This is a spoiler-filled resource thread for GMs running the Tyrant's Grasp Adventure Path, specifically for the second adventure, "Eulogy for Roslar's Coffer."
The Mix Coautl in the Bestiary lacks ranks in two skills. In fact he gains 8 skill ranks for hit die (6 because they are outsider's hit dice plus other 2 for his Intelligence modifier). As written in the stat block it has ranks in Diplomacy, Fly, Knowledge(Geography; Nature), Perception and Sense Motive and in each skill it has 10 ranks. The stat block also include Stealth in which the Couatl does not have ranks. Someone, the author of the monster maybe, knows what are the two missing skills without ranks? Otherwise I will think in what other skills give ranks to the monster...
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So, having read through the module, I get the very distinct feeling that the "Radiant Fire" is Golarion's version of nuclear weapons, meaning that Roslar's Coffer... got nuked. There's the people who have been incinerated, the ones who are just charred impressions on walls and the obvious mutations from radiation.
Am I correct in thinking that I should be describing the town scene with vaguely post-nuclear apocalyptic terms? If not, how should I be describing it?
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(Will save vs incoming science ahead!)
That's a fine way to explain it, and what we were going for without using the phrase "magical nuclear weapons." Conversationally around here, we've been referring to the pieces of the Shattered Shield of Arnisant that the Whispering Tyrant can use to trigger the Radiant Fire as his "loose nukes."
Awesome! Okay, that's great. Also because it doesn't behave like most nuclear blasts. The closest you can come to is a neutron bomb, but even a 1 kt bomb would flatten the town (note, the town map on p6 doesn't have a scale bar, but appears to be ~700 feet across the short axis). A 1 kt bomb (according to Wikipeida) is enough to flatten non-reinforced structures up to 500m (1500 feet) away. So clearly, we're not getting that kind of pressure from our blast. But it should also be noted that half the pressure would ruin the buildings as well as throw anyone outside like a rag doll, likely inflicting lethal bludgeoning damage as they hit walls, etc.
Also, when reading the entry for the Positive Energy Plane in the wiki, its the sheer life energy that is its most striking feature. Clerics use an infinitesimal amount of that energy to accelerate healing. Absorbing all that either (a) causes your body to combust (b) causes huge mutations (think instantaneous runaway cancer) (c) both. From the description we know that at least some parts of the town are heavily charred - the likeliest explanation is those parts of the town closest to ground zero. Moreover, based on the "nuclear silhouettes" left behind, PCs are going to be able to determine which direction the blast comes from - and I'll bet 99% of the time they'll try and figure that out.
So you're going to need to know where ground zero is and describe the town with respect to that. Let's say its in the town center. As you move from the outskirts to the center you'll see increasing levels of destruction from moderate damage to completely ruined to ruined + charred buildings. If you'd like, the building at ground zero could be completely leveled / disintegrated, with the silhouette of the windows on the wrecks of the adjoining buildings.
People will die all throughout the town (unless protected by lead, thick stone, etc...). On the outside, any corpses not reanimated will be horribly mutated with tumors, vestigial limbs, deformed body parts, flesh eaten away, etc.. Individuals caught outside might have pieces of buildings embedded in them. The trauma of rending the soul from the body would be such that they might rise of their own accord as mindless undead (and this is also what creates the loci). Similar things would happen to the plants and animals, again, worse as you approach ground zero.
So, in my game I'm going to have my party all in the same room in the inn sleeping when it happens. Having the PCs in a common room in an inn is, i think, a great idea. It doesn't have to be for long, just the one round necessary for the boom. That building is going to be nothing but dust, but the PCs corpses and gear will be intact, adding to the confusion on Quietus' part.
I imagine that subsequent blasts will be larger in scale and devastation as the WT refines his control.
After a really quick glance, I’m slightly disappointed that the big bosses of both book 1 and 2 are both witches. That said, I love the diversity in undead thus far! Also, I’m always a fan of more Deific/Fiendish/etc. Obedience options.
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I'm curious that they really seem to have completely retconned Arazni's and her grave knights' relationship. Like I think the one featured in Undead Unleashed was still mentioned to be her concubine? Either way, it does make sense to focus on Arazni being angry about her current situation rather than her having creepy grave knight harem, but from continuity point of view it feels weird to have it referred as rumors where in Undead Unleashed it was part of the grave knight's backstory.
I also notice the "Interestingly, there rumors are more common in Lastwall" part. Mostly because it really feels like Paizo wants to portray paladins as kind of jerks which feels weird to me. Then again it does make sense realism wise, nastiest rumors spread around where they would be most scandalous, but I'd have expected better of the LG nation.
