Assault on Longshadow (GM Reference)


Ironfang Invasion

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Another note: I plan on adding a clockwork excavator to the Ecru/munitions camp encounters to add a bit of additional interest. The Ironfang Legion found one in the Hollow Hills and the alchemists here have been working here to repurpose it for the attack on Longshadow.

When else am I gonna have a chance to dig into those back of the book bestiaries? I'm placing it in the ruined building toward the south part of the village. It'll have a tarp thrown over to hide it, but once the PCs attack, either an alchemist or one of the phalanx troopers will run over to activate it. At that point it'll just run wild attacking anyone on the map. The alchemists don't really know much about clockwork devices, so they were not successful in "training" the construct to target only humans or non-hobgoblins. With a lump of iron in it's headpiece, the excavator attacks anything with iron materials on their person.


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Billy Buckman wrote:
Prepping for the Dreamstalker sisters and came across this in Universal Monster Rules for Frightful Presence: "This ability affects only opponents with fewer Hit Dice than the creature has." Since the bugbear sisters are HD 6 and my party is almost level 10, seems like this ability is DOA? All I can guess is it's an oversight or the Nightmare template was applied for its other granted abilities. In any case, I can probably still squeeze some narrative juice out of it by having the fear aura affect townsfolk nearby.

I completely changed the Dreamstalker sisters encounter with my group. The way it was written was just not going to work. Good call on using Frightful Presence to sow confusion and panic amongst the townsfolk (it evens says Azaersi has used them like this against enemy forces), but as you said it is useless against the PCs. They are CE so (IMHO) there is no way they would pick any location to ambush the PCs that wasn't to their advantage, and if I hadn't run it the way that I did, I probably would have had them use suggestion on townsfolk to set up a situation where the PCs thought something else was happening so the sisters could try and isolate a PC before striking.


Gosh, the alchemical golems are absolutely brutal. They are crushing my party. The phalanx troop softened up the eidolon, but the bombs targeting touch AC was too much and a few solid hits puts the eidolon out of commission, even with the summoner siphoning his own HP to the creature. The DR and magic immunity is making it very hard to do damage, with the eidolon as the main source of physical damage, still getting DRed. The druid's pet goes down and suddenly the party is seriously on the backfoot. More golem bombs bring the witch and kineticist down quite low as well and only one golem has taken damage. We ended on a cliffhanger where the party was deciding how to best make a retreat.

Thank goodness I didn't deploy my clockwork excavator. One of the bombardiers ran over to activate it, but the party intercepted, and a timely Hold Person spell kept the excavator out of the fight. It will be just perfect if the party manages to take down the golems only to realize that the hobgoblin was just a few feet away from unleashing something worse. Also, would be a cool reward for them to somehow capture the excavator to use in the battle (though bringing it back to the city could be problematic).


An alchemical golem scored a crit with one of those bombs and blew our party's Kira to bits.


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PFRPGrognard wrote:
An alchemical golem scored a crit with one of those bombs and blew our party's Kira to bits.

ouch. Those bombs are deadly enough already. 16d6 energy damage on a crit is on average 56hp. For a ranged touch attack. I'd be worried about the party looking to build their own in the future (or commissioning one from Navah).

Touch AC attacks, particularly ranged touch attacks, seem to be devastating on both sides. Very interesting seeing how combat shifts when it isn't just a toe-to-toe slugfest.
Have been listening to the This Golarion Life podcast play through of Ironfang Invasion and the alchemist in the party does a LOT of damage with bombs.
Snowball sneak attack from a rogue is my party's default range damage dealing - currently 11d6 and virtually always hits. Most used wand in the party.


Okay, my group finally finished this book and overall I think it went pretty well. The battle felt epic, and although no one died or even went down during the siege, they burned through an incredible amount of healing magic. Druid + witch in the same party = pretty powerful healing. Here are some random notes about the Book 3 climax:

* The Dreamstalker sisters attack 2 nights after their failed nightmares. Ambushing the party + mayor in some back alleys. They kill one and captures the other. This comes back later.

* They recover 2 of the big charges from Ecru, and use the rest to blow the place to hell. Vane Oreld (who showed up with a group of C. Rangers) relishes the prospect of blowing the largest stump-remover in the books.

