Hey guys. First up if you are one of my players, stop reading now!
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Alright, now that is out of the way, I am worried about the "3 sihedron ring" issue in The Spires of Xin Shalast. If you don't remember or haven't read that far ahead, basically the Spires of Xin Shalast are protected by an occluding field that is explicitly immune to a lot of typical magical ways to get around such a thing, therefore necessitating the use of sihedron rings. The rings are carried by Karzoug's most trusted lieutenants in the lower city....but the catch is the AP only gives you 3 in an effort to force the players to come up with a more...creative method for one or more of the PCs to get into the field.
I love the idea of getting my PCs to come up with creative solutions to get around the field. The problem is, I know my players, and if they find 3 rings, they will assume that they simply missed the fourth one or haven't found it yet. This will result in a lot of time spent in the Lower City looking for something that doesn't exist....something that will be undoubtedly frustrating for everyone involved. I don't mind fully exploring the lower city, I do mind sending my PCs off on a fool's errand.
For context, my group just arrived at the Lower City, and have only encountered the lamia kuchrima so far before the session ended. I intend to begin the next session with introducing Morigiv; my PCs are heroes so they will undoubtedly help him out with the Hidden Beast. The PCs were tipped off by Svevenka about possibly using an artifact to get through the occluding field so they know that they need to look. They have destroyed every single sihedron amulet they have come across, so those are not options, as even if they found more of them they are likely to leave them where they found them or destroy them.
I'd love to hear your stories about how you dealt with this issue as a GM, or alternatively, ideas for solving the problem. Here are my ideas so far...
1. Simply give the PCs a fourth ring on some enemy they encounter while looking for it. Problem? This feels...unsatisfying somehow, but if you guys think this is the best way due to its simplicity, I'll consider it.
2. Give the PCs a sense of urgency to get to the spires NOW once they find the third ring. Have the giants mobilize for war, make the PCs feel like Karzoug is about to march on Varisia so they need to act now. Problem? This might fail, making the PCs feel like they hit a timer on how long they had to get the rings and they may feel like they just "lost the campaign" due to taking too long. Instead of trying to come up with an immediate plan to enter the spires, they may instead just redouble their efforts to scour or backtrack all around the lower city.
3. Plant a scroll (or 2 or 3) that contains a spell that could be used to get past the occluding field. My group composition is cleric, paladin, arcane archer, and dragon disciple/bloodrager, but they have good UMD available. Problem? I'm new to Pathfinder and have no idea what spells could be used here, if any. The text explicitly warns that teleportation, ethereal jaunt, shadow walk, and astral projection do not work. So what is left?
What do you guys think?
The Sihedron amulet also allows you to ignore the occlusion field. It is just the drawback for it is such that it's preferable to have a ring instead.
Mind you, there is a simple solution for overcoming the amulet's drawback. As in, the spell Nondetection. If that is put on everyone, then Special K can't easily scry on them and if he doesn't see them he can't take over their voice.
They have destroyed every single sihedron amulet they have come across, so those are not options, as even if they found more of them they are likely to leave them where they found them or destroy them.
Ehm. They didn't found a sihedron ring in Tistletop?
Re: Thistletop Sihedron Ring - No, they did not figure out the puzzle with the gold coins, so they never got deeper into the area than Nualia was able to. Then I believe they straight up forgot about Malfeshnekor, due to doing the dungeon out of order and getting distracted (they went straight down to Nualia first, returned to Sandpoint to recover, then returned to Thistletop to dethrone Ripnugget and rescued the horse). I didn't really press the issue since I was so excited to start the Skinsaw Murders... and also because we're so new to tabletop RPGs I was pretty sure Malfeshnekor was gonna wipe the party.
