Shriekers officially exist now, actually.
https://pf2.easytool.es/index.php?id=5550&name=shrieker
Shriekers officially exist now, actually.
https://pf2.easytool.es/index.php?id=5550&name=shrieker
Thank you for the link.
I am embarrassed that I missed Shrieker when I searched the Archives of Nethys Pathfinder 2e. I must have misspelled the name. Likewise, I own the Gamemastery Guide, but I have not read up to page 77 where the Shrieker resides.
Also, I am disappointed that the PF2 Shrieker does not work for Trail of the Hunted. The xulgath use it as an alarm and their hunters Sesslok and Ressh walk past a few shriekers twice every day as they go out to hunt and return from hunting. A shrieker that deals 1d6 sonic damage would be too harmful to use that way.
Hazard: The Children of Stone maintain a garden of shrieker mushrooms here as an alarm system. The largest is almost 4 feet tall, and emits a piercing scream whenever light shines on it or a creature moves within 10 feet of it, alerting the troglodytes to intruders. The setting sun also strikes the mushroom once each day, causing a false alarm the troglodytes have grown accustomed to and ignore, and canny PCs can use the opportunity to sneak by unnoticed.
Fortunately, I can use the PF2 Shrieker as a template to create a PF2 Alarm Shrieker.
ALARM SHRIEKER HAZARD –1
ENVIRONMENTAL, FUNGUS
Stealth DC 12
Description This 3-foot-tall purple mushroom emits a piercing shriek when disturbed.
Disable DC 18 Survival to carefully approach unnoticed without triggering Shriek. It counts as flat-footed against your first attack and does not shriek until after the attack.
AC 12; Fort +8, Ref +2
HP 9; Immunities object immunities; critical hits and precision damage altered by Air Sac Vulnerability.
Shriek [reaction] Trigger A creature or light source approaches within 10 feet of the shrieker or the shrieker takes damage; Effect (auditory) The shrieker emits a deafening shriek for 3 rounds. At the beginning of the shriek a creature within 50 feet and unaware of the presence of an alarm shrieker is Stunned 2 (DC 16 basic Will save). During the shriek all creatures within 50 feet are deafened to all sounds except the shriek.
Air Sac Vulnerability A critical hit or precision damage to the Alarm Shrieker deals no additional damage and counts as a regular hit except that it disable's the mushroom's air sac and removes its Shriek ability for one month.
Reset One round
My game has also moved online, using discord voice chat and Roll20 for the past 2 sessions. So far it's working quite well.
Deep into Ristin, the players put Erno Haruvex to rest. He possessed the eidolon and forced it to do math, but it managed to roll fantastically well on the skill checks, so it was like a scene out of Good Will Hunting, but with a multi-limbed psychopomp.
After that, they managed to subdue the satyr cooks, and defeat Linder Largehands in the larder. They free and patch up Cirieo, but since they have no small-sized gear, he's not much help in a fight.
Finally, the players face Halk. They decided to strike at the head of the snake, leaving Billie's and the redcaps' tower untouched. They find him playing his weird game with the spriggans and the stone blocks, and Halk orders the attack. The spriggans go down fairly quickly, but Halk proves to be a wily foe. The kineticist's blasts have a very hard time penetrating the SR, and the physical damage was hampered by the fact they hadn't found any of the cold iron weapons stashed around the fort.
When he finally takes a good bit of damage, he makes a run for it up the balcony to shout for help. A handful of the korreds in the courtyard blearily respond, and the ohancanu in the strategy hall sees his opportunity to earn his invitation and attacks. The party manages to fend off or defeat these new foes, but Halk casts feather fall and jumps off the balcony ordering the fey revelers to come to his aid.
The kineticist has had enough and rains fire blasts down on him from the balcony, bringing him to single digit hit points. At this point the party hears this horrible screeching and cackling coming from the northwest rampart. They can't believe what they see next when a fearsome redcap woman comes flying down toward them from the castle tower, but veers at the last moment to land in front of Halk in the courtyard. She screeches in his face that he's not worthy of the "First Drinker" title and it should be HER! and goes for the killing blow, hoping to douse the rocks with his blood. And that was the cliffhanger ending, with the players watching from the balcony.
All in all, it turned out to be a very fun but grueling rolling encounter with a lot of moving parts.
Following suit and moved online as well. Roll20 for the map and chat and Zoom for voice and video. Ramp up learning curve but seemed to go OK.
Interlude between PCs finishing the tower in Fort Trevalay and Ibzairiak's return, so they checked out the other areas they hadn't dealt with, firebombing the yellow mold with alchemist fire, checking out the garden area, and then opening the kennel and dispatching Ota Gax. They still don't know about L4 or L5 but I may leave that for off-camera depending on how the battle with Ibzairiak goes next session.
Expecting one more session to finish off Book 2 and have already set some things in motion for Book 3.
... I don't want to cause a TPK, but it seems like a real possibility. Anyone have any thoughts?
Remember that the redcaps are looking for an opportunity to take over, and the leprechauns love to cause mischief, especially if they think they can get away with it. Have one of the combatants fall against and break a barrel and then others will turn on them for spilling the booze. Play up the inebriation by one of the korreds aiming at a double image (and loudly complaining about how many "twins" there are). Fey are fickle (and at this stage most are drunk), and if it isn't fun they might as well run away to come back later.
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Finished book 2 with the PCs setting an ambush for Ibzairiak on his return.
They had planned to wait inside the tower, buffing as soon as the dragon was spotted returning. I had planned what Ibzairiak was going to do beforehand and let the players know that whatever they planned it wouldn't alter Ibzairiak's arrival.
First, they were looking in the wrong direction - looking north / north east as that was the direction the dragon had gone when he left. I had him return along the river, reasoning that it would provide an easier landmark for Ibzairiak to follow on his return journey.
This prompted a scramble while the buffed, then heard a thump on the tower roof as Ibzairiak landed. The guards outside had been disguised as Ironfang hobgoblins and despite the missing Ironwing Legion, Ibzairiak failed his perception rolls to arouse too much suspicion, and he was anxious to get Jang working on Naphexi's latest fungal concoction.
He entered the tower and the party moved to engage, not quite as effectively as they had planned due to forgetting about the difficult terrain.
Ibzairiak was hit once, so used darkness, blanketing the entire floor, and shifted further inside to take advantage of multiple attacks against multiple foes in reach.
This was when the wizard's Lantern Archons (3 - previously summoned, and now failing to shed light due to the darkness), all cast continual flame - the effect of which nullified the darkness over almost all the floor.
Ibzairiak was now in the middle of combat and took out 2 of the archons and a significant bite on the fighter before moving to breath weapon next round - which the fighter managed to save against. The cleric had buffed most of the party with Resist Energy, so the net effect of the breath was only 5hp.
Ibzairiak then tried to get out, but attacks of opportunity were enough to drop him (even if I had added a stack more HP he still would have fallen to the final blows).
Not as climactic as hoped for, but if the archons hadn't cast continual flame, or the cleric used Resist Energy, or the fighter made his reflex save then the fighter would have dropped and the damage dealing ability of the rest of the party would have been hard-pressed to finish things quickly, which might have resulted in another PC dropping.
Action economy definitely plays a big part in how tough these encounters end up being and even though there are only 4 PCs I think I might bump up quantity rather than quality of the opponents going forwards.
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Started book 3.
Wolf within the lambs to begin after work had commenced fixing up the Forts (Trevalay and Ristin) and getting some magical item creation/upgrade done. Having a cleric who can cast x4 Remove Disease a day meant that only 15 lots of glossleaf berries needed to be found, and with the party splitting up and going out with Ranger patrols they managed to find enough within the first day and have all refugees on the road to recovery by the end of day 2. The logistics of finding accommodation for all the refugees plus keep the Forts operational as Ranger bases means that Misthome, Ristin, and Trevalay are pretty much full, but with the focus soon shifting west I'm not letting the PCs get bogged down with that. Aubrin, Cireo, Jet, and Rhynna are becoming useful administrators and a transport network between the 3 hubs, protected by the Rangers, Herge, and Longfrond is setting up a Fangwood base nicely.
Bumped up the Ironfang Deserters encounter to 6 soliders, but a well placed Black Tentacles stopped the hobgoblins from concentrating attacks and they were mowed down one at a time. Left on a cliff hanger for Forest Party as the PCs were making their way back to Trevalay. Failed Will saves often have a major impact on the PCs ability to gazump the opposition.
The Forest Party took up pretty much all of an almost 4 hour session.
I bumped up the dwarfs to 30hp each and gave Tromaki bonus HP as well.
Rogue went invisible and headed towards Tromaki but failed her save vs confusion. Party wasn't to know because she acted normally the first round.
Wizard dropped a stinking cloud in the middle of the clearing.
2 of the dwarves failed their save and the rest passed (rogue was just outside the effect skirting the edge of the clearing).
The dwarves and maenad all exited the cloud in different directions with only one dwarf coming out on the party's side.
Non-lethal damage was used to knock the dwarf down and the wizard summoned an earth elemental to enter the cloud and attack the woman (who by now had exited the far side of the cloud).
The rogue babbled incoherently for a round while the fighter knocked down another dwarf. He critted the dwarf with his warhammer and almost killed him with non-lethal damage (yes - the fighter did 60+hp in one round) but was saved by the cleric.
The rogue (now on the other side of the cloud and seeing Tromaki) got "attack the nearest creature" and managed to reduce Tromaki's HP by more than 50HP, but was now visible.
Tromaki (who had had enough time out of the cloud to cast Bull's Strength and Vampiric Touch) got a good hit on the rogue in return.
The rest of the group eventually made it around to the other side of the cloud where the wizard cast Create Pit under the maenad and one of the dwarfs. It also happened to be under the earth elemental (who was still just inside the cloud and had finally found its target).
Tromaki jumped aside but the dwarf and elemental both dropped into the pit. As the pit was lower I ruled that the cloud rolled into the pit and filled up the bottom. The fighter failed a save vs Charm Monster and went to attack the rogue in order to defend Tromaki, but ended his turn next to the pit and failed his save to avoid falling in.
It then became a dance to see if the maenad could be dropped without help from the fighter (at the bottom of a pit and failed his save vs the cloud so was now sickened, and couldn't muster a high enough climb check to get out) and the rogue (who was still confused and mostly alternating between babbling and self-harm).
The elemental moved through stone to get out of the pit to join the fight.
Eventually the rogue got "attack nearest creature" again and dropped Tromaki, but the wizard (now invisible) and cleric were afraid to get too close to Tromaki to make sure she was dead in case the rogue attacked them too.
The cleric tried to cast dispel magic on the rogue but failed to beat the confusion spell.
The elemental tried to grapple the rogue but failed.
Eventually the cloud dissipated and the fighter and dwarf were helped out (but would continue to be sickened for another 5 rounds).
The elemental ran out of time and disappeared.
It then was a cat and mouse game with the rogue dropping her weapons one round when she was acting normally and moving away from them, then using Acid Splash (minor magic rogue talent) when she got "attack nearest creature". The fighter tried to make sure he was the nearest as he was wearing a ring of energy resistance (acid) - from the fight with Ibzairiak.
Dwarves were finally healed and eventually the confusion expired on the rogue (who got her weapons back) and the party took the dwarves back to Fort Trevalay.
