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You’re ignoring the generals made of sentient undead, plus the rarer undead that’s not just simple shambling corpses.
And you’re really comparing instantly clearing out 5 miles... to a city block. Like, they’re even in the same vicinity?
“if the Starstone were his real goal, all that he had to do was teleport to the entrance of the Starstone Cathedral and waltz in.”
And yet he didn’t, and doesn’t.
You seem to cling to the assumption that these were all minor annoyances and that he can immediately resume what he was doing before being Radianted. But as the preview blog from LOWG and the section in the Core Rulebook show, that’s not the case.
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To be fair, in the first book of the Ap it's written that the Radiant fire is generated by the usage of a mythic spell purposely crafted by the Tyrant, while in book 6 it's written that the Tyrant can call the Radiant fire as a "standard action". I point this out because the usage of a mythic spell was later reconnected probably in order to avoid having the entire party try to just "stop him from snapping his hand" by the many ways high level players can do (antimagic, counterspelling and all that "avengers endgame" stuff we all know and love).
It is also written that the WT is in constant pain due to the shard, yet this does not reflect on his stats in any ways, except for the fact - i suppose - he's angrier than usual.
A simple solution could have been a sidebar on his stats, but it's here the page limit strikes again. Between spells, his vast gear (with apparently no place to put it), the explanation of his mythic abilities, and the creepy portrait, there was simply not enough space. To mitigate this, I would have done this sidebar:
"Shard debilitation"
"This shard of the shield of Aroden in Baphon hand has been a thorn in the lich's side for almost a millennium. Unable to remove it without causing a massive explosion of positive energy, akin in fact to the detonation of the radiant fire, the lich has suffered his effects, only gaining limitate control over it in centuries of study. First and foremost, Baphon cannot use the hand with the shard for any effect related with negative energy (casting touch spell, using his paralyzing touch, healing himself and such). Secondly, the shard inflicts 1d6 divine damage to the Whispering Tyrant every minute, or every 10 minute if the lich resides in an area of great necromantic energies. Also, while Tar Baphon is able to cast any spell from level 0 to 8 without rolling for concentration, each time he cast a mythic spell the artifact reacts, inflicting him 5d6 divine damage and forcing a concentration roll against ongoing damage. If Baphon overcome the roll, his "sustained by magic" mythic ability generally heals instantly any damage caused by the artifact"
It's also written that Tar Baphon can, somehow, feel the presence of all the other shards of the Shield of Aroden, and therefore is able to choose which one blow up. However, in the AP, the WT doesn't seem to reach to the Pc's Obols in any way, while both Arazni and the old lady of book 5 seem to quickly understand the pcs situation.
I would therefore add another sidebar:
"The Tyrant gaze"
"After prolonged exposition to the shard, Baphon can immediately sense another piece of the shield of Aroden in a range of 1.000 ft, and can target any shard remaining with a divination/scrying effect as it was a creature familiar to him. During the battle, he's destined to realized the obols existence the moment the Pcs make themselves noteworthy. This also allow him to identify the Pcs as Arazni's pawn, and to deduce their actions in Arcadia. Yet, the WT takes the most simple explanation for granted, that the Pcs have imbedded in their soul a piece of the Kumaru tree in order to better resist his powers, and overlook the possibility of any kind of traps. Armed with this knowledge, Baphon's able to scry on the pcs without allowing any save, making him easy to surprise attack the party, first by sending assassins, then by teleporting himself. While at first the Tyrant is tempted to try to detonate the Pc's Obols, he lated decided in favor of killing the party and turning them into different kinds of undead, hoping to be able to remove their obols and gain more uses of the radiant fire".
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Let's be methodical: what makes this a loss for Tar-baphon?
... He seems to have lost nothing but a little time, some expendable and replenishable resources, and a weapon that was causing him pain for centuries.
An aspect that I believe should be considered is this: by being destroyed, Baphon lost control over not only his army, but many of his minions that were directly controlled by him. Minions that, over 900 years of imprisonment, could not only not be so much faithful to him, but that could well be incline to:
a) Destroy each other due to rivalries and grudges that only the tyrant active presence was stoppingb) Escape from the inner sea, or even Golarion, to become free agents, never to be controlled by Tar Baphon
c) Rush towards Baphon's sanctuary in the hope to catch him while he's still reforming, perma-lock him into an half baked state and rule his empire in his steed.
d) Commit mass suicide to free themselves from an accursed existence they were forced upon, never to be free due to the Tyrant's will actively forcing them to "remain useful". This is Gildais situation and, surely, dozens if not hundreds of free willed undead under the Tyrant Grasps could have been tempted by this solution.
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He's as much "holed up" there as Abrogail of Thrune is holed up in Cheliax, it's the seat of their power.But Abby can leave her castle. If Baphy didn't lose anything of value to him why didn't he resume his plans? He didn't, he's holed up in the Isle of Terror.
