Crothian
First Post
In this particular instance the creatures that are in certain rooms are too big to fit in those rooms.
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Pathfinder 1E Prepping for Pathfinder: Council of Thieves (spoilers!)
- Thread starter MerricB
- Start date
In this particular instance the creatures that are in certain rooms are too big to fit in those rooms.
Everyone managed to get to our tenth session of this campaign, where we finished play of The Infernal Syndrome. So, 10 sessions brings us to 9th level and completion of four AP adventures...
Mephits and Rods
The group began by continuing to investigate the spiral, going counter-clockwise around it and returning to the entrance chamber, which was on the far side of the hall of unstable fire. A detour into a side-chamber led them to some mephits, that hissed at them for letting the steam escape. The group quickly shut the door, and avoided the battle.
Having explored all the way up, they headed downwards, where they discovered a chamber with a lot of writing describing the workings of the Infernal Engine, but were unable to make head nor tail of it.
Further downwards brought them to the third cooling station, which was building up steam at a dangerous rate. Michael's rogue tried to disable it, but was unable to do so and the escaping steam exploded at pressure, hurting the party badly. Lee channelled positive energy to heal the party, and the group - upon consultation with myself - realised that there was one tunnel back in the tunnel rat home that they hadn't investigated.
This party is dreadful at taking notes, and this module, in particular, requires players to pay attention to what was said.
The unexplored tunnel did indeed lead to the Stygian Keyrod they needed to shut down the Infernal Engine, but it was in the possession of a beautiful woman who had slain the previous keeper. In fact, she was a succubus, but none of the party realised that until after the end of the encounter, by which time she'd been extremely charming and managed to make Lee's cleric her potential lover (that will occur next session...) In exchange for a couple of Pearls of Power that Lee gave her, she gave them the Keyrod. The group returned to the Engine and shut down the cooling towers, one after another.
The Final Cooling Towers
A great Stygian Water Elemental rose from the depths of the fourth tower, but it was quickly dispatched by the group, although not before inflicting some negative levels on the group. Lee restored Michael and Dave, and the group disabled the final two towers, and recovered a lyre of building from a pool of water.
At this level, the DR 5/- of the elementals is finally not a problem, added to which we have Dave's fighter - his halfling monk would have been incredibly ineffective.
With all five cooling towers shut down, the group proceeded through the 'airlock' gates into the next sequence of rooms. (And I wondered why the final cooling tower had no encounter in it...)
Supper with Gargoyles
The group came into a great chamber filled with illusions (in fact, a rather small chamber) and conversed with four gargoyles that were supping on a great feast in front of them. They were discussing whether there was a difference in taste between the heart of a virgin and the heart of a trollop, which led to some amusing exchanges; there were some lovely role-playing touches here. Of course, it devolved into a fight as the group refused to eat with the gargoyles, but the gargoyles were terribly underpowered for this group, and died in the third round. (They were CR 8 together? Really?)
The Pool of Molten Gold, the Room of Mirrors, and the Achaierais
More chambers filled with illusions greeted the party as they continued. A pool of molten gold (actually boiling water) beckoned the group, but only Dave's fighter plunged his hands in, and he resisted the urge to jump in. Around the pit were eight mirrors, holding images of realms known by the pit fiend. The group averted their eyes, and continued onwards.
The group then came to a great room of metallic vegetation in which great beasts roamed. In particular, there were four achaierais - four-legged flightless birds. They attacked the group, but were slain in the fourth round. (Unlike many groups playing this adventure, I actually own four achaierai miniatures - they're one of my favourite monsters). Tim's sorcerer was sent insane by the black smoke they emitted, but they just locked him in a room until he recovered.
Mining with the Behir
One of the nastiest encounters of the afternoon was found in the next room: a behir supervising illusionary miners. As it entered, it suggested that the group put down their weapons, pick up the mining tools and go to work. And three of the party failed their saves, leading to one of the stupider combats as they couldn't do anything to help the rest of the party. Oh, and the mining tools were -2 cursed heavy picks...
They got out of it mainly because the Behir attacked Dave, breaking the suggestion, and he was able to occupy it long enough for the unaffected players to take it down. But it wasn't pretty.