Lesson - confusion is a very powerful spell. I didn't enforce the 1 hour the confusion effect from the Maenad's Infectious Dance, especially after Tromaki was dead. 12 rounds was more than enough to cause problems. I also didn't push any lingering effects of Charm Monster once the fighter had made it out of the pit and realised that Tromaki was dead.
Lesson 2 - the Forest Party encounter doesn't make a great deal of sense given the maenad's powers. If the dwarves were captivated by her Infectious Dance then they would be under Confusion rather than (appearing to be) charmed to eat and protect her. The 'benefits' of the dance continue unless creatures break free of the dance. Assuming they are not dancing themselves then do the effects end if the maenad stops dancing (to cast a spell or attack)? Assuming that a maenad casting a spell or attacking is not dancing, and therefore anyone coming within 60' after combat starts won't be affected by the confusion makes this a very odd ability.
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Reporting in. The party has fully cleared Ristin and rescued Cirieo. My little flashback retelling of the Seige of Ristin by Cirieo went over quite well with my party. Cirieo must be quite a good storyteller... :P
After Ristin we were back to forest hexploration. We had a fortuitous event with the militia: rivalry! It worked out nicely as the party had just secured the Atomie squad as a special team, which created a redundancy with an existing team and ended up being kinda perfect for that rivalry event.
I combined a Hobgoblin patrol with the Suspicious Rangers encounter from the book's bestiary. Just as the party was mopping up the hobs, several arrow and bolts sail out of the trees to finish the helpless enemies. A bunch of surly rangers appear and have a fairly tense exchange with the Gobstoppers. Cirieo tries to negotiate, but these are deep forest rangers, and they don't even know Cirieo. They claim their only loyalty is to the Chernasardo, and want nothing to do with the party or their refugees. They name drop Cobb Greenleaf, but don't know or won't reveal the location of Trevelay.
Meanwhile, Cirieo fills them in on the lore behind Ft. Nunder and it's cache of dragon slaying treasure, so the decision is made to go there next.
However, the Molthuni General Hakar of Ft. Ramgate has gotten wind of the Gobstoppers (and the traitorous Molthuni deserters who have joined them - Derril Tarse and his Molthuni scouts from Book 1 Bestiary). A threatening bird feather token arrived warning them of his eminent approach. Luckily, the militia scouted them having trouble bypassing the Ironfang Legion on the Tamran Highway. But there is a more pressing matter.
The owlbear attacks are still ongoing, and after losing a warrior NPC and almost losing Veld (after one owlbear group hits her shack instead of the caves), the PCs decide it's time to deal with this. They put clues together that a treant is behind the attacks. On the way to Longfrond's glade, the party encounters the trapped logger and Herge the wood giant. Hilarity ensues as Vardalel pretends to love all trees and hate all tree cutters.
Longfrond is hostile, but naive and the party manages to convince her to stand down. She is still wary of the humanoids, but after observing them further, she'll approve and have her animated buddies bring supplies to the survivors.
I've also been strategically dropping references to forest animals hanging around the party. So far, I think they think it's just extra description, and they don't suspect a thing that these are Jang's animal spies. To that end, they may soon be facing more serious Ironfang patrols, and they will likely spot Ibziariak himself flying away from Nunder as they themselves approach it (him having just warned the trolls of the Gobstoppers' approach), will probably adjust the encounters to reflect. The trolls might be a bit more alert.
It's also been fun incorporating random encounters and forest creatures. Non book encounters the party has dealt with include a mating pair of hungry forest drakes - they killed one and drove the other off. They met the friendly Leshy patch, and Hessilda the snapdragon leshy quickly became a local celeb at Misthome. They made quick work of a handful of divebombing snallygasters, and we ended last session on a cliffhanger. They discovered one of their missing villagers encased in amber, and as they busted him free, they were surrounded by 2 ambergrims.
Looking for a way to bring in anhanas and canopy trolls before the end of Book 2. Only a couple more book encounters left. Only the chimera, the giant porcupines, and Malignant Nolly are left now. In my game, it is late summer, so giant cicadas/cicada swarm seems necessary at some point just for the noise.
erucsbo and Billy...
you got me wishing I was playing in your campaign instead of running my own. Sounds like some dynamic and fun, non-linear adventuring from your groups!
Very cool.
My group just recently started. Have 5 members, an Elven Rubato Bard from Path of War, a Gnomish Grenadier Alchemist (using Entrapta from She-Ra as her art), a Human Cleric of Abadar, an Elven Falconer Ranger, and a Human ex-knight Cavalier.
We have just finished up the encounter on the bridge in Trail, and they are just about to leave Phaendar behind. Due to 5 people, I have buffed up some of the encounters and most of the PCs are ready to take level 2 at this point (folks do not earn full XP when they do not attend game).
Before we got started with the adventure itself, I ran the group in town for a while during the festival. The players were joking around that this place was doomed because it was an AP and the town was having a festival.
During the festival I tried to let them each have a moment to shine, and they all did really well on checks they chose to get involved with.
They were also able to meet Rhyna, Vane, and Kining. Rhyna the Cleric talked to for a while and I tried to hit on her very good natured way, the cleric also talked to Vane. The Cleric had offered a 10 gp prize for a crossbow competition and was encouraging everyone to use the "weapon of the people". Vane engaged with him and offered him a discount at his store if he came by later because of it.
The grenadier and the ranger tried the archery contest (real bows) and met Taidel and Lirosa there. I described the targets being Molthune guards where the targets were on 3 cut outs. One of them was a soldier who had a cartoonishly small genitals and was kicking a dog, another was a normal target with the target over his chest, and the last was a big target of an overweight guard bending over to pick something up and the target was on his behind.
The Elf took the high ground and went for his shot on the normal target, but the Grenadier decided to perform hijinx on the small genitals with her bow. The elf rolled a 20, getting a perfect shot on the normal target, while the gnome rolled 19 on the small target and ended up breaking the guys genitals target off. The crowd roared and cheered for both, and so they were the winners of the day.
The same two had to head over to Kining for prizes, which were masterwork arrows. Kining grumbled a lot about suddenly there being 2 winners when there was only supposed to be 1, and was generally disagreeable.
When the attack started the group was in the Taproot and quickly pulled out of the inn when the attacks happened and moved folks up to the copse of trees to the NW of town. They didn't do much searching of the inn, and even left the businessmen up in their rooms because they didn't ask about folks that might be upstairs. The cleric decided to stay with the NPCs they left in the copse of trees while the rest of the group went to the key points on the map to try to save some people.
On their way, they had a few encounters with some random hobgoblins (1 random encounter when they first left saying they were looking for trouble, and 1 in a house that they went to check on [which netted them 2 more commoners]).
When they got to the temple, they avoided the growling wolf and got into the fight inside. The scout beat the Cavalier pretty bad and the Alchemist in the end won the fight with the scout by a bomb hitting the falcon as well. They once again did not search the temple even though I had multiple NPCs talk about how they will need supplies.
They retreated back to the copse to leave the NPCs and talked with the Cleric. Aubrin talked about how things were progressing a lot and if they were going to head to another location it might be the last one that they could really go and check out during the chaos of attack.
The team decided to head out, though the Cleric of Abadar stayed behind again.
They ended up hitting Kining's shop and saving the people, killing the hobgoblins, and making a high diplomacy with the earth elemental even though they couldn't speak its language. At this point it is traveling with them nervously because it is scared of its other options. They did a quick search of the shop, but not a big one because they never tried to stop the fire.
They pushed their luck and finally hit Vane's up to find him dead on the floor. I was surprised they put the shop to last with an alchemist in the group and people having talked about him being a doctor. Vane's they actually searched and the bodies in the shop were some of the first that they checked out.
When they left his shop, I realized I had forgotten to bring in Taidel and Lirosa back in the smithy, so set up a random encounter with a few groups of hobgoblins. The party decimated them (it was rolls of like 16 up for 2 rounds) and the elves were coming on round 3! So I tossed another group of the same into the mix and had the half-elves join in on that. They convinced the two to come with them, and the half-elves showed that they can be useful, which I thought was good since unlike most they were not hiding and cowering.
They gathered everyone up and headed back to the copse of trees and then set out for the bridge. I added a wolf and some more hobgoblins to the encounter at the shed, and the stealthing gnome rolled on 4 Perception checks in a row - 3, 2, 1, 3! The dog picked up her trail and she couldn't see it, when she crossed back across the yard it was there growling at the space she was in. She tried to move away, but told her it was obvious he moved his head after her as she moved.
Her last bomb of the day was thrown and the wolf savaged her. The rest of the group came running in but got caught up with the hobgoblins coming out of the shed. The gnome popped a smokestick, and was amazingly missed by the second attack of the wolf! Cavalier dispatched the thing and started taking fire from Kergi on the bridge (though he was never hit).
The hobgoblins in the shed were taken out and so the bard moved up and called Kergi out, so Kergi obliged him by sinking a bolt into him and dropping the guy!
Cavalier rode up to him and crit Kergi with his bastard sword and the group was in awe when the Hobgoblin was still standing. So Kergi grabbed his Bastard Sword out (swapped it since no one uses Scimitar) and crit the Cavalier right back! Damage roll was low, so luckily the Cav survived.
Horse did a swing and a miss on Kergi, and then he nailed the horse right back with a crit threat (but it did not prove.../sad!).
The group was in a lot of fear of this guy seeing him drop 2 of them and nail the horse really good. Alchemist jumped up and tossed an Alchemical Fire and hit the Hobgoblin boss in the splash dropping him.
We stopped right after they got their 2 that were downed stabilized, though the Cav is still unconscious.
It has been a great time, and this is the specific encounter that made me fall in love with Ironfang in the first place! So glad to be running it and having a fantastic time.
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My recollection is the psychokineticist cooking Kergri alive in her armor. :D
I added a "scene" with Scarvinious to the end of this encounter too. As the bridge blows, Scar shows up on the opposite shore and taunts the survivors as they flee into the woods, howling with the airs and cadence of a heel in professional wrestling, "Sleep well if you can humans! I'm coming to add your skin to MY TENT!!"
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Heading out of the Fangwood.
The PCs have accepted the nudge to investigate what the Ironfang Legion is doing in the Hollow Hills and also follow up on Solba's request to go to Radya's Hollow to find out what had happened to Voldan.
The first night out of the forest calls for the bulette ambush but use of a rope trick campsite scuttled the original scenario.
I had previously seeded that earthquakes were not uncommon in the Hollow Hills due to the preponderance of lava tubes and natural caverns, so when hitting the ground again after exiting the rope trick they were not surprised to feel earth tremors. A successful Perception check by the cleric and the fighter alerted them to the fact that the ground only seemed to be shaking near them; trees a little distance away were not swaying and there was no movement of stones and rocks in the nearby hills. This meant that they weren't totally caught by surprise when 3 bulettes burst from the ground around them (yes I bumped up the encounter).
The wizard, rogue, and fighter all took a chunk of damage in the first round and there were more than one critical hits rolled during the remainder of the encounter.
The rogue was dropped in the round after the surprise round before she had her first attack and the wizard managed to run away while the cleric got in to healing mode - channeling enough positive energy to get the rogue back on her feet and give the fighter some breathing space after having lost half his HP total.
