The purpose of this thread is to clarify questions arising in this adventure.
This thread is a GM Reference thread for Part 4 of the Giantslayer Adventure Path. Links for the individual threads for each part are as follows:
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Question, What level Fighter is Skirkatla. She has Armour Training 3 which suggests 11th level but her Base attack is that of a standard Frost Giant.
Also a lvl 11 fighter Frost Giant would be unpleasant to face at this level.
I'm thinking Standard Frost Giant with +2 Template and superior Equipment and Stat array?
Thank you
Sic
Senior Developer
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Question, What level Fighter is Skirkatla. She has Armour Training 3 which suggests 11th level but her Base attack is that of a standard Frost Giant.
Also a lvl 11 fighter Frost Giant would be unpleasant to face at this level.
I'm thinking Standard Frost Giant with +2 Template and superior Equipment and Stat array?
Thank you
Sic
She doesn't have fighter levels at all; she has the fighter simple class template from the Monster Codex, which gives her some fighter abilities without the complexity of adding full fighter levels. The simple class templates can also be found on the prd here.
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A question: roughly speaking, how many frost giants (or just giants in general) would you say are currently active on the plateau?
I know the adventure is structured specifically to avoid a "PCs vs. every last giant" scenario, so the number is kept intentionally vague. But for purely story-based reasons, I'm curious what kind of force the big guy is assembling, even just unofficially.
I have no idea, speaking honestly. I have a cop out answer and my real answer. I'll offer both because they both have an element of truth:
Cop-Out Answer: I don't really know how many giants are going to be required to conquer Avistan. I had no way of knowing how large the previous adventure was going to be in terms of population—or how big the next one was going be. I didn't want to throw out a number and have it be wrong. There’s so many people who just want to nit-pick a potentially wrong answer. I’m afraid of mass combat simulations to debate who is right and who is wrong.
Real Answer: It is a bad question from a narrativist point of view. No personal jab intended! The moment I assign a specific population, I have hamstrung the adventure. The Sabotage and the Outrage mechanic become pointless. The goal of the adventure was to encourage stealth and guerrilla style tactics. The only way to effectively achieve that goal is to make attrition of the giants an unobtainable or unrealistic objective.
The fact is, a blunt head-on confrontation at that level should fail. Because giants are dangerous. Depending on your group, that kind of systematic series of fights might even make for a tedious game. Plus, no group can sustainably go from fight to fight to fight. They have to stop and rest and replenish their resources. How does one simulate the giant response? The portion of the camp they cleared remains empty and deserted? No way! Plus, players shouldn’t be counting dead bodies, they should be exploring cool encounters and learning secrets—and that notwithstanding, there is still a wealth of good old combat to be had.
I don't mean to sound evasive and I do get what you mean. It is a fair enough question if this was a novel. Honestly, if I had to guess, I would be just making something up whole cloth. But I went for the lengthy reply to explain that the decision was deliberate and I feel it was the right call to make. It encourages the PCs to approach the problem with creativity and not just brute force.
Hope this helps!
EDIT: Removed an unnecessary remark about myself.
In Predator they say "if he bleeds, we can kill it".
In a RPG, if the enemy has numbers, it can be exterminated. Vague references work better if you want to avoid PC hunting giants to death.
A minor nitpick, in my humble opinion Pathfinder isn't a simulationist type RPG, but a gamist type RPG. Stuff like WBL or Challenge rating isn't simulationist, it's gamist. It's not there to make a simulation of a world, but to build "rules" for a "fair" competition.
In a RPG, if the enemy has numbers, it can be exterminated. Vague references work better if you want to avoid PC hunting giants to death
Yes, you understand. But there is nothing vague about it in the actual text. It says quite explicitly that no population numbers are given and why. I was just more detailed here. :) You are free to assign a population if you wish.
Well, I'm a player in the AP, so evidently I don't have access to the original text ^^
I'm just agreeing with the general idea.
Well, I'm a player in the AP, so evidently I don't have access to the original text ^^
I'm just agreeing with the general idea.
I was going to edit my post. I saw that I misunderstood and you have my regrets about my tone. But you got it right—combat isn't the solution here, although there is a lot of combat to be had.
Its not a good question to answer.
And you should duck out of this thread, player! I can't be responsible for spoilers here! :)
BERKVILDR p. 41 has domain spells but no domain listed
what is the domain?
Its there! Its just in the Special Qualities line. Check the SQ again, she has the Mountain Domain from Ultimate Magic.
