From this passage in Planar Adventures, I'd infer that there are indeed copies of every tomb and graveyard:
Graveyard of Souls
The area immediately surrounding Pharasma’s Court
is a seemingly endless graveyard filled with crypts,
gravestones, mausoleums, and monuments from nearly
every race and culture within the mortal realms.
Oh hoho! Completely missed that in my read-through of Planar Adventures. Thanks!
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The Boneyard does indeed have its own native ecosystem (after all, look at the bonewrought willow in the bestiary), and while it is the metaphysical "mouth" of the River of Souls, the souls themselves do not "populate" the plane—they come, get judged, then leave. Only a fraction of those souls are judged to remain on the Boneyard (those truly neutral-aligned, true worshipers of Pharasma or the psychopomp ushers, etc.).
And while the Boneyard does indeed host extraplanar entities (my favorite being when a soul is bound for Abaddon then it is always given a choice by a representative demon and devil to instead go to the Abyss or Hell), they mostly do not stay there permanently.
To be clear, when a soul is judged and becomes a petitioner to a plane, then it’s infused with the quintessence (the material that makes up everything in the Outer Sphere IIRC) and become a native of that plane—so while it’s technically correct to say that the Boneyard is populated by entities from the Material Plane, it’s not completely accurate because all extraplanar outsiders have souls that were once mortals upon the Material Plane, so by that logic every plane is populated by “entities that have arrived from elsewhere.” Once a soul dies then it is no longer “a denizen of the Material Plane,” it just…is until it is judged, then its new home become its appropriate plane.
As for the copies of tombs: Shrugs I honestly don’t know. It’s not a detail I’ve seen in other books talking about the Boneyard—perhaps Ron could provide slight clarification?
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Does that mean if someone casts Banishment on the PC's that in theory... they'd be sent back to the Boneyard after being 'reborn' in the plane of the dead?
I'd say no, because of the weirdness of how the obols function. And I will remind you that the PCs haven't been judged yet, thus they are not yet outsiders native to a new plane, but they also died, meaning that they are not truly denizens of the Material Plane anymore either, they just are, hence why the party has to go through the process of the Dead Roads instead of one of the psychopomps just getting a scroll of Banishment to send them back.
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I'd say no, because of the weirdness of how the obols function. And I will remind you that the PCs haven't been judged yet, thus they are not yet outsiders native to a new plane, but they also died, meaning that they are not truly denizens of the Material Plane anymore either, they just are, hence why the party has to go through the process of the Dead Roads instead of one of the psychopomps just getting a scroll of Banishment to send them back.
So, the PC's would be native to nowhere anymore? the question is a rather interesting one for later on if someone does cast Banishment on them as a means of attack/Defense
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They don't get the extraplanar subtype as they didn't arrive via conjuration, and would be not subject to dismissal or banishment. They effectively function as (native) in the Boneyard while they're there. Now it does beg the question on whether their new bodies are Outsider (native) on the material plane (still not dissmissable), but I would assume they're still humanoids for spell effects.
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They don't get the extraplanar subtype as they didn't arrive via conjuration, and would be not subject to dismissal or banishment. They effectively function as (native) in the Boneyard while they're there. Now it does beg the question on whether their new bodies are Outsider (native) on the material plane (still not dissmissable), but I would assume they're still humanoids for spell effects.
Hadn't even considered that possibility, Favored Enemies might need to be modified if they are Outsider (native) now.
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I have to admit, I'm less than thrilled that the fourth episode of Geek & Sundry's Relics and Rarities uses the exact same puzzle as one in Nine-Eaves. (sigh) I learned this while watching the episode with one of my players, so yeah - busted.
Of course, he figured out the puzzle literally within two seconds of it appearing in the episode, so I rather doubt it would have proven much more of a challenge in the game.
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I'd bet you're talking about the mirrored numbers puzzle. I've seen that one multiple times in puzzle games.
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Okay, thanks to King Trey and Cori for clarifying things. I still find it pretty weird, but at least I have a better sense of how it works.
So, has anyone actually run this book yet? I was intrigued by the concept of the Dead Roads themselves, but I'm afraid I'm underwhelmed by the journey itself. I feel like this has a lot of spooky potential, but the tooth fairies...I mean, the *tooth fairies*. It's just not working for me.
I'm gearing up to run it.