I had one of the bulettes chase the wizard, who managed to fly out of range and summoned 3 lantern archons. The fighter and rogue double-teamed to eventually drop one of the bulettes, but the fighter had been flanked by the other one and had taken significant damage - once again being saved by the cleric.
Due to the attack occurring just after exiting the rope trick there hadn't been time to cast Bull's Strength and Shield of Faith on the fighter and Mage Armour on the rogue, and it was showing!
The cleric was saved from multiple attacks by her domain powers - she is a cleric of Calistria - and her adoration ability stopped at least 4 attacks that would otherwise have hit, and her CopyCat ability stopped another one.
The bonuses from the lantern archons' aura of menace, rogue's debilitating strike, and flanking, also helped the fighter land enough blows to drop the other bulettes (with the rogue stealing the kill on the last one), but the cleric was out of channel positive energy (using it as a swift action during the fight doubled the burn rate), and had used up all her higher level spell slots converting spells to more cures.
Next stop was Radya's hollow and the PCs decided a rest was in order before entering the town. The rogue did some recon during the night and found it deserted but managed to find the journal entry. There was debate about whether to try and find the ridgeline camp or go to the mine, with the mine winning out.
On entering the first chamber and hearing the tapping coming from beyond the collapsed tunnel there was quite a bit of discussion about how to get through the collapse, ignoring the open northern passage and other exits.
The session ended before a firm decision had been made.
In hind-sight I think bumping the bulettes up was the right move. It turned what I think would have been a fairly easy encounter into one that got towards the edge in the middle before getting on top at the end and gave them a taste of what it's like being on the other end of heavy hitters, and without all their buffs and positioning already in place.
I expect the mine might end up a lot shorter than as written, but I now have a bit of time to give it more thought to make it more dramatic, and also need to tempt them to Redburrow before heading to the ridgeline and starting the countdown timer.
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Party just completed the vault at Fort Nunder. Overall, it proved fairly trivial. They triggered several traps but the tanky characters were fine. Everyone but one was wearing a Chernasardo cloak, so they bypassed the guardians in short order as well. They never quite figured out how the switch mechanism worked.
Broadly speaking, I'm always looking for a way for major villains to interact with the party in some way. So at the end of the last session, when the PCs emerge from the Fort Nunder vault, they find themselves surrounded by a hob patrol (encounter C) and Jang herself. She'll give them a taste of her best magic, but as soon as the battle begins to turn against the hobgoblins, Jang will wildshape into a diminutive creature and escape. Abandoning the Ironfang hobgoblins is no issue to her, and she wanted to get a look at these forest interlopers for herself. She will taunt them saying they've had it easy so far facing dimwits like the trolls and lone forest patrols. And if they dare, they should come face the full might of the Legion and it's monster allies at the heart of their power at “Fethak Salgu”.
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First F2F game in a couple of months - was good to be back around the table again.
The wizard cast invisibility on her bat (familiar) and it crawled its way through the collapsed passage between I2 and I7, returning a few minutes later to let the wizard know that it had crawled through rocks for about half of the time (1/4 time there and 1/4 time back), found a room it could fly around in, that the room was dark, and there were two people moving in there. It also mentioned that there was at least one other exit but it didn't want to go too far away.
The fighter was keen to start pulling rocks away but they eventually checked the manager's office and found the hand-drawn map.
They figured it would be quicker (and less chance of a cave-in) by going around.
They made their way pretty well to the collapsed bridge and went through multiple options to get across and make a rope bridge until they let the rogue scamper down, across the bottom, and up again (she picked up the ninja trick wall climber so now has a climb speed) and fix the rope so that the rest of the party could cross on a rope bridge - gave them 2 acrobatics checks to get all the way across. If they failed one then they had a reflex save to grab the rope. All made it though the wizard slipped a few times but didn't fall.
They were very suspicious of Meslin and Voldan and wondered if they were the enemy / morlocks, but eventually got the cart off Voldan and searched the room.
That's when they discovered that the mess from I5 was no longer there.
They were thinking it was all illusion.
The trap dropped Meslin and Voldan though not enough to kill them, the fighter got hit and failed his save but still had on his ring of energy resistance (acid) which helped the rogue made her save so took no damage. The cleric channeled positive energy to save the NPCs and as they made their way out from the fissure the quarrygeist struck by opening a pit under the fighter and rogue. Both managed to avoid falling in but now it had separated the party. The fighter just made his will save to avoid being telekinesed into the pit and eventually the geist was defeated, but for a single creature it turned out tougher than I thought it would for them.
The fighter got caught in the bridge trap and as it was getting late and I wanted them to have a chance of getting out of the mine before the end of our session I skipped the encounter there.
Fast forward to I3 and I had originally thought of bumping it up to 3 quarrygeists but 2 caused enough of a headache with pits catching everyone except Voldan and the rogue. The wizard managed to get a feather fall off to save everyone else the falling damage. The fighter and cleric didn't have high enough ranks in climb to get out. The wizard cast fly on herself, and the rogue juggled between getting ropes down to the party members (trapped in different pits) by attaching it to an immovable rod and keeping the geists from attacking others.
The pits that the geists had created essentially limited movement (not for them though as they were flying) and kept the party on its toes.
The wizard summoned lantern archons and levitated the cleric out of one pit and eventually the geists were defeated once the fighter had gotten out of the pit too - I sped things up at the end because we were already about an hour past our normal finish time.
lessons learned about quarrygeists - these things can be deadly - create pit and then telekinesis are really all that they need. I didn't use them to their full potential as I could have had them telekinese someone up to the roof for damage there as well as damage when they fell back into a pit instead of just pushing into a pit (though in this case the will saves were made - sometimes only just). The focus was on the fighter but is weight prevented more PCs getting caught in it too.
The party had already used create pit against the maenad and the basilisk and barghest, but here it was stepped up a notch.
next step is to try and get them to Redburrow before the Ridgeline Camp
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So, the party faced Jang and a Hobgoblin patrol at Fort Nunder... and they managed to KILL Jang's animal companion. I planned for Jang and Ruanni to flee when they got low, so when Jang got to about 30% hp, she ordered Ruanni to run and wildshaped into a crow and flew away. However, due to initiative order, the party slept and coup de graced the cougar before she could flee the scene.
So now I have a bereaved Jang on my hands as the party approaches Trevalay. I think I'll just move the cougar from the Trevalay garden to be with Jang and name it "Luanni" or something to keep the appropriate difficulty during the boss battle.
Next time a Delgeth will approach the party to lead the pyrokineticist to the chimera's lair as it can't defeat the Chimera on its own. The party will notice the muddy, dusty basin is choked with deadwood and see that obviously the ecology is in dire straits - and hopefully they agree to help the Delgeth drive away the Chimera before burning away the deadwood in the slough. Kallikros will dive bomb them as soon as they are in his territory.
Once defeated, the Delgeth will invite the pyrokineticist to help it purge the deadwood in the slough, following this, it will lead the party to a secluded grove where they can witness the birth of a new Anhana into a local sisterhood. Afterward in thanks for their service to the forest, the sisterhood will use their speak with water SLA to give them some direct intel on the Trevalay gorge.
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Kallikros is dead, burned to ashes with the combined flames of delgeth and pyrokineticist. After purging the slough, the delgeth leads the party to the grove of the anhanas, and witness the birth of a new sister. There was some fun roleplay with the anhanas; their innocent curiosity has them asking the party some awkward, personal questions about PC appearance, powers, personalities. The anhanas tell them about the old, unused well shaft that leads to the gorge's bottom at Trevalay, and about a terrifying monster that lurks along the river banks.
Meanwhile, the Atomie team runs messages between the party and their militia when they aren't back at Misthome. Last turn, the party instructed their mole team to secure the cache of mundane weapons and gear at Nunder.
Exiting the mine at Radya's Hollow, the party equipped Meslin and Voldan with food and supplies to get them to the Fangwood and a letter of introduction to the Rangers. Voldan shared of his family's hidden treasure, gifting the party with the sustaining spoon and rope of climbing. The party also collected the journals and map left behind by the Hobgoblins and struck out further into the Hollow Hills after a night's rest.
A short distance from Radya's Hollow large creatures were spied circling in the sky over the next rise. They headed in that direction and encountered the griffons.
Approaching cautiously the cleric called out to the griffons seeking a non-violent path to inspecting the wrecks while the wizard cast Invisibility on the rogue. Some iron rations thrown towards the griffons ameliorated the tense situation such that the beasts allowed the visible party members to search and strip the bodies. The griffons took off with some carcasses leaving the rest of the mess for further examination.
The wizard decided to spend time learning Floating Disk to enable the easier carrying of the valuables found.
The party wondered if there was anything left at Redburrow and as it was only a couple of hours away and headed that way.
Arriving at the devastated hamlet, casting detect magic revealed something lying in the mist and also the fading aura of some powerful conjuration magic. Getting closer to investigate the wizard summoned a couple of air elementals to clear away the fog, but as they did the fog in the middle started to thicken and the phantom armour rose to attack.
The phantom armour dispatched the elementals and turned to the party, so the fighter stepped up to knock them down while the rogue vanished.
The armour didn't survive long, but the mist moved up and engulfed the fighter.
The wizard cast Enlarge Person on the fighter while the cleric further buffed him with Bull's Strength, and the rogue moved around to where the other suits of armour were.
The mist surged forward covering the cleric as well and this time both the fighter and cleric suffered major damage, enough to drop the cleric before she could channel positive energy.
The wizard stepped into the mist, taking damage, and dimension stepped both the fighter and cleric well out of reach (also causing the floating disk to wink out of existence and dump the contents on the ground).
The fighter fired arrows at the mist from a distance as it and the remaining suits of armour moved towards them and the wizard poured a potion of Cure Moderate Wounds down the cleric's throat.
Once up the cleric channeled more positive energy to heal them up.
The rogue moved behind the armour and managed to take one down while the fighter's barrage and cleric's spiritual weapon finally wore down the mist, the last suit of armour being dropped by an arrow after suffering some damage from the rogue.
The threat dealt with, the area was searched, and they found the lockbox and wand.
GM note - I may have been reading / playing it wrong, but that trench mist is nasty. I took it that the engulf attack required the DC to be failed to take damage, but then the person engulfed also takes the damage (no DC to avoid) when their turn starts (unless they have somehow managed to be shifted out of the mist *before* their turn starts). That's a possible 24d6 before they even get to act!
Wrapped up the Malignant Nolly encounter meaning we are officially out of book 2 encounters. Next will be the attack on Trevalay, and I couldn't be more excited. Nolly was a bit of a slog, though she never posed serious danger to the party, they were frustrated by the invisibility. We all forgot that they had 2 charges of Dust of Appearance in their inventory, so they weren't able to take her down until the psychokinetic manged to get lucky with an AOE and catch her on fire.
I put in an improvised scene where the party passes a magnificent waterfall where the river splits six ways then pours out of a limestone cliff face in a manner that evokes a group of six wide-jawed gargoyles. Thus, the PCs learn the origin of the Sixjaws River. It was a fun bit of misdirection when the Anhana sisterhood tells them the name of the river "Sixjaws" and the party's imagination starts running wild, having just killed a chimera and knowing there's a black dragon out there somewhere. Anyway, my interpretation from the adventure is of a dramatic karst terrain region in the area around Trevalay. It's been the most grueling and difficult terrain of the adventure so far. The Sixjaws Falls were their introduction to this region. They came across Nolly in a shaded glen in a steep ravine.
