6 - Broken Promises (GM Reference)


Age of Ashes

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Page 29 might be of help:

Broken Promises wrote:
The PCs can find any common item of 20th level or lower for sale in the city, but locating items of 11th level or higher requires a PC to succeed at a DC 30 Diplomacy check to Gather Information.


James Jacobs wrote:

The size of the hoard is not consistent with wealth by level. It's consistent with what a legendary dragon would have. Part of the intent was to show what that kind of dragon hoard would look like, part of it was to tempt player characters with the chance to rob a dragon but then possibly regret the choice, and part of it was to make it feel like the PCs had come to a part of the campaign near the end that was truly epic and amazing and jaw-dropping in scope.

If we gave out only how much treasure the Core Rules suggested in that room, it would be underwhelming and disappointing.

But since it takes place near the end of the campaign, the "damage" giving out too much treasure can do is relatively minor... especially if you don't allow the PCs to do the full-on cash in treasure and fully optimize things at the magic store.

In addition, it's an experiment. I'm honestly curious to find out if giving out that much treasure made the game experience more or less fun at that point in the campaign.

My PCs just finished talking with Mengakcare, and are now choosing what piece of treasure they will receive (they were well behaved and did not steal anything when they first discovered it), they are loving the size of it, and since they are pretty powerful now i don't think anything chosen will diminish the fun of the campaign.

Scarab Sages

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Did everyone assume the Animated Dragonstorms were actually Neutral Evil, instead of Neutral? They have weakness to good damage, which wouldn't affect them if they were Neutral.


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TomParker wrote:
Did everyone assume the Animated Dragonstorms were actually Neutral Evil, instead of Neutral? They have weakness to good damage, which wouldn't affect them if they were Neutral.

That's my assumption as well.


I assumed they were chaotic evil because Dahak is chaotic evil.

Scarab Sages

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That's probably fair, also. They have the Construct tag, which are usually straight neutral, which is why I went with NE.

Silver Crusade

I just ran the first wave and I'm either doing something wrong or this is way over tuned. The group has handled the first wave but they've already spent quite a few resources ( the group of 4 has 2 spell casters ).

I just don't see how they have a chance in heck to overcome the rest of the challenges without a full night's rest to get back spells.

The group handled book 5 fine (if anything, it was a touch too easy) so I don't think the group is particularly weak of anything.,

Scarab Sages

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We're not there yet but I've read it a couple times. It does seem to be intended to an epic onslaught. But the first wave shouldn't have completely wrecked them. What was the biggest challenge for them?

Everything has a weakness to good; they must know they've been approaching a confrontation with an evil dragon god, so they should have started to acquire things that can take advantage of that weakness by now. If the melee/bow wielders haven't gotten some holy runes, that could make things quite a bit harder.

I don't see how you could justify an 8 hour break to recover spells. If it really seems like it's off relative to your party, I'd consider:

—giving them a longer break between the first and second waves if they're depending on something like ward medic to heal up—20-30 minutes or so.
—applying the weak adjustment to the severe encounter
—making sure I'm giving out enough Hero Points. The CRB discusses upping the rate to every 30 minutes if they're up against a particularly difficult challenge.
—I don't know what we'll see in the Hero Point deck, but maybe give them additional options for Hero Points. Maybe they could use a Hero Point to regain a spell (or maybe 1 point for up to level 4, 2 for up to their highest slot)
—have Kyrion show up sooner, if they've befriended him

A good chunk of the 2nd wave is exploration mode. Hopefully they just do skill checks and don't expend too many resources there. And they get a full hour to rest between the 2nd and 3rd waves.


Demonknight wrote:

The party i am Gming is in this chapter and they ended the first half, the (almost) non stop fights/crisis management in Breachill.

How did your partys behave regarding this?
I think if i did all that was that by the book i would have a TPK in my hands, they still felt challenged even if i (for example) did not always use the dragonstorm attack in all beginning of the events, my party is composed of a Fighter (Board and Sword), Sorcerer (Blast away), Rogue (Let's Scare and Intimidate people) and Cleric (Awesome healing bot).
They suffered badly from lack of spell slots (specially healing), and they tend to get stuck in the PF1 mentality of let's get on top of the monsters (yes, my monsters usually have 3 attacks to take almost always).
Generally it works because the cleric keep them up, and the damage done by the rogue/fighter/sorcerer is enough.
But this chapter was not a 100 meters dash, it was 10.000 meters....