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Giantslayer Fans:
Our group recently played an 83-hour marathon of Ice Tomb of the Giant Queen and was able to complete it. Everyone really enjoyed the challenge of planning guerrilla raids against a camp filled with so many giants that there wasn't actually a count on them; in fact, the absence of a number is what made this module so different compared to any with similar themes that may have come before it. Our full report will continue to drop throughout this month, but until then, I did want to leave everyone with some supplemental aids and brief tips they could use during their playthrough of this adventure.
Part 1: The watchtowers in Skirgaard are something your PCs will likely have to contend with in one way or another during the planning or execution of raids. These watchtowers are also worth 1 sabotage point each, and since your PCs can score 6 points from towers, having one in 3D might come in very handy. I used the interactive map to make a 3D version of a watchtower with foamboard--you can have some really great battles on this! The 1" grid watchtower PDF can be found in our Dropbox for all GMs to partake. All that you’ll need to do is print the pieces, cut them out with scissors, glue onto foamboard, and cut again with a sharp knife around the edges. If you prefer a more polished look, sanding down the edges afterwards looks nice. This whole process should take no more than an afternoon, and the module experience definitely benefits from your labor. Finally, I have also included photos of the step-by-step process I followed to create the watchtower.
Part 2: The Tomb of Skirkatla is one of the largest dungeons a GM could ever hope to draw. Spending the time to draw it out will help your players by tapping into their various learning styles, and better allows them to understand just how small they really are in this adventure path. Sure, you could describe it for your auditory learners, but your tactile learners will grasp its scale when they have to move their miniature across a massive chamber. You tap into your kinesthetic players by making them have to actually move around the square footage it will cover, and even lean way over the map just to reach their minis at times. Lastly, your visual players will enjoy staring at the revealed chambers as they explore, along with seeing just how small their character is on this beast of a map. I made a booklet of what the Tomb of Skirkatla looked like in stages while putting it onto a vinyl mat, included some general tips about map making, and even put photos of how some of the fights unfolded inside the tomb. This PDF can be found in our Dropbox. It did take me a lot of time to draw, but the gigantic maps in this path are what make it unique, and I can promise that it will be a GM experience you won’t forget anytime soon. Feel free to reach out to me via PM or our Facebook as you go through it, and I’ll happily answer any questions about the process of creating it.
Final Note: I would consider it essential for your players to have access to the isomorphic map of Skirgaard found in the Giantslayer Poster Map Folio, as the standard map of Skirgaard found in the module is nice but doesn't allow for the best understanding of the camp layout. Since a raid gone awry can quickly spell TPK for your campaign, the last thing a GM would want on their mind would be the thought that perhaps it had to do with lack of clarity from a map.
Hope this helps some of you in your run of Ice Tomb of the Giant Queen, and good luck!
GM
Giantslayer Fans:
Our group recently played an 83-hour marathon of Ice Tomb of the Giant Queen and was able to complete it. Everyone really enjoyed the challenge of planning guerrilla raids against a camp filled with so many giants that there wasn't actually a count on them; in fact, the absence of a number is what made this module so different compared to any with similar themes that may have come before it. Our full report will continue to drop throughout this month, but until then, I did want to leave everyone with some supplemental aids and brief tips they could use during their playthrough of this adventure.
Part 1: The watchtowers in Skirgaard are something your PCs will likely have to contend with in one way or another during the planning or execution of raids. These watchtowers are also worth 1 sabotage point each, and since your PCs can score 6 points from towers, having one in 3D might come in very handy. I used the interactive map to make a 3D version of a watchtower with foamboard--you can have some really great battles on this! The 1" grid watchtower PDF can be found in our Dropbox for all GMs to partake. All that you’ll need to do is print the pieces, cut them out with scissors, glue onto foamboard, and cut again with a sharp knife around the edges. If you prefer a more polished look, sanding down the edges afterwards looks nice. This whole process should take no more than an afternoon, and the module experience definitely benefits from your labor. Finally, I have also included photos of the step-by-step process I followed to create the watchtower.
Part 2: The Tomb of Skirkatla is one of the largest dungeons a GM could ever hope to draw. Spending the time to draw it out will help your players by tapping into their various learning styles, and better allows them to understand just how small they really are in this adventure path. Sure, you could describe it for your auditory learners, but your tactile learners will grasp its...
GREAT pics in the Dropbox folder! Thank you for sharing.
I have been following closely and reading your Marathon reports.
I can't seem to place my finger on where you mentioned what and where you get the aerial stands for your miniatures to represent flight.
Can you tell me (us) again what product you are using and where you get them from? I want to buy some for my game.
Thank you,
Lee
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Thank you Lee! It's been a lot of hard work and the gaming endurance required has been way more than even we expected, but it seems like everyone is really enjoying it.