The Infernal Guardian... or the Pushover
A room guarded by a flaming minotaur statue now confronted the party. (There was actually a ring that they could use to get past it that they'd bypassed). However, the group went against it with spell and sword. And it got *one* action before it was killed after a total of six party attacks at the beginning of the second round. This thing was allegedly CR 8 and I had a party of five level 7s. Let's look at its main points: Init -1, AC 17, hp 96, light fortification. It went last in initiative, and that was that.
Filling in Backstory and the Riddle Locks
Now the group came to a inevitable, sworn to protect the Engine, and following that "the Librarian", a medusa. Strangely enough, the group talked with both and didn't provoke them into attacking. The inevitable alerted them to the location of the Amulet they needed (behind a mirror, and the group then went back to get it, and all of the other loot there - which Greg, holding the contract, could get without difficulty). The medusa basically just waved them through, with the group not provoking her.
To reach the Pit Fiend, the group needed to answer five riddles (or beat down the doors). The riddles could be answered by people who had paid attention during the adventure, so no luck there. Eventually, I ended up handwaving it and saying the group knew the answers. I hope the group will start taking notes now!
Facing the Pit Fiend
The group had two final challenges: first they had to break the containment cage holding the Pit Fiend, and then defeat him themselves.
The cage was a pain. Animated Constructs with hardness 20 and three grab attacks? Yeah, nice. An enlarged and bull's strengthed Dave was the only one able to damage it, which caused a lot of rumblings from the group about another poor design by Paizo. (Seriously, you get to the end of the adventure, and then you have to go home to get an adamantine weapon? And that this module puts no time limit on a nuclear meltdown is rather stupid...)
Once it was destroyed (with a lot of fudging by me to stop Dave from being grabbed), Liebdaga the Twin, the imprisoned Pit Fiend manifested from within the cage. No discussion, just fighting - and the Pit Fiend took long enough to act that he was almost dead before his first attack: a fireball. Yeah, the group took some damage from that, but not enough to drop him. He didn't get another attack.
And, with that, the group had successfully completed the adventure.
Mephits and Rods
The group began by continuing to investigate the spiral, going counter-clockwise around it and returning to the entrance chamber, which was on the far side of the hall of unstable fire. A detour into a side-chamber led them to some mephits, that hissed at them for letting the steam escape. The group quickly shut the door, and avoided the battle.
Having explored all the way up, they headed downwards, where they discovered a chamber with a lot of writing describing the workings of the Infernal Engine, but were unable to make head nor tail of it.
Further downwards brought them to the third cooling station, which was building up steam at a dangerous rate. Michael's rogue tried to disable it, but was unable to do so and the escaping steam exploded at pressure, hurting the party badly. Lee channelled positive energy to heal the party, and the group - upon consultation with myself - realised that there was one tunnel back in the tunnel rat home that they hadn't investigated.
This party is dreadful at taking notes, and this module, in particular, requires players to pay attention to what was said.
The unexplored tunnel did indeed lead to the Stygian Keyrod they needed to shut down the Infernal Engine, but it was in the possession of a beautiful woman who had slain the previous keeper. In fact, she was a succubus, but none of the party realised that until after the end of the encounter, by which time she'd been extremely charming and managed to make Lee's cleric her potential lover (that will occur next session...) In exchange for a couple of Pearls of Power that Lee gave her, she gave them the Keyrod. The group returned to the Engine and shut down the cooling towers, one after another.
The Final Cooling Towers
A great Stygian Water Elemental rose from the depths of the fourth tower, but it was quickly dispatched by the group, although not before inflicting some negative levels on the group. Lee restored Michael and Dave, and the group disabled the final two towers, and recovered a lyre of building from a pool of water.
At this level, the DR 5/- of the elementals is finally not a problem, added to which we have Dave's fighter - his halfling monk would have been incredibly ineffective.
With all five cooling towers shut down, the group proceeded through the 'airlock' gates into the next sequence of rooms. (And I wondered why the final cooling tower had no encounter in it...)
Supper with Gargoyles
The group came into a great chamber filled with illusions (in fact, a rather small chamber) and conversed with four gargoyles that were supping on a great feast in front of them. They were discussing whether there was a difference in taste between the heart of a virgin and the heart of a trollop, which led to some amusing exchanges; there were some lovely role-playing touches here. Of course, it devolved into a fight as the group refused to eat with the gargoyles, but the gargoyles were terribly underpowered for this group, and died in the third round. (They were CR 8 together? Really?)
