*SIGH*. It continues.
OK. Book 5 is well-written; I really LIKE the NPCs, the monsters, the motivations, and so forth. It's nothing like Book 4.
But...
Book 5: You have to travel 250 miles across a barren, hostile, desert environment, you need preparations, plans...
Hans: I cast Wind Walk. We're there in a little over 4 hours...
Book 5: Well, I guess I'll just tear up and throw out the first 10 pages of the book,then...
Anything in there that can use a dispel magic effect (greater would be more fun)? They didn't take any precautions to trigger "If fully clothed in white, they are 80% likely to be mistaken for clouds, fog, vapors, or the like." So they will be recognized as not a cloud.
Target 1 PC with the dispel effect. Assuming it succeeds , that leaves PC X suddenly tangible to fight, while the others have to burn 5 rounds, "Each change to and from vaporous form takes 5 rounds", while PC X has to survive on their own! Not to mention if caught in mid-air, falling damage applies - this isn't a fly spell.
Also, unless they prepared 2 wind walk spells, they are stuck with camping in desert for a night unless player X is abandoned...
The problem is, at that point you just start seeming petty as a GM.
"Well, you tried to do a perfectly reasonable thing, but since the AP wasn't written with that in mind I've put in a very unlikely encounter (nothing in the encounter table nor in the written encounters has Dispel Magic AFAIK, so it's GM fiat) just to make sure you can't do it."
Not my cup of tea. They'll either stop to investigate the landmarks I tell them they see, or they won't.
Sorry we crossed stream as I was adding the second bit. I don't know what's in the encounter table (and shouldn't look it up), but while wind walk is very good transportation, it's also very vulnerable transportation... and anything with a fly speed of greater than 150 can keep up for a combat encounter...
Checking it while prepping, and "If desired by the subject, a magical wind wafts a wind walker along at up to 600 feet per round..."
So you'd need a speed of 300 just to keep up and not get ignored. I don't know of a critter that has a speed of 300...
Fortunately, it looks like my problems are solved, and it's definitely to the author's credit:
Kaklatath has Girtablilu as a language. Although for some bizarre reason she doesn't have Knowledge: Nature, Event 1 (the markers on the PCs' path) are obvious enough they're going to land for them. She'll be able to read them. With the name of the creature and an example right in front of him, Hans' Knowledge: Nature should be enough to learn that "Girtablilus fiercely guard ancient places and treasures lost to history."
With THAT description, Lowls in the area, and a dead girtablilu on a pike, there's no way the PCs aren't going to go out of their way to find/assist the girtablilu, which solves my issues.
Oooh... they're supposed to ally themselves with the giants!?!?!?!?
Noooo, THAT'S not going to happen...
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So, I commented elsewhere that the given encounter rate (30% per hour with a maximum of 3 encounters a day) has almost a 99% chance of 3 encounters per day. For 12 days solid. I don't think 36 encounters in the desert is anyone's idea of "fun".
But I gamely decided to use that probability for just the first day.
3 immediate encounters (Impus Minor rolled poorly): A bhole (CR 17 vs. a sleeping 13th level party), the gnoll dreamquest (CR 15 vs. a sleeping 13th level party), and 3 Leng ghouls (at least a reasonable, fightable encounter).
At least these encounters reinforced my idea that random encounters are rather pointless, and you as a GM should focus on sprinkling them in "as things get boring", and choose encounters that sound interesting or exciting to the group.
This was just silliness.
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Session 72: Why, This Is a Dangerous Place, Isn't It?, Played 03-Apr-2020
As I mentioned in the previous post, the 30% chance of an encounter per hour is utterly unplayable, even with the 3 encounter per day limit, simply because 36 encounters is more than anyone is willing to play through.
Otherwise, it was a fairly straightforward night.
Okeno, Day 4: In the morning, Hans cast a Sending and contacted Skywin: Would she be willing to transport 44 slaves and a dire tiger to freedom in exchange for ownership of a 30,000 gold piece galley?
Yes, it was a no-brainer.
As Blackwarm waited the hour to go get her, the party did a bit of covert shopping. Fortunately, news of Biting Lash's ruthless demise had not spread significantly through the city yet (aided by the fact that Princess Njano now wanted nothing but to see them out of town, and since that was their obvious intent she wanted no one slowing their departure), so shopping was uneventful. Once everyone was back on board, Hans Scried Skywin and showed the looking glass to Blackwarm, and he teleported to her. Miraculously, he didn't have a mishap. Taking Skywin and a couple of her most reliable crew members (obviously including Billy Bob Joe Steven Mann), Blackwarm teleported back to the galley, where Skywin and her men started sizing up the slaves and assigning them to gruntwork to help get the ship underway. Neirida showed Skywin the captive tiger and asked for assurances that the both the slaves and the tiger were in good hands.
Skywin was nearly in tears in gratitude: The party had not only slain one of the most notorious slavers in Okeno, they were trusting her to get the slaves to safety, and giving her a galley. She didn't think she'd told them about her background; her parents' escape from Cheliaxian slavers with the help of the Bellflower Network, her own failed attempt to join ending when she killed a brutal Hellknight, and her current life on the run, but they had given her hope. And that was a gift that she could not repay. All she could say was that she'd stake her life on the slaves and the tiger making it safely to Andoran. Neirida picked up Skywin and hugged her. Skywin tried to hug Neirida back, but big barbarians have big shoulders, so it was kind of a half-hug. But a warm one.
The next discussion was how the party was going to get themselves to Neruzavin, and Freewing to freedom. Hans had prepared Wind Walk for the journey, but Helden didn't trust anything that made him unable to defend himself for 30 seconds. Without Wind Walk, the party would need mounts, and that would require going significantly out of their way to Katheer. Blackwarm coughed unsubtly. He did have three undead dire hyenas that could be used as mounts, and Kaklatath was small enough to ride Stitch. Helden pointed out that that left them one mount short, but Neirida quickly admitted that she'd be able to summon her own; she now had the ability to summon a shadow wolf as a mount. (Yes, the GM gave her permission to take Ghost Wolf, as it's just really cool and has no significant combat/diplomacy/cash benefits.)
With the issue of mounts, food, and shelter settled (Hans admitted he could provide food and shelter, and if he died, Blackwarm would be able to teleport them to safety, so the only danger to the party would be losing both of them at once), the group decided to accept Hans' offer to Wind Walk them to the shore of the Meraz desert. It would save them days of sailing, and Skywin wouldn't have to go out of her way. They bade their farewells to the slaves, Skywin, Billy Bob Joe Steven Mann, and even the tiger, though it did not seem particularly happy with its current circumstances, then the party, Freewing, and Kaklatath slowly changed to mist and headed east.
In spite of Helden's abysmal encounter rolls (he didn't seem to be able to roll above a 3 on 1d20, nor below an 80 on 1d100), the trip across the ocean was uneventful (only because the marid encounter he rolled up didn't have the ability to reach them so far above the water) and they landed on the shores of Qadira west of the Meraz desert. At that point Freewing noted that this area smelled "much more like home", and Neirida told him that he was now free. He seemed torn, wanting to travel with the party, but understanding that they were heading into mortal danger that they did not want to expose him to. These were noble humans indeed!
He nuzzled Neirida and she gently head-butted him, then he flew awkwardly off into the desert to establish his new territory. Blackwarm laid out his Portable Hole and called out his undead, and the party mounted up while Neirida summoned her ghost wolf. They made an awkward-yet-intimidating sight; an old woman, a shaman, a tengu, a barbarian, and Helden all mounted on their spooky, undead mounts, ready to ride eastwards into the desert. Hans put Endure Elements on everyone and the heat was no longer an issue.
They rode for most of the day, stopping for lunch as Hans cast Create Food and Water for the party. Having food for 39 was a bit much, but everyone appreciated it… except Helden. Helden desperately tried to do something to make the food tastier, but realized that the "mess kit" he'd been carrying for so long didn't have any seasonings in it beyond salt and pepper! Blackwarm cast Prestidigitation and offered to flavor Helden's food for him, but Helden refused, even when Blackwarm offered to make it taste like ice cream. Hans asked for roast chicken, Blackwarm had salmon, and Kaklatath chose beef. Neirida, not quite trusting the entire argument, chose to eat her summoned food as-is.
That evening, as they settled down to camp, the group was amazed when Hans summoned a temperate grove of trees, complete with tasty edible fruits and a fresh spring with clear water to drink. "Nice job, Hans," Neirida commented. The party set up watches, with Neirida and Hans taking first watch and Helden, Blackwarm, and Kaklatath going to sleep.
It was only around an hour after dark that Hans yelled, "We all need to get off the ground right now!!!"
