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My party is slowly working their way to Gallowspire.
Some fights were childishly easy: The Pallis Sunrise had a feeble AC of 20 and lasted about two rounds after the party used the Wand of Communal Protection from Energy (fire). The Tempest Guards were sitting ducks to area effect spells. Otto Canrivash was wiped out after someone used invisibilty purge early on. The various graveknights encountered haven't been much of a challenge either.
By contrast the dybbuk was problematic, and the Dreadwraiths could have easily been a TPK if I hadn't nerfed them a bit by making them play the fight a bit dumb. Their Con damage was downright nasty, and my party suck at fighting incorporeals.
Next week they'll encounter Tycha Ghuzmaar. He could be nasty if he can use his death attack in, but his stealth is such that he will probably be seen before he can get his three rounds of study in. I think I'll give him a potion of invisibility to give him a boost. If I don't, I think that fight will be too easy as well.
The dybbuk is a PC killer, and to be honest, I couldn't make heads or tails of how its key ability actually works.
I nerfed it in play, and when the party encountered another one in the adventure i inserted into Book 5, I swapped it out for a "hellsnail" [that was AWESOME].
Tycha's not going to stand and fight to second death. He's gonna run. I also gave him the same out [invisibility] so that he could show up w/ Amaretos [and negotiated his escape by showing them how to turn off the portal thingys... just to return and betray the party when they finally left the dungeon, along w/ one of the other Council Libertine [the mounted one from the surface] had resurrected [lucky me! I rolled a 2 for the # of days for her to return!]]
One of my players is a big fan of Dragonlance, and I made Tycha seem sorta like Lord Soth when he negotiated his escape, even using the Words "My Honor is My Life."
Well, dude's dead, so sucks to be betrayed, but he told you he had no honor.
One GK is a pushover. But two of them make for a great challenge, w/ the different energy damages and their unique immunities and attacks. We even got to a point w/ the Tycha / Amaretos fight where they were back to back against the party, and got to yell, "Just like the old days!" to give them some characterization.
[was missing your updates! hoped you hadn't dropped your campaign!]
[was missing your updates! hoped you hadn't dropped your campaign!]
Aw shucks! It's slow going. The way my party plays we get on average about two encounters per session, one session a week, and we only play my campaign two weeks out of four. We alternate with another of the guys GMing Reign of Winter.
And to be honest, I've been a bit disappointed with Gallowspire. It's just a long dungeon crawl where they kill the baddies, take the loot and will eventually get the right plot token to insert into the witch-gate to shut it down.
BUT
Last week was fun. In a major facepalm moment, the party fighter decided he wouldn't bother to wait while the rest of the party recovered from the encounter with the Dreadwraiths. He had his hp back and no ability damage, so didn't want to hide out the 16 hours it would take the cleric to get spells back and cast Restoration on those that needed it.
So off he went to dig in the bones for the magic item the party knew to be buried in area J1. He ignored the advice of literally everyone else in the party not to go it alone.
I rolled up a random encounter from the table on page 81 and he ended up facing two vampire warriors. They snuck up on him and hit him from behind while he was digging, and he took multiple hits before he got to where his weapon was and could finally fight back. Unfortunately he's very much a defensive fighter - hard to hit but doesn't do much damage so couldn't beat their fast healing. Additionally, they'd drunk their fly potions so they could ignore the difficult terrain, which also meant he was hampered in combat and couldn't flee. He tried a potion of invisibility but they had blindsight. Down he went.
The party searched for him, found his dead body which had been stripped of everything, including his bag of holding which held roughly half the rest of the party's treasure. To say the party is angry with him would be understating it.
They raised him from the dead, making it absolutely clear that the gp cost was coming out of his share. They then cast Locate Object on the fighter's tower shield. On the fly, I created a room between J5 and J6 where I told them the shield was, before calling the session to a halt.
I now have to figure out whether to give them a chance to get their loot back. I could just have them encounter the vampires gloating over their new-found wealth, but I think that would be too easy - stupidity should have an appropriate reward. Or I could have the vampires abandoning some of the heavier or more useless (to them) items, but taking off with the good stuff. So they'll find the fighter's armor, shield, some of the heavy weapons, but everything else will be lost forever.
If I do give it all back, I think I'll make them earn it. Two vampire warriors will be way too easy for the entire party. I might have them find that a much stronger monster has killed the vamps and appropriated the party's possessions.
Decisions, decisions...
My party is slowly working their way to Gallowspire.
Some fights were childishly easy: The Pallis Sunrise had a feeble AC of 20 and lasted about two rounds after the party used the Wand of Communal Protection from Energy (fire). The Tempest Guards were sitting ducks to area effect spells. Otto Canrivash was wiped out after someone used invisibilty purge early on. The various graveknights encountered haven't been much of a challenge either.