* Minor side quest where the party recovers the Swift Obsidian Axe for Maldeen Kulcher. They uncover a series of tunnels in Warehouse Row using tremorsense, and capture Neele Wittich, a Molthuni spy, interrogate her for a bit and throw her in jail. They discover a cache of weapons including the magic axe, and gain a few Defense Points.

* They gain a few last minute Defense Points when the kineticist and druid sweep the perimeter looking for tunnels to seal up. They find a handful. One leads to the warehouse tunnels. One leads from the old Cerisum manor currently occupied by Razmirans. They get invited to a potluck. And finally, one leading from the southern sewers of the city to a mausoleum in the Last Shift graveyard. This was their idea and I thought it was clever and a good way to throw in a little more flavor for the city.

* Day 1 goes off without too much trouble. They handle the atchach with ease, and they are able to cut off reinforcements at the docks before more troops arrived. The witch is heal hexing everyone he sees, so I reduced the DP attrition somewhat. Grenta Irontusk joins the fight against the fire elementals, but not before they burn down the jail, and release the surviving Dreamstalker sister.

* My group pretty much mopped up the various missions around the Hollow Hills, the timing really couldn't have been better, and I stayed true to the book's recommended countdown. I think they spent just the right amount of time in Longshadow getting to know the city, but never really getting a chance to relax. Because of this, there were a lot of empty turns during the battle. So I had Kosseruk deploy some of the back of the book encounters, mainly the Burl ogres joined the battle. Though the hobgoblins find them distasteful as anyone, they desperately needed the shock troops. I beefed up the Warmaze Masters with a few more advanced minotarus to replace the gorgons.

* Day 2, they are still handling the encounters fairly well, although they usually have some help from various NPCs, the mayor, Aubrin the Green and a couple others are at the south gate. Navah, Maldeen, and Hillmer are at the main gates. Cirieo and Meriam Kems are at the north gate. I think the morlock swarmer troops sufficiently foreshadowed how awful the beginning of Book 4 will be. I had them swarming up building to collectively leap off onto PCs.

* As the DP total falls on the second day, I describe teams of hobgoblin sappers deployed to the walls in multiple locations. They tunnel underneath and start to weaken them and I try to impress that the defenders are running out of time.

* I have the Dreamstalker sister attack the mayor from invisibility during the second round of the giant ankheg encounter. She sees an opening to decapitate the leadership, but the mayor tanks the blow and the party dispatches the bugbear along with the Earthshaker and the cavaliers. They see the clear opportunity and take the tunnnel to Kosseruk's encampment.

* The encampment becomes a 3-hour rolling encounter leap-frogging from the behir, to minotaur troop, to phalanx troop, with Kosseruk hurling threats as she descended the tower with her bodyguards. The party handles things quite well all things considered. They take some considerable damage, but no one goes down. A clutch Wall of Fire does significant damage to the phalanx troop while the eidolon made his save to avoid banishment by the Dismissal scroll. The image of the druid, in earth elemental form, wielding a whip of centipedes as she was surrounded by the burning phalanx troop is seared into my mind.

* Kosseruk goes toe to toe with the hyper-buffed, huge-sized eidolon with 7 attacks (w/haste), and just can't take the heat. Even with her bodyguards boosting her AC and healing, the eidolon and kineticist carve through her HP in a few rounds.

* We end with the party collapsing the archway and collapsing the tower, but not before stuffing all the intel and treasure from up top into their bag of holding.


Sounds like a great ending!


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So, my group has just reached what i think is the best of the books in this AP.

My campaign is based on the old Patrick Swayze Red Dawn movie, so much so that after spending the night with the dire wolverine to escape the storm in Path of the Hunted, the party are calling themselves 'The Wolverines'.

All came from Phaendar with backgrounds written by me and started as an NPC class at level one which means because they are a larger party it smooths out the power curve with 'normal' class usually one behind where the books recommend.

Challenges so far where not scouting Camp Redjaw well enough and the rogue getting blown up by the minefield and then separating so far apart they couldn't support each other.

The forts they did well at with only wandering individual party members leading to issue with the Wolf in Sheeps clothing and river monsters.

