator in Java with it, using it to do very specific find-and-replaces is pretty easy.
(And it helps that once I post I re-read the post to look for mistakes. Much easier to edit the final product.)