He cast Fly on himself and flew over next to Helden. Neirida made herself fly and moved upwards. Blackwarm ordered Stitch to take Kaklatath into the air, laid out his Portable Hole, ordered his dire hyenas to jump in, then burned a Hero Point to take an extra action and get Fly on himself. Helden picked up the Portable Hole and declared he'd fly upwards the moment Hans cast Fly on him. A single, critical round and a Hero Point and the party was ready to move upwards. Hans got Fly on Helden and the party moved up, up, up… just as a giant maw engulfed the entire grove and swallowed it whole. Kaklatath identified the creature as a bhole, one of the largest, most dangerous predators on all of Golarion. Fortunately, it was little threat to creatures that could fly high enough, so the party flew, flew away, and traveled for as long as Hans' spells would carry them (around 10 miles), and Kaklatath suspected that that was far enough and fast enough that the bhole would be unlikely to find them again that night. Unfortunately, Hans didn't have another Grove of Respite prepared, so the party had to settle in for a lumpy night on the hot, hard sand.
But of course Impus Minor rolled another encounter, but this was the gnoll vision quest, and I ruled they wouldn't be wandering around aimlessly in the middle of the night when they could be dreaming, so we moved on to third watch, got yet another encounter, and this time Blackwarm saw three figures approaching through the dark. As they got within 50 feet of the camp, he recognized them as Leng ghouls, creatures very much like ghouls in their appetites, but far more "civilized" and willing to trade magic items and lore for information, or just for passage. Indeed, as Blackwarm woke the others the ghouls asked whether they might approach in the interest of trade, and Blackwarm kept them talking as Hans swapped out his Staff of Healing for a Rod of Reach and Helden pulled out his wand of Invisibility. It might have gone well, except mid-conversation Helden decided to turn Hans invisible.
Enraged, the ghouls charged. They immediately hit and paralyzed Kaklateth and Blackwarm. Things were going their way, and they would eat well this evening! Helden turned Blackwarm invisible, and Hans just asked Neirida to wait until he had a chance to go. Nobody expected much of Hans, since he'd already admitted that he'd swapped out all his offensive spells for survival spells.
Except he was a life shaman, and these were undead. On his to hit roll with a Reach Heal Hans got a natural 20, then a 16 to confirm. The Leng ghoul was lucky to still be at 1 hit point. Except Hans then performed a Quick Channel and it was instantly burned to dust. The other ghouls took minor damage, as did Stitch and one of the hyenas, but they were too busy attacking the ghouls that had attacked Blackwarm (incidentally leaving Kaklatash lying in the sand all by her lonesome a bit away from the party). Neirida, not wanting to be outdone by the party healer, activated her Boots of Speed, raged, and laid into one of the ghouls right over the back of one of the hyenas. The extra AC for cover didn't help it at all as she hit-hit-crit it into oblivion.
The lone remaining Leng ghoul had seen everything go from "swimmingly" to "I am going to die this round if I don't run like h***" in just two actions. Not being an idiot, the ghoul immediately started burrowing away. Not having anything that could stop him, and with Kaklatath and Blackwarm still paralyzed, the party did not pursue him.
Hans healed everyone up and they weren't interrupted for the rest of the evening. Hans asked again, "Wouldn't it be easier if we Wind Walked?"
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As far as I know, you can take a run action while flying (yes, I know that sounds strange) to move 4X your speed in a round. So once combat starts, anything that flies faster than 150, can move enough to catch up to the PC's - admittedly, slowly, but the PC's can't do anything else but move... so if they just try to run away, the thing just catches up again and again, gets 1 smack and has to catch up again. They pretty much have to spend the 5 rounds changing back... while the critter chases/beats on them...
Many years ago, I was in the US Army, stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. Coming back from somewhere off base one night, on a back road at the base, I came to a T intersection. I stopped at the stop sign, turned left, and accelerated to the speed limit (50 MPH). Then, when I was somewhere between a quarter mile and half a mile down the road, the MP who'd been sitting at the T (yes, I saw him there) came after me, caught up, and pulled me over. Gave me a ticket on the grounds that he had to go past the speed limit to catch up to me. To which I said "you didn't do well in high school physics, did you?"
... To which I said "you didn't do well in high school physics, did you?"That moment when you take a diplomacy check to get out of a speeding ticket, and roll a natural 1.
It was an MP, not a cop. So diplomacy would likely not work. I'm not sure how you contest a speeding ticket in a military station, but I suspect if they were able to, the superior officer would probably accept the truth, especially if they showed mathematically how you can't go the speed limit to catch up to someone going the speed limit, which means the reason for the ticket is suspect.
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It was an MP, not a cop. So diplomacy would likely not work. I'm not sure how you contest a speeding ticket in a military station, but I suspect if they were able to, the superior officer would probably accept the truth, especially if they showed mathematically how you can't go the speed limit to catch up to someone going the speed limit, which means the reason for the ticket is suspect.... To which I said "you didn't do well in high school physics, did you?"That moment when you take a diplomacy check to get out of a speeding ticket, and roll a natural 1.
Heh. You go to NJP, and the CO finds you guilty whatever you say. Unless... Well, I got another ticket at another time (different MP as well) at Fort Hood. This one was for "running a red light". I had pulled into the intersection to make a left turn while the light was green. Oncoming traffic preluded me from turning until it stopped coming, at which point I made my turn. I suppose technically I did "run the light" since I was in the intersection when it turned red for my direction, but what did he want me to do, back up? Anyway, NJP, $25 fine. Two weeks later, a guy named Replogle did exactly the same thing, at the same intersection. He also went to NJP. However... he worked in the Division JAG office. He wrote a four page deposition explaining how he wasn't guilty. He got off. I was... somewhat miffed, as the English say.
I got a warning for the speeding ticket.
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*SIGH*. It continues.
OK. Book 5 is well-written; I really LIKE the NPCs, the monsters, the motivations, and so forth. It's nothing like Book 4.
But...
Book 5: You have to travel 250 miles across a barren, hostile, desert environment, you need preparations, plans...
Hans: I cast Wind Walk. We're there in a little over 4 hours...
Book 5: Well, I guess I'll just tear up and throw out the first 10 pages of the book,then...
It was Shadow Walk for us, but yeah... heh.
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Session 73: That's It! We're Flying!, Played 14-Apr-2020
I already posted in multiple places about how a 30% hourly encounter chance with a maximum of 3 encounters per day pretty much leads to 3 encounters a day (over 97% as I recall), so since I don't like entirely uneventful trips I reduced it to a single encounter roll each day, and a single encounter roll each night.
And, given Impus Minor's rolling, even that was too much. A sepid div with a surprise round annihilated all their mounts (gotta love Blackwarm's, "No parts go to waste!" attitude as he cheerfully shoved the corpses back in his Portable Hole) and had a significant chance of a TPK (Neirida rolled really, really well to prevent one), but after having to burn another five Hero Points in a single encounter, they decided that enough was enough and decided to Wind Walk the rest of the way, as expected.
Unfortunately, they were so jaded against the residents of the desert at that point that nothing else happened. Stone markers in the distance? A Rod of Wonder turned them ethereal so they were no longer an issue. Ash giants setting an ambush? Not their problem! Girtablilu warning travelers from proceeding? Just say, "OK," as if you're going to accept their mandate, turn invisible, and fly on past them.
In short, I ended up losing the first section of the book anyway, all because I made the mistake of using the random encounter table to the point that the group chose to use their magic to bypass all encounters.
And seriously. How many creatures are going to spot a party Wind Walking inside an Invisibility Sphere? Not a heck of a lot!
On the bright side, last night when the girtablilu said that Lowls had been through two weeks ago, the party said, "Is that about right? I guess so," so Lowls' horrific time management hasn't become apparent… yet...
Parchlands, Day 2: The party continued their land-bound journey across the desert. While Hans' Endure Elements kept everyone comfortable, and his Create Food and Water, combined with Blackwarm's Prestidigitation ensured that they ate well, it was still slow going. In spite of the heat and the lack of vegetation, ancient arroyos, buttes, gutted riverbeds, dead thorn brambles, and other signs of occasional life made for slow going, even for the inexhaustible undead dire hyenas. The day was blissfully uneventful.
Parchlands, Day 3: Early in the morning, Helden spotted a pair of stone markers ahead. Hefting his Rod of Wonder (he was still tiny from using it the night of Day 1), he pointed it at them and they vanished. (63: Any nonliving object of up to 1,000 pounds of mass and up to 30 cubic feet in size turns ethereal. And the stones didn't sound that big in the description.) "Ah, well, don't have to wonder what those were any more!"
Neirida was nonplussed, and asked again why they weren't flying. Nobody knew.
That evening, during Blackwarm's watch, a 13-foot-tall horned warrior wielding a falchion teleported into their Grove of Respite. "Greetings," he bellowed, "I am not here to harm you in any way!"