I wouldn't focus on 'spooky' as the defining feature -- its just one part. You have a generally 'spooky' setting, but the complete lack of undead (on purpose). You have things that look undead, but aren't. You have a near-Vogon bureaucracy -- you need to get stamped, but we don't really care who runs/owns the stamps. The intent to me is make it obvious in many, many ways that the normal rules don't apply here. The PCs should be overwhelmed in the emotional/mental sense, nothing quite makes sense.
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I'm gonna have to watch Beetlejuice before I run this adventure.
Is there any explanation for the many holy symbols on Pedipalp, and do they have anything to do with the many holy symbols in Nine Eaves? Just seems like two very odd throwaway things that have nothing to do with each other. Is there some piece of lore about Psychopomps hoarding holy symbols that I missed?
Personally, I'm going to change the wig to a moustache, partially because that gets repeatedly mentioned, and for the opportunity to say, "Then the statue's moustache flies off and tries to kill you."
Oh god, you made me laugh so hard, now I want to use the moustache as well xD
I have a hard time imagining how Nine-Eaves would look like... I get the multiple windows and other things, but not the "eaves".
First off, so that I have the correct translation (English is not my native language so I'm not sure about what we're talking about) : "eaves" are those bits of the roof protruding from the walls, right ?
Then, if that's the case, does this mean there are 9 walls on the exterior of Nine-Eaves, thus the roof would have 9 eaves protruding from the walls but be part of a single roof ? Or are these 9 eaves protruding from random places on the walls ?
My group just got there, tripped the teeth trap and just survived the "ambush" it created.
Next session this Saturday so curious to see how my crew handles it.
Tom
PS
The way I started this I used a backstory person noted in each my my player characters backstory to "gift/quest them" some type of "metal" was all they knew that might help with X threat (again going from each players backstory) that has to get to The Double Rose Inn at Roslar's Coffer.
Worked fairly well as it gave them a chance to figure out their character a bit better and RP and note stuff out and inside of town before the long/short boomflash goodnite :)
PC's are
Human Shaman
Human Bloodrager
Human Wizard
Human Cleric
Human Unchained Monk
Tom
Just finished the Palace of Teeth this weekend with my group, and yikes!
** spoiler omitted **
Don't mess with tooth fairies. They will mess. You. Up!
My group laughs at tooth fairies because they're, like, the perfect low-level mooks to bash and their abilities are hilarious (and I agree with them on those fronts), but seeing the Palace of Teeth has made these mooks stupid-scary to me! (I know a number of the nasty combats were from the esobok psychopomps, but still).
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Hey all, just finished running this book tonight. A couple notes for the crowd based on the experience of my 3 player gestalt PCs (Slayer/Hunter, Paladin/Swashbuckler, Ranger/Psychic):
I don't have much feedback about Deathbower beyond the gardeners being absolute garbage and I was not convinced there was a need to duplicate the opening fight with different terrain. The party was very diplomatic with Aydie and Reedreaper, so they were able to pull off the incredibly difficult diplomatic option with Mictena. Two of the players identified The Passage and were quite impressed both in character and out of character that they were meeting a such a powerful creature as they finished the book.
Very excited to start book 2 next week. Should be awesome.
I would say that, as it says they "don't function," then there is no way to catch a disease (it can't be communicable if it can't function), but if you come with one then it goes into abeyance (basically, suspended animation) until you leave. Life just...kinda freezes, and leaves the same way it entered.
Keep in mind that the diseases and poisons can be handwaved. While The Passage gives a Resto, you can easily flavor that to be more powerful for the sake of the PCs not immediately dying upon re-entry to the Material Plane. It's in the best interest of your campaign to assume The Passage does a bit more than what Resto covers.
Otherwise, you're left with this: "The
danger of a timeless plane is that once an individual leaves
such a plane for one where time flows normally, conditions
such as hunger and aging apply retroactively."
Say you're out in the Boneyard for a year. When you return to Material or another plane without Timeless, you immediately age a year. Similarly, if you caught a disease, you'd immediately need to make a year's worth of saves against it, until you've successfully cured yourself. Then just think of the hunger/thirst piling on.
I am planning on running this AP sometime in the future and I have a couple thoughts I want to ask about.
1. If I wound up with only having access to a group of 3 players to run for, would gestalt be a reasonable compromise? If so, what BP would be recommended? My concern is that a lot of good gestalt builds get absolutely brutal at mid-high levels and later books might not be able to keep up with them.