I said this previous in this thread....

So yes i don't think doing this by the book is the way to go...

Scarab Sages

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The trigger for the Dragonstorm hazard is that a new wave starts, not a new event. There should not be a localized dragonstorm at the start of each event.


Having access to good damage or not really swings the castle siege portion of the book. Our party fighter had access to good damage and was responsible for a significant portion of the party damage output.

My party is going through the Golden Citadel right now, but one other issue I'm starting to feel is that a number of the encounters in book 6 are really really resistant to certain types of casters. There's just very little an arcane evoker can do against animated dragonstorms, dahak's manifestation, and (in the golden citadel) the dragonshard guardian. Just wanted to give a word of warning for people who end up GMing this portion with evokers.


TomParker wrote:
The trigger for the Dragonstorm hazard is that a new wave starts, not a new event. There should not be a localized dragonstorm at the start of each event.

Hmmm, no, what is said is that "At the start of each event in a wave (...) a flare up of power strikes the pcs"

Check page 7 in Hazard.


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Demonknight wrote:
TomParker wrote:
The trigger for the Dragonstorm hazard is that a new wave starts, not a new event. There should not be a localized dragonstorm at the start of each event.

Hmmm, no, what is said is that "At the start of each event in a wave (...) a flare up of power strikes the pcs"

Check page 7 in Hazard.

It's an inconsistent error with the Dragonstorm. I don't know which is the "intended". The Hazard paragraph says "at the start of each event in a wave", but the actual Dragonstorm Hazard has a Trigger of "A new wave begins"

Scarab Sages

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I did read it. As xNellynelx says, the text does not agree with the hazard stats. I will probably use the hazard's stats and not the description, unless it's turning out to be very easy for them.


We ended the campaign on this last saturday, my pcs went and kick the Manifestation behind all over the place, it was a anticlimatic battle....

Yes, it has a high AC but come, battle tactics, buffs (hello Heroism for example), and when they hit the first time, the "poor" creature was always flat-footed and that good weakness...

So in all they considered that a easy battle and tought they had several others way harder! Go figure!

In all we liked the AP, yes, it needs a GM attention and it has some hard edges (some encounters are TPK invitations), but in all we liked a lot!

Next we are going the Path of the Extinction Curse, but before some little Slithering just to easy the path from being awesome 20th level heroes to the punys level 1..

Liberty's Edge

Here's an interesting thing about the final wave of the 1st chapter. The Dragon battle potentially wont matter at all.

By my reading of the scenario, if the players have enough victory points going in they can just walk away from the Dahak battle all together with no consequences. They do not lose any victory points for not fighting the dragon, they just don't get the 2 extra victory points for defeating it. in fact, the worst thing they could do is start the fight, spend all their victory points in fighting it and then get their ass kicked.

So,if they just walk away apparently Dahak just sits there and pouts or something then eventually gets bored and leaves.

Scarab Sages

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Samuel Cabot wrote:
By my reading of the scenario, if the players have enough victory points going in they can just walk away from the Dahak battle all together with no consequences.

I guess in this hypothetical they've been told the scale of victory points (not something I plan to do) and they are meta gaming the entire chapter (not something my group does).

Quote:
So,if they just walk away apparently Dahak just sits there and pouts or something then eventually gets bored and leaves.

That's certainly not what would happen in my game.

Liberty's Edge

I really doubt my players will do it either, I just bring it up as a curiosity.

Per the adventure, You are supposed to bring up the Victory Points so the players know to 'spend' them to get an edge in the battle. I just got to thinking that my group is severely lacking in ranged attack and have already used their means of flying in previous fights that day. Frankly, I think they're going to get their collective asses kicked in the Dahak Jr. battle. It just got me thinking that its reasonable (if not cowardly) to figure that cutting and running might be the best option. Especially when they figure out that they need 18's (or in one of he player's cases nat 20's to hit this thing). Weirdly, it's just best to run earlier than later.

