Phantom chariot to Molten Nexus and trickster rolled high on Diplomacy to get Irigibel to agree to the nexus realignment. Sense Motive from the rogue (skill unlock as well) sending messages telepathically via faerie dragon familiar to the trickster to keep up the praise of the dragon plus an offer to come back to regenerate her scales. Roleplayed well and dragon gave up some scales to assist in the party's planned attack on the Ironfang.
Chariot again to Shard Nexus and again good diplomacy (plus crystal statues from the archive) before fighter had a wrestle with Cragcrusher - just failing to push him out of the ring.
Chariot to Flow Nexus and zarxorin caught them by surprise with it's energy blast destroying the chariot, but a very lucky baleful polymorph by the wizard ended that fight fairly quickly.
3 nexus in one session and trickster remembered that they have air walk so resting and then onto the Onyx Citadel.
Also bumped the PCs to 20th level so they have a chance to play at that level.
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Couple of sessions since last update
Encounter with Oktar went predictably with the eidolon rushing in and saying "surrender or die" then proceeding to attack without waiting for a reply. This was while half the party (including fighter and wizard) were still in the southern exhibition room. He only got a to down an extract of greater invisibility and say that they were fighting without honour and that they might be better to work against a common enemy first before he was cut down.
...
On leaving the archive Kraelos was outside stonehome making demands (I added an extra troop as well).
My PF2-converted campaign is only a few weeks behind erucsbo's campaign. This Friday, May 19, my party encountered Oktar, the clockwork angel, and the two elementals.
They talked to Oktar and told him to wait in the Rejuvenation Vats room. He does not realize that they are enemies of the Ironfang Legion. On my timeline the invasion of Phaendar happened only four months ago, so Oktar was captured by Ziguch before a description of the heroes who defended Longshadow reached the alchemists in the Onyx Citadel. The party successfully deceived him that they are dimension-traveling adventurers from Golarion who know nothing about events in Nirmathas.
Clockwork Angel has not been ported to a Pathfinder 2nd Edition bestiary yet, so I constructed an 18th-level clockwork angel myself. And instead of porting the Sandman Sleepers, I used a trap in D1 and made a pair of 18th-level ice-crystal elementals for the Northern Exhibit Hall. The PF2 Gamemastery Guide has detailed rules on building creatures at a chosen level.
After they defeated the clockwork angel and one elemental, Ziguch the Seventh Facet and the Immortal Ichor opened the door between the rooms and complained about the noise interrupting their sleep. Oktar had told the PCs that Ziguch had a parasite that he talked to, and they made the proper knowledge check to identify the parasite as an immortal ichor, but they did not know whether the ichor controlled Ziguch or not. So they asked Ziguch, "Are you controlled by the immortal ichor." The ichor said, "Tell them we are partners." Ziguch said, "We are partners." Thus, they figure that Zuguch is controlled. I ended the session there.
I had ported Kraelos to PF2 as an 18th-level cavalier, in case they encountered him earlier. The party is currently 19th level with 7 PCs, so I am going to bump Kraelos up to 20th level. And I plan on adding an extra troop like erucsbo did, and making both troops 18th level.
I am also trying to mentally untangle the 35 rooms in the Onyx Citadel in preparation for the party arriving there. It is quite a maze. The PCs will probably reach 20th level while fighting minions in the citadel.
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...
I am also trying to mentally untangle the 35 rooms in the Onyx Citadel in preparation for the party arriving there. It is quite a maze. ...
And there is no guarantee that the PCs will enter via the main entrance, especially given flight and dimensional travel are commonplace.
I'm having to add extra defenses to every opening - since the PCs have been watched in previous encounters (either by reports from those involved or by the crystal ball - which I changed to have True Sight instead of Telepathy).
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Wizard cast Polymorph Any Object on the fighter to turn him into a duplicate - sneaky way to get a permanent +2 strength, but we'll see if Dispel Magic ends up knocking it off.
Party wind walked across Argent Lake then spied out the Citadel (rogue with skill unlock on perception and a spyglass can essentially see forever), before deciding to teleport behind the hobgoblins in H23.