Either way, I think this adventure is really cool and I do like this take of Arazni, though I do think she kinda appears way too conveniently to exposit to PCs at end of adventure. Like, I think she could have figured out more natural way to introduce themselves rather than just mysterious clearly undead woman appearing out of nowhere to tell them what to do.
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I like how the retcon played out, and it fits a bit more with how liches have typically been portrayed (similar to how they were in life, not a fast jump to depravity). That being said, while the whole Harlot Queen backstory was interesting, it felt a bit dated. Morphing that into mostly propaganda is a move I like.
As far as the Lastwallans are concerned, just imagine, one of your nation's patron demigods and hero figures of the Shining Crusade suddenly gets (forcibly) turned into a lich by the ruler of a country that you're sort-of feuding with. Now, the backbone of your country's history is fighting the undead, and now Aranzi, a champion of your primary deity, is now a creature that your compatriots have dedicated their lives to fighting. Imagine the moral turmoil that these first generations of Lastwallans dealt with. Then someone makes it easy... Harlot Queen, has taken those treacherous crusaders who stole her away as concubines, is ruling a nation that embraces the undead. SHE IS TRYING TO BE THE NEW WHISPERING TYRANT!
The truth, even to a LG country, sometimes falls way to the convenient half-truths and obfuscations.
From what I've read one of the ways Arazni is kept in check is by the her phylactery being hidden from her. But, a destroyed lich is rebuilt by their phylactery, so shouldn't she now know where it is?
I'm very curious how this arc is going to play out. With the content of the AP so far its feel more like "she's evil because she's a lich" not like "she's embraced evil". There may be some anger, some abandonment, some lashing out. But it seems to be a stronger potential redemption arc than the demon lord from WotR. And I'd like to know if that's in the cards or not before the players meet her the first time.
She might not get rebuilt right next to it, or conversely she might not have been killed since becoming a Lich and isn't willing to die a second time.
It specifically says she was destroyed by the radiant fire in Roslar's Coffer and was able to regenerate before her graveknights and return just as the PCs banish the mist.
I see revenge against the Tyrant as orthogonal to redemption.
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She might not get rebuilt right next to it, or conversely she might not have been killed since becoming a Lich and isn't willing to die a second time.It specifically says she was destroyed by the radiant fire in Roslar's Coffer and was able to regenerate before her graveknights and return just as the PCs banish the mist.
Ah cool.
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I see revenge against the Tyrant as orthogonal to redemption.
I mean, she seems to be in for really angry destruction involving revenge and then back to being angry in Geb since she still can't do anything about that. And assuming she would somehow find her phylactery, she would presumably self destruct so that is also less of redemption and more of "FINALLY I can go back to rest"
Odd question: how exactly does the Radiant Fire work? Like, I know that it’s supposed to be akin to a nuclear blast, but it also specifically calls out that it’s a donut of positive energy with a negative energy core, so does that mean that the blast can only affect living/undead things? I.e. does it not affect constructs or buildings or other non-living and non-undead things?
Oooh, so it more indirectly affects structures and such by affecting the Material/foundation/surrounding organisms. Interesting. So the positive energy zone is less “destructive” and more “radioactive,” if I’m reading that correctly. I.e. life still survives in that area, but it’s “grown” to unhealthy proportions (mutations, rampant plant life, etc.)
Also, and this is probably very obvious, but Roslar’s Coffer was in the negative energy zone (and this close to ground zero), right?
Out of curiosity does anyone have a plan in place for the juju zombies should one of the PC's play a duskwalker or shabti or other character that is immune to undeath? Would their bodies sans a soul be able to be turned into zombies? I don't necessarily expect it to be an issue, but this will only be the second AP I GM and after the experience I am getting out of the AP I'm running now I want to be prepared for anything.
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Out of curiosity does anyone have a plan in place for the juju zombies should one of the PC's play a duskwalker or shabti or other character that is immune to undeath? Would their bodies sans a soul be able to be turned into zombies? I don't necessarily expect it to be an issue, but this will only be the second AP I GM and after the experience I am getting out of the AP I'm running now I want to be prepared for anything.
I have that exact situation, and I'm still debating with myself about how to handle it. I currently have two thoughts: the first is to have Valthazar comment to the PC something like, "And you! Yours was especially tricky - took me three tries to get it right, and my lackeys couldn't manage it at all! I wonder why that is?" to imply that there is something about how the bodies were affected that allowed it to happen in the first place. The second is to not include the duskwalker's zombie doppelganger at all, but instead include another zombie whose appearance doesn't match anyone, as a hedge against needing to replace a PC in the future; a player in need of a new character could use that zombie's appearance as a starting place or not, but regardless, it would establish that there were more people affected by the obols than just the PCs I start with.