I've been dropping hints that they need to bone up on the militia system as there will be too much for them to do as a group without looking for aid but really looking for the the Hollow Hills. I intend to run it similar to several 70's dystopian TV shows (think Otherworld) where the farms have a hobgoblin overseer and any form of rebellion leads to crucifixon or worse. The mines having been co-opted for the army.


Is Robyn supposed to be a clockwork mage or an alchemical golem? Obviously the statblock listed in the book and in HeroLab is a clockwork mage, but she's working in an alchemical lab which would make more sense for an alchemical golem. Additionally,

Quote:
Robyn does not leave the room, but may continue attacking creatures who interfere with it, provided they remain within sight and range of its bomb attack.

A clockwork mage has no bomb attack but an alchemical golem does. I'll probably leave it as a clockwork mage especially considering there are already alchemical golems in the munitions camp, just an oddity I noticed.


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norsethunder wrote:
Is Robyn supposed to be a clockwork mage or an alchemical golem?

yeah - it's a mess.

I'd go with Clockwork mage. Alchemical golem would be too large for the area and doesn't thematically fit in the lab as a worker.
Not sure why the book says bomb attack but that is surely a very dangerous thing to have in an alchemy lab. The spells available from the necromancy wand crystal are pretty good for protecting the lab, but very curious as to how Navah created Robyn given that she is not 12th level and necromancy is an opposition school, and she has Craft (alchemy) not Craft (clockwork).
I'd consider changing Navah's opposition school from necromancy to illusion, and Appraise to Craft (clockwork).


My PCs were able to disable all the threats presented in the book - the catapults, the munitions camp, the wyverns, gorgons, and harpies. They've also done a lot of extracurricular work building up the town's Defense Points - using their stipend from the mayor to build a moat around the town and recruit some mercs and retrieving the obsidian greataxe Madleen Kulcher lost - in addition to succeeding at all the checks the AP suggests. Currently, the itinerary for the siege looks something like this:
Night 1
Turn 0 - Rallying the Troops
Turn 2 - Gatecrasher
Turn 6 - Panic in the Ranks (Dreamstalker Sisters still active)
Turn 8 - Dockside Assault (Magdava assisting)
Turn 13 - Elemental Bombardment
Night 2
Turn 1 - Spearhead (No Gorgons)
Turn 4 - Morlock Rush
Turn 9 - Threat from Below

Considering how many Defense Points they're sitting on and the fact that there will be 6 players (one returning for a cameo, one joining to sub for another who will leave after the siege) I want to make sure the invasion isn't a complete cakewalk. I was planning to add an encounter with the clockwork excavator attempting to drill through the walls either on Turn 5 of Night 1 or somewhere in Night 2, but does anyone have any other suggestions on ways to turn up the heat other than applying advanced templates or increasing the number of enemies? Also, I was thinking of adding in named NPCs to assist the party although with 6 party members that might bloat playtime even more. Basically I would roll 1d4 to see how many allies happen to be nearby when combat starts and roll d20s to see who it is. Here's the table I drew up:
1 - Aureni Greygallow
2 - Kidrin Relvaed
3 - Isaki Farhif
4 - Dominick Vlais
5 - Aashira
6 - Klemens Dracht
7 - Grenta Irontusk
8 - Gestelle Ambrose
9 - Madleen Kulcher
10 - Kizviz
11 - Elus Sparkstrike
12 - Rutra Grimburrow
13 - Meriam Kems
14 - Kesten Idliss
15 - Neele Wittich
16 - Trask (Razmiran Priest)
17 - Cirieo Thessadin
18 - Aubrin the Green
19 - Herge
20 - Navah

They're arranged roughly in order of CR, since having lower level NPCs to protect is more of a hindrance than a help, while some NPCs can make encounters trivial (Herge the wood giant can cast quench which would do 7d6 of damage to the fire elementals from Elemental Bombardment with no save)


norsethunder wrote:
I was planning to add an encounter with the clockwork excavator attempting to drill through the walls either on Turn 5 of Night 1 or somewhere in Night 2, but does anyone have any other suggestions on ways to turn up the heat other than applying advanced templates or increasing the number of enemies?