Finally toward the end of the session, Herge and Cirieo show up with the Hemlock Banner. They report that it was all they could do to keep the entire group of survivors from coming out with them en masse. The party had been gone from the caves for a while (decided not to return after clearing Nunder) and everyone is really keen to show their support and bring the fight to the hobs. Being typical Nirmathi, getting them all to pull in one direction is like herding cats. So as compromise, the survivors send Herge and Cirieo with the banner. Also along for the journey is Cirieo's new animal companion: Pila the Lynx!
My players killed the Bandersnatch in the Blighted Depths last week. It got away from the first encounter, but they got an insane series of crits and basically one rounded it when it came back after them. I'm not even mad.
This Sunday: Naphexi, the Rottten Duchess.
<short aside - am enjoying reading how others' APs are going. For those that are ahead it helps me think about different ways to approach future scenarios, and the others are making me perhaps regret some missed opportunities on reading about the exploits of those going through what my group has left behind!
And my summaries are mostly a copy and paste of what I type up after each session for the players. We play fortnightly and it helps to have a track of what happened and what items were found etc. so apologies if they are bit wordy.>
The party decided that a rest would be needed before tackling the Ridgeline camp, but before disappearing into a Rope Trick, they wanted to know exactly where the camp was located.
The rogue spotted a thin line of smoke in the early winter sky and while following it they first discovered a large patch of ground that looked like it was covering something underneath. There was some debate as to whether it was a Chernasardo Ranger cache.
The fighter threw a boulder into the centre of the area and while definitely not sounding like normal ground, it bounced and rolled away.
Getting closer to investigate the fighter found some of the rocks on the ground were actually stuck fast by something sticky, when suddenly a 20 foot square section flipped up and a gargantuan-sized spider with a face that looked disturbingly humanoid-like burst from the ground and threw a web at the rogue, which just missed.
The fighter struck it with several mighty hammer blows after the cleric had cast Bull's Strength on him and the wizard cast Stinking Cloud to cover the spider and its hole.
The rogue struck from the other side and the spider collapsed back into the hole, which was quite deep and impossible to see the bottom of thanks to the billowing green fog of the stinking cloud.
After waiting for the cloud to disappear the fighter used the immovable rod and rope of climbing to get down into the pit, avoiding the sticky web-covered walls. The rogue also descended, but the spider's body was blocking access to the bottom where some remains could be just made out.
The spider would be too heavy to levitate out of the pit, but the rope of climbing, tied to the creature's leg, when commanded to knot itself, managed to shorten the rope and in so doing lift the bulk of the spider enough to provide access to the bottom of the shaft.
Amongst the remains there was discovered the corpse of a centaur, its desiccated flesh showing a tattoo depicting the Ironfang legion symbol. The fighter stripped the body of its goods and after climbing back on top of the spider, made the climb back to the top with the rogue following closely.
The rope and rod were retrieved and the loot inspected.
Moving on eventually they spied the camp, 10 iron cages suspended along the edge of an 80' cliff and some tents visible further back.
Pulling back, the rest of the day was spent in the Rope Trick, the content of the floating disk having been hidden at ground level.
A night assault on the campsite followed, starting a little before dawn.
It was noted that as well as 2 guard towers flanking the campsite there were also a pair of owls flying around.
The rogue gave a potion of fly to the fighter and the wizard cast fly on herself. The fighter flew up the cliff face carrying the cleric while the wizard flew up separately and the rogue climbed the cliff after quaffing a potion of darkvision and successfully using her wand of Mage Armour.
Climbing and flying invisibly into the first guard tower, the hobgoblin guard was dispatched before he could make a sound. The cleric cast Silence on a coin and gave it to the rogue, then, after the rogue vanished again, the wizard and fighter (with cleric in tow) flew to the other tower while the rogue dashed through the camp.
The other guard was also killed before he could raise an alarm.
Attention then shifted to the owls. The wizard summoned a dire bat and the party descended the tower. The coin with Silence on it was lying on the ground nearby. The fighter, cleric, and rogue all shot at it with arrows but could not do enough damage before it gave a shriek, alerting the other owl.
A final shot eventually dropped the owl after the dire bat had moved away to provide a clearer shot, but by that stage the other owl had spent a round hooting loudly through the camp, alerting the Ironfang soldiers to the trouble occurring there.
Session was ended - to be resumed next time!
GM observation: The trapdoor spider was a walkover - if the party doesn't fall into the pit then it is a LOT easier. I did have it so that the rogue was right on top of the pit before the cleric noticed and avoided stepping on it. The most difficulty my party had was thinking of how to get the spider out of the way of the loot underneath after killing it, and at one point were considering setting fire to the webbing (which would have burned the satchel with all its messages).
The Battle of Trevalay is joined! The party attacks under cover of night (not that this matters much for the hobs). Hessilda the snapdragon leshy has a gambit. She goes in alone, and the bemused Ironwing squad doesn't take her seriously as she fascinates them with her bardic performance. However, Eygara had taken her invis potion and made the Will save. She attacks Hessilda from invisibility with a devastating attack, snapping the other hobs out of their fascination.
This is the signal to attack. The frontliners charge across the north bridge and join battle with the Ironwing squad and Eygara. The Squad sends their rocs to fly across the gorge and harass the backliners still on the other side. Cirieo is standard bearer for the Hemlock Banner, and helps the back line deal with the rocs. The party gets lucky and manages to prevent any of the hobs from reaching the switch to drop the bridge.
During the fight, several of the Ironfang Forest Soldiers join the fight as well, but as soon as Eygara and the Squad Sergeants go down, it's just mopping up. The fighter took the brunt of the damage in this particular encounter (the eidolon is basically un-hittable on normal attacks after the party buffed up), but there is still a lot of fighting left to go. Hessilda was severely injured, but still alive at the end. (BTW, as an aside here, Hessilda is not a character from the main part of the adventure, but is mentioned in the random encounter section of the bestiary in the back of the book. I mention this because she's become an unlikely star in the story, claiming that she's the leader of the group, always having a long-winded story or penetrating question for the PCs, charging first into battle, etc. Just goes to show, you never know where your most memorable characters will come from).
As the enemies in the courtyard fell, the party decided to split for some reason and 4 people went into 3 different buildings. One busted into the barracks to find the two slaves and a single unfortunate hobgoblin sitting on the privvy. Two more PCs went into the armory and the garden, only to be pounced by the cougar hiding among the foliage. Finally, one more PC barged into the main tower to confront a line of hobgoblins blocking the way further in, Salokut spinning his flail and hyping up his guards for battle, he presses his palm to the face of a guard declaring, "Hadregash grants you the power of the War Mind!". And that's where we left off, so things could get pretty interesting.
My Naphexi fight was a real nail biter. We had the old Schrodinger's Player Character thing where you can't figure out if the PC is dead as you look up rules. Cleric critically failed a save against Finger of Death, rolled even lower on a reroll, tried to use Breath of Life and was told he couldn't against death effects. Player signs off feeling bummed. Then I remember the dragon was dazzled by the Oracle, rolled miss chance retroactively and got a failure and got a failure. But Napehxi got away and will be waiting in the palace. Got to plan her second encounter.
The last session was less exciting. Mostly just going through her loot. But next game they step through the throne and fight the jubjub bird. I have a couple of players who took the reincarnation deal, so I'm sort of hoping to bite a couple heads off so we can see what they turn into.
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continued from the last post ...
The fighter (flying) gave the rogue (not flying) a lift down from the top of the tower and then flew to the centre of the camp as it started to respond to the owl's frantic calls.
The cleric threw the coin with Silence on it into the middle of the campsite and the wizard started summoning more allies (lantern archons). The rogue shot at the still loudly hooting owl, but it finally met its demise as the fighter flew up to engage it and used his hammer to turn it into a cloud of feathers.
The cleric started to set a tent on fire with Spark and the wizard conjured a flaming sphere when out from the command tent came Dargg and Gruzak. Dargg called out to the camp "Ironfang Legion Assemble" (everyone at the table got the reference), mounted Gruzak, and caused his flail to burst into flames.
The fighter had flown down to start collapsing tents and the wizard cast pyrotechnics on the flaming flail, causing a cloud of smoke to billow forth.
Dargg charged the fighter and hobgoblins streamed out of the tents and formed up into a troop. I allowed the rogue and cleric to do AoO attacks as the soldiers formed up which just reduced the overall troop hps.
The rogue sneaked behind the tents and the wizard caused the ground beneath the troop to explode with black tentacles, doing some damage but not slowing them too much [I ruled that the grapple effect on the troop failed but the damage would automatically succeed]. Her flaming sphere also rolled into the troop while the fighter attacked Dargg.
The rogue moved unseen between the tents to attack Dargg from behind, doing enough damage to drop him before he could bolster the troop. Gruzak snapped at the fighter but missed, and the troop moved to attack everyone including firing arrows at the flying wizard.
The fighter smacked Gruzak with his hammer, dropping it, and enough damage was done to the troop to cause it to disintegrate, the last being done by the still flailing black tentacles.
On hearing the sounds of battle and seeing the flaming sphere and burning tents in the distance, the prisoners in the cages started calling out for help, with the rogue picking out another voice calling for help as well from within the command tent, where they found Nibbitz.
The cleric calmed Nibbitz down, then the Carrion Brides arrived as the fighter and wizard went to check on the prisoners.
The fighter's attempts to forcefully negotiate failed miserably and battle ensued, with 2 of the harpies pulling back beyond the cliff's edge and singing while the others started making fly-by attacks.
The cleric and rogue both ran out to join the fray but the rogue and fighter succumbed to one of the harpy songs and started moving towards the edge of the cliff.
The rogue managed to shake off the effect before stepping off the edge of the cliff and the wizard conjured a stinking cloud that covered 3 of the harpies (and most of the prisoners). The fighter managed to break the charm on him before entering the stinking cloud.
More battle before enough damage was eventually done to the harpies to drop all of them before they could escape, one being entangled by a tanglefoot bag that the rogue threw, causing it to fall almost 100 feet to the ground at the bottom of the cliff, killing it.
The prisoners were released, except for the hobgoblin.
The countdown to the assault on Longshadow has begun.
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Salokut and guards go down quick, and all that remains are the squealing pigs running over each other to get away from the commotion. They free the prisoners, who fight with each other over should be healed first ("You're hurt worse, you need it more." "No, I'm fine" *bleeds profusely* "You first".) Eventually, they scrounge weapons from the dead hobs and go outside to join Cirieo, et al in the courtyard.
The PCs proceed up the stairs to confront Parthuk, who converses with them for a few moments, waxing remorseful about the current state of things. He tells the story of how he was teased and bullied for his feminine features and called "Pretty" Parthuk. Upon finding his headband of charisma, he turns the tables and takes over the tribe in laughably easy fashion. He grows bored with leadership until he meets Jang, and they become best friends. Asserting their dominance over the beasts of the Southern Fangwood, he wistfully reminisces about the time they spent terrorizing the forest, eating people, killing babies, etc.