The Pool of Molten Gold, the Room of Mirrors, and the Achaierais
More chambers filled with illusions greeted the party as they continued. A pool of molten gold (actually boiling water) beckoned the group, but only Dave's fighter plunged his hands in, and he resisted the urge to jump in. Around the pit were eight mirrors, holding images of realms known by the pit fiend. The group averted their eyes, and continued onwards.
The group then came to a great room of metallic vegetation in which great beasts roamed. In particular, there were four achaierais - four-legged flightless birds. They attacked the group, but were slain in the fourth round. (Unlike many groups playing this adventure, I actually own four achaierai miniatures - they're one of my favourite monsters). Tim's sorcerer was sent insane by the black smoke they emitted, but they just locked him in a room until he recovered.
Mining with the Behir
One of the nastiest encounters of the afternoon was found in the next room: a behir supervising illusionary miners. As it entered, it suggested that the group put down their weapons, pick up the mining tools and go to work. And three of the party failed their saves, leading to one of the stupider combats as they couldn't do anything to help the rest of the party. Oh, and the mining tools were -2 cursed heavy picks...
They got out of it mainly because the Behir attacked Dave, breaking the suggestion, and he was able to occupy it long enough for the unaffected players to take it down. But it wasn't pretty.
The Infernal Guardian... or the Pushover
A room guarded by a flaming minotaur statue now confronted the party. (There was actually a ring that they could use to get past it that they'd bypassed). However, the group went against it with spell and sword. And it got *one* action before it was killed after a total of six party attacks at the beginning of the second round. This thing was allegedly CR 8 and I had a party of five level 7s. Let's look at its main points: Init -1, AC 17, hp 96, light fortification. It went last in initiative, and that was that.
Filling in Backstory and the Riddle Locks
Now the group came to a inevitable, sworn to protect the Engine, and following that "the Librarian", a medusa. Strangely enough, the group talked with both and didn't provoke them into attacking. The inevitable alerted them to the location of the Amulet they needed (behind a mirror, and the group then went back to get it, and all of the other loot there - which Greg, holding the contract, could get without difficulty). The medusa basically just waved them through, with the group not provoking her.
To reach the Pit Fiend, the group needed to answer five riddles (or beat down the doors). The riddles could be answered by people who had paid attention during the adventure, so no luck there. Eventually, I ended up handwaving it and saying the group knew the answers. I hope the group will start taking notes now!
Facing the Pit Fiend
The group had two final challenges: first they had to break the containment cage holding the Pit Fiend, and then defeat him themselves.
The cage was a pain. Animated Constructs with hardness 20 and three grab attacks? Yeah, nice. An enlarged and bull's strengthed Dave was the only one able to damage it, which caused a lot of rumblings from the group about another poor design by Paizo. (Seriously, you get to the end of the adventure, and then you have to go home to get an adamantine weapon? And that this module puts no time limit on a nuclear meltdown is rather stupid...)
Once it was destroyed (with a lot of fudging by me to stop Dave from being grabbed), Liebdaga the Twin, the imprisoned Pit Fiend manifested from within the cage. No discussion, just fighting - and the Pit Fiend took long enough to act that he was almost dead before his first attack: a fireball. Yeah, the group took some damage from that, but not enough to drop him. He didn't get another attack.
And, with that, the group had successfully completed the adventure.
I've decided that one of the things I hate most about this adventure path is the way that the Paizo writers and editors have such a hand-wavy attitude to time pressures.
In "The Sixfold Trial", the group use the distraction of the mayor's party to sneak into the Asmodean Knot, where they need to finish the dungeon *before the next dawn and the mayor and his guests wake up*.
Except that the adventure says, "oh, here's another way out, or you could bluff your way past... even if it took two days". This is not something the party knows going in.
In "The Infernal Syndrome", the group is told a Pit Fiend is about to escape (and they know there are other factions trying to help him escape). Except there is actually no time limit on the adventure; the Pit Fiend won't escape unless the DM wants him to. And, at no point does the group get told that it might be a week or more until the Pit Fiend escapes; it's all "very soon". So they don't know they can rest if they need to. Or go and prepare if they come up against a stupidly hard encounter.
