Rusthenge - Rules Questions [Spoilers]

[SmartChimpanzee]

I was looking to run Rusthenge and I was reading through the adventure and had some questions about a few of the spell interactions.

1. The Clockwork Mage has magnetic repulsion and I'm confused why the clockwork would ever want to do that considering they are made of metal. Wouldn't it be hit with both of these downsides of: "While this spell is active, you require an additional Interact action before using a metal object (including to Strike with a metal weapon), and if you're wearing metal armor, you're slowed 1."?

It won't be able easily fill it's last action with a strike from the halberd after casting fear with this drawback, making the swing every other turn instead of every turn if it's within 10 feet of the party. Now it's debatable whether it would suffer from the slowed 1 since it is metal armor and not wearing metal armor. But the drawback of only being able to swing it's halberd every other turn instead of every turn for the -1 status to some of the attacks seems more like a curse than a boon. Was this intentional to make it a little weak?

2. Theiltemar has blood vendetta which has a requirement that the caster must be able to bleed and he is a skeleton which I believe can't bleed. Was this supposed to just be a throwback to when he was living or am I misinterpreting a rule here?

Overall, I really enjoyed the adventure and I'm somewhat new to the system so I'm just making sure I'm interpreting things correctly.

[James Jacobs]

1) The clockwork mage is partially made of metal; it's not wearing metal armor or using a metal weapon, so technically it avoids those disadvantages. A more elegant way of handling this is simply assuming that this is a unique version of magnetic repulsion the clockwork mage can use that doesn't affect itself in that way.

2) It's a throwback to when he was living, but replacing that with something else is fine... even though he does have enough to do without ever touching that one.

[SmartChimpanzee]

Thanks for the reply.

1) The unique version of the spell makes more sense to me. Maybe I'm misinterpreting what a metal weapon but I would have interpreted it as a weapon made with metal and as far as I can tell halberds usually are. I can think of statues having stone versions but I would assume a clockwork would have one completely made of metal including the shaft. I think historically it would be a wood shaft with a metal axe head.

Another interpretation could be that it's too rusty to still be magnetic, since rust has no magnetic attraction.

2) I agree he should be strong enough without it, albeit it is the only reaction he does have so it could make a significant power difference. But it would be used in place of a sudden blight casting, which should be pretty strong considering the amount of exposure to rust creep.