Psychotic Jim
First Post
In a couple of weeks or so I will be running the "Lord of the Scarlet Tide" adventure (Dungeon 85). As some background (for those who are familiar with the area), I’ll be placing the adventure in Highcastle in the High Dale of the Forgotten Realms. Highcastle is a remote but territorially contested Dalelands town in a Thunder Peak mountain pass between Cormyr and Sembia. The ruined kuo-tuan city will be in the Deep Wastes area of the Underdark beneath the town. The headhunter mercenaries will be replaced by Arrowpoint mercenaries.
I've done some internet searches on the Lord of the Scarlet Tide and it seems past people's experiences with the adventure is that it can get repetitive with all the ghosts and plants with their hosts of immunities. Fortunately, this will be using Pathfinder so plants are no longer immune to critical hits/sneak attacks. However, I'm looking for some ideas of alternate encounters/monsters to switch out some of the scarlet children and especially the ghosts for in the adventure just to vary things up a bit.
For the record, here are a few encounter ideas I have-
-all consuming hunger (FR sourcebook Underdark 3.5 p. 78-79, reskinned to be a Scarlet Tide plant amalgamation of the many tadpole kuo-toans in the tadpole hatchery instead of many waves of tiny kuo-tuan scarlet children.
-lith (FR Underdark 3.5 p. 93-94) some guardians of the temple where the scarlet rust cannot go
-Daemons- Leukodaemons (daemons of disease- from Pathfinder Bestiary II) wandering the city reveling in the death the rise of the scarlet tide has brought about. Inside the temple, perhaps same guardian daemons (Tome of Horrors or Pathfinder Bestiary II) will remain standing in place of some of the ghostly Kuo-tuan encounters.
-Drow wizards from a nearby drow city dominated by mages, an expeditionary force sent to observe and possibly prevent the rise of the scarlet tide. They might inhabit the empty ambassadorial areas since the place is left alone by scarlet children. This group would be a different group of drow from the Lolth worshippers who sacked the city previously. Though evil, these encounters may not necessarily be hostile towards the PCs since they share a common goal of destroying the scarlet rust.
I'd love to hear of any other ideas/suggestions people had or used, or any of their other general experiences with the adventure, particularly how the clues were parsed out.
I've done some internet searches on the Lord of the Scarlet Tide and it seems past people's experiences with the adventure is that it can get repetitive with all the ghosts and plants with their hosts of immunities. Fortunately, this will be using Pathfinder so plants are no longer immune to critical hits/sneak attacks. However, I'm looking for some ideas of alternate encounters/monsters to switch out some of the scarlet children and especially the ghosts for in the adventure just to vary things up a bit.
For the record, here are a few encounter ideas I have-
-all consuming hunger (FR sourcebook Underdark 3.5 p. 78-79, reskinned to be a Scarlet Tide plant amalgamation of the many tadpole kuo-toans in the tadpole hatchery instead of many waves of tiny kuo-tuan scarlet children.
-lith (FR Underdark 3.5 p. 93-94) some guardians of the temple where the scarlet rust cannot go
-Daemons- Leukodaemons (daemons of disease- from Pathfinder Bestiary II) wandering the city reveling in the death the rise of the scarlet tide has brought about. Inside the temple, perhaps same guardian daemons (Tome of Horrors or Pathfinder Bestiary II) will remain standing in place of some of the ghostly Kuo-tuan encounters.
-Drow wizards from a nearby drow city dominated by mages, an expeditionary force sent to observe and possibly prevent the rise of the scarlet tide. They might inhabit the empty ambassadorial areas since the place is left alone by scarlet children. This group would be a different group of drow from the Lolth worshippers who sacked the city previously. Though evil, these encounters may not necessarily be hostile towards the PCs since they share a common goal of destroying the scarlet rust.
I'd love to hear of any other ideas/suggestions people had or used, or any of their other general experiences with the adventure, particularly how the clues were parsed out.