It was over before the hobgoblins got a chance to react and the fighter stuffed the bodies in a spare type IV bag of holding as the rogue's familiar (faerie dragon) cast silent image to make it look to the patrolling gargoyles like the hobgoblins were still there.
Bypassed the alarm in H24 and combat is about to start in H25.
If they are quick and go in the right direction they could get to the encounter with Azaersi while 3/4 of the citadel are unaware of the incursion.
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And there is no guarantee that the PCs will enter via the main entrance, especially given flight and dimensional travel are commonplace....
I am also trying to mentally untangle the 35 rooms in the Onyx Citadel in preparation for the party arriving there. It is quite a maze. ...
In my game session Friday June 2, the PCs talked with Ziguch the Seventh Facet in D5, Hall of the Forgotten God, at Stonehome. The module says Ziguch haughtily views the PCs as lesser beings, but they are going to rid Ziguch's residence of the invader pest, so it was willing to give them information. It used the magic sandbox to create a 3d model of the Onyx Citadel and explained its floorplan to the party. In other words, I copied the maps out of the module and gave them to the players. Thus, I know that they plan to invade the Onxy Citadel through the 3rd-floor H28, Upper Terrace. I wonder how few campaigns actually enter the Onyx Citadel at ground level.
The persuasive members of the party talked Oktar into climbing back into a regeneration chamber so that Ziguch could regenerate his missing eye to make up for using him as a lab experiement. That will keep Oktar out of the way for a few days.
Then they went out to fight General Kraelos and his cavalry and took him down with barely a scratch. They did burn up a couple of high-level spells though. I had ported Kraelos to PF2 as a 20th-level cavalier and split the Ironfang Yzobu Rider Troop into two 18th-level troop units. The last cavalry surrendered, so the party stripped them of gear and Plane-Shifted them to Numeria (due to my crossover with my Iron Gods campaign, they have access to the Numerian pocket dimension called the Godmind) to exile them. And the Numerians had already helped them covertly sabotage the geomantic nexuses with nanotechnology, so the party is going to the Onyx Citadel next.
At Vault of the Onyx Citadel (sticky) comment #55 erucsbo pointed out that Azlowe and the Witcheater Cultists have the wrong spells for dealing with a higher-level party. Thanks for the warning. Fortunately, Pathfinder 2nd Edition handles creature level progression differently. When I port Azlowe to PF2 20th level, he will have the spell list, spell attack rolls, and spell DCs of a 20th-level cleric. He will instead have much fewer spell slots due to taking up cleric duties late in his life and have to conserve those spells by relying on the melee combat abilities of a 20th-level greater barghest.
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...
It used the magic sandbox to create a 3d model of the Onyx Citadel and explained its floorplan to the party. ...
Thankfully my players didn't think to ask that, as I might have come up with bogus maps if they did as the citadel (and towers) can be rearranged.
p34 "It can display a detailed model of the Onyx Citadel, reflecting the castle as it was long before the Ironfang Legion overran it."
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It used the magic sandbox to create a 3d model of the Onyx Citadel and explained its floorplan to the party. ...Thankfully my players didn't think to ask that, as I might have come up with bogus maps if they did as the citadel (and towers) can be rearranged.
p34 "It can display a detailed model of the Onyx Citadel, reflecting the castle as it was long before the Ironfang Legion overran it."
I had to go out of character when they asked about the sand ring at H29, Ironfang Dueling Academy, and I read the description, "A grand, recessed dueling ring dominates this circular chamber. ... Azaersi uses this ring to train her honor guards to defend the Ironfang Legion’s command staff." Room H29 is central to the 3rd floor, so they guessed the ring would be another magic sandbox. I confessed that the module mentioned only the current uses of the room, which Ziguch the Seventh Facet did not know, so ignore the part about the dueling ring. Instead, let's pretend that it is another magic sandbox that Azaersi is mistakenly using as a dueling ring. That was good for a laugh.
My players are very nice about not metagaming when I explain too much.
