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Here's a reminder. When you get to the Kraelos encounter (event-2) don't forget to include the key to H24 in his gear. Also if they encounter Azlowe, he should have a key also. They forgot to put it in their statblocks, but only tell you who has keys in the H24 description.
Here's a reminder. When you get to the Kraelos encounter (event-2) don't forget to include the key to H24 in his gear. Also if they encounter Azlowe, he should have a key also. They forgot to put it in their statblocks, but only tell you who has keys in the H24 description.
excellent timing! might be encountering Kraelos next session! thanks for the tip
How exactly does the system for the war council work? I found the description to be pretty vague. My players and I worked out an understanding of it but I'm curious how closely that matches the intended usage or whatever you guys ended up substituting. Below is a flow chart of how we made it work:
Discovery check -> Interest check -> Influence check
For example, here is how Weslen Gavirk's influence would go:
Knowledge (geography) or Survival DC 20 -> Diplomacy DC 25 or Bluff/Survival DC 30 (+4 if successful on Discovery check) -> Success
The perception check on Day 0 gave my players some insight to one discovery check option for each, but I ended up just telling them what all the discovery checks were because otherwise they would just be rolling skills blindly.
How exactly does the system for the war council work? I found the description to be pretty vague.
My take was that there are a couple of paths to Influence.
Either ofA -> Diplomacy DC or Bluff DC -> Successful Influence
B -> Sense Motive DC20 -> Non-Diplomacy/Bluff DC -> Successful Influence
in addition they can attempt discovery
C -> Interests DC -> info to give +4 competence bonus on path A or B
Note that it is a competence bonus, so if the PC is wearing a circlet of persuasion or has something else providing a competence bonus to the skill being used to influence (Diplomacy, Bluff, other) then it doesn't stack.
You can let them know the Interests skills to use - if successful this reveals the text under Discovery which they have to work into roleplay for the Influence check in order to get the +4 bonus.
GM prep really ramps up in this one with some totally ineffective enemy tactics.
Azlowe uses Dispel Magic? If the PCs haven't multiclassed then caster level is likely to be 17. Mine are 20. DC for Dispel Magic is 11+Caster level, so likely at least 28, and for mine 31. Azlowe is CL10. That means he'd need to roll an 18 to affect by the book PC spells and has no chance working on mine. I think Debilitating Portent, with Firewalker's Meditation from the day before might be on the cards instead.
Witcheater cultists cast Blasphemy? "Creatures whose Hit Dice exceed your caster level are unaffected by blasphemy." Totally ineffective unless the cultists are bumped up 3 levels (or 6 in my case).
Comments have already been made on other named enemy builds.
Was this never playtested or did the development team just think it was a good idea to give freebies to the PCs?
The book outlines threats on land, air, and sea for assaulting the Onyx Citadel. I'm pretty sure my PCs are just going to use their phantom chariot and fly in, but I'm curious how a beach landing or land assault goes. The thousands of troops camped on the island "pose little challenge for the PCs", but they're still thousands of troops. If you cross the bridge and fight the warmonger, do they just sit and watch as you walk up to the citadel? Having them all swarm the gates makes sense but seems like a nightmare to run as a tidal wave of mooks pursues the PCs through the citadel. I can't see the higher-ups saying no to reinforcements as an excuse to keep them out of the fight.
The book outlines threats on land, air, and sea for assaulting the Onyx Citadel. I'm pretty sure my PCs are just going to use their phantom chariot and fly in, but I'm curious how a beach landing or land assault goes. The thousands of troops camped on the island "pose little challenge for the PCs", but they're still thousands of troops. If you cross the bridge and fight the warmonger, do they just sit and watch as you walk up to the citadel? Having them all swarm the gates makes sense but seems like a nightmare to run as a tidal wave of mooks pursues the PCs through the citadel. I can't see the higher-ups saying no to reinforcements as an excuse to keep them out of the fight.
The text about the warmonger says,
Even the Ironfang Legion has not yet figured out how to take control of the massive construct, electing to move to and from the lakeshore with magic rather than confront the bridge guardian. The warmonger does not pursue opponents beyond the bridge, but it responds to ranged attacks with its own automatic crossbow.
Thus, the Ironfang soldiers will keep their distance from the warmonger. But they would use the time of the battle against the warmonger to arrange themselves into a good position to attack the PCs.
At least, that is how I would have run it. However, my player characters decided to fly in invisibly to H28, Upper Terrace, so they never had a battle on the bridge. And they used Kraelos's key to lock doors to hold off soldiers from other floors, until Azlowe showed up with his key.
