This is a spoiler-filled resource thread for the second volume of the Blood Lords AP, Graveclaw by Jason Tondro.
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Book 2 seems very promising from what I’ve read so far. Each chapter is a trip to a different area of Geb, and while the purpose of each trip is to hunt down a different hag, the methods by which the PCs do so varies considerably.
In terms of spot checking, it looks like one of the new spells, Web of Influence doesn’t list what traditions it’s available to. I would probably lean toward it being arcane and occult.
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Book 2 seems very promising from what I’ve read so far. Each chapter is a trip to a different area of Geb, and while the purpose of each trip is to hunt down a different hag, the methods by which the PCs do so varies considerably.
In terms of spot checking, it looks like one of the new spells, Web of Influence doesn’t list what traditions it’s available to. I would probably lean toward it being arcane and occult.
How viable, in your eyes, would a Changeling PC related to one of the hags be?
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How viable, in your eyes, would a Changeling PC related to one of the hags be?Book 2 seems very promising from what I’ve read so far. Each chapter is a trip to a different area of Geb, and while the purpose of each trip is to hunt down a different hag, the methods by which the PCs do so varies considerably.
In terms of spot checking, it looks like one of the new spells, Web of Influence doesn’t list what traditions it’s available to. I would probably lean toward it being arcane and occult.
If the GM was willing to do the teensiest bit of work, very viable, as long as matricide is something ok at your table…these characters are pretty much as antagonistic to the PCs aims as imaginable.
There aren't lineage feats for rust hag or grave hag, are there?
There is a lot of stuff in the toolbox for expanding hags and covens, but no they don't have new heritages or feats for changeling characters.
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I will say, this second book makes me want to wait to run Bloodlords until the impossible lands LO book has come out. There is a lot of downtime, travel and location visiting that feel like they will be a little "movie set"-like, where all the depth is just painted backdrops that can't be probed too far yet.
Some of these locations will be brought back and further explored in the later AP chapters too. Running it now is fine for tables that like a more rail-roady adventure I think, but if you like to let your players roam, it looks like you want to at least wait until book 6 is out...but that is almost always true with APs.
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I completely agree, having Lost Omens: Impossible Lands is going to be a must. I was initially planning on running this right away, but we decided to go with War for the Crown first, which we’ll probably be finishing up right around the time the last book of Blood Lords comes out. I learned my lesson with Strength of Thousands anyway that sometimes there are major plot developments in the later books that should really be foreshadowed more heavily.
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How viable, in your eyes, would a Changeling PC related to one of the hags be?Book 2 seems very promising from what I’ve read so far. Each chapter is a trip to a different area of Geb, and while the purpose of each trip is to hunt down a different hag, the methods by which the PCs do so varies considerably.
In terms of spot checking, it looks like one of the new spells, Web of Influence doesn’t list what traditions it’s available to. I would probably lean toward it being arcane and occult.
Very viable. My group is getting ready to start book 2 and has a Changeling PC that is related to Sahni and doesn't know it yet.
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I agree that it’s very easy to have a changeling PC who turns out to be a child of one of the hags, and I’ll also add that Iron Taviah (the annis hag) and Sahni (the sea hag) are more fleshed out as characters than the other two. The grave hag gets a bit of detail, and the rust hag barely gets any characterization.
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So, Jason Tondro has a nasty habit in AP's he works on that is starting to grate on me:
If he doesn't like negative penalties for players prior authors have imposed, he'll nerf them.
He did it with Frozen Flame part 3 and he's done it here again on page 6 of the Second AP by introducing a hand-wavey ritual to give everyone negative healing that lasts in-game for a year.
"Wow!", you might say. "That's a pretty unbalanced ritual to introduce to the world! I wonder how it works!"
Well, he doesn't elaborate.
I like the idea, I just wish they had bothered to give it a ritual entry or otherwise something more elaborate than "Berline Haldoli leads you into the next room and hand-waves you negative healing, congrats. Yes I agree this is game-breaking stuff that could potentially ruin entire AP's worth of content like Abomination Vaults. No I will not go into detail about why this ritual isn't ubiquitous across the Inner Sea."