I fully expect them to blow through their VP's in the course of the battle. I have already decide it might actually be ok for them to get their asses kicked. It will make the final battle with him more personal. I also decided that it is reasonable to have those PC's who are dropped in the battle to be revived after the battle by the towns folk who are present at the castle. The rest of the adventure will be payback

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Samuel Cabot wrote:
Per the adventure, You are supposed to bring up the Victory Points so the players know to 'spend' them to get an edge in the battle.

Yes. I'd explain the mechanic to them. I just wouldn't tell them the scale used to determine their level of success in the Aftermath, so they won't be able to metagame the "walking away" option.

Quote:
I fully expect them to blow through their VP's in the course of the battle. I have already decide it might actually be ok for them to get their asses kicked.

I'm not sure that matters, given that they get back all Victory Points they spend after the combat—which they should know.

It'll be difficult, no doubt. My group befriended Kyrion and I can't wait for him to show up. That should help. Also, as long as the allies are helping and taking away an action, the Manifestation can't use its breath weapon or Draconic Frenzy and be airborne.

My party has a few ways to fly, so I think they'll be okay. But if they didn't, I think it's reasonable for Kyrion to try to lure the Manifestation to the ground. Or for it to land and attack if it's unable to use its breath weapon.


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I was skimming part 3 last night (my group is in the middle of part 2) and I'm getting a little confused by the souldrain.

A) It sounds like it refers to all nodes/locations within Alseta's Landing (the demiplane), not Alesta's Landing (the encounter location).

B) Doomed values increased by 1 per round. If you would die at dying 0, you die. So most PCs are on a 4 round timer, maybe some on a 5, to clear the entire area.

However a fail or better on the modified anima invocation makes the PCs immune to this effect. So it only comes up in extreme foolhardy circumstances, right?


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Yes: my read on the Souldrain effect is that it shouldn't actually effect the PCs, but serves as a pretty useful reason as to why this place is so dangerous without the ritual, and why they can't just bring an army with them.

Liberty's Edge

So my player got the the archives and they discovered all the contracts that the residents of Promise had to sign and they decided to burn all the magical contracts. Of course the adventure does not say anything in regards to this course of action. Personally am delighted at the ingenuity and sheer hutzpah of the action but I am not sure what the effect of the act will be. Fortunately it was late, and I was able to call it for the evening (and buy myself time to consider what will happen).

Anyone want to venture an opinion, point out something I missed, etc?


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Samuel Cabot wrote:

So my player got the the archives and they discovered all the contracts that the residents of Promise had to sign and they decided to burn all the magical contracts. Of course the adventure does not say anything in regards to this course of action. Personally am delighted at the ingenuity and sheer hutzpah of the action but I am not sure what the effect of the act will be. Fortunately it was late, and I was able to call it for the evening (and buy myself time to consider what will happen).

Anyone want to venture an opinion, point out something I missed, etc?

If your talking about E5. Citizen Archives, those are only copies.

"A specific volume contains a copy of an individual's Contract of Citizenship as well as a list of all of the individual's major accomplishments"

Liberty's Edge

xNellynelx wrote:
If your talking about E5. Citizen Archives, those are only copies.

I'm pretty sure the adventure is using the term 'copy' to mean the 'only copy', not that Mengkare has a copy machine, has the originals stashed somewhere and has just made copies for his files. There is no mention of 'originals'.

Scarab Sages

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I don't read it that way at all. "A copy" and "only copy" are two entirely different things. Copies of documents were made long before copy machines or printing presses. If there was a way to just destroy those files and free everyone from the contract, that would have been explicitly mentioned in the AP. As a magical contract, it may not need any kind of physical representation at all to maintain its hold.

If that's not good enough for you, then I'd say that it dramatically alters the second part of the AP. Mengkare can be convinced to stop what he's doing, but if he finds out that decades and decades of work has been ruined while he's still convinced it's the only option I can't see any way to avoid combat with him.

Even if you decide that the destruction of a copy doesn't end the contract, I'd still play it that if Mengkare knows about it (and per the AP, he knows quite a bit), he knows what they were trying to do and they'd incur significant penalties in the debate with him. Similar to trying to steal from his hoard.