Next week they'll encounter Tycha Ghuzmaar. He could be nasty if he can use his death attack in, but his stealth is such that he will probably be seen before he can get his three rounds of study in. I think I'll give him a potion of invisibility to give him a boost. If I don't, I think that fight will be too easy as well.
Tycha's not going to stand and fight to second death. He's gonna run. I also gave him the same out [invisibility] so that he could show up w/ Amaretos [and negotiated his escape by showing them how to turn off the portal thingys... just to return and betray the party when they finally left the dungeon, along w/ one of the other Council Libertine [the mounted one from the surface] had resurrected [lucky me! I rolled a 2 for the # of days for her to return!]]
One GK is a pushover. But two of them make for a great challenge, w/ the different energy damages and their unique immunities and attacks. We even got to a point w/ the Tycha / Amaretos fight where they were back to back against the party, and got to yell, "Just like the old days!" to give them some characterization.
[was missing your updates! hoped you hadn't dropped your campaign!]
Main challenge with GraveKnights is that they are hard to permanently get rid of... they are also supposed to be leaders of armies of undeads, but this rarely get used.
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So reading over the necromancy lab again, is giving the impression that the crescent moon gemstone isn't actually needed to unlock the secret in the room. I looked into it since my party didn't chase down the mist vampire to finish him off, and therefore didn't get the gemstone. So what's the point of the gemstone if it's not actually needed?
So reading over the necromancy lab again, is giving the impression that the crescent moon gemstone isn't actually needed to unlock the secret in the room. I looked into it since my party didn't chase down the mist vampire to finish him off, and therefore didn't get the gemstone. So what's the point of the gemstone if it's not actually needed?
The description of the hidden compartment doesn't give any other way of opening it other than using the gem. My party haven't reached that room yet but, when they do, no gem no treasure.
My party continues to explore the second level of Gallowspire.
One thing I did was to rearrange the encounters slightly. I moved Tycha Ghuzmaar to area J8, as I thought it better to have a boss fight before they level up to 13th and level down to the catacombs. And Tycha fit the bill better than the four bone golems the module had there, which I thought would be anti-climactic. The party instead encountered the golems in area J4.
The party rogue detected the trap on the door to J7 but totally fluffed his disable device check, so he's now a hand short. Too bad the cleric doesn't have the regenerate spell yet!
The party rogue detected the trap on the door to J7 but totally fluffed his disable device check, so he's now a hand short.
My condolensces to your rogue, I hope they weren't a two-weapon fighter?
On the note of the Graveknights, I am wondering if I should do something with them to flesh out those fights a bit more. My party has been wrecking shop - Paladin and Swashbuckler do so much damage, Cleric is really well kitted out for undead fights, and between the Wizard's summons and buffs they're a force to be reckoned with whenever they have a spellslot free, so it's all added up to some very quick combats. Which, you know, love that for them, but sometimes you want a fight to have some oomph to it.
So while I probably won't go full "army of undead" I'm considering my options - two at once sounds rough but, who knows, maybe they can handle it. Putting Yhalas into a fight with Tycha or Amaretos maybe? Since she doesn't have any mooks. Or having Gustari swoop back in during another fight after rejuvenating (swooping is bad).
Also, unrelated: my party have met Arazni and the Wizard (who was in a cult against his will) is like "wow actually I can totally get behind his whole 'no mercy for your oppressors' thing" which is nice, I'm glad my players are vibing with her, she's great.
ALSO also unrelated (but don't wanna double-post for it): I'm thinking of doing something at the end of the book at Renchurch. Having the Watcher Lord just sort of leave sounds sad - I get it, they'll all totally die if they try anything, but I'd love to have something more dynamic happen. So I'm thinking of having the PCs convince them to instead intercept a force of the Tyrant's soldiers on route to the bulk of the army. Also, part of our canon is that, after the events of the the Carrion Crown AP, the party (which included a powerful hallowed necromancer) spent a good long while destroying Renchurch and exorcising the trapped souls there. There's also some figures left behind from that, namely Lucimar, that I'd love to do something with. So I dunno what it'll look like yet, but I'm thinking up some cool Renchurch ruins setpiece with Arazni vs Tar-Baphon as a backdrop.
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The party rogue detected the trap on the door to J7 but totally fluffed his disable device check, so he's now a hand short.My condolensces to your rogue, I hope they weren't a two-weapon fighter?
On the note of the Graveknights, I am wondering if I should do something with them to flesh out those fights a bit more. My party has been wrecking shop - Paladin and Swashbuckler do so much damage, Cleric is really well kitted out for undead fights, and between the Wizard's summons and buffs they're a force to be reckoned with whenever they have a spellslot free, so it's all added up to some very quick combats. Which, you know, love that for them, but sometimes you want a fight to have some oomph to it.
