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It would make sense to fortify the last pillar, especially if they're already sending out search parties right? Not that i WANT to, the mine is already tough as it is.
But I'll definitely have one of the search parties show up while they're resting, which will hurt them because they haven't really been taking watches. It's been more of a "we rest for the night" and I roll for Renali (who has failed a good few times). And I don't think they're familiar with the rules for donning/ taking off armor and not sleeping in said armor. Not that it will affect the monk haha.
It would make sense, certainly, but remember the Cinderclaws and Belmazog are explicitly incompetent fanatics. Do what feels most appropriate in your story, but Belmazog seems to be the type to keep a long leash and then overly punish anyone who lets her down rather than micromanage. (Oddly enough, I might have the opposite problem. The party is considering bunkering down at the mine and seeing if Belmazog comes to investigate when the gold stops coming in so they can ambush her. I had Hezle warn them that Kyrion might die in the meantime, though, which served as a good impetus to keep them on the offensive.)
On setting a watch: I'd maybe try and make it explicitly clear the party isn't setting a watch. Players may be conditioned by video games to not think about it, or they might have been playing D&D so long they just assume it is doesn't need to be said. Unless there's a compelling reason they wouldn't be setting a watch, like not having the time to extend their sleep cycle. Having only one character (you can roll randomly to determine which) be awake is already a huge disadvantage. Most of the party starting the fight prone, without wearing weapons and armor, and taking a -4 to initiative is brutal without having to assume the characters are dumb dumbs.
My players have have had a very successful start on the mine. They lit a camp fire to lure the Vrock away, and while it was a tough fight they took it down without alerting the camp. Then the Ranger skinned the Vrock and made it into a a costume worn by the gnome barbarian, (legs and wings) human fighter, (arms) and the goblin sorcerer (head.) They used a little magic to shore up the disguise, and I made all 3 roll deception checks but gave them Following the Expert from the goblin. Amazingly, they all rolled above the Perception DCs of the Butchers, and they just went up to Hezle's door and knocked. They told her the Thornscale password, she let them in, and they had an overly long and silly negotiation that led to Hezle giving them the last pillar location and leaving.
From there, the monk and ranger snuck up on the sleeping Sabosan and killed it. And then everyone got into position to attack the bunk house. Team Vrock Muppet went and knocked on the door while Team Ninja hid outside of it. The charua-ka let the Vrock in, and it shut door. Then suddenly it breathes lightning at them, killing more than half in one shot. Its head detaches and a goblin pops out, and then suddenly the body explodes as the Gnome barbarian uses Giant's Stature and the fighter begins laughing maniacally and firing shield spines while riding piggy back.
Before the boggards can open the door to investigate, they are getting attacked by the monk and ranger. The charau-ka are all dead by round 2 and the barbarian kicks the door (and most of the frame) down. Most of the boggards by the bunks are down by the time the butchers by the reach the bonfire reach the battle, but the butchers brought a beating. When we ended, one butcher was down, but so was Harriet (adopted as an animal companion) and the monk was in the red. The party has no cleric or major in combat healing to speak of, so it will be interesting to see how they pull this off.
Luckily for them, that really just leaves the forces in the pit who hold their position as written. So they should be able to make a clean get away if no one goes down to cultists. I'm also realizing I didn't roll to see if the dinosaur breaks out of its cage. I ought to do so.
My players are just now breaking into the Fortress of Sorrow. They noticed something lurking in the moat and are terrified of it (even though they killed one of these a level or so ago in a random encounter), so they established an absolutely terrible plan to distract it and get around it. As in, they had a bunch of reasonable ideas and picked up on the very worst one imaginable--instead of distracting Sweettooth with things like illusions, an onyx dog, anything... they chose to go with casting darkness on a section of the moat to confuse it? I'm not trying to punish them for that bad of a choice, but they also failed almost to a player all the stealth checks, so they're not avoiding this one.
