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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kaisoku" data-source="post: 5051943" data-attributes="member: 58447">I am running a group through War of the Burning sky now, and here's how I handled the imp.All the characters failed their checks for noticing the raven tailing them, however they did notice the rat near the entrance to the secret door (and didn't think anything out of the ordinary at first).Since the party took a lot of knowledge skills and languages, they were able to get into the hideout without Kurycheck's help.Half the party snuck in to engage the elves directly, while the other half waited and then took on the badgers. The last character closed the door behind him, and I improvised a check to see the rat follow them in (which he succeeded, and found weird but there were more pressing concerns at the time).I placed the case inside a chest, so when the players opened the chest, they found the imp, no longer a rat, sitting inside about to grab the case.Initiative rolled later, the Imp had the chance to either spend an action to pick up the case or go invisible (instead of both, which would have put the group in a bad position).One player managed to get to the case before the invisible imp, and the others started wailing on where they last saw him. After a couple attempts of head on confrontation, the imp flew far enough out of sight to go invisible.Once the group calmed down and one player took 20 to open the case's lock, Kurycheck came back (invisible) and offered his proposal (give me the case, that's all I was asked to retrieve, and I won't tail you and attack at the worst possible time, or poison you in your sleep, etc).Sense motive checks and knowledge (planes) checks later, the group decides to do the deal, and even get a little info on what the contents were about after a successful Diplomacy (he has infernal, but no decipher script, so it's limited info).What I like about doing it this way, is that it introduces the "dealing with the enemies" right after the "celestials can be bad guys too?" story points, all right in Adventure I.Combine it with the first combat including people trying to subdue them instead of kill them, and it's really nailed the Intrigue and Morality elements of the campaign.For players that are usually "kick in the door" style of gaming, it's been great for setting the tone of the campaign. There's talk of actually picking up additional knowledge skills and languages! That like... never happens!, HA!As for Adventure 2, I'm planning on having the Bearded Devil being a "find out who killed Boreus and a 'no more nonsense' hand over the case's contents" type of encounter. If the players are clever enough, I might allow some kind of deal to be made... perhaps it'll be an issue of "when" they will hand over the contents (since one player has already started copying the information down, and plans on learning Infernal next level).</blockquote>

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