We have tried many types of flying bases, and have yet to find a brand of flying stand that can support a miniature firmly (or that the players trust to hold one of their precious painted minis). The stands you see in the pictures on Facebook are custom made by our players, who combined two 28mm Games Workshop flying bases and sanded down the surface to remove the extra plastic on the bottom. It takes some time, but the players make them in batches of 20 and they last a few years before the need for replacing.
Hope that helps!
Adam
GM
Order of the Amber Die
Since I am customizing this AP for 5e anyway, I have decided I am going to replace this book of the AP with a modified version of the original G2 module Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl. I just am not sold on the whole idea of hit and run tactics against an innumerable army. I think I can modify G2 enough to give a feel of having to pick their way carefully through the frost giant stronghold in order to get to the lower level where Skirkatla (definitely using her!) plots her machinations.
Anyone else thought of using G2 at this juncture?
Skirkaling Longhouse - Does anyone know what the dashed lines are for on the map? Did I miss something?
Skirkaling Longhouse - Does anyone know what the dashed lines are for on the map? Did I miss something?Those are the support beams above the room, described in area L3.
Ahh, thanks. I must be blind. :)
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There seems to be a very great deal of hand-waving involved in setting up the PCs into being interested in Skirgaard, in travelling there and in arriving at the hit and run tactics phase of this campaign.
As written, it feels very rushed to me.
It's a huge gap in the AP, which, on reflection, I'm okay with. However, I think a great many GMs would benefit from some more hand-holding and express direction in seamlessly flowing the AP from Vol 3 to Vol 4 or at the least, more discussion here as to how all that was done.
There could be *easily* be a half-dozen or more game sessions getting from the end of Vol 3 to the start of Vol 4; I guess it depends on the GM and the group and their play-styles. Some prefer and demand a more natural and organic flow to APs where others are more prepared to metagame it.
What did other GMs do to bridge this gap?
I'm running this with my online group and am frustrated by a lack of maps for several areas of Skirgaad such as the Drake Caves, Mess Hall and Winter Wolf Warrens. Have others come up with good alternatives?
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I'm running this with my online group and am frustrated by a lack of maps for several areas of Skirgaad such as the Drake Caves, Mess Hall and Winter Wolf Warrens. Have others come up with good alternatives?
Do you have the poster map folio? That provides you with a fairly good idea of what they should look like in terms of elevation, relative size and basic layout.
Saddies, I don't have the poster folio. I suppose I can just attempt to draw maps of an approximation on the online platform I use. Kind of annoying but not much else to do.
There seems to be a very great deal of hand-waving involved in setting up the PCs into being interested in Skirgaard, in travelling there and in arriving at the hit and run tactics phase of this campaign.
Sorry for the thread necromancy, but I just saw this and thought I would comment. It was an intentional decision, Robert. Speaking mostly for myself, I couldn't see a lot of travel encounters that the PCs couldn't bypass without much difficulty, and I pitched it to the developer that way. Rather than invest the word count in just getting to the area, I focused everything in the location.
There seems to be a very great deal of hand-waving involved in setting up the PCs into being interested in Skirgaard, in travelling there and in arriving at the hit and run tactics phase of this campaign.
As written, it feels very rushed to me.
It's a huge gap in the AP, which, on reflection, I'm okay with. However, I think a great many GMs would benefit from some more hand-holding and express direction in seamlessly flowing the AP from Vol 3 to Vol 4 or at the least, more discussion here as to how all that was done.
There could be *easily* be a half-dozen or more game sessions getting from the end of Vol 3 to the start of Vol 4; I guess it depends on the GM and the group and their play-styles. Some prefer and demand a more natural and organic flow to APs where others are more prepared to metagame it.
What did other GMs do to bridge this gap?
FOR ANY PCS, THIS POST IS RIFE WITH SPOILERS, YOU ARE WARNED!
Hi Steel_Wind,
I am just in the midst of this now. We have spent 8 hours so far in-between books with another likely 6 to go, here is what I have done. Essentially, I am having them become agents of The Order of Titans. They were mentioned in the appendixes of one of the books...maybe 4? I have been watching a lot of Homeland so I kind of see them as "Assets" of the Order of Titans. This also gives giants another dimension...what will the group do when they meet a GOOD stone giant??
The party (quite by accident) includes brothers from Janderhoff. This gave us all sorts of role playing opps in between sections, especially when they returned the Nargrymkin to Janderhoff.
