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This is a spoiler filled resource thread for part four of the Extinction Curse Adventure Path, Siege of the Dinosaurs by Kate Baker.
Other GM reference threads for Extinction Curse:
Part one, The Show Must Go On
Part two, Legacy of the Lost God
Part three, Life's Long Shadows
Part five, Lord of the Black Sands
Part six, The Apocalypse Prophet
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I like a lot of things about this book (especially the skill tasks that were worked into defending the village). But I was *blown away* by the article on Gluttondark. Really imaginative and evocative and alien, and sprinkled with adventure hooks. Great stuff!
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So, who didn't roleplay Ledorick as Gaston? Because he's totally Gaston, and I dig it a lot. Especially as Lyrt looks a little like Morshu from Zelda CDi, so I have this mental image of the Lyrt/Ledrorich possession sequence being like a YTP video that blends Zelda CDi and Beauty & the Beast.
Reading it, I think it's going to be a good deal of fun though, starting to run it tonight.
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He definitely hit like Gaston,
Mouthed off like Gaston,
In the session was annoying like Gaston,
When he talks, he boasts of humility,
And players groan to hear of it,
Even as he takes down foes fatally,
And blames them for enemies,
Is that fair?
He doesn't care!
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So, my sessions have turned a bit... Odd, and I feel like it might twist the campaign into a bizarre direction.
I'm GM. We have Bard Champ, Fighter, Ranger (who has alt-character Cleric she never uses) and Champion (who also dabbles into Monk alt-character every so often). A fight with a certain skeleton in a certain stable killed Bard Champ, so he rerolled as a Witch. Knowing what we were hitting, I joked about the idea in a veiled way about his new patron being Bokrug. He seemed to be into it, so he rolled CE (knowing him, he wouldn't use this to derail but rather to work towards his patron's goals) and we said that maybe his character was silently suggested to come to Willowside for an unknowable reason. The closest is Bokrug once in a vision suggesting that if it can overthrow Zevgavizeb (aided by this witch via the destruction of their worshippers and spreading of the faith), it can ascend into demonhood with its own plane.
Where things have gradually taken a strange turn isn't so much an unexpected area. I knew Witch player tends to be the leader/face of the party, so them being weirdly open to evil deeds (which includes, I wish I was joking, rescuing someone from a stone beartrap formation via the Regenerate spell, cutting the victim's legs off, carrying them to safety and putting them back on) could lead to other players also being open to it. I also trusted my player not to openly just recruit the party into being evil (as it would end badly for obvious reasons), and kept a watchful eye for open recruitment. I'm more astounded that Witch is slowly accidentally recruiting Ranger into worshipping Bokrug through Ranger's player's natural love of lizards and being enamoured by taking on more lizard features as a hobgoblin after a successful baleful polymorph saving throw (with the spell being cast as a trap by Witch days ago and accidentally being triggered by Ranger) left her with scales and a small lizard tail.
This likely wouldn't derail the campaign, as Bokrug's goal is still inline with the campaign (i.e. kill worshippers of Zevgavizeb) but may lead to a very odd subplot emerging involving recruiting people into worshipping Bokrug. This is especially considering Helg's motivations (i.e. share Bokrug with the Darklands) and the potential for players to reencounter her there in Book 5 which is in the Darklands.
I don't need advice of such, but it has definitely been a bizarre campaign.
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Just as a heads-up, I find Helg's plans to use the siege tower to transport the Statue of Bogruk (and keep her exposed to the dangers of a whole Xulgath army) rather nonsensical.
There is no reason (at least that I can find) why she doesn't simply use her Statuette ritual only.
I'll bite:
She needed a mode of transport to put the statue on, which is why the "siege tower" was erected. She needed to do this because the ritual lasts for one day (and the ritual takes an hour to do) and travelling back to the Darklands (and to her intended site of worship) would take quite a few days. So rather than constantly redoing the ritual over and over, she wants the statue in the "siege tower" (which actually isn't intended as a siege tower in Helg's eyes, but disguised as one for the xulgaths). She can't sneak into Willowside to access the caverns below (she is unaware of the tunnel from the docks into the caves), which is why she is having the xulgaths siege the town (despite questions brewing of why they're not sieging the orb towers). The adventurers are more going to let her break the siege by giving her the statue by going into the caves she can't access, and putting it on the tower that will carry the statue. Once she has what she wants, she's disinterested in murdering the town and will just want to go back to the Darklands to set up her own cult. She'd likely go back underground under the idea of "we've done the task, time to report to our masters" (with xulgaths pushing the tower back) or at least just skimps off in the middle of the night back to the Darklands, "siege tower" carrying said statue.
