This is a spoiler-filled resource thread for GMs running the Age of Ashes Adventure Path, specifically for the fourth adventure, "Fires of the Haunted City."
Haven't had a chance to read it yet but wanted to remark on the magnificent art throughout this Chapter. I've not been the biggest fan of AoA's previous chapters but the art in this one, beat-after-beat, is unparalleled. Tremendous drama captured in its bigger pieces!
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I really like this book. 4th books in APs, just after the middle, are often underwhelming. This is not-- this is great! Just an excellent adventure start to finish.
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I really like the efficient capture ability that most Scarlet Triad characters have. It gives them an iconic ability that players can prepare for.
Quick question about Illsrah Embermead: Hammer the Chained special action, since she is still drawing her light hammer from her belt, would that provoke an attack of opportunity?
Quick question about Illsrah Embermead: Hammer the Chained special action, since she is still drawing her light hammer from her belt, would that provoke an attack of opportunity?
I don't have my book in front of me, so I can't confirm, but if Hammer the Chained has the Manipulate tag, then yes it would. Drawing the hammer would just be a part of the action, meaning it shares all the benefits and downsides of the action.
Quick question about Illsrah Embermead: Hammer the Chained special action, since she is still drawing her light hammer from her belt, would that provoke an attack of opportunity?I don't have my book in front of me, so I can't confirm, but if Hammer the Chained has the Manipulate tag, then yes it would. Drawing the hammer would just be a part of the action, meaning it shares all the benefits and downsides of the action.
There are no tags, hence my confusion.
There are no tags, hence my confusion.Quick question about Illsrah Embermead: Hammer the Chained special action, since she is still drawing her light hammer from her belt, would that provoke an attack of opportunity?I don't have my book in front of me, so I can't confirm, but if Hammer the Chained has the Manipulate tag, then yes it would. Drawing the hammer would just be a part of the action, meaning it shares all the benefits and downsides of the action.
I've got my book here with me now and, since there are no tags, I would definitely rule that it doesn't provoke any attacks of opportunity. Ilssrah isn't using "a manipulate action or a move action, making a ranged attack, or leaving a square during a move action it’s using." Just above Hammer the Chained is Efficient Capture which DOES have the Manipulate trait, so it's not like they were unaware of tags.
Creative Director
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There are no tags by design. This specific ability possessed by this specific character does not provoke attacks of opportunity. That's one of the benefits she gets for being high level. It's MUCH easier to simply use (manipulate) or leave it off rather than write out multiple sentences describing something—it's a much more efficient way to get rules out there.
It's certainly POSSIBLE for us to forget a tag, in which case it's an error... but errors are not the norm (despite what some folks might claim). In this case, though, it's not an error.
She doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity when she uses Hammer the Chained. If she just drew her light hammer as a normal Interact action to grab a stored object, of course, she would. But when she uses Hammer the Chained, it uses its own rules.
You'll see this sort of thing happening a lot with NPCs. In order to make encounters with named NPCs more dynamic, interesting, and to a certain extent surprising or unexpected for veteran players, we'll be giving NPCs thematic powers that they've developed for their own use. I could see some of these abilities, if they gain traction and attention, some day being translated and reworked to be presented as player options, but that'd be for a separate book.
Usually.
We COULD have, for example, had a Rare "Hammer the Chained" class feat or something like that be a reward the PCs could earn int his adventure; after defeating Ilssrah, for example, we could have put in her journals as a treasure containing the formula for how to learn a version of Hammer the Chained, and then would have put a PC version of the ability in that volume's Adventure Toolbox.
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There are no tags by design. This specific ability possessed by this specific character does not provoke attacks of opportunity. That's one of the benefits she gets for being high level. It's MUCH easier to simply use (manipulate) or leave it off rather than write out multiple sentences describing something—it's a much more efficient way to get rules out there.
It's certainly POSSIBLE for us to forget a tag, in which case it's an error... but errors are not the norm (despite what some folks might claim). In this case, though, it's not an error.
She doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity when she uses Hammer the Chained. If she just drew her light hammer as a normal Interact action to grab a stored object, of course, she would. But when she uses Hammer the Chained, it uses its own rules.
You'll see this sort of thing happening a lot with NPCs. In order to make encounters with named NPCs more dynamic, interesting, and to a certain extent surprising or unexpected for veteran players, we'll be giving NPCs thematic powers that they've developed for their own use. I could see some of these abilities, if they gain traction and attention, some day being translated and reworked to be presented as player options, but that'd be for a separate book.
Usually.