He remarks that there were only two times in his life when he read the entrails that made his blood run cold. The first time was the day Jang came to him saying she'd met an extraordinary person, and took him to a clearing where Azaersi stood, next to a deferential and subservient Ibzairiak. The second time, he told the PCs, was earlier that day, before their assault on the fortress (resulting in his initiative bonus).
He resigns himself to the fate that his glory days with Jang are long past, that there's no going back now. He just seems profoundly sad that he's lost his best friend to a lost cause. He strongly suspects that the Fangwood campaign is nothing more than a distraction, and that the remaining Legion forces are a sacrificial pawn in the larger scheme. The party actually asks him to join them and get revenge, but he's beyond that. He just wants it to be over and attacks.
After taking him and his weasels down, the party continues up to the next floor. They enter the war room, and the monk twins don't stand any kind of chance. After Hessal dies to a massive critical kinetic blast, Kensa flies into a grief-stricken rage and runs over with no heed for her own safety and quickly follows her twin sister.
The session ends with them tripping the alarm spell at the top of the stairs. They step into the room to find Jang and Ruanni ready and waiting for them, the three lizards crawling out of the pond.
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Jub Jub Bird took the head off the dwarf champion, who immediately reincarnated as gnome. While the rebuild was going on, I had the other players level up. 15 is a big level in PF2. Everyone kicked a lot of butt as they began storming the Pestilent Palace. The ranger seemed to roll a crit with every arrow. The champion used Legendary Negotiator to talk the Rusulkas into leaving quietly when they were outmatched. The cleric used a wall of stone to shut out those lazy dryad witches, and I decided they were too lazy to both tree shaping around it. That kept them from flinging really powerful spells while the players mopped up the blight guards and faun chirurgeons. And the Oracle Scared several people To Death.
They just got the second ring for Dryad's Song and rescued Merill. I'm thinking they actually could do the whole Palace in one go, which would be nice because it saves me the trouble of repopulating it. Naphexi is waiting in the deeper reaches though.
I still haven't completely decided how easy purging Arlantia of the darkblight should be. In PF1 she could only fail the DC 25 save on a nat 1, which kind of removes it as a worthwhile option, IMO.
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The map doesn't make it too clear how far it is from the ridgeline campsite to Longshadow, but straight line it looks about 40 miles so by road I ruled it would be closer to 50. About 3 days by foot taking it easy, 2 days by foot if pressing a bit, 2 days by horse if taking it easy, and they could make it in 10 hours by horse if they pressed it. The question was how to get 4 party members, plus Nibbitz, the 6 released human prisoners and the hobgoblin prisoner to Longshadow in 1 day now that the count down had begun.
The wizard could cast Mount 7 times and borrow a Pearl of Power from the cleric to make that 8, but needed some spare 1st level slots for the floating disk to carry all the loot so that the mounts weren't too encumbered, plus she cast Overland flight on herself so that the disk could keep up, so cap out at 6 light horses that would last 18 hours. She had enough slots for Phantom Steed to get 5, but they would only last 9 hours - not enough time, and reducing the number to 2 left the party short 3 mounts. Fortunately the rogue had previously picked up the Bookish Rogue feat to complement Major Magic rogue talent and could add another 3 Mounts.
Also a bird feather token was used to send a message back to Fort Trevalay to muster those willing to come to Longshadow.
10 hours later the party arrived at Longshadow a couple of hours after the sun had slipped behind the Mindspin Mountains.
The guards tried to charge them a silver piece each for entry after dark, but the cleric used sense motive to see through the scam and upon agreeing that the mess the horses might make to the streets warranted the charge, the wizard dismissed the horses and everyone walked in.
The dropped Mahrzan off at the jail and found Mayor Thom at the Canary, as well as his 3 advisors. Using perception and the rogue's reading of lips (she had previously picked this up with Linguistics a few levels earlier) they made out that the advisors were casting some doubts on the party's claims but the mayor decided that there was enough to warrant a meeting at the town hall the next morning (and better light to examine the evidence).
The fighter was concerned that the advisors might try and knock off Mahrzan during the night so went and spent a bit of time with Grenta before realizing that she had everything in control and went back to the inn. The rogue followed the advisors when they left the inn shortly after the mayor but while she couldn't hear what they said in the shadows outside, her stealth roll was more than high enough to defeat any detection.
The next morning the party checked in on the jail and found that Mahrzan was still there, and Grenta indicated that the mayor had popped by shortly before to verify that there was a hobgoblin prisoner in the jail (score 1 edge for the party).
The party arrived at the town hall to discover that the advisors had already been with the mayor for a while, but Seneka apologized for any rudeness the previous evening as their concern was to protect the mayor and the town from people coming in from outside who might be trying to run a scam.
We had a bit of dialogue during which the presence of Nibbitz (another edge) and mention of rescuing Meslin and Voldan (another edge), plus closer scrutiny of the documents (a 4th edge) set the scene for some serious discussion.
The advisors opened with convincing arguments on the strength of Longshadow's defenses (15 on the Bluff roll, and 2 assists brought the total to 33) but a natural 20 by the party (rogue Bluff +10) plus 2 successful assists got the party to 34. Diplomacy was the cleric's turn. The dice were running either cold or hot for the players and the first diplomacy roll was a 2, but an edge was spent and the second was a 20, putting the result at 35 even without any assists. Unless the advisors rolled a 20 themselves and all assists worked they couldn't beat it - they rolled an 18, falling just short again.
Intimidate was going to be tricky as the highest the party had was the rogue at +6, but another 20 being rolled and 2 successful assists got the total to 30. The highest the advisors rolled was a 13, so with assists only managed 25. Enough had been done to convince the mayor, but I ruled that the amount of help they could expect to receive would depend on how well they won the entire encounter, so on to Sense Motive. The cleric had +15 on her sense motive, but the rogue was at +16 so again was primary, and while the wizard (+3) and fighter (+0) had little to help, all assists were successful and an 18 on the initial roll put the result at an impressive 40 - which the advisors couldn't hope to reach.
Finally local details on what needed to be done, and the party opted for Knowledge Local (as they had no skills in Oratory or Profession Soldier). 2 edges were spent to get the wizard's score (+9) up to 24 after eventually rolling a 15 and only the rogue could assist, succeeding to bump it to 26. The advisors tripped up and could only manage a total of 18. There was no fudging of the dice rolls on my part.
The mayor was convinced and said he would extend 20K gp credit to them to spend aiding the town and would call a town meeting for the following morning to inform everyone about the coming army and that the PCs would be leading the preparations.
They had the rest of the day to look around the town and identify where improvements could be made, and enough time to attempt 1 action each. Walls were repaired, townsfolk readied, and internal defenses started but more will need to be done.
Using the skill challenge rather than the verbal duel worked quite well, especially as I dressed it up a bit to indicate what tactic the advisors were using so that the party knew what skill check was appropriate for their response. It occupied a good 20 minutes and was more than just rolling dice, and the players felt satisfied that they had earned their win, especially after I said that using an edge meant they had to take the new roll, not the best of the 2. The fighter knew that it would be the others carrying the conversation but was pleased that a couple of assists helped.
I'm also now convinced of the utility of Bookish Rogue + Magic Magic for unchained rogues, especially if the rest of the party's spell casting is limited to 1 arcane and 1 divine.
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The party cleared the first floor of the Pestilent Palace, and considered pulling out for a rest... I was able to tell them through various divinations that this would lead to the palace being repopulated. They are pushing on and will probably fight Naphexi again next week. I put her in the fetid oasis in the middle of the Deeper Reaches. If they kill her and feel depleted, they might wind up pulling back. At which point I will need to figure out how I want to repopulate palace using the PF2 bestiaries. I am thinking Qlippoths will start showing up, but I'm not sure if I can justify it on a second trip.
My players started Fangs of War on Friday, August 7, and reached part B, Trapped Logger, Friday this week, August 14. The results were humorous due to repeated failures in a harmless situation.
Rather than letting them walk past the trapped logger by sheer coincidence in miles of forest, I added a looted lumber camp as a mystery to goad the PCs into exploring the area. Following the trail, they headed to the tree where Vardalel Prenner was stuck 60 feet up. Vardalel rolled a natural 1 on spotting the party before I asked for Stealth checks, so he was not straining his parched throat yelling for help. Fortunately, the druid Stormdancer flubbed a Stealth check so that Vardalel spotted the gnome druid's stark white-blue hair and started calling out.
Vardalel had been working up the tall tree with a lumber crew on the ground when Ironfang Legion soldiers showed up and his fellow lumberjacks fled. Vardalel remained hidden up the tree for a whole day, and then broke his hand trying to climb down while fatigued. He had been stuck up there for two weeks. He had been able to refill his waterskin during a thunderstorm (I had added the storm to Trail of the Hunted to challenge the PCs) or he would have died of thirst.
Two party members, Sam and Tikti, were especially good at climbing. Tikti, a tailed goblin, had taken Tree Climber as her 5th-level ancestry feat. Sam, a halfling, had taken Sure Feet has his 5th-level ancestry feat. Tikti zoomed up 10 feet with his climb speed. Sam was slower. Fortunately, Sam is a rogue with Trap Finder and received an automatic Perception check for the Collapsing Tree Trap.
Everyone had noticed that the tree had some hollow spots--they decided that the Fangwood fey allowed the lumberjacks to cut only dying trees and I made that official lore. Sam, however, rolled the DC on his Perception check and saw the fresh new crack propagating up the trunk. A few Nature checks by party members gave the full news about the collapsing tree trap: if anyone else, even someone as small as a goblin, climbed up to Vardalel, the tree would fall. They called Tikti back down before she climbed any further.
Sam wondered if they could bind the crack. The other rogue Binny had an idea. She had a vine arrow in her quiver, which on a critical hit would wrap around people to immobilize them. I thought the idea was great, and set the AC for hitting the right spot at 10 (she would need to roll 20 total for a critical hit, and the Disable Device DC was 20). Binny drew the vine arrow, shot, and rolled a natural 1. Ouch. Binny's player spent a hero point and rerolled. Natural 2. Not enough for a critical hit.
The party had rope, so Sam and Binny, the two characters trained in Thievery, tried for the DC 20, after both climbed up to the crack, Binny more laborously than Sam. Both failed, rolling 18 and 17.
The party thought that maybe if they deduced which way the tree would fall, then they could brace it. All five rolled Recall Knowledge Survival. One succeeded, three failed, and one critically failed. With two different answers--the right one and a wrong one--the party gave up on that idea.
Sam had a new idea. He wore a Hand of the Mage granting him the power to cast Mage Hand and possessed a Shrinking Potion. He climbed an adjacent tree only 20 feet from Vardalel's tree, levitated the potion over to Vardalel via mage hand, and asked him to drink it. The rest of the party hollered assurance to Vardalel and warned him to brace himself because he would shrink. Vardalel answered that he was so thirsty he would drink anything.
Vardalel shrank to Tiny, reducing the weight on the tree, so that Tikti could safely climb up to rescue him.
I gave them 80 xp for overcoming the trap and rescuing Vardalel.