It isn't just about "getting away", it's about getting to where the statue is in the first place and where she intends her statue to be without the chaos of constant ritual casting. The only weirdness to Helg's plan comes in the form that she is able to convince the xulgaths to attack the town instead of the tower, not to mention if they'd notice their leader is acting odd, which is kind of explained by one of the higher up xulgaths in camp noticing something is odd and confronting her about it soon after the adventurers attack.
All due respect, but this is in the book either explicitly or implied.
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Heck, considering the trivial consequence of critical failure, why didn't Helg just visit the Water Temple, and then did and redid the ritual until she scored a critical success to be ensured a full week of uninhibited travel?
Because Helg only knows how to reach the caves via Willowside (she doesn't know about the waterlogged tunnel, this is heavily implied in her entire motivation). She needs the adventurers to get the statue out of the caves so she doesn't have to invade Willowside with the xulgath threat. Like, the reason is already baked in, but you're insisting there's this plot hole that isn't there.
Even saying about siege towers and how they work is built on the assumption the siege tower is built like siege towers as we know them and not as a glorified cart with more stable wheels (as Helg's intention is not to use the siege tower beyond as a cart to wheel the statue into the Darklands, so she could steer the creation of the cart to suit the purpose).
Knowing my group, they wouldn't spot this plot hole you're insisting exists. Even if they raised questions, you can always lean into "because Helg isn't as smart as you" because even if a player spots a hole in logic of a character it doesn't mean there's a flaw in anyone except said character's train of logic.
If you really need a ghoul to use the caves (who somehow hasn't consumed the inn-keeper in all this time and hasn't been killed by the elemental blocking the water tunnel leading to the sea), then by all means. Seems to be fixing a problem that doesn't exist.
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I'm enjoying this module. Fortune's Hall was fun thematically and the encounters were interesting.
The hidden sea caves are cool.
Saving the town from a siege gave the end a little Seven Samurai feel. Now I have to set the battles up to have a few PCs go down defending the town.
I'm enjoying this module. Fortune's Hall was fun thematically and the encounters were interesting.
The hidden sea caves are cool.
Saving the town from a siege gave the end a little Seven Samurai feel. Now I have to set the battles up to have a few PCs go down defending the town.
Could you talk more about the fortune's hall?
Did you run it by the book? How do your players react to those fey? Would you change anything?
Thanks
Could you talk more about the fortune's hall?
Did you run it by the book? How do your players react to those fey? Would you change anything?
Thanks
I ran it by the book. It was done well enough. My players are always looking for a reason to fight. Most of their enjoyment in the game comes from attacking things and using their combat abilities.
They were alerted to the danger by exploring the exterior. The pollywog brugdahatches swarmed the group. The druid made her Nature check to determine what they were. So they went inside the Hall knowing this type of fey was present. As soon as they ran into them, the party attacked them.
It was overall a well-designed encounter area. Even the Gashadokuro being present from the staff dying from starvation due to the Deceitful Feast fit.
If you want the party to be more surprised, I would remove the pollywogs from the pond outside. It is pretty easy for any character with a Nature check to determine what they are. Once a character does that, they are unlikely to trust any food or similar creatures inside the place.
If you remove the pollywogs and let the Gashodokuro fight happen first, you will set your party up for a pretty bad time. They will be so hungry that they will more likely to fall for the Deceitful Feast. That's probably the main change I would make if you want the party to more surprised by the events inside.
If you want the party to be more surprised, I would remove the pollywogs from the pond outside. It is pretty easy for any character with a Nature check to determine what they are. Once a character does that, they are unlikely to trust any food or similar creatures inside the place.
So, I ran as is and my fighter ended up just seeing shadows in the pond swimming around. So he put his face under the water as the others went for the stable. I ended up having a bit of fun as the players had to do perception checks to hear the sound of their fighter getting pulled under face-first over the sound of music coming from inside the hall.
One nature check later, they decided to deal with the brugdahatches via a hostage situation. So, they might see through the bluff but it might also lead to very inventive solutions.
If you want the party to be more surprised, I would remove the pollywogs from the pond outside. It is pretty easy for any character with a Nature check to determine what they are. Once a character does that, they are unlikely to trust any food or similar creatures inside the place.https://paizo.com/threads/rzs436x1?Bad-Luck-at-Fortunes-Hall
How did the encounter go? Did your changes work well?