In my campaign, Ironfang Invasion converted to Pathfinder 2nd Edition rules, my party had aquired a smaller version of the Clockwork Excavator called a Dig-Widget. Some Ironfang morlock engineers were using it to undermine the walls of Radya's Hollow because I decided that the town had not yet been conquered when the party arrived there weeks early. The Dig-Widget was small enough to stuff into their bag of holding and they pull it out for capers, such as rescuing their former neighbors in Phaendar from slavery as war captives by digging an escape tunnel.

I increased the difficulty of the assault on Longshadow by having Kosseruk, whom I promoted to Brigadier General, start the invasion when her spies told her the party was out of town at the Warbeast Camp. The party returned quickly, before the entire one-thousand-strong army finished marching through the Stone Tower, so they blew up the Stone Tower immediately with the Breaching Charges that they had stolen from the Munitions Camp. Only three hundred Ironfang soldiers had arrived (grouped into militia units), so Kosseruk's army was at only 30% full strength.

Therefore, I once again increased the difficulty again by making some of the events happen at the same time to split the 7-member party: Gatecrasher at the south gate, the Dockside Assault (without the nuckelavee Magdava, so they swam), and a Spearhead attack on the east wall (I had let the enemy repair one single catapult that had damaged that wall). Unfortunately, that had the nasty problem that the party could not move fast enough to keep up with the trouble. I handwaved away the movement rules and let them reach the key areas on time to participate. Another downside was that each round took one hour of real-world time. With the party split apart spread thin, the PCs needed several rounds to defeat the enemies. The battle of Longshadow required five 3-hour game sessions.

The party had plenty of NPC help, such as Mayor Thom Crawbert and Grenta Irontusk leading the defense of the north gate, and Molthuni spy Neele Wittich leading the smugglers of Longshadow to defend the docks. The party had recruited Wittich after deducing her role as a spy by letting her contact her Molthune boss via Sending and learning that the Ironfang Legion had deserted Molthune. Other allies were Navah and her apprentice Venton Chase. When I converted Navah to Pathfinder 2nd Edition, I made her a ritualist wizard with the ability to perform the Raise Dead ritual. She had gone to the ruins of Redburrow, found her dead apprentice, and resurrected him. The two helped defend the east gate. Cirieo Thessaddin from Fort Ristin (converted to a summoner for the PF2 summoner playtest) and Cobb Greenleaf and other rangers from Fort Trevalay helped at the south gate. Also I created six Longshadow Archers militia units and let the players run them. The party had roleplayed training citizens as militia, so it seemed appropriate.

Elus Sparkstrike was not directly involved in the combat, but the party had hired his smithy to make iron gates to replace the reinforced wooden gates of the city. They had installed new iron gates at the north and east, but had not yet installed the south gate. Well, the third iron gate made a good replacement later. The party killed the athach giant before it finished destroying the wooden south gate, but Kosseruk broke down the heavily damage gate herself with her Powerful Charge ability. That led to her death because she was in reach of some party members. The enemy was not capable of coordinated multiple attacks without Brigadier General Kosseruk.

The NPCs allies were mostly safe on the city walls, so the party did not need to protect them. But aside from the high-level abilities on Navah and the Longshadow Archer units, low-level abilities did little damage to the Longshadow militia units.

My players had a Great Victory.


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norsethunder wrote:

...

Herge the wood giant can cast quench which would do 7d6 of damage to the fire elementals from Elemental Bombardment with no save
...

Why would Herge be in Longshadow?

There are still dangers in the Fangwood and I'd think that some of the more capable NPCs would still be there to protect their home and look after others who are unable to travel.

Honestly, if they have done the defenses properly then they should be rewarded for the effort. Narrating attacks that would have worked but for their preparations and then showing those attacks failing or not working as well helps with the sense of accomplishment.
You have unending tides of Ironfang assaulting the walls so tie up the NPCs to look after those. The PCs (and Mayor Thom) should come out as the heroes, bolstering flagging morale and dealing with the few encounters beyond the normal folk. Unless they have set up a way of getting messages from across the city to them quickly and then them getting to where they are needed quickly then you can have any encounter start with already having some casualties. You know your players and play style best, so the #1 goal is for fun and something memorable, but fill in the gaps so it doesn't seem like a series of encounters but rather hands on major beats to a larger story. I had my group see Navah rolling an aqueous orb around to mop up individual Ironfangs who had gotten past the wall, had Cobb leading a group of archers, and Hilmer barreling through goblins who were trying to light fires. I also had Aubrin, Cireo, and a host of others kept away back in the Fangwood. The Chernasardo Rangers have responsibility for the Fangwood and leaving any forts undefended (including Misthome) would leave open the very real possibility of fey (or worse) moving in.
A message from the forest calling some of the NPCs back because of some off camera trouble might be a way of thinning the herd (so to speak) and if you threw in some rumours about spreading Darkblight then it can foreshadow Book 5.

