Do you guys think the avatar of Dahak has enough power to turn the person who died in the tunnel to the Mwangi Expanse into his servant?
Ressurect - imbule with power and send somewhere to ruin the PCs?This is what happened with Voz in my game - players threw her into the tunnel and ran away...
Oh, you can do all kinds of wild, malicious evil with that! Whatever you feel like, really. Side quest, if you like!
I personally would write her out for a long while. Wait till they forget.
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Area C2 the level 10 Clay Golem. If it hits, the PC must make a Fort 29 save or be cursed to be healed only by magic and need to make a DC 29 counteract check or lose the healing. The golem's counteract level is equal to its level, which is 10. Because this is higher than 8, when level 8 PCs meet this golem, if they are cursed they must roll a critical success on the counteract check which is a 39.
A level 8 character will probably be Expert in spellcasting, and if they have a +4 in their spellcasting stat, then their total bonus for this roll will be 8 (level) +4 (stat) +4 (expert) = +16, which means they have no chance of rolling a 39, and their only option is to roll a 20 and have a success boosted to a critical success.
Is it really intended that characters hit by this golem will be healable only by magic and then 19/20 healing spells cast on them are lost?
It looks like you made a mistake on figuring out what level the effect is, it should only be a level 5 effect.
If an effect is a spell, its level is the counteract level. Otherwise, halve its level and round up to determine its counteract level. If an effect’s level is unclear and it came from a creature, halve and round up the creature’s level.
That would make it reasonable, but:
The golem's counteract level is equal to its creature level.
Ah! I somehow managed to miss that line when I looked at the golem. I wonder how I missed it? Regardless, Rysky is right, the rule in the golem says a specific DC to get healing. That curse though... oof. I wonder why it's the equivalent of a 10th level spell to remove?
Area C2 the level 10 Clay Golem. If it hits, the PC must make a Fort 29 save or be cursed to be healed only by magic and need to make a DC 29 counteract check or lose the healing. The golem's counteract level is equal to its level, which is 10. Because this is higher than 8, when level 8 PCs meet this golem, if they are cursed they must roll a critical success on the counteract check which is a 39.
A level 8 character will probably be Expert in spellcasting, and if they have a +4 in their spellcasting stat, then their total bonus for this roll will be 8 (level) +4 (stat) +4 (expert) = +16, which means they have no chance of rolling a 39, and their only option is to roll a 20 and have a success boosted to a critical success.
Is it really intended that characters hit by this golem will be healable only by magic and then 19/20 healing spells cast on them are lost?
According to the rules, this is not how it works. The counteract check goes by spell level, not character level. The highest level spell they can cast is 4th. They can't even counteract the Clay Golem curse.
We had this discussion a while back. The way we healed it according to the rules is with magic healing potions and healer's gloves. These do not cast a spell since the clay golem specifically says spells. So that worked.
8th level characters have no way with spellcasting given the rules to remove the curse. The clay golem is unique in that it specifically states the counteract level is equal to the creature level rather than half. That is unique and specific wording. It's very much like an old school 1st edition clay golem.
Check out the Age of Ashes Community Created Content thread. A cleaned-up version of the citadel map was posted in there.
Thank you for the tip! Some awesome stuff in there, so many talented ppl :)
Ok fellow GM’s and anyone else who wants to chime in. In Area A5 in chapter 2, does this encounter seem way over powered to anyone else? First off, you have a severe threat with the charau-ka guardian. Its AC is high (27) which my partys fighter can only hit on a 11 or above, and has an attack bonus of +20 Which can also hit the character with the highest AC with a 6 when his shield is raised.
To add insult to injury, the dragon pillar which is there has a range of 120 feet with its blinding ray that can also hit with a 6 or better. The only way you can avoid the blindness is to critically pass the save. On top of all that, a critical attack worsens the save by one category. The piller is critting at the very least 25% of the time.
It all just seems way too much to me. My party is coming up on this encounter very soon, so I’d like some of your thoughts and input, and if I should tweak the encounter, or does it seem reasonable to the rest of you? Thanks for any help.
