I don't know how to really word it otherwise. But while we liked how the GM was running things we just kinda all lost the drive to keep playing Iron Gods. By book 3 we felt like we were just blundering around and book 4 we just dropped after getting to the valley.
Part of the reason was we wanted to take the fight to the Technic League but they were... really no where. 2 spies and a former wizard. That was it. That was it, no clear cut examples in the book of the League going out and doing anything really.
But no we had just several spelunking adventures it felt like and more to come with the valley. Far removed from the actual plot/setting to throw in some Alien feel to it. I'm still somewhat confused about why this seemed to drive off the cliff into weirdvill.
I suppose what I'm asking is;
1) Did any of your groups struggle around the middle point? If so what did you change or do to help get over that fatigue/confusion?
2) What did they think of the jump from book 3 to 4 and the different feel of it?
I suppose what I'm asking is;
1) Did any of your groups struggle around the middle point? If so what did you change or do to help get over that fatigue/confusion?
As the GM for this, one thing I plan to do is to slip Returned to the Sky between Lords of Rust and The Choking Tower.
The other thing I would like to do is replace the entire Iadenveigh, Ilarris Zeleshi, and most of the Aurora from The Choking Tower. Rather, I would replace it with a Technic League occupation force!
I am looking at this for three reasons.
1 - At this point, they should be powerful enough to start actually encountering the League in a direct way; and you're right the AP needs more Technic League in general.
2 - It shows the League being more pro-active in dealing with rebellious communities - this kind of action is exactly what the PCs were concerned about in Book 1. (It also makes the League look more competent.)
3 - It actually gives a reason for the PCs to want to hide in the wilderness for a while.
2) What did they think of the jump from book 3 to 4 and the different feel of it?
This I don't know, and I am not sure I can predict. :/
Now I'm not sure about replacing ALL of Iadenveigh but something I would do is rip out the second part of the book to a degree.
Have them find the spy but have the spy already have sent word back to the league. So the PCs go down, find the android's body, and then a day or two later have the Leauge show up demanding the body or burning the village down in search for it.
Replace the tower with a romp through a League controlled base/camp/Tower and we might be able to go from there.
But Iadenveigh being occupied and the PCs either trying to get to the ruins below it with stealth or trying to help throw off the yoke of the League, that's an interesting idea.
Now I'm not sure about replacing ALL of Iadenveigh but something I would do is rip out the second part of the book to a degree.
The whole point of the Aurora was to get them to go to the tower. (Well, that and level grinding.)
Have them find the spy but have the spy already have sent word back to the league.
Nah, they already did the "unmask the spy" storyline.
So the PCs go down, find the android's body, and then a day or two later have the Leauge show up demanding the body or burning the village down in search for it.
Does the Technic League know about Casandalee? Ilarris doesn't, she was looking for the source of mutations.
I figured they were coming for the Aurora (from Ilarris's reports). Crushing the resistance in Iadenveigh is a nice bonus though.
Replace the tower with a romp through a League controlled base/camp/Tower and we might be able to go from there.
I am not so sure about the wisdom of replacing the eponymous Choking Tower, as it is on the map of Numeria as a famous site. (Meta: it is also the name of the adventure.)
But Iadenveigh being occupied and the PCs either trying to get to the ruins below it with stealth or trying to help throw off the yoke of the League, that's an interesting idea.
And it answers what your complaint was above.
The plot in the first two modules was strong. Saving Torch and then investigating where the danger to Torch came from is heroic work. But tracking down Casandalee, especially after finding her dead body at the end of the third module, was weak motivation.
Fortunately, my players gave their characters their own motivations. Boffin the dwarf gadgeteer gunslinger was fascinated with high technology. Kirii the strix skald was fascinated with unusual creatures, including aliens. The other two PCs were in the game for the adventuring and heroics, but Boffin and Kirii were enough to keep the party moving.
As the GM for this, one thing I plan to do is to slip Returned to the Sky between Lords of Rust and The Choking Tower.
I did that. Well, I partially did that.
Because Boffin was having so much fun playing with alien technology and Kirii was trying to help the people of Scrapwall, I altered the haunted wreck spaceship (section P of Lords of Rust) to be reparable. After defeating the Lords of Rust, the party hired three teams of moderately trustworthy Scrapwall inhabitants to dig the wrecked spaceship out of the scrap while repairing the interior themselves. The effort took weeks.