In the valley, I introduced them to a good Treant who had a ton of information for them through his fey spies. He revealed that Volstus had yet to recruit the cloud giants who were resisting. This resulted in Volstus becoming angry with a particular cloud giant named Zoarth, who lives on Mt Killaris near Skelt. This part I have cribbed largely from a Pathfinder Module named "Curse of the Riven Sky." When they finally killed Urathash, they found a couple of prized posessions of Zoarth, including his cat journal (read the adventure, this will make sense LOL) and a password protected Manual of Gainful Exercise (just in case they need incentive to go to him).
Following the Valley, they returned home to sell loot and report back. There they found that Ewigga had returned as a Witchfire, recruited a group of Annis Hags and were turning Shoanti against dwarf and generally making life miserable.
Once they dealt with that, Janderhoff decided that the group would be better off if they had died in the accident. They ran a fake funeral which gave the group the chance to run off and get a head start to Skirgaard and through off any bad guy spies. From there they were directed to the Kodar Kneecappers, reckless giant hunters (from Rival Guide). They direct the group to the priest of Torag in Skelt, this is where they will learn of the Order of Titan.
This required a crossing of the Bloodsworn Vale. They were able to take the recently re-opened pass all the way to Ft Thorn that Korvosa has done (Much to the chagrin of the Shoanti in the group). From there, they cross the much less organized Molthuni side of the Vale to Skelt.
This is where I am introducing the Curse of the Riven Sky in full. This adventure essentially involves a Cloud Giant's castle in full on assault by an army of Giants. It fits PERFECTLY. The plot of CotRS I am adapting in the following way:
- Zoarth (the main cloud giant in CotRS, whose castle is being assaulted), is actually brother to Renfral, the now dead engineer of the castle that Volstus has in the Volcano, setting of book 6.
- Volstus is raiding the castle to try and get Zoarth to share with him the secrets to flying the castle. Zoarth will not relent.
- I am actually having Jahlvoraz (who PCs didn't kill) at the castle, and Reingar (from book 5) acting as Volstus emissaries.
- At some point, the PCs will actually see Volstus. They will see him use the Orb and control the dragon. The PCs have been DYING to know more about Vosltus so this will steel their resolve to raid Skirgaard.
- Once they free Zoarth's keep, I will stop the Curse of the Riven Sky (it goes on from there in the book)
I have also been building the church of Urgathoa quite a bit in plans of using Dybellos as a key cog to the big ending...
Hope that helps. What are you planning?
PS meant to give a shout out to Conquest of the Bloodsworn Vale in addition to Curse of the Riven Sky and the Rivals Guide. Good stuff all around.
What are some good ideas to vary up giant tactics and abilities. I suspect that the outside encounters could be a snoozefest for any magic types with a fireball. There are way too many cold subtype creatures here that are vulnerable to the most iconic spell in Pathfinder.
Halfway through this now.
The conceptual issue with Giantslayer is that the PCs have a whole AP to become optimized to fight giants. Giants are generally pretty simple. Don't let them melee you; especially, don't let them get full attacks; if you can manage that, there are few problems.
The authors generally do a good job throwing in other opponents and mixing things up a bit, but Giantslayer is still, in our hands, troublesomely easy. I have had to say twice, in #3 and #4, "Yes, the plan you outline could take out the whole giant camp. Please don't. I don't think it will be much fun and I really don't want to run it." Even so, the PCs provoked about 5 encounters worth of #3 to happen all at once, twice, and won easily both times; #4 is not different so far.
There is also a problem with timescale. #4 assumes that the PCs will attack repeatedly over many days, because otherwise the giant responses to Outrage such as adding night patrols don't matter at all. But the giants are sufficiently easy to kill that my players' approach went like this:
Day 1: take out the main commander, two watchtowers, the temple, and the brewery, and disrupt the main camp.
Day 2 (projected): take out four more watchtowers, the drakes, the svathurim, the slave camp, and two more targets to be chosen on the fly.
Day 3 (projected): take out Svirkatla.
So, a heads-up to GMs: I recommend adding more giants almost everywhere. Give the commander another pair. Put the second giant underneath every watchtower in a tent from the start. Maybe start the Outrage counter a bit higher so that there are night patrols. Give the witch in the brewery a couple of assistants (that fight could have been genuinely interesting if he wasn't alone). Double the size of the force that responds to alerts. All of this, of course, depends on your PCs--if they are very weak you won't want to do this--but for PCs of normal or higher strength and decent tactical ability, you'll probably need it.
I want to note that my player deliberately gimped his characters--this is not a case of strong optimization. We agreed not to use Deadly Aim, each PC took some levels in an off class to slow the progression, and we banned or refrained from using a bunch of anti-giant spells such as Dominate Person. (Just think what you could do if you Dominated the camp commander in terms of manuvering other giants to locations where they could be killed easily.) But giants are just horrendously vulnerable to magic and archery. I think if we hadn't been restrained in the character designs there would be no challenge at all.
