Strangely Ineffectual Juggernauts


Advice

Silver Crusade

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Howdy folks, just looking for some advice on how to keep some encounters with juggernauts entertaining.

An eighth level party managed to discover that there are two juggernauts dedicated to a goddess of disease tearing through some corridors in a benighted under city.

One of the party members, a mystic theurg with a talent for knowledge skills managed to suss out the faith-bound drawback:

Juggernaut wrote:
Faith-Bound (Su) A juggernaut cannot attack any creature that openly wears or displays the holy symbol or unholy symbol of the deity to which the juggernaut is dedicated unless that creature first attacks the juggernaut.

..and after a quick trip to the carpenter, they're all sporting little wooden unholy symbols.

Now this is clever. I like this, people who think their way around obstacles are good adventurers. I like that their preparation has assisted them, but I'd like to avoid them feeling overly friendly or unconcerned regarding the juggernauts.

I want to do this without totally cr*pping all over their preparation.

Any ideas folks?


They're going to get the effect of a surprise round out of this bit. It isn't a big deal.

Unless of course you interpret the text to mean that it actually has to BE a holy/unholy symbol, then their pieces of wood will be something that the juggernaught sees and decides is irrelevant as it starts smashing them into the walls.

Silver Crusade

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marcryser wrote:

They're going to get the effect of a surprise round out of this bit. It isn't a big deal.

Unless of course you interpret the text to mean that it actually has to BE a holy/unholy symbol, then their pieces of wood will be something that the juggernaught sees and decides is irrelevant as it starts smashing them into the walls.

You assume they'll attack the things. If they cannot be attacked, there's nothing that stops them from say, climbing over and past the juggernauts.

A wooden holy symbol is a 1gp thing, nothing in the rules says there's anything special about its construction except that its used as a channeling focus.


What are the juggernauts there for? What is their purpose under the city?

Silver Crusade

Tacticslion wrote:
What are the juggernauts there for? What is their purpose under the city?

Previous temple guardians of a subterranean temple to the goddess of disease.

They've since been utilized by the cleric of the goddess down there to protect the corridors from incursion from her other enemies.

My timeline has the corridors also being over run by some mi-go and spawn of yog-sothoth around the same time.

She has an ecorche guarding another entry but the ecorche is basically a 'Do not pass go' threat that lives on the random encounter table. Since he is basically insurmountable to the party.

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Maybe the juggernauts are accompanied by a steal/sunder combat maneuver specialist, or a spellcaster with pilfering hand, or some other way to remove the holy symbols and make the PCs a target.

Silver Crusade

RainyDayNinja wrote:
Maybe the juggernauts are accompanied by a steal/sunder combat maneuver specialist, or a spellcaster with pilfering hand, or some other way to remove the holy symbols and make the PCs a target.

That's brilliant. Monkey swarms. I can have their area of the dungeon infested with monkeys!


The problem there is this: How do the other guardians know that the PCs aren't just normal members of the faith? IF they are all wearing holy symbols, what reason did the non juggernaut guardians have for not trusting the PCs? Shouldn't the Juggernaut's inaction be enough to convince most?

If you want, this could be turned into a roleplay encounter with a less effective enemy. If they end up failing bluff checks with this intelligent enemy, then they try to forcibly remove the unholy symbols. Essentially, it doesn't look like you want to punish your PCs for thinking smart... that's great! Have another encounter planed somewhere else, but don't make it as difficult. An Ad Hoc reward of sorts.

EDIT: Things also have to make sense. Theoretically, shouldn't EVERY SINGLE MONKEY have to wear an unholy symbol to avoid being attacked? Your players had a creative solution. Isn't it more of a punishment to take this away from them? "Good job but... now there are monkeys that will trash your clever thinking... because."

Silver Crusade

Zova Lex wrote:

The problem there is this: How do the other guardians know that the PCs aren't just normal members of the faith? IF they are all wearing holy symbols, what reason did the non juggernaut guardians have for not trusting the PCs? Shouldn't the Juggernaut's inaction be enough to convince most?