We COULD have, for example, had a Rare "Hammer the Chained" class feat or something like that be a reward the PCs could earn int his adventure; after defeating Ilssrah, for example, we could have put in her journals as a treasure containing the formula for how to learn a version of Hammer the Chained, and then would have put a PC version of the ability in that volume's Adventure Toolbox.
Cool, that’s interesting info, and I like the fact that higher level enemies have access to abilities that players can’t necessarily have, making them more unique.
Another question, about Ancient Magma Dragons:
Magma Tomb Once per day, the dragon can spit a molten boulder at a target within 120 feet. This deals 10d6 fire damage and 4d12 bludgeoning damage, with a DC 42 basic Reflex save. If the creature fails its save, it’s encased in magma that instantly cools and has Hardness 10, HP 40, and BT 20. The encased creature can’t breathe and is restrained.
This is a really cool ability...but one thing I am unsure about, and I apologize if I’m missing something here.... how does the Broken Threshold come into play? I know for instance with a broken shield, it can no longer impart an AC bonus, but say, if you reduce the Magma Tomb to 18 HP, which is under the BT, would the character still be trapped inside? Would there be any other penalty to the Tomb, like lowered Hardness for instance?
Thanks for the clarification.
I would say that in an unbroken magma tomb, a character can't breathe because there's no way for air to get into it. If it's broken, air gets in and at least he won't suffocate (unless he already has). As for "restrained" well, I'd leave that to GM discretion. Does he become unrestrained only when the tomb is reduced to zero hit points, or is there some other threshold for that? What about partial restraint? Like I said, GM discretion.
So a couple of questions for those who have this volume.
A) Does this book have a settlement statblock?
B) Any good higher level Duegar NPCs to use?
The book looks like it might be relevant to other campaigns I'm running, but I'd like to confirm it has those before I buy it.
So a couple of questions for those who have this volume.
A) Does this book have a settlement statblock?
Yes, there is a statblock in the gazeteer for the dwarven city of Kovlar.
B) Any good higher level Duegar NPCs to use?
There are two duergar statted up: one Creature 14 and one Creature 13.
So how can characters break free of manacles if they get slapped on? I know manacles list thievery DCs but what's the DC and number of successes needed for an Escape action? Is it the Thievery DC of the person applying the manacles?
So how can characters break free of manacles if they get slapped on? I know manacles list thievery DCs but what's the DC and number of successes needed for an Escape action? Is it the Thievery DC of the person applying the manacles?
According to Archives of Nethys:
Freeing a creature from poor manacles requires two successful DC 17 Thievery checks, simple manacles requires three successes at DC 22, average manacles require four successes at DC 27, good manacles require five successes at DC 32, and superior manacles require six successes at DC 42.
So how can characters break free of manacles if they get slapped on? I know manacles list thievery DCs but what's the DC and number of successes needed for an Escape action? Is it the Thievery DC of the person applying the manacles?According to Archives of Nethys:
Freeing a creature from poor manacles requires two successful DC 17 Thievery checks, simple manacles requires three successes at DC 22, average manacles require four successes at DC 27, good manacles require five successes at DC 32, and superior manacles require six successes at DC 42.
Yes, I know, but are those same rules needed for just getting out of them with the Escape action? Because I don't think it would make a ton of sense if that was the case.
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Rules as written, you would just make a single Escape check against the Thievery DC.
It does make a thievery check to remove manacles a bit impractical in combat compared to the other options.
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Yeah, that was my best guess. It doesn't make a ton of sense to me, though. Tying someone up with rope is one thing, but you'd think once a manacles is on you're just going against the decide itself.
Also, the penalty for having manacles applied seem rather low. It doesn't have many impediments to fighting, just to movement or manipulate actions. I dunno, can anyone picture this actually being used on a PC as written? Maybe it isn't intended to be and is more for reinforcing their flavor of capturing weaker slaves?
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I'm somewhat confused by the geometry of the Temple of All Gods.
The text seems to indicate that both H12 and H7-11 are above the main floor of the temple. But I feel like that would have the ramp to H12 passing straight through H11.
It seems like it would make more sense for H7-11 to below the main floor (as there in some mention of the prison being below).
Thoughts?
Same here. I've spent some time trying to wrap my head around it but it just doesn't make sense as written and with the given maps.
I think the best way to go about it is have H2-6 be the top floor, have H7-11 be the middle floor (same level as H1 & street level) and have H12 be underground. However, this setup means you basically have to ignore the 20' ramp/tunnel from H5 to H12. This makes the stairs from H11 the only way to get to H12.
The opening text after this section, The Dragon's Domain, seems to indicate that the party needs to keep going down to get to the dragon, so it makes sense that H12 is the lowest part of the temple and the dragon is lower still.