That was enough time for a Technic League spy to visit Scrapwall, learn of the salvage effort, and report to the Technic League in Chessed. I sent the team from Returned to Sky, Neddrick Istavarti 12th level human magus and Silana Enton half-orc blackscale sorceress 10 and a few other NPCs of similar level, to Scrapwall to stop the party and claim all the tech the party had found. Fortunately, the party had friends among the Steel Hawks who sent a messenger with a warning and they had finished digging the spaceship out of the scrap three days earlier. The Technic League team arrived in the Valley of Mists just in time to throw a few fireballs at the spaceship as it lifted off and flew away.
The party had been using false names in Scrapwall, so they hid the spaceship and returned home to Torch for some downtime. My NPC party member Val Baine, expert at Bluff, made up a story about how Dewey Baros (one of their Scrapwall laborers who they took along in the spaceship) had hired them, the heroes of Torch, for a few weeks to retrieve some raw adamantine from a secret location. That gave them a cover story and an excuse to sell the skymetals they found in Scrapwall. Dinvaya Lanalei had made her own escape from the Technic League and showed up in Torch two weeks later. The party bought her a house in Torch as thanks for the help she had given them in Scrapwall.
For going to Iadenveigh, I gave the party a second mission. Khonnir Baine dug up an old letter from Iadenveigh. Feltic Dozenfingers, owner of the Tannery Compound there, wanted Khonnir Baine to investigate the tainted water of Longbitter Lake. Publicly, Feltic wanted clean water from the lake like Khonnir Baine provided clean water from contaminated Crowfeather Lake in Torch. Privately, he wanted to learn how the contaminants in Longbitter Lake sometimes did wondrous things to his tanned hides. Boffin, Elric, and Val in the party were officially Khonnir's assistants, so he sent them to Iadenveigh in his place as an excuse to visit the town and try to find Casandalee's last known location.
Down in the Aurora, they found notes from Casandalee. She had fixed the leaks from the Aurora that contaminated Iadenveigh's groundwater in the first place (though her last battle opened new ones), and had rigged up a recycling system to clean the groundwater. She had died before she could activate it. Finishing the job fell to Boffin.
Boffin's player and Elric's player had loved testing the groundwater in Iadenveigh and running the machinery in the Aurora. But Boffin was bored in the Choking Tower. That was more wizardry than technology. The smoke furnace power generator in the tower was minor compared to the fusion reactor in their salvaged spaceship. Instead, Kheld the fighter was more excited about the tower, seeing it as a possible home base to loot (a player who wanted to eat his cake and have it, too). Nothing came of that plan because future modules offered more temptations.
The beginning of Valley of the Brain Collectors was motivated by little more than curiosity. Casandalee's notes said that she had had to flee her last campsite without her cache, and the party wanted to find that cache. But Mad Paeytr's tale of being abducted by the Dominion of the Black hooked them. Hellion had told them of the horrors of the Dominion of the Black in his effort to recruit the party. Teaming up with kasatha Isuma sunk the hook in deep. Who cared about the Technic League? They had to save Golarion from an alien invasion!
After Valley of the Brain Collectors they returned to Scrapwall. The Technic League had enslaved Redtooth’s Raiders and all the other ratfolk and forced them to mine for technological scrap in the Valley of Mists. The party chased out the Technic League overseers and evacuated the ratfolk.
I merely figured out what my players cared about in the story and used those issues as additional plot hooks. The writers of Iron Gods don't know my players nor their characters, so they could not provide individualized plot hooks like I could. That's the GM's job.
... I merely figured out what my players cared about in the story and used those issues as additional plot hooks. The writers of Iron Gods don't know my players nor their characters, so they could not provide individualized plot hooks like I could. That's the GM's job.
While I do have a Numerian Archeologist and a Stargazer, the majority of my party is Against the Technic League, so I must have a more active Adversary.
... I merely figured out what my players cared about in the story and used those issues as additional plot hooks. The writers of Iron Gods don't know my players nor their characters, so they could not provide individualized plot hooks like I could. That's the GM's job.While I do have a Numerian Archeologist and a Stargazer, the majority of my party is Against the Technic League, so I must have a more active Adversary.
Furkas Xoud's Smoking Tower in The Choking Tower is a good place for a Technic League encounter. One detail of Furkas Xoud's demise does not add up: where did his apprentices go after he died? A few stayed to loot and died in the process, but most left.