Re: Sihedron Amulet - Early on in the campaign a PC made a really high spellcraft check to identify the Sihedron Amulet. I likewise did not want to spill the beans on the scrying/possession stuff so early on but I gave the caster a vague "feeling of unease" when examining the amulet. The party erroneously concluded that the amulet must have brainwashed Nualia and had it destroyed. Then later on, when the PCs found the sihedron symbol carved into dead bodies, this only reaffirmed their belief that the symbol is absolutely evil. So they have been destroying the necklaces ever since. I am a little worried that they might also want to destroy the rings for this reason...but they've gotten warnings about needing an artifact to get past the field from Svevenka, which I will then echo again with either Morigiv or that stone giant/ogre guy... so if they irrationally destroy the rings after those warnings I can't say I didn't warn them.
Re: Juggling rings - Haha, that works! Seems kind of anticlimactic though, right? The text makes such a big deal about needing a magical PC to come up with some other way to get through the field that I kind of assumed that simply moving the rings across the field to one another wouldn't work.
I like the idea of planting another amulet somewhere. There is a really good chance they won't even pick it up for the reasons I just outlined...but it will give them a fourth option.
I think that they'll understand that there won't be a bunch of rings... just that 3 is such a tantalizing number. And also there is so much to the Lower City for them to explore, it will be only natural for them to assume that they need to check out the Tangle or one of the other "this area is well beyond the scope of this adventure" places in Xin Shalast.
I guess I could have an NPC straight up tell them there are only 3 generals in the lower city. Eh?
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You're much further along the path than I am, Karolina, but NobodysHome ran into the same problem. I'll point you over to his thread of epicness, where you can see how he handled this problem. I'm tempted to reach a middle solution - there's always n-1 rings, where n is the number of PCs and cohorts.
I'm currently wrestling with this right now. I did have Morgiv tell them that the Dragon and the Devil were lieutenants. Morgiv had no idea about the Hidden Beast cause well it's hidden. I have a party of 6 (occasionally 7). I think I'm going to have some rune giants random encounters drop some amulets as they've destroyed all of the other amulets.
AFAIK the ring in Thisltetop is only a ring of Force Shield in the shape of a 7 pointed star
There was no Sihedron Ring in Thistletop. That was a... don't recall the exact name, but it basically is like a half-strength Shield spell that can be activated at-will.
BTW, the Sihedron Rings do not protect against being scryed against. They just don't have the vocal possession trait. Special K can still use any Sihedron-marked item for scrying purposes if he knows about the person using it - and in all likelihood he will know about the PCs at this point, seeing the Rings are a weak point in his defense.
Thanks guys! I checked out Nobody'sHome's thread and it looks like he simply added a fourth ring. I think I'm going to go with planting amulets on some rune giants. The evil GM part of me wants Karzoug to possess someone and use their voice to monologue maniacally about how they're all walking to their doom and whatnot. ..At least once! Probably after they use them to get past the field.
I'll leave some feedback once they get past the field. I hate reading advice threads on here where you never find out what happened to the OP's game so I won't tease y'all like that.
AFAIK the ring in Thisltetop is only a ring of Force Shield in the shape of a 7 pointed star
Damn. Then I made a mistake, when was routinely revising our witch's inventory for errors, and interpreting his awful description as Sihedron Ring one.
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Thanks guys! I checked out Nobody'sHome's thread and it looks like he simply added a fourth ring. I think I'm going to go with planting amulets on some rune giants. The evil GM part of me wants Karzoug to possess someone and use their voice to monologue maniacally about how they're all walking to their doom and whatnot. ..At least once! Probably after they use them to get past the field.
I'll leave some feedback once they get past the field. I hate reading advice threads on here where you never find out what happened to the OP's game so I won't tease y'all like that.
You pretty much hit the nail on the head for me -- I tried giving them only 3 rings, and their immediate solution was to head over to the (almost completely-undocumented) fortress to try to sneak in, find a commander, and get a fourth ring.
Given the choice between writing up an entire side quest in the fortress and just dropping a fourth ring, I chose the latter as "much easier at this point of the campaign".
My PCs had much similar feelings about the medallions, primarily because they believed that dying while wearing one destroyed your soul.
I wonder who could have given them that idea...
... It was probably Ted, that guy wont shut up!
