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My players will soon be meeting freezemaw and I want to give them a good fight. The glabrezu and the hounds of Lamashtu proved to be too easy for them and, being a dragon, Freezemaw should be a more memorable fight.
What I noticed is that the freezing fog ability seems to hamper himself as much as the party as he can't ignore the solid fog part for movement and the fog part for vision. He only ignores the grease part.
I contemplated changing freezing fog in a way that it uses the grease part instead of the solid fog part, not in addition to it. That way he can still do 5ft steps.
The blizzard ability sounds good but I'm not sure it's worth it.
Being huge his crush ability only works on small targets, so worth a lot against mainly medium parties.
So what abilities should I use in addition to flying low and using his breath?
I could use freezing fog while flying higher than its effect, could I? The hight of freezing fog is 20ft and the cone is 50ft.
Any further advice?
For my group I increased his age category by one. I forget how old that makes him, exactly, but he proved to be much more terrifying. Take a look at his spell list as well and switch out some of those spells for potentially better ones. For example, as a white dragon, he should be well aware of his vulnerability to fire and should thus prepare fire resistance and cast it on himself before combat accordingly.
In his tactics it states: If his opponents scatter, he singles a random
opponent out in between rounds when he can breathe and makes either a flyby tail slap or a bite so that he can snatch an
opponent, carry him aloft, breathe on him, and drop him from at least 200 feet up onto the rocks below.
How does he snatch an opponent? I don't see an ability allowing that. Would it not need the snatch feat to do that?
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In his tactics it states: If his opponents scatter, he singles a random
opponent out in between rounds when he can breathe and makes either a flyby tail slap or a bite so that he can snatch an
opponent, carry him aloft, breathe on him, and drop him from at least 200 feet up onto the rocks below.How does he snatch an opponent? I don't see an ability allowing that. Would it not need the snatch feat to do that?
Hey, I had exactly this issue when I ran this section. I ended up using the original version of Arkhryst, which I think is still on pfsrd20. It includes snatch, which looks like was missed during the conversion.
Also, flying with a blizzard going, he can be absolutely devastating when you consider the effects of wind and vision impairment. I nearly TPK'd my party with him by snatching the cleric and dropping him, effectively putting him out of commission. If it wasn't for an awesome roleplay opportunity, I'm sure they would have perished.
When I ran this, he got the wizard in his mouth and flew out over the lake. The wizard rolled ONE POINT higher in initiative than the dragon and activated a teleport effect that sent him back to Magnimar before the final ice breath and drop would have not only killed him but also made any corpse retrieval much more difficult.
Also, that teleport was the entire party's escape route, so they were stuck there. Next up was the bard, who DID get the royal snatch/bite/breath/drop routine, only his body ended up bouncing down some of the frozen stairs. The remaining 3 hid under a domed wall of ice (upon which Arkryst perched and bragged about his might) until the wizard was able to heal up and teleport back for a rescue.
One bard corpse retrieval/raise dead/regroup and heal later, they faced him in his lair and things didn't go as well. They sealed the exit cave with a wall of force and fully buffed and ready to face a dragon, the party got their revenge. Again, a good initiative roll by the wizard got that wall up before Arkyst could escape, and a Persistent Slow really wrecks dragons....
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I have a five-person crew for Runelords, and Arkhryst definitely did her job for me. Next to Xanesha, he was probably the most difficult fight they've had thus far (we just finished Book 5 yesterday). He never landed in my fight either, though he only destroyed one of the giant zombie minions of our undead bloodline sorcerer.
I can tell you that blizzard worked to tremendous effect for me! Its hindering effects on sight and movement (1 square = 4 squares) made the party struggle for a while since they hadn't pre-buffed with flight spells at all. Eventually, they forced Arkhryst to retreat back to his lair, but he didn't come out to fight them there. Instead, he hid in his network of tunnels for them to open the portal to Runeforge, then stealthily followed them through.
While they were exploring, he was doing the same and went into the Necromancer wing where the lich there turned him into a Ravener. That led to an awesome and hair-raising final chase through the Halls of Wrath with Arkhryst the Ravener seeking to destroy them all the way through! They finally tried to ambush him in the Hall of Preparation, which turned bad for them in a hurry -- blizzard in that room worked to his advantage with the high stealth score he had! They finally put his down, but it wasn't until he had virtually wiped them all out.