And the renegade Council of Thieves are depicted as some of the stupidest foes the PCs can come up against. They want to negotiate with a Pit Fiend... so why do they send in all these weak henchmen? Do any of them actually have a hope of reaching the Fiend? (And if the group reach the cage, what's stopping them from freeing him whilst the group go back to buy adamantine weapons... unless they're actually incompetent and shouldn't be the major villains of the AP).
ARGH!
If you set up a situation, you have to follow through with it. The corollary of that is that you shouldn't set up a situation you don't want to follow through with.
The first case, in The Sixfold Trial should have a small dungeon to go through so that the group can easily make it in and out in the same evening. Or, at least have the group's allies inform them that it doesn't matter how long they take.
The second case, in The Infernal Syndrome, should have the PCs being aware at the outset of how long they've got. "No longer than a week" would have been good. The adventure *does* have consequences for the pit fiend escaping (and they don't wreck the AP), so why not play fair with the players?
In "The Sixfold Trial", the group use the distraction of the mayor's party to sneak into the Asmodean Knot, where they need to finish the dungeon *before the next dawn and the mayor and his guests wake up*.
Except that the adventure says, "oh, here's another way out, or you could bluff your way past... even if it took two days". This is not something the party knows going in.
In "The Infernal Syndrome", the group is told a Pit Fiend is about to escape (and they know there are other factions trying to help him escape). Except there is actually no time limit on the adventure; the Pit Fiend won't escape unless the DM wants him to. And, at no point does the group get told that it might be a week or more until the Pit Fiend escapes; it's all "very soon". So they don't know they can rest if they need to. Or go and prepare if they come up against a stupidly hard encounter.
And the renegade Council of Thieves are depicted as some of the stupidest foes the PCs can come up against. They want to negotiate with a Pit Fiend... so why do they send in all these weak henchmen? Do any of them actually have a hope of reaching the Fiend? (And if the group reach the cage, what's stopping them from freeing him whilst the group go back to buy adamantine weapons... unless they're actually incompetent and shouldn't be the major villains of the AP).
ARGH!
If you set up a situation, you have to follow through with it. The corollary of that is that you shouldn't set up a situation you don't want to follow through with.
The first case, in The Sixfold Trial should have a small dungeon to go through so that the group can easily make it in and out in the same evening. Or, at least have the group's allies inform them that it doesn't matter how long they take.
The second case, in The Infernal Syndrome, should have the PCs being aware at the outset of how long they've got. "No longer than a week" would have been good. The adventure *does* have consequences for the pit fiend escaping (and they don't wreck the AP), so why not play fair with the players?
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We reached the fifth adventure in the "Council of Thieves" adventure path last weekend, in our eleventh session. I am very, very surprised to be here so soon.
The overall story of the adventure path remains enjoyable, and this session the players learnt more about what had created the situation that they now found themselves in. Unfortunately a lot of the encounters were underwhelming. I wish to point out that this is a Core Rules Only campaign, as they were the only rules available when this adventure was written. In fact, the adventure was based on a beta copy of the rules, which means there's a bunch of errors in the monster statblocks.
The other errors in the adventure are harder to explain away.
The Information Broker and the Council of Thieves
The adventure begins with Jarvis - an information broker not associated with the Council of Thieves - coming to the Rebel Alliance for their help. With the schism in the Council becoming known to the underworld, he feared for his life. However, he'd learnt that a drug trader had information about the upcoming coup, and had offered the trader sanctuary in exchange for that information. The information was to be given to Jarvis two days hence, and he's heard nothing since then. (Note to Paizo proofreaders and Greg Vaughan: hence means in the future. You wanted to use the word "ago").
So, Jarvis offered the potential information to the players in exchange for their aid in bringing down the Council (and making his life more secure). This all sounded fine to the party, so they went to investigate the home of the drug trader to discover what had happened to him.
They walked into an ambush. Except that most of the party (except Tim the Sorcerer) noticed the ambushers before they attacked, and rolled really well on initiative. Despite 6d6 fireball spheres being thrown at the party, they defeated the ambushers really quickly.
