I was curious as to how long it would take for flood waters to go from Skull Dam to Turtleback Ferry (and how long it would take Black Magga to reach town).
While I understand why Paizo modified the game so that the flood happened before the PCs investigate the dam, I feel it makes more sense for them to investigate the low water levels and what's wrong with the dam first. The problem is I'm not sure how many minutes it would take for the flood waters to go from the dam through 20 miles of river to the town; seeing that opening the dam is kind of vital to preventing it breaking further, I could see the group working to open the dam first and then teleport back to town.
Thoughts?
That's similar to what I was planning actually. Except I was going to have the PCs get to the wall too late.
Still, I do like the idea of giving them X rounds to drive off Magga; and having them watch her wipe the dam of ogres will also give them a "oh [censored]" moment. ^^
Just for giggles I decided to run a combat between 16 regular ogres and one ogre fighter (I figure the remaining eight ogres died previously fighting the critters on the dam), and Black Magga - this was basically a "simulation" of the fight that would erupt on the wall (assuming my group doesn't do something unexpected like use Fly on everyone) so I could have an idea of how much damage would happen.
Amusingly enough, it was the Ogre Fighter who did the majority of the damage to Black Magga. In fact, she was so peeved at him that she bit him four times (and drained eight levels/hit dice), while using her tentacles to rip apart the other ogres. Only two other blows were landed by other ogres.
The confusion effect of her breath actually proved sub-par - while only two ogres were outside the area of effect, it lasted for one round. That said, about a third of the ogres smacked themselves in the forehead with their clubs. ;) (All backstabbing proved ineffectual with every ogre missing its brethren.)
I ended up saving the result after five rounds of combat (with the current hit point total for Black Magga and four unhurt but way-over-their-head ogres left who'll probably flee seeing their boss is busy dying). Using Kalshane's suggestion, I'm going to give the group several rounds to drive Black Magga off... or the dam will break and she'll wash down-river to Turtleback Ferry.
(I studied a historic flood in the U.S. which stated the flood waters from a dam break traveled around 40 miles per hour - thus the group would have 20 minutes between the dam's initial break and the first rush of flood water reaching the town. They do have Teleportation and likely have communication spells to warn the town.)
For my game I completely skipped the flood of Turtleback Ferry. Because I couldn't work out how opening the dam would have a different effect than water coming through a hole broken in it (seems like the town should get flooded in either case)...
I believe the key difference between Black Magga breaking the wall and opening the floodgates is time. When Black Magga breaks the wall, she effectively lowers the height of the dam and all of the water above that level across the entire lake pour over the dam, likely in a period of minutes. Conversely, when the floodgates are opened, a similar amount of water is released but likely over several hours or even days. In both cases we could assume a similar amount of water makes its way down the river valley to Turtleback Ferry but with the floodgates it's spread over a much longer period of time. With the flood gates, the river level rises less but for a much longer period of time.
None of which is to say your alternate structure is a bad idea. Indeed it has another key advantage over the AP as written: assuming the pc's are successful, Black Magga remains above the dam in the Storval Deep. In the AP, she's loose in Claybottom Lake with no clear method to return to her previous home. That seems a very bad outcome for Turtleback Ferry in the long term and perhaps very troublesome for much of the waterways of Central Varisia. I have a hard time imagining my players ignoring her after she retreats (as in the AP.) "Yea, I know there's a gargantuan, madness-spewing monster loose in the lake but it's not attacking the town right now, so we can leave and go about our business. Good luck with that in the future, Mr. Mayor."
We are right there as well in my RotRL group. We also are having the "wait! Why do I need to open the floodgates? Doesn't the hole at the top act as a "floodgate"/spillway?" discussion.
I am pressing upon the PCs that hole is eroding the dam, and than the entire dam could fail because water was not meant to go through there. Unlike the release valves (water is meant to go through those). As part of fixing the situation they are also felling trees and blocking the hole in the top of the dam with a makeshift log jam.
The whole situation (that the plot hinges on) does not make a whole lot of sense....unless you
Or she thought that breaking the dam would cause Black Magga to fall out and wash her down to the town, and she'd eat everyone. ;)
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I will agree the AP leaves some of the underlying mechanics to the imagination. Here's how I have interpreted it - to be safe, I'll spoiler it.
When the water level rises to point A, the floodgates should kick in to relieve pressure on the dam.