2. One player has talked about playing an Evil Dhampir Warpriest. This sort of topic has been discussed a lot here, but knowing his build, he would take the Life-Dominant feat specifically so he can benefit from Positive And Negative Energy, and making the Obol resistance apply to Positive Energy feels to me like it would just rob him of a feat. (I really don't want to tell him about the Obols' protections until they come up in game if I don't have to, and making him change his build "because Macguffin" feels...wrong.) My current thoughts on a workaround are this: Inflict's cast by Friendlies to heal bypass SR and resistance, personal uses of Channel Negative Energy (And Fervor etc.) meant to heal bypass resistance on oneself (Not others), all other sources of Negative Energy/Necromancy are resisted as normal. Thoughts?
I am planning on running this AP sometime in the future and I have a couple thoughts I want to ask about.
1. If I wound up with only having access to a group of 3 players to run for, would gestalt be a reasonable compromise? If so, what BP would be recommended? My concern is that a lot of good gestalt builds get absolutely brutal at mid-high levels and later books might not be able to keep up with them.
2. One player has talked about playing an Evil Dhampir Warpriest. This sort of topic has been discussed a lot here, but knowing his build, he would take the Life-Dominant feat specifically so he can benefit from Positive And Negative Energy, and making the Obol resistance apply to Positive Energy feels to me like it would just rob him of a feat. (I really don't want to tell him about the Obols' protections until they come up in game if I don't have to, and making him change his build "because Macguffin" feels...wrong.) My current thoughts on a workaround are this: Inflict's cast by Friendlies to heal bypass SR and resistance, personal uses of Channel Negative Energy (And Fervor etc.) meant to heal bypass resistance on oneself (Not others), all other sources of Negative Energy/Necromancy are resisted as normal. Thoughts?
My party of 3 is gestalt 25 point. They have been challenged so far and I'm at the intro to book 2. I haven't looked too far ahead in terms of encounters, but I'm honestly not concerned. The biggest disadvantages of gestalt are action economy and having enough bags of HP in front of you. Unless someone is taking a summoning focus, there shouldn't be much of an issue. Book 2's intro is harrowing for a 3 player party.
Energy resistance from the obols shouldn't prevent healing and you always bypass your own SR. The SR is not that hard to overcome for friendlies, but what it does do is basically rule out wands. Channel Energy is (Su) and therefore not affected by SR. While I understand the concern about MacGuffin interference, it's reasonable to tell a player "For spoilery reasons I can't say yet, this character concept may not be a good fit for the game. There are mechanical reasons for me saying this and I'm not disallowing it, but you may be impacted in ways you don't expect."
So...now that we have Barzahk’s stats from Book 5 this creates a weird question: The way station masters have to have a neutral component to their alignment (which is fine, everything’s good there) and they also gain Barzahk’s Toss Thee Here Ashore ability, which allows them to cast banishment at will. Why wouldn’t Carnassial just banish Prince Cuspid? And why wouldn’t Salighara banish Mrs. Pedipalp? Kishokish makes sense (he was stuck in his quarterstaff, after all), but wouldn’t he have tried to banish the sahkils before that? And Prince Cuspid couldn’t overthrow his mother and take over the way station without Barzahk’s consent (but that’s easily explained away by saying that he just didn’t know that). AND if Queen Carnassial dies then the stamp itself becomes useless without it being stamped by the master of the way station.
Can someone tell me how the puzzles went? I have no issues with 1 and 3, mirror stuff is easy, and honestly my party will probably use the right key cause it's the name of the place.
But the circling thing.... my god how is anyone supposed to get that? Sure you circle the number 11, but at least the way I think and maybe my party, that is now one number, not two. so we would be stuck back on impossible.
Has anyone had a party that solved this organically?
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Can someone tell me how the puzzles went? I have no issues with 1 and 3, mirror stuff is easy, and honestly my party will probably use the right key cause it's the name of the place.
But the circling thing.... my god how is anyone supposed to get that? Sure you circle the number 11, but at least the way I think and maybe my party, that is now one number, not two. so we would be stuck back on impossible.
Has anyone had a party that solved this organically?
I tested this puzzle with two friends to see how it would go. One of them found after a few minutes of thinking, but instead of the correct answer he answered "13", "5", "3", "1", "1", because nothing states in the puzzle that you must read the number only from left to right. The second one did not find the answer without the hint, and he said it was because of how the question is asked. They tell you to circle 6 digits, and not 6 numbers. So he told me that, by "RAW", you can't circle 11 since it is a number composed of two digits, and not a digit.