That allowed them to find the drug dealer - who had been killed, his jaw dismembered, and his body pierced by needles. I explained the significance of the needles (which are used in Westcrown to make Raise Dead less effective), and I found it all great material and good foreshadowing for later this session - if it didn't make that much sense. The Grave Candles previously seen in this adventure path would allow interrogation of the corpse despite the mutilation. And why don't cure spells remove the pain of the needles? Better not to think about it.
As this was a dead end, it was fortunate that a minion of the hag known as the Mother of Flies happened along, finishing off the last of the thieves and requesting a meeting between the Mother and the group - they had common goals, and she wanted to see them. This scene would have worked so much better if the group had known beforehand who the Mother of Flies was - bringing in a new, legendary figure works so much better if foreshadowed.
An Interlude: But what if they didn't meet the hag?
"While attempting to seek the aid of the Mother of Flies is only an option in this adventure, and certainly not required for PCs who are eager to actually take direct action against the Council of Thieves..." Mother of Flies, page 13 by Greg A. Vaughan.
One of the fascinating things about the structure of this adventure is that the group learn about the location of the Council (Walcourt) during the meeting with the Mother of Flies. The name isn't mentioned before then. How, then, do the party find out about it if they *don't* go to meet the hag?
The DM would have to work it out themselves, as no help is given here. Thankfully, my group chose to travel to the Mother of Flies.
The Siege of the Maggot Tree
In one of those coincidences that are rife in adventure paths, in the short time between the Mother's minion leaving to find the characters and from the party going to meet her - probably two hours - the Mother's home, the Maggot Tree, had come under siege by a small army sponsored by the Council: thieves, hounds, ogres, hill giants, dark creepers and stalkers, and a level 10 Ranger. Well, perhaps two days rather than two hours. I hope.
The group gained their first indication of this invasion when they ran into one of the army's patrols - 2 ogres, 6 thieves and 4 hounds. A round-and-a-half later, the patrol was no more. CR 10? My foot.
Alerted to the invasion (and having captured a thief), the group sent Michael's rogue to sneak about the army's site and identify the key areas. Four camps (each with a hill giants, 2 ogres, and a lot of thieves and hellhounds) were the primary sites, with also a command camp with the leader (a ranger) and a lot of dark stalkers and dark creepers. The group crept up to a site on the edge of the clearing, and then launched their assault - Sunburst (from the Morrowfall) hit one of the camps plus the leaders, then fireballs and ice storm followed.
Then Dave and Michael combined to take out the blinded ogres and hill giants, and Tim used Phantasmal Killer on the leader of the force - and successfully too. At that points, they destroyed a second camp with their ranged area magic, and that was that - the rest of the besiegers decided that being somewhere else was a great idea.
The Mother of Flies came out to thank the party, and filled them in on the infernal contract that had given rise to one of the two siblings who were trying to take over the Council of Thieves; and also the drawback in the contract that would kill Chammady when her brother gained his full power. With that knowledge, the group now had a chance to drive a wedge between the siblings.
The Mother of Flies also told them about Walcourt, and so the group headed back to town to take on the Council in one of their strongholds.
The Novice Thieves, or Editing Fail (Again)
From the description of the cloister area:
"The side doors lead to hallways with false doors appearing to lead to locked side rooms. These are merely distractions—if the PCs waste time in these halls, the inhabitants of area C8 can get the drop on them."
From the description of the thieves' tactics:
"the others rush through the cloisters to try and gain flanking positions for sneak attacks."
My players, upon reaching the entrance to Walcourt (and sneaking in invisibly - buying a wand of invisibility for exactly that purpose) searched the side corridors before the main hallway. There are normal doors marked on the map, but I assumed they'd made a mistake and that they should be false (per text). Except then the thieves have to go through those doors to reach the players...
Not that they were much of a threat in any case, what with their +3 attacks against AC 26 or higher... After the first (surprise) round of attacks, I just said "then you kill them all".
The Trap That Worked
Continuing onwards through Walcourt, the group went into the passages that had been used to train novice thieves. Or possibly kill novice thieves - it requires a DC 30 Perception check to find. And it deals 10d6 damage with a +20 to hit. Someone explain to me how a novice thief can find this trap - I'm missing something somewhere. (The novice thieves in the previous chamber had a +4 Perception).
Michael, going first (and not searching) got hit for 30-odd damage by it, and Lee healed him. They were more paranoid going onwards.