Should get to starting that on Thursday, hopefully. One player is a tattoo artist and his job is turning back on to 11 right now, so he's gonna be tricky. Also I'm getting married today so I'm not working on the game this weekend. :)
The biggest trouble they've had in the book is that they cannot, for the life of them, keep straight between sabosans, the draconic charau-ka, and the vrock that attacked them. It's most likely my fault but I don't know how much more specific and obvious for them.
My players are just now breaking into the Fortress of Sorrow. They noticed something lurking in the moat and are terrified of it (even though they killed one of these a level or so ago in a random encounter), so they established an absolutely terrible plan to distract it and get around it. As in, they had a bunch of reasonable ideas and picked up on the very worst one imaginable--instead of distracting Sweettooth with things like illusions, an onyx dog, anything... they chose to go with casting darkness on a section of the moat to confuse it? I'm not trying to punish them for that bad of a choice, but they also failed almost to a player all the stealth checks, so they're not avoiding this one.
Should get to starting that on Thursday, hopefully. One player is a tattoo artist and his job is turning back on to 11 right now, so he's gonna be tricky. Also I'm getting married today so I'm not working on the game this weekend. :)
The biggest trouble they've had in the book is that they cannot, for the life of them, keep straight between sabosans, the draconic charau-ka, and the vrock that attacked them. It's most likely my fault but I don't know how much more specific and obvious for them.
Congrats on getting married!
Casting Darkness like that sounds like something my guys would do. They have made several.... questionable decisions.
Thanks! It's been a long time coming since it was initially scheduled for the end of March and then...
I felt so bad, though. The player who thought to use the onyx dog was just too quiet. It was an elegant solution but sometimes I really hate not being able to just stop my players and say "yep, that's a good idea, let's do it and move on!" or better yet "all your ideas so far are terrible, so keep thinking before you choose something that kills you all."
But in the end, it's only a single +1 enemy (I removed the boggards as part of how the story has played out--Hezle is ahead of them and going to free the dragon). I'm really concerned about the final encounter. Not because they can't do it--they easily can. But because I have two of my five players with massive built-in hate-ons for dragons and I wouldn't be surprised to see them head straight for Kyrion instead of dealing with Belmazog. And/or they stop Belmazog and proceed to hatchet-murder (or try to) the ailing red dragon. Because Hezle would align with Kyrion and that's stacking a (qualified) 10 and 8th level enemy pool against a post-boss 5 person party.
I've been in campaigns where stupid decisions after the fight cause TPKs (like triggering gas traps after everyone has limped away from the battle, thanks Hoard of the Dragon Queen). That is absolutely not how I want it to go...
Haha, same! That hazard was brutal as the cleric (now with perception guiding initiative, the healer seems to go first a lot) started buffing people but everyone else just ran on their turns. Breath weapon goes off again, everybody looks rough. But by now everyone has enough movement to exit except that poor little leshy cleric... Who gets knocked unconscious on the third blast when all his teammates has exited.
I let them go back in and get him. Was a hoot and no one died.
But that's how this book kept going. What's that line from Serenity? "You run when you ought to fight, fight when you ought to deal?"
I looked through this thread, and couldn't find an answer. Since Hezle isn't an actual spellcaster, what are you using for her attack rolls and spell DCs when she uses the Staff of Fire? DC 26 is what her alchemical abilities are, so I would guess that's the same for the DCs with the staff (unless you have evidence that points otherwise), but what about if she uses the Produce Flame to attack?
I thought the point was she is not a spellcaster at all and can't use the staff or spells from it in any way? She just thinks it looks cool.
Ha, I 100% said her spellbook had the skeleton version of create undead. No one has remotely bothered with it, including the shady bard who has stealth murdered enough people (starting with Voz) that I got him to agree to play as a secret acolyte for Norgorber, replacing Voz.