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TomParker wrote:

I don't read it that way at all. "A copy" and "only copy" are two entirely different things. Copies of documents were made long before copy machines or printing presses. If there was a way to just destroy those files and free everyone from the contract, that would have been explicitly mentioned in the AP. As a magical contract, it may not need any kind of physical representation at all to maintain its hold.

If that's not good enough for you, then I'd say that it dramatically alters the second part of the AP. Mengkare can be convinced to stop what he's doing, but if he finds out that decades and decades of work has been ruined while he's still convinced it's the only option I can't see any way to avoid combat with him.

Even if you decide that the destruction of a copy doesn't end the contract, I'd still play it that if Mengkare knows about it (and per the AP, he knows quite a bit), he knows what they were trying to do and they'd incur significant penalties in the debate with him. Similar to trying to steal from his hoard.

Agreed. Copies of contracts are not new, including in Pathfinder. Devil Contracts for example. You may have one, the devil you made the contract might have one, but if you don't destroy the original (which is always kept in Stygia) you are still bound to it.

Scarab Sages

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xNellynelx wrote:
Agreed. Copies of contracts are not new, including in Pathfinder.

Re-reading the actual AP, I think it's pretty clear that the contracts are there to allow the PCs to learn more about the specifics of the magical compulsion, and better put together the pieces around the Anima Invocation. It even states that the compulsion is similar to geas, which wouldn't end with the destruction of a piece of paper. It would require a wish to remove the effects on a single geas.

That's how I'll be running it when we get there in my game.


How did the initial encounter with Emaliza work out for most groups? In the end of book 5, the party finds numerous correspondence between her and Uri, wouldn’t that immediately make the party hostile to her upon finding out her name? Or is it best to remove her name from the letters found with Uri? In the groups that DID fight her, did they just dispose of the body, take the Orb of Dragonkind and proceed with it in their possession?


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Sir NotAppearingInThisFilm wrote:
How did the initial encounter with Emaliza work out for most groups? In the end of book 5, the party finds numerous correspondence between her and Uri, wouldn’t that immediately make the party hostile to her upon finding out her name? Or is it best to remove her name from the letters found with Uri? In the groups that DID fight her, did they just dispose of the body, take the Orb of Dragonkind and proceed with it in their possession?

For the journal in Uri's room, the Book mentions "Uri takes care never to mention his sister or the Orb by name". I suppose I just assumed the letters on his possession also did not mention a name (Why hide the name in one location and then carry around a stack of letters with the name your trying to hide?). The book says that he has a collection of letters from Emaliza, but not if they were signed or anything.

The "Concluding the Adventure" section also mentions "The actual identity of Uri's sister and the truth of Mengkare's goals should remain a mystery"


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Thank you very much - I hadn't noticed that. That certainly makes sense. Although I wonder if Inizra would mention Uri if Emaliza is mentioned?

Scarab Sages

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I don't think so. Uri has been gone from Hermea for decades. The people who leave are often never heard from again. I don't think he'd be top of mind—I plan on saving it for a later reveal as they get close to learning that Emaliza is deceiving them.


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My party actually just did this section. I was wondering if they'd figure out right away that Emaliza was lying to them (the rogue has a good Perception), but they didn't. Still, they were suspicious of all Hermean women until proven otherwise. They were side-eying her a little bit due to her request to reclaim the Orb shards, but they couldn't pinpoint anything off about her, so they weren't sure. They also briefly suspected Inizra until she offhandedly mentioned having been born in Taldor (and they found her request less suspicious than Emaliza's).

I just had the letters Uri had be signed "your sister," since it says it doesn't mention a name in the journal. I also don't think Emaliza's relations are probably common knowledge...like TomParker said, Uri's been gone for decades and she seems to be detached from any birth family to the point of forgoing her former last name. I kind of figured that in Hermea, birth relations aren't as important as one's devotion to the city/Mengkare, so that's how I portrayed it.

They eventually figured out Emaliza was the sister while they were investigating the records in the Citadel, then lured her off to Mengkare's lair outside the city and killed her before he returned from Axis. They took the Orb to give to Mengkare as proof of her activities.

Liberty's Edge

Funny this is being discussed now...