For your version of the problem, John, you have to circle 6 "digits", not 6 "numbers". So if you circle 11, you indeed circled 2 digits, so it's fine.
I think you have to tweak a little how the puzzle is explained. I was thinking about something like "Circle any six digits so that the sum of all circled numbers add up to 23." (and allow the players to give me other answers than the one in the book).
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I would add to Serisan's infos that the first level of Roslar's tomb is really, REALLY dangerous if you don't have a dedicated healer, with or without planar traits. I play without planar traits, and my party consists of a Tactician Cavalier, a Dragon lineage Sorcerer, a Child of the Moon (Thunder domain) Druid and a Dervish Dancer Swashbuckler. They struggled to hit the Ostovites who nearly killed them.
The most dangerous ennemy was the Bone Cobra : the 14 AC was making him a pain to hit, the immunity to critical hits came into play once or twice, and the DR 5/bludgeonning made almost all attacks from the Swabuckler useless (luckily they found the warhammer and the Sorcerer began play with a hammer). I had to drop the SR 13 because both spellcasters were out of HPs because of the ostovites and were on their last spells per day, and this SR is a pain at first level. And it still was the longest battle they had (longer than against Abdell).
Now my party cleared the first level of Roslar's tomb, but both spellcasters are out of spells/magic powers, and three characters out of four are on the brink of death :/ They already used all the potions they found. I'm planning on adding potions on the mites in A10 to help them.
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Now my party cleared the first level of Roslar's tomb, but both spellcasters are out of spells/magic powers, and three characters out of four are on the brink of death :/ They already used all the potions they found. I'm planning on adding potions on the mites in A10 to help them.
I’d consider having the party unlock Hero Points for that extra cushion. What point buy are you using with your group?
We're using 20 points buy.
I'd prefer to avoid using rules that complexify too much the game. One of our players has never played Pathfinder before :S
But Hero Points might be a good idea for other groups in the same situation :)
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We're using 20 points buy.
I'd prefer to avoid using rules that complexify too much the game. One of our players has never played Pathfinder before :S
But Hero Points might be a good idea for other groups in the same situation :)
For the new players, I just tell them to save them up to not die. We've done Mummy's Mask and Reign of Winter, and those two points have been crazy crucial for them. Both APs are incredibly treacherous for different reasons, and both have heal bot life oracles in them. I do want to run this AP, and I also use 20 point buy, so I'm admittedly very worried. Will definitely push for someone to do another heal bot. I hope your group survives.
Thank you, I had misread the text as numbers not digits. That is much more reasonable. I am actually really excited to start tomorrow. My biggest issue so far is someone wanted to play a necromancer, which... really really doesn't work for book 1.
Party is.... Paladin (Oath Against Whispering Way), Ranger, Mindblade Magus, Spiritualist, and Slayer. So hopefully they have a good showing.
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Thank you, I had misread the text as numbers not digits. That is much more reasonable. I am actually really excited to start tomorrow. My biggest issue so far is someone wanted to play a necromancer, which... really really doesn't work for book 1.
Party is.... Paladin (Oath Against Whispering Way), Ranger, Mindblade Magus, Spiritualist, and Slayer. So hopefully they have a good showing.
I hope your first table went well! I'd be concerned about the party comp if the Spiritualist didn't pick CLW, but they should have decent options for damage. I'm glad you're excited for it and hope that it excites your players, as well.
I would add to Serisan's infos that the first level of Roslar's tomb is really, REALLY dangerous if you don't have a dedicated healer, with or without planar traits. I play without planar traits, and my party consists of a Tactician Cavalier, a Dragon lineage Sorcerer, a Child of the Moon (Thunder domain) Druid and a Dervish Dancer Swashbuckler. They struggled to hit the Ostovites who nearly killed them.
The druid can at least prep CLW as needed. It's not a bad mix you have there, though there will be some struggles along the way.
What's to make them solve the third puzzle rather than just taking the time to try each key in the lock? Is it trapped or something?
"Attempting to use any key other than the Nine-Eaves key, or failing to open the door with a Disable Device check, results in a backlash of magical energy that ages everyone within 10 feet of the door by 1d8 years, dealing 1 point of Charisma damage for every 2 years aged (A PC who succeeds at a DC 17 Fortitude save ages only half as many years)."
Not the most mechanically devastating trap, but for humans and half-orcs? Narratively terrifying.