Good times.
Sounds fun, thanks.
As to blizzard: It states affecting the area around him. have you treated it as following him or as affecting the area he used it in and staying there?
As it is centred on him, and the FAQ about spells centred on large creatures states that the area is measured from the outer edge of the creature's square, that makes it a big affected area.
As to blizzard: It states affecting the area around him. have you treated it as following him or as affecting the area he used it in and staying there?
As it is centred on him, and the FAQ about spells centred on large creatures states that the area is measured from the outer edge of the creature's square, that makes it a big affected area.
I didn't have it follow him. He uses his breath weapon to create it, so it's not a spell effect, but supernatural ability (I picture him breathing out all around him to form a blizzard vortex). Thus, where he breathes it out is where the blizzard stays.
That makes sense, thanks.
My players will soon be meeting freezemaw and I want to give them a good fight. The glabrezu and the hounds of Lamashtu proved to be too easy for them and, being a dragon, Freezemaw should be a more memorable fight.
What I noticed is that the freezing fog ability seems to hamper himself as much as the party as he can't ignore the solid fog part for movement and the fog part for vision. He only ignores the grease part.
I contemplated changing freezing fog in a way that it uses the grease part instead of the solid fog part, not in addition to it. That way he can still do 5ft steps.
The blizzard ability sounds good but I'm not sure it's worth it.
Being huge his crush ability only works on small targets, so worth a lot against mainly medium parties.So what abilities should I use in addition to flying low and using his breath?
I could use freezing fog while flying higher than its effect, could I? The hight of freezing fog is 20ft and the cone is 50ft.Any further advice?
I recently ran a thread on this as well. I am still in a game of cat and mouse with my players with him. Turned into a lot of great cinematic escape scenes. I also felt this encounter should be terrifying and not just another Longtooth, as that was way to easy for my group.
One of the biggest keys flaws to this combat, was corrected in the ROTRL erratic thread. Freezmaw should have the Snatch feat. The fix was to swap Sunder for Snatch, which makes the Fly By Grab tactic a lot more practical( it was lost in translation I guess). I felt the site limitations of the blizzard/freezing fogs, combined with its frighting presence, constant threat of breath weapons, and Greater vital strike all left the group with a lot to be afraid of.
Freezemaw has dragon senses, dark-vision, snow vision and blind-sense so it doesn't matter if the PCs are obscured via the fog and blizzard effects, as long as he has a straight line on them he doesn't need to roll perceptions. Freezemaw also has icewalk so is not effected by the grease aspects.
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I managed to get three challenging encounters out of him.
The first time, the PCs had a general idea there was a dragon present, but while they messed with the stones, they started to relax because he didn't show up right away. Given his ability to see through the snowsqualls, he just watched from above. Then buffed. Then flew. Then fell on them. DR applies to falling damage, so he was nearly uninjured yet squished a bunch of PCs. Roll for initiative.
With his high AC, he was able to avoid taking any real damage for the first encounter.
Using things like wall of ice to isolate and separate the party works very well.
The third time he showed up, he used invisibility to approach closely and ambush.
Basically, I treated him as very intelligent, using his spells and mobility repeatedly. He never used the same tactic twice, and never used his breath weapon (assuming the PCs would be resistant to cold damage).
Don't let him get surrounded, don't let him get swarmed, basically don't let the PCs ever get a full attack on him. Remember to dimension door the heck out of the fight the moment things even START to go south. Vanishing after smashing the group is demoralizing and underlines how badly the fight went for them, which makes him look more dangerous than he really is.
I never played the game of "the dragon flies from beyond your reach to beyond your reach while breathing on you as it goes by" game, which is lame and annoying. I managed to engage the group locally, but always after negating their advantages.
He's probably the most memorable encounter for my players. And yes, he managed to kill two PCs.
I wanted to second changing up his spells/feats a little bit. For example, he has no business having fog cloud as a spell known when it's an at will spell-like ability 12 caster levels higher. Also, some of his best abilities are about confusing the party. For example, doing a bunch of damage with his breath weapon is fine, but blizzard is so much more effective.
Would you see using blizzard as an attack? Would it cancel invisibility?