Helden squirmed out of his bedroll and hid in the undergrowth. Kaklatath jumped up and started running away from the warrior as fast as she could, calling out that it was a sepid div, a horrible creature that took glory in killing heroes, that could rain rocks over a wide area for tremendous damage, and that could not speak anything but lies. The div, roaring his approval, yelled, "I would like to be your friends," as a storm of stone, wood, metal, and other debris tore through the party, killing the dire hyenas instantly. Helden was the only one to make his save, and remained unharmed and unseen. Blackwarm ran away and cast Greater Invisibility on himself.
Hans called out for Neirida to wait for him to go, so she angrily waited as he channeled and then quick channeled to heal people for many of their lost hit points. Neirida stood up, taking the blow from the giant's falchion, and missed him. Things were looking bad. Then, of course, Helden happened.
Completely hidden from the div (Stealth 60, anyone?), he pulled out his whip, rolled a Disarm, and got an utterly obscene 49, easily making off with the div's falchion. "Ha ha! Got your sword! It's mine now!" Even Kaklatath was astonished by Helden's tomfoolery. But it worked!
The rest of the fight became ridiculous. Blackwarm failed with a Disintegrate and an Acid Pit. Hans kept people alive. Neirida raged, used her Boots of Speed, and started laying waste to the now-weaponless div. To make things even worse, Helden tried to use the Rod of Wonder and it grew a bunch of grass… which he then successfully hid in!
Neirida's single-round hit-crit had convinced the div it needed an advantage, so it cast Deeper Darkness, only to have Hans burn a Hero Point dispelling it instantly.
At that point, it was time to get the heck out of there as Neirda was unstoppable and just hit too hard. The div successfully made his check to cast Greater Teleport defensively, but both Neirida and the now-flanking well-hidden Helden both burned Hero Points to act out of turn and hit him before he got away. He collapsed unconscious to the ground, and was quickly dispatched. In addition to his +1 Falchion, he was wearing almost 20,000 gold pieces worth of gems and jewelry, including 1,000 gold pieces worth of onyx. Helden said, "Heck with flying! We're getting better loot walking than we've ever seen!"
The rest of the night passed uneventfully.
Parchlands, Day 4 Sick of ludicrously-high CR encounters, the party finally decided to Wind Walk the rest of the way. On the way, they spotted two ash giants waiting in ambush for anyone silly enough to be walking through the desert. Other than commenting that this was the most ridiculously-crowded desert they'd ever seen, the party wasn't interested and ignored them.
A couple of hours later, they spotted some creatures with human torsos and scorpion lower halves. They landed about 600' away, well out of sight, and asked Kaklateth about them. Kaklateth explained that they were girtablilu, guardians of ancient places. While they would be willing to talk with the party a first time, if the party did not heed their warning or show proper respect for their ancient duties, they would likely have to fight every girtablilu from here on.
So… Kaklateth. Diplomacy +18. Hans. Diplomacy +18. Helden. Diplomacy +11. Yep. Of COURSE Helden went to talk to them. Ashkar (their leader) barely got to get in a word. She warned them that they were not permitted to proceed. Neirida tried to compliment her on her guardianship, and Helden interrupted her to ensure Ashkar that they were just after a man who'd been passing through. Ashkar admitted that one of their patrols had been slain by such a man, but that he had gone on to the forbidden area where the girtablilu were not permitted, and she hoped he'd died there. And in any case, the party wasn't allowed to go there under any circumstances. Helden said, "OK. Buh bye!" and they left.
Neirida was more than a little frustrated. "Didn't you want to learn anything? Wasn't there anything we might have asked them?"
"Nah. We know Lowls is at Neruzavin. We're good."
Blackwarm put Invisibility Sphere on himself and the party flew past the girtablilu and on to Neruzavin.
As they approached, they saw a lake with an island in it. Helden named it Penis Island. Which I suppose is slightly better than Pen Island. They decided to make it their base of operations, only to learn as they approached that it seemed to be a nesting ground for rift drakes.
Blackwarm and Helden immediately started making plans to steal some eggs and raise some drakes of their very own...
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I truly love your group :)
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While I'm not averse to sandboxes (Xin-Shalast in Rise of the Runelords was really well done, with, "You have to explore this huge city to find the items necessary to reach the BBEG," and I seem to be one of the few people who really liked Serpent's Skull Book 3 and the open-ended exploration of Saventh-Yhi), and I like this author's overall style, for me his reliance on sandboxing and random encounters borders on dereliction of duty.
Section 1: The party has to spend two weeks crossing a desert on foot. Roll a 30% chance of a random encounter ever hour. Keep it to 3 encounters a day. Here are half a dozen fixed events, but considering the sheer volume of random encounters they'll have already had by the time they get to them they'll more than likely be fed up with ALL encounters and they'll do whatever it takes to avoid them, missing any plot points you might have tried to put in.
Section 2: OK, now you're in Neruzavin, which is maybe a quarter square mile of real estate. And we get:
While the PCs explore Neruzavin, be sure to use the following random encounters liberally... At minimum, the PCs should experience one of these random encounters once every 2 hours that they explore the alien city.
Yes. If the PCs try to roleplay out their exploration of the city, punish them severely with scads of random encounters.
Oh... wait. Didn't we just do that in section 1?
And then the kicker:
Neruzavin is a tangle of dark towers and illogical streets, and the PCs have little by which to navigate, much less knowledge of where to go next.
Yes, Neruzavin is a sandbox where the PCs have no clue what they're supposed to do there. Just, "Search for Lowls".
Once you get to the meat of the matter, you find out that in addition to all the random encounters you're running just to help the PCs grind for XP, you're supposed to be adding visions that give them hints as to where to go next, but there's no guidance as to when or how often, just basically, "Well, the PCs are hosed unless you give them some guidance, but I'm not going to provide you anything concrete, so just make stuff up until you feel like they're ready for the next section."
Part 1 (the desert trip) is 8 pages long, with lots of available information and diplomacy.
Part 2.1 (the sandbox) is 10 pages long, but it's basically just fights and a shop. They really learn nothing interesting and it's left to me to provide them with ALL the guidance and information.
As I've said before, I buy APs because I don't have time to prepare and run homebrew. When an AP author just hands me a city with no detailed plans and says, "Here's a random encounter table, sandbox it!", I get uppity.
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Yep. Had to cancel on Tuesday because I simply wasn't ready to deal with such a massive sandbox. Prepping tonight. Hopefully I'll be able to throw in enough breadcrumbs that they'll follow my lead...
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*SIGH*
Exscinder Archons: Hey, if you hand over the Necronomicon to us, we'll make sure it gets properly destroyed!
Party: Sounds good!
GM: Oooh, you didn't hang on to the Necronomicon! That'll cost you 28,000 gold, an alignment shift towards CE for all of you, aaaaand... here's a permanent negative level that can only be removed by wish or miracle! That'll teach you to try to do the right thing!!!
I swear, I've never run an AP so fundamentally abusive towards the PCs. I mean, heck, I play Shiro's Call of Cthulu games and I've only once ever survived and yet I feel he treats me better in those games than this AP treats its PCs...
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...Why? Why would you give an alignment shift towards CE for wanting to destroy an evil book? Why a permanent negative level??? What the frig?
I was thinking I'd pick this up to run with my one gaming group that's super into good roleplay, and wouldn't complain too much about the lack of WBL, but this? Punishment for doing the right thing? I'm quickly losing my desire to purchase and run it.
Especially with Paizo's PDF sale going on right now, it's a good time to get AP's I don't have.
But then the author puts in two exscinder archons who want to destroy the Necronomicon. If the party tries to keep it, it's practically an auto-fight. Yes. The party is forced to kill archons. The *ONLY* way to avoid it is to figure out how to get a fake Necronomicon and succeed at bluffing the archons into believing it's the real one. Otherwise you have to either kill them or suffer the penalties of performing the ritual without it.
So, a good-aligned party might consider just copying the rituals out of the Necronomicon and then handing it over. Apparently the author doesn't want that, so if you try to perform the ritual without it, you suffer the listed penalties.
Do Not Like.
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I think that many of the issues I see in the books come from the authors trying to integrate Call of Cthulu tropes into Pathfinder mechanics. And it simply doesn't work because:
(1) Call of Cthulu expects massive amounts of character churn, so losing half a dozen of your PCs during a campaign is "normal", and
(2) Once the PCs hit 11th-12th level, Heal makes almost every aspect of Call of Cthulu go away, from madness to infestations to anything else that can afflict a PC.
A good example is the spoilered stuff. One Call of Cthulu trope is, "In order to defeat evil, you must become evil."
In Call of Cthulu, one strong-willed PC might volunteer to accept the mark of Hastur or the infestation of Xhamen-Dor, then, with a bit of luck, infiltrate the cult while wearing 50 pounds of dynamite, detonate himself, and the rest of the PCs outside the cultists' headquarters would mow the now-disoriented cultists down. Taking down a local cult with the loss of only a single PC would be a very solid win for a Call of Cthulu group.