So while I probably won't go full "army of undead" I'm considering my options - two at once sounds rough but, who knows, maybe they can handle it. Putting Yhalas into a fight with Tycha or Amaretos maybe? Since she doesn't have any mooks. Or having Gustari swoop back in during another fight after rejuvenating (swooping is bad).
Also, unrelated: my party have met Arazni and the Wizard (who was in a cult against his will) is like "wow actually I can totally get behind his whole 'no mercy for your oppressors' thing" which is nice, I'm glad my players are vibing with her, she's great.
ALSO also unrelated (but don't wanna double-post for it): I'm thinking of doing something at the end of the book at Renchurch. Having the Watcher Lord just sort of leave sounds sad - I get it, they'll all totally die if they try anything, but I'd love to have something more dynamic happen. So I'm thinking of having the PCs convince them to instead intercept a force of the Tyrant's soldiers on route to the bulk of the army. Also, part of our canon is that, after the events of the the Carrion Crown AP, the party (which included a powerful hallowed necromancer) spent a good long while destroying Renchurch and exorcising the trapped souls there. There's also some figures left behind...
I gave Yhalas two ubashki lynxes for flanking. It wasn't enough against our bloodrager, swashbuckler, and fighter.
If I were to run it again, I'd either give her a few Daughters of Urgathoa [or something like that] or pair her w/ the graveknight on the surface [can't remember her name]
The Graveknights are REALLY DANGEROUS in pairs. Not so much on their own.
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The party rogue detected the trap on the door to J7 but totally fluffed his disable device check, so he's now a hand short.My condolensces to your rogue, I hope they weren't a two-weapon fighter?
He certainly was! I found some optional rules for players who'd lost a limb. The only thing that he really misses is the two weapon fighting, and he's not happy about a -5 penalty to Disable Device either. They've just finished level 2 of Gallowspire and I informed they'll go up to 13th level, so naturally the rogue is pestering the cleric to take Regeneration as his 7th level spell on day 1.
The ending of level 2 was very enjoyable - for both me and the party. I said earlier I'd decided to put Tycha Ghuzmaar and his henchghouls in Area J8 as I thought a boss fight for their final encounter would be more exciting, rather than the boring bone golems the module had there.
The rogue snuck into the area J8, and did so well on his stealth roll that he went unnoticed by Tycha and co, who I'd decided were camping out in the ceiling in the passage leading up to level 1. The rogue made it all the way down to the Catacombs, noticed the gallowdead in K1 and slowly backed away. The cleric then went to the edge of the pit, cast Clairvoyance to spy on the gallowdead, worked out what it was and the party decided to rest up before going down to it.
However, the cleric HAD been noticed by Tycha who then followed the party as they made their way to safety. Tycha stabbed the bard in the back, who luckily made his save against the Death Attack. If he hadn't then I'd planned to have Tycha use Quiet Death before moving onto the next party member in line, the sorceress.
As it was when the party heard the bard's shriek of pain, Tycha ran back to J8, hotly pursued by the party who were ambushed by the henchghouls. The fight then was then on in earnest. It was a close thing but the sorceress took Tycha out with her third disintegrate spell - she hadn't got over his SR on the first and he'd made his save on the second. The ghouls then didn't last long.
It was one of those fights where they could have lost if things had happened slightly differently, and I think they knew that. So, yeah, fun for party and GM alike.
My party is exploring the lower level of Gallowspire and, once again, I'm going to have to re-balance the fights, they're just too damn easy.
The Gallowdead's aura was easily dealt with by the Bard's countersong. What would have been a party debilitating DC 27 save or be shaken followed by sickened next round, became a "roll 4 or better to get the countersong off". After that, she went down easily: her main attack dealt negative energy damage, which the obols partially absorbed.
The Tar-Baphon simulacrum was slightly more challenging. The scout saved vs Finger of Death but not against the empowered Enervation, which he didn't like. The simulacrum then tried to Black Tentacles the rest of party, as they were all bunched up together. The Cleric has liberation as a domain, so was able to counter that. Again, he went down easily after that.
I think the problem is that both encounters were solo monsters, so from now on I'm going to give all such encounters a few henchmooks, who can absorb physical attacks, protect against flanking and sneak attacks, etc.
Next week they should be encountering Jandoraka, who at least has three mook bone devils to help out.
I don't want to kill the party, but I DO want them to be challenged.
The description of the witchgates in J6 says "The PCs can shut the entire network down, or they can attempt a DC 30 Use Magic Device check to permit specific exceptions to the network while keeping it active, such as to allow Arazni and the PCs to teleport but denying this ability to the Whispering Tyrant and his forces."