So my response to that, Valantrix1, is how has your party been handling combat up until now? More specifically, how did they handle the fight with the barghest in book 1?
The encounter is severe for them, but it's also a nova encounter. They should be throwing everything they have into it. Level + 2 fights can be really tricky if your players aren't buffing and debuffing or playing tactically. If every encounter has been some variation of "Stride in and Strike" then I think it's fine to give the guardian the weak template to make things a little easier.
The pillar, on the other hand, is actually incredibly nasty. Odds are low that the pillar is going to miss, but at least the attack will most likely be going against someone with a decent Fort save (hopefully your Fighters/Barbarians/Champion types are leading the charge), but a low roll is going to be rough. The good news is that Restore Senses is a 2nd level spell, and the blindness acts as a 3rd level effect (half of the hazard's level) for the purposes of counteracting. Only a success needed to cure it.
Depending on your group, they should be ready to run and return better prepared later. The advantage of this book is that there's lots of scouting that can be done (and given as rewards), so you can use that as well. At the end of the day, however, you know your group best. Simply lowering the range and DC of the pillar can be a fine and charitable thing, as well.
Dragon Pillars attack the closest target. This means if a PC is blinded and they remain the closest one to the pillar, the pillar is effectively neutralized for the rest of the combat.
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Dragon Pillars attack the closest target. This means if a PC is blinded and they remain the closest one to the pillar, the pillar is effectively neutralized for the rest of the combat.
"Are we winning guys? Are we winning?"
"Yes, Torvok, we're winning. Now keep standing there and swinging your sword!"
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Thanks for the advice all. Most of what you all said I had already took into account, so I decided to run a couple mock encounters with doppelgangers of my party to see if I needed to tweak anything. And that answer is yes. After 3 test runs, I had one TPK, followed by 1 dead character, two unconscious ones, and one outlier with about half health. The third I optimized all characters with the perfect situation spells and only ended up with two unconscious characters and two halfway healthy ones. I’m going to tweak the numbers a tad and hope for the best.
Funny enough, I got to run this encounter today. With a group of level 6 players, I was worried about how this would go. The sorcerer in my group opened up with a level 3 dispel magic on the pillar, got a success, and the rest of the group just went in on the combat itself. Cleric buffed up the barbarian who went in swinging and Demoralizing while the alchemist hurled lightning bombs and frost bombs. The sorcerer ended up being less useful with his mostly fire-based damaging spells, but he got in several magic missiles.
Overall, this fight was tough, but nearly as deadly as I feared. A lot of that, however, is off of the sorcerer compulsively dispelling every pillar (and rolling high or blowing Hero Points for it) and the party having a ton of debuffs against the enemy.
Funny enough, I got to run this encounter today. With a group of level 6 players, I was worried about how this would go. The sorcerer in my group opened up with a level 3 dispel magic on the pillar, got a success, and the rest of the group just went in on the combat itself. Cleric buffed up the barbarian who went in swinging and Demoralizing while the alchemist hurled lightning bombs and frost bombs. The sorcerer ended up being less useful with his mostly fire-based damaging spells, but he got in several magic missiles.
Overall, this fight was tough, but nearly as deadly as I feared. A lot of that, however, is off of the sorcerer compulsively dispelling every pillar (and rolling high or blowing Hero Points for it) and the party having a ton of debuffs against the enemy.
And there being six players in the party... did you buff up the fight for the party size at all?
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I blame the fact that I was at a bachelor party last night as to why I can't read.
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Just wanted to chime in on the random encounter system - I use Tension Dice and having random encounter tables to reference is a nice convenience feature.
I can just build them myself but I do miss the official ones... With the adventurer's toolbox being a thing, instead of "here is where random encounters for sure happen", what would be cool is a table of "here are some level-appropriate creatures that are a good thematic fit if you want to add more encounters to this module and oh by the way you could use this as a random encounter table too".