I'd strongly suggest making up some rules about a very high 1000+ gold cost in case a player inquires about doing it themselves.
Also there's a continuity error: Remember Glorinsa, the LE female human corpse tender from Book 1 on page 10?
She's a skeleton now apparently. This is not commented on at all in the book. I found this odd since the logical assumption by a party would be that she was recently made into undead, which would've been a great opportunity to show what a stone-cold ***** Haldoli is, but no it just comes off more as a continuity error.
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There are other minor errors which makes me think editors were busy. Like there is typo that one of monsters is referring to "Bestiary 6, page 49" (its trying to refer to page that has elite template)
Anyway, the plot ritual is bit weird in that since its not taught to players and not given stats, but text does imply its either rare or unique as it has apparently been passed to Berline in particular. Considering lack of mechanics, it does sound like something that should be in sidebar as "optional suggestion for GMs who don't want their party to deal with unusual campaign mechanics" though since otherwise the player's guide might as well have said that pcs will get that(or rather it might s well have been in first book if campaign doesn't really want players to deal with positive healing being illegal for that long period)
Ritual also lasting for year has bit of problem of that unless ap takes place over course of very long time, it will last for entire campaign too which makes me wonder whether rest of ap writers took it in account?
(I'm neutral on it but I do think paizo aps have kind of trend of not wanting to put any special mechanics that make "normal" party's life harder, like outlaws of alkenstar handwaving spellcasting difficulties, I think those kind of things should be presented as campaign option rather than in built to campaign.)
I'm bit confused though, was there really such thing in quest for frozen flame?
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I'm bit confused though, was there really such thing in quest for frozen flame?
I don't want to get off-topic but in Frozen Flame there was a crippling curse that affected players who lost the macguffin and because in part 3 he had a plot that involved you potentially losing the macguffin he said in a sidebar "if the party loses the macguffin consider reducing the severity of the curse" -- because otherwise you incur clumsy/enfeebled/stupefied 4 & fatigued, basically incapacitating whomever the curse affects.
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So, Jason Tondro has a nasty habit in AP's he works on that is starting to grate on me:
If he doesn't like negative penalties for players prior authors have imposed, he'll nerf them.
He announced in February that’s he’s left the company to work for WotC under a contract that doesn’t allow freelancing, so… at least it shouldn’t happen in another AP?
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Sorry ^_^; I think I started the off topic tangent, but I feel like I have to clarify this since I found the thing ye were referring to. The exact quote is "go easy on the player whose character suffers the brunt of the artifact’s curse in its absence. The mechanical effects of this curse are extreme, to say the least."
Which is reasonable, it would be mean to be like "Ah yes, your character now has extremely bad penalty that makes you borderline useless, now all enemies will consider you a priority target". I don't think its same situation as here at all. They aren't really saying that you should ignore the curse's effect, they are saying that that in itself is enough punishment and you shouldn't punish them extra.
This case on otherhand is basically "So after a book prepping players to mindset that in this campaign positive healing is illegal and you need to plan around it, suddenly you get handwave mechanic that you never need to think about it ever again"
He announced in February that’s he’s left the company to work for WotC under a contract that doesn’t allow freelancing, so… at least it shouldn’t happen in another AP?So, Jason Tondro has a nasty habit in AP's he works on that is starting to grate on me:
If he doesn't like negative penalties for players prior authors have imposed, he'll nerf them.
I’m not even sure it falls at Tondro’s feet anyway? I would assume that type of big picture mechanical decision would be made by the AP developer, but I could be wrong.
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Should "Heat Metal" work on Iron Taviah's claws?
Should "Heat Metal" work on Iron Taviah's claws?
RAW I don't believe it can as her nails are not "objects" and do not make up a significant portion of her body enough to say she's primarily made of metal.
However, its a niche enough spell to prepare (especially when travelling through the woods) that I would reward a cast of it on her by allowing it to treat her nails as objects. Taviah could "release" them as described in the spell by ripping out her nails as a free action (very hag like). This would remove the cold iron trait from her iron claws attack and cause it to deal bludgeoning instead of slashing for the rest of the fight.