If the water level rises even higher to point B (or above) the resulting pressure creates an ever-increasing chance the dam will fail.
When the ogres arrive the water level has risen even higher to level C. When they and Black Magga combine to knock off part of the dam, a surge of water rushes down river (triggering events at Turtleback Ferry) and lowering the level. But not enough- the water is still at level B.
The pc sequence: drawn to the dam by fears of damage, they fight the ogres. Knowing there are floodgates that should be operating (should be told that by Turtleback residents and the DM should play up the obviously high level of water behind the dam) they explore the control room area (fighting trolls and constructs along the way). There they are supposed to discover the floodgate mechanism wants to kick in but lacks power. Trigger encounter with "the energy source," solution of the problem, floodgates activated, dam saved, Heroes once again.
Lucretia's plan seems practical enough to me, though audacious. At its roots, it's pretty solid - if that dam goes Turtleback Ferry is going to suffer 90+% casualties (and that's probably low.) Indeed, given the entire Storval Deep is going to empty if that dam fails, the casualties will be severe down the whole length of the Skull River. Remember the Deep is not a naturally occurring lake, it exists only because of the dam - all of that water is coming down river. What's "surprising" is that the Paradise didn't ply the entire river down to Ilsurian and back, marking people with the Rune the whole way. Even if the flood doesn't take them, Mokmurian's army is going to come through here and kill many of the locals (at least that should be Lucretia's assumption.)
The elements of the plan that seem more dubious are - the ability of the hag's control weather to produce enough water to fill the Deep to the level needed for failure and the ogre's likelihood of actually damaging the structure enough to produce failure while working from the top (not to mention the suicidal aspect of doing so.)
Also strange is her choice to abandon the Paradise, at least when she does so. There's no hint whatsoever that anyone is suspicious of her (which is the motivation given in the AP.) It's mostly irrelevant from a player point of view (since they may never learn of it) but it might make more sense to DM's if her motivation was - expecting the dam to fail at any minute and need to be out of the way. And if dispatching the ogres was a late addition to the plan - dam was expected to fail on its own and when it doesn't, the ogres are dispatched to help it along. Again all that is not particularly relevant from a pc point of view but it would go to helping the DM understand the dam is expected to fail at any minute by the people who are trying to destroy it.
Who's to say she didn't? We only know of Turtleback Ferry, but there are other communities that they don't visit. All of those could be included in the List.
Well. This went most... interestingly.
First, the group used Diplomacy. It was super-effective.
As in the giant-speaking sorceress (with an Aid Other from the halfling cleric) used Diplomacy as the fight between the trolls had just started... and rolled so high that she shifted them from Hostile to Helpful instantly. End of combat.
Yes, that means she rolled over a modified 43 (she got a 47 I think).
At that point they heard a shriek, went outside with helpful trolls and found Black Magga surrounded by 13 dead ogres and four living ones that she was having fun with. One troll charged. Natural 20 for a bite by Magga, and the other trolls pulled a Nope Octopus and bravely ran away. :D (Don't care how helpful you are, no troll is dumb enough to fight Magga.)
Magga inflicted a total of 20 damage to the group, not including the critical hit with four level drains to a troll (and then a second attack of opportunity that did more damage) and over 150 damage to four ogres. The PCs weren't a threat at first.
And then someone remembered they had a tiny cold iron dagger of returning, gave it to the arcane trickster who had just branched into Swashbuckler... and she proceeded to do a huge amount of damage with multiple precision damage (Mythic enhancements) and the like, while the barbarian did more... and several spells proved quite nasty.
She was brought to -2 hit points after three rounds of combat (though she'd not been at full to start) (to be honest, I could have done more damage if I'd not wasted a round with Mass Command - she really wanted the Eldritch Warrior who'd hurt her badly with Fireball and I figured Mass Command would bring everyone into hand-to-hand. Except that no one failed their save. (Dominate wouldn't have worked as that's currently the spell on the Ring of Counterspell they found. Not that Magga knew that. I'd forgotten it as well!)
Admittedly the group had one Mythic Tier, so that helped. Still, it was a most enjoyable game - both with the Irrisen Sorceress using Diplomacy on every troll (including "Pappa") to get them to be non-hostile, and with the encounters in general.
Next up? The Shimmerglens and Hook Mountain itself. That one should prove most interesting. ^^