I feel like a reference table of "these are monsters that may or may not be present in the adventure but nonetheless fit the adventure's themes" would be nice to have.
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So I told my players that I, personally, don't enjoy random encounters. Now the people I'm playing with are all new to TTRPGs, so they seemed a little disappointed. I promised them that I'd throw together something. This triggers for a success, failure, or critical failure for the Camp in the Mwangi Jungle activity, so I've made it something of a coin flip on whether or not they'll get an encounter. So far we haven't had any encounters, but my players are tense when they make camp, so I guess it's working.
I've included my random encounter chart below for anyone interested.
Random Encounters
01 - 50 No encounter
51 - 65 Charau-ka Hunting Party
66 - 75 Biloko Hunting Party
76 - 83 Grippili Hunting Party
84 - 90 Living Sap
91 - 95 Anklyosaurus
96 - 99 Megaprimatus
00 Roll twice and combine the encounters
Charau-ka Hunting Party: A group of charau-ka who have nothing to do with the Cinderclaws chances upon the players during the night. They approach stealthily at night, opposed to the passive Perception of the person on watch. Success indicates that they get a surprise round.
5 Elite Charau-ka Warriors
2 Charau-ka Acolytes
1 Charau-ka Butcher
Biloko Hunting Party: Knowing that they are no match for the group, the Biloko instead follow the PCs making Stealth checks opposed by passive Perceptions on the next day. If they are successful, they join in on the next encounter as enemies.
3 Biloko Veterans
Grippili Hunting Party: These peaceful frogmen begin at Unfriendly, but if their Greenspeaker can be moved to Friendly, they will give the PCs information about a populated hex nearby.
3 Grippili Scouts
2 Grippili Archers
1 Grippili Greenspeaker
Living Sap: Stealthily approaching from the treetops onto the sentry, the living sap attempts to suffocate the guard. It makes a Stealth check against the passive Perception of the person on watch. Sleeping PCs get a -4 penalty to Perception checks to beat DC 5 to hear the sounds of battle. Further, if the sentry is Engulfed, this DC raises to 10.
Anklyosaurus: An anklyosaurus attacks in the middle of the night. It makes no attempt to sneak up and charges the sentry instead.
Megaprimatus: Arrives in the morning after the PCs have taken their daily preparations and are starting to move on. A wild herd of animals comes thundering through the jungle, forcing all the PCs to make Reflex saves (DC 22) or fall prone for the first turn of combat. The megaprimatus pushes aside some trees and throws itself at the PCs, hungry for blood!
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My players absolutely loved chapter 2. I could tell it was going to be a hit when the goblin bard asked one of the elf hunters in the temple if they wanted a dance off. 1,000,000% his idea.
The most challenging and satisfying of the chapter 1 encounters was the elven twins. Having them circle the PCs and ask their cryptic questions to provoke their backstories was super fun. But trying to figure out how to challenge their best skills...well let's just say I feel really good about my ad-hoc GM skills!
As for the "twin debate" in this thread? I don't mind the Taldan having a twin-brother, but I'll probably use a different piece of character art and drop the twin bit just because it feels weird having two sets of twins in the same book...
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Might as well mention what I changed in this book since we finished it up a few weeks back. If you're one of my players, be cool and don't read this-- thanks!
I made Kyrion into a legitimately LG red dragon, influenced by the shard in his chest-- giving him the alignment of a gold dragon, whispering good deeds to him his entire life. The Scarlet Triad wanted the shard but knew it would be poisoned by Kyrion being killed-- but not by the nul acrumi vazghul ripping his soul out of his body. Since that ritual was too dangerous to cast as humans due to the self-destructive nature, the Scarlet Triad was relying on the Cinderclaw to do it and die. Good, because the Scarlet Triad is actually working to stop/weaponize Dahak too, and so their allegiance with the Cinderclaw isn't a weird question mark anymore. So Kyrion is good, and he saves some animals, and the PCs are curious about him and meet up with him in the jungle a few times as they travel-- a Tarzan/Jane relationship happened between our dragon-blooded sorceress and him which is great. The party had Kyrion pick a new god that wasn't Dahak and with some coaching he chose Shelyn-- the bard in the party painted his scales with rainbow colors to celebrate. It was really cool.