I designed a troop unit consisting of 16 Ironfang soldiers to handle army-sized battles against the PCs.
... However, my player characters decided to fly in invisibly to H28, Upper Terrace, so they never had a battle on the bridge ...
And mine teleported invisibly on to the balcony below that.
IMHO it is very poorly designed for any party with at least a smidgeon of intelligence.
The Ironfang are lawful and unlikely to just send waves of mooks. They would more likely pepper the party with arrows and javelins and rely on those already stationed in the citadel and other citadel defenses to deal with anyone trying to get in.
If the party are stupid enough to try a frontal assault then have them deal with a hail of troop missile fire until they get under cover.
Alarm is raised and expect any defenses inside the citadel to be alert and prepared.
Couple map questions:
The western wall of H18 looks like it's made of bars. Is it actually or is that just a mistake due to the jail cells in H17?
H34 has two stairways leading into/out of it, L and R. L clearly corresponds to the L on H35, but I can't find another R. I'm assuming it's a mistype and it corresponds to K just north of H27, but swapping R for K seems like an odd typo (not anywhere near each other on the keyboard).
Couple map questions:
The western wall of H18 looks like it's made of bars. Is it actually or is that just a mistake due to the jail cells in H17?
The text for H18, Alchemy Lab, on page 46 says, "An iron grating (hardness 10, hp 60, break DC 28) stands at either end of this large room, providing both protection and ventilation. Each is locked with a superior-quality lock." So both the east wall and the west walls are iron gratings, which look like bars on the map.
H34 has two stairways leading into/out of it, L and R. L clearly corresponds to the L on H35, but I can't find another R. I'm assuming it's a mistype and it corresponds to K just north of H27, but swapping R for K seems like an odd typo (not anywhere near each other on the keyboard).
As for H34, False Ritual Room, the PCs in my campaign will enter that room during the next game session this Friday. The stairway marked with the yellow R leads upwards to the red K stairway behind the secret door in room H33, Azaersi’s Chambers, where my party is currently located. My players noticed that the K is matched to an R. I reckon that a stray mark on the original sketch of that stairway closed the top of the K and made it look like an R to the typesetter, who put a real R there. Stairway K leading down to stairway L makes alphabetical sense.
The stairway marked with the red L leads downward to H35, Transposition Engine.
Couple map questions:
The western wall of H18 looks like it's made of bars. Is it actually or is that just a mistake due to the jail cells in H17?
H34 has two stairways leading into/out of it, L and R. L clearly corresponds to the L on H35, but I can't find another R. I'm assuming it's a mistype and it corresponds to K just north of H27, but swapping R for K seems like an odd typo (not anywhere near each other on the keyboard).
Quality control on this book is a step down from the last 2 which were a step down from the first 3. They even issued an update for the map pack and still left in errors (door colours, staircase D, etc.).
I think the R is supposed to be a K, it is just that whoever did the typesetting for the final version of the map misread the K as R (smudge or lined up with top wall of room perhaps).
My players landed in the gargoyle roost via phantom chariot and descended to H10 invisibly. When they heard Noxil talking about overthrowing Azaersi, they figured Noxil would be the lesser of two evils since she was against the plan to transpose the Vault onto the Material Plane. When they got close enough for Noxil to smell them, they decided to bargain with her: help us kill Azaersi, and we'll leave after that. Noxil agreed and began leading them to the mana battery to attract Zanathura's attention and hopefully kill her. They were stopped by Henra though, who questioned Noxil's presence. The players (still invisible) answered with a fireball and combat began. We're one round deep and will pick up next session. Assuming the PCs win this fight (which they probably will), here's how I foresee things going. The PCs discharge the mana battery and Zanathura comes to investigate with her honor guards. Zanathura teleports away leaving the guards and goes to grab Azaersi, then the final confrontation begins. I'm hoping to not have things end so quickly though, so I was thinking of having Zanathura grab someone else to deal with the PCs. She doesn't seem trusting of Azlowe or Kraelos, so I was thinking of building some custom mercenaries designed to exploit the PCs weaknesses. I ended up giving my players one mythic tier after they killed the immortal ichor and they've been steamrolling my encounters more than usual, so I don't feel too bad about making something specifically to kill them.
Also, they were spotted as they flew in, but the ballista batteries that fired at them are on the opposite side of the tower as the gargoyle roost, so I've been running it as the citadel is on alert, but not DEFCON 1. Not sure how this manifests other than people having done their pre-combat buffs though.