Same with wall of ice.
And how much snow would blizzard create when it comes to using snow shape?
As wall of ice gives a ref save to disrupt the forming wall I thought about creating one with snow shape created from the snow produced via blizzard.
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I never played the game of "the dragon flies from beyond your reach to beyond your reach while breathing on you as it goes by" game, which is lame and annoying. I managed to engage the group locally, but always after negating their advantages.
This. So much this. Yes, breath weapon strafing run is a very viable tactic, but it's a very boring tactic as well, and we play this game to have fun. The players will forget the dragon attack where it flew over them and breathed on them once every three rounds or so. They won't forget the encounters Anguish described.
I took the idea that Freezmaw was waiting for the puzzle of the circle to be solved. He also wanted into the Runeforge, so he stayed and waited in the Frozen Cathedral to ensure anyone who figured it out, would need to come through him. So after the group has the keys... it's on. Knowing of the group he wanted to set the stage in his favor and figured the group might think the snow storm was just part of the process. I played up the effects as they worked to gather the keys.
What was a slight snow as they began at the Circle, had worked its way into a full blizzard by the time they had the keys. That's when we began the encounter, via one initial breath weapon to scatter the group. This also set the tone (the freezing fog setting in with its 2d6 damage, rolls for frightful presence as they see there worst fears first hand, and then the breath weapon saves/20d4 damage)I felt trying to scatter while on a sheet of ice... all of which (for me) visual image wise, strategy wise, is way to good to pass up.
From there I changed tactics a few times, and did some of the same things as others mentioned. I really enjoyed watching the group work through the process and adjusted accordingly. Some examples of his tactics; the obvious snatch and grab, the invisible attack, and the hover and bite with Greater Vital Strike, Attempting to pick off any that were not strategically located. The main goal was simply never letting the group gain an advantage, I wanted them to really work for the entry to Runeforge
They ended up porting to the cave entrance. Which was great as it avoided the Earth Elemental's that would have perhaps been the death of them. I knew the real battle would be in the cathedral where the group might actually have an advantage. One where Freezemaw knew he had to win or potentially be left out of the Runeforge. As the perfect cliche, the group was busy arguing over the huge pile of treasure when the second encounter began.
Before it was all over we had used the full height of the cathedral, Freezemaw hovering, some of the group was flying, some used the frozen ramp and one attacked from below. It was pretty epic secondary battle that involved lots of icicles, around fifty thousand coins, and everyone in the group being tested to their limits.
It ended with two riders holding onto Freezemaw for dear life, and Freezemaw flying out of the cave at full speed for his.
Currently, Freezemaw and the party are still live, and are lined up for another epic encounter in Runeforge. He waits for them in the huge room of K1, in the Halls of Wrath where they will need to try to exit.
Was a fun encounter to play.
So now we had the first encounter with Freezemaw. It was interesting.
While the party was playing with the magic stones freezemaw approached invisible. His first action was to use blizzard, to which most of the party did not react at all thinking it was a natural phenomenon. Only one used endure elements.
Next round the dragon used freezing fog, dealing a little damage and further restricting possible movement. Again, only one party member reacted to it by casting resist energy: cold. The rest kept using the stones.
Now the dragon activated his fearful presence, used his breath and landed between the stones.
Now utter panic struck. The mage was frightened, the paladin could neither see nor move but the psyker (tactician) could act because of some freedom of movement effect. He used one psi power to move the paladin towards the mage and moved there, too so the mage could teleport them to their home base.
Now they know what they are up against and can plan accordingly.
But they left one key in the mouth of one of the standing stones. Now I have to decide what to do. Does Freezemaw take this key? If so they have to kill him to get to runeforge. Or does he take it but leave it in his treasure? Or does he use it so that it will return to the stone circle after a time?
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Well, it seems as if the dragon is in a pretty bad situation here... as is any creature that is in the way of Golarion's must terrifying horror, The Adventuring Group.
I would say post up watching the stones (don't even try to DM logic why it would be watching constantly). When it sees the players have the dragon immediately start off with resist energy (fire) and invisibility.
One thing that I would never allow the group is to get him on the ground. Get in as many fly-by attacks and breath weapons as possible and then fall back to eventually follow them into Runeforge.