Monsters and NPCs aren't built using the same rules as PCs, so you simply cannot reverse engineer their stats. The stats are what they need to be for the story, not because of mechanics.
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Monsters and NPCs aren't built using the same rules as PCs, so you simply cannot reverse engineer their stats. The stats are what they need to be for the story, not because of mechanics.
This isn't strictly correct, their stats are pretty thoroughly codified by their level.
But it's correct inasmuch as they do not use the PC rules at all. They don't have a bunch of bonuses that add up to a final score, they just have final scores.
Leroy Jenkins as in a trolling attack when the party isn't ready? The only player likely to do that is probably aware enough to realize the party will leave him to die...
Leroy Jenkins as in a trolling attack when the party isn't ready? The only player likely to do that is probably aware enough to realize the party will leave him to die...Kind of?
My guys came upon the kishi (i had two there since they had 6 players today) and they didn't ask to see any proof of what was in the sack but otherwise thought they were standup guys (only one speaks Mwangi) and Sense Motive can cue off body language and no one beat the Deception DC of the Kishis so I was thinking about just letting them go and getting the XP for not having to fight them. But the Druid just decides to attack them...
This is a sit down with your party and discuss things situation. If the party is fine with it, then there's no problem here. But if your other players are frustrated that they don't get to make choices because one player keeps making executive decisions, then you need to talk with that player about it.
Make it clear that it's ok for the party to confer out of character so that everyone is on the same page before initiating an encounter. "Metagaming" gets used in a negative light, but this is the sort of metagaming that's generally positive for a table's enjoyment.
To clarify, I think you should talk to your party about this out of game, not during the session. Either after a session or before one, sit everyone down and ask your players if they're OK with this player's behavior. If they are, that's great! Nothing needs to be done. If not, talk with that player and remind everyone to consult the rest of the party before making a decision on the party's behalf.
I would never recommend retaliating or punishing behavior like this in game. If the party is ok with it, there's no punishment that needs to happen. If the party is not, then the behavior should be called out and prevented out of game, rather than in game.
All that said, this is your party and you know them and this situation better than I do. Use your best judgement about how severe a problem this is and whether or not it warrants addressing.
I'm unclear on the timeline of the Cinderclaw attack on the Ketephys temple. It seems that Johsi and other warriors were defending the temple and then the Cinderclaws showed up and Johsi had to order a retreat. Then Malarunk and his group went through the portal and then the Elves reclaimed the temple before the pillar was completed, and presumably it is in this most recent attack that Johsi was injured. So, here are my questions:
- How many days or weeks before the start of the AP did the Cinderclaws attack and Malarunk pass through Huntergate?
- For how many days did the Cinderclaws hold possession of the temple? Joshi's fresh wound suggests the Elves only reclaimed it recently, but if that is the case why didn't the Cinderclaws have time to complete the pillar?
- How many days before the PCs emerge from Huntergate did Joshi reclaim the temple? My PCs spent three weeks repairing the Citadel, so it basically makes no sense that Johsi still has a fresh wound, unless it is from fighting the Cinderclaws elsewhere...
The timeline is not strictly laid out IIRC, so you can bend it to suit your campaign. To make it work in your case, I'd have the timeline work like this:
Malarunk takes the temple, goes through the portal, and leaves a small force to defend it. This force holds the temple until a few days before the PCs enter Huntergate, when Jahsi's force retakes the temple. Jahsi gets wounded in the process.
As far as explaining why the Cinderclaws didn't have the time to finish the White Dragon Pillar, we don't really know how long it would take to make one of those things. The physical structure of it, sure, but there's super powerful ritual magic involved here. Maybe it *does* take that long to make a dragon pillar. In addition, maybe it took several attempts for Jahsi to retake the temple. Having to fight off attacks from the Ekujae could have slowed down construction of the dragon pillar.
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Maybe it *does* take that long to make a dragon pillar. In addition, maybe it took several attempts for Jahsi to retake the temple. Having to fight off attacks from the Ekujae could have slowed down construction of the dragon pillar.