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My Gobstoppers have just reconquered Fort Phaendar and entered the Vault. The Battle of Phaendar was a grueling gauntlet that took the better part of a full day. The Gobstoppers arrive fresh off their latest shopping spree in Kraggodan, and one last night of R&R at the Canary in Longshadow. Then, they teleport to the woods, in fact the very location of their first pitful campsite after fleeing Phaendar back in Book 1.
The druid goes into hawk form and goes for a scout. While making note of the layout and troop distributions in the fort, the druid is attacked by none other than Maltagra the horned devil in her giant raven form. There ensues a brief, but harrowing chase as the devil fails to slow or capture the druid. Maltagra turns back to patrol the skies after giving chase for several hundred feet.
With the knowledge they've gleaned, the Gobstoppers move to make their attack. Their militia forces are standing by in the treeline to join in after the PCs punch a hole through the defenses. The party teleports to the far side of the bridge and launches their assault. The munitions officers (alchemists) are giving the most trouble with their touch attacks and debuffs, while the storm giants are mainly HP sponges. Maltagra joins the fray in the second round, but falls victim to an icy tomb hex. I had the alchemists running all around the sides of the gatehouse using spider climb to get some sort of cover from the eidolon's reach. Nevertheless, the PCs manage to punch through the gatehouse defenders, and make it into the fort proper. After being released from the ice tomb, Maltagra succeeds on a defensive concentration check and teleports away (to the Onyx Tower to heal and summon in some barbed devils for the inevitable rematch).
It's in the open parade grounds between the buildings where I had the hobgoblin commanders lead several troops to attack head on (I brought the Legion Patrol encounter into the fort, since as written the defenses felt a bit weak). I also threw in a couple of the lowest CR hobgoblin troops just to act as cannon fodder and make it feel like wading into a true battlefield. As the fight went on, I had Ettoran the vishkanya bard and his bodyguard monks emerge from the Taproot Inn to join the fray. Ettoran summons a giant anaconda, and the monks close the distance on the party's backline. However, between the druid's sirocco and the summoner's walls of fire, the movement and attack capability of the enemy is seriously hindered. It was a combat that spanned across 3 sessions, but eventually they took out the "main" force in the Fort.
From here I described another column of hobgoblin troops and commanders making their way to intercept the party from the barracks area, but they themselves are intercepted by the entrance of the Gobstopper militia. Karburtin hems them in with a wall of stone while Navah flies in and turns one of the Commanders into a lizard with a baleful polymorph. The militia has things handled at this location now, so the party is now free to make their way systematically around the Fort, dismantling defenses.
When they free the slaves from their pens, our witch player is reunited with his adoptive father, Speaker of the Leaves Mayslen Torgun from Tamran. After the sack of Tamran a few weeks ago, many of the captives were brought here to Phaendar (and some, taken through to the Onyx Citadel). Speaker Torgun finds himself a de facto leader of the enslaved Nirmathi here, along with Friar Damerto.
Neutralizing the remaining locations was fairly straightforward, though the entire time the party is using resources and healing, none of the enemies have presented a serious threat. It's late autumn in our game, so i describe the weather growing progressively worse, overcast becoming mist and rain, becoming freezing rain and sleet as the day dragged on. As they clear the final location in the Fort, and turn their attention to the Tower, they decide to rest and breach the tower tomorrow... But Scabvistin has other plans...
After realizing the Fort has fallen, he enacts the self destruct countdown giving the Gobstoppers no more than a couple hours to assault the tower! I described the tower lighting up with lines of glowing neon colors that starkly contrast against the dark stone and heavy clouds. The dwarven runes that cover the stone tower light up as the magic activates. I describe a kind of visual "countdown" as the time between "pulses" of light grows shorter and shorter. The Gobstoppers realize they dont have the luxury of resting, as their only chance of getting through the Stone Road to their final enemy is inside the tower.
Why do the sandman sleepers, with 12 levels of Rogue, get only one attack?
I asked that myself. Sandmen only get one Slam. So why not use a weapon? Any weapon?
Why do they have animated bucklers? They suffer no penalty of any kind for using a buckler, as far as I know, so animating it would just waste an action. (Why would you make an animated buckler anyway? The whole point of a buckler is it doesn't take up a hand....)
And they're mithral bucklers. Why did the sandmen spend a feat on shield proficiency? Shouldnt the penalty be zero, even without the feat, anyway?
The description of sandmen sounds like they do not possess solid bodies. Maybe that is why they do not wield any weapons and only use animated shields as armor. But this makes them bad rogues, even though they are very stealthy.
How did this fight go for you guys? Does anybody have any experience? I am thinking about turning them into unchained monks or some other class that works better without equipment.
