Attacking haunts with positive energy

[Tusk the Half-Orc]

My players are likely to start an adventure with a number of haunts in our session tonight, and it occurs to me that the party cleric is likely to try to neutralize the haunts by channeling positive energy or using her wand of cure moderate wounds. I understand the mechanics if she chooses channel, which has a radius effect, but I think she is more likely to use the CMW wand since she and the party wizard crafted it pretty recently and it still has about 40 charges left (compared to 5 channels/day).

Since cure spells are cast at range: touch, what does she touch to deal damage to a haunt? The affected PC? Some of the haunts in the module are directly associated with an object, but others are not - they are triggered by entering a particular room or square.

The Gamemastery Guide rules for haunts don't provide any guidance on this point - they just refer to "positive energy applied to the haunt." (Full paragraph quoted in the spoiler below.)

Also, some of the haunts act for more than one round. The rules for haunts indicate that a haunt is vulnerable to positive energy on the surprise round, but it is only on the surprise round?

I'd appreciate any advice / experience on these points.

Haunts:

"On the surprise round in which a haunt manifests, positive energy applied to the haunt (via channeled energy, cure spells, and the like) can damage the haunt's hit points (a haunt never gains a Will save to lessen the damage done by such effects, and attacks that require a successful attack roll to work must strike AC 10 in order to affect the haunt and not merely the physical structure it inhabits). Unless the haunt has an unusual weakness, no other form of attack can reduce its hit points. If the haunt is reduced to 0 hit points by positive energy, it is neutralized—if this occurs before the haunt takes its action at initiative rank 10, its effect does not occur."

PRD-GMG: Haunts

[Mark Hoover]

By RAW you're touching AC 10. Since it has no Armor or Dex indicated there is nothing to subtract for Touch or Flat Footed AC, so it remains a 10 for those purposes. Therefore:

1. PCs enter the room; Perception (or Knowledge: Religion; I don't know how they act on the surprise round with haunts)
2. If the cleric has an action and act before Initiative 10, they attack an AC 10
3. If the Haunt acts first the effect happens and the party simply needs to deal with that.

Also to your second question once the Haunt's effect takes place the PCs are left to deal with the effect unless the thing is Persistent at which point you can neutralize them before their effect goes off next round.

That's the rules, now let's look at the fun.

Take a look at the example haunt, Bleeding Walls in your link. The trigger is a proximity; PCs must enter a space for the Haunt to go off. Also there is a DC 20 Perception check to act in the surprise round.

Setup:

the PCs are in the bar one night and a crazed drunk is getting belligerent with the owner. The PCs overhear the old man screaming that his sister haunts his dreams, even though she died all those years ago. The noble that done her in never paid for his crimes. The creepy old house on the hill was the last place she ever was and at night the man can still hear his sister weeping.

In talking to the old man he reveals himself a Cyrus Burg, a troubled soul whose mind broke years ago from the weight of guilt and the poison of alcohol. He mutters, sees things that aren't there and on many occasions has tried to hurt himself and others. Despite his mania the party is able to ascertain that Burg's sister, Malia, was a maid for a noble. The cruel lord used and debauched her but Malia's wages were the only thing keeping the family going so Cyrus urged her to stay quiet. One day she decided she'd had enough and went to work one last time to confront the noble; she never returned home.

Now, decades later a new noble has taken possession of the house. He and his manservant entered three days ago; they haven't been seen since. The place has been abandoned and rumored to be haunted all this time. Now Cyrus believes its somehow connected to his sister.

Leaving the party at their table the man staggers out into the night. Seconds later the PCs hear a scream. Racing outside they see the new noble's manservant dropping Cyrus' limp form to the ground. Disturbingly the servant's eyes have been completely torn out leaving dead, bleeding sockets behind.

The party battles this horror and destroys it. During the fight the servant's voice is that of a woman's but disembodied. Once the battle is over Cyrus confirms with his dying breath (no amount of healing/restoration saves him) that what they just fought was somehow his sister, taking her revenge.

Haunt:

After busting into the house, dealing with some other hazards and undead the PCs begin to ascend to the second floor. As they do the floor gives way and the staircase collapses; a harrowing moment later the party is at the top of the steps staring down a 40' drop into the cellar far below. Thankfully avoiding this close call the party heads down the hall to the master bedroom.

The PCs can tell the room was once opulent and masculine, but now the furnishings are all covered with dusty sheets. The bed itself has thick drapery enclosing it; as the PCs look on a sudden breeze flutters it from the inside. One of the party members gives into the temptation and gets close to the bed. Flinging back the drapes nothing waits on the other side.