We had an exciting two-part climax to Fangs of War. The battle in the Dragon's Garden was grueling and difficult. Jang was ready for them this time, and unlike Nunder, she was 100% looking to kill, instead of just toy with the PCs. Regardless, the party was able to take her and the lizards down (but not before softening them up a bit for the dragon), just as Ibzairiak arrived. For atmosphere I had a massive summer storm roll through as the dragon arrived, breaking a weeks long drought in the Fangwood (in-game calendar puts us in the middle of Arodus/August, just by coincidence).
Let me say in no uncertain terms that the dragon completely manhandled my 4-man team of 7th level characters. Granted, they leveled up on the bottom level of the tower, and hadn't rested yet to gain their new spells/powers. He was really the first enemy that even stood a chance against the party's eidolon, and it was a sobering wake up when Ibz full-rounded the eidolon into oblivion in a single turn. The Darkness SLA was an effective tool at making this battle more frustrating and atmospheric for the players. I described the dragon's scales as dully glinting, almost drinking up the ambient light. Cirieo's sunrods helped some, but it soon became clear the dragon had the upper claw. The party is waffling a bit about whether to run while the dragon gets in a couple more Improved Vital Strikes and the entire party is severely injured.
At that point he stops, and backs off from the grievously wounded party. He's arrogant, assured that he has won completely (although all the hobgoblins dying was some annoyance to him), and with classic dragon hubris (and totally in character for Ibz), he let's them go. Commanding them to "Flee! Flee back down to those whelps you call allies and show them the Scarmaker's work!!" He explicitly tells them he no longer has any reason to stay here without Jang making the place comfortable for him, and informs the party he will rest after his long flight and leave the following evening. He taunts them saying, "Come back and see me if you are ready to sumbit, or to DIE! I'll be waiting right here." At this he walks over to the pond, shoving PCs out of the way like discarded playthings, spins around like a dog on a doggy bed a couple times and flops his serpentine bulk into the water causing a mini-tidal wave to cascade across the party's shins.
Meanwhile, a battle rages in the courtyard. A B-team of alt-PCs from the Fangwood Keep module and NPCs (including Cirieo, Cobb Greenleaf, and Aubrin the Green) face off against a hobgoblin counterattack. Combat opens with the Dragon strafing them with its breath weapon before entering the tower to fight the A-team. This was followed by the return of Fethi Ken-Shakkas (the hobgoblin boss from Fangwood Keep), leading the contingent of forest soldiers. The courtyard squad handled this new threat pretty well. Honestly, I knew the dragon fight was looking really bad and wanted a combat that the players could actually win this session.
For the first time the Gobstoppers have been utterly defeated and completely humbled. We left off with the party and allies sleeping fitfully in the barracks with the threat of the dragon just up in the tower.
There was enough time at the end of the day's tasks to have a bit more of a look around town, and the hunt was on for places that might sell magical items.3 candidates were located; Forager's Alchemicals & Emporium, Rutra's Trading Post, and Dominick's Reagents and Poultices.
Visiting Forager's, the party found the place to be a literal rats' warren of trinkets, treasures, and junk, with the place being run by a family of ratfolk. Kizviz introduced himself to the group and asked if he could be of assistance. Some trading saw the party acquire an efficient quiver in exchange for a ring of protection +1 and a breastplate +1, and upon discovering a bag of holding (Type IV), more negotiations were entered into with a sale finally being completed exchanging the bag for 4 suits of +1 studded leather armour, +1 chain shirt, +1 breastplate, +1 light crossbow, 20 bolts, and an amulet of mighty fists.
GM note - I rolled % to see if any particular item (within the town's limit) was present. The party was looking for a handy haversack for the fighter, but none were available. I then rolled 00 for bag of holding and determined that that was enough for all to be available. a 4 on d4 meant that a Type IV was present. I rationalised that Kizviz would have had a lot of trouble selling it - especially given its price and weight, so on being informed of the upcoming Ironfang assault he was more than happy to trade it for armour and weapons that he would be able to sell at a premium.
The party went to the Town Hall for the town meeting called by the Mayor the next morning.
Introducing the heroes who rescued many from the attack on Phaendar and liberated the Fangwood, the Mayor enjoined the townsfolk to work together to prepare for the coming attack, and follow the lead of the town's distinguished guests. As the party outlined some of the planned measures, different townsfolk spoke up to support, including the mayor's advisors.
After the meeting they did another turn of preparations (readying the townsfolk, improving the walls, organising siege supplies, and working on internal defenses. Later in the day it was found that no real progress had happened with the walls, with some of the workers blaming advice from the fighter, who denied having been there.
Also noted were wyverns circling overhead, many thousands of feet in the air and well beyond the reach of bowshot. The locals said that they appeared for an hour or so once or twice a day and had first done so about a week prior.
A party conference determined that the wyverns needed to be dealt with in order to limit news of preparations getting to the Ironfang Legion, and that the cause of the apparent sabotage also needed to be found. A note was slipped to the mayor informing him of the party's suspicions while also telling him they would be leaving town to deal with the aerial scouts.
The Mayor mentioned that as the party was heading out north, they might also want to look at the Old Oak Road where caravans had started going missing about a month prior.
Heading out late afternoon the group quickly found the Old Oak Road and the mayor's sign closing the road. Travelling beyond through the forest of stunted oaks the group were attacked by tree branches snaking through the trees, two of which dragged the cleric off the road.
Deeper in the wood a sinister face could be made out on the bole of one oak tree. The wizard flew up and cast a flaming sphere, but it seemed to have no effect on the tree. The cleric got dragged a bit closer, and the fighter moved quickly towards the tree to hit it. The rogue vanished and likewise moved to attack.
The cleric shifted behind the fighter and buffed him with Bull's Strength while the wizard cast Enlarge Person on him after deciding against Haste.
The fighter did a significant amount of damage to the quickwood before it was finished off by the rogue from behind.
GM note: Improved Two-weapon fighting and sneak attack makes for some very impressive damage totals. The fighter managed 59hp in his full attack, but the rogue hit 85hp!
A search found the body wedged in the upper branches and several chains, many of them burst, as well as four superior quality locks.
Pressing on to where the Ironfang dispatches indicated the wyvern scouts were located, the party decided to wait until the following day before engaging the camp. A rope trick was used to hide overnight and then the group waited through the morning until the wyverns were seen to leave south for their flight over Longshadow.
The rogue did a poor job of sneaking in to scout (1 on the die) and the juvenile wyverns started calling out. Leaving them for the nonce, a badly wounded goblin was also discovered. He pleaded for his life, saying that he was just a messenger and that he would offer up his message in return for healing and escape from the upcoming conflict.
The party agreed and after receiving healing and some food, recited his message. He was also requested to write the message down (which he did badly) and then he skedaddled into the distance, heading north west to the Mindspin Mountains.
The party then settled to await the return of the wyvern scouts and their riders.
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Good stuff, just now dipping into Book 3 preparations. I think it's my favorite book of the AP, I can't wait for the Battle of Longshadow. I love the idea of playing up the dread and calm before the storm of an unavoidable battle. The desperate race against time to hobble the Ironfang forces. It's so fakkin cool.
I also have some significant story plans I can't wait to get to in Book 3. First of all, I'll be unleashing Gaugagh and Qa'al, the hobgoblin 'lone heroes' from the back of Book 2. They will stalk and harass the party across the Hollow Hills, having been contracted by the Ironfang Legion to first gather intel on the upstarts who had defeated Jang and Ibzairiak, then to eliminate them. Gaugagh in particular, as a veteran of the Goblinblood Wars, actually killed one of the PC's parents and destroyed their village (Unbreakable Survivor trait). What's more... one of her medium spirits will be this PC's mother. So we'll see how that goes.
Second, I want to fill out the NPC backstories and have it so Navah, Thom Crawbert, and Vane Oreld were an adventuring squad for a brief time, during which time Navah and Thom had a brief love affair. The resulting child (another PC) was given away to a nice family in Tamran who would raise the child as their own. Navah understandably felt she would not make a very good mother, having a literal hag for a mother herself
..., during which time Navah and Thom had a brief love affair. The resulting child (another PC) was given away to a nice family in Tamran who would raise the child as their own. Navah understandably felt she would not make a very good mother, having a literal hag for a mother herself
Loving your additional plot asides. Thinking that having the affair between Navah and Oreld might be more interesting (depending on how Oreld is going in your campaign). The relationship Thom had with the rest of his adventuring party was not all that great and having the affair with Oreld makes for an interesting 3-way dynamic if both Navah and Oreld end up in Longshadow (where he could end up going to live with her in her tower afterwards). Also lets you start seeding things about Oreld now rather than waiting until the party gets to Longshadow.
Either way I'm looking forward to reading your recap when you get there.
Vane would work too, it's just that I came up with idea after Vane was an established NPC in book 1, so the party already has a relationship with him. Also, I established that he's played by Nick Offerman and has several terrifying ex-wives out there somewhere around the Inner Sea region.
My plan is for Thom to have a cordial political/business relationship with the kid's adoptive father: Speaker of the Leaves Mayslen Torgun in Tamran. When Navah became pregnant, she learned that Speaker Torgun and his wife were having trouble conceiving, and the rest is history. It will take Thom some time to piece it together when this PCs shows up in Longshadow, but once he realizes it's his child, he'll start acting very weird. Don't have a concrete plan for how it'll all play out yet.
...
My plan is for ...
My group would either see it as a problem that needs solving or look for the next combat, so I'll just live vicariously through your posts for the deeper RP aspects. ;-)
My AP is going well but I definitely haven't pillaged the back-end of the books nor developed the NPCs as much as you. More of a beer & pretzels game going on and with only 3 players meeting once a fortnight we need to push on through the plot or they'll lose interest.
[GM note - I really should have brushed up more on the Fly rules before this session, but thematically it seemed to work well regardless. Wyvern battle took about 2.5 hours]
The party decided to let the juvenile wyverns go rather than kill them, then settled in to wait for the return of the larger wyverns and scouts.
Managing to spot them over 1000' feet out gave adequate time to buff and hide before the scouts returned. (Haste on party, enlarge and bull's strength on fighter, fly and mage armour on rogue, overland flight on wizard).
The lead wyvern barked a greeting while flying over the tarpaulin but when there was no response from the young it signaled to the following pair and battle was joined.
The wizard summoned an air elemental but it was largely ineffective against the wyverns. The fighter (enlarged) used his dragonbane arrows to good effect, and the rogue (invisible, flying) tried to sneak attack in the air but missed and was grabbed by one of the wyverns.
The hobgoblin riders managed to make Ride checks to remove some of the damage that had been taken (described as shifting their mount slightly to cause the arrow to glance off rather than strike true), and several fly-by and ride-by attacks succeeded.
Because wyverns have poor maneuverability I had their route be more banking moves sweeping around the campsite rather than across and back (didn't realise that a 180 degree change between turns didn't need a fly check).
The rogue escaped when the wyvern badly failed its check to maintain the grapple, so she vanished and flew to position for another attack.
The cleric cast confusion and succeeded on one wyvern. I had it keep flying while babbling incoherently, and it managed to pull up before plowing into the ground the following turn when it tried to attack its rider. When they flew over the tarpaulin the rider jumped off and went to attack the fighter who was standing just next to the tarp.
The wizard summoned 2 more air elementals while the cleric cast spiritual weapon and healed the damage that the party had taken.