Given the dragon is well aware of the Earth Elementals you might even be able to have him lure the group into that fight to only throw another breath weapon on them and flee again.
The absolute key is to never engage them on the ground.
If you are as evil as me give the dragon the invincible mythic template to cut some of their damage and give the dragon more survivability.
But they left one key in the mouth of one of the standing stones. Now I have to decide what to do. Does Freezemaw take this key? If so they have to kill him to get to runeforge. Or does he take it but leave it in his treasure? Or does he use it so that it will return to the stone circle after a time?
Doesn't matter. The keys automatically return to the stones after a short period of time. I think it's an hour, but it's definitely in the book. So even if Freezemaw takes the key, it'll be back in the stone shortly. He in fact likely already knows that.
So now we had the first encounter with Freezemaw. It was interesting.
While the party was playing with the magic stones freezemaw approached invisible. His first action was to use blizzard, to which most of the party did not react at all thinking it was a natural phenomenon. Only one used endure elements.
Next round the dragon used freezing fog, dealing a little damage and further restricting possible movement. Again, only one party member reacted to it by casting resist energy: cold. The rest kept using the stones.
Now the dragon activated his fearful presence, used his breath and landed between the stones.
Now utter panic struck. The mage was frightened, the paladin could neither see nor move but the psyker (tactician) could act because of some freedom of movement effect. He used one psi power to move the paladin towards the mage and moved there, too so the mage could teleport them to their home base.Now they know what they are up against and can plan accordingly.
But they left one key in the mouth of one of the standing stones. Now I have to decide what to do. Does Freezemaw take this key? If so they have to kill him to get to runeforge. Or does he take it but leave it in his treasure? Or does he use it so that it will return to the stone circle after a time?
As others have mentioned, from what I understand the Key's reset in a hour back to the Ethereal plane. It's good the group didn't TPK right away, now they can plan. But I would make Freezemaw that much wiser of the groups tactics now as well.
If it was my group! Freezemaw would sit back in the Frozen Cathedral and make the group come to him, maybe even watch from the top of Rimskull cave entrance via stealth and wait to ambush them at the end of the ice tunnel. Line up a breath weapon on the, really set the tone of a blitzkrieg attack(as he was slow to attack the group before). I would optimally focus on stopping the casters from porting the group away, by forcing them to scatter so they cant just run away again.
I'll reread the part about the keys. I got the understanding that they only reset after being used on the portal.
I'll reread the part about the keys. I got the understanding that they only reset after being used on the portal.
I checked and yeah, as written that's sort of the implication. The keys return to the plinths an hour after they're used to wake up the portal.
Thing is... it's kind of nonsensical.
1} Freezemaw himself has several spells which would allow him to abscond with some keys if he wanted to. So for him to suddenly be excited because someone else released a key is silly. If he can sit on keys for an unlimited period of time, it's a given he would be, if only to screw over anyone else. Sure, there are keys he (probably) can't access (I didn't double-check what schools he's got) but if he's got half of them and someone shows up and frees up more, they've GOT to go through him to get his. True control of the circumstance.
2} There's no way that in 10,000 years nobody ever got their hands on a key. It's far more likely that keys have been taken away and just came back of their own accord many, many times. All that's never happened is all of them being in-hand at once, AND through Freezemaw's lair.
So frankly from a sensibility standpoint I'd recommend that keys just return to where they belong every hour. It worked well with my group, who took three attempts to defeat Freezemaw. When the keys they acquired vanished overnight, they immediately realized where they must be.
Actually, people have gotten their hands on the keys before. It out-and-out states that people have gone into the Runeforge before... and that possible replacement characters could be some of the transformed goldfish in the Greed section of Runeforge.
People do get in. They just don't leave afterward.
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transformed goldfish
Oh man. Good times.
Two of my players' characters got transmuted and the rest of the group had to retreat to rest up and rescue them. It was really amusing because the mithral mage had scooped up the two and baleful polymorphed them into cats. Then he took some normal goldfish in a bowl as blackmail material.
When the party fought their way back in to him, he had the bowl with a bunch of fish in it, and he threatened to feed them to the cats at his feet. Negotiations were... stilted, so he flipped a fish out of the bowl and the cats started feasting.