When the wizard died, most of his staff
packed their meager belongings and fled
the tower before things really started going
bad, and as a result, these nine rooms have
been abandoned for years.
Some of them had been in the Technic League. Some of them might have tried to return to the Technic League. And the Technic League would have learned of the Smoking Tower. Thus, you can have them there.
The first problem with adding the Technic League to the Smoking Tower is that Furkas Xoud's ghost is the most interesting part of that section. And I doubt the ghost would cooperate with the Technic League. So we have to draw a dividing line--the Technic League has forced the ghost out of some parts of the tower, perhaps with magic sigils marked on the walls, but the ghost rules the other parts. That explains why the Technic League has not finished investigating and looting the place. The Technic League team would replace whatever hazard was in their area in the module.
The second problem with adding the Technic League is that a generic Technic League captain (Palace of Fallen Stars, page 33) is 10th level. The named captains are the same or higher. The party will be 8th level, so they might be able to handle one captain. However, that captain should have some high-level minions, too, and the source material does not provide them.
Technic League Headquarters has some 6th-level battle mages (Pathfinder RPG GameMastery Guide 256) as guards. The module implied that they were hirelings, but for my game I called them Technic League junior lieutenants. Those can be the minions of the Technic League captain.
If your party has already entered the Smoking Tower, then put the Technic League down in Section G. The Choking Tower Dungeon, having entered through G6. Escape Tunnel. They could have already compiled notes on Casandalee's body including a report that they ought to send an expedition to the Scar of the Spider. You could even make the expedition of Technic League lieutenant Therace Holiyard to the Scar of the Spider in Valley of the Brain Collectors official instead of renegade.
The second problem with adding the Technic League is that a generic Technic League captain (Palace of Fallen Stars, page 33) is 10th level. The named captains are the same or higher. The party will be 8th level, so they might be able to handle one captain. However, that captain should have some high-level minions, too, and the source material does not provide them.
Numeria, Land of Fallen Stars does give some information.
Technic League Contingent (CR 10): A contingent of Technic League agents generally consists of a single Technic League arcanist (NE human wizard 8), two gearsmen (Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea Bestiary 44), and an entourage of five to eight Technic League hirelings (see page 61) and mannequin robots (see page 57). Technic League agents and their minions are almost always armed with advanced technology, such as that presented throughout this chapter and in Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Technology Guide.
However, it could be pointed out, that neither the Gearsmen nor the Mannequins could be used (per The Choking Tower, p 21).
Technic League Headquarters has some 6th-level battle mages (Pathfinder RPG GameMastery Guide 256) as guards. The module that they were hirelings, but for my game I called them Technic League junior lieutenants. Those can be the minions of the Technic League captain.
Great Idea!
So, what I would be looking at is:*- Technic League Captain
*- Lvl 6 Battle Mage (CR 5)
*- 4x Technic League Hirelings (CR 3 each)
That works out to a CR 11 encounter.
I was just thinking that the struggle to liberate Iadenveigh from a Technic League occupation force would be more dramatic. But you do have a point, publicly defeating a major Technic League force, would force the league to take vengeance - if not against the PCs (if they can't find them because the heroes are in the Scar of the Spider), then against the people of Torch.
And that could derail things too much.
If your party has already entered the Smoking Tower, then put the Technic League down in Section G. The Choking Tower Dungeon, having entered through G6. Escape Tunnel. They could have already compiled notes on Casandalee's body including a report that they ought to send an expedition to the Scar of the Spider. You could even make the expedition of Technic League lieutenant Therace Holiyard to the Scar of the Spider in Valley of the Brain Collectors official instead of renegade.
Actually, my PCs are still in Scrapwall. We were not able to get started until recently. :(
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I skipped the Smoking Tower, as it extended the search for Casandalee too far. I inserted a subplot about a demon escaping the WorldWound as a sidequest instead (which suited my group) before going to the Scar of the Spider.
My characters have a pretty good reason to revenge themselves on the League as they are fully aware of why Khonnir left Starfall, and are completely aware of Ghartone's involvement in several plots around the region. I also inserted a subplot in Chesed about the heroes discovering a Technic League and Aspis plot with the Kyton to mix technology and organics, with a finger pointed at some sort of secret Kyton lab working with the Church of Rent Flesh. I felt it was really needed to give people the reason to go. I've also been dropping clues that since the League are the only people allowed into the ship, they should go Starfall and investigate the keep ro learn more before diving in.