6 - Rise of New Thassilon (GM Reference)

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

At this point the PCs have been time traveling and altering things and are stuck in a paradox bubble - perhaps they have some small control over time. You could let them spend paradox points in the same way Alaznist does but at the cost of giving her more in the final battle. If you do, make sure to describe the weird sensation of someone succumbing to a wound or debilitating effect, only to have the rest of the party yell "No!", and have the effect never have happened. Also plant the idea that if this works for them, maybe it works for Alaznist.

[TloniousMonk]

Kiniticyst wrote:

Have just spent a while fiddling with the map for Secrets of Warped Flesh to get it on to roll 20 and set up all the dynamic lighting for the tunnels.

Foolishly, I did this all before reading the encounter. Am I missing something or does this massive map of maze-like tunnels serve no purpose? Do the party just arrive on the shore of the underground lake and fight there? Why is there such a complex network of tunnels spanning 250 ft taking up 90% of the map?

It also mentions to put the fiendish template on a shoggoth to represent the portal, but the fiendish template doesn't seem to do much of anything for a Shoggoth:

it already has DR10/- (would gain DR10/good),
It already has SR30 (would gain SR 25)
It already has Fire resist 20 and cold immunity (would gain Cold & Fire Res 15)

The smite also is kind of useless since it only has a Cha mod of +1. So nothing is altered to add +1 CR to the creature, should I add the advanced template or something else?

I found this map strange as well! I know I'm well behind you, but for anyone else reading this, I felt that a different underground lake map made more sense here. There's a few good ones, but I liked this one https://i.redd.it/jn4cj6vxzb431.jpg from a user on reddit.

[soulnova]

Hey, by any chances, are there any Chronicle Sheets for reporting this AP for Society?

[Davor Firetusk]

Unfortunately not at this time. It remains in the category of something they would like to do, at some point.

[Kiniticyst]

Well it was a blast (literally), but the party TPK'd against Alaznist. A hell of a journey and a heartbreaking end to an epic adventure. Sometimes the heroes don't win.

Players are still reeling from the event so letting the session breathe for a while before we decide what to do next! Anyone else had experience with a loss at the final battle of an AP?

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

Not specifically in an AP, but I have had TPKs in L5R and the final battle in Red Hand of Doom. In L5R we just started a new campaign, with RHoD we brought in new PCs to face off against a much stronger Tiamat. I'd ask your players what they want. Do they want to start something new or do they want another shot at Alaznist?

Assuming they want another shot:
The AP does mention Alaznist will set out to conquer her old lands back then expand. Sorshen should be around still and oppose this. You could either start a new campaign with a basic set up something like Ironfang Invasion, except they fight against Alaznist's armies, team up with
Sorshen then take on Alaznist. If you have the Sihedron Heroes still kicking around, the PCs could play them to take on Alaznist before she consolidates her power and starts expanding, and, most importantly, skip leveling to 20. Sorshen does not want to face Alaznist - as she says she didn't get to where she is by taking unnecessary risks - but she may com to the conclusion that aiding powerful heroes directly may be her best shot at removing Alaznist as a threat. Heck, you could even have allies of the dead PCs use True Resurrection (if possible) to bring the PCs back and give them another shot. They'd have to beg and scrounge for level appropriate gear, but now they'd have some idea of Alaznist's abilities and hopefully she wouldn't have her paradox points anymore.

[Kiniticyst]

Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

Assuming they want another shot:
The AP does mention Alaznist will set out to conquer her old lands back then expand.

One thing I hadn't considered is one of the players chose Won't Stay Dead as their 20th level capstone ability. Narratively thus far, we have had that character be a chosen of Pharasma, who is basically having trying tryouts to be "The Survivor" who Pharasma may pass the torch to at the end of this cycle. Regardless, this capstone means they come back at the end of the scene.

How this works in play then is something I may need some help with. In the Adventure Path it's stated that both Alaznist and the party can't both exist in reality, they are trapped in a paradox. So when one PC just keeps coming back, is she essentially trapped eternally? A la Dormammu & Dr. Strange?

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

I can't seem to find that ability so I can't help you there. Are you sure this ability has no limit on use? In any case that sounds fun. It could be a good end to the story - eternally trapped until some later adventurers show up and get involved somehow. Maybe Yog-sothoth doesn't want the paradox bubble to exist so sends more people to fix things, such as a new group of PCs.
Maybe Alaznist keeps tryingto kill this PC until she runs out of juice and the PC can solo her. A bit of a cop-out if you ask me, but it's an idea.

But one can ask whether Pharasma's chosen is still chosen after having failed.

[Kiniticyst]

Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

I can't seem to find that ability so I can't help you there. Are you sure this ability has no limit on use? In any case that sounds fun. It could be a good end to the story - eternally trapped until some later adventurers show up and get involved somehow. Maybe Yog-sothoth doesn't want the paradox bubble to exist so sends more people to fix things, such as a new group of PCs.

Maybe Alaznist keeps tryingto kill this PC until she runs out of juice and the PC can solo her. A bit of a cop-out if you ask me, but it's an idea.

But one can ask whether Pharasma's chosen is still chosen after having failed.

