An interesting dynamic has come up at my table--dueling divinations. The Temple has a ton of people who can cast divination and at least one who can cast commune. The PCs also have a cohort who can do spam 2 communes and 4 divinations each day. The players realized that this dynamic could result:
1. PCs form plan of action through divination/commune
2. Temple learn of the PC's plan and get counter-measures through their own divination/commune.
3. Repeat.
It's been quite interesting to see how players handle a wisdom-based opponent with access to a lot of information. Has your table done anything with this?
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It's been quite interesting to see how players handle a wisdom-based opponent with access to a lot of information. Has your table done anything with this?
My team likes to use Divination for "what if" scenarios. They played Rebels and Vengeance at the same time and used divination to experience a "what if the two parties met & fought?"
BUT. They did their planning in a mage's sanctum, immune to scrying. And I made the temple of Asmodeus one big mage's sanctum basically. It has zillion-year old protections from when it was the temple of Aroden plus what the Asmodeans have added so I didn't let them so much as detect on it. Everything bounces & you get a general sense of immense magical power coming from every brick of it.
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So my group has finally come to the end of book four. They’re a bit of a ham-fisted bunch and have chosen the less subtle approach of hitting the temple hard and often and having escape plans in place. This has led to some insanely high risk, high drama, combats in the knave and on the balcony of the temple.
At one point they killed Grivenner and absconded with the body and casted Legend Lore on his corpse to learn more about him and the ritual. As the Oracle was casting it, Grivenner’s body began to dissolve as they realized (true) resurrection was being cast on him. (Spell bumped because drama is king.)
I added a bunch of priests to the whole encounter placed mainly in the clergy quarters who then took station at different points throughout the temple to defend it. By their last foray, the enemy was down to 9 clerics, the gardener, the contract devil who joined the defense of the knave, a dead PC turned vampire, a risen Grivenner with few items, and Barzillai. Having dealt so much death on both sides, the PCs has just attained level 13 for this final moment.
When it was all said and done, Barzillai paced behind and under a Wall of Force as the party dispatched the rest of his entourage. The spell had two rounds left when the last Paralyzed cleric of Asmodeus was coup de graced by the party Spiritualist.
From behind the Wall of Force, Barzillai’s muffled voice could be heard.
“ You’ve proven yourselves particularly vexing. How happy you must be that we now stand amongst the bodies of those who have served me in life. I commend you on your persistence, but none of this matters.
You see, you’re like a child at a carnival. Far too eager to win your trinket, that you can’t see you’ve lost the game before it’s been played. I was once like you. Pathetically wide eyed and hopelessly continuing to spin the wheel hoping for my number. Let me reveal a little secret to you: the game you play is rigged. The wheel is weighted. But, there’s a way to win: one simply needs to move the weight as I have.
Then, and only then, one can’t possibly lose.
I can see the anger on all of your faces. I feel your seething hatred. You undoubtedly assume that, in this analogy, we are taking turns and now it’s your turn to spin the wheel. But you’d be mistaken.
Let me be entirely candid, I am done playing the game. I am now the grounds on which you are allowed to play.I offer you now, one last chance to bend your insolent knees. Prostrate yourselves before me and serve. If you refuse, I’ll be forced to break those knees.”
Next game the Wall will come crashing down and the beleaguered PCs will face a drained but still deadly Barzillai with 1 Mythic Tier.
If you’ve got an epic moment like this in your game where you can give a timely BBEG speech, steal this!
Great Questions
I thought the same!
But I kept describing Barzillai’s body continually heal from the bloodless wounds the PCs were delivering (a result of his healing inquisition). At that point the group was obviously nervous. It wasn’t long before they dealt him enough Dex damage to paralyze him, yet even so his body continued to heal...
The overall consensus was that they needed to Coup de Grace him before he heals any more.
I think what I’m trying to say is that it’s incredibly important for the GM to convey the idea that he is and will continue to be a threat if kept alive.