I also put together a spreadsheet to help track the battle if it is of any interest to you. My players had a great victory but it was earned, and memorable.

RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32

In my run-through, this part of the book coincided with the start of the Pandemic and playing on-line. So we had an old friend who had never played PF join us online, and I had him play as Herge, so he was in Longshadow for my campaign too.
Storywise, I think they sent a messenger to the forest to let them know what was going on with the imminent attack as soon as they got the plans from Dargg in Area J, and Herge showed up days later to help.


erucsbo said wrote:
Why would Herge be in Longshadow?

The PCs requested him, as he and Longfrond were the only NPCs they thought were competent. They think poorly of the Chernasardo Rangers (a supposedly highly-trained militia) because they got decimated by the Ironfang Legion while the PCs (four dinguses) were able to mop up the hobgoblins easily. I reminded them that two NPCs would probably not tip the scales much, so they ended up calling in Herge, Cirieo, Aubrin, and a platoon of Chernasardo trainees while Longfrond and Cobb Greenleaf hold down the fort.

As for the difficulty, I'm looking to bump it up for two reasons. One: I'll have six PCs playing during the siege, plus some NPCs if the party splits up to cover more ground. Two: I find difficult combats to be much more memorable. I just finished playing in a Rise of the Runelords game, and Book 4 had a few moments that really showed that.

Rise of the Runelords Book 4:

The town of Sandpoint was under a similar siege from a bunch of giants and a red dragon. Because there were so many giants, we were losing in terms of action economy and were on the ropes for much of the fight, with an NPC companion dying. In contrast, when the dragon landed, we trapped it in a resilient sphere then obliterated it with a cone of cold. The fight with the giants was way more memorable, while when we fought another dragon later almost everyone forgot we had fought a dragon previously.

I will definitely have scenes that highlight the PCs efforts coming to fruition (a noticeable lack of catapults or aerial troops, etc.) but I also don't want it to be a total cakewalk.

Also, should Earthshaker the unique ankheg be an ankhrav instead? They're a unique ankheg that's beefier than a normal one, but an ankhrav is basically that without being a unique statblock.


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norsethunder wrote:

...

Also, should Earthshaker the unique ankheg be an ankhrav instead? They're a unique ankheg that's beefier than a normal one, but an ankhrav is basically that without being a unique statblock.

Earthshaker has slightly better attack and damage for bite than an ankhrav, but is lacking claw attacks. Slightly better Fort but lower Will and Reflex. Also Earthshaker's HP is greater (due to +1 HD and greater Con).

Ankhrav slightly faster and with better spit acid distance and damage.

For your group why not just combine the two and take whatever is greater.

IIRC my group's wizard summoned an ankylosaurus and it dazed Earthshaker before it and the fighter bashed Earthshaker to pieces.


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norsethunder wrote:
erucsbo said wrote:
Why would Herge be in Longshadow?
The PCs requested him, as he and Longfrond were the only NPCs they thought were competent. They think poorly of the Chernasardo Rangers (a supposedly highly-trained militia) because they got decimated by the Ironfang Legion while the PCs (four dinguses) were able to mop up the hobgoblins easily.

I had to make up excuses why the three Chernasardo forts in Fangs of War fell, so that the PCs in my campaign would still respect them. First, the invasion of Phaendar was training for inexperienced Ironfang recruits--it was literally in the name of the CR 1/2 hobgoblins. I said that the experienced Ironfang soldiers were sent to take out the Chernasardo Rangers. And they had a dragon. And large armies were sent to conquer the forts, but did not remain there to hold the forts.

In addition, we developed lore about the three forts. Fort Ristin was a supply depot, which is why a wine merchant had been there. Fort Nunder was an armory vault with little personnel, which is why it had almost no living quarters. And Fort Trevalay was a training ground for new Chernasardo recruits, which is why 9 of the 14 survivors were CR 1/2 Chernasardo Recruits. Trevalay did have some experienced 8th-level rangers as teachers, but they died in battle. None of the three forts contained the most elite Chernasardo Rangers.