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First two sessions went great, Spiritualist did snag CLW and the rp so far has been pretty good. There is tension between the Half Orc and the other players as they all pretty independently made backstories where their loved ones died in the orc raid. Out of character everyone is cool with the rp so that is good.
They flew through the opening dungeon so I got to end session one with the reveal which was super satisfying.
Session two was pretty good, though they don't seem worried about they Psychopomp after them, so I am scared for the final fight, I need to maybe add more confrontations so they are compelled to research it more.
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First two sessions went great, Spiritualist did snag CLW and the rp so far has been pretty good. There is tension between the Half Orc and the other players as they all pretty independently made backstories where their loved ones died in the orc raid. Out of character everyone is cool with the rp so that is good.
They flew through the opening dungeon so I got to end session one with the reveal which was super satisfying.
Session two was pretty good, though they don't seem worried about they Psychopomp after them, so I am scared for the final fight, I need to maybe add more confrontations so they are compelled to research it more.
I mean, they can be plenty scared once they're all affected by Calm Emotions and she starts suggesting they make out with her, right?
I recommend using Umble and Thoot to play up the concern. They know Mictena very well.
It was the escape of a subordinate, the seneschal Gildais, that first brought realization to the Whispering Tyrant: a lock forged from light would never yield to a key of darkness. Only positive energy, not the negative energy of unlife and necromancy, could burst his bonds.
Probably a bit late to be asking, but I’m really confused about the Tyrant’s thought process here. I don’t really see a correlation between Gildais’s escape and the Tyrant making the Radiant Fire. I feel like there’s something I’m missing about the cause-and-effect here...
Also, bump.
It was the escape of a subordinate, the seneschal Gildais, that first brought realization to the Whispering Tyrant: a lock forged from light would never yield to a key of darkness. Only positive energy, not the negative energy of unlife and necromancy, could burst his bonds.Probably a bit late to be asking, but I’m really confused about the Tyrant’s thought process here. I don’t really see a correlation between Gildais’s escape and the Tyrant making the Radiant Fire. I feel like there’s something I’m missing about the cause-and-effect here...
Also, bump.
To avoid his master’s rages, Gildais took to hiding in Gallowspire, motionless and silent, for years at a time. A part of him yearned for the warmth of blood and even cowardice once again—anything but the cold certainty that enshrouded his thoughts. In time, Gildais found regret for the dark deeds he committed in Tar-Baphon’s name, and took to prostrating himself before the Great Seal, letting its light burn his icy form. As regret grew to remorse, he found the seal lost its sting, and one day he simply walked free.
Best guess is that WT is aware of everything Gildais had been doing, saw that Gildais walked out after repeated penance, realized that the prison could be escaped by doing the opposite of what he had been doing, but he's all about that brute force unlife, so he figured out a way to use the resources at-hand to do the thing.
I ended up having them display some concern and got them to ask some questions, now they are a bit more worried.
The party ended up going through the Palace of Teeth fairly well, although they learned to fear the tooth fairies. I think only one tooth went missing, they used a hero point on the diplomacy check to avoid paying the 1 tooth each fee. The archer did get pinched 8 times though, so he is now a melee fighter for the next few days.
I am a bit worried about them surviving though, they managed to burn through the whole wand already.
Last session we did part 2 and the beginning of the Palace of Teeth. And they are mega-scared of the tooth fairies, especially because they are 2nd-level characters with no way to heal temporary Dex damages and have little chance of spotting them, so the fairies tend to have pretty easy surprise attacks. I'm a bit worried about the rogue fairies in that regard... Our Cavalier already lost 4 Dex points in the second battle only. But luckily, grappling them is very easy ! They captured two tooth fairies this way and put them on empty potion bottles... ._.
I'm also a bit worried about Farf. Either I will give the players their 3rd level before Nine-Eaves, or I will reduce Farf's CR by one. Has other people had problems with the nucol ?
This session did not go great, the party handled the first two puzzles fairly well, but the final one was real rough. I don't think I handled it well as a gm, but I couldn't find a way to really hand them information without giving them the answer.
What was worse is that they triggered the aging trap and that pushed our Half-Orc into middle age... and then a player triggered it again. The half orc is now almost old, and was furious (In character)
It took some real weird rp to justify them not fighting to the death over that.
I plan on the the guest at the end of the book to fix the problem, but I was wondering if anyone here knew a good way.
Last session we finished the Palace of Teeth and Nine-Eaves and... ooooooh boy. Talk about destroying a scenario and near-TPKs.