If you want, this could be turned into a roleplay encounter with a less effective enemy. If they end up failing bluff checks with this intelligent enemy, then they try to forcibly remove the unholy symbols. Essentially, it doesn't look like you want to punish your PCs for thinking smart... that's great! Have another encounter planed somewhere else, but don't make it as difficult. An Ad Hoc reward of sorts.

EDIT: Things also have to make sense. Theoretically, shouldn't EVERY SINGLE MONKEY have to wear an unholy symbol to avoid being attacked? Your players had a creative solution. Isn't it more of a punishment to take this away from them? "Good job but... now there are monkeys that will trash your clever thinking... because."

I like the monkey idea because I always like monkey swarms.

Given that the temple has been left to rot beneath a city for a while, its not unreasonable that creatures have moved in.

Also the monkeys could probably hide more effectually from the juggernauts. They're tiny, the juggers are not. Meaning the monkeys could take advantage of the juggernauts smashing rats, crocodiles and other subterranean things flat before scurrying back into their holes.

I might not use the monkeys, admittedly, but I enjoy the mayhem and worry they represent. Might need to think of something similar to do with the Dark Tapestry folks who are impinging as well.

As I said, I don't want to negate my players good thought processes. I just don't want the juggernauts tooling around to be viewed as something not to be concerned about.

The remaining guardians besides the juggernauts are under direct control of the Nosferatu Cleric who moved into the digs recently (the other enemies stomping around down there are the dark folk and dark tapestry folks, who are all mutually hostile).

There will probably be a lot of red on red as the players move forward.


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Rather than trying to circumvent the PCs' cleverness, how about utilising those unholy symbols?

Whispers that are just on the cusp of hearing. One Will save per night. Are they trying to make out the words or trying to ignore them?

Play on the player paranoia that will result from this, even if nothing unpleasant actually happens. Or maybe one or more of them will start to gain access to eg a cantrip. And then to a 1st level spell from the unholy God's domains...

There are no limits to what you can do once the heroes start wearing the baddies' unholy symbols.

And if they remove them, it's easy to forget to put them back on when they next meet a juggernaut...


What if there are some rabid inquisitors in the area? Juggernauts of a god of disease would likely draw a few sects of very unreasonable good guys.

And here the PCs are running around wearing the holy symbols of the engines of destruction that just rolled over the local good guy church...

Silver Crusade

Gilarius wrote:

Rather than trying to circumvent the PCs' cleverness, how about utilising those unholy symbols?

Whispers that are just on the cusp of hearing. One Will save per night. Are they trying to make out the words or trying to ignore them?

Play on the player paranoia that will result from this, even if nothing unpleasant actually happens. Or maybe one or more of them will start to gain access to eg a cantrip. And then to a 1st level spell from the unholy God's domains...

There are no limits to what you can do once the heroes start wearing the baddies' unholy symbols.

And if they remove them, it's easy to forget to put them back on when they next meet a juggernaut...

I considered it, but I know they're going onto the fire, or the ashcan as soon as they get finished. Also, the juggernauts due to their size are generally predictable. If they're in a five foot wide corridor, they have little concern for juggernaut'in.

They probably won't have the things on for more then a day or two at most. The party rogue has actually considered wearing a holy symbol around his neck from each faith just in case (like Benni from The Mummy.)

Before it comes up, The party's cleric's deity also wouldn't punish him for carting around the symbol. Its obvious they're being utilized as 'don't be steam rolled' pendants instead of any form of worship.


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Gilarius wrote:

Rather than trying to circumvent the PCs' cleverness, how about utilising those unholy symbols?

Whispers that are just on the cusp of hearing. One Will save per night. Are they trying to make out the words or trying to ignore them?

Play on the player paranoia that will result from this, even if nothing unpleasant actually happens. Or maybe one or more of them will start to gain access to eg a cantrip. And then to a 1st level spell from the unholy God's domains...