My PCs present themselves as Chernasardo Rangers, so they themselves are renewing the old reputation of the Chernasardo Rangers as elite militia. The other Chernasardo Rangers, besides Aubrin who does not speak up, assume that the PCs are experienced Chernasardo special forces from another part of the Fangwood.

Grand Archive

Noticed some of Kosseruk's math is incorrect in her stats.
Main thing I would guess is that Sensate stops weapon training 2 & up, not weapon training 1, and the math all seems to be off by 1. I *suppose* Kosseruk could have weapon training in a weapon other than what she has 3 feats helping her with, but that'd be odd.
Exact math under spoiler.

If there's anything I'm missing, I'm more than happy being corrected!

Spoiler:
Attack Roll listed w/Heroism: +23 w/o Heroism: +21
Damage listed: 2d6+9
AC Listed: 24

Attack Roll w/o Heroism: +22
Base Attack: +14
Str 23: +6
Large: -1
+1 Weapon: +1
Weapon Training 1: +1
Weapon Focus: +1

Attack Roll w/Heroism: +24

Damage:2d6 +10
Strength: +6
Weapon Training: +1
Weapon Specialization: +2
+1 Weapon: +1

AC w/Shield Other benefit: 25 (Listed in text as Kosseruk having the benefit of it at battle start.)

w/Centered Senses: +1 to attack and damage.
Attack Roll +25 Damage 2d6+11

W/Combat Expertise:
Attack Roll +21 Damage 2d6+11 AC: 29

w/Power Attack:
Attack Roll +21 Damage 2d6+19

w/Power Attack & Combat Expertise:
Attack Roll +17 Damage 2d6+19 AC: 29

w/Power Attack, Combat Expertise, & Vital Strike
Attack Roll +17 Damage 4d6+19 AC: 29


Good day. My players, all 10 of them, are currently scouting the Hollow Hills. They moved immediately to Longshadow and skipped going to Redburrow and Radya's Hollow first. They met with the mayor and council and managed to convince the mayor despite the protestations of the council. Thus far they have attributed the lack of movement of smelted to goods to malfeasance and greed. They almost attacked the council, but cooler heads prevailed. They are searching for the proof of the Ironfang now, having now encountered the Trench Mist at Redburrow and have found the Ridgeline Camp. We ended the last session there. Not sure what they are going to do about Radya's once they tear through the Ridgeline camp.

They have plans for the defense of the city, and have come up with some creative ideas for defense. One thing they have not yet considered is the attack from the dockside.

Anyway, my question is, how were you managing the river crossing by the PC's getting to the munitions camp? Using the ferry or were they relying on other magics, Walk on Water and such?

Thanks.


In my campaign, built under the PF2 rules with Backgrounds, three of the seven PCs had gained Underworld Lore from their backgrounds (one was a former criminal, one had hunted bandits, and one was a detective). Thus, they immediately wanted to contact the criminal underworld of Longshadow, who were the smugglers led by Kidrin Relvaed (page 67 under 10. Migrant’s Welcome Dock) and Neele Wittich (also page 67 under 11. Warehouse Lane). Once they had funds for defense projects from the city, they started a few covert projects with their own funds, including hiring the smugglers to stealthily patrol the rivers.

When they needed to cross the river starting from Longshadow, they hired the smugglers to take them across. To return from the Munitions camp, where they had rescued some human captives, they used a Sending spell to request transport from Neele Wittich. I had extended the map of the Munitions Camp southward to add some docks to a tributary of the Marideth River. Except the story ended up more complicated as they waited for the boat: How does a Liberator Champion Deal with Slavers? comment #45.

For a party without underworld contacts, hiring fishermen's boats would be simpler. Going upriver in a boat is faster than crossing the river and then walking upriver.


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Sethvir wrote:

...

Anyway, my question is, how were you managing the river crossing by the PC's getting to the munitions camp? Using the ferry or were they relying on other magics, Walk on Water and such?

Thanks.

Mine took the ferry. Keeps the locals involved. Wizard could cast mount so easy to travel fast overland (faster than a boat can go upriver).

