Echoes of the Everwar

[andreww]

I am due to be running this four part series over the next few months and I have a couple of questions. I have fully prepped part 1 so far and wondered if the following issues had been addressed anywhere:

Stay out Terry and Chris:

1. As has happened with a few other modules we have undead barbarians with rage enabled stat blocks. Have people simply been using the stats provided or amending them to remove the morale bonuses? These ones also have rage powers which grant further morale bonuses. Stat blocks are not provided for these, do we assume they apply? I am inclined towards yes currently.

2. Linked to that as undead barbarians they are immune to fatigue. This allows them unlimited rage cycling for powerful blow and strength surge. I wonder if that was anticipated by the author.

3. An ordinary NPC human barbarian has a CR of their level -1. Here we have skeletal champion (CR2) barbarian 6 coming out as CR5 and skeletal champion barbarian 9 coming out as CR6! This seems to be a bit of a mangling of the role and monster advancement provisions especially where they are gaining the benefit of their barbarian abilities.

So, how have people who have run the module dealt with these issues or have you just ran it as written and ignored them? A search turned up a single thread on the undead morale issue in the module with no replies and the product discussion and review pages don't mention it.

[Gwen Smith]

Honestly, I just ran it as written, and made a table tent that read "Because Season 1". Anytime a player said, "But wait, that's not possible!", I just pointed to the table tent.

[Muser]

Once there was a boy named Josh. Josh loved undead barbarians. He loved them so much that he went out of his way to add them to scenarios with none in them. Indeed, he enjoyed them so immensely that when people pointed out that his dear friends don't actually exist, he called them his very special friends who'd be special enough to do things that no other deadheads could.

And that was the story of Josh.

We respect Josh standing up for his friends, indeed for their feelings, and give them just as special treatment as he did while acknowledging that there won't be any more special friends in the future.

tl;dr undead with class levels and raging is a crazy simple way to build tiered opponents. Run as written.

[downerbeautiful]

Your problem #1 is not just in seasons 0 and 1. It also appears in a recent adventure path. RAW. NPCs get to follow different rules sometimes.

[Kess, Humble Servant of Abadar]

I just ran this scenario this past weekend, and I would suggest that it's a difference that makes no difference. Run as written.With the action economy that the PCs have, they won't last long.

IMHO, they are not the challenge of the scenario, if you know what I mean.

Let them have their fun. Then you can have yours and watch them sweat! Don't forget about the difficult terrain.

[David_Bross]

Wait, you don't like my natural weapon based monk shadows using flurry of blows with feral combat training?

[RCW]

If your players have issues with undead barbarians just tell them this: "Life isn't fair, buy a helmet."

[Kyle Baird]

Rachel Hill wrote:

Your problem #1 is not just in seasons 0 and 1. It also appears in a recent adventure path. RAW. NPCs get to follow different rules sometimes.

This.

[andreww]

OK, then I shall run them as written with rage cycling and all.

[andreww]

OK, moving on to Part 2 which I have been setting up today. I have a couple of questions about encounter 1.

Spoiler:

The encounter is with either 4 normal or greater barghests. Greater Barghests are listed as having Mass Enlarge as an SLA but no such spell exists. There is a mass enlarge person but obviously they wouldn't normally be a legal target. I am guessing this is another "NPC's don't have to follow the rules"?

Having said that given how small the room is I am not sure how the hell you are supposed to fit four large monsters in there with a party, nevermind upping them to huge.

[andreww]

Dave Baker wrote:

I just ran this scenario this past weekend, and I would suggest that it's a difference that makes no difference. Run as written.With the action economy that the PCs have, they won't last long.

IMHO, they are not the challenge of the scenario, if you know what I mean.

Let them have their fun. Then you can have yours and watch them sweat! Don't forget about the difficult terrain.

Spoiler:

The cave encounter is really weird. It looks like it can either be utterly lethal, especially at the high tier, or a cake walk. The cave isn't very big and the monsters don't seem to be capable of leaving it so anyone who does a little scouting could destroy them with area effect spells without getting anywhere near. Anyone dropping in though is facing a world of hurt. Given the narrowness of the opening it is going to be difficult to manage that scouting without getting close enough to be attacked.

[Kyle Baird]

For the love of all gods, roleplay the roper and don't have it attack automatically at high-tier. It's a great opportunity to have flashes from each character's past show up on the walls of his little dome.

(I use a small metal mixing bowl to cover the roper up)

[andreww]

Kyle Baird wrote:

For the love of all gods, roleplay the roper and don't have it attack automatically at high-tier. It's a great opportunity to have flashes from each character's past show up on the walls of his little dome.

(I use a small metal mixing bowl to cover the roper up)

Absolutely. The set up for that thing is amazingly good and leads to all sorts of interesting possibilities. I plan on asking my players for some scenes from their life to date before we play and have it talk about them while murdering them horribly.

I am running these online so no bowl required. Now I just have to decide how to accent and present the ropers voice.