Since A6 has a "Moderate 13" encounter rating, and the zombies are 11, I assume there are 5 of them (100xp budget).
And regarding the zombies, they are definitely strong, but how hard the actual fight will be, depend a lot on, where you place them on the map and how much the PC's learn from recall knowledge+use that knowledge/general tactics.
If your pc's succeed in recall knowledge and learn about their seawater retch and/or improved knockdown, they might use kiting and hit-and-run techniques, which are quite effective since the zombies are perma-slowed 1 and mindless.
Overall I'm pretty sure it's 5 zombies, but whether you will use all 5 zombies or not depends a lot on your players and how hard you want the fight to be.
Thanky you for the reply.
I'm running book 3 at the moment and I'm just looking at the hp on these creature and it scared me as a reaction. I wondering when the party damage will spike to make these bigger hp pools
I just ran this fight and it wasn't too bad. Being permanently slowed 1 is pretty brutal, and the party was able to get through it without too much issue by not staying in a prolonged melee. It was a long fight with the massive health pools, but never felt like the party was in critical danger.
ANy Advice on what to do when the players decide to head directly for the tower?
Lots of xulgaths around present the same problems they would at the end of the book with needing to slip past/otherwise get in, and then there's the nature priests who offer to aid them only once they've taken care of the xulgath threat.
Otherwise there's the people of Willowside who request aid from the party, and the circus folks the party brought with them who would also appreciate some defenses against xulgath attack. There's good reasons to pursue the leads the adventure gives naturally, so hopefully playing those up would encourage the party to not leave everyone vulnerable to attack.
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My players are making their way through the underground caves and I couldn't help notice the **huge** amount of HP the Sodden Sentinels have when they encountered them. I know they have two weaknesses that give an extra 15 damage and only have two actions a turn, but 320 HP for a group of level 11 creatures seemed immense. I ended up lowering this but it was fairly standout compared to everything else they have fought so far.
How did you guys manage the pair of grikkitogs?
The grikkitogs are very dangerous. I’m also interested to hear how they played out for others. Based on their range of effect, I extended the eyes and mouths into the hallway once triggered, and it almost caused a TPK. I was mentally scrambling for a way to not kill everyone when they stayed to rescue a trapped companion. I normally play down horror aspects for our table, but I leaned in a bit to get them scared enough to run away, which they hate to do. It took multiple hero points, and some exact DC rolls for escapes and recall knowledge, but they all made it out, some one bite away from death.
The return trip was impressive. It was the first time the party realized the power of a high-level prepared caster who knows what enemy awaits. As Fantus noted, the AOE spells are great against mobs of poor reflex xulgath and dinosaurs. But now the leshy druid scoured the spell list, picked True Seeing, Shrink, and a full load of Banishments, plus other carefully selected backup spells. The bard chipped in with Fly, Haste, and Invisibility. They left the rest of the party waiting, flew out of reach of the walls, and went hunting. Failures on perception and counteract checks kept it tense, but they crushed the encounter. The reversal from ambushed prey to infiltrating magic assassins was one of the campaign’s defining moments.
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How did you guys manage the pair of grikkitogs?
I managed by not using them at all...
After seeing the use of one in Age Of Ashes, i would not put my party in a encounter like that once again.
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I managed by not using them at all...
I like this approach, too! I’ll certainly think carefully before using them again.
Ah, I never noticed that the damage on their Swallow Whole was so high when I was trying to figure out if I ran something incorrectly when I TPK'd my party there.
It's about double the average damage of an azure worm's Swallow Whole which is even one level higher than the Aukashungi. It seems like maybe the '1' in 15d6+6 might be a typo?
The grikkitogs are very dangerous. I’m also interested to hear how they played out for others. Based on their range of effect, I extended the eyes and mouths into the hallway once triggered, and it almost caused a TPK.
That's what's currently happening to me, haha. I also decided to use them based on their range of effect and assumed that the whole area is connected ground. I had eyes and maws open up on the walls. They know in which general area they are, but their Seek actions haven't been helpful. I allowed them to strike the creature whenever it had immobilized someone.
Ultimately, they are 1 monk, 3 spellcasters and a cleric. Perhaps an AoE should've been lobbed somewhere in the area. I realised to late that the intent of the adventure was to not trigger them until after the group enters their cavern.
I've got a question about the Doblagubs in Fortune's Hall. Do PC's need to save against each Doblagub's Etheric Strands aura individually? That is how it looks to me, and that is r.o.u.g.h.
RAW they would save against each aura indidually, on the other hand you can rule that they will only do one save in the space each aura overlaps.