1) If your group is able to subdue Barzillai and remove his heart, I’d definitely pull that “spike of iron impales Barzillai before
retracting into the pit created while leaving his gear, and
more importantly, his Chelish Crux, behind in a smoking
heap.”
2) That’s a good question. Barzillai doesn’t want the Kintargo Contract voided. Barzillai knows the contract through and through, (after all he met with Odexidie and Odexidie wants it revealed) but he doesn’t care to void the contract. He is only keeping it as a back up plan just in case the throne or church discover his plans to become a genius loci.
For those of you who had Barzillai Teleport/DDoor to another area of the temple...
Where did you have him go? Did the location add something to the fight there?
I ended last session with the dimension door trick with him at 40 or so hit points. He's got one last erinyes and Corinstian Grivenner is stuck in an acid pit with a wall of stone preventing him from air walking out. So, help could come, but it's definitely the last battle.
I'm thinking of having him go to his Outer/Inner Sanctum area (39/41), where the forbiddance effect will make for challenging terrain. That could lead to a firefight, where the party refuses to go in and tries to lure him out.
For those of you who had Barzillai Teleport/DDoor to another area of the temple...
Where did you have him go? Did the location add something to the fight there?
I ended last session with the dimension door trick with him at 40 or so hit points. He's got one last erinyes and Corinstian Grivenner is stuck in an acid pit with a wall of stone preventing him from air walking out. So, help could come, but it's definitely the last battle.
I'm thinking of having him go to his Outer/Inner Sanctum area (39/41), where the forbiddance effect will make for challenging terrain. That could lead to a firefight, where the party refuses to go in and tries to lure him out.
That sounds like great fun! Lol
I didn’t utilize that area in my combats. I kinda wish I would have. I’ll be interested to see how it goes!
It worked very well as a retreat point. You can force melee people to trigger three Forbiddance effects (untyped damage, targeting Will). You have a sightline on the door, allowing you to cast ranged spells like your last flame strike or the blade barrier. But there's also corners for five foot steps out of line of sight. There's a spot in the second room where if you 5' step north, you force the melee person into room 2, then another 5' step west forces them to step into the third room to get at you.
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Prepping to run the Temple of Asmodeus for my group on Friday. Barzillai's stat block reference is listed in room E41 on page 57. It is referring to full entry in the NPC Gallery on page 64. Why are they listed with different values? I can't see how that would be in the description of the room/area and didn't seem that anyone has posted about this before. So I must be missing something.
Page 57:
BARZILLAI THRUNE CR 15
XP 51,200
hp 191 (see page 64)
Page 64:
BARZILLAI THRUNE CR 16
XP 76,800
hp 206 (15d8+135)
A bit annoyed that the stats for Rivozair's breath weapon isn't stated anywhere, I get that it's a Hellfire breath weapon but the shape of it and the number of die it has are completely up in the air.
A bit annoyed that the stats for Rivozair's breath weapon isn't stated anywhere, I get that it's a Hellfire breath weapon but the shape of it and the number of die it has are completely up in the air.
Hero Labs has it as 12d8 Electricity with a DC of 23.
A bit annoyed that the stats for Rivozair's breath weapon isn't stated anywhere, I get that it's a Hellfire breath weapon but the shape of it and the number of die it has are completely up in the air.Hero Labs has it as 12d8 Electricity with a DC of 23.
Hero Labs is painting the picture of a standard Blue Dragon, which Rivozair is definitely not with her Devilbound template making it a Hellfire breath weapon with it now being half fire half unholy energy.
So would that be 6d8 fire and 6d8 unholy?
In order to save space for story and other things they didn't reproduce the entirety of what Rivozair's stat block. (Eg: the damage from her aura isn't listed, neither is her Desert Thirst ability)
Anything not listed is that of a standard blue dragon, therefore her breath weapon is a 100 foot line, DC 23, the damage stays as 12d8 but is half fire and half unholy energy.