I find that giving my players opportunities for information encourages them to roleplay befriending non-hostile NPCs and gathering information. By feeding them information, I can also make their often-unexpected plans more predictable, such as learning in advance that they will enter by H28 rather than by H8 or H14 or H23. Thus, I can move Azlowe and his Witcheater Cultists from H25 to the unlabeled room between H28 and H29 to guarantee an encounter with him.
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If you decide to advance things so that the PCs get to have 20th level characters before the end of the AP - just know that the rogue capstone is wicked. Of the 4 Ironfang Shadows, Azlowe and 3 Witcheater Cultists, and Henra with 4 Ironfang Honor Guards encountered so far in the assault on the Citadel, only 1 Shadow, 1 Cultist, and 1 Honor Guard have survived being one-shotted by the rogue.
Actually one of the Honor Guards was baleful polymorphed before the rogue had her action (full round of sneak attack with bow).
Greater Invisibility (on the rogue) plus sniper goggles = sneak attack at any distance. And with skill unlock on Sense Motive to give bonus to initiative she clears most of the field before they get a chance to act.
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In PF2 rogues get Master Strike at 19th level. Comparing the two versions is interesting.
PF1 Master Strike (Ex): Upon reaching 20th level, a rogue becomes incredibly deadly when dealing sneak attack damage. Each time the rogue deals sneak attack damage, she can choose one of the following three effects: the target can be put to sleep for 1d4 hours, paralyzed for 2d6 rounds, or slain. Regardless of the effect chosen, the target receives a Fortitude save to negate the additional effect. The DC of this save is equal to 10 + 1/2 the rogue's level + the rogue's Intelligence modifier. Once a creature has been the target of a master strike, regardless of whether or not the save is made, that creature is immune to that rogue's master strike for 24 hours. Creatures that are immune to sneak attack damage are also immune to this ability.
PF2 Master Strike [Free Action] Level 19
Incapacitation, Rogue
Source Core Rulebook pg. 183 4.0
Trigger Your Strike hits a flat-footed creature and deals damage.
The target attempts a Fortitude save at your class DC. It then becomes temporarily immune to your Master Strike for 1 day.
Critical Success The target is unaffected.
Success The target is enfeebled 2 until the end of your next turn.
Failure The target is paralyzed for 4 rounds.
Critical Failure The target is paralyzed for 4 rounds, knocked unconscious for 2 hours, or killed (your choice).
At 19th level, the rogue's class DC is 41. I ported the Honor Guard as a 17th-level hobgoblin troop creature with Fortitude Saving Throw +32 and juggernaut ability. PF2's four degrees of success says that if their fortitude save result is 51 or higher (19 or 20 on the d20), then they would be unaffected by the Master Strike; if their result is 41 to 50 (9 to 18 on the d20), then they would take a -2 penalty to their Strength modifier for a round; if their result is 31 to 40 (2 to 8 on the d20), then they would be paralyzed for 4 rounds, and if they rolled a natural 1 for a critical failure, then they could be killed instantly. Except that the Juggernaut ability turns a Success on a fortitude saving throw to a Critical Success (it is Evasion for fortitude), so the Honor Guard would never get the -2 penalty to Strength modifier.
I had expected my players to reach the Onyx Citadel in yesterday's game session. I had spend about six hours porting the Honor Guard, Witcheater Cultists, and Azlowe to PF2 rules and finding substitutes for many other hostile NPCs (for example, a monk from Fists of the Ruby Phoenix provided stats for Henra), but I still have not ported Zanathura and Azaersi. But the dice changed the events.
The party decided to camp in the forest north of Argent Lake for the night to restore spells, if summoning a camouflaged mansion counts as camping. The Ironfang Legion knew that they were in the Vault, because the party had killed Kraelos and Shaakhib had reported his encounter with them. So I randomly picked a party member, the champion, and had her roll a Will save against Scrying. She failed, rolling a 3 on the d20. She could have spent a hero point to reroll, but decided to let the scrying play out. I let the other party members with magical senses roll Perception to spot the scrying sensor, and they did. And they decided to tease the Ironfang seer for the ten minutes until crystal ball scrying expired. Crystal balls were nerfed in PF2, so they can full scry only twice a day.