I played the twins as a pair of arrogant blowhards who weren't too concerned with the people who had been statueified. The PCs demanded they help them and the twins refused, so the PCs rolled initiative-- the brothers won and they ran away through the jungle, completely leaving.
Later the PCs came across the first brother trying to blow up the Temple to Desna, carrying around a gourd carved with a face he was talking to-- driven mad from jungle diseases. They talked him down, sedated him and with Dream Message had the Ekujae come pick him up.
The other brother joined the Charau-ka. I had all of the cultists of Dahak basically go full war boy from Mad Max, so this twin followed suit, killing, skinning and wearing a charau-ka as a suit. He had hunted down the dragon Kyrion to bring him back for the ritual with Belmazog, and the PCs had grown fond of Kyrion having seen him a few times in the jungle. They killed that brother and saved Kyrion.
The PCs knew that the more pillars went down the weaker Kyrion would be (my addition), so they kept him close and protected him until they made their assault on the Fortress of Sorrow. I changed the swamp to be monochrome from the bones of Dahak sucking the life out of the jungle, but no real changes until the PCs kicked down the door to fight Belmazog. The altar of Dahak immobilized the PCs as Belmazog tried to complete the ritual-- by slowly dunking the paralyzed PCs into the lava pit like a James Bond set piece-- but an exhausted Kyrion broke into the chamber and tried to save the PCs.
Kyrion tried to get his adopted family to stop, but the Cinderclaws refused, and, powerless, Kyrion prayed to Shelyn to save the party-- and the goddess responded by filled the lava beneath the PCs with wildflowers. On the verge of death, the shard in his chest was spent of magic and Kyrion transformed into a gold dragon before the shard fell from his wound.
The party still doesn't know what the shard is, but they're really curious, and will look into later.
After winning the day, the PCs went back through the gate and ended up meeting the one and only Lamond Breachton reading The History and Future of Humanity, Aroden's holy book. He congratulated the PCs on stopping the cult, but told them to stop while they were ahead and protect their town from what's to come-- foreshadowing for later books. The PCs all protested, but Breachton convinced them all one-by-one to stop adventuring, telling him he would take care of the Triad-- in my version he's a lot more "the ends justify the means." Everyone but the dragon-blooded sorceress who rolled a natural 20 on her Sense Motive and missed critically failing by 2 (I assumed you-know-who this actually is would have deception at the time... by the rules now the DC is 17, lol), so she succeeded! When they were clear of Lamond, she told the party he was lying about stopping the Triad... just in time for a contingency of Hellknights led by Heuberk to arrive in Alseta's Ring.
Having a lot of fun with the framework this AP set up so far.
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Questions:
1.) Can the PCs see the dragon totems from the river? I went ahead and gave them the river-adjacent totems when they stopped in the same square, but not as they passed by since they had a specific hex in mind as their destination.
2.) So if the PCs decide to let the Taldan take the totem, they can still go ahead and invade the Cinderclaws by just tanking the shield effect? Or will the Eye Beam around the citadel zap them mercilessly whenever it has line of effect (one target per round)? Would it try to zap the red dragon as he flies away?
3.) If the PCs try to tank the shield and are stunned or paralyzed, do they stop in the shield and are therefore affected by all the other totems the next round?! That's really deadly! (But it might be by design.)
4.) Would attempting to disable a pillar with a skill check break invisibility sphere? I'm assuming the pillar will not eye beam an invisible creature.
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I do kinda think there is some sort of unfortunate implication with idea that evil creature could be good only because of being struck by artifact.(plus that gold dragon orb is used to enslave dragons, though I guess it previously housing soul of one could leave some positive personality influence to it)
It is really cool take on story though, don't get me wrong, I just prefer non evil red dragon to red dragon transforming into good type of dragon
Plus I found it kinda hilarious that Kyrion is CN because of combination of being raised by his really dumb cultist family and being overwhelmed by Dahak's malice to the point of not wanting anything to do with him.