I'm not sure what the module authors could do about this, frankly; it's a basic problem with the giant theme, and also with the enormous power difference between a haphazardly made and played PC party and a well-made one, let alone a vigorously optimized one.
Thread necro!
One thing I'm doing is scaling up the size of the village dramatically. Part of my problem is that it's described as a village... but there are no houses, only a handful of legitimate buildings of any kind, and 99% of the living areas are isolated to this one relatively small campsite. So I'm throwing out the given map and instead making my own (shoddily drawn, but still) one. I debated doing something similar with the Cathedral of Minderhal, having an actual (though ruined) city around its base, but changed my mind on it at the last minute. I genuinely regret doing so.
The way I see it, we're out of idiot giant territory. Hill giants and ogres are for the most part long behind us (save the occasional one with high class levels). So why not demonstrate some giant culture. Show off how really Norse the frost giants are. On top of that, it solves Mary's problem by amplifying the scale of things-adjusting for buildings and a sufficient influx of frost giants to account for them, Skirgaard now takes up a span of a few miles, more of a Large Town than a village at that point, so finding points of interest and isolating leaders takes longer-and lets me implement a lot more potential for Things(tm) to happen.
I remember the loot being all right. It didn't seem too extreme, but I also remember feeling that the characters really had to work for it in a few places. My players, for example, found a way to fast track Book 5 and skipped a bunch of loot because of their tactic.
To be fair, though, my players were using the BP system from Unchained. They felt they needed more money to buy the things they wanted, so I invented a couple of events in Janderhoff that netted them some cold hard cash in the form of fellow dwarves investing in the war effort.
I got robbed tonight. My crew made it to Skirkatla's throne room. She was bad-ass, enhanced a bit, along with her support. They came in the secret door, the archer went first. Three back to back 20s and fourth high roll plus another crit on his last roll, with +4 giant favored enemy and +2 undead favored enemy (sacred bonus from a spell), and gravity bow on his +3 adaptive composite longbow resulted in a 267 point hail of arrows. She was dead the moment they walked through the door. The 2 yoki-unno creatures gave them a tougher battle (to be fair, they took a while with the witchfires, too). I was pissed. I'm still pissed. Tyraxian is gonna be ready... grrr.
I'm running this book in a few weeks. The "stealth" part of the adventure is not a good fit for the group. Is there another adventure or part of another adventure that might fit. Adjustments to the plot of the adventure are acceptable.
I don't use XP so having more fights isn't a problem.
Here is a question do you share with your players their
Sabotage and Outrage Scores?
Anyone else notice that Hersir Gregganor pretty much needs to be completely rebuilt? He has feats that are literally impossible for him to use with his primary weapon, like Stand Still which can only be used against adjacent targets - which he doesn't even threaten when he has his glaive in hand. So that's a completely wasted feat. And Pushing Assault can only be used with a two-handed weapon, so... his glaive, but he can't use it against adjacent targets so he has to try to hit something as it's coming in to close with him. Best possible result there is that his target spends an extra 5 feet of movement moving inside the range of the glaive and then becomes immune to being hit at all because of the 10' donut around the Hersir that he can't touch.
So, he spent two feat slots on feats that will be completely unused as soon as the PCs close to melee range.
I'm debating between just swapping out his glaive for a non-reach weapon or rebuilding him as a Polearm Master archetype fighter so he can use Pole Fighting to continue attacking inside the donut, albeit at a -4 penalty.
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RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE!!!
Man....you have a druid in this campaign, and there isn't anything to stop a group. Mind you, I am running a group of 7, they are level 12, which may be a bit early (because I've run some other adventures into this campaign for different encounters)
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BUT
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A shape changing druid, with greater invisibility cast on him by our arcanist, to explore the camp and scout? To influence the weather? Without what appears to be any counter to this by any Frost giant or undead? The giants never had a chance.
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The group did good by not blowing up any Outrage points, lots of espionage and hit run, over the course of a week, never doing more than an encounter a night. The stone oracle can move through stone...and then shifts the dead into the stone. No bodies!
So how do you win this? By using greater contagion and epidemic spells, and giving everyone in the gristmill, silo, and kitchen the bubonic plague. No magical healing was coming to cure the greater contagion, because Dybellos was killed during a blizzard that locked down the village before this plan went into effect.
I was stunned. I figured...you know what...you bet, you guys win. This was enough to put them almost at 20 sabotage points, and well....it's hard to come back from the plague of black death.
Just, wow.
Onto Skirkatla's tomb.
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RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE!!!
You rang?