It wasn't me i swear! i was out murdering the farmer's Sheep to protect them from the Orcs! jus- wait, is that right?- any way just ask my Union Rep, they'll back me up!
If they know whats good for them!
My group is still in book 3 so I'm a distance away for confronting this issue but I'll confess I've never understood the purpose behind limiting the number of rings. I'm expecting that in addition to more exploration of Xin Shalast, I'll end up in magic experimentation city and rule "discussions" as my players try to find a way to bypass the restriction. And while I like clever use of magic, it's got frustrating and "not fun" written all over it.
My group is still in book 3 so I'm a distance away for confronting this issue but I'll confess I've never understood the purpose behind limiting the number of rings. I'm expecting that in addition to more exploration of Xin Shalast, I'll end up in magic experimentation city and rule "discussions" as my players try to find a way to bypass the restriction. And while I like clever use of magic, it's got frustrating and "not fun" written all over it.
A-yup.
My party went EXACTLY that route, too. "Oh, if we can't find one in the fortress, we'll just have them make one for us in Absalom!"
Sheesh! Just have the fourth ring already!
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This to me is the perfect opportunity to tie this AP in with RoW.
when they're sitting there stumped on the side of the mountain have Baba Yaga teleport in, throw however many extra rings they need on the ground, then say "You b$**!es owe me!"*
then she disappears, of course it could be awhile before she needs the favor returned.... may be the younger generation will have to help....
*for some reason i imagine Baba Yaga might cuss a bit, and a lady with that many daughters has no choice but to be up to date on the newest slang
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Alright, update time, as my group has just gotten through the barrier. Hopefully this helps someone who might find this thread in the future with the same issue.
I decided to try flinging all of my ideas at the group to see what stuck.
First up, to avoid unnecessary wandering around looking for a mythical fourth ring, I was straight up and clear that there are only THREE Karzoug generals in the city. This was stated by Morigiv the skulk, then echoed by Gyukuk. Gyukuk straight up named two of the generals as Ghlorofaex and Gamigin, so there was no confusion there. To make clear that the Hidden Beast was not one of his generals, but rather a third evil presence in the city, I placed a dead human transmuter corpse in his lair that the group could assume he stole the ring from. The group did not notice the corpse nor think about this hard enough to make any of that prep worthwhile, but that's GMing for ya.
Secondly, to keep the group motivated, I placed a couple of hard dates where the numbers of giants apparent in lower Xin Shalast would increase, so that Karzoug's army would steadily grow as the players lingered. I want the players to feel like they are in a race against time before Karzoug enacts his master plan.
The group realized the rings were the keys pretty quickly when I emphasized how identical the different sihedron rings they found were.
Next, I made sure the group had a couple of options available to them to make up for the fourth ring:
1. I planted a scroll of Antimagic field in Morigiv's "goody bag" of loot he hands out a day after the skulks are liberated. I don't know if it is intended for that spell to work but it seemed sufficiently powerful enough to cancel out the field. The group cleric is already high enough level to simply prepare that spell herself, but my group's low system mastery motivated me to plant this scroll as a "hint hint nudge nudge". Ultimately, the group still has this scroll and never thought to use it on the field.
2. The group assaulted Shahlaria and fought a rune giant there. On that rune giant, I placed a sihedron medallion. The group ultimately did not even think to loot a gargantuan humanoid. Had the group not decided to head to Shahlaria, they would have encountered a random rune giant somewhere anyway, who would have also had a sihedron medallion.
3. Finally, I decided that if the group was completely stumped at getting through the field, I would attack them with another blue dragon who had a ring. Alternatively, if the group decided to split up and send only 2-3 people through the field at first, the first enemy the group would encounter would have a ring. It did not come to this.
So how did it go down?
The group got the three rings and immediately headed up to the Spires of Xin Shalast. They reached the field, and tested the rings. I had all players, regardless of if they had a ring or not, make the will save against the field to play up/foreshadow the influence of Leng in this area. Two players crossed the field, one player carried two rings, the other only had one. The player then put the two rings on his fingers, and crossed only his two fingers over the field. There were no rules in the book to address this, so I had the field solidify when the rings were removed, cutting his fingers off from the knuckle. (I did not want the problem to be solved TOO easily!) I gave the player a reflex save to avoid this, which he failed. The player simply had his fingers repaired with a Regenerate spell, which the party had a scroll of, so no downtime occurred to repair the problem.
