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Reading through the adventures in preparation for running the Iron Gods AP, I am noticing that it is far too easy for the heroes to get the impression (from the information in Lords of Rust) that they should go from Scrapwall to Starfall. There is very little about Casandalee, so I could easily see the players missing the importance of that clue.
Has this been a problem in actual play?
There will be no problem if GM describe Technic League like Stasi or KGB. Unlimited resources, cunning agents, technological wonders and light dose of paranoia should make enough impact on PCs. Khonnir,Joram nad Sanvil in my game clearly stated that only fraction wars prevents Technic League from conquering other lands and described powerful robots which can slay a tough warrior in one slam. It should be enough motivation for players to seek allies and more info.
My group is almost to the end of Lords of Rust. I noticed the same thing that you did and went over the available information about Casandalee and Iadenveigh a few times to see how I could make it more obvious. Kulgara and her journal seem to be where the biggest clues lie, so I rewrote the bullet points from the journal entries on a handout in Kulgara's own words, and even dated it according to the Golarion calendar. Hopefully they'll understand, at least from a metagame standpoint, that the journal is important and use it to pump Hellion for information before taking him/it out.
I am at the same point, my party is suffering from me as a DM, I have not let any clerics in the party to see how the group manages (i.e. no Divine spell casters except for Druid). As such they suffering somewhat but coping well. However my point is that its a good idea to force them back to Torch where they can level up, purchase some stuff and make stuff as required. Also if you need to redirect them to the Choking tower the friendly mage can do so.
I am at the same point, my party is suffering from me as a DM, I have not let any clerics in the party to see how the group manages (i.e. no Divine spell casters except for Druid). As such they suffering somewhat but coping well. However my point is that its a good idea to force them back to Torch where they can level up, purchase some stuff and make stuff as required. Also if you need to redirect them to the Choking tower the friendly mage can do so.
I handled it in a similar way. Escorting Dinvaya back and reporting to the town's council. On the ship they had enough time to read through the journals, but my group also had a conversation with Hellion, where he revealed some details about his past and his connection to Casanadale. I was cryptic enough so that the interest of my PCs was raised, but to much so that it was still a mystery to them.
We just made it through that transition tonight.
The big thing was making Unity feel insurmountable. This was accomplished by the following:
1) The fight versus Hellion was TOUGH.
He spent the whole time leading up to the Arachnoid fight boasting about how tough *he* was, and he wasn't kidding. When it came to the actual fight, he was a menace in close quarters combat, and he almost vaporized a party member when his core went critical.
2) Knowledge that Hellion not only hates, but *FEARS* Unity, and in its' current state, knows it cannot defeat it. Hellion's inferiority is a FACT.
3) Hellion believes that Casandalee's knowledge is VITAL to gaining the advantage over Unity's defenses. Even with the excavator fully powered and all his minions, Hellion needs Casandalee's neurocam.
Trying to assault Unity should feel like trying to assault the Death Star. Without the special mission to steal the plans and exploit the weak exhaust port, the rebels have *nothing.* There is *no* attack plan without those blueprints. To consider otherwise would be suicide.
No, it's from Lords of Rust.
Other scare tatics can include:
1.) The Leauge's leader has slain the (a) anihilator robot. Much more menecing if you tell the players he soloed it.
2.) A schorched and shattered villiage and/or tribal camp which contains evidence that the kellids slaughtered were anything but push overs (dire or megafauna pets and mounts also slain, a discarded or broken magic weapon, or maybe the tribe had or were giants). Then, if the party uses survival, reveal that maybe 5 to 8 creatures is all it took to slaughter the camp of 25 to 50.
3.) A brush with some technic leauge goons who are just as powerful as the PCs, but who are revealed to merely be initiates or apprentices. Amoung their gear can be notes that they are seeking an oracle or going to investigate the choaking tower.
No, it's from Lords of Rust.3) Hellion believes that Casandalee's knowledge is VITAL to gaining the advantage over Unity's defenses. Even with the excavator fully powered and all his minions, Hellion needs Casandalee's neurocam.Was this your own addition? It does sound like a good idea.
It is, but successfully communicating this to the players was part of my concern in starting the thread.
Other scare tatics can include:
1.) The Leauge's leader has slain the (a) anihilator robot. Much more menecing if you tell the players he soloed it.