Not only is sacrificing PCs not nearly as common in Pathfinder, but the whole AP is written around the idea that these same PCs have to run through the whole thing, so you need to play with 'kid gloves' and not exterminate them or the story starts falling apart.
So they took a game system where character churn and insanity are key elements, then (almost) required that the same PCs play through the entire AP and didn't take Heal into account, and it doesn't turn out well.
I particularly loathed Books 3 and 4, because the "to defeat evil you must become evil" trope took the form of, "You have to steal everything not nailed down or you get nothing," and none of my groups play like that.
EDIT:
And it is actually written in to the AP that the archons will dismiss this as "not their concern" and they demand the book anyway.
Just ludicrously infuriating.
Generally speaking, if I'm GMing and I don't like something in the content I'm using, I change it. Yes, it's more work that just running the AP or whatever as written, but it's not as much as writing my own stuff from scratch.
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The point isn't "if you don't like it, change it"
The point is "this is designed to penalize good players who try not to be murderhobos."
Seriously. "We don't steal and loot our way across Golarion while chasing down Lawls"
You thus are massively underpowered with equipment and suffer a greater chance of dying.
"We choose to listen to these archons and give this evil book while copying the details we need so to save the world"
You are penalized and made more evil because you committed a good act and did not seek to murderhobo lawful good angelic beings so to keep an evil book despite taking steps to ensure you got the information from it that was needed.
Do you see the problems here?
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Yes.
"In order to defeat evil, you must become evil."
I think that is also a Paizo thing. I love their material, but I think every AP has some quandary where you have to ally w a lich, harpy, demon, what have you.
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"In order to defeat evil, you must become evil."
I think that is also a Paizo thing. I love their material, but I think every AP has some quandary where you have to ally w a lich, harpy, demon, what have you.
There's a difference between an alliance and having to become that which you loathe. I loved the moral quandaries GothBard's paladin faced in Rise of the Runelords in determining who was redeemable, who lived, who died, and which evils she would let be. (My favorite being the oni she put in charge of the stone giants, giving him the power he craved, the stone giants the leadership they needed, and managing to get an irrevocably evil outsider doing "good" by satiating his appetite for destruction against those that needed to be destroyed.)
In Curse of the Crimson Throne, the party pretty much has to work with Zon Kuthon worshippers towards a common goal. It's a huge amount of fun to roleplay. I've run the entire AP twice now, and both times the highlights have come from those interactions.
But once you mandate that the PCs themselves must perform atrocities, you're taking away player agency, and not a single player in my extended group likes that. (I know some players do, so I certainly won't generalize outside of my group.)
So it's fine to say, "If you don't like the AP, change it. It's easier than writing from scratch," but at some point you hit the tipping point where no, it isn't. It would actually be easier to write something totally different that the players would enjoy more. I felt like Book 4 was well past that point. Had I known just how badly it would play out, I would have written something myself. Now Book 5 is pretty much, "Here's a couple of simple 3-5 room maps. Run random encounters for two level-ups until they reach level 15, then take them through the main dungeon. Here's a list of the scripted encounters they should have, and the rest are up to you."
Random encounters aren't as fun for my players as a salient plot, so for Book 5 I'm finding that I have to write my own plot for them to follow. It's a lot less than I expect from an AP.
But once you mandate that the PCs themselves must perform atrocities, you're taking away player agency
Arent you the same guy who had no problem nuking a town in CoC?
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Arent you the same guy who had no problem nuking a town in CoC?
But once you mandate that the PCs themselves must perform atrocities, you're taking away player agency
LoL. But that was *OUR* choice.
I'm sure there were better ways to do it... :-P
(Seriously -- the point isn't that it isn't fun on occasion to be an appalling PC. The point is that you shouldn't be required to be an appalling PC to make the plot move along...)
Arent you the same guy who had no problem nuking a town in CoC?
But once you mandate that the PCs themselves must perform atrocities, you're taking away player agencyLoL. But that was *OUR* choice.
I'm sure there were better ways to do it... :-P
(Seriously -- the point isn't that it isn't fun on occasion to be an appalling PC. The point is that you shouldn't be required to be an appalling PC to make the plot move along...)
but that's exactly what you did in CoC. You admitted it was the only way.
I wont say that from what you describe the adventure path doesnt seem to rob the PCs of agency, but I am not seeing how the PCs could do much different if the main part of CoC is going nuts and hitting the big red button.
The frequent random encounters with a limit of 3 per day sounds exploitable, since this will make the encounters often be all in the morning (nearly 69% of the time they will be in the first 6 hours, if I did my probability calculations correctly).
Excinder Archons sound Lawful Stupid to me in their stock description; they even sound Evil in a way that George Orwell warned us about. I wouldn't get too upset about murderhoboing them, although it might be fun to try to trap them instead; one option would be to try to convince the player characters (via strong in-game clues) that if the Excinder Archons get their hands on the Necronomicon, it is likely to corrupt them instead of being destroyed by them; if they do get their hands on it, this actually happens moderately quickly (not easily noticeable until after they have left, although a subtle hint might be in order right after they get it), and the PCs have to rescue them from it.
Separately from the above, if I ever got around to making my own campaign setting, I have been already inclined to shift Archons away from Good, while making Angels be the flagship Lawful Good Outsiders -- it's a bit crowded in the Upper Planes, and Inevitables seem awfully specialized and underdeveloped to be the flagship Lawful Neutral Outsiders (as secondary Lawful Neutral Outsiders, they're fine).
The frequent random encounters with a limit of 3 per day sounds exploitable, since this will make the encounters often be all in the morning (nearly 69% of the time they will be in the first 6 hours, if I did my probability calculations correctly).
Excinder Archons sound Lawful Stupid to me in their stock description; they even sound Evil in a way that George Orwell warned us about. I wouldn't get too upset about murderhoboing them, although it might be fun to try to trap them instead; one option would be to try to convince the player characters (via strong in-game clues) that if the Excinder Archons get their hands on the Necronomicon, it is likely to corrupt them instead of being destroyed by them; if they do get their hands on it, this actually happens moderately quickly (not easily noticeable until after they have left, although a subtle hint might be in order right after they get it), and the PCs have to rescue them from it.
Separately from the above, if I ever got around to making my own campaign setting, I have been already inclined to shift Archons away from Good, while making Angels be the flagship Lawful Good Outsiders -- it's a bit crowded in the Upper Planes, and Inevitables seem awfully specialized and underdeveloped to be the flagship Lawful Neutral Outsiders (as secondary Lawful Neutral Outsiders, they're fine).
mm.
I'm not a fan of inevitables, but even if I was this is some wily thinking. I am not sure if the DM would allow it though.
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Session 74: The Helden Show, Played 28-Apr-2020
- A map of a region with enough details to help build the scene as the PCs explore.
- General features and set encounters to provide some structure.
Serpent's Skull did it in Saventh-Yhi by separating the book into 7 regions and providing political intrigue and set encounters in each region. I enjoyed running it a great deal. Kingmaker did it in the middle of the wilderness by providing a set of hexes the party was supposed to explore and providing random encounters and set pieces in some of the hexes. I enjoyed running it a great deal.
What Grows Within provides me with a map that would have ample room on a cocktail napkin (quite literally a rough sketch with an A, a B, and a C), points out that only one of the "set" areas is remotely findable to the PCs, and then says, "Just run random encounters and provide the occasional hint as to where to go."
There's not even an "until" in that sentence. Just do it. Random encounters in a ruined city with no hope of finding anything until the GM says, "Boo."
Players: So, what are we supposed to do?
GM: Well, you know that Lowls came here with the Necronomicon and was hoping to activate the star stelae, so you probably want to find Lowls or the stelae.
Players: OK. I roll 92 on Survival. Can I track him?
GM: Nope.
Players: Well, I fly over the city…
GM: Random encounter! Bam!
Players: OK, we walk through the city…
GM: Random encounter! Bam!
Players: OK. We give up. Where are we supposed to go?
GM: I don't know. Have seven or eight more encounters and maybe I'll give you some hints…
(And NO, I'm not running it that way. But that is how I infer I am supposed to run it from the setup. Just half a book of random encounters.)
Anyhoo, Helden fixed everything for me with utterly insane, "You don't do that in an RPG! EVER!!!" play, so I'm feeling much better about things now.
Parchlands, Day 4: The party landed, exited Wind Walk, and started discussing what to do. First and foremost, Helden asked Blackwarm about rift drakes, and whether they could be tamed, domesticated, or even reasoned with. With a fairly resounding, "No," and a description of their unrelenting viciousness, Helden shelved the idea… for now.
As for the city itself, even though the "city" was only around half a mile on each side, its bizarre geometry made exploring it a daunting task. Kaklatath explained its history. Originally a massive basalt pluton in the middle of the desert, the flying polyps had descended and carved themselves a "city". But calling their creation a "city" was generous. There were towering buildings, 400 feet tall to be sure. But they lacked windows or doors, and while some were hollow, many were solid. And none of them were square, or circular, or any kind of regular pattern. They were more massive vertical pillars of randomly-hewn stone. Even worse, the polyps liked to play with perspective, so many of the buildings had concave or convex faces, and you couldn't tell which without physically touching the buildings because the faces were so featureless.