The wizard cast stinking cloud on one of the wyverns after its rider had been knocked off, and it failed its save, moving to try and clear its head but not much of a threat otherwise until dispatched by the rogue as it tried to get away.
Once grounded the hobgoblins were no match for the enlarged fighter with swinging his +1 holy warhammer.
The last wyvern ended up crashing to the ground when its last hit point was taken by an air elemental, the wizard stealing the kill from the fighter and rogue. The elemental caused the final slam against the tattered wyvern that twisted it in the air and made it fall. The party made sure it stayed dead.
Noting that wyverns weigh 2000 pounds each and that was too much to stuff into the bag of holding, the heads and stingers were cut off and put into the bag with the other loot before the party headed back to Longshadow.
They visited Dominick's Reagents and worked out some deals to get the ointment needed for True Seeing plus future discounts before visiting the mayor and informing him of the Quickwood and the dispatching of the wyvern scouts.
He replied with his concerns about Navah, so the party agreed that her tower would be their next venture on the morrow.
We are way off-book, wrapping up a PC backstory related quest. General Hakar of Molthune kidnapped several survivors including Veld, Rhyna, and Kining Blondebeard. The PCs are currently invading Fangwood Keep where Hakar has taken residence after handily overthrowing the Ironfang garrison. The PCs infiltrated the Keep after discovering the secret tunnels and passages hidden in the walls.
I built and encounter with a statted out Hakar (barbarian 5/fighter 4) and several adds from the NPC codex stationed on the Keep's 3 ramparts, so hopefully a decent challenge for my 7th level PCs.
After wrapping up this excursion, we officially start Book 3 content.
We are way off-book, wrapping up a PC backstory related quest. General Hakar of Molthune kidnapped several survivors including Veld, Rhyna, and Kining Blondebeard. The PCs are currently invading Fangwood Keep where Hakar has taken residence after handily overthrowing the Ironfang garrison. The PCs infiltrated the Keep after discovering the secret tunnels and passages hidden in the walls.
I built and encounter with a statted out Hakar (barbarian 5/fighter 4) and several adds from the NPC codex stationed on the Keep's 3 ramparts, so hopefully a decent challenge for my 7th level PCs.
After wrapping up this excursion, we officially start Book 3 content.
So will open war between Molthune and the Legion begin sooner in your run than as written?
Actually, probably a bit of the opposite. Hakar is acting as kind of a rogue agent from Molthune at the moment, he personally took several troops on an unsanctioned mission into enemy-occupied territory without orders or oversight. After the PCs (presumably) defeat him, Molthune will actually back off from the Nirmathi border for some months as they reassess their position on the Ironfang/Nirmathi conflict, to culminate in the Book 5 stuff down the road. In other words, Molthune fears Hakar's rogue actions may become a bit of PR nightmare and they step back from the conflict in hopes of dampening the diplomatic fires.
Neat.
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There was enough time in the day after visiting the mayor to attempt some more improvements to the city's defences, but wary of more interference, the rogue was set to keep an eye out while the cleric worked on internal defences, the wizard helped with the city walls, and the fighter handled siege supplies.
A poor roll by the wizard meant no progress on the walls, and the fighter only just made the roll for the siege supplies. The cleric did a good job on the internal defences, but none of it was good enough to prevent the 3 saboteurs from doing their mischief. The siege supplies were so badly spoiled that Longshadow's defences actually went backwards, though the rogue did spot the wizard there and followed her to the Canary Inn whereupon she was disappeared while out of sight. Of course the wizard was on the walls the entire time, so there was now confirmation that a coordinated effort to undo the party's preparations was going on.
The next morning the group headed out to Navah's (wizard with overland flight and she had cast Mount 3 times for the rest of the group).
Approaching the cave they encountered Hilmer, Leif, and Thurt but refrained from combat and lured the beasts out far enough with dropped rations that the party could sneak past, although the fighter did have to run while being chased back into the cave.
The wizard put up a wall of stone to block the tower entrance.
The wizard noted that one of the hides in the foundry was magical, so entered to investigate, whereupon the shard slag broke out of the fireplace. She quickly retreated from the room with the hide and the door was firmly closed, but the party could feel the heat on the other side growing.
Heading upstairs they peeked into the alchemy lab but decided to leave Robyn alone, and then moved into the mutation lab, where the 2 lurkers above dropped down, hitting the fighter but missing the cleric; the wizard and rogue were just out of range.
The fighter was grabbed but managed to do enough damage, coupled with acid attacks from the rogue and wizard, to significantly damage it, and the cleric's spiritual weapon dropped it unconscious.
Trying to get around the other side of the other lurker in order to flank it, the rogue was grabbed and damaged, but the now free fighter, and with attacks from the wizard and cleric, dropped the other lurker.
Just as the fighter was making sure that the lurkers were truly dead the door started heating up and the shard slag burned its way through. Fortunately there was enough time for the cleric to cast resist energy (fire) on the fighter before it could squeeze through the doorway and get into the room.
This proved a blessing as the fighter would have taken some serious damage (to both himself and his weapon) otherwise.
The cleric summoned a water elemental but its attack missed. The rogue got to use her wand of magic missile for the first time (after realising that acid was doing nothing and her rapier would not do enough to overcome damage resistance without being able to sneak attack). The fighter finished it off with a critical hit, spraying bits of molten metal all over the room, which the water elemental quickly cooled to prevent any burning.
The wizard summoned some lantern archons but they didn't arrive until just after the shard slag had been destroyed.
Hoping to take advantage of the remaining rounds of the summoned creatures the party headed to the adjoining tower and up the stairs where they met Navah.
She started to yell at them but the party resisted attacking. Navah has seen the skelterhide being held by the wizard (though it wasn't fully identified by either the wizard or cleric) and the party know that she is suffering from madness and suspect she is an unchanged hag.
The session ended there and the encounter will resume next time.
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My players had an innovative strategy for entering Fort Ristin in Fangs of War. The Korreds are holding a dance and allowing only fey into the fortress. The party claimed that they were fey.
Originally, two party members, Stormdancer and Sam, approached the J2 entrance, the collapsed wall, and encountered the Korred guards. Stormdancer is a fey-touched gnome and literally has the fey trait. Sam is a high-charisma expert of deception. Sam claimed to be fey, too, of a species named Chergl.
The Korred guards failed their Recall Knowledge (Society) check to identify Sam. Sam's deception check to Lie was well above their Perception DC. Some fey, such as bogeys and glimmerlings can look a lot like a halfling. Therefore, they believed that he was a chergl fey. Sam and Stormdancer had a long converasation with the Korreds, learning rumors about the events at Fort Ristin and the Chernesardo Ranger prisoner in the basement of the keep.
Next, the party went to J15, the collapsed tower guest room. The module has no direct route between J2 and J15, despite being adjacent, but Sam's player asked to look for gaps in the ceiling opened by the collapse. I let Sam and Stormdancer climb up and look. Since I was amused by their false fey plan, which required avoiding fey trained in Society, I invented a gap to find on a good roll. Sam rolled well. The rest of the party climbed the collapsed tower, too, concealed from the guards, and went into the collapsed tower guest room.
After the encounter with the ghost Erno Haruvex in the guest room, they tried to sneak past the skinstitch Bughouse in the front hall of the keep. They failed, except for the elf Zinfandel who had used his Cloak of Elvenkind to turn invisible. I presumed the skinstitch would attack, but I double-checked the text and broke out laughing. "The skinstitch lacks any true intellect, but it ignores fey. As soon as Bughouse notices a larger creature, it lurches forward to attack and fights until slain." Larger creature? Since the skinstitch is mindless, its ability to recognize fey must be very limited. It probably used size. Small creatures such as Korred are fey. Medium creatures such as humans and hobgoblins are not fey. The Medium-sized Saytrs in the kitchen probably had to play the pipes to magically Suggest to it that they are fey.
Everyone in the party except the invisible elf are Small: two gnomes, one halfling, and one goblin. The skinstitch ignored them. They were nervous at first, but made it into the kitchen. I told the players about the bug in the skinstitch's programming, so they had a laugh, too, but played their characters straight.
Sam had to convince the satyrs that he was a chergl, too. They recongnized Tikti as a goblin, but since she is a furry, tailed goblin, Sam easily convinced them that she was a goblin-like fey. Tails are a common feature of fey. Only Sam approached Linder in the cellar while everyone except the invisible elf hid around the corner. He managed to convince Linder that his prisoner, the halfling Cirieo Thessaddin, was a chergl, too, and keeping him imprisoned was a mistake.
He and Cirieo also talked Linder out of his wine cache, as recompense for the unfortunate imprisonment. The party gave that wine to Erno Haruvex and lied to him that rare leprechaun wine was worth as much has his wine shipment. Erno did not believe Sam, but took the leprechaun wine as a down payment.
They left Fort Ristin without killing anyone nor retrieving Cirieo's gear. They were content to leave the fortress in the hands of evil fey and chaotic fey, because it was not in the hands of the Ironfang Legion.
Mathmuse,I always get a little jealous at your very outside the box thinking group and their approach. Just a little.
That said, I have a group of 7 that just finished fort Trevelay (had to up the age of the dragon, levels of Jang and the monks too) but I got a very good end of AP battle out of all that.
Very excited to be into 'Assault' now. One of the company; his hometown is Ecru, and boy is he in for a surprise! That and being able to get closer to understanding the onyx towers more and figure out just how the Ironfangs mine so fast.
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The party tried to de-escalate the situation with Navah.
The wizard used Mage Hand to move the magical hide to the cleric, who then diplomatically attempted to get Navah to put it on. She wasn't quite convinced, but a successful bluff from the rogue immediately after was enough to allow the wizard to mage hand the hide over to the schizophrenic wizard.
Upon donning the hide Navah realised that she hadn't been transformed and allowed the cleric to cast a Restoration spell on her, further reducing her mania.
Navah knew that the period of lucidity provided by the hide would not last overly long, so provided an alternate egress from the tower (second floor double doors) and pointed out where an incandescent blue ioun stone had been thrown in her recent battle with her mother.
The party promised to return on the morrow to provide further restoration and more fully explain the coming conflict at Longshadow.
The party scaled back down the cliff face and returned to Longshadow, informing the mayor on their return. The mayor was delighted that Navah was ok, though concerned at the amount of time the party had been outside of town rather than visibly working with the citizens of Longshadow to strengthen its defenses.
The wizard and fighter set about working on the walls again, while the cleric and rogue hid to ambush any sabotage attempts.
The spell "Message" was used to communicate and the cleric noticed some activity occurring where work had been completed, but the person leading the activity was always positioned behind someone else, preventing a clear view (Perception beat Stealth), however the rogue had a clear line of sight and was surprised to see herself among the workers. The cleric cast True Seeing and asked the rogue to attack while the wizard and fighter provided a distraction. The sight of the wizard coming closer prompted the false rogue to move away from the work, and when away from the workers the real rogue (sneaking and vanished) struck, doing significant damage. The cleric then managed to get a good look at the opponent, revealed to her sight as a doppelganger. The wizard was almost to the battlesite when the rogue struck again, not quite enough to dispatch her double. The doppelganger realised it had been made upon seeing the one it had copied and pulled a bead from its necklace, throwing it to the ground and causing a fireball to explode.