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Is anyone else having trouble understanding the whole Chiselrock conspiracy? I'm reading the book intermittently so I could be missing something. But it is mentioned that there is damning evidence about him in his prison warehouse. I don't know what that evidence is, or what exactly he was doing to undermine the town. I know he was weakening one of the walls, but it feels like there is more I'm missing.
But with the Hidden Forge clues not being specifically defined, it occurs to me that the whole conspiracy might have been left vague.
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Is anyone else having trouble understanding the whole Chiselrock conspiracy? I'm reading the book intermittently so I could be missing something. But it is mentioned that there is damning evidence about him in his prison warehouse. I don't know what that evidence is, or what exactly he was doing to undermine the town. I know he was weakening one of the walls, but it feels like there is more I'm missing.
But with the Hidden Forge clues not being specifically defined, it occurs to me that the whole conspiracy might have been left vague.
Isn't he selling citizens of the town as slaves to the Scarlet Triad?
I do wish the clues were more defined though. Get X clues to find the prison without explaining what the clues are or how you got them is kind of annoying as a GM.
Is anyone else having trouble understanding the whole Chiselrock conspiracy? I'm reading the book intermittently so I could be missing something. But it is mentioned that there is damning evidence about him in his prison warehouse. I don't know what that evidence is, or what exactly he was doing to undermine the town. I know he was weakening one of the walls, but it feels like there is more I'm missing.
But with the Hidden Forge clues not being specifically defined, it occurs to me that the whole conspiracy might have been left vague.
Isn't he selling citizens of the town as slaves to the Scarlet Triad?
I do wish the clues were more defined though. Get X clues to find the prison without explaining what the clues are or how you got them is kind of annoying as a GM.
Well one would assume slavery is involved in the business, yes, but it seems like no citizens of Kolvar were sold into slavery-- the only missing citizen is Algret and she's just being held at the prison. (Zamak is from out of town.) And the slaves seem to just be being worked for the sake of working them in the hidden forge as far as I can tell. Which itself seems to be an offering to Droskar, but it doesn't help my feeling that I'm missing something.
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In area A1, the treasure available is referred to as a "staff of marvelous medicines".
Is this supposed to be a set of marvelous medicines, or a staff of healing? I would lean towards the former, but it's described as having "a pair of bronze serpents coiled around it", which makes me think much more of a staff than a set of healers tools.
Ran the Court of Regents encounter at the start of Chapter 2 last night and my PCs really enjoyed it. Everything up to and in Kovlar so far has been great fun and the PCs really appreciated that the Court was basically like-- you're high enough level to get down here and we need some heroes, want a job? and they're all in. Roleplaying through each question with the PCs and describing each of their future quest-givers was great fun.
We're all so thrilled to be getting really invested in a dwarven adventure for once (we haven't played the other very dwarven adventure iirc from Ironfang Invasion for reference). And the PCs are very excited about the prospect of exploring Saggorak.
One thing we noticed was that one of the NPCs in the Court of Regents encounter, I think it was Fortunate Kord, has "Sleight of Hand" listed as a favored skill. Ideas for a good replacement? I used Performance in the moment, but wasn't sure if that was super correct...
One thing we noticed was that one of the NPCs in the Court of Regents encounter, I think it was Fortunate Kord, has "Sleight of Hand" listed as a favored skill. Ideas for a good replacement? I used Performance in the moment, but wasn't sure if that was super correct...
I believe that most of the uses of the first edition skill Sleight of Hand have been moved to Thievery in 2E, so that's probably the one to use.
One thing we noticed was that one of the NPCs in the Court of Regents encounter, I think it was Fortunate Kord, has "Sleight of Hand" listed as a favored skill. Ideas for a good replacement? I used Performance in the moment, but wasn't sure if that was super correct...I believe that most of the uses of the first edition skill Sleight of Hand have been moved to Thievery in 2E, so that's probably the one to use.
Kord's favored skills are Deception, Sleight of Hand and Thievery. So already accounted for.
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Kord's favored skills are Deception, Sleight of Hand and Thievery. So already accounted for.One thing we noticed was that one of the NPCs in the Court of Regents encounter, I think it was Fortunate Kord, has "Sleight of Hand" listed as a favored skill. Ideas for a good replacement? I used Performance in the moment, but wasn't sure if that was super correct...I believe that most of the uses of the first edition skill Sleight of Hand have been moved to Thievery in 2E, so that's probably the one to use.
Stealth has the Conceal an Object action (which is distinct from Palm an Object). That sounds pretty applicable as a replacement for Sleight of Hand
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A2/Purple Worm: refers to "Pathfinder Bestiary 6", which would be a 1st Edition book.
