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I'm currently running this book and I'm looking for a reason why Voz never just walked into the Citadel and took the stairs down to look for Alseta's Ring. It seems like she should've found it quite easily.
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Does anyone have an idea or reason for this?
As I read her bio, the Ring is tangential to her plans. She wants to form an assassin's guild and use the Hill as its base; it's just a bonus that it has this really cool ring in the basement that could transport her assassin's various places.
So her interest in the Ring has been mostly academic. She's been spending her time looking for funding to start her guild. The Scarlet Triad's support has been very recent, and they're the ones who have insisted she secure the aiudara and determine its condition if she wants their money.
It sounds like the Cinderclaws showed up 3 to 4 weeks earlier, so access via the stairwell has been gone for awhile. So she resorted to the tunnel and the ritual, hoping to get more specific info on where the Ring is inside. That led her to the latest plan—bypassing the now undead filled basement and using the caves to go directly to the lower level.
I'm currently running this book and I'm looking for a reason why Voz never just walked into the Citadel and took the stairs down to look for Alseta's Ring. It seems like she should've found it quite easily.There's a section that covers that, I believe. The stairs are in B1 of the Crypts, but Voz never made it out of B13. Her necromantic spells triggered the wards and forced her to run away. The stairs are now blocked by the damage the Grauladons did.
But from my understanding she was looking for the ring way before the Cinderclaws arrived, so she could've just taken the stairs down at that stage.
I guess I'll go with something towards TomParker's explanation above that she only got information on it being there after the Goblins already moved in and didn't want to be seen rummaging around the citadel.
I've ran the beginning of the adventure twice now and both parties have chosen to investigate Voz's shop before even going into the Citadel's Vaults.
I don't have a problem with this, as I don't like railroading the players into doing what I want them to do in the order I want them to do it, but I find it funny that the AP assumes that they won't want to go to talk to the boss of the guy responsible for the fire in the town hall until after coming back from the vaults.
My current party could skip the vaults entirely and it wouldn't matter one bit for the story (except for some stuff I added related to one of their backstories).
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The whole point is that they're investigating on behalf of Warbal to help the goblins, who have been chased out of their basement home. The AP reasonably assumes that the PCs will help ensure the goblins are safe and the basement is neutralized before returning to town, since that's what they were hired to do in the first place.
(My group became friends with Pib and Zarf. They appeared in the group portrait I commissioned for my players, and they who were the ones firing the ballista during the attack on the Citadel in Book 6.)
Hah, my players slew Pib and Zarf before the MITEY DRAGONS had a chance to do anything other than say “We are dragons and we wants your meats!” The PCs asked to roll initiative and the poor little guys didn't have a chance to do a single thing. A simmering hatred of kobolds became a thing for the party's druid.
The whole point is that they're investigating on behalf of Warbal to help the goblins, who have been chased out of their basement home. The AP reasonably assumes that the PCs will help ensure the goblins are safe and the basement is neutralized before returning to town, since that's what they were hired to do in the first place.
The urgency of finding Calmont and helping the Bumblebrashers is there, but once they've neutralized Calmont and helped the Bumblebrashers, there is no reason not to investigate Voz's house right away. After all, the Bumblebrashers have been out of the vaults for a month, a few more hours won't make a difference.
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Voz is already gone. So it doesn't really matter if they check out the shop first. I wasn't trying to imply there's time urgency that drives the vault exploration.
I was responding to the notion that the "party could skip the vaults entirely and it wouldn't matter" to the story. I disagree—it's part of what they were hired to do. If my group had ignored the vaults, the town would be pretty unhappy that they decided to drop the job halfway through.
Voz is already gone. So it doesn't really matter if they check out the shop first.
Not for the story, perhaps, but if the PCs head straight to Voz's shop they'll be two levels below expected. Noticing or deactivating the trap will be that much harder.
Somebody had an idea about keeping Voz in the plot longer as the final boss for this book, and I didn't agree when I first read it, but the idea has grown on me and I've been looking through the posts for about an hour now and just cannot find this post again.
I really wanted to review the post again because my memory of it is kind of fuzzy. I believe the idea is you find her at the Ring and have your confrontation there. She might have made a bargain with the Barghest to raise a few of his goblin "worshippers" as a trade to get past. I don't remember what happens to the other encounters this would interfere with.
Anyone know what I am talking about? Idea haver still checking on this thread? This is driving me mad.
Here you go, check out the linked Google doc here - better late than never!
This is great! It identifies a lot of the problems I had when I ran this. I wish this had been around back then. (Having said that, these forums were very helpful in red-flsgging some problems in the early books (like Ralldar)).
Would there be any problem in the adventure path if Mengkare had left a kind of spell that affected a 1km radius around Breachill, causing people to gradually become lawful good, turning into exemplary citizens, but leaving behind their feelings? (behaving somewhat like in Lanthimos’ movie ‘The Lobster’). I want to run this adventure in a more narrative way, changing some things.
I'm only on book 4, so I can't speak to how this would affect book 6 and actually meeting Mengkare. But I do like the idea of having some kind of lingering cultural or even magical effect in Breachill that causes the people to act a certain way, like having an overzealous obsession with heroes (like Lamond Breachton) or over-commitment to the "greater-good", creating a kind of false-utopia vibe. A vague influence from Mengakre may be safer than clearly defining that he cast a spell that changes alignment. Staying vague also gives you an out for characters like Voz and Calmont living in Breachill but being evil.
So I am reading the description of Voz’s Personal Quarters and it describes "and several alarmingly large balls of lint." I can't find any other reference to that and "alarmingly large" is a weird description. Am I missing something on this?
So I am reading the description of Voz’s Personal Quarters and it describes "and several alarmingly large balls of lint." I can't find any other reference to that and "alarmingly large" is a weird description. Am I missing something on this?
Seems like it just implies that she's not very tidy.
My group is new/late to PF2e but *loving it* so far as we are using the *Age of Ashes* Adventure Path.
Our GM played Crink Twiddleton with such charismatic "used car salesman" vibes that he has become a favorite around the table!
So much so that a jingle started and one of my great table-mates took it and made a whole song out of it!
We had to share it!
"Come on Down to Quarters & Bits!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2LDSd3cjas