Yeah, it's a bit of a pain that the stat block doesn't list everything, but at least it's done to flesh other things out a bit more.
Am I reading it right that the party is supposed to level up after clearing the Temple, then immediately go fix the bells? That seems like a really weird place to put it.
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Excerpts from “Ravounel: A History” by author-unknown 4719, Ravounel.
This was a struggle 100 years in the making. Starting the moment Abbie 1 swore allegiance to Asmodeus, people in the North didn’t take to it. They grumbled and they swore ‘better not try to bring that devil-talk up here…’ Well, they did just that.
The Silver Ravens were like the city’s elite defense force. They had chased off or killed many great threats to their home that came from Nidal, or the Sea, or the mountains. Now they faced a threat from within.
They fought the new order laid down by Thrune and they did well at first, but they faltered. They went too far and turned on each other. Kintargo’s celebrity defenders all turned up dead or disappeared, and things were quieter for about three quarters of a century.
One thing tumbles into another though. A hell-knight raids the mansion of a nobleman found in violation of some this or that. There he finds a sword Iomedae used to carry. So he takes it and proudly hangs it up in Citadel Dinyar. When the Iomedaeans get wind of it, they feel they should have it instead. The hell-knights, never much for words, just say ‘No.’
The paladins take this harder than anyone expects, and raise a force. They storm the hell-knight’s fortress, lock them up or kill them and they take the sword. Seeming surprised at their own success, they figure they’ll just press on and see what else they can trash in Cheliax, Iomedae’s old stomping grounds. Fools from afar flock to their banner and soon they’re not just a band of upstarts, they’re downright “Glorious” in their own words.
This sends Cheliax into a panic. You know when you’re real scared and all the blood rushes into your body, your limbs go numb, and your head and heart start going fast as they can? That’s what Cheliax does. They pull back the army. The Navy blockades the Inner Sea. They close all the passes and so Kintargo is left to its own devices and a crazy Thrune-cousin named Barzillai is put in charge.
This ‘Barzillai’ is a cruel sort but he loves Kintargo. He moves into the Opera house, sees shows every week, has big expensive dinners and buys up art from all over. He also publicly humiliates anyone who goes against him and puts the city on a curfew. Imagine that? He’s loving and enjoying the Kintargo night-life but he tells the common-folk they’ve got a bedtime. Nope.
So the Silver Ravens emerge again. Different people, same anger. They start picking old Barzillai apart. They make a fool of him so he squeezes harder but they don’t bend. He gets really mean and they leave his Dottari dead in the streets. Then the city’s at war with itself and the rest of the world goes dark to us. Nidal closes it’s borders. No more ships come up the coast. Menador pass is shut.
So we Kintargans hash this out ourselves. Barzillai lays trap after trap and does some damage, but the Ravens keep escaping. Finally it’s just fighting in the streets, only Barzillai don’t step in the street, he flies over us all on his blue dragon breathing hellfire. He’s had enough. He’s fallen out of love with Kintargo and just wants to watch it burn.
That’s when the Ravens crawl out of the river, the dark alleys, even the taverns and just take him on. He tries to burn the library and they put it out. He tries to hold Bleakbridge and they cover the stones in Dottari blood. Barzillai even sneaks in some Thrune warships from Pezzack but mother nature herself rises up and beaches a couple of them before the last one stands out to sea.
Now B.Thrune is hopping mad. He sends the dragon to Aroden Plaza where the Ravens & Dottari are mixing it up, and breathes fire on the lot of them. Killing his friends and enemies alike. The Ravens survive it and a local boy, Lothario, lands a lucky shot wounding the drake and she retreats back to the Temple of Asmodeus - highest building in the city.
The Ravens clean up the streets with the help of the Hellknights of the Torrent. No one knew who’s side they’d come in on until Barzillai hedged his bets and banned them, took their holdings, and locked them up. That pissed them right off and they are Blue as the ocean now, not a spot of red on them.