An hour later, they heard a strange sound on the lake. A hovercraft was searching the shore, trying to figure out which forest beside the lake was the party's camping spot.
I had encountered a contradiction between the maps and text of Vault of the Onyx Citadel. The map of the Vault on page 26 shows the Onyx Citadel on an island in Argent Lake at least a mile from the shore. The text on page 39 says, "A 50-foot-wide bridge of tourmaline stands over Argent Lake, connecting the lakeshore to the large island supporting the Onyx Citadel." The decorative picture on page 35 shows a view of the Onyx Citadel out across the lake with no bridge visible, but that is not necessarily from the closest point on the lakeshore. I chose that the island was a mile out without a mile-long bridge (the causeway at H1 went to the island's docks). I prepared a little side quest where the party could steal a xiomorn hovercraft boat to reach the island. Last week I had assumed that the boat-stealing side quest would never happened, because the party planned to fly over to the island. Nevertheless, I had the hovercraft ready, so I used it.
The elf ranger rolled very high on Perception to see the hovercraft and saw a manacled xiomorn Vault Keeper piloting it. I had left a second Vault Keeper still alive. My players love rescuing captives. The party disguised some of themselves with a Veil spell, acting strange enough but vague enough for the hovercraft to pull to shore without sending their ruby-winged gargoyle to fly to the citadel with news. The fey-blooded leshy sorcerer enthralled the gargoyle, the party ambushed the Honor Guard, one of the rogues flew into the hovercraft in bat form via Cloak of the Bat to rescue the Vault Keeper.
The other rogue tried to sneak attack the Honor Guard to try out Master Strike. He missed twice. :-(
The rogue in the hovercraft cabin shifted out of bat shape and discovered that the sole hobgoblin guarding the Vault Keeper was Hadar, one of the four Hobgoblin Commandos from pages 43-44 of Prisoners of the Blight. The party had rescued the commandos from mind control by the blight and let them go free. Hadar cooperated with the rogue, because he knew that he was outmatched. He did not have a key to unshackle the Vault Keeper, but the rogue was well able to unlock the manacles with her thieves' tools.
Conversation with the gargoyle, the Vault Keeper, and Hadar filled the rest of the game session. The gargoyle was willing to defect from the Ironfangs to return to serving the Vault Keepers, and Hadar was let free again with a long walk to the nearest Ironfang camp on the shore. The party selected a new hiding place for the rest of the night, one where they could hide the hovercraft.
I've already posted long ago in this thread about finishing this book, but I love coming back to see all this progress! Gonna be some great battles!
almost but not quite finished.
Party headed up to the mana battery where the trickster (with permanent detect magic) peeked around the corner. I gave her a will save to pull back from the blinding display but she failed, so developed colourblindness. I said the room was blazing with octarine. Most of the players got the reference.
As far as I can find there is nothing about the effects of colourblindness, so I've ruled at our table that it washed out the colours making perception harder for things that required seeing variations in colour, and that while detect magic could still pick up auras, it was impossible to distinguish between schools of magic - kinda like having darkvision for magic.
Rogue had a couple of potions of remove blindness so casually tossed one to the trickster to set her right.
There was discussion about how to discharge the battery and ended up just letting the rogue do it. With her evasion and high reflex, plus a feat that allowed rerolling a 1 on saving throw, there was really no chance for her to fail. The rest of the party hid on the staircase.
Afterwards I changed the room description to say that small arcs of magical lightning were slowly travelling down from the ceiling to the metallic diagrams.
Party searched some more in the level below and found Zanathura's journal scrap and the switch in the armoire.
By then the alarm had been raised and the faerie dragon (still back where the party entered and maintaining the illusion of hobgoblins) informed the party that troops were starting to mobilize from below the citadel and make their way through the gatehouse into the citadel proper.
The rogue offered to create a mess and distraction and rescue her familiar (who couldn't get through the doors back into the citadel) while the party headed through the secret door. (Rogue is an NPC - so this was a way of getting her sneak attack damage and insta-kills away from future encounters and letting the PCs have more spotlight)
Wizard cast wall of stone to block off the dueling academy from the rest of the citadel after the rogue left (but not before making sure she was attuned to the bracelet of friends held by the wizard).