Luckily Balthazar strikes me as just villain monologue-y enough to use him as a device to deliver any story beats the PC's miss or don't pick up on. Though there is the possibility some particularly righteous characters might attack first and ask questions later. I guess that's what conveniently forthcoming journal entries are for.
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...the first is to have Valthazar comment to the PC something like, "And you! Yours was especially tricky - took me three tries to get it right, and my lackeys couldn't manage it at all! I wonder why that is?" to imply that there is something about how the bodies were affected that allowed it to happen in the first place.
I actually had a similar solution: I imagine things like shabti and duskwalkers as being fairly rare on Golarion (and from my understanding, they are rather rare), so I'd think that Valthazar would animate first and find it no big deal and then find notes on the anti-undeath abilities of a shabti/duskwalker, despite having an undead one right beside him! This, I'd imagine, would further pique his curiosity as to what the hell is going on. (Essentially, since the corpse is nothing more than an empty shell, then the shell could be raised as an undead)
There's a deck of illusions in K9 that could use replacing since there was one in the first volume. I can't come up with anything artwork-themed that would work for around the same value (8,100 gp). Perhaps a candle of invocation (8,500 gp) could replace both the deck and the 400 gp box it came in.
There's also a cloak of arachnida (14,000 gp) in K8, which few PCs will choose to wear after being given cloaks of resistance +2 at the end of the last volume. Other things that could be mistaken for rags are a monk's robe (13,000 gp), a vest of the cockroach (16,000 gp) for rogues, or even gloves of dueling (15,000 gp) or a tan bag of tricks (16,000 gp).
So, I found out something interesting:
So the Bastion of Light also appeared in PFS Scenario 10-04: Reaver's Roar (no spoilers, don't worry), but cross-referencing some of the details has actually brought an interesting situation to light: The two Bastions are inconsistent.
For example, area K9 in this book describes it as being a display chamber, whereas in Reaver's Roar it was a library.
And from my understanding the Sarenites hadn't had time to repopulate the building so....
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So, I found out something interesting:
So the Bastion of Light also appeared in PFS Scenario 10-04: Reaver's Roar (no spoilers, don't worry), but cross-referencing some of the details has actually brought an interesting situation to light: The two Bastions are inconsistent.
For example, area K9 in this book describes it as being a display chamber, whereas in Reaver's Roar it was a library.
And from my understanding the Sarenites hadn't had time to repopulate the building so....
I would absolutely treat Reaver's Roar as wrong and "Eulogy for Roslar's Coffer" as correct.
Hey, people more creative than me:
Can someone come up with a list of things about each (er, a good number) deity that I could have Kalamuk shout?
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Hey, people more creative than me:
Can someone come up with a list of things about each (er, a good number) deity that I could have Kalamuk shout?
/!\Trigger warning, this does not reflect what I think/!\
Here are some ideas :
Iomedae : Something about her being raped by demons (since she hates them), cheating at the startstone challenge (she used her cloak to access the starstone, making a bridge with it. I'm thinking about making her tell that she in fact used a banal magic item and that the witnesses are idiots who got bluffed), or betraying Arazni so that the Whispering Tyrant could kill her in order to take her place. She's also known for having "a stick up her a**". All these also apply to her worshippers.
Calistria : Insults her worshippers by saying they are STD dispensers.
Cayden Cailéan : God of the Drunkards
Desna : Her worshippers are a bunch of hobos that can't afford a tavern chamber. And you have to be pretty dumb to worship a stupid butterfly.
Erastil : Animals f*ckers.
Gorum : Muscles for brain. Insult their intelligence.
Lamashtu : "Yo mama so fat" jokes
Néthys : A bunch of bipolar, short-tempered psychos. Real dangers for society.
Pharasma : Corpse f*ckers. Also, party killers with a stick up their a**.
Sarenrae : Hypocrites that say they want peace but don't hesitate to kill whoever does not agree with them. I also know that some clerics of Sarenrae tend to be too trusting, you could play with that.
Shélyn : Insult her beauty. Or tell that she has a "brother complex" (she wants to bang her brother). Or that Kalamuk loves whipping her bottom with shelyan paintings.
Torag : Torag's clerics are supposed to know how to craft weapons and armors, so you can make her insult the PC's craftmanship by saying things like a piece of equipment they crafted themself is so badly crafted that a baby could break it or that it would give diarrhea to a Rust-monster. Or make Kalamuk say she loves eating digging animals (Torrag's favored animals).