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I felt like I would have looked like an ***hole if I had told the wizard "No, that niche spell you had packed away isn't useful here, sorry" and let them get away with it. Only wound up doing 6 damage anyways so didn't feel too bad about it.
Another note:
The book assumes that when you arrive at Sallowshore you're interested in currying favor with all the representatives of political factions. Uh, no? I'm here to kill a hag! A hag who I already know is guilty because I found a journal saying she was in Iron Taviah's cottage!
To learn that all of them are connected to Sahni you have to make inquiry rolls which require a skill check, but that requires the players be interested in making the skill check to begin with.
It was kind of annoying because I had to break everyone's immersion by suggesting to them what their characters might be motivated in doing. Very frustrating -- because currently as far as I can tell, there ISN'T really any perk to gaining reputation as of book 2. I'm sure that it will be useful later, but at the moment unless you're playing a hob-nobbing noble this is going to sail past people and they could wind up skipping a lot of content. So I had to kind of force in "Hey maybe you should talk to these 3 people?"
I'd suggest to anyone else maybe having some of the town big-wigs soliciting the party when they arrive. Like "Oh hey, visitors from Greydirge, and I heard you're up and comers. Lets meet?"
Down in Sahni Bride-of-the-Sea lair there's a CR 4 Brood Leech swarm which it turns out is......weakness to salt 5. In a salt water environment.
Also if my summoner had a nickel for every time that speaking Jotun has come in handy, she'd have 2 nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it's happened twice.
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Down in Sahni Bride-of-the-Sea lair there's a CR 4 Brood Leech swarm which it turns out is......weakness to salt 5. In a salt water environment.
Also if my summoner had a nickel for every time that speaking Jotun has come in handy, she'd have 2 nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it's happened twice.
The brood leach swarm starts in a water proof jar. There should have been a statement about how they will react to being released into salt water, but I think it kinda makes for a more interesting encounter since bludgeoning under water is difficult. Also, the players might realize they can just slow it down and the environment will finish it off.
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How the heck does Nathnelma get a pint of blood from one of the characters for the Portrait of Spite ritual?
Having completed the AP last night, I still have no freaking idea.
The Vampire Pub Crawl was great though.
Does a PC actually want to fail against a Grave Hag's Grave Impressions? On a success you become paralyzed for 1 round, which sucks, you lose all your actions and reactions for 1 round. But if you fail you fall unconscious which is...not that bad?
There are 4 separate ways to wake up in combat including a flat check to automatically wake up at the start of your turn. Hell if an ally goes after the hag they can just nudge you awake with 1 action.
Martials that need to pick up their weapons and stand may find it annoying but her behavior describes her specifically targeting casters who can, once awake, stand and start blasting again.
Has anyone run this encounter that can tell me how it went?
Would you swap the success and failure condition?
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So the staircase encounter was the most disappointing, and I feel it will only get worse as the AP continues:
"James Jacob Creative Director of Paizo: My take: if the PCs are undead, then let them enjoy an encounter that would normally be super scary and easier for them to handle. That's one of the things that really intrigued me about writing this adventure—setting up some encounters to be easy for living and tough for undead PCs, and vice-versa. That said, the strong expectation we had when writing all of these volumes is that most groups are going to play living characters, simply because that's the standard expectation. So the encounters still skew toward challenging living PCs overall."
This is fine for a living party who doesn't take the ritual, but now the shadows on the staircase heal the party with no real danger involved. I've looked on with other GMs who are running the adventure on twitch and youtube to see just not running that one specific encounter was the norm. Hiding them in walls slows them and they can't hit anyone.
I'd replace the staircase with a falling hazard, to at least do something to inconvenience them.
A player in my game commented:
"I mean I can see the reasoning for this encounter in a more open space. As a kind of undeadness-gated-easiness encounter it can be a fun dynamic. But putting it in that kind of enclosed space where even with the normal 4 player party causes practically no possibility for movement without taking it to another room (where other dangers still might exist) is a very odd choice."