It's a capstone available to any class, if you scroll down to the bottom of a class page, it's the last one. https://aonprd.com/ClassDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Fighter

They come back at the end of "the scene" and then if they die again, there is a 1 week cooldown before they can come back again.

So they'd only really have one shot to best Alaznist after the fight when she has no mythic points left and very low on spells. If they fail, she has a week to prepare for them again.

As for bringing in other PCs, I can't really think of anything sadder than making players make new 20th level PCs to wipe up Alaznist after their own PCs failed. I think they'd all rather it just end on a loss than that.

Will see how the Won't Stay Dead character wants to handle their return, and then call it quits after whatever outcome comes from that!

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

This is a single PC, right?
In any case, I guess it comes down to how low Alaznist was on juice before the party wiped, what class the Chosen is and what resources they have left when they died.

Another thought occurred to me: the paradox bubble lasted until either Alaznist or all the PCs were defeated, right? So once the PCs are down this should solve the paradox. Alaznist is free, goes out to start doing her conquering Avistan thing and sends some minions to clean up the mess. The minions (probably low level sinspawn) take the PCs out of the Eye while Alaznist rests and prepares more spells. The PC revives in the mean time and can get the other PCs away before Alaznist finds out that they weren't quite as dead as she thought.

Then the PCs can recover and go after Alaznist again, who this time around will not have paradox points to save her, the PCs have a better grasp on what spells she's likely to use, and she will hopefully not be expecting them if they do things fast enough.

[YogoZuno]

Kiniticyst wrote:

Well it was a blast (literally), but the party TPK'd against Alaznist. A hell of a journey and a heartbreaking end to an epic adventure. Sometimes the heroes don't win.

Players are still reeling from the event so letting the session breathe for a while before we decide what to do next! Anyone else had experience with a loss at the final battle of an AP?

I actually had the same thing happen when I ran Second Darkness. In that AP, though, the players had already done enough to save Golarion from the disaster perpetrated by the BBEG. They simply failed to execute her, and ensure it wouldn't happen again.

To be fair, the final encounter was also quite difficult, and my group did very little beforehand to reduce their opposition. From what I've seen of RotRL, that's not really an option for the finale there.

[Tobyn52]

Hi all. My players will fight the Tempest Behemoth next week, and I try to parse it's statblock, I can't seem to find anywhere how many Mythic Points it has to power it's Unstoppable power.

I'm tempted to just say 10, mostly because I have a party that likes to cast Chains of Light.

[Tobyn52]

Tobyn52 wrote:

Hi all. My players will fight the Tempest Behemoth next week, and I try to parse it's statblock, I can't seem to find anywhere how many Mythic Points it has to power it's Unstoppable power.

I'm tempted to just say 10, mostly because I have a party that likes to cast Chains of Light.

I don't know how to edit a post, but I got the answer. If anyone else needs to know this, the Tempest Behemoth as the Behemoth subtype, which has it's own version of unstoppable.

[JoelF847]

Starting to set up for this book, and noticed that in area A1 the silt in the water limits visibility to 30 feet even for darkvision, and the platform has unhallow on it with silence, which would block echolocation, and most forms of blindsense/sight.

Finally, Risen Magga only has darkvision as far as special senses go, so when it returns to the area and first encounters the PCs, how does it even find them? I'm leaning towards just giving it lifesense.

[Majuba]

When I ran it, it mostly couldn't *automatically* find them, but neither could they find it. Bit of cat and mouse. I think it's reasonable for it to notice a disturbance in the area (more mud, currents with hints of warmth from their bodies, etc.).

[JoelF847]

Am I missing something with Alaznist's stat block? One of her mythic path abilities is eldritch breach, which lets her roll twice and take the best for caster level checks for things like dispel magic, etc. However, she has no spells prepared which use those mechanics, and abjuration is one of her opposed schools so she can't even easily use those spells if she wanted.

Yes, it does help on penetrating SR as well, but with a caster level of 21 and spell penetration, she's already at +23 and automatically beats SR 24 therefore. Against PCs or other class level based foes, that's generally enough for anything except the spell resistance spell. Not sure I'd choose that without having dispel magic on hand, but I guess it's some benefit. Thinking of swapping it out for something else though.

[Askar Avari]

JoelF847 wrote:

Am I missing something with Alaznist's stat block? One of her mythic path abilities is eldritch breach, which lets her roll twice and take the best for caster level checks for things like dispel magic, etc. However, she has no spells prepared which use those mechanics, and abjuration is one of her opposed schools so she can't even easily use those spells if she wanted.

Yes, it does help on penetrating SR as well, but with a caster level of 21 and spell penetration, she's already at +23 and automatically beats SR 24 therefore. Against PCs or other class level based foes, that's generally enough for anything except the spell resistance spell. Not sure I'd choose that without having dispel magic on hand, but I guess it's some benefit. Thinking of swapping it out for something else though.

I think this is a simple case of "this is definitely something Alaznist, an evoker, would want in her build", even if it is unlikely to be a huge help against the PCs. She's a high-level caster relying on offensive magic that fails to SR - of course she'd spec into options that would help her beat it. And, as you point out, even the meager 5th level abjuration spell resistance would be enough to warrant the extra security.

But yeah, it seems like a decent pick for something to swap out if you need to give her more relevant abilities for your specific party.