I should clarify about the Radiant Fire, it's meaningless for him because it only appears in this adventure path.So goalposts have move from "he never had it" to "it's meaningless to him" which as the AP shows, isn't true either.
He didn't need it in his previous conquests, it's a plot device, nothing more.This is a irreverent statement honestly. He's nightmarishly strong. The Radiant Fire made him even worse with the ability to wipe out cities in an instant.
Face it, from Tar-baphon's situation prior to the AP, he's won. He's gone from being trapped in a dungeon to having partially rewritten Golarion's landscape according to the 2e setting info. He didn't win the jackpot, but he is walking away from the table with a fatter purse than he sat down with.
I wouldn't consider pouting in his island fortress instead of continuing his conquest a win for him.
And by the reasoning that they were able to accomplish some evil things before being stopped then lot's of AP's villains have "won".
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He's as much "holed up" there as Abrogail of Thrune is holed up in Cheliax, it's the seat of their power.But Abby can leave her castle. If Baphy didn't lose anything of value to him why didn't he resume his plans? He didn't, he's holed up in the Isle of Terror.
Do we have any evidence whatsoever that TB is unable to leave the Isle of Terror? I've not seen any reference to any such limitation on his part in any official Paizo source material, 1st or 2nd edition.
I wouldn't consider pouting in his island fortress instead of continuing his conquest a win for him.
Once again, I would ask if there is any clear and explicit evidence for this claim regarding TB's state of mind.
For all I know both claims may be correct, and I don't have my 2E CRB or copy of book 6 of the AP with me to consult. However, I don't recall seeing anything along these lines in either of these sources. If I missed something in either of them or if there is some other source on TB's current state of affairs, I'd be very interested in learning about it.
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He's as much "holed up" there as Abrogail of Thrune is holed up in Cheliax, it's the seat of their power.But Abby can leave her castle. If Baphy didn't lose anything of value to him why didn't he resume his plans? He didn't, he's holed up in the Isle of Terror.Do we have any evidence whatsoever that TB is unable to leave the Isle of Terror? I've not seen any reference to any such limitation on his part in any official Paizo source material, 1st or 2nd edition.
I wouldn't consider pouting in his island fortress instead of continuing his conquest a win for him.Once again, I would ask if there is any clear and explicit evidence for this claim regarding TB's state of mind.
For all I know both claims may be correct, and I don't have my 2E CRB or copy of book 6 of the AP with me to consult. However, I don't recall seeing anything along these lines in either of these sources. If I missed something in either of them or if there is some other source on TB's current state of affairs, I'd be very interested in learning about it.
We don't know why he's hanging around in his fortress rather than continuing his plans, that's correct. But that's my point.
If he's good as new and didn't need the Radiant Fire what's stopping him?
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Iirc reason why Tar-Babhon wouldn't enter Starstone cathedral is just paranoia about how Aroden trapped the place :p
Like it wouldn't be stretch that Aroden actually did trap the Cathedral in way that it would destroy or trap Tar-Babhon where he to enter the place. Especially for someone who has massive ego and probably consider themselves Aroden's greatest foe
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We'll see when we get a hold of the Lost Omens World Guide. And no I don't think villians are bound, though they usually have little reason to operate out it. For some reason, Tar-Baphon went back to his isle rather than resume his attack.
My running theory? The backlash from the Obol enhanced Radiant Fire and the shard in his palm damaged his being a lot more than simply having his body be destroyed would have done.
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But if he's planning on becoming a god, he needs to enter it anyway. He's not Schrodinger's Wizard, able to both enter and not enter the cathedral.
Oh, and back to 2e, the section, on the Eye of Dread, specifies that Tar-baphon is, in fact, an active threat, so no, he's not just sitting there unable to do anything.
How much in game time has based since the end of the Tyrant's Grasp AP and Golarion as described in the 2E CRB. As I understand it, both are set in 4719 AR. So, less than a year (probably much less) has passed since TB's defeat outside Absalom. That's a mighty short period of time upon which to base any generalizations about his condition or plans.
Once again, as I understand it, we have absolutely no idea what is happening on the Isle of Terror right now. TB may be "holed up" and cowering in pain and fear. He also could have an army of undead preparing to walk across the bottom of Lake Encarthan (they don't need to breath) in order to invade one of his lakeside neighbors. My personal favorite would be him getting ready to dump a huge pile of gold into the Inner Sea economy thus devaluing the gold reserves of all the other countries (though I suspect this is too subtle and indirect for TB).
Going back to our hypothetical Druman defense planner, they have to be ready for anything at this point until more information emerges about the current extent of TB's capabilities.