Urgathoa : nothing, she's cool
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Well...I asked...
The blast definitely harms structures, although not as severely as a nuclear blast would. Structures (and the landscape) within the negative energy zone become crumbled ruins but don't necessarily fall over completely. Structures (and the landscape) within the positive energy zone become overrun with fecund growth and mutations, and also likely appear crumbled. That is, if a jungle suddenly sprung up around a keep, the bursting of tumorous roots and grasping vines probably do the keep a lot of structural damage.
my take on this is that in the negative energy zone, the blast affects organic items (people, wood timbers) more than stone items - because those things were (or are) alive. So roofs would collapse on stone buildings, etc... Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule for RP purposes.
Farther out the positive energy would have had live plants grow at a highly accelerated rate (almost instantaneously. Here, planks of wood might somehow grow branches and leaves, and trees and vines would have cracked stone as their roots and tendrils burrowed through solid rock.
So negative zone - more rock than wood. wood is weakened, collapsed. Positive zone, a home may be held up by a latticework of trees and vines with the stone masonry being suspended.
of course, all this could be very fragile... and a ground zero there may not be anything left.
So, off to a good start so far: first session of this book resulted in one death via Lurkers in Light. I did not have them go up against the Yaog just yet as they were severely undergeared and would get absolutely wrecked by it. The corpseflower nearly digested one PC.
I had the party go around looting and getting some magic items early on to round out their stuff - mostly armor/weapons as they were sorely undergeared and getting crushed in some encounters for things they couldn't address. Even with upgrades (mind you, a 3 player party was still using things like a starting shortbow), they had a lot of difficulty with the opening encounters. These are not poorly built characters, either - they're all gestalt and built/played by proficient players. It's literally just the numbers, and this book starts out with a highly intentional 15 minute adventuring day setup, where each encounter is CR 7+ for a party of level 5 characters.
I let them find a reincarnate scroll to save the dead PC. He ended up more fragile than before as a frontliner, but we'll see how that all shakes out.
Yaog took about 20 rounds of combat due to bad dice rolls on all sides. Ended up severely wounding its potential food, but no kills because my dice averaged 5s on attack rolls.
The players successfully puzzled the jewelry store and interrogated the cultist. Now they're terrified of a vampire that doesn't exist.
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Yaog took about 20 rounds of combat due to bad dice rolls on all sides. Ended up severely wounding its potential food, but no kills because my dice averaged 5s on attack rolls.
The players successfully puzzled the jewelry store and interrogated the cultist. Now they're terrified of a vampire that doesn't exist.
Ha! You should totally add one just for an extra red herring. Just a random vampire who happened to come along, and suddenly attacked by a party of adventurers that were hunting him down without him even knowing.
Today's session: Roslar's Tomb 2, Electric Boogaloo. I warned the players in advance about some of these encounters being...quite difficult.
The party didn't even let the crew talk before engaging, opting to sneak up on them and get a surprise round. Overall, this combat was very manageable because the archer got targeted hard by everybody right away, including a trip from an animal companion that prevented him from ever full attacking. Because the archer is such a significant portion of the encounter's damage threat, it basically became a bit of a nothingburger.
I replaced the Pearl of Power 2nd Level with Irongrip Gauntlets due to a lack of prepared casters in the party and a recently smallified character via reincarnate (he went from Human to Halfling).
Spore Zombie Xeno was rough. My dice were bad initially, but the newly minted halfling was on the bad side of a hot streak that resulted in a second death. The player was accepting of taking Jando over and revamping him a bit (gestalt, 25 point buy, etc). The biggest problem was that the halfling still had 2 negative levels from his prior reincarnate. The party rested, healed up, and moved on.
Vampiric Mists were annoying and partially threatening, but the reality is that the frontliner of the party is a swashbuckler with good touch AC. They got powered through pretty easily.
The Guecubu was the other encounter I was really worried about. It didn't last long, but did manage to cripple an animal companion with the curse. That animal companion then died to the trap 2 rooms later.
The Venedaemons were non-issues. As far as CR 5 critters go, they just weren't that threatening.
At this point, my players were all very tired and we agreed to skip the last two encounters. I had been planning on skipping the Rotgrub Swarm (they have no means to kill it) and I didn't mind skipping the Living Walls.
So in the section on Arazni, they mention the holiday of Mourningfell when she was slain by the WT. They don't associate a calendar day with it, however. Is this an oversight, or is it intentionally left up in the air?
