In Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition, in the back where it details the area of Hook Mountain region, it hints at the potential of an unexpected ally called Razmus, a CR 10 Hill Giant Fighter 2/Ranger 1.
I thought it would be a neat idea at the very least to roleplay his encounter and see if the party convinces him to lend his earth breaker to their cause, or if they would just fight him.
- Has anyone else dealt with an encounter with Razmus?
- If so, how did it go?
- And how did you plan for his dialog and attitude?
:) Thanks.
Razmus was actually a pretty big part of our campaign and a major npc. The group encountered him on the way to hook mountain. I as gm alerted them that they suddenly came upon a valley of nothing but broken trees as far as the eye can see. The ranger in the group perked up and rolled survival, found hill giant footprints. They followed the prints. Since the trees are all broken, Razmus saw them from far away. He bellowed out a warning, demanding that they leave, in giant. The ranger happened to know giant. They tried to appease him in an attempt for information about hook mountain. Successful diplomacy checks later, and some role play, they learned a little about hook mountain and the Kreeg clan. He was openly hostile at first, but diplomacy got him friendly. I depicted him as mostly wanting to be left alone, inspired by the Incredible Hulk. Really angry but just wanting to be left in peace. About as smart as hulk too. I depicted him as pretty disdainful of ogres, being a hill giant and all, and he griped about the hill giant who thinks he's an ogre in particular. They asked why he's smashed all the trees, he said he liked seeing people coming in his new home. He mentioned he hates his new home what with him constantly being harassed by black rangers and ogres and trolls. They asked what happened to his old home and he told them an evil stone giant named mokmurian conquered his tribe of hill giants and took his home after Razmus refused to join his army. The group was immediately sympathetic, and thought they had stumbled onto a sweet side quest to get his sweet weapon. As gm it was cool to name drop mokmurian before they realized he was a major foe. They told him if he helped them take down barl break bones they would help him with mokmurian. He agreed.
It's worth mentioning I have only two pcs and they had recently angered their npc cleric into leaving them (disagreements over how to deal with the black arrow traitor, she's a cleric of sarenrae, not hard to connect the dots!) so I felt they needed the help. They're new to pathfinder and very unoptimized.. With a more experienced party I would have had him hand over the weapon instead. They ended up sorely needing him, and his ability to cleave effortlessly through waves of ogres endeared him to the team. He ultimately accompanied the group to jorgenfist (he was not at the battle of sandpoint for obvious reasons) and got to sink his hammer into mokmurian and avenge his whole dead family. I also was able to use him to provide some highly biased and amusing insight as to how other giants lived on their travels. For example he alleged that rune giants were obviously ancient hill giants, wasn't that obvious to everyone? In the end Razmus was permanently blinded at jorgenfist, and they personally escorted him back to his old home somewhere near the storval stairs in between books 4 and 5. The group still talks about him and they plan to cure his blindness after karzoug was dealt with.
[casting resurrect on this thread]
I had my group encounter him on their way to Hook Mountain too. In the session prior to that, they retook Rannick (that session was one big fight, we never left initiative order. It took about 20 rounds) with the help of Shalelu and the two Black Arrows. They routed the ogres when they killed Jaagrath in the upper level, and the remaining ogres fled towards Hook Mountain. Lucrecia also fled at that point.
They decided to follow the ogres immediately (my group consists of five PCs, with high stats, but they are only level 7 by now. With the three rangers, they get quite some things done beyond their level. Still, Hook Mountain would be quite hard.)
Razmus saw their fire in the night and decided to investigate. I played him as a little bored, but still wary of strangers. Sure enough, he dislikes the dwarf in the party. The rangers were all asleep when he arrived (yay for nightwatch schedules), so they talked to the giant, but were still nervous and expecting a fight. I decided that Razmus disliked the ogres and giants at the hook, and he was hired by the party with the promise of food and some good fights. The rangers were not amused when they found out the next morning, but decided to do nothing but watch the giant for the time being. When the group got attacked by some trolls the next night (random encounter), he proved quite valuable in smashing them, so the group could put some acid on the remains to kill them for good.
When the group arrived at the Hook Mountain clanhold, they decided to use him to lure the two watchogres away from the entrance. Ogres being not too bright, they reacted agressively to some choice insults by Razmus, only to fall victim to a well-placed grease spell thrown by the party bard, and Razmus smashing his earthbreaker into them to push them down the mountainside. I thought that was a cool idea, so I let the group have success with that.
I am not sure about his earth breaker, though: I think that equipment listed is always the right size for the creature using it, with over- or undersized equipment being marked. But then, his earthbreaker would do 3d6 damage, right? An M-sized hammer does 2d6 damage. For Barl Breakbone, the damage is listed as 2d8, which is wrong - it should be 3d6.
Or are they supposed to wield m-sized weapons one-handed? This would explain the damage bonus for Razmus (+8 STR, +1 magic - should be +12 STR for a two-handed weapon). But then, the -2 Attack penalty for wrong weapon size is missing. (+10 BAB, +8 STR, +1 weapon focus, +1 magic - should be +20 anyway) Or am I missing something here?