The Exchange

Brother Fen wrote:

Page 18 descirbes Area J3. Prisoner Cages as being "along an abrupt cliff which drops 80 feet below".

The map alone is very confusing, but I used this bit of description to help layout the area by placing the cages up high on a cliff meaning the area leading to it is an incline with the rest of the camp being in the valley below it.

If anyone else is having difficulties, here's a version I did that might make it slightly clearer, though perhaps not entirely accurate - I essentially had the entire map sloping from left to right, with the left part of the map being too steep / inaccessible, and the right side sloping down to ground level:

Ridgeline Camp 52 x 62

However, it's probably supposed to be sloping down on both sides - which I might fix before running it.


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Belryan wrote:
Brother Fen wrote:

Page 18 descirbes Area J3. Prisoner Cages as being "along an abrupt cliff which drops 80 feet below".

The map alone is very confusing, but I used this bit of description to help layout the area by placing the cages up high on a cliff meaning the area leading to it is an incline with the rest of the camp being in the valley below it.

If anyone else is having difficulties, here's a version I did that might make it slightly clearer, though perhaps not entirely accurate - I essentially had the entire map sloping from left to right, with the left part of the map being too steep / inaccessible, and the right side sloping down to ground level:

Ridgeline Camp 52 x 62

However, it's probably supposed to be sloping down on both sides - which I might fix before running it.

Can't access your maps, but yes it is supposed to be sloping down on both sides rather than the left side being higher than the camp.

"This camp, which sits atop a rocky ridge that runs along the eastern edge of the Hollow Hills"

"The camp is visible from afar" and the sentry towers are keeping an eye out on both sides.
I had the slope on the left side a lot less steep than the right side (which is basically a cliff where the cages are, and a bit to the north). PCs can either follow the ridgeline to come at the camp from north or south, have a gentle climb up the left side, or a very steep climb up the right side.
If the party can get to the base of the cliff on the right hand side unseen and can get up the cliff, then they have a good chance of being able to attack before the sentries see them.

The Exchange

Oops - fixed permissions on the map (but will fix the details when I'm able) - and will probably need to make the map even larger to provide multiple options for reaching the camp itself.

The Exchange

Here's the fixed version of the Ridgeline Camp map - 62x62@150dpi

The Exchange

My group finished Book 2 last night with the defeat of Jang and Ibzairiak, so will be doing wrap-up of book 2 / beginning of book 3 stuff next session. I have pretty much all of book 3 prepped, except for the last battle, because I don't know what they will negate before hand, and also because it confuses the heck out of me.

The one combat round per turn thing seems really brutal, beause they could potentially get bogged down in a combat slog due to some poor rolls and then have a bunch of the events go down without them interfering. Did everyone basically run this exactly as written?

Unrelated, but here's my current campaign map: Basically running everything as a hexcrawl (though I removed the grid for this upload). Forest started as a blank canvas, and then I add stuff as it gets discovered:

Currently it is updated as of getting information from the War Room at Fort Trevalay - so it has a not-quite-up-to-date indication of Ironfang-controlled territories.

Link to Ironfang Campaign Map - End of Book 2


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Belryan wrote:

...

I have pretty much all of book 3 prepped, except for the last battle, because I don't know what they will negate before hand, and also because it confuses the heck out of me.

The one combat round per turn thing seems really brutal, because they could potentially get bogged down in a combat slog due to some poor rolls and then have a bunch of the events go down without them interfering. Did everyone basically run this exactly as written?
...

yeah - pretty much.

I created a battle tracker spreadsheet.
Send me a PM and I'll give you the OneDrive link to it if you want.


Belryan wrote:

... I have pretty much all of book 3 prepped, except for the last battle, because I don't know what they will negate before hand, and also because it confuses the heck out of me.

The one combat round per turn thing seems really brutal, beause they could potentially get bogged down in a combat slog due to some poor rolls and then have a bunch of the events go down without them interfering. Did everyone basically run this exactly as written?

No Ironfang battle plan survived contact with my players' characters. For example, Assault on Longshadow assumes the party will counterattack Section Q, KOSSERUK’S ENCAMPMENT, after they repel all of Kosseruk's assaults on Longshadow itself. Nope. They realized that more Ironfang troops were still arriving through the Stone Road, so they immediately set out to close the Stone Road. They used the breaching charges that they had looted from Section P6, Munitions Storage, on page 43.