So in the section on Arazni, they mention the holiday of Mourningfell when she was slain by the WT. They don't associate a calendar day with it, however. Is this an oversight, or is it intentionally left up in the air?
I tried looking at other sources and couldn't find anything elsewhere. I would guess it's an oversight.
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My players did the first floor of the Bastion of Light on Friday. It was rough. Current party is all gestalt and has already hit the strugglebus on other areas of book 2.
Paladin/Swashbuckler
Hunter/Slayer
Jando rebuilt as Ranger/Warpriest (the ranger/psychic died twice this book after they "scavenged" a reincarnate scroll)
2 animal companions (bird and some sort of cat)
A short rundown of struggles:
I had much of the party at single digit HP in various encounters and there are several things that were concerning, but did not get addressed. The bear will starve to death before they engage with it and they are able to ID the crypt things to know that they are dangerous in a silly way, but completely avoidable. The bodak is really an inappropriate encounter for the PCs given the lack of resources they have at this point. It's INSANELY threatening to have an early encounter that can basically impact the PCs until the next book near the entrance to the dungeon. It's even more inappropriate given the possibility of Crypt Thing teleport sending a PC there alone. For "fun," I had the players roll a d20 to see where they would have ended up if they failed the teleport save and one of them was going to get stuck alone with the bodak.
As the most experienced player at the table put it, "this is sort of a who's who of the undead in the bestiaries." Even relatively powered up via extra gear I allowed the PCs to scavenge, they simply lack the tools to combat many of these threats. They could all have full caster classes and still had ridiculous struggles in and after these combats.
Realized tonight that I never posted the wrap up for book 2. I've forgotten most of the details, buuuuuuuuuuut...
Ghost guy was a non-issue for some reason.
The nekomatas were hilarious, but not very threatening. There's an amount of metaknowledge that you can't erase with them. Telekinesis is the real weapon of their kit and it can do a ton of damage.
I skipped the necromancer sisters. It's a threatening fight, it's probably easy for my players to deal with, but it was just the least interesting thing on the floor.
Pukwudgie was funnier than dangerous, as well. I think I mostly had to channel negative and not much else.
Valthazar...what a disappointment. The disruptive cat animal companion got in close right away and effectively ended the combat. There just wasn't enough in the way.
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At this point, my players were all very tired and we agreed to skip the last two encounters. I had been planning on skipping the Rotgrub Swarm (they have no means to kill it) and I didn't mind skipping the Living Walls.
Agree the Rot Grub Swarm is an egregious monster to put in this book. There are no area damage treasure in the mod (we've found one scroll of fireball), and no opportunity to get them.
Any time an AP puts you on low resources, it needs to avoid obstacles for which there is a single solution (as you're not likely to have it). Only hope a party has is an AOE arcane caster, and that might not be enough for an 85hp swarm at this level.
I am also skipping this encounter.
I am skipping the Living Walls as that encounter just strikes me as dumb. I am adding an encounter, however. One of the PCs has a family relation who was buried in the cemetery.
Guess who is coming for dinner!!
Just adding my own notes from my session, which just started today:
1) DM's should have Jando show up right out the gate. The party is probably going to encounter him within a short while anyway, and having more guidance from the start makes sense. When the players start, the only "guidance" they have is a glowing light at the cemetery, that they might not even visit. Jando can point them in the right direction.
2) Building off that, the yaoguai fight is brutal. This thing has a ton of hit points, DR5/-, Fast Healing 5, and SR. My party did a good job, but one player almost went down in one turn. Having Jando assist in the fight after bringing them to his base could be good, and if DM's want Jando to be guidance, but not help, maybe he breaks a limb in the fight so he can't help them in fights, but can still point them in the right direction.
3) Right now, the cemetery ghost fetch quest is vague and doesn't quite connect other than "Well, this is the only thing, so this must be the way forward." I personally recommend changing the spirit's dialogue so it's more like "Hey, I'm the spirit of the town. I'd love to help you, but the Whispering Way is trying to ensure that the last of my spirits can't move on. If you can help them, I can help you" and then have the spirit give benefits as they help more spirits. This also makes the Whispering Way more directly in the path of PC goals, rather than just in the same space and hostile.
So I want to share the party's perception of meeting their juju-selves at the end of Book 2.
"Oh, no! It's us! We'd better pull out all the stops!"
(1 round later) Riiight. It's us from like 7 levels ago. No need to deploy the tarrasque.
The party also figured out that it has been 10 days since they "died", and five days since they returned from the Boneyard. They have averaged .7 levels a day.
The candle which burns twice as fast...