2.) A schorched and shattered villiage and/or tribal camp which contains evidence that the kellids slaughtered were anything but push overs (dire or megafauna pets and mounts also slain, a discarded or broken magic weapon, or maybe the tribe had or were giants). Then, if the party uses survival, reveal that maybe 5 to 8 creatures is all it took to slaughter the camp of 25 to 50.
That sounds a little "meta." It is like telling the players that they need to level before going to Starfall.
That said, #2 would also be a good demonstration of the Technic Leagues evil. (Something that is missing from the AP.)
3.) A brush with some technic league goons who are just as powerful as the PCs, but who are revealed to merely be initiates or apprentices. Among their gear can be notes that they are seeking an oracle or going to investigate the choking tower.
I like this idea. The middle of the AP definitely needs more Technic League.
i'm running this next, and my plan is to replace the memory facets with pieces of casandalee's mind. the Idea being that as she was running away she split off portions of her memories, so that if she failed, someone else could stop unity. this way my players will get to meet her much sooner, and I can give them pieces of backstory to point them in the right direction without revealing everyone.
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Between hints I dropped while they were fighting Hellion and the extra time they had to study Kulgara's journal en route to Chesed to sell off loot and gear up they figured out that Iadenveigh was their next destination just fine. While they were spending time in Chesed I introduced them to some of the players in Chesed and ran them through Return to Sky (swapping out the Sky Key for a family heirloom Ingret Jor wanted), this gave them something to do while waiting for gear to finish getting enchanted and introduced them to the Ingret and her nephew, who will be used as a catalyst for side mission after book 4 when I subject my party to some kyton-induced trauma with the Chapel of Rent Flesh underneath Chesed (check out the Numeria Campaign setting for more info).
This was a problem for me too. My party had virtually no reason, after dealing with Hellion and the Lords of Rust, to go to Iadenveigh. The only reason they went is because Hellion dropped hints that one of the android PCs was related to Cassandalee somehow. Apart from that, the party didn't care one whit about Unity or Iadenveigh or the Technic League, and it would've been a very short campaign :)
More and more I'm starting to think this is actually not such a bad thing. I want to emphasize the TL a lot more, and after book 2 they should be powerful enough to skirmish with the TL a bit. If they're not exactly beelining the Unity plot, good.
Yes, some battling with the Technic League at this point would be a good thing. Pity they are almost absent from the next two books of the AP.
But even that requires a better bridge between books 2 and 3.
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I hyped up the story about Casandalee by Hellion having sent a rogue minion to Starfall to illicitly obtain a copy of the Technic League's file on Casandalee. This also led to an early mention of Furkas Xoud, for he had stolen the original file.
And Hellion told them via the monitors that he wanted to team up with Casandalee--he did not seem to understand that she would have died of old age--because she had a remarkable record of defeating the robots Unity sent after her. This interested the party.
But the players knew that they did not have to hurry out of Scrapwall after defeating Hellion. They hired some scappers and mined the good scrap in the formerly haunted valley to earn some money. They were terribly short on wealth by level. But the black market merchants who stopped by Scrapwall to buy technology were Technic League spies, so eventually a high-level six-person team from the Technic League showed up. I purchased the Returned to Sky Pathfinder Society Scenario and borrowed the team out of it. The party escaped.
Now the Technic League has their description (the party contains a strix, so is quite recognizable) and the PCs want to lie low. Investigating Iadenveigh seemed safe. When Ivek Gunnett asked them to identify a Technic League spy in Iadenveigh, they were highly motivated.
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Nicely done. :-)
People who have played past this point, how difficult was the trasition between Lords of Rust and The Chocking Tower?
In other words, did your PCs want to go directly to the Palace of Fallen Stars?
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It's only really only a problem if you play up the Technic League more than the AP indicates. As far as LoR is concerned, the Technic League really doesn't have anything to do with anything. Other than being a general boogyman of Numeria, the TL isn't directly responsible for anything that happens in the AP.
The only real pitfall is if you have Hellion mention or make reference to Starfall, the TL, or Unity. If the players are already under the assumption that the TL are behind it all because of course they are (even though they aren't), having the BBEG mention them might cement the preconception. If anything, you should try to have Hellion make reference to Casandalee.