So my party met Emaliza and went along with her plan (albeit non-committal). Side note, I let them see that Rinnarv was silently not thrilled at what was going on (crit perception check while trying to get a read on him). Then they met Inizra who gave them a whole different story. They also found out the relationship between Emaliza and Uri so I think they are going to give her a good grilling when they see her again.

But they went through the Archives and I noticed that the adventure says that there are 12 pieces of the Orb in the Vault. The players have found 2 pieces already (one in Kyrion's chest, one inside the Dragonshard Gaurdian) that's 14 pieces. But then the previous adventure makes a huge point of saying that the Scarlet Brotherhood has a bunch of pieces that they have been joining together and sending them to Emaliza.

So wait a minute, how does that work out? Does Emaliza have any pieces? What happened to the pieces that Uro sent her? Anre there only supposed to be only 13 pieces?

This seems to be a plot hole

What am I missing?

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Samuel Cabot wrote:
So wait a minute, how does that work out? Does Emaliza have any pieces? What happened to the pieces that Uro sent her? Anre there only supposed to be only 13 pieces?

Where did it say there were only 13 pieces? Hasn't Mengkare occasionally given shards to ambassadors? I was under the impression there were a number of other shards and they weren't all accounted for. I thought one of the reasons for acquiring the tainted gold from the Cinderclaws was to attempt to patch parts of the Orb that were missing shards.

Liberty's Edge

On page 49 in Emaliza's Gambit it talks about the 13 possible shards. I suppose I I read it to mean that those are the totality of the orb rather than the remainder of the pieces the players can get (even though there is still 14 pieces by my count). It is made a little clearer by Emaliza's stat block ( list the the "flawed Orb of Gold Dragonkind".

I'm not thrilled at the scavenger hunt to find information these folks put me through but it is clearer with TomParker's comment, thank you Tom.

Still not clear that if the 14 pieces are added to the existing represents a whole orb or not.

But that does not bother me in the least. I'm just going to assume it does, not that It matters one way or the other.


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TomParker wrote:
Samuel Cabot wrote:
So wait a minute, how does that work out? Does Emaliza have any pieces? What happened to the pieces that Uro sent her? Anre there only supposed to be only 13 pieces?
Where did it say there were only 13 pieces? Hasn't Mengkare occasionally given shards to ambassadors? I was under the impression there were a number of other shards and they weren't all accounted for. I thought one of the reasons for acquiring the tainted gold from the Cinderclaws was to attempt to patch parts of the Orb that were missing shards.

I no longer have the PDF downloaded, so forgive if I misquote. But as I remember it, Mengkare sent out a bunch of shards, which the Scarlet Triad have been collecting. I don't think it ever states how many shards this is. Then there are the shards in the vault, guardian, and dragon (14 total). The Scarlet Triad in Katapesh were forging fakes for these 14 since they didn't have them. When you show up, Emaliza tries to get you to take them since you can access what she can't.

The orb basically has an unknown amount of real shards and 14 fake shards in it. It works with the fake shards, but works better with the 14 real shards (the higher DC per extra shard).

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Samuel Cabot wrote:

Still not clear that if the 14 pieces are added to the existing represents a whole orb or not.

But that does not bother me in the least. I'm just going to assume it does, not that It matters one way or the other.

I see. I think the 13 shards referenced are just meant to be all the shards that could be collected. I'm guessing that the author forgot about Kyrion's shard.

I agree that it doesn't matter. What matters is that even with all the shards we've counted, the Orb doesn't fully work. Whether that's because there are more than 14 missing shards and it's still incomplete, or because they weren't able to rebuild it properly despite having all the shards, isn't important.


This is a really nitpicky question, but here goes.

Tthe Manifestation of Dahak has "Draconic Momentum: As young red dragon." A young red dragon's Draconic Momentum recharges its Wreath Weapon whenever it scores a critical hit with a Strike. Naturally, it also has an ability called "Breath Weapon".

But the Manifestation doesn't have an ability exactly called "Breath Weapon". It has "Dragonstorm Breath", which has a 1d4 round recharge time (and is almost completely nullified if the PCs do well on the modified Anima Invocation), and "Focused Breath Weapon", which has a 2 round recharge time. Which one of them does the Manifestation's Draconic Momentum affect? Or does it affect both?