I see I will need to do some extra prep when it comes to negative energy specific sources, or give them a different creature/hazards that deal damage.
Another player who is also a GM commented:
"Yeah, that's the issue. Not to mention that due to having the possibility of a living-undead split like the one we have, there was absolutely a group with one living character in that hallway. The GM is forced to target someone as a result, which is rarely fun for anyone."
I also have a ghoul and 2 ghosts in the party. The second was done by the work of the redcaps who are extremely lethal despite being moderate/low for a party of five. Their land speed alone decimated my pcs.
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[snip] ...now the shadows on the staircase heal the party with no real danger involved.
Creature with negative healing aren't healed by negative damage. It just doesn't harm them. I think the harm spell is the only effect that can either harm the living or heal undead (or both at once for the 3-action version).
"I mean I can see the reasoning for this encounter in a more open space. As a kind of undeadness-gated-easiness encounter it can be a fun dynamic. But putting it in that kind of enclosed space where even with the normal 4 player party causes practically no possibility for movement without taking it to another room (where other dangers still might exist) is a very odd choice."
The hallway A6 does have restricted mobility, but remember shadows are incorporeal (as are ghost PCs), so corporeal creatures can move through their spaces and vice-versa.
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Any thoughts on transport systems and overland travel on Geb? Are their any maps that suggest a road system? I'd like to add a bit of flavour to the road trip aspect of the adventure between chapters.
Perhaps there is also a strong riverboat system, with zombie oarsman, or companies of zombie giants that pull boats upstream through difficult stretches.
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Some inconsistencies here regarding Sahni's opinion on her fellow hags.
If confronted here, Sahni expresses curiosity as to who the characters are and what they want with her. If they defeated Taviah, she chortles with glee. “Good of you to kick that old witch back into the shadows,” she cackles. “With her gone, Graveclaw will be all the easier for me to command!”
If Sahni discovers the player characters killed Iron Taviah, she swears murderous vengeance — not because she cared for Taviah but because the loss of one member makes the entire coven weaker.
Which is it, Tondro?!
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Some inconsistencies here regarding Sahni's opinion on her fellow hags.
If confronted here, Sahni expresses curiosity as to who the characters are and what they want with her. If they defeated Taviah, she chortles with glee. “Good of you to kick that old witch back into the shadows,” she cackles. “With her gone, Graveclaw will be all the easier for me to command!”If Sahni discovers the player characters killed Iron Taviah, she swears murderous vengeance — not because she cared for Taviah but because the loss of one member makes the entire coven weaker.Which is it, Tondro?!
I think the answer is both. The first is what she _says_ to the PCs. The second is how she feels internally. She knows the PCs are dangerous, and she's rightfully frightened of them, but she also doesn't want to PCs to now that.
So, the Arboreal Snags in the Dead Wood encounter have the Blood Roots variant ability, giving them regeneration 5 deactivated by positive damage. We’re only half way through the first book but reading ahead to this has me concerned, as (due to following the guidance in the players guide) my party are law abiding citizens of Geb with no access to positive damage, and I don’t see any reason why they’d pick it up by the time this encounter rolls around. Since they can’t be killed until regeneration is turned off, doesn’t that just make this an unbeatable, non-plot-relevant encounter? Has anyone else had this issue? Am I missing something, or am I best to just change that variant ability for a different one and be done with it?
Personally I would change it to a different ability as I find it to be sort of against the spirit of the campaign of loyal citizens of Geb. However, it is noted that the regeneration only happens "in places where bodies are burried" if the PCs can spot them with a successful perception check they can perhaps lure them out and ambush them outside of their regeneration zone. They are mindless and arent that smart after all.
Again, probably better to just replace the ability though or even just replace the regeneration with fast healing.
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Does anyone have any suggestions on subtle ways to push the party to be more likely to head to Sallowshore before Pagked? The book seems to be depending on Sallowshore being closer to do this based on the text at the start of chapter 2, but unfortunately that's just not true based on the provided map, which my players already have.