Thanks. Do you have a sense of how long before the start of the AP that Malarunk arrived? It doesn't seem like building a pillar should take TOO long, since I guess the Cinderclaws put up a bunch of others without the Ekujae knowing about it. But maybe the Elves damaged the pillar in one of the attacks and it could not be completed without re-supplies from other Cinderclaws. So the pillar went unfinished even though the Cinderclaws held the temple for a month. Of course, one wonders why it took the Ekujae so long to re-take the temple...
Would it also be plausible that Jahsi was wounded in a separate recent border skirmish with the Ekujae even though they took back the temple very quickly?
I wish the module would give a little more guidance (including suggestions for how the timeline might need to be moved based on how a particular campaign unfolds), because my players are always asking about these timing issues.
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On page 7, it says:
Is the AP on some kind of 'timer' for the events from book1-6,
or can the player just choose to complete all renovations + upgrades on their keep before even going through Huntergate?
While at times the events in specific adventures might seem to be pressing, the machinations of the Scarlet Triad have been going on for years, and they aren't on a particular rush toward their end game. You should make sure the players have plenty of time to return to their home base, particularly between adventures, to rest, recover, and rebuild.
Maybe it *does* take that long to make a dragon pillar. In addition, maybe it took several attempts for Jahsi to retake the temple. Having to fight off attacks from the Ekujae could have slowed down construction of the dragon pillar.Thanks. Do you have a sense of how long before the start of the AP that Malarunk arrived? It doesn't seem like building a pillar should take TOO long, since I guess the Cinderclaws put up a bunch of others without the Ekujae knowing about it. But maybe the Elves damaged the pillar in one of the attacks and it could not be completed without re-supplies from other Cinderclaws. So the pillar went unfinished even though the Cinderclaws held the temple for a month. Of course, one wonders why it took the Ekujae so long to re-take the temple...
Would it also be plausible that Jahsi was wounded in a separate recent border skirmish with the Ekujae even though they took back the temple very quickly?
I wish the module would give a little more guidance (including suggestions for how the timeline might need to be moved based on how a particular campaign unfolds), because my players are always asking about these timing issues.
It could simply be that the temple was the battleground for a month of skirmishes between the Cinderclaws and the Ekujae, and that it was only recently that the Ekujae were definitively victorious. Perhaps it even changed hands a few times before the Ekujae ended up with it.
You're right in that it's also possible that Jahsi's wound is completely unrelated to the temple battles, and that he was injured fighting Cinderclaws somewhere else.
Malarunk arriving in the Citadel is the instigating event for Book 1 of the Adventure path. His grauladons collapsed the main stairwell of the fortress, trapping himself and his compatriots on their respective floors. So I figure that Malarunk has been in the citadel basement from the beginning of the campaign, but not a moment sooner.
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The black pillar is supposed to be a Severe encounter, and I'll have 7 guys going at it later today. If I'm going to go by tables 10-1 and 10-2 then that means my xp budget is 210 xp (120 plus 30 per character). Which would mean that I could fit three level 8 credits with the level 6 hazard. So three level 8 Spawns of Dahak shouldn't be too bad against 7 level 7 PCs? Am I doing this right?
This is technically correct, but it's also upping the encounter difficulty a fair bit. The original encounter is Severe 6 (which translates to Moderate 7), not Severe 7, so this is a pretty big step up in difficulty. A total of two (rather than three) Spawn of Dahak would account for the extra PCs but keep the difficulty about as written.
It's not unbeatable by any means, but a fight with three enemies each a level higher than them will be pretty tough for the PCs even with their numbers. If it's your intent to make the fight harder, then by all means, but you are making it harder.