Scarab Sages

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I think I'll be treating the Focused Breath Weapon as the breath weapon for purposes of Draconic Momentum. Recharging the Dragonstorm Breath seems awful rough.


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This has been a great capstone for the AP so far.

I would mention that I thought I was going to have a TPK with the assault on Breachill, especially with the lesser manifestation. The PCs resources were very low, and they could barely hit him. They also had no hope of closing with him well due to his greater speed.

Their saving grace was the fact that the dragon's breath was not effective against the two rangers, so after two breath attacks, the dragon closed for melee. One ranger got in two hits with distracting shot, which then allowed the the rest of the group to contribute with some good rolls.

Right now the group has just started investigating the Golden Citadel. I was glad to see their were no wards against Ethereal Jaunt or Teleport, so the PC's relied heavily on these to scout the building for clues.

It is very neat seeing all the story pieces come together. I think through most of the AP, my players have just been in the mindset that there wasn't much more to the story than killing off slavers. They didn't really react to most of the sub plot elements other than to say "well that's odd, but OK, where's the next slaver outpost".

Right now they are suspicious of Emaliza, but failed to see through her deception. I have a feeling they will play along with her until she finally betrays them.


We're up to the final chapter of the final book and my players have been very good at ticking all the right boxes. So they have Mengkare agreeing to their modified ritual and they're good to go.

I'm not sure how the next part plays out though. The ritual lasts for day, but it's not clear to me whether the players should be finishing everything over a single day or getting a break between nodes letting them rest and get their spells back to full. Does anyone have any experience or even just a sense of it from the difficulty level of the encounters?


I let my PCs go at their own pace and return if/when they want to rest for spells. Though none of the fights outside the BBEG were too hard, out the others, the wyrmwraith and xotanis were relatively difficult for my party. That said, at this high level I'd expect there to be table variance in experience.

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Bazleebub wrote:
I'm not sure how the next part plays out though. The ritual lasts for day, but it's not clear to me whether the players should be finishing everything over a single day or getting a break between nodes letting them rest and get their spells back to full. Does anyone have any experience or even just a sense of it from the difficulty level of the encounters?

The text for Alseta's Landing says that when they arrive, they can leave by simply envisioning. Each node is the same. So there's nothing to keep them from leaving to recover.

The ritual lasts a day which would be the limit for a single trip to Alseta's Landing. The ritual only takes one hour to cast, so they're really only limited by Mengkare's generosity in providing the 7,000 GP material cost for the ritual and when you determine that Dahak can break free (which, the AP implies, may be decades).

My group hit the 21 Doubt limit, so Mengkare is fully behind their alternative plan and I don't intend to place any limits on their trips to Alseta's Landing.


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Just wrapped it up after 1 year and a half of campaigning with my group.waa fun but final fight was a bit underwhelming.

My advice if you have 5 or 6 PC's would be to apply the weak template to the manifestation and put two of it in a "phased" boss encounter.

Occupy same space, two initiatives, share cooldowns, when one of the HP pools is down describe the BBEG as "very wounded" and he loses his second initiative slot.

If he heals himself back up it comes back.


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I'm preparing chapter 2 of Broken Promises, and I'm not sure if I'm missing something.

I've been building up the Orb of Gold Dragonkind as a major threat, but it seems that if the party doesn't trust Emaliza, but also doesn't attack her, then she just doesn't show up again after the first meeting, and the orb never comes into play in the story as written. Is that right?


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

I would have her show up in that case, possibly with additional guards if she knows the PCs don't trust her. Of course, given that she expects the orb will dominate Mengkare (and if you don't want to make the encounter even harder), she may be overconfident enough to only have her bodyguard with her. The Orb will still benefit from the additional shards the PCs carry.

In this scenario, I wouldn't penalize Mengkare's starting Doubt or the PCs checks once "negotiations" start. They'd still lose out on the two arguments as mentioned on p49, and (to me) that'd be consequence enough - they lose a couple options to increase his Doubt, but not so much as if they trusted Emaliza all along.