I can't speak to the rest of your questions, but this is an easy one. Crops up in every book of AoA so far.
It's page 6 of the Bestiary, for elite adjustments. Like the soulbound doll in the crypts of Hellknight Hill.
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Crystal Freeze is pretty much just meant to be used for initiative. The crystals wouldn't use it mid-fight.
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Two things I noticed during my last session:
1-- The Soulbound Ruin has two "abilities" listed-- explosive flames and leech soul.
The Soulbound Ruin does not have these abilities in its stat block.
2-- An elixir of rejuvenation-- a 20th level consumable-- in a 14th level area doesn't seem correct, but I'm sure my PCs will be thrilled.
(One idea I did have was that the PCs mentioned in front of the corrupted guards that they had trouble fighting stone golems, since Mountainheart is the leader of the Stonesmith's guild he could likely have a powerful stone golem made to defend the Triad, but I don't know if this would cause contradictions with the availability of that skill level in a level 5 town or the speed with which it was done.)
I think this is a fine idea and see no problem with it. If it makes sense for the story then I see no reason not to implement it, regardless of the town's level or the timeline. For all the PCs know this super golem was always around but they just hadn't run into it.
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I mean, it's only easy if your PCs have, collectively, good Diplomacy, Crafting, or specific other skills in specific combinations.
Still, if you want to make it harder on six players but allow everyone to speak (and you should definitely allow everyone to speak), you could just add 1 to everyone's Skepticism. That's probably fine. You could make it two, but that's probably overly difficult, honestly.
Just did the fight with Embermead, but it was a bit of a damp squib.
The text states that the door to area 12 is iron and barricaded with "a ton of rubble". One of our PCs, however, simply used the high-grade adamantine pick from the earlier mine area to smash through the door and then dig through the rubble at high speed. This did alert Embermead who cast several buffs on herself, then threw a Blade Barrier between herself and the approaching party.
Unfortunately things then broke down as the fighter PC who had done the digging simply backed off, leaving Embermead there, and just waited. Since she has nothing to do in the room she's in, they could just wait for her to either leave and walk into the party's attacks after her buffs ran out, or stay there and starve, or move around in the temple for no real reason.
It's unfortunate that mos tmajor encounters in AoA have avoided this problem so far by including something that the main enemy was doing or that needed to be stopped to require the PCs to act, but it doesn't seem to be present here and that's a bit of a problem.
Well, a cleric is unlikely to starve if they can prepare Create Food and Water, at least.
If the PCs do nothing but try to wait her out, I would have her escape and come back stronger in the future. It's silly for a boss to wait around to die.
Though she may hate the PCs, Embermead isn’t willing to die to ensure their downfall. If she is critically injured and she can find an opportunity to do so, she attempts to flee. If she does so, she may be encountered in the next adventure as you see fit, but if she does so, she’s forced to leave the Guiding Chisel behind.
Or maybe she goes to Veshumirix to make a deal (taking the Chisel with her) and now the PCs must fight them together.
For the Influence Regent action do the players not answer the query if they choose to roll a favoured skill instead of the diplomacy/lore check? Is this meant to allow players who don’t RP as much to contribute without speaking? Thanks!!
For the Influence Regent action do the players not answer the query if they choose to roll a favoured skill instead of the diplomacy/lore check? Is this meant to allow players who don’t RP as much to contribute without speaking? Thanks!!
I don't think that is the case. I think they can just use their knowledge of a different skill to relate to the reagent instead of diplomacy.
Have you ever enjoyed talking to someone with poor social skills just because you both play Pathfinder? That's pretty much what it is.
If my players did that I'd have Veshumirix dive into the lava out of sight. If it made sense tactically I'd have him emerge from the lava in room 13, behind the heroes. If you don't think the cavern works that way, there are other options. Also, the magma guardians fighting with him have ranged attacks. There's certainly no reason I can see to have a foe with 18+ intelligence sit around and get shot to death without doing anything about it. At the very least it should retreat and ambush the party later, when they are vulnerable.
Uh...many monsters, including a lot of dragons, have spells. Veshumerix is simply not among them.
The magma dragon entry on page 80 has advice on making them spellcasters, that would be a good option too.
So does the Echoes of Betrayal Haunt take MAP? I didn't think it did when I first unleashed it (ported to a different campaign) but I decided it did on subsequent rounds because +35 to hit everyone in the room without MAP is BRUTAL. And the ability doesn't say it ignores MAP, despite launching the barrage as one action. So I rolled randomly to determine who would get the first attack and the second attack. The Ranger in my party unleashed so much hell on her team mates. It was pretty terrifying.