They clearly did not trust Uspid. But they also are not murderhobos. They knocked him unconscious then interrogated him. When they learned where his mother was, they chose to... keep him with them to "meet his mother together". Despite his pleas. Soooo I skipped the encounters with the rogue fairies and Queen Carnassial (since they had Uspid tied on the shoulder of the Cavalier and they announced themselves).
The fight against Uspid was waaaaaay too long. The only one doing him steady damages was the Druid with his domain powers, and Uspid was unable to deal them damages once his tooth fairies were down. DR 5 is hard to pass for level 2 characters, and the scenario does not give them any cold iron weapons prior to meeting Uspid. If you think your characters might attack him, I'd suggest to add at least one cold iron sword to the loot prior to the Palace of Teeth.
They encountered the Mimic because it was hungry, but... I one-shoted the Swashbuckler with it. As a reminder : it's not because you make a battle's length divided by two that the battle becomes less deadly. The adhesive power of the mimic is very powerful. Luckily the Cavalier kept all the weapons they found, but he was at his last weapon when they ended the fight.
In the end, Uspid will be forever remembered... at least until his mother's pet mimic and fashion advisor finishes diggesting him.
Then they got their level 3 and went to Nine Eaves, and I second Serisan : Sahkils are way too powerful for their CR. Luckily, I changed their DR good to a DR silver, so they were easier to kill - without this my players would have no means to pass their DR.
The battle against Farf only took two turns thanks to a critical hit, but he infected two characters (the Swashbuckler and the Druid) and nearly killed the Cavalier in one attack. Power Attacking a character with less than a d8 as their hit dice will probably kill them.
If the druid - who coincidentally was our healer - did not succeed at his Reflex save or was the one reading it, the Explosive Rune trap would have been a TPK, with 26 damages. They were all almost full life when they triggered it, and the Druid was the only one still conscious (should he had failed, he would have died immediatly).
As usual, swarms are too dangerous for low-level characters (and impossible if you don't have at least one caster with multiple AoE damage spells per day).
They managed the puzzles pretty quickly, without any hint (I had to change how the second puzzle was told though, but it still wasn't obvious enough for them to get the answer directly). As for the keys, they thought the rectangles standed for the number of floors... x)
If you don't want to confuse your players, remove the Challenger's glove and replace it with a normal glove. Or at least add another glove. The glove is useless if you don't wear both gloves, and they get only one. My players thought they could still use it and would throw it at Vithiz to activate it, which is a bad idea since you have to wear the glove to have the bonus against Vithiz (luckily they were talking about it in front of the painting who told them to keep it equipped).
As for Vithiz... the +4 to disarm him is not enough. It took 4 turns for my players to disarm him, but that was because I ignored the malus from shaken. Even with a martial, strength-focused character with +6 at his attack manoeuvre, you have 1/4 chances, and that is only if they succeed at at least two Wisdom saves per round (one for the stare and one for the buzz) and if they don't get killed by Vithiz's attacks, and then they still need at least one other round to touch him with the staff (round on which he can use his 4 claw attacks). And I have been kind to my players by not using blur and vomit swarms.
So yeah... Although I really liked the Palace of Teeth (despite Uspid) because the battles are scary without being too dangerous for the most part and allow you a pacific route, which I appreciate for a first book since players are usually still taking the temperature of the AP by this point, the Sahkils and the Explosive Rune were too powerful for their level (you are supposed to be level 2 or 3 when you encounter them, with no way to dodge the battles), and Nine-Eaves can be a bit confusing for the players. Don't let your players go to Nine-Eaves at least until they are level 3, and even like that, don't hesitate to cheat on the Explosive Rune, Farf and Vithiz. Nonetheless, the puzzles were great, my players really liked those.
Now, they don't have any healing items left. I hope Salighara's scriptorium is less dangerous than Nine-Eaves...
This session did not go great, the party handled the first two puzzles fairly well, but the final one was real rough. I don't think I handled it well as a gm, but I couldn't find a way to really hand them information without giving them the answer.
What was worse is that they triggered the aging trap and that pushed our Half-Orc into middle age... and then a player triggered it again. The half orc is now almost old, and was furious (In character)
It took some real weird rp to justify them not fighting to the death over that.
I plan on the the guest at the end of the book to fix the problem, but I was wondering if anyone here knew a good way.