Why do the sandman sleepers, with 12 levels of Rogue, get only one attack?I asked that myself. Sandmen only get one Slam. So why not use a weapon? Any weapon?
The lack of multiple attacks was probably an error from upgrading the CR 3 Sandman from Bestiary 2 to the CR 12 Sandman Sandman in Vault of the Onyx Citadel. The CR 3 Sandman had "Base Atk +4" and "Melee slam +6 (1d6+3 plus sleep)," so it had only one attack. The CR 12 Sandman Sleeper has "Base Atk +12," so I think the attack "Melee slam +16 (1d8+4)" should have been "Melee slam +16/+11/+6 (1d8+4) plus sleep."
How did this fight go for you guys? Does anybody have any experience? I am thinking about turning them into unchained monks or some other class that works better without equipment.
I myself swapped out the Sandmen Sleepers for a trap, Sand Whirlwind. I was converting the adventure path to Pathfinder 2nd Edition, which has different rules about multiple attacks, and raising it to a 20-level adventure path, so I would have had to rewrite the CR 12 Sandmen Sleepers from scratch as 14th-level Sandman Sleepers. And a trap seemed more appropriate for the first encounter inside The Archive Under the Hill, because it gives a stronger impression that the Vault Builders left the place long ago and locked the door behind them.
Can anyone tell me how Azaersi uses Weapon Finesse with a Falcata?
Azaersi does not have ordinary Weapon Finesse. She has Swashbuckler's Finesse, which modifies Weapon Finesse:
Swashbuckler Finesse (Ex): At 1st level, a swashbuckler gains the benefits of the Weapon Finesse feat with light or one-handed piercing melee weapons, and she can use her Charisma score in place of Intelligence as a prerequisite for combat feats. This ability counts as having the Weapon Finesse feat for purposes of meeting feat prerequisites.A falcata is a one-handed slashing weapon, which does not quite fit the requirements of Swashbuckler's Finesse. So Azaersi also learned Slashing Grace:
Benefit: Choose one kind of light or one-handed slashing weapon (such as the longsword). When wielding your chosen weapon one-handed, you can treat it as a one-handed piercing melee weapon for all feats and class abilities that require such a weapon (such as a swashbuckler’s or a duelist’s precise strike) and you can add your Dexterity modifier instead of your Strength modifier to that weapon’s damage. The weapon must be one appropriate for your size. You do not gain this benefit while fighting with two weapons or using flurry of blows, or any time another hand is otherwise occupied.
Twentieth-level builds are complicated.
Why do the sandman sleepers, with 12 levels of Rogue, get only one attack?I asked that myself. Sandmen only get one Slam. So why not use a weapon? Any weapon?The lack of multiple attacks was probably an error from upgrading the CR 3 Sandman from Bestiary 2 to the CR 12 Sandman Sandman in Vault of the Onyx Citadel. The CR 3 Sandman had "Base Atk +4" and "Melee slam +6 (1d6+3 plus sleep)," so it had only one attack. The CR 12 Sandman Sleeper has "Base Atk +12," so I think the attack "Melee slam +16 (1d8+4)" should have been "Melee slam +16/+11/+6 (1d8+4) plus sleep."
Slam is a natural attack. You do not get more attacks with higher BAB. So the Sandmen only having one attack even with a BAB of 12 is correct. It just makes them terribly weak. Attacking with a weapon would result in three attacks, just like in your example. Or maybe rules-be-damned I'll just have them attack three times and stop overthinking it.
Slam is a natural attack. You do not get more attacks with higher BAB. So the Sandmen only having one attack even with a BAB of 12 is correct. It just makes them terribly weak. Attacking with a weapon would result in three attacks, just like in your example. Or maybe rules-be-damned I'll just have them attack three times and stop overthinking it.
Ah, Archives of Nethys says, "You do not receive additional natural attacks for a high base attack bonus. Instead, you receive additional attack rolls for multiple limb and body parts capable of making the attack (as noted by the race or ability that grants the attacks)."
I had forgeotten that rule about natural attacks. Or maybe I never knew it, because I automatically used full-round natural attacks on creatures with many natural attacks.
I wonder whether the standard method for raising the level on creatures with natural attacks without adding more natural weapons would be to increase the damage of the existing natural attacks. That could explain the error on the Sandman Sleeper, because adding rogue levels does not increase any damage except the precision damage from sneak attack. The sandmen would need Improved Natural Attack (Monster).
I have become spoiled by the PF2 creature building rules, which raise damage automatically by level, no justification required.