I do kinda think there is some sort of unfortunate implication with idea that evil creature could be good only because of being struck by artifact.(plus that gold dragon orb is used to enslave dragons, though I guess it previously housing soul of one could leave some positive personality influence to it)
To be fair, my understanding is that dragons are one step short of outsiders on the "how baked in is your alignment?" scale. In other words - there's a reason that dragons are included with undead and outsiders on the "things that take extra damage from smite" list. The creation of the chromatic and metallic dragons by Dahak and Apsu respectively sort of imbued them with the alignments of their creator, because they were so closely created in that image.
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Isn't that more of 3.5 remnant though that isn't really in 2e anymore?
Still seems to be in effect, from what I can tell.
Also, this story hinges on a gold dragon turning away from good, so I think the implication that dragons are immutably stuck at one alignment is rather undercut. But it is also a pretty rare thing, in the same vein that a demon changing alignment is.
Dragons being "off-alignment" is MUCH more common than demons. Dragons being included on smites is more a nod to the "dragon slayer" trope than anything really alignment based.
Is it fair to say "much more common than outsiders, but much less common than most mortal races"?
From the way dragons are presented, it seems like as a percentage of population, off-alignment dragons are probably less common than say off-alignment gnolls.
Running Age of Ashes for a group who are having an interesting time still half way through Book 1, but already starting to prepare Book 2.
Generally, based on a cover-to-cover read I kind of really dig Book 2; perhaps more so than I enjoy Book 1. I felt the first section of the book offered more RP opportunities that was more desired out of Book 1, as a lot of scene-setting of Book 1 is unfortunately via book plundering rather than roleplay. I especially grinned about the lion (as it's silly, but in a humourous-yet-grounded sort of way rather than in a jarring way) and the bisexual romance plot (as it's definitely rare for players to have to play romantic hook-up in a RPG, and the nature of it being a gay romantic plot meant a bit more to me as just being really neat).
With regards to the twins thing, I'm still trying to get a read of my group of how much they'll roll with it. I suspect they'll find it dumb, but hoping via hamming it way up that it'd be a fun encounter that's a little funny to boot. I'm even very mildly tempted to upgrade to a triplets, with the third brother still living in Taldor as a dull humble scholar. Partially to use rule-of-three and partially to use subversion, but it also presents a way to deliver obscure lore if needed. I'm far from certain what I'm going to do, but I highly doubt I'll snip the twin out. I feel like it holds too much potential as a lighter note in a serious campaign with a good few dark notes in rapid succession (the end of book 2 followed by the start of book 3 springs to mind).
Also, reading about the mine/temple, the mine feels maybe a bit brutal. The mine can quickly descend into a slight snowball effect at two parts (first surrounding the Boggards, who sound the alarm to alert two other zones, and then if the Vrock hasn't been taken care of they'll come, and second time in the mine itself due to the dragon pillar, voidworms, charau'ka, boggards and naunets). I'm kind of worried about a TPK, but I'll definitely have to get a feel for the DPS closer to that fight.
That said, considering I had to adjust Hellknight Hill significantly more, I do really dig Cult of Cinders more. Really didn't expect to, as I don't actually enjoy DMing exploration style campaigns (I'm still really excited for the third AP as I feel it might offer more RPing/urban adventure which is a style I prefer), but I think the first part is just stellar.
Sorry if I rambled with my thoughts.
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Everyone referring to the "twins" makes me think of the ones in part 1. I had no need to introduce the controversial "twin" because my party didn't kill him (either time, actually). They didn't even fight him the first time because he just left after the goblin barbarian cut the boat free while two others were trying to load the pillar on the boat for the gold reward. It was actually the first pillar they encountered.
The goblin was mostly annoyed at the general colonialist superiority that he had been displaying and had cut the boat free out of spite while everyone else was distracted.