Party headed down and triggered the golem in the false ritual room. Some major damage dealt both to and by the fighter. Wizard also cast shapechange on her familiar (bat) and both of them changed into brass dragons and breathed on the golem. Fighter hit the golem with a critical hit (auto-confirmed and multiplier one better due to fighter capstone) doing more than 200 points of damage (when the golem had about 50 left).
I described the hammer blow as acting like Newton's cradle where parts of the golem on the other side flew off before other bits popped apart and it eventually crumbed in a heap.
Felt that the indestructible nature of the golem was a bit much and didn't add to the story at this point. Fighter wanted to scoop all of the bits of the shattered golem into his bags of holding (due to the value of the metal) but when informed that the bags wouldn't hold that much (4000 pounds!) the summoner opened a gate back to Longshadow and it was shovelled through.
Down again and to the transposition engine - Zanathura got off an acid fog but failed to trap the fighter in a force cage. The wizard managed to trap Azaersi in a maze for a round. Obsidian golems came out and were spraying damage.
Zanathura tried polymorph any object on the wizard, but as she still had shapechange going it was ineffective.
So far Zanathura has been knocked down, and one of the golems has been destroyed, but Azaersi is still up as well as 3 other golems.
I have a bit of time to brush up on swashbuckler tactics before we conclude the AP in the next session.
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we have completed the Ironfang Invasion Adventure Path
I used Opportune Parry and Riposte and Dodging Dance and at the end Azaersi got another go with Cheat Death.
Killed the Trickster and Fighter and sent the eidolon away as well as a last gasp attack.
Party managed to trap one of the obsidian golems in Create Pit.
I gave Azaersi displacement and a ring of spell turning and bumped up her equipment as well. Also had Azaersi and Zanathura with True Seeing.
They had watched the party and had prepared, casting the longer duration spells as soon as the mana battery was discharged.
Also had energy resistance to fire and cold.
Rolled really well for Azaersi and with auto crit x4 on 17-20 she did significant damage and taking out the Trickster (party healer) early certainly slowed the fighter being able to keep getting filled up after taking damage. Resorted to begging the Enthroned King for temp hit points before going down after another couple of critical hits from Azaersi.
Ended up being the eidolon using blind sight that landed enough hits on Azaersi to force her to use Cheat Death.
A bit of extra summoning went on with 3 ice elementals, 3 angels, 3 centipede swarms all joining the fight.
Spell turning never got used - was hoping the Summoner would try a Dismissal but only spells used were area of effect or ray (disintegrate).
Could have been more casualties if Zanathura had lasted another round but the Fighter was extra keen to make sure she was paste before engaging Azaersi.
On to Ruins of Azlant next but will lurk here to see how others go, so please post your campaign updates.
we have completed the Ironfang Invasion Adventure Path
Congrats on completing. Ruins of Azlant was on our list, but we decided to go with Shattered Star. Our group had played book-1 about 10 years ago and then the GM had life changes so the group fell apart. So I went from player to GM and we started up on book-2 with some old PCs and some new ones.
we have completed the Ironfang Invasion Adventure Path
Congrats! Sounded like a pretty great last battle, where it wasn't an automatic win for the PCs! That's about all you can hope for!
Did you do any kind of thing like an epilogue to what happened to the region, the PCs, et cetera? Anyone stay and make their home or kingdom there? What happened to ownership of the Onyx Citadel and it's magics?
we have completed the Ironfang Invasion Adventure Path
Congrats! Sounded like a pretty great last battle, where it wasn't an automatic win for the PCs! That's about all you can hope for!
Did you do any kind of thing like an epilogue to what happened to the region, the PCs, et cetera? Anyone stay and make their home or kingdom there? What happened to ownership of the Onyx Citadel and it's magics?
Not really. I gave the players the opportunity to do so and there were some general comments by some on what their character was planning on doing but I think they were more keen to get started on Ruins of Azlant with new characters.
Timewise we finished near the end of the session, and one of the players was heading OS for a month so it provided a good break.