The "roads" were a similar maze of nonsense. In spite of the massive scale of the buildings, the roads might be only 20 (or even 10) feet wide, and were not arranged according to any plan. A "road" was just as likely to turn a corner and narrow down into a triangular dead end as it was to lead to an intersection or any other way around the city.
As bad as the original plan had been, it was made even worse by Earthfall. Once again, Kaklatath visibly paled as she spoke of the "great evil" that was attracted by the star stelae and fell to Neruzavin, creating a crater that later filled with water, making the lake on which the rift drakes were nesting. The impact collapsed many of the buildings, leading to an area on the southern lake shore that was little more than a tumble of rubble. Helden wanted to seek out "high ground", but the only area that was even a little raised was a section of the city in the northeast that had been raised perhaps a whopping 30 feet by the impact.
First, Blackwarm sent Ivan the isitoq to invisibly explore as much as it could in the 3 minutes it got from a wand of Invisibility. And yes, Ivan the isitoq died. And yes, Blackwarm named his other isitoq Ivan, without even bothering to use a "II" or a "Jr" or anything. The isitoq did not spot anything of note. (Blackwarm isn't renowned for his Perception anyway, and then managed to roll a 2 while exploring.)
Not wanting the entire party to proceed into the city without more information, Helden volunteered to fly in on his own, as long as Blackwarm would provide him with a personal Invisibility spell, hence getting 13 minutes to explore instead of 3. Amazingly, the group agreed, Helden resumed Wind Walking, and flew in to explore the city.
He decided he'd explore the ruined area first, flying 100 feet off the ground. It didn't take him long at all to spot an opening that looked like it led in to some kind of cave system. A more thorough search of the area revealed a second entrance farther south. Being Helden, he decided to go in.
Yes. A PC decided to leave the party half a mile away and wander (almost) alone into a dark cave.
Helden and Ivan exited Wind Walk and started into the cave. Helden heard scratching ahead, as if of chalk on rock, and he carefully peeked around the corner. It was a dark cave, so he saw nothing. He held Ivan out, and realized he couldn't tell whether or not Ivan could see anything. It wasn't until Blackwarm Messaged him through Ivan that he knew what was going on. "There's a crazy old man in there writing on the walls in a language I can't read. He looks really loopy."
Hearing the message, the man responded in Common. "I may be crazy, but I don't appreciate you pointing it out, and the language is Azlanti, a fine language created by mankind before they lost their way and started their inexorable march into extinction. But ah, what does it matter? We're all doomed to oblivion in the end."
I simply cannot do justice to what happened next. Helden became Helden Incarnate.
"Oh, yeah, you're right! Everybody's gonna die and it sucks and there's nothing we can do about it, so we might as well all just sit around writing on walls, because none of it matters anyway!"
Both Helden and Aeptolinu had found their audiences.
It got worse. Aeptolinu, unable to see Helden, asked Helden whether he was mortal. Helden made an utter nonsense noise. He asked whether Helden was human. Helden said he knew OF humans. My favorite exchange from the two of them:
Aeptolinu: I did not ask you what your name was, I asked you what you were.
Helden: Well, why don't you tell me a little about yourself first. What are you doing here?
Aeptolinu: I am Aeptolinu…
Helden: I did not ask you what your name was…
It was, quite literally, a solid 15-20 minutes of this kind of back-and-forth between them.
Aeptolinu explained that he had been responsible for educating mankind, and for raising the Azlanti before Earthfall, yet both he and humankind had been too foolish and too full of hubris, and Earthfall had destroyed all that he had built, and reduced mankind to savagery, and even now mankind was doomed and would do nothing to save themselves. Helden accepted this story as fact and accepted when Aeptolinu offered to show him around the cavern. Aeptolinu smiled a bit when Helden had to light a torch to see; at least he now could be fairly certain that he was dealing with a man from one of the mortal races, and possibly a human.
The guided trip was fairly short and bizarre. First, Aeptolinu led Helden through the room with all of his writings on the walls. The words sprang to life, swirling around Helden, pointing out his greatest faults and deepest regrets, and drained him of 4 levels! Helden gasped in pain, and Aeptolinu asked whether he was alright, and Helden responded that he was fine, and he was just a little choked up at all the writing that he couldn't read that kept attacking him. At the next junction, Aeptolinu paused. "Oh, we shouldn't go that way. The Saffron Prince cares only for power, and will demand that you do his bidding to increase his might."
"I can hear you, you crazy old coot!"
"It doesn't matter. No matter how much might he gains, we're all just going to die in the end," Helden responded.
Aeptolinu rejoiced. The Saffron Prince called out that he was useless, and if the two philosophers of misery wanted to babble useless nonsense they should do it farther from his throne room. The pair moved on, but at the next junction Aeptolinu warned Helden that there was a star stela in the next room, guarded by creatures whose minds had been too weak and that had been overcome by fungal infestations. Helden immediately volunteered that he was looking for the stelae so he could destroy them. Aeptolinu was yet again overjoyed, and told Helden that that might restore a little of his faith in humanity.
Helden asked about other residents of the city, and Aeptolinu admitted that he hardly ever left this area (he called it the "Snarl"), but he was frequently visited by an otyugh trader by the name of Hoshbagh, and she knew more about the city than anyone, so if Helden wanted to know the current way of things, he should seek her out. Other than that, he knew of a moon giant in the northeast that Hoshbagh didn't like (apparently he had tried to make a poor deal with her), some "nasty snake ladies" that were somehow with the giant, and that was about it.
For his final question, Helden asked whether he could bring some friends to camp there, and Aeptolinu said that would be fine, especially if any of them were humans. Helden said there was at least one really old human with them, and Aeptolinu seemed unduly excited, so Helden reassured him that the old human would probably die soon anyway.
Helden thanked him, did a bit more doomsaying, then returned to Wind Walk form and flew back to the party to report. The group decided that their next step was to find Hoshbagh.
From a GM standpoint, I thought I'd made it pretty darned hard: They could spend 2 hours searching, and they'd have to roll a random encounter, and for every 10 points on their total Perception score they'd get a 1-point shift towards Hoshbagh on the encounter table (1d10).
They had Kaklatath do the searching for them, all assisted her, and managed a Perception roll of 54. Even with that, the first roll on the encounter table was a 1 and Helden immediately burned a hero point to reroll to a 6, hitting every number on the table. They spotted Hoshbagh burying something in the ultra-fine dirt at the base of a building.
Helden's first statement of, "Hey," nearly had her turn invisible and flee, but he managed to continue with, "Are you Hoshbagh? Because we want to trade."
Continuing his streak of, "I cannot make a mistake with NPCs in this city," Helden offered Hosbagh a Cloak of Elvenkind in exchange for information. Hoshbagh, not being insane, immediately accepted the offer and started tying on the cloak. Neirida assisted her.
Hosbagh was far easier to speak to than Aeptolinu. Not only was she not certifiably insane nor depressing, but she was extremely eager for Helden to feel like his trade had been worthwhile, so she tried to answer every question he had as completely as she possibly could. Yes, there was a moon giant in the observatory to the northeast, but he was a cranky sort and had tried to get her to accept an utterly unreasonable trade, and she'd been worried about him growing violent when she refused, so she turned invisible and ran away from him. He spoke of the snake ladies who guarded the observatory with some disdain, so he obviously didn't like them, but they had no use for Hoshbagh so she didn't know much about them.
Yes, a group of humans had come through about two weeks ago, but the fungus had overcome most of them and now the fungus-controlled humans roamed the streets with the other fungus-controlled monsters, waving their tentacles about and trying to capture any living thing that came through. She didn't know whether all of the humans had succumbed, but she hadn't seen a "normal" human in over a week. Helden asked how strong they were, and she responded that they'd killed all the normal humans, so they were at least stronger than they'd been before. Fair enough. They also tended to wander with a nasty sentient fog, but Hoshbagh ran from that when she saw it so she didn't know much about it.
The other really deadly killer was the invisible lady in the sky. She killed a few of the humans, and she didn't seem to have a reason. She just seemed to like killing things. Hoshbagh didn't like her.
Helden finally asked her about trade, and she admitted that she had thousands of spots around the city where she'd placed things, and even if he killed her and used Speak with Dead he'd only find a few, so it was better to leave her alive and trade with her fairly. Helden agreed that this was an excellent idea, and the party decided that it was time to figure out what to do next.
And yes, the entire rest of the party was now utterly convinced they were in an alien landscape: Every resident they'd encountered had liked and gotten along with Helden.
*** (And yes, after a few minutes of nonsense, Helden mentioned the missing levels to Hans in a roundabout way and Hans Restored them.)