Both the doppelganger and rogue managed to evade damage but the cleric took a hit.
The wizard started to summon a water elemental to deal with the flames and the rogue scored a critical hit with her rapier, skewering the doppelganger beyond saving.
A crowd of curious onlookers had gathered and there was equal parts fear that the enemy had been inside the town and could impersonate anyone, and awe at the party's ability to deal with the situation. Mayor Thom appeared as the wizard summoned some dogs and a hound archon to track back where the doppelganger had come from, perhaps providing some clues as to which Longshadow citizen it had been posing as (when not impersonating the party members).
The mayor was revealed as normal to the cleric's true seeing, which was a relief to the party.
The trail was followed by the hounds (and some still curious townspeople) and led the party to the Graygallow Foundry,
Entering the Foundry the party were met by Aureni Graygallow and she gave the heroes a tour of the facility. No other doppelgangers were found by the cleric's true sight, so the party headed back to the town hall to confer with the mayor, stopping at the jail on the way to check on the doppelganger body and remove any items it had.
On entering the Town Hall the party saw the Mayor in conversation with Seneka and Solomon and just before the cleric's true sight expired it showed her that both of the advisors were also doppelgangers.
The only one that the cleric could inform of her discovery was the rogue (who can read lips).
An agreement was reached to have a town meeting the following day (where the party hoped to expose other saboteurs. The party left and the rogue vanished and sneaked back in to see what happened.
The party thought there might be some time left for some shopping before resting for the evening and headed to Rutra's Trading Post, but on passing the Canary Inn noticed quite a crowd bustling around. Entering they discovered that a contingent from Fangwood had arrived, consisting of most of the Phaendarites, Cobb Greenleaf and some Rangers, Vane Oreld and NPC wizard. Aubrin, Cireo, Rhynna, and Jet had stayed back to keep things in control across the forts and Misthome.
Gestelle was relieved when the party vouchsafed the horde of strangers (looking forward to a busy evening and a full inn).
When the rogue reappeared later she said that Seneka and Solomon had left shortly afterwards, conferred outside and said that Kosseruk would need to be told, then followed Seneka back to her place at in the warehouse district and, when she didn't reappear, headed back to find the other party members and report.
While still at the Canary Inn a young courier arrived with a message that the Mayor had been in an accident and needed assistance.
Following closely behind, the party were led to an alley where the mayor, injured, was seen trying to pull someone else from under a smoking pile of rubble.
Suspecting a trap, the wizard flew up, the rogue climbed up onto the roof of a building that ran the length of the alley, and the cleric moved forward to channel positive energy. The fighter raced forward to either help or attack depending on how things turned out.
The Mayor stepped back into the rubble and two fireballs exploded in the alley, catching both the fighter and cleric. The fighter managed to dodge most of it and pushed a cart that was blocking a side lane out of the way, but the cleric copped the full blast and dropped.
Darkness also fell on the alley, held at bay by the continual flames on the fighter's helmet and hammer.
He swung at the Mayor but the hammer passed straight through, despite appearing to score a direct hit and take damage. The fighter wasn't fooled.
The wizard flew down and dimension stepped the cleric out of the alley. The messenger and fake mayor closed on the fighter and then suddenly both continual flames were extinguished.
The darkness in the area was complete with the fighter fighting blindly and the rogue, having climbed down the other side of the building, striking from the rear.
The wizard poured a healing potion down the cleric's throat and moved back to the mouth of the alley. The cleric followed and dispelled the darkness, but it didn't all go away.
The fighter was taking considerable damage from all sides and while he managed to drop the fake mayor, he succumbed to the extra attacks.
The rogue finished off the felled foe with a coup de gras, the wizard summoned a lantern archon, and the cleric channeled positive energy to heal herself and get the fighter conscious again.
It was at that point that 2 other assailants were discovered, one hovering above one of the buildings and the other approaching from the alley's far end.
The wizard summoned 2 earth elementals, the cleric healed the fighter, who then dropped the other doppelganger who was disguised as the messenger, and the rogue performed another coup de gras.
Damage from the lantern archon and wizard's acid arrow seemed to be healed pretty quickly, but the fighter managed to do damage to the new enemy, a bugbear wielding 2 daggers, and his hammer appeared to stop the ongoing healing, finally dropping it.
The elementals kept slamming it to make sure it was actually dead.
The rogue climbed up to attack the one still hovering but failed to activate her wand (rolled 1 on UMD).
The wizard used another acid arrow and the bugbear shifted back and dropped another darkness spell. The fighter threw a bead from the necklace of fireballs (pulled from the doppelganger's body) to the roof, causing another explosion. The cleric cast spiritual weapon, but the enemy warned the party that it would visit vengeance on them for killing her sister and then it disappeared into the shadows (shadow-walk).
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This was the 4th session occurring on the same day - a long day for the party!
As the party had been absent for the first half of the day I made sure the doppelgangers had stocked up on some extra items, and the mess during the afternoon and then panic after realizing that the next day might bring things to a head forced their hand to act. The DreamStalker sisters weren't going to really work as written (2 elves in the party and perception high enough with the rogue to probably detect their nocturnal incursion attempts), so had them shadowing (pun intended) the doppelgangers' assassination attempt and then try and finish things off the weakened party when it was obvious the doppelgangers were about to lose.
Battle took pretty much the entire 3.5 hour session and was a good test for the party, revealing some of their weaknesses and setting up a rematch during the assault.
The cleric's player was thinking the doppelgangers must have been high level spellcasters in order to dispel 2 continual flames, and couldn't work out how so many spells were being cast, until the DreamStalker sisters were revealed. They were successfully sniping for a handful of rounds as well as I judged the normal town lights would have had the rooftops in shadow (time of the encounter was about 8pm).
We are finally back! After a few weeks off and mopping up some side questing, the Gobstoppers are fully into Book 3 content. Managed to wipe out the early Fangwood encounters in one session. The wolf-in-sheep's-clothing infestation served as the 'hub' centerpiece of these encounters. The Maenad fight turned out pretty fun (for me anyway). The party was out looking for glossleaf, when they came across the strange feast. There was a brief chat before a fight broke out. Tromaki charmed one player while the others tried their best to take down the maenad without harming the dwarves. Our new druid lucked into a pretty effective technique of turning into an air elemental, sweeping the dwarves up in her whirlwind ability (they all failed Ref saves), then depositing them about 60 ft away. The pyrokineticist then made fairly quick work of her, (though her high AC and SR were annoying).
The party easily trounced the hobgoblin deserters, and easily managed to bypass the Patchy the dire bear encounter (the new druid coming in clutch again).
After meeting the dwarf refugees, and getting the specific request to search for Solba's brother Voldan, they are now quite set on making their way for Radya's Hollow. I played some country music as they emerged for the first time since the beginning from the canopy of the Fangwood and into the windswept Hollow Hills. Gonna make good use of all those Western soundtracks for this section of the adventure.
We ended the session on a cliffhanger. During their first night out in the Hills, the sentry thinks he hears thunder, but it's a brilliantly clear night. Next thing he knows, a bulette is bursting out of the ground to pounce him, while a second one bursts from the earth right in the middle of the sleeping camp!
My campaign is off the rails and my party will be tackling some Assault on Longshadow content during Fangs of War.
Back in comment #93 I described them rescuing Cirieo Thassaddin from Fort Ristin. I had not mention that I had rebuilt Cirieo as a playtest summoner to contribute to the playtest. One of my players exploited that out of game. She had an online friend who wanted to join my game. She asked if he could play Cirieo. It made for a better playtest, so I agreed. My campaign was up to six players.
After the playtest (mostly spent at Fort Nunder), I let him make his own character, a catfolk monk named Ren'zar-jo. However, that combined with a big plot twist in my life.
My younger daughter had been working construction in Newell, South Dakota. She had applied to an electrical apprenticeship program in South Dakota and been accepted, except the program was in hiatus this year. She looked at similar programs and spotted one in Ithaca, New York, twenty minutes away from out house. New York had a two-week quarantine for people from high-risk states, such as South Dakota, and she quarantined in our yard in a tent. We reserved the bathroom in the workshop for her quarantine.
The quarantine is over and she spends days in the house, though she still sleeps in her tent. And she joined my game, creating a vine leshy sorcerer of fey bloodline named Honey because she is an awakened goldflame honeysuckle vine.
Thus, I now have seven players in my game: my wife, our two housemates, our two daughters, a teenage friend from church, and a player in Oregon whom I have never seen face to face. Their characters are a halfling, an elf, a gnome, a tailed goblin, a leshy, another gnome, and a catfolk. I have run eight players before, so I know how much work I have ahead of me.
To give Honey and Ren an excuse to met the other characters at Fort Nunder, I had them escort three lost dwarves to Fort Nunder, refugees from the invasion of Redburrow in the Hollow Hills, an event described in Assault on Longshadow. They were disappointed to discover that the fort no longer served as a refuge.
And then the in-game plot twisted. With the news from the three dwarves, the PCs realized that Radya's Hollow was next on the Ironfang Legion's list. And the elf ranger Zinfandel is from Radya's Hollow. They are going to stop the conquest of Radya's Hollow.
It seemed an adventure worth pursuing. A large party can handle the higher-level challenges.
I am creating an entire village, naturally defended by the cliffs around it, since Assault on Longshadow provides only the mine. I copied the town of Crosswych from Elder Scrolls Online after my wife pointed out that it was built in a hollow. The inside joke is that 5 of the 7 players play Elder Scrolls Online. I ported the CR 4 morlock miners to PF2, using the PF2 2nd-level morlocks as the starting point. Cliffs are not much defense against creatures with Climb Speed 20, but mainly they serve to protect and repair the Dig-Widget that is supposed to build a ramp for the invasion. And a squad of hobgoblin archers will protect the morlocks.
They will rescue Solba and the other dwarves on the way to Radya's Hollow, so I am temporarily following in the footsteps of Billy Buckman's campaign. Porting Tromaki to PF2 was a challenge.
There were no more events after the alley altercation.
The next morning the newly arrived Phaendarites and Rangers assisted in undoing some of the sabotage work before the party headed to Navah's.
They arrived and climbed the cliff, being let in the upper door by Robyn, the clockwork mage, and then escorted to Navah's study.
The transmuter was wearing the skelterhide and after receiving 2 castings of restoration from the cleric was certain that her mania had been cured. She promised to aid Longshadow, planning to arrive there with Robyn, Hillmer, and the owlbears Leif and Thurt in about 3 days.
Rather than head back to town, the party decided to find the warbeast camp.
Heading north through the Hollow Hills, a lookout tower was spied before being noticed in return.
Approaching from the top of the cliff that overlooked the canyon, the party managed to take out the 2 hobgoblin lookouts and their 2 wolf companions before an alarm could be raised.
Climbing down the cliff walls behind the tents, the party hoped to enter the main part of the camp, at the end of the canyon, unseen. They thought they had done so, but realised their error when ambushed by 3 minotaurs and a couple of hobgoblins.
Surrounded, the fighter managed to hold on and defeat the enemies with assistance from the wizard casting enlarge person and haste, the rogue's sneak attack, and the cleric casting confusion.
There was another hobgoblin that got away though, and called out to alert the rest of the camp hidden behind a fenced cave mouth, and to release the chain holding down a very big wyvern.