The Ravens and Knights of the Torrent siege the temple, pinning the Asmodeans in there, but Barzillai has his dragon fixed up. He rides out to destroy. Throwing punches in the air, we call it, only these fists are 200 foot pillars-of-flame. He kills some good people and destroys some parts of Kintargo we still don’t have back.
He even goes for the orphanage but old Clenchjaw draws him off. Nobody rightly heard what Clench said to Barzillai as he sailed past on his dragon, but it must have been something. Thrune turned, spared the orphanage and dropped a building on old Clenchjaw. Took us a week to dig him out, dead with a smile on his face and his hands clenched in fists.
The Ravens work up the nerve to go into the devil’s home, and this flushes the dragon out. That’s when we learnt that the Ravens fight devils with angels. A huge man made of pure silver wielding a green-glass sword fought that dragon and knocked old Barzillai clean off it and into the streets. Most will say the Angel killed him, but I saw it with my own eyes.
Gabriel, the Angel Raven did knock him off of Rivizair, the great blue drake, but Barzillai wasn’t done. He took them all on toe to toe and killed Elia Nones of the Scourge of Belial and Chuko the priest / weapon-trader from the Northside. The Captain of the Scourge was also present. And as the dragon had burned his ship to the waterline two days prior, and Barzillai had just killed his first mate, he’d had enough. He stepped to the Lord Mayor and ran him clean through.
But he didn’t die. Friends of devils are the Thrunes. It took a bit of help from Gabriel but they got him properly chopped up and moved onto his next life. We all thought that’d just be the end of him.
The people reinstated Jilia as Lord Mayor the very next day and we declared independence shortly after. We setup a statue of old Clenchjaw on the newly renamed Silver Span, formerly Bleakbridge. Thrune sent us a nasty note and we had a long way to go to settling it all, but that was the Battle for Kintargo, 76 years in the making.”
Rapidly coming up on having to run this, and I really just don't know what to do. It feels like it's got the same sort of issue book 2 has for me, where it's a bunch of different things with little guidance on what order they happen in. I am not a fan of running sandboxes, I have discovered. Would I be able to get away with just running things in the order they appear in the book (I have no interest in the Natsiel subplot and will probably just cut the Silver Star as I have no ideas on what to replace the contents with).
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If you want to ease your preparation burden as a DM, mandate that the party decide at the end of each session what mission they'll be taking on next time. There's too much going on to "theater of the mind" complex battles with lots of combatants and you can just tell them that they need to give you prep time.
As far as imposing your sequence on them, you can definitely influence them by using the military situation on the ground: "we're facing high casualties in this district", "we can't support our people across the river until we take the bridge", "DRAGON!!!", etc.
You can also use the Council of Silver at the outset to impose some order on the sandbox.
Finally, I cut the Natsiel subplot as well in favor of running set pieces I made up like "take Castle Kintargo" and a "Defend Old Kintargo".
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Thank you, rogue. I've always enjoyed reading your posts about the AP.
I was considering having, rather than an attack on the Lucky Bones (because I don't like the terrain in there, lmao), have the CCG assault the Tooth & Nail. Get some good resolution on Setrona and Luculla.
Huh. I thought it was great if for no other reason that the party gets a talking dinosaur as a reward. It also involves several important NPCs. Hetamon Haace, Shensen, and Strea Vestori all have important character beats in this mission. Meeting and rescuing Strea is something a party invested in Kintargo intrigues should find rewarding. She should have been talked up by other NPCs like Zea and Hetamon up to this point, and any of the NPCs who knew her should be ecstatic to find her alive.
Octavio's detection spell to locate Hetamon, and Shensen's eagerness to find clues about Guttugger should be enough of a hook to get players interested. Getting to the bottom of what happened at the Silver Star is payoff for stuff set up back in book 1.
Shensen and Strea can do other things (I'm thinking of where to put her), it's just some random hags and a half-succubus showing up and (implied) sexually assaulting her son is 1. completely out of left field for the AP 2. gross as hell, what