Or, possibly, you could have them emerge from Vengegate after the final boss, to find Emaliza has Mengkare incapacitated from the Orb. Given that that's after the climax, though, I'd shy away from that.

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, PF Special Edition, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Rengam wrote:
I've been building up the Orb of Gold Dragonkind as a major threat, but it seems that if the party doesn't trust Emaliza, but also doesn't attack her, then she just doesn't show up again after the first meeting, and the orb never comes into play in the story as written. Is that right?

Not quite. But it's pretty flexible about what happens in that case. You have a lot of latitude. It's probably advisable to force the situation one way or another, as Rinnav's testimony or proof of the reconstructed orb can be very helpful during the audience. I felt I needed to give my PCs the chance to get those bonuses.

On page 27, it mentions Emaliza ambushing the PCs if they oppose her. I read that as any reaction that thwarts her plan. She knows that if they sway Mengkare and ally with him, her chances of success are virtually nil. And Emaliza's Gambit could still happen, even if she's not working with them.

Options include:

1) Attempt to split off and dominate one or more of the PCs. She needs them to get the shards from the vault.
2) If the PCs were on the fence about her (and she doesn't suspect they found info revealing her relationship to her brother in the archives), she could show up and ingratiate herself. Try to get them to give her the shards for safekeeping, maybe suggest that Mengkare may be able to sense the shards if they have them during the audience.
3) If the PCs clearly saw through her cover, she can ambush them after they've gotten the shards. My group immediately assumed she was bad, didn't fight her, but obviously weren't believing anything she said. She attacked them on the way to meet Mengkare in my game.
4) She's probably not completely outed as a villain, so she could come to them with Mengkare's summons. She knows that just having the shards near will boost the Orb.
5) She could just crash the audience, hoping to convince the PCs that she's not a bad guy. Some of what they learn in the archives may leave them lukewarm at best on Mengkare.


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So my players are about to head to Promise...by boat. A Shark Diver vehicle/sub.

Coming to the conclusion that activating a new gate causes bad things to happen at least half the time, and not knowing exactly where the other side's gate is but concerned it might take them directly into the lair of a big ol' powerful dragon, they've decided to sail to Hermea and try to sneak in and get a lay of the land that way before making any big moves.

In terms of defenses/security, based on the AP and other sources I know Megkare has privateers patrolling the outer waters, and two Ancient Brine Dragons will also be guarding the waterways and entrances and likely be encountered. My bigger concern is one of XP: essentially by skipping the entire Chapter 1 for now they'll be about a level behind what they're expected to be to experience Promise. Apart from the two encounters mentionned above, any good ideas for potential other events/sidequests/encounters that could help close the gap?

We're using Milestone levelling for the AP, but as they have been doing only downtime since they're last level up I'd like to bridge lv 18 and lv 19 with at least some actual XP encounters rather than handwave it enitrely.

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, PF Special Edition, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Zoomba wrote:
We're using Milestone levelling for the AP, but as they have been doing only downtime since they're last level up I'd like to bridge lv 18 and lv 19 with at least some actual XP encounters rather than handwave it enitrely.

Their plan sounds like a great way to become outlaws or get arrested. I'd be wary of inserting encounters just to have them, if only because their plan is almost certainly going to trigger a fight and result in significant penalties when they have the audience with Mengkare. Breaking the law will reduce Mengkare's Doubt by 1, getting arrested will reduce it by 1, and every guard slain decreases Doubt by 1.


My group has defeated the Lesser Manifestation of Dahak in Chapter 1 and will be moving into chapter 2 and I want to do some planning ahead. What impact do you think it would have on the story line if the PCs are able to contact Mengkare via magic (sending or the like) and spill the beans about what Uri was doing with the Scarlet Triad?

While the PCs won't know who Emaliza is since Uri never referred to her by name during their correspondences, Mengkare would certainly know who "Uri's sister" is. Given the Contract that Emaliza had to sign as a citizen of Promise, Mengkare could, if he wanted, compel her to truthfully disclose everything she has been up to.

Any thoughts as to how you would re-work the story line?

p.s. I am aware the Sending spell (and other such spells) as written has a range of planetary and initially Mengkare is in Axis following the events of chapter 1.

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