Additionally, the thread is easy to lose because it hinges on the PCs finding one or both of the two diaries. So its really important that the PCs find them. You may even want to add a note from Meyanda in one of the rooms just to give the PCs an extra chance.
Don't make the diaries hard to find, and if the PCs do find a diary, don't bury it in a list of loot. Draw attention to it in your description of the results of their search so they key in on it's importance.
If they do seem set on visiting Starwall, have every NPC they talk to (Jorum Kyte, Konner, Dinyvaya) remind them what a colossally bad idea it would be to take on the TL without some serious back-up. If they mention the diaries or casandalle to any of these, feel free to have the NPCs beat the PCs with a clue bat till they get it.
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It's only really only a problem if you play up the Technic League more than the AP indicates. As far as LoR is concerned, the Technic League really doesn't have anything to do with anything. Other than being a general boogyman of Numeria, the TL isn't directly responsible for anything that happens in the AP.
It is amusing to read this thread again from the perspective of nine months later. As I said above, a few clues tailored to my party's interests had them willing to visit Iadenveigh in The Choking Tower. What I had not expected is that they would have little motivation to visit Starfall in Palace of Fallen Stars, for the reason that Quantum Steve just pointed out.
In Valley of the Brain Collectors they fought eldritch alien menaces. People of civilized races, even evil Technic League oppressors, seemed friendly after that. Defeating Unity still motivated them, so their main reason for confronting the Technic League was to learn any Technic League secrets about the Divinity. They infiltrated the Technic League rather than battling them, and once they had the desired information and their cover story was starting to unravel, they left Starfall still at 13th-level.
But that experience has given me ideas for what to do if a 7th-level party heads directly to Starfall instead of to Iadenveigh.
Starfall is a big city. The size of the local guard force: city guards, palace guards, Technic League guards, and supplemental robots, should be intimidating. The Technic League has their own walled compound with 6th-level battlemages and 8th-level sellswords (Pathfinder RPG GameMastery Guide pages 256 and 283) on the walls.
If the party is still foolish enough to tackle the Technic League head on, then have the guards armed with stun batons to capture them alive. I roleplayed the Technic League as preferring to take opponents alive to sell as slaves. The post-Scrapwall party would make terrible slaves, so instead, a Technic League battlemage offers them a deal. They help him loot the Choking Tower and they are free to go. Of course, the Technic League puts tracker chips in them in case they try to escape.
In the Choking Tower, they find reference to the spaceship buried under Iadenveigh. The battlemage decides to raid that, too. The battlemage might barge into Iadenveigh in full Technic League gear, which will lead to trouble. The storyline about the spy Ilarris Zeleshi is sidelined, except that she will be upset that a minor Technic League battlemage is interfering with Captain Ghartone's plan. Perhaps Ilarris has the means to remove the party's tracking chips and makes a new deal with them.
If the party is not foolish enough to tackle the Technic League head on, then they have a minor adventure in town against a level-appropriate foe, such as a single corrupt palace guard or a local gang, and return to the adventure path as written. Perhaps they encounter a former apprentice of Furkas Xoud who drops the name Casandalee again, saying that Xoud was sure the answer had been in Iadenveigh but was next seen as a ghost haunting his tower.
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I keep thinking that Palace would be much more interesting as a true infiltration story, rather than "get in range for frontal assault".
Yes, the palace is big enough that they should be hiring staff regularly. And I think that the managers are corrupt enough that a bribe can secure a position. A bard could be an entertainer. A fighter or barbarian could be a low-level guard, though becoming an official palace guard requires connections in the Black Horse barbarian clan.
The palace also has the potential for the social interaction of arranging an audience with Kevoth-Kul, the Black Sovereign of Numeria.
Both of these would be possible for a 7th-level party that went to Starfall rather than Iadenveigh, but having those events lead anywhere useful would be a challenge for the GM.
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Well, the players might overhear a conversation in Starfall between some TL researchers about a site they suspect exists in Iadenveigh, and plans to mount an expedition to it. But the players could get there faster because they don't have to politick around - and they can warn the locals the TL is coming knocking.
So basically, plant a lead towards Iadenveigh in Starfall. It's actually a much more plausible location for the clue than Hellion just randomly talking about it.