I wasn't sure if I was supposed to keep the "severe" part or not, I didn't even think that severe 6 would translate to moderate 7. Trying to manage this for 7 people has been a bit of a nightmare. I was originally going to just have two but then I wondered if this was still supposed to be severe and ugh. I keep second guessing myself. Thank you!The black pillar is supposed to be a Severe encounter, and I'll have 7 guys going at it later today. If I'm going to go by tables 10-1 and 10-2 then that means my xp budget is 210 xp (120 plus 30 per character). Which would mean that I could fit three level 8 credits with the level 6 hazard. So three level 8 Spawns of Dahak shouldn't be too bad against 7 level 7 PCs? Am I doing this right?This is technically correct, but it's also upping the encounter difficulty a fair bit. The original encounter is Severe 6 (which translates to Moderate 7), not Severe 7, so this is a pretty big step up in difficulty. A total of two (rather than three) Spawn of Dahak would account for the extra PCs but keep the difficulty about as written.
It's not unbeatable by any means, but a fight with three enemies each a level higher than them will be pretty tough for the PCs even with their numbers. If it's your intent to make the fight harder, then by all means, but you are making it harder.
Could you plausibly split the group into two games? Running the same campaign cuts down on your prep time at least.
How many Elves live in Akrivel (more or less). It's described as a "city," but that just doesn't feel right for me, especially since it is in the treetops and only one clan. Thanks for any help in communicating the scale to my players!
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Akrivel is a level 5 settlement. That's not inherently an indication of size, but taken as if it is Willowside, a level 5 settlement in the Extinction Curse AP. is a tad over 1800 people. A level 6 settlement in the same AP is more like 3500.
So I'd say it easily could be around as big as Willowside, or smaller if you want it to be. Anything over about 2500 people is probably too big.
Going another route, my own population demographics (which are based on PF1, but line up pretty well with published setting stuff) indicate that it would need a minimum of 250 people if Jahsi is its highest level member (which he likely isn't), or 1250 if he isn't (more likely, IMO).
So yeah, I'd peg it at between about 1250 and 2500 people.
So yeah, I'd peg it at between about 1250 and 2500 people.
That still seems too big to me. Isn't the feast and the storytelling supposed to involve the entire Clan? Will I be breaking anything if I say it is a large village of about 500 elves?
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That still seems too big to me. Isn't the feast and the storytelling supposed to involve the entire Clan? Will I be breaking anything if I say it is a large village of about 500 elves?
So yeah, I'd peg it at between about 1250 and 2500 people.
No, it just makes them unusually well equipped for their number in terms of resources and implies Jahsi is probably the highest level guy in the village. Neither are unbelievable.
Players killed Belmazog last night. I made a few minor changes to the runup to her fight, as there are a few too many random weird things in that fortress to really quite make sense with how it's played out.
Sad to say, I realized just as they finished the fight that I forgot the skull of Dahak. Could have been a truly brutal, plausibly TPK, scenario if I'd put that in.
The players all crowded around the champion for protection, despite the fact that they knew those dragon priests loved to open with fireballs. That was a big whoofing chunk out of most of the players, which was a hoot.
What was not a hoot was that they rolled like gods against Belmazog. Not to mention she failed on a Crisis of Faith and critically failed a Phantasmal Killer (the first part), which bolted on a hilarious amount of mental damage to her. I think she took five crits in the whole combat. So first round both priests used fireballs, then by their turn in the second round they had to burn their heals to bring her back to consciousness.
Frankly, the hardest part of the combat was finding a way to make it clear that Kyrion wasn't an enemy necessarily.
But yeah. Don't forget the skull. Though if your players are very pillared-out, maybe it wouldn't be so bad.
How did your guys deal with the Clay Golem and its curse?Players killed Belmazog last night. I made a few minor changes to the runup to her fight, as there are a few too many random weird things in that fortress to really quite make sense with how it's played out.
Sad to say, I realized just as they finished the fight that I forgot the skull of Dahak. Could have been a truly brutal, plausibly TPK, scenario if I'd put that in.