[David_Bross]

I had someone walk in on the roper, start buffing to attack it, then try to attack it in the 7-8 subtier. They lost on initiative and it didn't exactly end well for them. The rest of the party walked in 3 rounds later and chose to talk to it instead.

[andreww]

David_Bross wrote:

I had someone walk in on the roper, start buffing to attack it, then try to attack it in the 7-8 subtier. They lost on initiative and it didn't exactly end well for them. The rest of the party walked in 3 rounds later and chose to talk to it instead.

That's, well, erm, yes, wow.....my condolences to whoever they were.

[andreww]

OK, I have started to prep part 3 and have a few questions.

Spoiler:

1. The vampire sawn in area 3 say they join those in area 4 if they are bypassed with the walkway but area 4 says there will never be more than 6 here. That doesn't make much sense in 10-11 as Vanyth already has 6 in there. Do four of them just magically disappear or are people running with 10 vampire spawn here if the party skips them?

2. Any sort of fight in area 3 is going to be very apparent to Vanyth give how close he is. I assume he will prebuff. I pretty much assume he has mage armour and false life up all day and will drop improved invisibility on himself at the first sign of trouble as well as activating children of the night.

3. Linked to that I also assume Ostrog will prebuff himself and also his allies. He has so many low level spell slots that dropping mage armour and invisibility on them all as well as mage armour, false life and improved invis on himself seems obvious as well as using children of the night before attacking. He has no listed tactics but I do worry slightly that this will be too much.

4. A more awkward issue is that actually permanently dealing with vampires can be hard. You can only kill them with sunlight, running water or a stake and they will fly off in gaseous form if reduced to 0HP. Would you have such vampires rejoin Vanyth if not permanently defeated? Adding a second level 8 sorcerer vampire seems harsh.

5. Linked to that the secondary success requires the group to destroy Vanyth and we don't know where his coffin is. If they attack during the day they should be fine but at night they are screwed without some way of tracking a flying, gaseous vampire. How have people dealt with this and do you put their coffins anywhere?

6. Lastly the snake encounter suggests you get a check to avoid being moved into the water if you are grabbed by the snakes. However, they have 10 or 15' reach so will be attacking from beyond the boat and the first thing that happens when grappled is you get moved adjacent to the grappler putting you right into the freezing cold water. I can see some serious drowning potential here which may need a little foreshadowing.

[Muser]

I'm running part IV this Sunday and the high tier encounter with 6 mummies has me wondering. The scenario has them start inside the sarcophagi but there's no condition listed when they emerge. How did people run this? When do they attack?

Right, another q: Do I have the PC's save against each mummy's despair effect that they can see? Our GM just had us save once against the whole group since six DC 18 Will saves is just courting disaster and I agree.

[RealAlchemy]

It's not as horrifying as it could be, but watch your LOS. You don't have to save vs a mummy you can't see.

[Muser]

Thanks, but I know it all too well. When I played this, one character acted as a roadblock while everyone else nuked the corridor. Eyes closed.

Eh, I guess I'll just have them attack once the party starts to examine the corpses and has moved closer to the secret door in the process. The corners between the alcoves and the corridor proper should limit the amount of mummies visible per character.

It's not like 6 greater mummies should pose a challenge at this level. It's the high chance of nat 1 with so many saves in play and I'm just weary of murdering people with our embalmed friends from beyond the grave. I think I think I'm up to seven by now...

Edit: Man, that is one disappointing conclusion to the concubine story. Zuberi's the least threatening BBEG since Shadows Fall on Absalom. His tactics too are weird and destroy any chance of that, very respectable mind you, 8d6+24+20d6 routine going off.

[RealAlchemy]

When I played that scenario, it certainly got exciting. My divine hunter paladin was holding the square where a party member was feared, and I was going "Well *#$%!! I can't move away or my party member is dead. All right, I declare smite, fire anyway, and provoke. Oh, more are coming. This is just not my day. You! You're next."

[Quentin Coldwater]

I'm going to run the first part the day after tomorrow, I have a question about the Moonflower. How fast does its Pod Prison ability work?

Pod Prison wrote:

This works like the swallow whole ability, except the moonflower can only use it once every 1d4 rounds, and the swallowed creature is immediately wrapped in a tight digestive cocoon and expelled into an adjacent square, where it takes damage every round (2d6 bludgeoning and 2d6 acid, AC 15, 25 hp). The cocooned target cannot use Escape Artist to get out of the cocoon. Other creatures can aid the target by attacking the cocoon with piercing or slashing weapons, but the creature within takes half the damage from any attack against the cocoon. Once the cocoon is destroyed, it deflates and decays. Each creature swallowed by a moonflower is encased in its own cocoon.

When does it activate? "Works like Swallow Whole" means it has to start its turn with someone in its mouth, but "immediately" could mean as soon as it's in his mouth. When I played it, my GM ran it the latter way, but I could see it run the other way as well. I'm inclined to give players a turn before they're swallowed, because it felt pretty unfair otherwise.