That being said, a reconnaissance mission to the Isle of Terror to gain more actionable intelligence would be a very cool high level scenario
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And Paizo will write a reason for why he's not leaving his castle. they're not gonna leave it as a gameplay/story segregation of "we just didn't want to use him again so soon". There's a reason.Recrafting all his gear. Tar-Baphon had a lot of really nice swag, including unique items. Putting that all back in order could take awhile.
*flashbacks to all the hoops my friends who do cosplay have to go through to get the right materials*
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Remind me never to run a character in the campaigns of those folk who feel killing Tar-Baphon isn't a win because he can just reform from his phylactery seeing that they would refuse to grant PCs any XP for killing any lich if they did not find the phylactery and destroy it as well.
I mean, the lich just reforms.
Oh, and vampires. If you don't stake the vampire then obviously you get no XPs for it because the vampire won. They're not dead (or re-dead) so no XPs for the PCs!
In fact, ANY NPC that manages to ESCAPE the PCs would NEVER in these GMs' games EVER reward XPs because they escaped and thus they won.
It would make any campaign with a recurring foe basically worthless because the foe can drain a player's resources, flee, and they "win" because they escape.
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It's not just that he escaped, it's that he's still out there, and the PCs are not. They got taken out by his nuke. Generally speaking, a TPK is the players losing. And honestly, they don't kill him. He uses a spell that quite literally blows up in his face.But the PCs didn't lose.
I would agree with this. The PCs won the 332nd Battle of Absalom (or whatever number it is) and prevented TB from achieving his operational objective. Yes, the PCs died but their goal was stopping TB not necessarily staying alive. Nelson won the Battle of Trafalgar even though he was killed in the process.
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It is not a falsehood, because the Radiant Fire never showed up in a stat block that I have seen.So you're saying that because the plot device superpower that he canonically uses throughout the course of the AP- including both the whole "blowing up Vigil" bit and the final encounter, where it blows everybody up- doesn't exist.
Gotcha.
So it's exactly as nonexistent as the trick Areelu Vorlesh used to blow up the wardstones in Wrath of the Righteous- after all, it's not in her statblock.
And whatever Baba Yaga does to her daughters, since it's not in her statblock.
Sound.
I'm suddenly reminded that Baba Yaga is the one nasty who is doing things right,, ditch the godhood so you and go where you want and do what you want. She isn't shackled down by pacts and divine agreements. So she has one up on TB
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There is, or should be, a different set of rules for modules, and although James Jacobs and others will not like me using this term again it requires putting the players and their characters ahead of the writers precious NPC. Every time.
We have 1 big bad that is not permanently destroyed in the entire 1e run of Adventure Paths.
He is beaten and foiled, but due to being a lich, is not permanently destroyed.
One.
There's 23 others where you do.
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I remember when Reign of Winter came out.
There was considerable criticism of Baba Yaga and the fact the PCs were not able to murder her and save Golarion on their own.
In fact, people kept calling her the "Greater Evil" (despite the fact her actions in Golarion were restricted to a couple of regions and her "Chaotic Evil" alignment was more "I do what I want, don't care what others think of my actions, and seek benefit to myself only" rather than "I kick puppies for the lulz" that most folk associate Chaotic Evil with) and felt the campaign ending was a washout because Baba Yaga goes free at the end.
For that matter, there is considerable criticism for Return of the Runelords because one Runelord reforms (and is associated with the one Demon Lord who Ascended to Godhood and became the Goddess of Second Chances (essentially)) and a second Runelord basically learns their lesson from being backstabbed by a fellow Runelord and decides to just restore her old kingdom without actively trying to take over the world.
One criticism was? "I wanted to kill ALL of the Runelords." They apparently felt cheated that one of the Runelords was busy killing her rivals and rewriting time so she'd end up on top rather than each part of the AP being a checklist where they get to shank a Runelord and collect their stuff.
Well, even in fantasy novels you often have the Big Bad not taken out. You don't always get Sauron nuked. Sometimes they leave and lick their wounds while learning from their failures. Those villains are often the most interesting ones. Sauron? He was a scary shadow who ultimately meant little because with his death, he blew away like a wisp of smoke. Even HIS boss was only locked away until the End Times.
With the end of Tyrant's Grasp, you have the Big Bad having been nuked by his own weapon, having lost all of his best equipment, very likely having lost his HAND seeing that it is specifically written up as being found (and I still say this was Paizo's way of having their own Hand of Vecna show up), having lost his best generals and armies, and having failed in his latest attempt to achieve Godhood.
If the PCs had lived? I'm willing to bet you'd all be calling it a Win. So the fact the PCs die and don't get a Happily Ever After makes this a loss and bad writing in your eyes.