The players all crowded around the champion for protection, despite the fact that they knew those dragon priests loved to open with fireballs. That was a big whoofing chunk out of most of the players, which was a hoot.
What was not a hoot was that they rolled like gods against Belmazog. Not to mention she failed on a Crisis of Faith and critically failed a Phantasmal Killer (the first part), which bolted on a hilarious amount of mental damage to her. I think she took five crits in the whole combat. So first round both priests used fireballs, then by their turn in the second round they had to burn their heals to bring her back to consciousness.
Frankly, the hardest part of the combat was finding a way to make it clear that Kyrion wasn't an enemy necessarily.
But yeah. Don't forget the skull. Though if your players are very pillared-out, maybe it wouldn't be so bad.
Haha, umm, that would be another change I made. I swapped it out for a fire giant I could actually tie to the cult a little bit. Clay golem and the chimeras particularly felt so bolted on and I couldn't figure any way to thematically connect them to the fortress of sorrow. Had a much easier time with a sentient being there who could actually man the door and be someone they could talk to or bluff. Right behind him are the dragon doors, and I didn't see huge value in there being two levels of non-intelligent defense.
How did they deal with that guy then? Same way they deal with everything. Despite the heavy fire themes, my dice were cold cold cold.
Yeah, but the way everything was playing out at my table, there was no good way they could discover those were Scarlet Triad gifts unless they interrogated Belmazog about them. Which they weren't about to do.
It just felt a lot easier to make the denizens of the fortress all zealots and fanatics instead of a weird hybrid of those and some foreign gifts. I also downplayed how much the Triad gave Belmazog, as I felt the ritual they have was more than enough to convince her to ship them tainted gold and make a play for the aiudura.
Again, a lot of that was reacting to how the RP between the players and, for example, Hezle went. I'm as a GM sad they didn't face the golem, as that made me curious (especially as my party is pretty caster heavy), but the story beats felt like they needed adjustment.
How about they find a receipt showing transfer of the chimeras and golem in Laslunn's possession in book three? Not all information needs to be available to the party right away; I know my group likes to find things out and then connect the dots for things that happened in the past. That lightbulb moment, as it were.
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I’m pretty confused about the jungle exploration sequence. The module contemplates sending the party to the elephant people which seems to put them on a part of the map where they quickly could go to the location of the final battle (protected by the magical shield). Or they could quickly encounter the kobolds and go to the mine. Doesn’t it make sense for them to go after several dragon pillars first? But how do they even know that they need to take down the pillars in order to lower the magical shield? How did you sequence the events in this part of the module?
I love the encounters in this module and especially the amount of roleplaying possibilities built in. I do still think the middle jungle exploration section is poorly designed. I suppose the author wanted to avoid railroading, but there are 3-4 ways in which narrative problems arise due to the random sequencing of the encounters in this section. Most obviously, the PCs are likely to encounter the kobolds on the way to the elephant people and then head to the mine prematurely. Or they could easily encounter Gerard at the ruins first, or the demon hunters before the demons, both of which would result in a less interesting story. Or they could even go to the fortress before figuring out the pillars, etc. None of it is fatal (other than sending the PCs to the mine too early), but I personally prefer things to unfold less chaotically. As a solution, I am thinking of tiering the encounters more or less as follows, so the players have all the encounters in a tier before moving on to the next tier:
Tier 1: elephant people
Tier 2: 1-2 pillars and first encounter with Gerard
Tier 3: 1-2 pillars
Tier 4: demon hunters and demon
Tier 5: 1-2 pillars and second encounter with Gerard
Tier 6: kobolds (which will lead players to beeline to mine)
That’s rough, but captures the idea. I would just say that whenever the players go to an occupied hex it is the next encounter in order. The kobolds or someone at the mine will help the players understand the need to destroy the pillars and figure out where the remote ones are. I assume the players need to destroy ALL of them before taking on the fortress.
Thoughts? What am I missing?