Just a friendly reminder that neither encounter is predestined to result in his death, which was the "twin" thing was presented as such an afterthought for lack of taking up more page count.
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I tried to find an answer earlier in the thread so apologies if the question is answered, but there's a lot of argument about the explorer twins that I had to scroll through.
My question is actually about the orb shard. Why did the Triad give it away to the Cinderclaws when its so important to their end objective? It's a little bit like when Thanos gave away one of the infinity stones to Loki in the first Avengers movie - it got the conversation started but didn't mesh well with his goal to gather them all in one place.
My thinking is: Strengthening Dahak means distracting Mengkare, even if the Triad doesn't fully understand why that's the case. It gets them a steady supply of dragon-resonant gold, which they could theoretically have some use for. Also, they can easily retrieve the shard from the Cinderclaws later as they get closer to completing the orb. Empowering the Cinderclaws means help finding and seizing one of the elf-gates they've been trying to activate.
This encounter is quite a ways off, but I'm trying to get the Scarlet Triad's goals and methodology consistent in my head as early as possible.
Thanks.
I suspect that answer probably lies in book 3 or 4. However, based just on Book 2, I assume it has to do with powering up the mote via the corrupted gold being poured on the dragon who is about to be sacrificed. This will help forging the scales together into the magic item that could then be used to control Mengkare.
However, if you want another angle, I would maybe look into how obliterating the local area in flames (including the Huntergate) may play into releasing Mengkare. Even if it actually isn't the case, you could try to spin it that the Triad thinks it will work even if it wouldn't.
My group is about to hit this book. Either I missed it or it was never clarified. What counts as an encounter that cannot be missed? Book makes reference to such encounters, but I've been unable to find any indicators in the book about which of these qualify.
In the last two chapters certain creatures get minuses to their perception, is this just for the perception dc that the pc's use their stealth check or does this also apply to the creatures initiatives?
I believe it should apply to both, assuming the creatures are using perception for their initiative.
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So the three spoiler tags I removed from my review before posting it :D Bit too lazy to remove spoiler tags, but yeah, I really love these three moments from the adventure
** spoiler omitted **
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I love all this stuff too, and the social elements of first chapter are great. One thing I haven't seen anyone mention is how thorough the instructions on raised alarms are in the mine. I find a lot of APs didn't get very specific with how enemies respond to an alarm, or even what constitutes an alarm. This is unfortunate because alarms going off involves having to track every NPC in a given location, which is quite difficult on a GM. I REALLY appreciate having explicit expectations on this matter.
hey - the cold iron magic dagger the PCs get given by someone in chapter 1 - it just says cold iron, is this standard, low grade or somehow high grade? standard could make the most sense as lvl 7, but that could be worth too much if they sell it?
p.s. the dagger is given when a PC manages to win a friendly competition with the twin rulers on pg 21 (also on pg 25 as a good fallback for other options). Also the Unique item Eclipse is also stated as "cold iron" without a grade (pg 72). also the Asanbosam has cold iron fangs that are extractable (with difficulty) but what grade would this be if done? Also the Ekujae guardians have a cold iron dagger that if PCs decide to fight em straight off and win could be loot (there's 19 of em so massive amount of loot!), though this is expected to not happen it could if the PCs are really good or get loads of good rolls/they get loads of bad rolls - and jashi also has a cold iron magic dagger too, as well as having an ungraded silver dagger.
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if you use a VTT and duplicate the stuff in the AP manually in the VTT then random encounters are a real pain - you've gotta create upto 20 encounters that are individually quite unlikely to occur usually, makes preparations take a lot longer to do, I just stopped using them after a while cause they took too long to do for little return.
After a lot of thought and reading, I've decided that random encounters aren't really worth it for APs. Getting a set of fully crafted encounters you can sprinkle in when they are most appropriate seems better. If you want a random element, roll to determine what day of the journey the encounter occurs. If the encounter is worth doing, do it. If it isn't, don't.
A tension pool works better in a dungeon. I think the random encounter tables had its place in sandbox games though.