Hah, I would have loved to be there to see that RP =P
I'd suggest making Kishokish heal them. I know Shokis aren't supposed to be able to heal aging, but since he is the one who created the trap, he should know how to dispell this curse.
(my party for context :
- Phileas : Half-Orc Cavalier
- Roy : Human Swashbuckler
- Qil : Samsaran (kid) Druid (Child of the moon, with Words of Power)
- Levy : Ifrit Sorcerer (dragon)
Also I replaced aligned DR with metallic DR)
Our last session went pretty well, and my players kept on doing things I did not expect :)
As their final destination, the party went to Salighara's Scriptorium. Being ace detectives, they immediatly found weird that the wyrmwood's corpse was bleeding (even though they did not know its specie).
They talked to Berthold and Qil gave him a bit of his blood, but they refused to give him the devil contract (in case it would be dangerous).
Frellyh and Wallinar were a really easy fight. They then befriended the other wyrmwoods (and made a bunch of hand-related jokes).
Qil triggered the gnashing press, but it was alright, it did a correct amount of damages.
The party tested the teleporting room a bunch of times. They ended up with Roy being teleported and locked in one of the small bedrooms with rats and blood everywhere (until Qil finally found him, after a bunch of failed Perception check), and Levy burned the storage room.
They did not trigger the fanged peach.
They triggered the Broken sculpture trap, but everyone but Qil dodged it. Damages were correct.
They instantly attacked Colulus's "corpse". They "killed" it after some rounds, but without silver. Colulus was definitelly killed by Phileas when he tried to sneak attack the spellcasters.
The guardian scroll nearly killed Levy. This thing has some crazy amount of bonus for maneuvres ! It can be dangerous, but most clever groups will probably manage this fight.
When they met Mrs. Pedipalp, they immediatly attacked her when she told them her name (they guessed that she was the one behind everything in the scriptorium). Roy was instantly removed from the battle because of Pedipalp's fear effect. Luckily the other three managed the battle pretty well thanks to good tactics and saving throws.
In the end I think the most dangerous battles in this part are the guardian scroll, and the nightgaunt if your party is unlucky or has low defense against maneuvres.
I made Thoot offer the party a Lady's mercy for each member :)
They mainly rolled over Deathbower. The gardeners are very easy battles. The tree almost killed Qil, and having two hexes on everyone for the entirity of the battle made it challenging, but once the tree was down, the witchcrows become easy preys (they really depend on another creature to deal damage).
They manage to turn Aydie's strategy against her, cornering her in her own Silence zone.
They then met Mictena, and oh boy that was a fun fight. They failed the first Diplomacy test (it was impossible for them to succeed it, even with their good diplomacy scores). It took them multiple turns to spot that the one they were fighting was an illusion, and the remainder of the fight was on the gazebo's roof. Mictena used her kiss on Roy once, but was then minced away by a serie of critical hits from Phileas (~40 damages per turn :,D). This battle has a very good potential for an epic fight.
When they met Barzakh, he gave them a special coin because they were kind to their ennemis. I talk about it in this thread if you want more details.
Final thoughts about this book :
It has good ideas, even though the "horror" ambiance is somewhat laking except in Salighara's scriptorium. My players suggested to me to "foreshadow" a bit the monsters like with Collulus so that they know something is lurking, ready to attack them, instead of just doing battles one after the other.
You will need to change the loot if your players use somewhat rare classes or party composition, and add some healing items. I'm not a fan of a fraction of the loot, but the author did the effort of putting rare items instead of sticking to the classics, which is appreciated.
Nine-eaves is the most dangerous part of the book. You should reduce the damages done by Farf and the Explosive Rune trap. Other parts are okay, even though some battles may take a long time because of the abundance of DRs (some of them your characters may not be able to bypass).
Great write ups Almarane! I would second the need for special types of weapons. I decided each statue of the Red Shrikes would have a weapon favored for their character(I rolled percentile to see rarity of the metal.) I gave out silver, cold iron and even an adamantine star knife. It helped with the DR in book one and allowed each character to shine at different times. The adamantine star knife even led to a TPK when they smashed the locked door with the necrophidius.
Don’t be shy with healing either! I usually roll a d20 for a partial wand of clw and hide it somewhere in each waystation. Probably generous, but my party has wiped three times now. Luckily it mostly just cost them a lot of teeth.
We are about to head to deathbower and it has been a blast thus far! Excited to return to Golarion and tie the heroes back into RC!
Good gaming!