There are no limits to what you can do once the heroes start wearing the baddies' unholy symbols.

And if they remove them, it's easy to forget to put them back on when they next meet a juggernaut...

Twist: The whispers aren't actually connected to the mundane holy symbols at all, they just seem to be.


Simple strategy: the juggernauts shadow the PCs.

They don't attack or even do anything overtly malicious. But they're there, at all times. They make stealth impossible, Perception harder because they like to get in the way, and generally make themselves annoying gargantuan-sized shadows.

When the party gets to their showdown with the Cleric, that means all the Cleric has to do is chuck a Scorching Ray at a party member's holy symbol, and the Juggernauts are unleashed. Or, they find another way to deal with the Juggernauts that doesn't require attacking them, which is more creative thinking.

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The super-obvious solution (to me), is to make the juggernauts just go on with their bussiness. And then at some point they're going to run into some civilians, and the party has to deal with that somehow. The party is protected; the civilians aren't. The party will still have an enormous advantage, because they can position themselves around the juggernauts however they like.

Alternatively, think of the trouble that could come of the PCs studiously wearing unholy symbols. Someone else might see that and get funny ideas about the PCs. Hilarity ensues.

Finally, the juggernauts might be under the direction of some evil guy. He basically uses "Lemming" tactics to control them; if he doesn't want them to go into a particular direction, he stands blocking their path, wearing the symbol. And the juggernauts turn 90/180 degrees and move on.

So this guy is keeping a close eye on the juggernauts, because they need to be micromanaged. And when he sees what the PCs are doing, he's gonna scheme.

And then the PCs are just standing there, wearing their symbols, letting the juggernauts pass them by. When an invisible bad guy steals the symbol from the squishiest guy in the party...

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The Juggernauts could be vectors of disease. Just being near them is dangerous.

They could still obstruct PCs, even if they cannot directly attack them.

Sort of like bouncers, no damage dealt, but they just pick you up and toss you out.


if they went to a carpenter and had him make the unholy symbols did they remember to have them turned into holy symbols? just because you create a holy /unholy symbol doesn't mean that it was taken to a cleric and empowered. Secondly are any of them worshippers of good gods what so ever? I wonder how their good gods feel about the party wearing such unholy symbols around. Plus what about the normal other good doers in the town? The local guard who are friends of the pc's walk by and sees them wearing the unholy symbol... Have you been lying about being good guys? Certainly this is going to cause a ruckus and some rp at least. I mean here are a bunch of guys sneaking around in the middle of the night with unholy symbols to a god on, perhaps even a god of disease who nobody who is sane likes at all. Talk about enemies galore!


I would have them succeed and sneak past. They got through this one no fight, now on to the other encounters while still fresh. You do have more encounters than just the one bypassable one, right?

Having the monkey swarms two or three encounters after the juggernauts so they know that retreating means facing the juggernauts in combat would be kind of fantastic though.

Silver Crusade

Voadam wrote:

I would have them succeed and sneak past. They got through this one no fight, now on to the other encounters while still fresh. You do have more encounters than just the one bypassable one, right?

Having the monkey swarms two or three encounters after the juggernauts so they know that retreating means facing the juggernauts in combat would be kind of fantastic though.

Yeah the 'we have to pass them going back' thing is great. Thanks to this discussion, I remembered that the party outfitted themselves with /just enough/ of them for the party and the cleric's undead. Meaning if they find anyone friendly down there, they have what every DM loves, complications.

As for the empowering thing, holy symbols are odd in that regard. There's no specific rules for creating them. Given that a tattoo can function as a holy symbol, I imagine that any old common symbol would work.

And yes, the symbols are of a faith controlled in the city they're in. They didn't put them on until they went underground.

And the cleric did get shot by someone down there partially for wearing the symbol. A kobold ranger hunting undead in the sewers mistook the PC half-nosferatu dhampir cleric for a servant of the evil nosferatu cleric since he was wearing the symbol, had undead and was half nosferatu. The party's synth summoner, an aasimar who's surrounded by an angel-bear had to vouch for him.