Another Stupid Encounter With Sneak Attack
A few pit-traps were found and disabled by the group, and then the group found another chamber with Dark Creepers and a Dark Stalker. There's meant to be an illusionary wall between the main chamber and the viewing chamber to the north (where the chairs our), but the map doesn't represent it or the pit traps well.
Apparently, there are six Dark Creepers in the area of the room that isn't pit trapped.
The players entered from the south, having not alerted the Creepers to their presence. And then fireballed and shot the Creepers to death. In theory, they should be covering themselves with darkness, but the Morrowfall was making that tactic impossible. And, as you can see from the map, it's not like the party need to get into a position where they can be flanked.
The players continued on to the next Dark One room, and killed those in there as well - once again, not needing to expose themselves to sneak attack.
And there we ended the session. I wouldn't be surprised if we finished the adventure next session. With any luck, some of the upcoming encounters will be more challenging than those in this part of the adventure.
The overall story of the adventure path remains enjoyable, and this session the players learnt more about what had created the situation that they now found themselves in. Unfortunately a lot of the encounters were underwhelming. I wish to point out that this is a Core Rules Only campaign, as they were the only rules available when this adventure was written. In fact, the adventure was based on a beta copy of the rules, which means there's a bunch of errors in the monster statblocks.
The other errors in the adventure are harder to explain away.
The Information Broker and the Council of Thieves
The adventure begins with Jarvis - an information broker not associated with the Council of Thieves - coming to the Rebel Alliance for their help. With the schism in the Council becoming known to the underworld, he feared for his life. However, he'd learnt that a drug trader had information about the upcoming coup, and had offered the trader sanctuary in exchange for that information. The information was to be given to Jarvis two days hence, and he's heard nothing since then. (Note to Paizo proofreaders and Greg Vaughan: hence means in the future. You wanted to use the word "ago").
So, Jarvis offered the potential information to the players in exchange for their aid in bringing down the Council (and making his life more secure). This all sounded fine to the party, so they went to investigate the home of the drug trader to discover what had happened to him.
They walked into an ambush. Except that most of the party (except Tim the Sorcerer) noticed the ambushers before they attacked, and rolled really well on initiative. Despite 6d6 fireball spheres being thrown at the party, they defeated the ambushers really quickly.
That allowed them to find the drug dealer - who had been killed, his jaw dismembered, and his body pierced by needles. I explained the significance of the needles (which are used in Westcrown to make Raise Dead less effective), and I found it all great material and good foreshadowing for later this session - if it didn't make that much sense. The Grave Candles previously seen in this adventure path would allow interrogation of the corpse despite the mutilation. And why don't cure spells remove the pain of the needles? Better not to think about it.
As this was a dead end, it was fortunate that a minion of the hag known as the Mother of Flies happened along, finishing off the last of the thieves and requesting a meeting between the Mother and the group - they had common goals, and she wanted to see them. This scene would have worked so much better if the group had known beforehand who the Mother of Flies was - bringing in a new, legendary figure works so much better if foreshadowed.
An Interlude: But what if they didn't meet the hag?
"While attempting to seek the aid of the Mother of Flies is only an option in this adventure, and certainly not required for PCs who are eager to actually take direct action against the Council of Thieves..." Mother of Flies, page 13 by Greg A. Vaughan.
One of the fascinating things about the structure of this adventure is that the group learn about the location of the Council (Walcourt) during the meeting with the Mother of Flies. The name isn't mentioned before then. How, then, do the party find out about it if they *don't* go to meet the hag?
The DM would have to work it out themselves, as no help is given here. Thankfully, my group chose to travel to the Mother of Flies.
The Siege of the Maggot Tree
In one of those coincidences that are rife in adventure paths, in the short time between the Mother's minion leaving to find the characters and from the party going to meet her - probably two hours - the Mother's home, the Maggot Tree, had come under siege by a small army sponsored by the Council: thieves, hounds, ogres, hill giants, dark creepers and stalkers, and a level 10 Ranger. Well, perhaps two days rather than two hours. I hope.
The group gained their first indication of this invasion when they ran into one of the army's patrols - 2 ogres, 6 thieves and 4 hounds. A round-and-a-half later, the patrol was no more. CR 10? My foot.