But hey. Paizo gets to keep the Whispering Tyrant, rewrite Golarion as a result of this (and of other APs including Hell's Rebels which has specifically weakened the nation of Cheliax), seen a strong ruler ascend to Taldor, seen the evil matriarchy of Irrisen cast down, the growth of two new kingdoms in Northern Varisia, the destruction of the Worldwound, the ascension of a new machine-God without the use of the Starstone, and more) and set the stage for new and interesting campaigns that may very well revisit regions and see how the actions of past PCs has changed the world.
To me? That sounds like Paizo has a strong position moving forward, along with APs designed for levels 1 to 20 for each campaign, and no doubt we'll even see an eventual "Beyond 20th level" ruleset for truly mythic campaigns. And we may very well see the Whispering Tyrant faced down in the future with those 20+ level PCs rather than some Faux Tyrant who stole Tar-Baphon's gear while everyone was celebrating his destruction.
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Fantasy novels tend to make terrible adventure paths, because they're very heavy on railroading. The beyond 20th level rules you think are coming maybe are unlikely and unimportant, because Pathfinder 1e is over. This was its swan song, and it ended in a RFED.
ALL Adventure Paths use railroading.
Reign of Winter: You need to go and collect various items and go on various unnecessary adventures to find Queen Elvanna's mom, free her, and let her fix her daughter's mess.
If you don't? World is frozen and everyone dies.
Rise of the Runelords: You have to go on various adventures tracking down who is destabilizing the region, eventually build weapons designed to nuke the Big Bad, and face him in his stronghold.
If you don't? He pulls his army out of the past and tries to conquer the world.
Wrath of the Righteous: You have to stop an invading demon army and then invade corrupted lands and eventually go into the Abyss itself in order to defeat several Demon Lords and save the day.
If you don't? A good chunk of Golarion is pulled into the Abyss, and the segments falling into the Abyss continues to grow.
And on down the line. If you don't follow the plot? The bad guys win. You can't just say "hey, instead of doing this adventure, why don't we just go off and become merchants?" Because the bad guys will CONTINUE on their plots and without the HEROES to stop them, cause lots of bad stuff.
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While I'm on the side of "I don't think Tyrant's Grasp's ending is inherently bad"(I do think its kinda harsh that default is cessation of existence for PCs :p), I don't agree that having a plot is railroading.
Like, "If you don't stop bad guys, bad things happen" isn't railroad, its consequences. Railroad is stuff like "Ah, you searched your spaceship for bugs, but no matter what PCs do, the bad guys successfully bugged the ship and tracked it down!"(that happens for real in one of starfinder aps :P)
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There is, or should be, a different set of rules for modules, and although James Jacobs and others will not like me using this term again it requires putting the players and their characters ahead of the writers precious NPC. Every time.We have 1 big bad that is not permanently destroyed in the entire 1e run of Adventure Paths.
He is beaten and foiled, but due to being a lich, is not permanently destroyed.
One.
There's 23 others where you do.
2 (and technically more depending on one's views of Baba Yaga, Sorshen etc)
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2 (and technically more depending on one's views of Baba Yaga, Sorshen etc)There is, or should be, a different set of rules for modules, and although James Jacobs and others will not like me using this term again it requires putting the players and their characters ahead of the writers precious NPC. Every time.We have 1 big bad that is not permanently destroyed in the entire 1e run of Adventure Paths.
He is beaten and foiled, but due to being a lich, is not permanently destroyed.
One.
There's 23 others where you do.
I forgot Azaersi but you do take out the one controlling/influencing her.
And I was specifically going over the big bad of the AP, not big bad in general, Baba Yaga bad yes, but she’s not the big bad of Reign of Winter.
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Dear friends, I think we have expressed our discontent in a proper eloquent way. I believe it's time to merge it with our creativity and develop another post, in with to craft a different book 6 and a different execution of this controversial ending, one not bound by the limits of 59 pages.
However, something should be said regarding part 2 of book 6. It was more than decent, and offered quite the array of npc. Lyanthari, with her "quest to undermine Baphon's vanity" was refreshing, and thought Gilgais role in the AP was a bit butchered, he remains the mournful character that was foreshadowed for much of the Ap.
Tsomar Trant quest is interesting and grants a fine character moment, thought it does not let to concrete rewards in the form of oracular blessing and such, which would have made it cooler. On the other hand, the Oathkeeper shrine is quite enjoyable and the gaining of the Oathammer is a very cool moment, expecially thinking how much cool any character wielding hit will look to the dwarf paladin of chapter 3.
The grudges dinamic its also interesting, and offers social interaction with 2 crazy, egregious characters.
Ceto's role is also well thought, and see a familiar face offer great roleplaying potential, more so if moved from her encounter and placed as the head of a profane troop of paladins. Yet all of this pales in front of Iuphasti ambitions, which are very interesting and realistic: why bother with the WW projects, when you can conquer your own world? The campaign world is always bigger than the campaign itself, and this is proved by the origins of both Aeonte and Moloum (the latter of which has casually found a way to create a MR8 swarm of death).