Ultimately, I gave the group a lot of options, but the players ended up with their own solution that was totally theirs. I'm satisfied!
The group got the three rings and immediately headed up to the Spires of Xin Shalast. They reached the field, and tested the rings. I had all players, regardless of if they had a ring or not, make the will save against the field to play up/foreshadow the influence of Leng in this area. Two players crossed the field, one player carried two rings, the other only had one. The player then put the two rings on his fingers, and crossed only his two fingers over the field. There were no rules in the book to address this, so I had the field solidify when the rings were removed, cutting his fingers off from the knuckle. (I did not want the problem to be solved TOO easily!) I gave the player a reflex save to avoid this, which he failed. The player simply had his fingers repaired with a Regenerate spell, which the party had a scroll of, so no downtime occurred to repair the problem.
I haven't carefully read about this in the book yet, so please excuse me if I misunderstood something.
It sounds to me like the person handing the rings back could just have gone back with 2 rings to get the third person through and then rinse and repeat for the last person left (it can even be done in just 2 steps if you further optimize it). Is there something that prevents doing this?
Anyways, given how your players wanted to deal with it; the way you handled it was very nice.
Every time I put my players across the field I made them do the will save in the book. As written, the text only requires that you make the will save if you attempt to press up against the field without a ring. But I wanted to remind my players that there are other dimensions at work here to foreshadow the Leng stuff, so I lowered the DC by 3 and made anyone who crossed the field at all experience the effects.
No one failed the save, but it was enough to encourage the players to avoid crossing back and forth willy nilly and make saves over and over, for fear of whatever could have happened to them had they failed a save.
But no, as written, there does not appear to be anything to keep one person from crossing back and forth with 2 rings as often as they wish....I just personally as a GM wanted the field to be more dramatic than just that so I ad-libbed the finger stuff. (The players themselves voiced that they expected the character to lose his fingers...so I obliged.) ;)
I don't mean to be Mr. Negative but I don't thin' that word means what you thin' it means.
The Occluding Field is not a line as in a Wall of Force that once you're past, you're good to go. It's an area effect the covers the entirety of the Spires region. A few quotes from the AE version, page 342 follow (emphasis mine):
"To keep the Spires of Xin-Shalast a secret through the millennia, the entire complex lies within a vast effect called an occluding field, centered upon the Pinnacle of Avarice (area W)."
"The occluding field renders the entire area shown on the Spires of Xin-Shalast map on page 343 impenetrable to divination or scrying of any sort..."
"Furthermore, the occluding field sheds a powerful effect that spurns and rejects those not attuned to the region.
"Teleportation effects simply do not function in this area...
"Mindless creatures like constructs and vermin are also immune to these effects, as are all attuned creatures (this includes all of the denizens of Leng in area X12 and all outsiders conjured directly into the field via calling effects like greater planar binding with the aid of the anima focus in area X17)." I interpret this last sentence to mean the effects including the once a minute pulse apply to the entire area, otherwise the distinctions about the denizens of Leng or called creatures doesn't make much sense.
Short version: regardless of how you might interpret how the edge of the field might affect fingers stuck through it, if you don't have a ring or medallion anywhere in the Spire area you're going to have trouble including the need for once a minute fort saves.
Ahh, so it's a little rougher than I thought. I thought the saves were kind of benign for this late in the game, but if they go out once per minute for unattuned creatures, the low DCs make sense. Thanks for pointing that out. I don't know if I'm going to enforce that, I'll likely just house rule that if you got through the field in the first place, you're attuned, regardless of if you actually have the ring on or not. (Probably gonna chalk it up to the domineering weapons they're all carrying.)
I'll probably subject freshly summoned creatures to an initial pair of saves, or something, though.
Thanks for the catch!