I think this creates two problems:
1. Tar-Baphon *must* be able to teleport during the battle at the end of the book with Arazni. Otherwise he'll be (temporarily) destroyed during that battle. This would contradict the necessary plot point that he gets away.
2. It seems odd to me that the check is a UMD. My party has a high-level wizard. He has no ranks in UMD because wizards don't usually need it to operate magical contraptions. It seems to me that he should have at least as good a chance to operate the network with his crazy-high Spellcraft and Knowledge (arcana).
1. Tar-Baphon is a mythic demi-god who created the witchgates. Either he's so powerful he can overcome their limitations or he built in a "loophole" for himself.
2. I'd say your wizard has a very good chance of understanding the theory behind the network but not how to do the actual manipulation.
Heh. I totally freaked out my party when I read the description of the brass ring found in area K6:
"A ring of green brass, large enough for a human to stick his head through."
They've taken the description literally. Now they're arguing amongst themselves, trying to work out who's going to stick their head through it to see what it does. The hobgoblin, svirfneblin, half-orc and tiefling are all saying they're not human so it can't be one of them, while the two humans are saying no way Jose.
They're going to be very disappointed when they find out it's part of a lock mechanism for a door.
My party was fighting the bloody bones in the Hall of Mirrors. The cleric had got close to a mirror and badly mauled when a bloody bones leapt out and got him with three hits plus a rend.
The sorceress decided to hit that bloody bones with a disintegrate spell, but fumbled the ranged touch attack. Not only that but the roll to confirm the fumble was a 2. Our house rule is that fumbles like that hit other party members. Naturally I rolled to hit the cleric. The sorceress rolled to get over the cleric's SR and (of course) rolled high. She then rolled damage and (again, of course) succeeded.
RIP Cleric. The players all found this hilarious. But now there was a conundrum, how do they resurrect the cleric when they had no-one to cast a resurrection spell and no 10,000gp of diamond dust for the material component?
The bard has the bright idea to contact Arazni using a speak with undead spell cast on her lungs. This drew her attention and she used a sending spell to reach out. I had her send them a scroll of resurrection, which the bard was able to use with UMD.
I *love* it when party members die and it's not me who did it!
The party rogue detected the trap on the door to J7 but totally fluffed his disable device check, so he's now a hand short.On the note of the Graveknights, I am wondering if I should do something with them to flesh out those fights a bit more. My party has been wrecking shop - Paladin and Swashbuckler do so much damage, Cleric is really well kitted out for undead fights, and between the Wizard's summons and buffs they're a force to be reckoned with whenever they have a spellslot free, so it's all added up to some very quick combats. Which, you know, love that for them, but sometimes you want a fight to have some oomph to it.
So while I probably won't go full "army of undead" I'm considering my options - two at once sounds rough but, who knows, maybe they can handle it. Putting Yhalas into a fight with Tycha or Amaretos maybe? Since she doesn't have any mooks. Or having Gustari swoop back in during another fight after rejuvenating (swooping is bad).
In my game, the PCs used a Wall of Ice to cut off Tycha and one of his minions from the rest of the combat, so instead of going around the long way or waiting patiently for his turn to die, he and and his minion used the back exit to retreat down to the bottom level to warn Amaratos, and then lie in wait with the Gallow Dead (Amaratos remained in his room, but placed an silent Alarm in the mirror room so he has time to buff). It was a grueling fight that killed one of the PCs, but it certainly wasn’t an unfair encounter (Your group seems better specked than mine and would probably do better).
Also, I applied all of the internal hazards listed for Gallowspire in the Dungeons of Golarion book. The reduced healing proved to go beyond tough and flirted with making it less fun, but preserving the hazards for the bottom level only could be a good way to ramp up difficulty without making the entire dungeon a slog (maybe blowing the top off Gallowspire diluted the hazards for the top layers or something). Seeing how long ago you posted this, you’re probably already finished with the dungeon, but just in case, maybe this can help!
Gallowspire Hazards:
- All magical healing halved; all negative energy +50%
- all light radii halved
- ambient whispers/tortured moans add +10 on all Perception check DCs
- Anyone who dies rises as an Undead 24 hours later if not revived (undead type is determined by the creature’s HD; PC HD turns them into Ghosts)
Update: My party just defeated Gustari, and are now carting her armor around and pumelling it every day to reset the regen timer until they can figure out a way to deal with that more permanently. So I may not, in fact, be adding her to a later combat as backup...
(It was a very satisfying fight though. The Paladin actually almost went down, which was very dramatic, and the wizard summoned 4 flying, lightning-infused Ankylosauruses (which were then hasted) that absolutely bodied the Children of Urgathoa.)
Also, the Paladin was Swallowed Whole by the Furcifer, continuing the track record of being successfully swallowed by every creature with that ability so far in the campaign. It's a tough job but someone's gotta do it.