Then it begins.

All the PCs roll their Perception checks. The ranger and the cleric make theirs; the wizard and fighter do not. The ranger and the cleric hear a soft sobbing echoing all through the room; the sound is disembodied and unnatural making the hairs on the back of their neck stand on end. The cleric rolls her initiative, an 11, with the ranger having a 16. The ranger casts about for an enemy, something to attack but the danger seems all around him at once; this is no ghost or goblin, but the threat is no less real!

Holding his initiative the ranger waits, desperate for something to hit. Then to the cleric whose fingers tighten on the wand still in her hand from healing the wizard the round before. Despite years of training and months of adventures something about this moment makes the blood in her veins freeze. She hesitates and the ranger glares at her: "Do SOMETHING!" The sobbing begins to twist into a cruel laugh and out of the corner of her eye the cleric sees small rivulets of blood forming on the walls. The air is suddenly so cold the cleric can see her breath and there is a copper taste to it. Evil is coming.

Then from the bed another sudden breeze. No, not a breeze, a FACE starting to form from a rising mist. The walls are definitely starting to bleed. A sudden calm guides the cleric. Pharasma is the mistress of all things beyond; her wisdom and strength flows through me. The wand comes up. The face becomes clearer, that of a woman. The blood is streaming now. The celestial words to activate the wand begin to tumble from the cleric's steady lips. The weeping laughter rises to a fever pitch. All the party can see all of it now and a palpable dread begins to rise! "... NICTU" the cleric finishes and the moonstone with the black rose relief flares to life on the item's tip.

The cleric surges forward a few feet and thrusts the wand forward. "Back to the GRAVE with you woman! Pharasma waits for you!" The cleric's wand snakes out and the glowing stone makes contact at the last second with the maid's ghostly face. There is a shrill shriek of a woman's voice but not in triumph but in pain. A blinding flash goes off.

The cleric rolled a 10 on her attack roll and hit the Haunt with a wand of Cure Moderate Wounds. She inflicts 12 damage from positive energy. This is enough to inactivate it. The result is that the moment after the light fades the party looks around the room and finds everything the same as when they entered. No bleeding walls, no cold in the air and no disembodied voices or faces. The Haunt has been shut down for the moment.

The bigger problem now is figuring out how to reveal the Haunt's final resolution. Remember that even though the mechanics of the device are set the "flavor" of it all is up to you as the GM.

[Tusk the Half-Orc]

Thanks, Mark, that's a helpful (and appropriately scary!) example. A couple of the haunts in this module are invisible to anyone not affected, but perhaps I can describe it in a way that there is still a focal object or area that would be the target for the AC 10 touch attack.

[Fourshadow]

Mark, that made for some riveting reading!
My son recently GMed his brothers and I and he hit it out of the park. He made a haunted house that we have barely scratched the surface of in 3 hours of play. His brothers were frustrated with the haunts at first, but quickly warmed up to the adventure. With regard to haunts, bring lots and lots of holy water and a cure wand(just like Mark's story). They are challenging because you have to discover the cause and put the spirit to rest...(so which character is Dean? Sam? Bobby? Rufus?).

[HWalsh]

Fourshadow wrote:

Mark, that made for some riveting reading!

My son recently GMed his brothers and I and he hit it out of the park. He made a haunted house that we have barely scratched the surface of in 3 hours of play. His brothers were frustrated with the haunts at first, but quickly warmed up to the adventure. With regard to haunts, bring lots and lots of holy water and a cure wand(just like Mark's story). They are challenging because you have to discover the cause and put the spirit to rest...(so which character is Dean? Sam? Bobby? Rufus?).

A 3rd level Paladin is hilarious in these situations since they're immune to almost everything. Walk around denying there are ghosts as they don't see or hear jack squat.

[Crimeo]

I would suggest that if a haunt has no dex, it's AC is 5 at base, because it's effectively 0 dex would be a -5 penalty.

This seems to be the logic behind various other places in the book, involved in the description of breaking objects, paralysis victims (and all other helpless conditions), grappling hooking things, etc., all of which use a base of AC 5.

"An inanimate object has not only a Dexterity of 0 (–5 penalty to AC), but also an additional –2 penalty to its AC." Don't really seem to explain what the -2 is for, but no dex is described as -5 to AC.

[Paladin of Baha-who?]

The haunt rules specifically say the AC to hit a haunt with a positive energy spell that requires an attack roll is 10.