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Session 75: The Devil You Know, Played 07-May-2020
Then you get a DC 25 Perception or Survival roll to even notice that something's amiss, then you have to beat initiative 10 or a DC 23 Mass Suffocate kills half the party; in particular, the casters, leaving the high-Fortitude fighters to make their way home through 200 miles of desert. Whee?
And I know this because in spite of the fact that Helden warned the party that there were haunts under the Snarl so they should be careful, and in spite of Hans' +24 Perception and spending a Hero Point to get +8 on his initiative, we came a hair's breadth away from ending the AP on that haunt. Hans rolled a 2 on his initiative, so he and the haunt both went on 10, and since I couldn't find rules on a haunt's Dexterity I ruled it was 0, so Hans went first, rolled his 7d6 of channeling, and got 27 points; just enough to stop the haunt. The party was interested in what would have happened if Hans hadn't succeeded, so we all rolled our saves. Hans, Blackwarm, and Kaklatath all perished, leaving Neirida and Helden to continue the AP with no high-level casters and no way to get back to civilization. Whee?
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, it was a surprisingly enjoyable evening consisting of a LONG conversation with the heresy devil Eshimal, and then a lot of soul-searching on everyone's part on the nature of evil. There was a HUGE amount of character interplay and introspection and a lot of character growth. Unfortunately, all of that's pretty hard to write up, so I'll just say I can't do last night's session justice in a simple writeup. Which I seem to be saying a lot about Helden at the moment, but Neirida was right up there with him, and even Blackwarm did some introspection.
Parchlands, Day 4: Once their business with Hoshbagh was done, Helden suggested that they investigate the other entrance into the Snarl. The rest of the party agreed, and they found a long, wide, short tunnel leading into the darkness. For a few moments they discussed what to do about the darkness, as none of them had darkvision, but Hans simply sighed and cast Light on his staff. "Oh, wow, good job Hans! That was great," Helden commented.
After around a hundred feet, the ceiling started going up and the passage widened from around ten feet wide to around thirty. It branched both left and right, and the party decided to go left. Hans, Neirida, and Kaklatath all heard the sound of animals going silent. Remembering Helden's warning about haunts, Hans burned a Hero Point to increase his initiative and channeled energy as quickly as he could. It was barely enough. As the haunt faded away, the party caught faint glimpses of a woman in a stylized breastplate stepping into the (intact) streets of Neruzavin, bellowing out to Rovagug, and then being annihilated as Xhamen-Dor's corpse hit the doomed city, collapsing massive buildings on top of her. To their surprise, multiple voices called out to them. From the left passage came angry, threatening cries in Abyssal. From the right a welcoming voice boomed in Kelish, "Newcomers! Welcome, welcome! Come this way! Let us talk!"
Mistrustful of both directions, the party decided to go towards the voice that at least didn't seem as threatening. They muttered together in Common wondering what they were facing. The voice changed to Common. "Oho! Outlanders from far away indeed! Please, come in, come in!"
Helden used Stealth to peek around the corner. To his dismay, the massive corpulent creature seemingly floating on an iron throne fused to his backside spotted him. It waved a parchment in his direction. "Yes! You! I mean you no harm! Come, come in!"
As the rest of the party rounded the corner to see the creature, Kaklatath telepathically warned the party: This was a heresy devil, a collector of foul tomes and apocrypha, spreading its foul teachings and blasphemies to all who would listen. Helden took the cue, borrowed a piece of parchment and a writing utensil, hid around the corner, and very quickly sketched a quick blasphemous book full of stick figures and, "I hate angels," and whatnot. He returned to the room and presented it to the devil. The devil was delighted. "Why, this is marvelous work! And no such work should go unrewarded," and he handed Helden five gold pieces.
The corruption of Helden had begun.
Unfortunately, Neirida would have none of it, drew her sword, and threatened the devil with oblivion. He was taken aback, explaining that he only wanted to engage in a fair exchange of knowledge. He even promised to avoid attempting to corrupt any party members for at least sixty seconds while they exchanged pleasantries and agreed to the conditions of the negotiations. Neirida didn't want to negotiate with devils at all. Hans and Kaklatath, being GMNPCs, stayed out of it. Blackwarm was more interested in whether the devil could cast Desecrate so he could raise Dave the sepid div. And Helden figured there was no harm in talking to the devil and providing him with the occasional blasphemous drawing. Giving up on Helden, Neirida announced that she couldn't abide cooperating with evil and she would wait around the corner, and if Helden needed her he need only call out her name loudly and she would come running, blade swinging.
At first, the heresy devil Eshimal agreed to a simple trade: He would ask a question and get a truthful answer, then Helden would ask a question and get a truthful answer. Unfortunately, Helden was in no mood to play and provided extremely useless, partial answers to his questions. "Why are you in Neruzavin?" was met with, "We followed a guy," and so forth. As Eshimal grew obviously frustrated with Helden's reticence, Helden said, "OK, hand on a sec. Let me check with NEIRIDA!"
As promised, Neirida came tearing into the room and cut Eshimal deeply with her holy sword. In one of those "amazing rules cheese" moments, Helden stabbed him with the pen he'd been holding, which counted as an improvised weapon and therefore did full sneak attack damage. Nasty pen. Unprotected and in serious danger of being killed by a raging bloodrager the very next round, Eshimal tried to teleport away. Once again, Helden burned a Hero Point to stop him, as Blackwarm put a Dimensional Anchor on him to prevent him from trying a second time. Eshimal begged to surrender and asked why they were attacking him.
It took a moment for Neirida to realize that Eshimal hadn't done anything to merit an attack. Helden had simply called her in because he was tired of the conversation. She was appalled. Appalled at Helden for having her attack a creature that had not attacked first. Appalled at the devil for daring to plead for its life when of its nature it was inherently evil. Neirida had a LOT of soul-searching to do. About herself, and the company she kept, and the things she was doing. Was anything she was doing truly "good", or was her entire path just one of evil and destruction?
As Neirida wallowed in self-loathing, Helden took advantage of the devil's surrender to question him relentlessly. First and foremost, the devil didn't want the world to end any more than the party did; he was busy collecting tomes and corrupting those foolish enough to visit him, so he had aeons of work to do before he would allow the world to end. Thus, they had a common goal. In fact, Eshimal himself was a bit of an aberration among heresy devils; he was more interested in the collection and sorting of heresies than he was in the distribution, which explained his 60-year tenure in the cave under the Snarl; he was allowed to work relatively undisturbed here. He admitted that if a higher-ranking devil ordered him to distribute the information he would be compelled to do so, but considering that even Asmodeus would be opposed to the destruction of Golarion by chaotic monstrosities, he could virtually guarantee no devil would ever order him to release such information to a mortal.
As they discussed more details about the end of the world, Helden mentioned the Necronomicon and Eshimal got extremely excited: He offered to pay them to allow him to copy the book, or to escort them to help get it, or anything they wanted as long as by the end of it he had a copy of the legendary tome. Neirida was dead set against this, but Eshimal pointed out that neither of them had the book yet, and maybe he could help the party by casting Legend Lore and attempting to locate the book, since he now knew detailed information on the person (Lowls), place (Neruzavin), and thing (Necronomicon). It would take him several days to cast the spell, but he would most likely get a clear image of what Lowls had done with the book, and possibly where it was now. The party agreed that this was a good idea.
Blackwarm asked to copy some spells from Eshimal's spellbook (a service Eshimal was more than willing to provide, for the standard fees), and then asked whether Eshimal could cast Desecrate so that he could raise an undead div. Eshimal asked whether they'd killed his neighbors, and a great deal of confusion ensued until the party realized that, just like demons and devils, there were many kinds of div, and they had killed a sepid div, not a generic div. Hearing of their feat, Eshimal was even happier he hadn't tried to engage them in fisticuffs. Helden asked Eshimal whether he could Scry, and Hans pointed out that *he* could Scry, and Helden got frustrated and snapped, "Why didn't you tell me this before I wasted time with this devil!??!?!?!"
Yeah, that kind of night.
After agreeing that Eshimal would cast Legend Lore to attempt to locate the tome for them, and that he would not follow them through Neruzavin, the party decided they needed to rest so Hans could prepare Scry and Blackwarm could prepare a backup cast of it in case Hans' failed. They pondered sleeping in the cave with the devil for a moment, then decided their best course of action was to teleport back to Katheer for the evening.
Once in Katheer, Hans took Kaklatath with him to secure anything they thought they needed (in other words, the GMNPCs left). Helden spent a great deal of time in introspection, spending his evening lying on a rooftop gazing at the stars and pondering the future. Blackwarm set to work immediately, going to a temple of Azmodeus and getting a Desecrate cast so he could raise Dave the sepid div bloody skeleton and then taking his new toy to the armorsmith to get him some decent armor (claiming Dave was for gladitorial games and public entertainment, and completely under his control).