Of course, since I knew how tactical my players are, I had alterred the battle plans myself. Lieutenant Kosseruk is described in the module as cruel:

Assault on Longshadow, Lieutenant Kosseruk, page 59 wrote:
Finally recognized for her true talents, Kosseruk now serves as one of the Ironfang Legion’s most experienced and trusted lieutenants. She is infamous among the Ironfangs for her cruelty—minotaurs do not kill their foes quickly; they wait until their victims are lost, terrified, and exhausted before they close in for the killing blow. Similarly, Kosseruk never passes up an opportunity to shatter enemy forces’ morale before destroying them.

I needed Kosseruk to be tactical rather than cruel, so I developed the Warmaze strategic philosophy even further. And I changed Kosseruk's title to Brigadier General. The first stage of her plan was to build a maze of lies around Longshadow. She set up monsters from the War Beast Camp around the city to prevent travelers reaching the city with news, and if the travelers did slip past the monsters, then they would honestly report that they had seen no Ironfang patrols near Longshadow. The dopplegangers spread further lies that the Ironfang Legion had raided near the border of Nirmathas but they would never advance as far as Longshadow. The Dreamstalker Sisters assassinated anyone trying to organize a defense of Longshadow.

Kosseruk did not want to besiege Longshadow. Instead, Nirmathi people had a habit of evacuating their cities and then returning later, as recorded in the history in Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Lands of Conflict. She wanted to scare the Longshadow residents into fleeing their city so that the Longfang Legion could move in, fortify it against Nirmathi return, and use its iron foundries to forge weapons for the Ironfang Legion.

Unfortunately, as I imagined Kosseruk assessing the tactical situation, she reach an unavoidable conclusion: the party itself was the heart of courage for Longshadow. They had visited several Ironfang camps and defeated them entirely. The party had revealed the dopplegangers. They had killed the Dreamstalker Sisters. They had rebuilt the city walls and trained militias and a civilian response corps. The city would not panic while the party was defending them. Kosseruk 's best chance of scaring the citizens of Longshadow to evacuate was to attack while the party was away on a mission. This plan was anti-climactic due to beginning off scene, but as my players said afterwards, it made sense. At the warbeast camp, the party realized that the lack of troops at the camp meant that the assault on Longshadow had started, so they hurried back to Longshadow.

Fortunately, one player was absent during that last mission to clear out the last camp, so I declared that her character Binny had remained behind in Longshadow. At the beginning of the next game session, she got to witness the scene on page 44 where the Stone Tower was conjured. The party had destroyed the heavy trebuchets at Camp O, SIEGE CROSSING, but Kosseruk had brought some lighter catapults through the Stone Road so that I started with Turn 1, Catapults. Binny was the party's stealth master, and she sneaked out and destroyed the catapults with the Ironfang Legions own gunpowder bombs. The rest of the party returned before the other Turns.

And then the Turn structure completely fell apart. The party destroyed the Stone Road before any more Turns. I had planned for 1,000 soldiers, grouped into 16-solder Hobgoblin Formation troop units, to arrive, but only 320 had passed through the Stone Road before the PCs demolished it. The remaining troops could travel overland from the Valley of Aloi, but that would take over a day. Kosseruk decided on a fast assault with the available troops, combining several Turns together and attacking all three walls to force the party to spread thin. The so-called Turns simply became battle plans that Kosseruk had prepared.

Each player controlled their character, an NPC character such as Navah, and a Longshadow Archers troop unit. I had to let them cheat on speed, saying that if their character moved to a tower on the wall then they could teleport to any other tower on the wall, just to avoid having them spend several rounds doing nothing but running across the city. They needed communications even faster than that, so I invented a messenger Amelia who could go anywhere in Longshadow in a single turn to deliver messenger between the player characters. A year later when the Time Mystery for PF2 oracle was released, I built Amelia as a time oracle to explain her speed.

With so many characters on the battlefield, each 6-second turn took one and a half hours to play out, so we had only two turns per game session. The battle took weeks of real gaming sessions. In internal game time, the battle took less than ten minutes.

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