Well, the party went berserk and very nearly elected to fireball the cats just to stop them from possibly eating their friends.
Long story short is the scenario played out exactly as I'd hoped; by the narrowest of margins the players focused on Ordikon and took him out, then started trying to figure out which fish were their friends.
"Nope, no aura. Nope, no aura. Nope, no aura. In fact, none of the fish detect as magical..."
"... but the cats do."
Many laughs were had by all.
Anyway, to a certain degree my point is that I prefer my complications to be things I can predict the psychology of, and that serve a narrative purpose. McGuffins that can walk away over 10,000 years strike me as things that are likely going to have done. Even if they all have been united and used since the fall of Thassilon, that none have managed to actually go missing is a stretch of my imagination. Putting one in Freezemaw's lair is just forcing the players to go somewhere they're already inevitably going, so why bother?
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Runeforge was the most closely guarded secret in all Thassilon. When a near-extinction level event utterly destroyed the Empire, all memory it was lost. Such that the only way to get there now is to interact with a "resurrected" figure from that time.
Even if somehow Runeforge has been accessed since Starfall, it seems highly unlikely anyone has done so since Freezemaw has come to dwell in the cavern, otherwise he would have discovered the method for himself. [Which creates an interesting alternative: the pc's get the keys, deal with the elementals and find this immense treasure hoard. Freezemaw entered Runeforge centuries ago and became the ally or thrall of one of the lords there because he could not escape.]
Frankly the overall design of the Runeforge access is doofy. The keys are far too easily accessible - in the time of the Runelords, arcane power was more plentiful than Golarion of "today." It would have been a simple task to get the ability to cast 1 spell of 7 schools via item, etc. And the elementals are foolishly placed - they only react if someone uses the stairs? Again in the time of the Runelords, flight and flight capable mounts were available in abundance. Why would anyone take the stairs when they can fly? You don't have to be a specialist in Sloth to use fly to avoid climbing a mountain. If the dragon isn't there, any moderately competent arcane caster can get straight to Runeforge with hardly any effort. (Or perhaps two, if you're a Thassilon specialist.) Does not appear nearly as difficult to enter as the write-up in the chapter intro suggests.
I think I'm going to make some changes:
1) The head stones do not give up the key unless the caster of the spell knows he is looking for the key to Runeforge. There will be no accidentally stumbling on the stones, using detect magic and getting the keys. [Hey, it's an artifact-like structure - I can give it whatever metaphorical triggers I want.]
2) The elementals guard the entrance against the keys. If you don't have the keys, you are free to come and go as you like. Try to enter the cavern with even one key and without saying a password, the elementals attack. This is a better explanation (to me) as to why Freezemaw can use the place as his lair. What's that you say? The pc's don't have the password? Life as an adventurer is hard. I might let them find it in the library if they think to ask or explore the tunnel entrance carefully enough.
This seems harder to enter: you need to know Runeforge exists, you need to know where the headstones are located, you need to know what the headstones are for, you need to have magical abilities across all 7 schools and you need to know a hidden password.
Actually, don't forget: Sin magic makes it difficult for those spellcasters to get two of the keys. They only can do so by cooperating with a spellcaster of the opposing schools.
Notice anything different bout me Tangent?
Actually, don't forget: Sin magic makes it difficult for those spellcasters to get two of the keys. They only can do so by cooperating with a spellcaster of the opposing schools.
Understood. But no matter what your school is, there is at least one that doesn't have any overlap in forbidden schools with you. So two wizards, 7 1st level spells and access to flight get you into Runeforge. Doesn't seem very challenging to me. At least not to a super secret location the Runelords wanted available only to their best and brightest and specifically chosen.
Notice anything different bout me Tangent?
You... got your hair done!
No, no, that's not it...
um... you lost weight! Looks good!
hmm...
you armed your children and are razing the neighborhood as we speak?
Notice anything different bout me Tangent?You... got your hair done!
No, no, that's not it...
um... you lost weight! Looks good!
hmm...
you armed your children and are razing the neighborhood as we speak?
Look under the name man!
But now that you mention it, I have been meaning to weaponize the kids and pillage some shit... Egads, maybe I have been playing too much Fallout 3... I blame the robot in a wig that I convinced I was Thomas Jefferson :-)