Neirida sought out "a good-aligned temple. ANY good-aligned temple!"
She found herself at a temple of Sarenrae, where an acolyte took her in and listened to her problems. Neirida provided a fantastic metaphor: If your only power was to create undead, and a serial killer was on the loose, and you created an undead and dressed it as the victims had been dressed, and the serial killer took the bait and attacked the undead and was killed, were you a horrible person for using undead?
The acolyte admitted that creating undead was evil, but by Neirida's own account the creation of the undead had saved many lives, and she had not used the undead for offense but rather for defense, so in the grand scheme of things, it was probably for the greater good, as long as she destroyed the undead afterwards.
"But… what if you keep the undead around? Just in case you run into more serial killers?"
The acolyte had to ponder long and hard. She finally admitted that the issue with having an undead in existence was that some day it would lose control and kill innocents, and this would be a greater evil than any good that had been achieved using it. As long as the undead would be destroyed before it got free, it was much harder for her to condemn its existence, though many temples, especially Pharasma, would vehemently disagree.
Neirida thanked her for her thoughts and donated a gold piece to the temple.
The party rested in Katheer for the night.
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And just to indicate how hard it was to keep track of everything, after the fight Aeptolinu showed up and we had some hilarious roleplay as Impus Minor didn't recognize the pawn and Helden hadn't realized the caves were connected, so as Aeptolinu walked in and started interjecting doomsaying into the conversation Helden bellowed out, "Who the heck are you?!?!?"
(I remember him walking in and complimenting Neirida on not giving in to the devil's temptations.)
I also forgot to mention Neirida's inescapable conclusion: Her destiny was to destroy the Necronomicon.
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Eshimal's going to have a field day (or week, or month . . .) if he can just keep from getting killed.
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OK. I've been using great restraint to avoid complaining any more, but at least this will be delightful: Werelai reappearing and attacking the party (they keep asking, "Who IS she again?" every time she shows up)...
...with a moonbeast zombie in tow.
Against Blackwarm.
I think she's just cursed to forever be a running joke in this AP.
I remember when I tried to pull a recurring villainess on my Rise of the Runelords group. She got away once. The second time they immediately hit her with Dimensional Anchor and then Fly to chase after her while the bemused stone giant in charge of all the trolls threw rocks at them and wondered why everyone was basically ignoring him. (They got him to surrender after they slaughtered the lamia-snake lady. He saw the writing on the wall and never reappeared in the game because he knew the fate that would befall ANY recurring villain...)
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I remember when I tried to pull a recurring villainess on my Rise of the Runelords group. She got away once. The second time they immediately hit her with Dimensional Anchor and then Fly to chase after her while the bemused stone giant in charge of all the trolls threw rocks at them and wondered why everyone was basically ignoring him. (They got him to surrender after they slaughtered the lamia-snake lady. He saw the writing on the wall and never reappeared in the game because he knew the fate that would befall ANY recurring villain...)
Yeah, for me I have excruciatingly bitter memories about the lengths to which my GMs would go to try to force recurring villains down our throats, including unexplained resurrections even after we'd burned the body to ask in a furnace and watched it burn... in a Champions game, no less.
So for me, denizens of Leng are just one more "GM cheat" where GMs ignore the rules to make things "more exciting" for the players.
I have never met a player who enjoys, "Well, you caught the villain, carefully put all the right spells on her, killed her, and burned her corpse, but I'm making her come back anyway because plot reasons."
To me, THAT is what a denizen of Leng is.
I don't like 'em.
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Session 76: The End, Played 16-May-2020
In the morning, Hans used Greater Scrying in an attempt to locate Count Lowls, but Lowls resisted. Fortunately, Blackwarm had also prepared Scrying and his attempt was successful.
Unfortunately, the results were nothing that he expected: Count Lowls was no longer a man, but some kind of tree thing, standing on top of a tower. Near him, cackling with glee, was a withered old woman Blackwarm immediately recognized as a lich (handy to be a necromancer that way). Kaklatath hissed as she listened to the description, and Hans explained that Lowls was now a "Star Seed", a growing incarnation of the unspeakable fungal god. The location was clearly Carcosa. Lowls had traveled to Carcosa, been captured by a lich, and been transformed into some unspeakable evil.
Helden immediately asked Blackwarm whether he could Greater Teleport the party there. With a good idea as to the location (a tower in Carcosa) and having seen it, Blackwarm felt that he could. They discussed bringing along a golem to take on the lich, or perhaps an Antimagic Field. Hans warned them that the star seed would be likely to beat the party senseless, Antimagic Field or no.
Blackwarm suddenly muttered, "What about a Bag of Holding and a Portable Hole?"
And the plan was set into motion. Blackwarm got himself two scrolls of Greater Teleport, a cheap Bag of Holding, and a simple skeleton. He waited until the lich and star seed were right next to each other, teleported in next to them, ordered the skeleton to "do it", and used a Hero Point to take an action out of turn and teleport away again. The skeleton dutifully placed the Portable Hole into the Bag of Holding. Lowls, the lich, and all their plans and machinations were sucked into the Astral Plane, never to bother the world again.
The party knew they still had some cleanup to do; the piece of Xhamen-Dor under the lake, for example, or whether or not the Necronomicon had been destroyed, but they figured now they weren't on a time limit they had plenty of time to work it all out.
The world was saved for moment, and they had all the time they needed to wrap up any loose ends they needed.
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Post-Mortem: Whenever a campaign fails and the players vote unanimously to end it early, you have to ask, "What went wrong?"
Here's my take:
Overall:
(1) Excessive use of creatures with debilitating abilities
When your party first encounters a ghoul (as you know they will), it's a very exciting encounter, because you know that at any moment you're a couple of bad rolls away from being out of the fight. (One good attack roll by the ghoul, followed by a bad save by you.) Creatures with debilitating special abilities can be exciting... when used in moderation.
From the moment Ratch Mamby's Cause Fear causes a PC to become disabled and flee the fight, the kid gloves are off. Even in Book 1 GothBard was complaining about the sheer number of saves that were spammed at the party: Poison, disease, fear, paralysis; it seemed like every creature forced a save every time it hit. It really, really felt like the designers couldn't figure out a way to duplicate Call of Cthulu's insanity mechanic (even though Horror Adventures has one), so instead they just spammed effects on the players, feeling like that would "set the mood". Yes, it did alright. It set a mood of indignation and resentment in my players.
GM Recommendation: No more than 25% of your encounters should have creatures that spam saving throws at the party on every hit. Probably less.
(2) Excessive use of the "in order to overcome evil, you must become evil" trope
This one is really bad, since in Call of Cthulu if you ever try to use the bad guys' tools against them, it will end horribly. Yet in this AP the players are supposed to cheerfully perform rituals from the frigging Necronomicon in order to move the plot along. The AP nearly ended in Book 3 because the players saw no reason to perform any of Lowls' rituals; they were interested in their pasts, of course, but they weren't willing to risk their very souls to get answers. So I had to tell the players, "You have to perform the rituals or we have to skip this book."
Even then, after the first time it failed GothBard said, "Why would Neirida do that? She would NEVER do that! If that's what we have to do then this book is stupid!" The whole, "Perform one of the bad guys' rituals in order to pursue them," runs so counter to how Call of Cthulu is run that you'll have a hard time getting any experienced CoC player to even try it.
GM Recommendation: Always provide an alternative that will appeal to good-aligned players. It can be as simple as an NPC reward ("I noticed that you didn't loot the library. Here's a cash-equivalent reward") or as complex as a side quest ("If you don't want to perform this abominable ritual, you need to go to this holy site of Desna and pray to her for a week for guidance, then take this stupor-inducing drug to enter the Dreamlands"). But, "Sorry, you have to be evil to play in this AP," doesn't cut it. Especially when the underlying theme is one of redemption. "We used to be terrible people, but now we're making up for it. Oh, except we're still terrible."
Book-by-Book:
In Search of Sanity: This was easily my and my players' favorite book, though GothBard's complaints about the excessive number of saving throws started here. It sets an excellent mood, is beautifully creepy, provides for a LOT of roleplaying opportunities, and is extraordinarily well-laid-out in the sense that the entire book takes place in a single, relatively small building, but it still feels like a "complete" adventure.
GM Recommendation: The better runs of this I've read have all focused on really emphasizing the memory loss. Don't even let the players remember their names. Have them discover their abilities on the fly. The more their memory loss haunts them, the more reason they have to perform the rituals in Book 3.
The Thrushmoor Terror: This book had a lot of nice features, from NPCs recognizing the PCs from their past to creepy old Mrs. Lowls to the out-of-nowhere revenant. Unfortunately, what it fundamentally lacked was motivation for the players. As I noted, there's no reason at all for the PCs to investigate Fort Hailcourt. They go there, the person in charge says, "We're all fine, but we're locked down until reinforcements arrive," and it makes sense to move on. The PCs lose an entire level of XP and loot if they don't investigate further, but the motivation is extremely lacking.