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The players made their knowledge checks and figured out a clever way to use that knowledge. Let them walk in unaccosted.

Then, in some later encounter, mess with the holy symbols somehow. Monkeys steal them. A spiteful NPC who understands the relationship between the holy symbols and the juggernaught breaks them. Something that hates the holy symbol as much as the juggernaught respects it. Give them a hostage or victim to rescue who won't have a holy symbol.

Even if you can only get one unprotected creature in the room with the juggernaughts, you get a tactical skirmish to protect that one creature, and raise interesting trade offs like 'do I attack it to slow it down or distract it, but therefore lose my own sanctuary'.

Silver Crusade

Ross Byers wrote:

The players made their knowledge checks and figured out a clever way to use that knowledge. Let them walk in unaccosted.

Then, in some later encounter, mess with the holy symbols somehow. Monkeys steal them. A spiteful NPC who understands the relationship between the holy symbols and the juggernaught breaks them. Something that hates the holy symbol as much as the juggernaught respects it. Give them a hostage or victim to rescue who won't have a holy symbol.

Even if you can only get one unprotected creature in the room with the juggernaughts, you get a tactical skirmish to protect that one creature, and raise interesting trade offs like 'do I attack it to slow it down or distract it, but therefore lose my own sanctuary'.

Yeah, as much as I love the monkeys. (who doesn't love monkeys). It might be a simpler thing to have a kyton steal it, or a cleric try to shatter one.

In the long run, I like the idea of the party being able to get past them, but this ties in more with the 'looming concern.'

Knowing me, I'm probably over thinking this and they'll whack one of them and then all bets are off.


Spook205 wrote:
Before it comes up, The party's cleric's deity also wouldn't punish him for carting around the symbol. Its obvious they're being utilized as 'don't be steam rolled' pendants instead of any form of worship.

Obviously it is your game, and there is nothing wrong with deciding it this way, but there is also plenty of reason to think that a diety wouldn't be at all happy with their clergy displaying another dieties, particularly an opposing dieti's, holy symbol.

In many religious beliefs, symbols and icons are serious business. Desecrating them is a death sentence for example, and displaying a symbol is an act of religious significance.


8th level you? I got it, Replace the Juggernauts with an equal amount of Lucifers. Done.

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Jon_Irenicus wrote:
8th level you? I got it, Replace the Juggernauts with an equal amount of Lucifers. Done.

I'm trying to instill in them concern about their safety and make them realize not all solutions down here come from combat (there's also an Ecorche stomping around which is far more ridiculous).

Not outright annihilate them. :)

Also, its a five man party. A juggernaut's not insurmountable. Hideously dangerous, yes (as intended), but not insurmountable. The lack of squeezing on the part of the juggers also allows for people to avoid them by ducking down narrower side corridors which the area will have.

And Dave, under normal circumstances I'd concur, but given that the cleric's deity is a LN(E) Revenge based deity who past players have described as "a god Frank Castle would worship" I don't think he'd mind short term wearing for purposes of subterfuge.

The other cleric in the party might get some divine feedback if he wears the thing too long though (and as I said, the rogue is considering a set up where he wears one of every faith).


If anything, when they run into the migo and dark folk, all of those guys should be wearing unholy symbols (the migo ones possibly made of something horrible) too.

Everyone in the dungeon has one of these symbols, because no one wants to deal with the juggernauts.


Benny the Rogue deserves mad props. I loved the first Mummy.

I don't really see the need to make every unholy symbol into the One Ring, honestly. The disease Clerics' symbols are just as susceptible to being destroyed/stolen as the party's are.

They got smart, let them have it.


Spook205 wrote:


As for the empowering thing, holy symbols are odd in that regard. There's no specific rules for creating them. Given that a tattoo can function as a holy symbol, I imagine that any old common symbol would work.

Any cross can work against a vampire. Even some guy holding up two stakes and improvving a cross. A cross is a cross.

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The word you're looking for is 'improvising' a cross.

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