How did people find this encounter
It looks like it could be a very tough fight on paper. I have a party of fighter, daring champion, cleric, witch and kineticist. It might be easy for the kineticist but if he goes down they have problems
Would a flying martial with a bow be too much of a power down ? Or would it possibly be a power up with rapid shot?
I also have a concern (I think flagged elsewhere) that she is the only strix who shows up for a while and gives a bad impression. Do all the strix in Kintargo hate humans like normal ? What do they do as they seem more prevelant ?
Should I add more strix elsewhere or should I change scarplume’s race (probably to tiefling) ?
The Scorching Ray is easily the main PC killer. If you wanted to, make her level 3 instead of 4. That way you could still leave her (pretty much) as written. (Or exactly as written, minus Scorching Ray, if you wanted to.)
Or perhaps pick a less lethal spell? I am not sure which yet
I can't get my head around why a Strix would have the blood of a fire elemental or equivalent...
Strix are like dwarves: they have that racial hatred trait. At my table, there wasn't a problem because they lumped that bird-man with the other bird-men, the ones from the coffee house basement who acted differently.
You've got 5 PCs, so I would NOT lower the level of Scarplume, especially since you have a witch that could debuff him. Remember: this could also be their only encounter of the day. If you're concerned, remember that there's places for the PCs to take cover during the combat. And it's an important early lesson that they need to have ranged weapons even if they're in a city campaign. That will be important for a certain dragon fight much later on...
What made the encounter tough for my party was the terrain--I switched it to a slums map and they had problems dealing with the mooks because they walked right into an ambush without scouting. The plus side, though, was that I had a couple of rounds of delay before Scarplume flew over to the field of combat.
If you're concerned, have either Morgar or Rexus accompany them.
My concern would be that it doesn't matter how many PC's there are because, unless enough of them go first and make it so that Scarplume can't cast, she can probably kill one of them each turn she gets for the first few rounds.
I assumed there were no Strix in Kintargo or so rare as to be unknown to most everyone. I took the Strix to be xenophobic creatures that live far from human communities. This is why the original Silver Ravens incorporated their language into the cipher for the documents in the "time capsule" - because the language was so unknown it would make deciphering it harder. Even the other Red Jills don't seem to know Scarplume is a strix.
I'm not much concerned about prejudicing the players/pc's against strix since by the time they encounter strix in Book 5, they are much higher level (13-14) and given the powers and skill level of such characters - anything that gives them role-playing challenges is a good thing. YMMV of course.
I agree Scorching Ray is a potent spell, but it still takes a ranged touch attack to work. Pending the racial and class make-up of your party, etc. (she'll hit the humans first) - she might miss 20-30% of the time. My players have pretty good system mastery so I rarely if ever prune back as-written encounters given they typically involve mediocre tactics and and less than optimized builds (YMMV again.) For example, they are well aware that ranged attack capability is important. I also agree with Roguerouge that this is likely the only encounter of the day for the Silver Ravens so increasing the difficulty is "okay" - this point is also made somewhere in the AP.
Interestingly enough, the Red Jills will be my group's next encounter (they are just finishing their flight from rescuing a couple contacts from the Queen's own Unsanctioned Excruciations.) Also of note: my pc's will be 3rd level when they run into Scarplume. Which may contribute to my lack of concern about Scarplume and may not be true about all groups that encounter the Red Jills in their base.
My concern would be that it doesn't matter how many PC's there are because, unless enough of them go first and make it so that Scarplume can't cast, she can probably kill one of them each turn she gets for the first few rounds.
While this seems a possible outcome, it seems less than certain. She has a +5 ranged attack bonus, so even if a pc has a touch AC of 10, she misses on a 4 or less - 20% of the time. And if the touch AC is 12, she misses on a 6 or less - 30% of the time. When she hits, she does 4d6. Now that could be as high as 24, but probably is going to be a lot closer to 14. That might be enough to take a pc to negative (and dying) but probably not death. And there's a reasonable chance a pc might still be conscious after one hit. And lastly she only has 3 scorching rays (because she's been built stupidly.)
Okay, she's built in a non-optimized manner. She appears to have the Elite array but her primary class ability - charisma - got the third highest score - 13. And Int and Wis were used as dump stats. I'm all in favor of flavorful non-optimized builds, but really? I suspect it was done deliberately to limit the number of 2nd level spells. Of course choosing a CHA-based class for a CHA penalty race seems plenty non-optimized as it is.