Alerted to the invasion (and having captured a thief), the group sent Michael's rogue to sneak about the army's site and identify the key areas. Four camps (each with a hill giants, 2 ogres, and a lot of thieves and hellhounds) were the primary sites, with also a command camp with the leader (a ranger) and a lot of dark stalkers and dark creepers. The group crept up to a site on the edge of the clearing, and then launched their assault - Sunburst (from the Morrowfall) hit one of the camps plus the leaders, then fireballs and ice storm followed.
Then Dave and Michael combined to take out the blinded ogres and hill giants, and Tim used Phantasmal Killer on the leader of the force - and successfully too. At that points, they destroyed a second camp with their ranged area magic, and that was that - the rest of the besiegers decided that being somewhere else was a great idea.
The Mother of Flies came out to thank the party, and filled them in on the infernal contract that had given rise to one of the two siblings who were trying to take over the Council of Thieves; and also the drawback in the contract that would kill Chammady when her brother gained his full power. With that knowledge, the group now had a chance to drive a wedge between the siblings.
The Mother of Flies also told them about Walcourt, and so the group headed back to town to take on the Council in one of their strongholds.
The Novice Thieves, or Editing Fail (Again)
From the description of the cloister area:
"The side doors lead to hallways with false doors appearing to lead to locked side rooms. These are merely distractions—if the PCs waste time in these halls, the inhabitants of area C8 can get the drop on them."
From the description of the thieves' tactics:
"the others rush through the cloisters to try and gain flanking positions for sneak attacks."
My players, upon reaching the entrance to Walcourt (and sneaking in invisibly - buying a wand of invisibility for exactly that purpose) searched the side corridors before the main hallway. There are normal doors marked on the map, but I assumed they'd made a mistake and that they should be false (per text). Except then the thieves have to go through those doors to reach the players...
Not that they were much of a threat in any case, what with their +3 attacks against AC 26 or higher... After the first (surprise) round of attacks, I just said "then you kill them all".
The Trap That Worked
Continuing onwards through Walcourt, the group went into the passages that had been used to train novice thieves. Or possibly kill novice thieves - it requires a DC 30 Perception check to find. And it deals 10d6 damage with a +20 to hit. Someone explain to me how a novice thief can find this trap - I'm missing something somewhere. (The novice thieves in the previous chamber had a +4 Perception).
Michael, going first (and not searching) got hit for 30-odd damage by it, and Lee healed him. They were more paranoid going onwards.
Another Stupid Encounter With Sneak Attack
A few pit-traps were found and disabled by the group, and then the group found another chamber with Dark Creepers and a Dark Stalker. There's meant to be an illusionary wall between the main chamber and the viewing chamber to the north (where the chairs our), but the map doesn't represent it or the pit traps well.
Apparently, there are six Dark Creepers in the area of the room that isn't pit trapped.
The players entered from the south, having not alerted the Creepers to their presence. And then fireballed and shot the Creepers to death. In theory, they should be covering themselves with darkness, but the Morrowfall was making that tactic impossible. And, as you can see from the map, it's not like the party need to get into a position where they can be flanked.
The players continued on to the next Dark One room, and killed those in there as well - once again, not needing to expose themselves to sneak attack.
And there we ended the session. I wouldn't be surprised if we finished the adventure next session. With any luck, some of the upcoming encounters will be more challenging than those in this part of the adventure.
Crothian
First Post
We finished book three and then went off the rails. I let them learn of some of the NPCs from later books early so they went to meet the Dealer, the halfing Harrow dude. They traded information with him and learned the Drovenge family is behind the Council of Thieves. It's info they learn in the beginning of book 4 so I wasn't worried about it. But the PCs have decided to rob the Drovenge family. They scoped the house out by sneaking into a party and meet some of the family. This week it looks like we are going to do the robbery so it will be interesting to see how this turns out.
Interesting is understating it.
Of course, you can blow up the mayor's house any time you like to distract them. It's best to do it just as they do something they know they shouldn't, just to give them the "did we do that?" moment!
Cheers!
Someone did a break down of all the fame points on the paizo boards:
Fame Point Summary
And what they measure at the end isn't Fame points, it's actually "popularity points" which are based off of fame but different...
I haven't actually gotten there yet, still in book 5, but I think you can get enough to get one of the good endings.
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