Similarly, Count Lowls' estate in Iris Hill holds an abundance of arcane tomes and manuscripts that are critical to the future plot. Yet again, there's no real motivation to take it all. "Huh. Lowls was a creepy guy who was really into all this Old One stuff," was the takeaway from my players, and again, if I hadn't specifically told them they had to take all the books with them, they would have left them all at Iris Hill and (yet again) missed the Dreamlands entirely.
GM Recommendation: If you need the players to do something, make sure they have a reason to do it. Don't just assume every player will investigate every building on the map and pick up every random scrap of paper to carry with them for eternity. This isn't an MMO RPG.
Dreams of the Yellow King: This is where the wheels fell off, and I started realizing that we weren't going to finish this AP. First, you have to convince the PCs to perform the ritual to get to the Dreamlands. And let's be blunt: Forcing a 7th level PC to make 3 of 5 DC 25 Knowledge rolls on two different Knowledge skills is asking a heck of a lot, and hitting them with a CR 8 Animate dream that can out-and-out kill a PC with Phantasmal Killer every time it shows up is a great way to discourage them from ever trying. It's also got a curse-bestowing touch attack, so yep. Another host of save-or-sucks for that encounter.
The Dreamlands encounters are wonderfully variegated and interesting, and there are no serious repercussions for failure; we really enjoyed that part of the book.
Unfortunately, you then have to do the endless, tedious river adventure in which the PCs are repeatedly asked to kill and loot duly-appointed government officials.
GM Recommendation: Drop the DCs on the ritual to 15. Provide more motivation than just, "You might find out something about Lowls or your missing memories if you do this." Eliminate the river journey in its entirety, with the exception of Naerel Twice-Born (fun roleplay) and the Bloodwind. Add a few more encounters to the Dreamlands to pad the XP, and have the Bloodwind's hold full of a ludicrous amount of loot to make up for all the other encounters you're discarding.
The Whisper Out of Time: This is where I lost interest in running the AP, and the players lost interest in playing it. Every fault I've described in this AP is contained in this single book. The PCs are supposed to try to look for Miacknian Mun because... reasons? Seriously, search Books 2 and 3. On p.43 of Book 2 there are some handwritten delivery receipts with his name on them plus the city of Cassomir. On p.44 there's a letter from him offering to help decipher the Necronomicon. Unless your players are obsessive-compulsive notetakers, they're going to have no idea what they're supposed to be doing in Cassomir. Once they start investigating Mun, they stand a good chance of having the city guard called on them. Step 1 of their descent into evil. On arriving at Mun's house, they're expected to either figure out he's a construct or just kill him for the sake of killing him. They're supposed to rob everything not nailed down in his house (a private home in the middle of a major city), ignore the passage to the Darklands they uncover, and move on. Then we have the Mysterium, a.k.a. "Save or Suck Hell". Having uncrittable, un-sneak-attackable creatures throughout, most of which caused something horrible to happen on a to-hit basis was just awful. My players hated the Mysterium with a passion. And oh, by the way, after being asked to please save the library the players are once again expected to kill everything inside (including duly-appointed guards and guardians) and loot everything not nailed down. On to Okeno, where the PCs are supposed to ally themselves with one slaver and kill another for... reasons. And kill everyone and loot everything in an innocent shopfront. The final cherry on top is the utterly irrational behavior of the NPCs. All of Okeno is one great big, "Every NPC is insane, and the PCs have to be evil."
GM Recommendation: Provide more motivation for investigating Mun's house, then have the loot be the city's reward for finding the "hole to the Darklands" problem. Rewrite the creatures in the Mysterium to be less punitive, and again have the loot be a final reward, or carried by the invading creatures. (At the moment it's a bunch of no-treasure oozes, forcing you to loot the library.) Rewrite Okeno entirely; it's just a complete mess.
What Grows Within: If you follow the written guidelines, the PCs will have at least 43 encounters just crossing the desert. Fun? Not for any group I can imagine. The desert journey itself is immensely unsatisfying because it seems utterly pointless beyond, "I needed to put something in because the PCs were traveling." Then you get to Neruzavin, and again there's no real guidance; just, "Hit the PCs with an encounter every 2 hours and eventually get them enough clues to point them to where they need to be."
There's a nice bizarre little section on movement speed when exploring the city. If I don't have a reasonable map of the city beyond a rough outline and three dots, then why do I need to know anything about movement speed?
Finally, you're supposed to betray everyone. Betray or kill the archons. Betray or kill Aeptolinu. Anyone who's not an evil outsider needs to be put to the sword. (You're even supposed to kill Hoshbaugh to get a fake Necronomicon.) Once you're done with all your betraying and killing, you're going to have a nice CR+2 encounter underwater against a creature will all kinds of nasty automatic aura abilities. Don't have a full divine caster in your party to provide Freedom of Movement? Oh, well. You're hosed. (I was surprised to learn that neither shamans nor wizards get Freedom of Movement, so I wasn't looking forward to that fight.) Oh, and by the way, you need to perform rituals straight out of the Necronomicon to proceed. That can't end badly, can it?
GM Recommendation: Work out some guidance beforehand so it's not just one giant random encounter table, because that's how this book feels: Random encounters for 2 solid levels, then a roughly-sketched out dungeon and an unmapped battle at the bottom of a lake as the climax. Whee?
I count 5 books there -- did you have a commentary for Book 6 even though the campaign ended before it?
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I count 5 books there -- did you have a commentary for Book 6 even though the campaign ended before it?
I scanned it over but didn't get a chance to read it cover-to-cover, but... I am disappointed in not being able to run it. It looked like going back to interacting with NPCs in a non-looty manner, a nice closing of the loop at the end, and otherwise looked like I book I really would've enjoyed running. But I'd've had to have gotten through Book 5, and it was clear that wasn't going to happen.
Might I suggest Reign of Winter for an AP to run that you might enjoy running and has horrific content? (I mean, Russian fairytale horror, but even so!) There are some areas where the game improves if you
Well, I've two suggestions for the next AP to run for them that they and you might enjoy.
First, if you want something that also has horrific elements to it, I strongly recommend Reign of Winter. There are some elements that could be condensed or reworked to fit better (for instance, I'd suggest in Book 2 having the hulda enchant the winter wolf pelt in the circle of summer weather using an ancient item of power that the hecuvas were guarding, so to take a half dozen encounters and craft it into a greater whole that is more relevant to the plot as a whole), but on the whole RoW is a fun and at-times tough AP, especially when using winter weather rules.
Second, if you want something that the players can roleplay their way through instead of rollplay through? I'd suggest Hell's Rebels. There are still some areas that honestly could be worked better, but it's one of the few APs where roleplaying, diplomacy, and the like plays a significant role in for pretty much all six books (some moreso than others admittedly).
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Might I suggest Reign of Winter for an AP to run that you might enjoy running and has horrific content? (I mean, Russian fairytale horror, but even so!) There are some areas where the game improves if you
Well, I've two suggestions for the next AP to run for them that they and you might enjoy.
First, if you want something that also has horrific elements to it, I strongly recommend Reign of Winter. There are some elements that could be condensed or reworked to fit better (for instance, I'd suggest in Book 2 having the hulda enchant the winter wolf pelt in the circle of summer weather using an ancient item of power that the hecuvas were guarding, so to take a half dozen encounters and craft it into a greater whole that is more relevant to the plot as a whole), but on the whole RoW is a fun and at-times tough AP, especially when using winter weather rules.
Second, if you want something that the players can roleplay their way through instead of rollplay through? I'd suggest Hell's Rebels. There are still some areas that honestly could be worked better, but it's one of the few APs where roleplaying, diplomacy, and the like plays a significant role in for pretty much all six books (some moreso than others admittedly).
Thanks! Unfortunately, Impus Minor is aching for a homebrew, so I thought up the outline of one and it ended up closely aligning with Tyrant's Grasp, so my next campaign will be a homebrew with maps, NPCs, and monsters ruthlessly looted from that AP. So all I need to provide is a plot, which is usually pretty straightforward when you're making it up as you go along...
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Sometimes those are the best games. I mean, you were doing it with Strange Aeons somewhat (seeing a bit of the game needed... repairs, shall we say? (from what I read of Giantslayer, that one also kind of falls apart in the middle-to-end so really the APs seem hit-or-miss as to how good they are once they're out the main gate)) but really, I look at the APs as more of a template that you further build a game upon. Some of the really good ones will be able to stand on their own with very little padding, but more often than not you need to rework parts of it, especially if you've a truly inventive gaming group.
Anyway, I hope they enjoy the homebrew and that it's not too stressful for you :) If it weren't for the fact my groups meet at best every other week for under four hours, or once a month... I'd be halfway tempted to work on one of the two homebrews that have been bouncing around in my head for a while now. ^^;;