My concern would be that it doesn't matter how many PC's there are because, unless enough of them go first and make it so that Scarplume can't cast, she can probably kill one of them each turn she gets for the first few rounds.
Average damage is 14 now that I think of it
Most of my players should be able to take 2 hits unless really unlucky - although a second may kill them outrightThe only one with less that 14 HP at level 2 is going to be the elf witch who won’t be targeted first and who could slumber or evil eye...
My concern would be that it doesn't matter how many PC's there are because, unless enough of them go first and make it so that Scarplume can't cast, she can probably kill one of them each turn she gets for the first few rounds.While this seems a possible outcome, it seems less than certain. She has a +5 ranged attack bonus, so even if a pc has a touch AC of 10, she misses on a 4 or less - 20% of the time. And if the touch AC is 12, she misses on a 6 or less - 30% of the time. When she hits, she does 4d6. Now that could be as high as 24, but probably is going to be a lot closer to 14. That might be enough to take a pc to negative (and dying) but probably not death. And there's a reasonable chance a pc might still be conscious after one hit. And lastly she only has 3 scorching rays (because she's been built stupidly.)
Okay, she's built in a non-optimized manner. She appears to have the Elite array but her primary class ability - charisma - got the third highest score - 13. And Int and Wis were used as dump stats. I'm all in favor of flavorful non-optimized builds, but really? I suspect it was done deliberately to limit the number of 2nd level spells. Of course choosing a CHA-based class for a CHA penalty race seems plenty non-optimized as it is.
I hadn’t appreciated how weak the build is . It is just 4d6 looks scary on paper
I feel if she was a 4th level ranger (perhaps urban) with favoured enemy human and archery style she could potentially be nastierAnd as mentioned before I can’t quite fathom the bloodline rationale. I would have been intrigued to know the story! ( unless it is in there and I have forgotten where it says )
My concern would be that it doesn't matter how many PC's there are because, unless enough of them go first and make it so that Scarplume can't cast, she can probably kill one of them each turn she gets for the first few rounds.Average damage is 14 now that I think of it
Most of my players should be able to take 2 hits unless really unlucky - although a second may kill them outrightThe only one with less that 14 HP at level 2 is going to be the elf witch who won’t be targeted first and who could slumber or evil eye...
Fair enough.
I don't think 14 would've taken anyone out in my group but I'm fairly certain 16 would've dropped 3 out of 4 PC's.
I hadn’t appreciated how weak the build is . It is just 4d6 looks scary on paper I feel if she was a 4th level ranger (perhaps urban) with favoured enemy human and archery style she could potentially be nastier
And as mentioned before I can’t quite fathom the bloodline rationale. I would have been intrigued to know the story! ( unless it is in there and I have forgotten where it says )
I don't think the elemental bloodline is explained. And I agree it's odd especially given the character's known backstory - hidden leader of thieves group in Kintargo. A flashy elemental, fire-hurling strix is hard to reconcile with hiding, avoiding government attention, etc. This discussion has got me to thinking: what if she was rebuilt as Rog1/Sor3 with the shadow bloodline? That seems to better fit her background and explain how she came to lead a group of rogues. Give her different spells like Vanish, and Deep Shadows (3rd party spell.)
Thanks guys, now I have more work :)
In my game, the Red Jill’s are under the impression she’s an Erinyes (a simple hat of disguise or disguise self spell coupled with her wings makes this easy.) She has the gang under the impression that she has Tiefling interests at heart. The group was able to kill her and when the confronted the Tiefling gang and presented them with the truth of her nature. I granted them a diplomacy check and gave them a bonus team (which replaced the Fushi sisters they botched.)
By the way, upon reflection I have chosen not to rebuild her. Or more accurately, I did and while the results were interesting, she didn't seem potent enough to be carry the fight even with her tiefling minions. Built that way, she'd be a good complementary character as part of a larger group. I did change out Scorching Ray for Spontaneous Immolation, not because I thought Scorching Ray was too powerful/dangerous but because my group has plenty of experience with Scorching Ray but not with the Spontaneous Immolation and I like to try new things, etc.
BornofHate's Erinyes disguise and replacement bonus team are good ideas and a nice recovery on the loss of the Fushi sisters.