Our group is approaching the point where they will need to make that decision. Here's how I'm planning to present it: because of trade, the major roads from Graydirge lead to the coast, and to the tributary of the Axanir River, where the PCs have the option to take a zombie-oared riverboat to the coast (a good option for my players since one of the PCs is a vampire, so he can stay out of the sun's reach during the day, plus Berline would pay for their passage). Those roads are patrolled/relatively safe, while there is no direct road between Graydirge and Pagked, requiring the party to make a not-insubstantial detour to reach a bridge across the Ydrion River after traveling across some unfavorable terrain. Whether they take the road that heads to Sallowshore or the boat, the actual journey time is faster and lower risk going to Sallowshore first vs Pagked.
From Sallowshore, there could also be the option to take another zombie riverboat up a significant portion of the Ydrion River.
I don't know if this conflicts with canon in any way. I've dug into the resources I have on Geb and haven't found anything to contradict this possibility, but there are many out there who know far more about Geb than me.
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Hey - I wanted to flag that the map of Geb presented in Graveclaw is inconsistent with the map of Geb from Impossible Lands. For example, the Graveclaw map has Graydirge located in approximately the same location as Corpselight appears on the Impossible Lands map (if the IL map is correct, Graydirge would be maybe 20 miles to the west beyond the edge of the Graveclaw map). As well, Pagked looks to be about 20 miles to the east of where it should be when compared to the IL map, and Mechitar is a bit too far to the south.
Aside from the Graydirge/Corpselight switcheroo, the other inconsistencies are fairly minor but wanted to flag here for those populating the map as we progress in the adventure (as I do in my Foundry game)
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We played through the vampire pub crawl in Chapter 4 the other night – a lot of fun. I’ve been leaning into the dark comedy that is just under the surface in this campaign, so I decided to augment the pub crawl with some additional gruesomely decadent locations for the crawl (warning: some of these could be triggering – but no issues for my group):
The Pulseless Lounge – an underground vampire rave club (the club prominently features a graphic that declares that it is a garlic-free establishment). It was ghouls night out when the PCs arrived
Al de Hyde’s – a speakeasy, where patrons are served alcohol while being submerged in vats of alcohol. Basically you can get pickled while you get pickled
Arghun’s Retreat – patrons are invited to receive a soothing/torturous massage while lying in a vat of entrails. My skeleton PC was thrilled – the first time he’d had intestines inside his rib cage for years! This is also a breadcrumb for my PCs to learn more about the mysterious background of Arghun the Annihilator
Peeler’s – a zombie strip club. Except the zombies don’t take off their skin, but rather their flesh
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I am preparing Sallowshore now, and I'm looking at Dagon's Shrine. It says that the Marsh Giant is lazy and doesn't attack unless the characters are hostile or attack him. More than likely the players would be there to destroy the statue.... does he even care if the statue is destroyed?
The way I prepared for this is I imagined the marsh giant as not really all that invested in the statue itself. I envisioned him as having a kind of surfer dude mindset. If the party hadn't attacked him, he might have simply made a couple comments of the "hey what's going on" variety without intervening directly before leaving (fighting is so much work). My characters though assumed he was a threat, targeted him with a spell from range and it was game on.
Lots of room for interpretation on this encounter.
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Hi - I am preparing the encounter at Nathnelma's townhouse for our next game and agree that a door is missing on the upper floor (should be next to the washroom door I assume).
I missed the discrepancy between the chapter treasure list and what's actually in the adventure, but like you I haven't found the holy water and mithal shield in the adventure (or in the stat blocks of creatures that appear in that chapter). Your analysis of the pharasmans is making me wonder of Orou originally had her own stat block and was edited out.
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A heads up that Sulvik can be a beast. My party of 5 encountered the ettin mohrg after dealing with the wraiths, mummies, Nathnelma + TAs (as well as another encounter previously that day in the Pallidium). They were low on resources when they entered the basement, and it would have been a guaranteed TPK if I hadn't handwaved Sulvik's resistances, 'forgotten' to take its 2 AoOs/Reactive strikes on one occasion, and overall used suboptimal tactics. As it was, at the end my 2 human PCs were paralyzed and one of the undead PCs was unconscious.